Candy Boys

by Raven, Jo

  “Uh huh.” He steps even closer, and I’m wrapped up in his boy scent, his musk overlayed with a light aftershave of pine and citrus.

  Yummy.

  “I like you, too,” I whisper, wondering when the lights will come back on and someone will yell, “Cut! It’s a wrap!”

  “Well, ride me into the sunset,” Joel mutters, his grin tipping up on one side, his dimple winking at me.

  “I so totally would.”

  Another flash of darkness goes through his gaze. His hand is still on my face, and his thumb is stroking my cheekbone, back and forth, back and forth.

  “What are you doing to me?” His voice has dropped more, so deep I feel it vibrate under my skin. “I love this shirt you have on today.”

  Low-cut shirt, mini skirt, boots. The works. Brylee would be so proud. My chest flushes when his eyes dip low.

  “Thanks.”

  “Did you wear these for me?”

  “It’s for VIV.”

  He looks up from my chest, dark brows drawing together. “VIV?”

  “Very Important Visitors.”

  “Am I very important?”

  I gulp. “Anyone who brings me coffee is important.”

  “Even when it burns you?”

  “It’s not fun if it doesn’t burn a little,” I whisper back.

  He makes a sound deep in his throat, like a strangled groan. “Fuck, you’re driving me mad. One moment you’re funny, the next hot. The hottest bookseller I’ve ever met.”

  Met a lot of booksellers? I want to ask, but he’s walking me backward toward the shelves. He puts down my coffee on the counter, then we’re ensconced between two tall shelves, and he’s pressing me against the Children Books section.

  “I want to kiss you,” he says, his arms bracketing my body, gripping the shelves on either side of me, trapping me.

  “Please do,” I start to say when his lips crush on mine, warm and firm and tasting like spice and coffee, and I moan, unable to stop myself.

  So good. So much better than I ever imagined, and I have a vibrant, well-trained imagination. The way his mouth moves over mine is decadent, slow, sexy. By the time his tongue parts my lips, I’m running my hands up and down his body and sucking on his mouth like an alcoholic on his last bottle.

  Then my hands find his ass and holy mother of God, this boy is unreal. That ass is unreal. His solid, round buns fill my hands, and they flex as his hips thrust against me.

  Letting me feel a very real, very solid and big hard-on.

  I make a small noise against his mouth—or in his mouth, probably, because by now my tongue is halfway down his throat—and he draws slightly back, his eyes dazed.

  “Oh shit.” His voice is thick and raspy. “I didn’t mean to tongue-fuck you here.”

  “But elsewhere?” I ask hopefully.

  “Fuck, yeah.” I like the way he says it so solemnly, like an oath.

  Then the door chimes, indicating a customer has just entered, and he pulls away, adjusting himself in his pants.

  Ugh. Sexy.

  And I don’t know what to do now with this impossibly gorgeous guy who’s just kissed me senseless against copies of Winnie the Pooh and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

  “Gotta go,” he says, straightening his tie, and another hot bolt of desire rushes through me. “I’m already late for work. Wanna go out for a drink sometime?”

  “Sure.”

  And of course he then rushes out without another word, without asking for my phone number or even my last name, leaving me to deal with the fact Joel Kingsley kissed me and wants to go out with me.

  ***

  “Forget about Jethro,” I tell Donna.

  “J-Two? Why?”

  “Just because.”

  Joel is here, and even if it’s half my dream coming true, I should grab it with both hands, right? How can I hope for more?

  Girl can’t have everything, right? That would be too much to ask. When life hands you one sex god you’ve been lusting over for years, you don’t ask, and where is the other one I wanted? You take the sex god and count your blessings.

  Besides, it may even not come to that. To sex, I mean. Maybe he will change his mind. And what if I’m not really into two guys banging me? Maybe I’m over that. Maybe letting Joel fuck me will cure me of my obsession.

  Maybe Brylee was right, and I’m too greedy. Maybe I’ll change my mind about wanting two guys.

