Hard Candy

by Volley, Rue

  Echoes of her cry bounced through the bar. Nicky clapped a hand over her mouth, pushed her back into a wall and fucked her as she had only dreamed. She bit his hand twice as he thrust. It only made him fuck her harder, and she loved it. If not for his hand, every boarder upstairs would have heard. Shit, half the town would have heard! He brought her to the edge of orgasm again, and tipped her over without losing a stroke in the rhythm.

  "Two." She barely registered the growl in her ear, too focused on the shockwaves ripping through her body. Nicky lifted her again, without pulling out, and carried her to the nearest table.

  Something about his hands felt familiar, but she couldn't pin it down with the sensual haze her mind was lost in. Only when he'd set her on the table, did he pull out his cock, and then only long enough to spin her around and thrust back in from behind.

  "Oh fuck yes! Fuck me Cole!" she moaned, and he obliged. He smacked her ass while he pistoned his cock into her. He teased her with a wet fingertip in her ass, and raked his fingers over her back, thick callouses on the tips rasping her flesh. Tasha knew when he was ready for release. His cock swelled and pulsed, and electric shocks burned through her. She couldn't hold off her own detonation any longer. She cried out a warning, and he replied in kind just before he pulled out and came all over her back.

  It took more time to recover from the fragmented reality this time. When her brain finally emerged from the foggy euphoria, it latched onto a single sensation; that of callouses grazing her skin.

  "You're a musician." She murmured. "You bastard."

  "Musician, yes." He was panting. "Bastard, no."

  "Guitar." It sounded exactly like the accusation it was.

  "Electric, acoustic, and twelve-string." He agreed. "And piano, bass, violin, and a bit of banjo."

  "That's a lot of instruments."

  "Yes ma'am. Mostly strings."

  "Don't call me ma'am, and I love strings, but only on instruments. This—" she had to stop for a breath. "This is no strings. Just good, clean, fucking fun. Got it? I don't do strings."

  "Right. No strings." He wasn't looking at her, so she couldn't tell if he was pleased, or insulted.

  "Do you play anything else?"

  "Nope. Do you want me to?" he chuckled.

  "Yeah. Play me."

  He did, too. They went up to his room and he played her perfectly until the wee hours of the morning. Tasha crept to her bed sore, exhausted, and completely satisfied. The satisfaction had lasted right up until the next time they had a chance at a romp.

  The only thing that had put a damper on the fun was learning that Tim was his uncle. The "don't shit where you eat" rule took an awful whipping from her arrangement with Nicky. She eased her guilt by calling him Cole when they fucked. It was still risky, but that helped.

  ***

  The frantic ringing of the last-call cowbell signalled temporary relief from having to think about it, anymore. For the next half hour, Tasha will be too busy carting drinks and clearing tables to worry about Nicky and his various talents.

  "Here, let me help you with that."

  She nearly leapt out of her shirt as Nick's lips brushed the top of her left ear, breathing the words like a hypnotic spell. A bolt of electric heat shot down her spine and she almost dropped the bin of empty glasses and beer bottles. She swallowed a moan and the urge to lean back into him, almost choking on both.

  "I've got it, thanks." Tasha cursed, inwardly, at how her voice wavered. She'd meant to sound flippant.

  "I won't bite, you know." He was laughing as he shouted after her. "Unless you want me to, of course."

  The patrons laughed along with him. It was embarrassing enough to raise her Irish, and that gave her a foothold on composure.

  "When I tell you to bite me, Nicky, I'll mean it." She hollered back and winked at him, bringing cheers from a couple of the ladies, while a few of the men winced.

  "Nice." Tim said, as she placed the bin on the bar top. He put an empty beer case up beside the bin. "You two make a great comedy team. The customers are eating it up. If Nick ever gives up on music, there might be a future for the two of you."

  "Sure. A future — in comedy." At least she managed to make that sound dismissive. She added a snort for good measure, as she grabbed two bottles from the bin to put in the case.

  "Sounds good to me!"

  Tasha dropped one of the bottles when she jumped. He was right behind her, again. The bottle hit the floor and shattered.

