Annoyed with how badly she ached to do just that, Candy snapped, “Why is the thought of my killing you so funny? You never would’ve laughed about something like that before.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not the man I used to be. Time and circumstance have a way of changing a person, showing them those things that matter most.”
“Trust me, I’ve noticed.” And what exactly did he mean by ‘those things that matter most’? Was he talking about her? Them? It wasn’t important because he had changed and he’d never again be the man he was, just as her lust for him could never be naive. “If you were that same man, then you might have a chance.”
“But since I’m not, I’m just shit outta luck?”
“Amazing, you do understand. For a while there I was beginning to think that, along with the rest of your changes, you’d become dense.”
Duane laughed again; this time the sound was dry. He sobered and peered down at her with burning intent in his eyes. “I’m not dense, Candy. I’m also not taking no for an answer. I know you, I know what you want.”
His hips started up again, moving against hers in a slow, rolling grind. She caught her tongue in her teeth to stop herself from moaning out a growl of acquiescence. Reining in her haywire libido, she bit out, “You don’t know a damned thing about me.”
His eyes sparked, seemed to come alive with glowing light and a smug grin settled on his mouth. “No? Then tell me this doesn’t make you feel something.”
His mouth was on hers in an instant; his kiss firm, commanding, impossible not to sink into and feel a whole range of sensations because of. And yet Candace knew she had to stop herself from doing just that. Pressing at his chest, she struggled to push away but he held her firm to him, his arms as rigid and unmoving as dead weight. She attempted to cry out, to scream at him to stop but her words came out as muffled gasps barely audible to even her own ears above the music and conversations of others.
Damn it, let me go!
Let yourself go. You want this. I know you do, have for years. Give in to it. Give in
to me.
No. I won’t!
But, whether it was the influence of his magic or just the truth in his thoughts that she’d been wanting this very thing for years, she already was giving in.
Duane’s hands slid from her waist to move along her sides. His palms grazed the outer swell of her breasts and her nipples peaked and throbbed as if he’d pulled them between his lips and sucked. His tongue pushed past her mouth, rubbing against hers in a slow move that held barely any pressure at all. Had there been pressure she would have been able to find the strength to pull away—somehow she would have—but where there was no force she was powerless to do anything more than respond.
Aware she’d already lost this fight, Candace did the one thing she’d been aching to do since he’d pulled her onto the dance floor and rubbed her body against his. Grinding her pelvis in the same teasing way he’d done to her, she stabbed her tongue deep into his mouth, loving the way his unique scent exploded as tantalizing flavor onto her tongue and danced across every one of her taste buds. She retreated then sank in again, stroking and suckling at his tongue with each sure thrust of her own. Her senses reeling, her mind spinning, she moved her hands from where they lay dormant at his back to knead his firm ass beneath the tails of his tux jacket and through his thin slacks.
God, how she ached for so much more. Her pussy felt afire with the need to feel his hot, hard flesh pumping into her, mimicking the action of their tongues. She wanted his hands on her everywhere, beneath the dress, fondling her bare breasts, burying into her cream-drenched slit and making her come undone completely. She wanted him to make her moan, groan and howl. She wanted to submit.
“As much as I hate to interrupt, the music’s stopped.”
Candace’s recklessly speeding thoughts came to a jerking halt with her sister’s words. She released her hold on Duane’s butt and pulled free of his mouth, struggling to attain normal breathing as she concentrated on the sounds and sights around them. The mass of bodies that had before encompassed them was gone. Chattering voices still carried on but otherwise the hall was distressingly silent.
Heat consuming her cheeks, Candy wrenched herself from the grip Duane still had on her and shot her sister a guilt-ridden look. “Uh, right. Thanks.”
Carrie laughed softly, then narrowed her eyes in speculation. “You okay, sis? You look a little…overheated.”
Wasn’t that the understatement of the decade? She was aflame, scorching with the need to let go, to return to Duane’s arms and admit that everything he said about her was accurate. That she did want him, had for years. That it wasn’t magic to blame for her behavior tonight or the visceral way she’d responded to the stuffed wolf last night. It wasn’t the naïve lust she used to harbor for him either. It was raw, unadulterated desire. Decade old longing that refused to be extinguished no matter how hard she tried. The truth was that she wanted him and in a way she’d never wanted another man. In a way she feared went well past the physical and that she could she never feel with another.
Duane’s murmur of acknowledgement brought her attention zinging back to his face and she realized he was reading her mind again. Not about to consider what he’d just learned from her thoughts, because it was more than even she was ready to deal with, she turned to Carrie. “I’m fine. I just need something cold.”
“In that case, I was about to go change. If you want to go with me, we can grab a couple beers on the way.” She glanced at Duane and grinned. “Don’t worry, loverboy, I’ll have your woman back in no time.”
“His what?” Candace’s blood ran cold with the accusation, one heard by a good deal of the reception attendants thanks to the lack of music. “I am not his woman!”