  Oh come on, who am I kidding? I’m not going to change my mind. What am I, crazy?

  Wait, don’t answer that.

  After the customers leave and the shop grows quiet again, I go and lean in the office door. “Anything new?”

  “In the resume world?” Donna asks.

  “Yeah. I need the distraction.” I step around her tiny, cluttered desk and look over her shoulder. “Go on. Floor me.”

  “Did Joel kiss you?”

  “None of your business.”

  “I saw you.” She waggles her brows at me. I back away. This woman is scary. “Anyway. Back to more boring stuff. This one came in today.” She taps at the screen. “It’s kinda cute, actually.”

  “Go on.”

  “It says, ‘Books and I get along fine. I can organize, clean, feed them and put them in order. They are like drinks: you only mix them up when the customer asks and you only sell good quality.’

  I smile. “I kinda like this.”

  “Qualifications are all over the place. Mostly some work experience in various things, like construction and bartending and working as a cashier in retail stores. But I like this one, too.”

  “Interview?”

  “There’s a phone number listed. I’ll call.”

  “You do that.”

  “And what will you do?”

  “Donna…” My brain is full of that kiss, of Joel’s taste and scent and the feel of him against me. “He asked me out for drinks.”

  “J-One?”

  “Yeah. What do you think?”

  She leans sideway to give me a wink over the side of her computer screen. “Take a set of clean clothes with you and a toothbrush.”

  Oh God, I thought so, too.

  ***

  Next morning, I obsess over what to wear to work and end up with a variation of the previous day. My palms are sweaty, my heart pounding, and I tell myself I’m being stupid.

  It was just a kiss.

  Perhaps that was all it was. He may never show up again.

  But right after I flip the door sign to OPEN, he enters with the two Styrofoam cups and offers one to me.

  Then, even as more customers enter, he pulls me between the shelves like before and kisses me again.

  It’s even more scorching than the first time.

  And he asks for my phone number.

  Holy shit, Batman. This is really happening.

  My mind is so overwhelmed with all this that I’ve been neglecting my blog. There are books to be read and reviewed, comments to be answered and moderated, and I should be writing more scenes for my story.

  I’m distracted. Especially when he calls me and tells me about a bar called Crickets not so far from here. Tomorrow night. He’s picking me up from work.

  Change of clean clothes, I chant to myself. Toothbrush.

  Ohgod, ohgod, I have a date with Joel Kingsley. I mean, he said to go for drinks. But Donna is right. No two ways to interpret this one, right?

  Okay, there are, but they don’t count.

  And Jethro’s handsome face shouldn’t flash through my thoughts, not even for a second.

  “We want more J&J scenes,” Donna comes to whine at me as I prepare to go home for the night. “Hurry up with that next installment to the serial.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I feel…” I pause, confused. “I feel like I’m cheating on Jethro. By agreeing to go out with Joel, and it blocks me. This makes no sense, huh?”

  “Nope.”

  I shake my head, gather my thi
ngs and go. I’m confused, and the only thing I know is that what I want is never going to happen.

  ***

  Clothes and toothbrush packed at the bottom of my purse, I let Brylee fuss over me. I’ve decided it’s the easiest course of action.

  Hey, I have a date with one of my fantasy boyfriends. I even shaved my legs. Woohoo! No more forest camouflage for this girl. I even evicted the bears.

  I let Bry smear color on my lips and then clear lip gloss. I let her choose my clothes—a rather conservative black dress she found at the back of my closet and a pair of her classic black high heels.

  I lean toward the mirror. I don’t look like myself. I’m not even sure I feel like myself, after all this time without caring about how I look—but the excitement over seeing Joel again, kissing him and hopefully spending the night at his place is stronger than the confusion.

  The thought I might catch a glimpse of the elusive Jethro while there keeps popping up, and I squash it ruthlessly, again and again.

  Joel and Jethro are just good friends. I’m not coming between them. And I can’t have them both. Kissing even one part of the fabulous duo is a miracle.