  "Dammit, Nicky!"

  "Ten Cents!" Everyone shouted at once. It was all in fun. Tim didn't hold to the rule of deducting the lost deposit from her pay

  "Stop sneaking up on me like that!" She gave the musician the stink-eye and the audience an ironic bow.

  He laughed again. "How's about I help clear this place out and we can work out the details over coffee?"

  "I'll pass, thanks." He was standing right in her way, smirking. If she wanted to get to the dustpan and brush they used for glass, she'd have to move him, and he knew it.

  He leaned in to look her in the eye, searching for something she wasn't prepared to allow him. "You can't brush me off forever, Tasha." His voice was pitched low, and came from his chest.

  "Thank the goddess for rowdy drunks!" she thought. No one but her could have heard him.

  "Closing time!" He shouted, and strolled back up to the stage. He flipped on his amp and launched into a cover of the Semisonic song.

  "What the hell was that all about?" Tim asked, as he handed her the dustpan and brush.

  "Nothing, Tim. That was about nothing at all." She sighed and bent to sweep up the glass.

  Tim's brows pulled together and he frowned. His focus kept shifting from her, to the stage, and back again, until she'd dumped the glass in the trash bin.

  "I know who I want to take me home..." Nicky was singing.

  Nicky was staring at her again. She could feel it. Tasha sighed again. Sooner or later, she was going to have to set him straight, for good.

  Later. Definitely later. Tonight, all she wanted to do was claim her time in the bath and fall into bed for a long, deep, and hopefully dreamless, sleep.

  ***

  Everyone had been shooed out, except Tracey, when Tim headed to the front door to lock up. Of course, this was going to make the rest of the night that much harder for Tasha. Tim would ditch early, as he always did when Tracey waited, and she'd be stuck finishing the close up. Sam, the fry cook, had been gone two full hours already, and she had worked the serving alone because Meriel, her new co-server, was home with a sick toddler. That meant that she'd be alone in the bar with Nicky, for the first time since she'd sworn off him. Nicky knew it, too. He looked up when Tim turned the lock on the front door, spotted Tracey, and graced Tasha with a smile full of mischief and promise. She was going to have to straighten him out tonight, after all.

  "You have been avoiding me for three weeks, now." Nicky said the second after the back door clicked shut behind Tim and Tracey. There was no laughter in his voice, anymore.

  Tasha swallowed a sigh, set down the cloth she'd been wiping the brass rail with, and turned to face the music.

  "You're right. I have." she said. She couldn't look him in the eye yet. He was still sitting on the barstool he'd claimed for the little stage at the far end of the bar. It was almost far enough away that she could ignore the urge to throw herself at him.

  "Why?"

  It was a simple enough question. Why was she having so much trouble coming up with an answer?

  He stood up and started walking toward her, and she made the mistake of looking at him. She probably looked like a deer in the headlights, or the town idiot. Her mouth kept opening and closing, but none of the words tumbling through her brain made it to her lips. His eyes were burning into hers as he closed the few feet left between them. He extended his left hand. It was inches from her face when the words finally spilled out.

  "I made a mistake, Nicky! I fucked up. I'm sorry. We're just not good for e
ach other." It sounded lame, even to her own ears. What was she supposed to say, that she thought he was getting too close, that she was starting to feel cornered?

  He froze with his hand still in the air, like he'd suddenly turned to stone. His eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head to one side.

  "Did I do something wrong, Tasha?"

  "No!" She battled the hysteria that threatened to bubble up. "Hell, no! You ... you were awesome. I'm the one who did something wrong. I never should have come on to you like I did."

  "Now, that is something you should never apologize for." His mischevious grin was back, but only for a moment. When she didn't smile back, it vanished as his eyes widened in dawning comprehension. "You're shutting me out, aren't you?"

  "This is a game nobody wins. The no-strings thing — Someone always breaks the rules and people get hurt. Tim —"

  "Uncle Tim is a big boy, and he's got his own game." He chuckled, but his face was serious. "What I do when I'm off duty is none of his business. As long as I do the job he pays me for, he has no right to interfere."