Carrie shot her a “yeah, right” look. “Mmm hmm. Looked that way ten seconds ago when you were lip-locked and groping his ass.” Candy gasped, realizing just how bad and completely accurate it had looked, and her sister laughed and grabbed her arm. “Let’s get moving before Mom tracks you down for details.”
Oh, God. Their mother had made it clear at the salon she knew something was going on with Candy and Duane. Now she would believe there was more than a little something and, as Carrie had suggested, want all the details. Ones along the line of when they were planning to take things to the next level in the form of wedding bells. And since the answer to that was a big fat never… “Good idea. Let’s.”
* * * * *
“So, dish,” Carrie said the moment she stepped into the women’s bathroom. She’d remembered her duffel bag was still in the car halfway to the bathroom and had left Candace to wait for her while she went and grabbed it.
Candy had had no plans to wait where the wolves could get her and had come promptly to the bathroom to start changing. Only she hadn’t gotten around to it yet. She’d taken one look at her flushed face and kiss-swollen lips and realized cooling efforts came far before comfortable clothes.
She dabbed at her newly washed face with paper towels from the nearby dispenser, then tossed the damp towels into the wastebasket and looked at her sister. “About what?”
Carrie pulled a brush and ponytail holder from her duffel bag. She set them on the double sink basin and snorted as she started to remove the bobby pins securing her hair in place. “Right, sis, like you don’t know. What’s going on with you and Duane? You were practically mauling each other on the dance floor.”
“We were not!”
Why did everyone have to describe the attraction between her and Duane in such primal terms anyway? The few times Nate had actually come out and suggested there was something going on with them, he’d said the way they acted toward each other was animalistic. Corey had jumped on the bandwagon in an instant. Joe didn’t put things in quite those terms but he certainly took his fair shots at making it known he thought they belonged together. At least he had before Gracie had gotten pregnant. Thank God for that blessed event. One less sib
ling with a matchmaking agenda was exactly what she needed here. Okay, so four would be even better.
“Oh, please—” Carrie finished with the pin removal and caught Candy’s gaze in the mirror as she started brushing her hair, “—I have eyes, so does everyone else and, after the way you two were going at it, I can guarantee you I won’t be the only one to ask what’s up.”
“Nothing is up.” No matter what she wanted, what she had to admit if only to herself she craved, nothing could be up. Because…just because. “It was a slip of judgment, heat of the moment kind of thing. It didn’t mean anything and it isn’t going to happen again.”
Carrie stopped brushing her hair to level a direct gaze on her. “Duane’s okay with this?”
What, was she kidding? Like her sister actually thought she would ask him. “Duane doesn’t have a choice. Besides, he’s not even my type.” Admittedly, she wasn’t sure what her type was but she was pretty danged certain it wasn’t four-legged.
Carrie’s gaze went from direct to joyful. Smiling, she turned back to the mirror and twisted her hair into the ponytail holder. “Then I guess you won’t care if I ask him out.”
Candace was in the process of opening the locker where she’d stored her casual clothes when the words reached her. She swiveled back, stunned. “What?”
In the mirror, Carrie’s smile blossomed into a dreamy grin. “He might not be your type, whatever that is, but he is mine. He’s been like part of the family for so many years, I guess I never really took a good look at him until recently. He’s changed somehow, become more…passionate. I like it.”
She couldn’t be serious. Carrie never dated. Not to mention this was Duane they were talking about. Duane! He had changed but not for the better. Only if that were the case, why did the thought of her sister dating him twist her belly with loathing?
“He’s ten years older than you,” Candace blurted, hating the jealousy she heard in her tone.
Carrie closed her eyes on a wistful sigh and shrugged. “I happen to know someone who’s in love with a man almost twice her age. Eleven years is nothing.”
“It’s ten years! An entire decade.”
“So?”
“So…” So she couldn’t really be this upset over her sister wanting to be with Duane. Not when she’d spent the last ten months plus trying to convince him to move on. Not even if she could finally admit to herself she still wanted him. She wasn’t about to act on that desire and that meant it had to be more than jealousy eating at her gut. Maybe the frosting on the wedding cake was spoiled. “So I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she finally snapped.
Carrie opened her eyes and turned back. The dreamy look was gone and in its place was a knowing that cut directly to Candace’s soul. She held her breath, torn between awe and disgust. No way, that did not just happen. Her little conniving bitch of a sister had just set her up. But she had and, like the idiot she was, Candy had fallen for it.
“Because you want him to yourself,” Carrie said. “Admit it, sis. You want his bod.”
Oh, hell. What point was there in denying it, when she’d all but come out and made it clear with her resentful tone? “I shouldn’t.”
“Why not? You are so overdue for some fun, Candy. You work almost non-stop. When you aren’t at the hospital, you’re doing stuff around our house or at Mom and Dad’s place. I say let yourself go for once. Take Duane up on his offer.”
She narrowed her gaze at her sister and the knowing way she’d voiced those last words. “I never said anything about an offer.”
“I’m just guessing there had to be one by the way he looks at you—” she wiggled her eyebrows, “—like he wants to find a dark corner and play doctor.”