  You can’t have both, Candy. Be real. I mean, even Brylee is in shock, after learning who I’m going out with tonight. Donna seems to be taking it in stride, but she’s probably just hiding her shock better.

  Connie had a total freak-out in chat today when I told her. Sent all sorts of open-mouthed emojis, too.

  “Biatch,” she wrote, “you’re totally shitting me. I shall expect photographic evidence of any close encounter with J-One. Evidence! Or I’ll stop speaking to you.”

  “You just want them so you can pet your kitty to the photo of them.”

  “Kitty is purring. Also, by the way, what about Ellen?”

  Yeah, what about Ellen? She completely slipped my mind over the excitement of Joel kissing me and asking me out for drinks.

  How could I forget about her? Crap. If anything else happens with Joel, I need to clear the field.

  Before anything else happens.

  “So, this Joel Kingsley,” Brylee says. “I was talking to a guy who used to work at the college the other day, and he mentioned him.”

  I frown at my reflection. Brylee has applied such a thick coat of mascara my eyes look like porcupines. I put my glasses on and sigh when my lashes stick to the lenses. “Mentioned him?”

  “Yeah. There was a scandal with him, wasn’t there?” Brylee asks.

  “Scandal? Nah.” I’d have heard about it.

  And if not, someone would have told me about it. My crush on J&J has never been a secret.

  “It was caught before it went viral.”

  “What did?”

  “The picture. A picture of Joel Kingsley, balls-naked, fucking some girls.”

  “Bry.” I’m more shocked by Brylee using offensive language than the fact Joel was caught with his pants around his ankles and his dick inside some random girl. “I would have known.”

  “No, because it was never posted on the internet. It was passed around through an app, and when the school found out, they put a stop to it.” She tsks. “I’ll find out more about it and tell you.”

  “Not sure I want to know more.”

  “Of course you do.”

  She’s right.

  “And the final touch…” She rummages in her drawer and pulls out a black choker, which she puts on me with a flourish. “All ready to go to the ball.”

  I study myself again.

  It’s me and it’s not me. I’m a nerdy girl. But I’m also a sexually frustrated vixen. I’m not light, like I told Jethro at the concert. There is some darkness in me. The things I want, the things I crave… they aren’t pure vanilla.

  They aren’t what most girls want.

  With less mascara, a less clingy top and shoes I can actually walk in… Yeah, this could be the new, updated me. The me who has a date with Joel Kingsley and may end the night with a glass of wine and a discussion about history and books, or more likely with wild, kinky sex.

  With his roommate watching.

  Oh crap, here I go again. No, brain. No.

  Why do I have a feeling this is going to be a disaster?

  Chapter Eight

  JOEL

  “You got this, mate,” Jet tells me as I do my stretches at the starting line. “You’re ready.”

  “Yeah.” Not sure I am. Running track is fun, but school competitions stress me out. What if I don’t run fast enough this time? What if I don’t win anything? What will my coach think of me?

  What will my parents say? What will everyone think?

  “You got this,” Jet says again. “Go get them.”

  Jet at least won’t yell at me if I come last.

  I can do this.

  Jesus, what sort of loser has doubts about something like that? I can date a girl, take her to my place and not fucking panic that I can’t perform. She turns me on. I’m fully hard whenever I’m around her.

  This has to fucking work.

  I run track. Marathons. I have endurance. I perform. In everything. Bring it on.

  But as she walks out of the building toward my car, I find myself gripping the wheel of my car like a lifeline.

  I shouldn’t have worried, though. Not about getting hard, anyway. She sways her hips a little as she approaches, and holy fuck, is that the same girl I kissed three days ago at the bookstore? My sexy little nerdy girl?

  In a tight, short black dress and heels, with her blond hair swept up and her golden-brown eyes lined with black behind her glasses, she’s goddamn hot. Hotter than ever. The dress is pretty conservative, but the cleavage shows off the lushness of her boobs, the curve of her hip, the length of her shapely leg.

  She’s still herself—and as she slides into the passenger seat I notice that her earrings are dragons, which pleases me in its nerdiness—but she’s also something else, something more. Something darker than the gold of her hair and the bronze of her eyes, the white of her skin and the pink of her cheeks.

