“What’s going on with him anyway? Where is he?” she asked.
“He’s still in Georgia. He’s been there since he was released because he’s been on probation…but I know he’s planning something. It’s been a few months, but he’s not an idiot. He’s keeping quiet, but he’ll come once his probation hearing is done. It’s just a matter of time after that.”
“Oh.”
I exhaled, bringing her on top of me. Her hair curtained one side of her face, a soft smile on her lips.
“I want a tattoo too,” she said.
“Really?” I kissed her cheek. “Where would you get it?”
She pointed to the outside of her hand, near the edge of her pinky finger. “Right here. I want it to say RISE too.”
I smiled. “I can arrange that.”
She laid her head on my chest, and I kissed the top of it. I felt so much better after filling her in on the truth.
Before I knew it, we’d fallen asleep. Only us, beneath the milky moon, with the sounds of the city surrounding us.
Only us, just the way I liked it.
Chapter Twenty
KANDY
When I fell asleep, there was only the pale moon, but when I woke up, the yellow sun was beaming down on me through the window. I moaned and rolled over, reaching for Cane, but he wasn’t there. Startled by the realization, I sat up and looked around the room. He was nowhere in sight.
“Cane?” I called.
No answer.
I pushed out of bed, grabbing the T-shirt he’d worn last night and tugging it over my head. I tiptoed my way to the kitchenette, and that’s when I spotted the note on the counter.
Went to the lobby to make a call.
You were sleeping so peacefully, and I didn’t want to wake you. I’ll be back with breakfast.
I grinned while reading the note again. He would probably be a while. That being the case, I went to my suitcase, pulling out some clothes for the day. I took a shower, washed my hair, and when I came back out with my toothbrush hanging out of my mouth, I spotted Cane in the kitchen.
“Will French toast do?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“French toast sounds perfect. And it smells good,” I garbled out. I went back to the bathroom to finish up, got dressed, and then met him at the table.
He had both of our plates ready, so I dug right in.
“Sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. I had to make those calls today for Cora.”
“It’s fine. Stop apologizing.”
He smirked and cut into his toast, popping a piece into his mouth. “You like art?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“What do you say we go to a museum today?” His eyes shimmered, and I laughed, grabbing the syrup.
“That sounds fun, babe. Let’s do it.”
“Oh, I’m your babe now?” he teased.
“Oh, shut up.” I giggled. “You’ve always been my babe.”
“I’m surprised you aren’t using that word all my interns use now. What is it? Bay, or some shit like that?”
“You mean bae?” I broke out in another laugh. “And no. I hate that word so much.”
“Yeah.” His nose scrunched up. “Me too.”
* * *
After eating, Cane took a quick shower. I did my makeup while he was in there, and we were off. He ended up taking me to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Going there felt strange. I’d never been in a museum on vacation, but I felt very hip for going—like I was ahead of my own time and generation. There were so many different forms of artwork there, some of it catching my attention much more than I thought it would. We spent an hour and a half at the museum, but instead of calling his driver, Cane flagged down a taxi, all because I was dying to have the experience of riding in a taxi in New York City.
To be perfectly clear, I hated it. All the movies I’d watched weren’t kidding about the traffic. It was awful. Due to our late start that morning, we ate a late lunch, and then after lunch, we walked to Central Park, where a small band was doing live music. The cool thing about this band, though, was that they played on recycled items: the drummer played on empty paint containers and old pot lids, and the singer didn’t have a mic, but was playing an acoustic guitar, while another guy played a harmonica, and another woman used a stick over the ridges of a water bottle.
To my complete surprise, Cane danced with me, right in the middle of Central Park.
“I never took you for a dancer!” My voice was shrill as he held my hand and reeled me into him.
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, Kandy Cane.” He smiled, and it was everything to me.
To say our day was amazing wasn’t enough. It was phenomenal. Breathtaking. Every single moment was pure bliss. The sun began to sink again, so Cane called a driver and had him take us back to the hotel. Once we were inside the room, that feeling came over me again—the one where I couldn’t keep my hands off of him.
“Take me again,” I urged.
He laid me on the bed, but flipped me over so my backside was facing his front. He took off all of my clothes, and when his pants were gone, he climbed on the bed behind me, causing it to dip. His hand pressed to my upper back, and he pushed down just enough for me to rest my cheek on the comforter.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he rumbled, voice thick, and he moved his hips forward, slowly entering me from behind. I clutched the sheets, sighing as he plunged his way in.
“Oh, God,” I panted, not because it hurt, but because it felt so damn good.
“You like that?” His voice was huskier. He pulled back and thrust forward again, and I clutched the sheets.
“Yes,” I breathed raggedly. “Keep going.”
“You really love having my cock deep inside you, don’t you, baby?”
“Yes. I want you to come inside me again,” I pleaded, and for a moment he paused, and I opened my eyes. I sat up, peering over my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“You know I love coming inside you, but you’ve never begged for it. Why do you want me to now?”
