One Lucky Deal (25 page)

She unzipped her dress. The sound of the door originally woke him up but it was a slow process. By the time the dress hit the floor he’d leaned up on his elbows. He blinked his crinkled eyes at her, and she slowly closed the door to eliminate the leak of light being thrown from the neon Tigers clock on the wall in the other room. Closing the door left his room illuminated only by the soft blue digital numbers on his alarm clock.

“What are you doing?”

Candace smiled because obviously the poor man was not fully awake yet. She waited until he quit squinting and blinking. He had to rub his eyes a few times but eventually he was focused, and she watched his gaze slide down her body. All she was left wearing was a matching lavender lace demi bra and boyshorts.

“I can’t sleep,” she whispered. She was uncomfortable with that weird little shudder in her voice. What she was even more uncomfortable with was that she’d come to him more for comfort than for satisfaction.

Tad didn’t smile. Instead his eyes were startlingly serious even as they drank the sight of her in. “Looking like that … you’re not going to get any sleep in here, either.”

He reached his hand out and she took it. He pulled her up onto the mattress beside him. He was sleepy and so his movements were so much slower than the way he usually touched her. For some reason this stoked her fire to blaze even hotter.

He didn’t just jump right into the sex that was obviously coming. Instead he took his time to brush the hair from her face, trace his finger down her jawline and under her lip. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Candace forced a smile and tried not to let too much anxiety show through. She fought the urge to curl up into his neck, cling to him, and just be there for awhile.

“Don’t lie to me.” Tad smiled and his finger just kept softly tracing invisible lines on her skin. “I know there’s something going on behind those blue eyes.”

Candace bit her lip, half to keep her from talking and partly because his rough, callused finger was lightly trailing down the side of her neck and was now skimming along the straps of her bra.

“Talk to me.” Tad alternately watched Candace’s eyes and his traveling finger slide over the rise and fall of the tops of her breasts.

“You don’t want to hear it. Now’s not the time.” Candace sighed when Tad’s finger slipped just beneath the material of her bra.

“Yes, now. You know that you can tell me anything.” His finger stalled as his eyes sought hers out.

“Can I?” Candace asked seriously.

“Yes.”

She exhaled noisily but said, “I guess tonight I just—I wasn’t prepared for it.”

“Prepared for what? Ronnie to have a baby?”

Candace nodded.

“What part of that weren’t you ready for?”

“I don’t know. All of it.” Candace wished he’d start that finger thing back up again because she could use the distraction, but he didn’t. “At first it was real concern for Ronnie. I’ve never seen her look helpless—ever. Even as kids she was competent and confident, but I’ve seen both of those things waver in her eyes tonight. With her looking unsure and fearful about labor and becoming a mom, it had me freaking out too.”

“That’s understandable, but she’ll get through it, and she’ll get the hang of it. See, she’s got this killer support system.” Tad looked up at her in a way that made Candace’s heart get all buttery soft.

“But that’s not all of it. I saw how much pain she was in, and then to find out that it wasn’t even
real
labor pains. I got freaked out about that too.”

“Candy—” Tad smiled and cupped her cheek.

She placed a hand over his hand and clenched her eyes shut. “That’s not it. This is where it gets all kinds of selfish. I realized that we won’t all be able to hang out at Lucky’s all the time anymore.”

“That’s easy.” Tad kissed her shoulder, and Candace stretched to give him all the room he would need. “We’ll just have to hang out differently, not necessarily less.”

“Okay, and just up front, I know how incredibly egotistical this is of me, but like they’re both married off now and having babies—starting their own families. Where does that leave me? Where do I fit into that picture if I’m not their immediate family anymore?”

Tad kissed up her jaw. “I can think of quite a few places you fit.” Tad’s voice had Candace’s eyes closing again but in delight this time, not in shame. “You’ve got those four-legged children in the other room who think you’re a god. You’re part of their family. And you’ll always be sisters with Ronnie and Reagan; it’s just now you’ll also get to be cool Aunt Candy.” She felt Tad’s grin against her neck.