  An old soul. An honest soul. A girl who likes sex. Who wants sex. Who’s made for sex.

  I’m so hard it hurts.

  I reach for her glasses. I take them off, then I slide my hand around her neck, along her smooth, satiny skin, and pull her to me for a deep kiss. She gasps in my mouth, and I thrust my tongue past her sweet lips, needing her. My other hand, still on the wheel, is threatening to break it. My gut clenches so hard I think I might come just from her taste, the feel of her.

  “Fuck.” I break off, pull back, lick my lips. Her sweetness lingers. “If I don’t stop, we won’t be going anywhere.”

  She laughs, a little husky, her eyes brilliant and dark. She’s affected by the kiss as much as I am, and the thought thrills me.

  “Buckle up,” I tell her and drive her to one of my favorite places—an old, tiny bar close to where she works with low music and dark décor. They serve some pretty good wine, and she tells me to order for her.

  That’s fucking hot.

  I order her a good white wine and a red one for myself. She’s sitting so close to me our legs touch, and every time I glance her way, my eyes are inexorably drawn to her breasts. Then her glasses, and her warm brown eyes behind them.

  I want to throw her on my bed, rip off her clothes, leave her in her shoes and those sexy librarian glasses, and fuck her hard.

  My dick is an iron bar in my pants.

  We talk about history and books and comics, but I can’t focus. I want her. I want to touch her. Pleasure her. Hear her moan as I go down on her. As I thrust into her.

  Will she be on board with that? Is it too soon? It’s just that I can’t remember ever being so hard for a chick, a chick I also happen to like as a person, and it’s fucking me up.

  Throw in the stress about not performing, and I can’t take this any longer.

  “Hey, wanna head out?” I nod at the door. “Go someplace else?”

  Her dark lashes lower, her full mouth twit
ches, and Christ, what is it about her? She’s not a super model—she’s short, curvy, quirky, but she’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. The sexiest. I’m desperate to see her naked, to play with her body.

  “Sure,” she replies and gathers up her purse.

  I pull her out of the bar, back her up in a corner between a shop entrance and another shop and kiss her. Can’t stop kissing her. She tastes of wine and mint and pure sugar. She winds her arms around my neck and kisses me back, lets me take control of the kiss.

  I like being in control. I like taking care of things, organizing, directing, managing. I’m taking her home. I wonder if Jet is home.

  Next door to my bedroom.

  He’d hear everything. And the thought shouldn’t thrill me. Behind my lids flashes an image of him on his knees in his bed, his hand between his legs—

  I jerk back, take a few steps down the street, shoving my fingers through my hair.

  “Hey. What’s wrong?” She’s right behind me, running with small steps in her high heels to catch up with me. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. Fuck.”

  I can’t. I can’t do this. No matter how pretty she is, I won’t come, I know it, and she’ll be left wondering what kind of a freak I am.

  Why she’s not enough to get me off. The guy who slept with half the college. The guy who’s supposed to last all night.

  “Joel—”

  “Look, I have to go,” I tell her and see disappointment well in her eyes. Goddammit. “I’m sorry, it’s… it’s complicated.”

  “Sure it is,” she bites out the words, and when I say nothing more, she turns around to go.

  “Candy, wait!” I call after her, trying to think of something to do to make it better, to take it back, to convince myself to go through with my plan and take her home—but she ignores me, stomping away and calling a cab.

  Christ. I’m an asshole. I fucked this up before it even started, like I knew I would.

  With the one girl I really like. The first girl I’ve asked out in a year. The girl I can’t get out of my head, even though I still don’t know why.

  Figures.

  ***

  “What’s up?” Jethro calls from his sprawl on the sofa when I enter the apartment. “Weren’t you supposed to be out tonight?”

  “I fucked up,” I inform him, and trudge to my room. I throw myself on my bed and press an arm over my eyes to blot out the world. “I’m such a pathetic failure.”