“I don’t know. I just do. It doesn’t matter anymore, right?”
He shook his head. “It does matter.”
“It doesn’t.” I pulled away, grabbing his hand and forcing him onto his back. Climbing on top of him, I lowered my body until the crown of his cock was in my pussy.
He groaned heavily. “Shit, Kandy.”
“What?” I breathed.
“I know what you’re trying to do.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s still a possibility of it happening. The doctor never said it was impossible.”
“I know it’s not.”
He held my hips in place when I started to ride him, and I could tell it took everything in him to make me stop. “Not like this. Not while you’re so young.”
“I’ll be twenty this year.”
“Reminding me of your age doesn’t change a damn thing. That’s still too young to have a kid. You want to go back to college, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts. I know I did it last night—too many times, obviously—but I was being reckless because we hadn’t done it in a while.”
“I just want to try, Cane,” I whined.
“Kandy,” he warned, voice gravelly as I worked my hips again. “Please. It’s not the right time to try.”
“Just…try with me. If it doesn’t work, then I’ll let it go, I swear.”
“But what if it does?” he asked, then groaned as I rolled my hips forward.
“Then we’ll worry about that when we get there.”
He started to say something else, but I didn’t let him. I lowered my chest and placed my mouth on top of his, pushing my tongue through his lips while working my hips. From this angle, I could feel every single inch of him. I held his face, bouncing up and down on his cock, loving the sounds he made, like having me on top of him was the best feeling in the world.
With every swirl, lift, and drop of my hips, I could feel him getting harder and harder inside me.
“Oh, shit, Kandy,” he growled on my mouth. “I’m about to come.”
I don’t know why that made my belly flip with pleasure. I sat up and went a little faster, one hand flat on his chest, and my other massaging my breast. He watched me perform the action on top of him, and then his eyes glazed over, his lips parting.
“Get up,” he forced out, but I didn’t move. “Baby, up,” he pleaded, but I deepened the jerk of my hips, keeping him all in. “Oh fuck! I’m about to come!” His hands went to my hips, locking me in place, and I yelped as he thrust his entire length into me. He cursed repeatedly as he came, the back of his head hitting the pillows, his mouth still wide open, indulging in the orgasm.
When his body was no longer tense, I leaned forward and kissed his upper lip.
“You’re hardheaded as fuck,” he said, then spanked my ass.
I smiled down at him, lowering my face to kiss the crook of his neck. “You made me this way.”
He let out a raspy laugh. “We’ll talk about what just happened on the flight home. I’m feeling too good right now to regret it.”
I couldn’t fight my smile, and even though the next day rolled by, Cane spoke nothing of what happened, though I was sure he wanted to. I think he came to the agreement that if something did happen, we’d face it when it arrived, but as for now, he left it as is. Although we did have sex that morning, he was in control, and he pulled out and came on my belly, smirking down at me as he pumped his cock. I stuck my tongue out at him but he caught it between his lips, sucking on it briefly before letting me go.
We spent our last day eating and walking and doing more sightseeing. We even shopped for a few things, and Cane stopped by a jeweler store to look at rings. I told him he was insane. He told me he was in love.
I wasn’t ready to go back, but that dreaded Sunday came anyway, and we were on the jet, and I was curled in his arms. “Did you have fun?” he asked.
“I did. It was everything, Cane. I don’t want to go back.”
“I know.” He hugged me tight around the shoulders, kissing my cheek. “Me either, baby.”
I fought the urge to sulk about it. We had so much fun, and the time seemed to fly by. Now, we were going back to reality, and I really wasn’t in the mood for it.
* * *
We made it home safe and sound, dropping our suitcases at the door and heading up stairs. I crashed on the bed while Cane spoke to Lora on the phone. She’d gone to California with Miss Cane.
“Did you visit Aaron?” I heard Cane ask from the closet. “Oh yeah? What did he say?” Silence. “Well, it was bound to happen, Lora. You can be sad about it, but you know he wasn’t any good for you anyway. You’ll waste your life waiting for him. Plus you deserve better.” Silence again. “All right. See you Tuesday.” Cane came back out of the closet, sliding his phone into his back pocket.
“Is she okay?” I asked.
“Probably a little heartbroken, but she’ll be okay.”
“She doesn’t talk about Aaron with me much.”
“Yeah, ‘cause she knows he’s a dipshit.” He rolled his eyes. “He was never any good for her, and they were not compatible at all. She’s thickheaded, and he’s just as stubborn as she is.”
“Yeah, but she loved him, right?”
“Yeah, for all the wrong reasons.” He sat beside me. “She can do better. She doesn’t need to settle for men like him anymore.”
“She’ll figure it out, I’m sure.”
“Yep. Until then, she’s here with me. Where she needs to be. I don’t need her running off and into the arms of some other idiot.”
“Um, I’m pretty sure no guy is ever going to be good enough to you when it comes to Lora.”
“Damn right,” he said, and I cracked a smile, shaking my head.
“You are so relentless.”