  "Then why were we sneaking around?"

  "Because that's half the fun!" He answered, without skipping a beat. Then he shrugged. "There's also the risk of proving myself wrong."

  "There it is." She nodded at his admission. "There's nowhere for this to go, Nicky. You know it, and so do I. One day you're going to hit it big, and I'll just be a drag on you. As much as I've always had a weakness for musicians, I don't want to be that girl. It's time for me to grow up and get on with life. As soon as I have enough saved, I'm heading back home. You'll probably be long gone by then, anyway."

  His hand still hovered in the air between them. Nicky looked at it like he'd forgotten who it belonged to. His face showed the thoughts running through his mind. She saw him come to some sort of decision. He reached up and ran one calloused fingertip along her jawline.

  "I can't read minds, Tasha. What I can do, is talk about what we both want. Can you do that much, and be honest about it?"

  She wanted to answer, but the tremors of want chasing each other through her veins had her thoughts all tied up. She felt his breath on her neck, just below her ear. His mouth was so close that his lips brushed against her flesh when he spoke again.

  "For example. I want you." He growled the last word. "Naked, and wrapped around me, right here and right now. I want to bury myself in you and slave over your body, until we're both wrung completely out, and then I want to sleep until we can start all over again."

  Some part of her mind wanted her to laugh. If any other man had said the same thing, she'd have called him a cheesy, bullshit con-artist and laughed in his face. Instead, her legs started to shake. Her stomach did a full backflip and finished with a grande plie, because she could feel that he meant every word of it. A moan escaped her lips, unchecked. He bit the spot just under her ear and it didn't matter what logic said, anymore. All that mattered were his clothes, and how annoying they were.

  His lips found hers. His tongue teased her mouth open. She bit his bottom lip, not gently. A sound, like a lion purring, rolled up from his chest. His hands were shaking with need when he wrapped his arms around her and pulled him into him. She could feel him, the heat of him, even through the denim. One hand slid up her back, under her shirt. Her hands fumbled at the button on his jeans.

  "Jesus-Pete!" Tim's voice hit them both like a vat of ice water. "Does somebody want to spell this shit out for me?"

  Tasha's stomach hit her feet. She buried her face in Nicky's shoulder, as though it would keep Tim from knowing it was her. Nicky put one hand on the back of her head, as if to shield her.

  "I've got this. Why don't you go ahead up?" he whispered into her hair.

  She could have protested, but she knew it would be futile. Instead, she fled through the kitchen and up the back steps like Satan himself was on her heels.

  "I'm gone five minutes and you're trying to fuck my waitress? What the hell is wrong with you, boy? It's a damned good thing I forgot my cell, or I'd have…"

  The fire door slammed shut behind her, cutting off Tim's shouting. Tasha stopped, and took a moment to catch her breath while she leaned against the stair rail. The vibration of something slamming into the wall, on the other side, sent her scurrying the rest of the way up the stairs.

  Tasha really didn't want to sit in her little room, waiting for Tim to come up and yell at her, too. She knew Sam had gone up to 'The Soo', and the other two rooms were vacant. It was now two o'clock in the morning, but she could still rescue her plan to have a hot soak. The added bonus that Tim couldn't exactly nail her down while she was in the tub, made the whole idea even more appealing. She grabbed a bathrobe, a towel, and her toiletries bag, and ran down the hall to the shared bathroom.

  Sharing facilities sucked most of the time. The kitchenette in the hallway was nice for making the odd snack, cup of coffee, sandwich or toast, but the local bylaws prevented a hot plate or toaster oven.

  The shared bathroom was the worst part. Every tenant had a designated time slot for showering. There'd been a trucker in one of the rooms for a week, a while back. Tasha had the unfortunate honor of her shower time following his. To say that he left the bathroom in a less than welcoming state, would be an understatement of epic proportions. He was a filthy pig. Things had been much better since Buck went back out on the road. Nicky was much tidier, and Sam was positively fastidious.