Candace pulled back so she could see his face. “Candace,” she corrected but with a smile.

“Whichever, besides…” He rolled on top of her, spreading her legs with his thighs. “I think you fit best right here.” He settled his hips against hers.

Chapter 19

Tad groaned against Candace’s mouth and pressed intimately against her. His kisses were easy, slow but deep. He touched her with purposeful, steady hands. The two of them stripped each other and spent long moments exploring, touching, teasing, and tasting.

Tad kissed Candace from breast to breast, giving her nipples all the attention they demanded. He groaned against her neck and sucked and bit at her skin. “I want you more every time. How is that possible?”

“I feel the same way.”

Tad kissed her—just kissed her with his lips and his tongue. He held himself up above her. He then trailed his mouth down her chin and through the valley between her breasts. He kissed down her stomach. He kissed over her belly piercing. Then lower between her legs. He watched her look down at him. She lifted her hips in offering and when she reached out to cling to him she stole his breath away.

He loved this.

He could do this for the rest of his life.

He took his time and made love to her with his mouth. Taking her higher and higher and setting her free. Candace gasped and wrenched at the sheets. She fisted them in her hands and let the spasms shake her. Tad kissed his way back up her body. She reached for his face. She cupped it. Those big, beautiful blue eyes kicked him right in the gut. She looked up at him like he was something special, and in her hands he felt like maybe he was. That was something else altogether.

“Tad—” She shook her head as if she had so much to say but didn’t know where to start. So instead, she brought his mouth down to hers in a hot, wet openmouthed kiss. They kissed like they were driving to dive straight inside each other.

His body burned with need for her. He was on fire, and more than that, he just wanted to feel complete. He knew what he was after. He wanted to be so deeply inside her that they were the same—moving together, breathing, living.

He reached over to the nightstand for a condom, but Candace caught his hand. “Oh God, Tad.” She kissed his palm, and although he didn’t see the tears he felt the dampness of her cheek against his hand. He didn’t understand them but he felt them inside himself. “I don’t want one.”

His heart stalled in his chest. He was terrified and so completely turned on by what she’d just said. It tied him up in knots and he didn’t know what to do.

“I know you’re clean. You know I’m clean. After what I just saw tonight I know I’m nowhere ready for a baby but, Tad, I’m on the pill and I just—I just want to feel you.” She kissed his chin and then his lips. “Just you. Just this once.”

“Oh God.” Tad tipped his forehead against hers.

He wanted that. Jesus—did he ever.

The tightness in his chest increased and he guided his stiff flesh to her slickened opening. They both groaned just at the feel of the other, but when Tad pushed inside and cocooned himself in the tightest, sweetest, warmest place he’d ever known, he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He just felt.

Tad watched her eyes, and she kept them open and on him. Being inside her with nothing separating them made him feel weak. He kissed her shoulder and her neck, burying his nose in her hair. He just breathed her in and wrapped his arms around her. He relished the feel of her breasts rubbing against his bare chest, and realized then that they were connected everywhere.

He felt her clutch him, one hand on his ass and another in his hair. She pulled him to her, tighter and deeper. He felt her close around him and he watched her.

His name was the last thing she uttered before she climaxed beneath him. Watching her, feeling her, being in her like he was had his head swirling. His heart was pulling and he couldn’t hold back. He followed her over, biting out her name on a groan before he pressed his lips against hers and they kissed frantically as they both came down.

Rolling off her and onto his side, Tad pulled her to him. He slipped his arms around her and cradled her head between his chin and his chest. He couldn’t let go. He still wasn’t breathing right. He felt as if he needed to speak but he was afraid to.

He didn’t want her to talk, either. He was aching, and uncertain, and just … tender. She didn’t speak and her breaths were just as shaky against his skin. Finally, they stabilized and then evened out, and Tad knew she had fallen asleep.

Now in the dark, with his arm going numb beneath her head, her body pressed against his so intimately, so naturally, his heart raced with panic. What was he doing? What had he already done?