Candace laughed despite herself, then tacked on a “Carrie!” for good measure.
“What? He does. I think it’s hot. I also think you need to say ‘yes’.”
Candy sobered in an instant. God, how she wanted to do just that, say a loud and long ‘yes’ and throw herself into his arms, but… “I shouldn’t.”
“You already said that but you never said why.”
Fear. But no, she’d told herself on numerous occasions she wasn’t afraid of him. Duane himself had told her she had nothing to worry over. But if it wasn’t fear, what was holding her back? Just the idea of what he was? What he could become? A glance in the mirror revealed the answer in the form of pale scars just visible above the neckline of her dress. It wasn’t fear exactly but it was damned close. “It’s complicated.”
Carrie dropped her brush into her duffel bag and sank a hip against the sink basin. “But you admit you do want him, even if you shouldn’t?”
What she shouldn’t do was answer her sister, the woman who, up until this morning, had always had looser lips than a gossip columnist and yet the need to tell someone had been driving her crazy for ages. If she couldn’t count on that someone being her sister, then who could she?
“Only the better part of my life,” she finally admitted.
“That long, and you’ve never done anything about it?”
Carrie sounded aghast, her probing gaze one of amazement, and, for some reason, that brought a sting of heat rushing into Candace’s cheeks. One that apparently wasn’t missed by her sister, as her mouth gaped for just an instant, then she said, “Candace? You two didn’t… Oh my gosh, you did! When?”
Why bother stopping now? She’d already laid the bulk of it out there. Not that she planned to go into details, like the part about Duane turning feral on her, but she might as well speak the rest. “Last winter and it was a one time thing.”
“He was that bad?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. It was just…not important.” But even as she said it, she knew it was a lie. The truth was, as much as she remembered the bad moments of that night, she remembered the good far better. Things had been going really well up until the point where he’d actually entered her. It was like the moment he was inside, he’d gone wild. But before that…before that it had been incredible, like the joining of two souls that had always been meant to be together. Like nothing she ever could’ve fully imagined and everything she’d always wanted. Perfect.
Candy sighed. She wasn’t the type to think in terms of perfect and yet she couldn’t stop herself from wishing for that very thing now, at least the perfection she’d found in Duane’s arms, as temporary as it might have been.
Was it even possible that he meant it when he said he could control himself now? What about when he said she was the only one for him, his life mate? Did that stupid stuffed wolf somehow factor into things? Oh, God, was she out of her mind to be having these thoughts? “Truth time, Care, did you put the wolf in my room?”
“Why are you so hung up on that thing?”
Because she’d smelled Duane last night and for a while there she’d been so sure he was nearby, watching her. If her sister hadn’t put the wolf there, then maybe Duane had. Maybe he really had been in her room last night, watching her while she slept. Not waiting for his chance to attack or working his magic over her mind and soul but simply watching over her, the way he thought a good wolf should watch over its mate. “I just need to know.”
Carrie pushed off the sink basin and eyed her for a long moment before responding. “If I answer you truthfully, will you answer me the same?”
“I wasn’t offering a barter.” And yet she was suddenly desperate to know.
“No, but I am. Take it or leave it. I can live with it either way.”
Candace laughed at her no-holds-barred tone. “When did you get to be so conniving?”
Carrie smiled. “It’s just a little something I picked up living with my big sister.”
She laughed again, not doubting that for an instant. “Okay, I agree.” Even if I do live to regret it. “Now spill, where the hell did that thing come from?”
“I put it in your room. I know you’ve been having trouble sleeping and I thought it might make you feel more secure.”
“Oh.
” Well that explained that. However, it still didn’t explain the smell.
She’d scented Duane, damn it. That hadn’t been her imagination. Unless Carrie was lying to her again, the way she had this morning. “If that’s the truth, then why didn’t you just tell me this morning?”
“Because you seemed upset by it and I thought my putting it there had done more harm than good.” Sympathy passed through her eyes. “I’m sorry that it’s been bothering you so much. I guess I should’ve told you the truth when you first asked.”
Yes, she should have, because it would have saved Candace from considering the reasons Duane might have given it to her, from imagining he’d spent the night watching over her as a protector and someone who might care about her enough to curb his inner beast the way he claimed he could. From thinking even for a second maybe the two of them had a chance at something real and lasting.
That hadn’t been the case and she was fine with it. Better than fine, because this way she didn’t have to worry about softening where Duane was concerned. She didn’t have to think for a second on the way he would behave if she were to take a chance and give into him. She was so much better off. Really, she was, even if the sudden constricting pressure in the vicinity of her heart would seem to speak to the contrary.
“Forget about it.” Candy turned back to the locker. “We should get changed and back out there before someone starts wondering where we are.”
“Not so fast. You still owe me one,” Carrie said, the sympathy of a moment ago replaced with a commanding tone.
Candace blew out a breath, resigned to the fact her sister hadn’t forgotten the latter half of their agreement. “Right. I forgot,” she said but kept her back to her sister and continued to open the locker and grab her clothes bag.
Wild Hearts 2: Wild by Night Page 6