  Tim had allowed her to make him a deal. She'd clean the bathroom top to bottom, once a week, if he'd let her have a hot soak and rinse whenever she wanted. The only catch was that she had to ask any other boarders first. With no one home to ask, nothing stood between her and the deep, clawfoot tub.

  By filling the tub halfway with just bearably hot water and then adding more hot after she got in, Tasha filled the room with steam. The blessed heat relaxed her overworked muscles, but did nothing to calm her thoughts. It didn't wash away the self-recrimination, either.

  She'd almost done it again! It was bad enough that she was fooling around with yet another musician, worse that he was five years younger than her. The fact that he was Tim's nephew was the third, and most damning notch in the belt of blatant stupidity. Of course, she hadn't known most of that when they met. All she knew, then, the moment she laid eyes on him, was that the Fourth of July had nothing on the fireworks between them.

  He'd been to a lot of meetings with music industry people, lately. Maybe he'd finally be moving on, and she wouldn't have to worry so much anymore. Or maybe she would move on. She'd been squirreling away tips for months now. She had first and last saved for a decent apartment, utilities for a couple of months, and a basic bed and sofa. She'd been aiming at cable, internet, and more furniture, though. She wanted to be set for three months or more, before she ditched this place. It would be nice not to have to scrounge anymore, but she could rough it a bit, if she had to. It wasn't like she hadn't already been roughing it enough this year. She had skills that weren't doing her any good, here. It shouldn't be all that difficult to get some kind of reasonable paying job.

  "Tash!"

  She almost leapt out of the tub and for a breath she panicked that she'd forgotten to lock the door. The way Tim was pounding on it, he might very well knock it down. She couldn't pretend she didn't hear him. A stampede of elephants would make less noise.

  "I'm in the tub, Tim!"

  "Well, you just haul your ass out of the tub and get it out here, where I can kick it a few times!" he roared.

  He wasn't going to go away. Tasha sighed, pulled herself out of the cooling water and threw her robe on, without drying. She didn't even bother to wrap a towel around her hair. He must have been leaning on the door, because when she whipped it open, he had to do a little two-step to get his balance.

  "What do you want, Tim?" She'd decided that the best defense was a solid offense. What was the worst he could do, fire her? Big deal, she'd have to ship out early. The idea was more appealing by the second.

  It worked.
Tim took a step back and worked his jaw a couple of times before he regrouped. Even then, he seemed to be running out of steam.

  "What the hell did you think you were doing in my bar? Do you have one good reason why I shouldn't pitch your ass out into a snow-bank, right now?"

  "I have several." She talked to him calmly, the way she'd seen cops talking to some psycho kidnapper in a movie. "First, I'd have you arrested for assault. Second, I'd sue your ass for breach of our tenant agreement. Third, I'm the best damned waitress south of The Soo, just like you said."

  "Goddamn it, Tasha! You were almost fucking my nephew in my bar! That kid has a future, and you're going to screw it up for him. If you want to play Mrs. Robinson, why can't you pick some other kid to screw with? I don't know what —"

  "Hold it just a fuckin' minute here, Tim!" Now she was angry. She stuck a fingernail into his chest. "That kid is twenty-one years old, and as far as I know, that makes him an adult. That means he gets to live his life without anyone telling him how to do it."

  Tim's mouth opened and closed again without a word coming out of it. She withdrew the nail.

  "And I never wanted to play Mrs. Robinson! He sure as hell doesn't look like he's twenty-two, and he doesn't act like it either. Okay, so most of the time he doesn't. And, I'm only five years older than him. I'm not fucking up anything to do with his future. I'm not holding him back, tying him down, up or forcing him to do shit." She couldn't keep a laugh from escaping at the very idea.

  "What you saw was a fling, and nothing more. We're not dating, seeing each, going steady other, making a commitment, or any of that bullshit. This is strictly no strings. Seems to me he's just following the example set by his favorite uncle. Speaking of which, isn't Tracey waiting, as usual?" All the blood drained out of Tim's face, and then rushed back all at once, making it a lovely shade of rose.