He knew what it was. He knew what he’d done. There had been no moment of a big epiphany. It hadn’t hit him like a brick wall or run over him like a speeding downhill bus. It had happened so gradually, so quietly, so sneakily that there was no moment he could look back and pinpoint.

Just because there hadn’t been one earth-shattering moment didn’t mean he didn’t know with the utmost certainty that this was exactly what he thought it was. He was sure, more sure about that than any other thing. If he ever told her, or if she ever asked: When? He would not have one single answer for her except that maybe it had just always been this way.

What if she didn’t feel the same? What if she did? He didn’t know which one had him tied up in more knots.

God, he didn’t deserve her. He really didn’t. He knew that it shouldn’t feel this good, but it did. He knew that the two of them probably shouldn’t work, but they did—they just did.

She moved and nuzzled in against his chest. She sighed out his name, and he felt a jolt straight through his heart. She had him by the throat by just whispering his name under her breath in her sleep. He didn’t think he could stand a whole night of that, a whole entire night of her rattling the cage around his heart.

He wanted to let her in. He never wanted a single damn thing more, but he was worried about what would happen when the light started to stream in through his window. He was worried that in the light of day that this would all seem like a distant memory. His greatest fear was that she would step away first.

He was a coward. He knew it. He wasn’t proud of it, but old habits died hard. He pressed his mouth against the top of her head and closed his eyes for just a moment. Then he eased his numb, tingling arm out from beneath the pillow of the silky soft strands of her hair. He laid her head down on his pillow and very carefully untangled their legs. Finally, he pulled completely away.

* * * *

Candace stretched out long and gloriously naked. The sun was streaming in through the open window and the breeze was warm. She felt like staying there forever. She wondered if they could both skip work. She peeled her eyes open and peered at the alarm clock. They had time enough for at least one more roll around before they had to rush through their morning routine and to their respective jobs.

Candace rolled over expecting to find those gray-green eyes smiling at her or even Tad’s sleep-relaxed face. All she found was more bed and rumpled sheets. She stretched her legs and looked around the room. She grabbed one of his shirts off his dresser and opened the bedroom door.

It wouldn’t have been so bad to wake up alone if she’d found him in the kitchen making coffee, or in the shower getting ready for the day. She found Tad on the couch in a pair of faded blue jeans unbuttoned at the waist. He was cuddled up to Sara, that dog he claimed was Satan, both of them asleep. It tore out her insides.

She could have sworn she’d seen so much in his eyes last night. The gentle way he touched her, the way he took care with her made last night seem like so much more than sex. The way he’d cradled her to his chest afterward; he’d held her so tightly she couldn’t have gotten up to leave if she’d wanted to. Then he got up himself and left her in the middle of the night—the damn coward.

*

Tad woke up to a waterfall of long, shiny brown hair. It smelled like heaven, it looked like heaven…

“Wake up.” Then she stepped away, and Tad tried stretching, but there was a loud snoring dog tucked neatly between his legs.

Tad tried kicking Sara to the floor nicely but she wouldn’t budge. He hefted a leg up and over her and stood. He found Candace in the kitchen making the morning coffee, which was normally his job.

“Morning.” He tested the water.

“Morning,” was all he got in return.

“Are you mad?”

Candace turned to look at him. “I don’t know. Is there a reason I should be?”

Well, that was a yes.
“I don’t know. You tell me.” Tad looked her up and down. God, she looked good, all fresh from bed.

“Why’d you sleep on the couch?”

*

Candace hated that she’d just said that. She did not want to be one of
those
girls—like one of those girls that he ushered right out of his bedroom. She was beginning to hate that she was one of many girls who wanted to stay.

“The bed was too small.” Tad pulled the orange juice out of the fridge. He drank straight from the carton as she’d done only yesterday.

“It’s a queen.” She wished more than anything she could take back this whole conversation.

“You look good in my shirt,” Tad said, obviously trying to change the subject. When he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, she let him. She leaned back against his strong, solid chest and let him nuzzle her neck. She let his hands slip up under the hem, and her body reacted when he groaned at finding there was nothing beneath his shirt.