He grabbed my chin, dropping a kiss on my lips. “And you are perfect.” He gave me another deep kiss, and for the rest of the day, we chilled out. We ate lunch and dinner, and around 9:00 p.m., he had to go to his office to make some calls and email a few people back. I decided to lounge on the couch and watch romantic comedies on Netflix. But as I watched the movies, I couldn’t help glancing at my phone.
I hadn’t heard from my parents in a few weeks, and I wanted to call so badly, but I wasn’t even sure what to say to them. I knew Mom would ask me to come back, and Dad probably wouldn’t even bother talking to me. Even though I loved being with Cane, I missed them so damn much. I promised myself I would call the next afternoon, but I shouldn’t have because that promise haunted me, snatching away precious moments of my sleep. It didn’t help that Cane was still working in his office, well past 2 a.m., when I finally fell asleep.
Eventually I did drift off, and for some strange reason, I dreamed that I was in the middle of an ocean, floating on a small piece of wood. I was going nowhere, and for some odd reason, I liked it.
Something about my dream told me that I liked being in the middle of the ocean because I was no longer facing the worries at home. But when I woke up with Cane holding me, I knew being alone was the last thing I ever wanted.
Chapter Twenty-One
CANE
They always say there is calm before the storm. In my world, if there is too much calmness, there is a definite storm headed my way. I should have been prepared for the monstrosity—ready for it to shut the power off and destroy my home, ripping through like a fucking hurricane, but I was so caught up in the moment. So in love. So content that I refused to think about that brewing storm…but it was coming.
And this time, it was deadly.
I had to work the following day, but something felt off about it. The air was humid and thick, clinging to my skin, causing me to break out in a sweat. It was hot as hell, the sky covered with bundled gray clouds. It looked like it should have been pouring down raining, but it hadn’t…at least not yet. On my way to work, every stoplight turned red. At work, one of the employees spilled coffee on my shoes when I was walking into the building.
I had a normal work day, though, and finished up most of my emails and calls, drawing up new plans for the rest of the year. When I was done, I packed it up, walking down to the lobby with Cora.
“Have a good night, Mr. Cane,” she said as we reached the VIP parking deck.
“Same to you, Cora.”
Her car horn beeped when she pressed her key fob. I watched her crank it up and go, and then headed for my own car, parked in its designated spot in the corner.
I couldn’t help feeling like I was being watched while walking. I looked all around me, the hair standing up on the back of my neck and on my arms, but I ignored the feeling and hurried to open the door. I hopped in and left, letting the feeling roll off my back as I hurried home to Kandy.
* * *
I expected a smile and a hug from Kandy when I got home, but I got neither. She was sitting on the kitchen counter with a bowl of ice cream in front of her. She wasn’t really eating it, though. More like sliding her spoon around in the soupy mess.
“Hey,” I said, stepping around the counter.
Her eyes drooped up slowly, and I spotted the hurt in them. “Hey,” she murmured.
“What’s going on? Why do you look so down?”
She huffed, dropping her spoon. “I called my mom three hours ago, and she hasn’t called back yet.”
“Maybe she’s busy,” I offered.
“No. She always answers, Cane. Always. I think she’s really upset about the situation we’re in. She probably thought I’d be back home by now. I mean, she texted me back before, but this is the first time I’m calling just to call and…nothing.”
“Hmm.”
“Maybe it’s best if they don’t hear from me,” she muttered. “I hurt them bad this time. I’ve tried not to think about how I just walked away, but I realize it was so fucked up.”
“You did what yo
u felt was right at the time, Kandy. Don’t beat yourself up about the choices you make. You can always go back home if you need to, talk to them in person if it’ll help.”
“Yeah, I can, but what if I’ve ruined my relationship with them forever?”
I shook my head. “I know your parents, and I know there is nothing in this world that can ruin your bond with them. Your mom could be tied up right now and probably hasn’t had a chance to call you back yet. Just try again…or call D.”
Kandy rolled her eyes at that last comment, picking her phone up from the counter. “I’ll try my mom again.” She turned away, dialing as she walked toward the patio door. When she was out, I walked to the fridge, taking out a green apple and biting into it. My phone chimed in my back pocket, and I pulled it out. It was a text from David, the man I paid to keep an eye on Buck.
David: His probation hearing was this morning, but he checked out of his motel a few minutes ago.
I’ll follow, keep an eye on where he might be headed.
“Goddamn it,” I grumbled. I knew this was going to happen. I had no idea his probation hearing would be so soon, but I prayed to God he hadn’t checking out of that motel to come find me. I wasn’t in the mood for his shit right now.
The patio door slid open again, and I looked halfway over my shoulder before tucking my phone into my pocket, spotting Kandy’s figure.
“That was quick. I’m assuming there wasn’t an answer?”
“Cane,” she whispered, but there was something off about her voice. Although it was quiet, it was tense, panicked. I turned quickly, and my eyes stretched wide when I realized why she sounded so terrified.
Loving Mr. Cane: Cane Series #3 Page 13