Ross 02 Rock Me(40)

“Hey, guys. You look way too bright-eyed. Coffee?”

“Just had some, but I can always use more,” he said. They stepped in, and Candace had to laugh at the carnage of bodies and blankets and air mattresses strewn throughout the spacious living room.

“Yeah, we had a few more people come over last night,” Kara said, following her gaze as they walked toward the kitchen. She wasn’t bothering to keep her voice down. Given the snores, those guys could have slept through an earthquake. “Probably a good thing you two went elsewhere if you wanted privacy. Our neighbors are going to lynch us someday.”

“Sorry to get you up, but we need to round up my guys and get back home.” His hand stroked up and down Candace’s back. “She has finals starting tomorrow and I want to make sure she studies.”

“I told you I’d be fine,” she protested, giving him a pinch on the butt. Kara was watching them with a knowing smile as she pulled mugs down out of the cabinet. “Awww. You guys.”

Cherrie Lynn

“By the way,” Candace said to her, “thank you. A million times.” The memory of the way it had felt when he stroked her depths with those beads still drove shudders through her. Brian looked at her suspiciously as Kara laughed. “You’re welcome a million times. And I was joking yesterday. All I require as thanks is that you come with him whenever he visits us. We’d like to get to know you better.”

“Deal,” she said.

“I won’t let you corrupt her,” Brian said with mock warning. “That’s my job.”

It took forever to get the others roused, and then a heated argument ensued over who was going with Brian and who was staying to get some more sleep and riding back later with Connor and Tay. Since space was limited in Connor’s car, at least a couple of them were going to have to go with Brian.

“I’m never riding with anyone else again. I’ll find my own damn way,” Ghost complained. “Dragging my ass out of bed two days in a row…” He grumbled on into incoherence.

“Good,” Brian said, cutting him off. “All I know to tell you guys is to draw straws. And anyone scheduled to work tonight better have their asses there on time.”

A chorus of groans went up. “Shit, that’s me,” Starla said. “I’d better ride with you, then. Oh, Brian, I almost forgot.” She tugged her shirt up a bit, separating it from the waistband of her shorts to reveal a funny little happy face drawn on her midriff. “I got Jonathan Davis’s autograph! He was doing a DJ set at the club we went to after the concert. Can you ink it on when we get back?”

Brian grinned. “Cool. Sure thing.”

“Why can’t I?” Ghost asked.

Starla dropped her shirt and rolled her eyes. “Because I’d rather not be molested throughout the process.”

The closer they got to home, the tenser Candace grew. It was back to reality. Yesterday it’d been easy to pretend today wouldn’t come. Now it was in her face.

Brian kept a firm grip on her hand as he drove. At least she had him beside her now, and she wasn’t defending this all for nothing. He was hers, and she was his, and nothing her family could say or do would change that at this point. But it was going to get ugly. Really ugly.

“What do you want to do?” he asked after everyone was dropped off and they were alone in his truck.

“Do you want to come home with me?”

She blinked at him. “Really?”

“Sure. You can stay with me as long as you want.”

That would be a dream come true. And it might actually have to happen before it was all said and done, but for now, she couldn’t ask that of him. It would only be more running. She had to try to get through this on her own.

146





Rock Me

“I would love that. Honestly. But…I need to face them right now.”

He gave her fingers a squeeze. “Then I’ll stay with you until you confront them. That’s an order. I’m not leaving you to go through it alone. I’d scheduled myself to work later, but you can hang out at the parlor with me.”

His tone brooked no argument, so she sighed and nodded. “Okay.”

Her apartment was silent as they entered it, as she expected, but it felt strange. Like the silence after the apocalypse. She didn’t know what she’d expected to find, but for some reason it was disturbing to walk into the normalcy of it now that the world had changed. It should’ve been trashed, or the electricity cut off, or the locks changed or something.

Brian shut the door behind them as she stood staring at everything, everything that wasn’t hers. Her gaze alighted on her cell phone sitting on the counter, but she was afraid to pick it up to see how many missed calls and outraged voicemails and text messages she had.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, feeling unsteady.

He was right there, guiding her toward the couch. “Sit down. It’s all right.” She dropped onto the cushion and he sat beside her, facing her. “Don’t let yourself get all worked up. You don’t even have to do anything today. Take some time before you agree to see them, let everyone cool off.”

“Cooled off isn’t really a state my parents ever get to.” She sighed. “It’s okay, Brian, I’m fine. I did what I did, I have to take the heat. I mostly hate that you’re going to be around to see this, but at the same time I’m glad you’re here.”

“Don’t you even worry about it.” He grinned. “You probably don’t know this, but in a verbal sparring match, my mom would make Sylvia Andrews look like a Chihuahua yapping at a mastiff. And you don’t grow up with someone like her without learning to hold your own.”

She relaxed against him, snuggling into his chest when his arms went around her. “Tell me about your mom. I’ve never met her.”

“What to say about Mom. Well, she’s highly opinionated, she can kick my ass one minute and be fiercely protective of me the next, and she’s famous for reverting to Italian when pissed off. But she hates my tattoos.”

“Are you close to her?”

He was silent for a moment. “I don’t see her nearly often enough. It’s complicated. But…yeah, my mom is pretty cool.”

“Do you think she’ll like me?”

“I think she’ll be crazy about you. How could she not?”

“Well, my own parents hate me, so it stands to reason someone else’s could, too, I guess.”



147

Cherrie Lynn

“They don’t hate you, baby. They can’t possibly. Anyone should be proud to have you as a daughter. That isn’t to say I know what the fuck their problem is, but it can’t be that they hate you, not in a million years.”

She could have argued with him, but she was too exhausted. He would see what she was talking about shortly, the open disdain and disappointment in her mother’s eyes whenever she looked at her. Candace had begun to detect it shortly after high school, but now there was no questioning it. She was tired of doing that, anyway. Tired of trying to figure out what it was about her that disgusted her mother so. She didn’t want to think about anything else. And having Brian alone in her apartment was too much temptation.

It amazed him when she lifted her face from his chest and crawled over in his lap, straddling him and lowering her mouth to his. But as usual, it was insta-erection where she was concerned. He groaned into the sweet cavern of her mouth, sweeping his tongue inside to taste more of her.

“You know that night you came over?” she asked between warm, melty kisses.

“Nah, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She giggled and circled the tip of his nose with her own. “I was standing in the kitchen, looking in here at you…and I had this very fantasy. Maybe a little different, but it was you sitting right here on my couch, me sitting on top of you. Only I was naked.”

Holy shit. He was already throbbing against her center, which he could imagine was hot and wet beneath her shorts and panties. His hands swept under her shirt and lifted. “I think we can fulfill that one.”

Quickly, she jumped up and shed her shorts, returning to him in her bra and panties. A few more tugs and she was braless as well, sitting astride him with those mouthwatering, pearly pink nipples at almost the perfect level with his mouth. He tasted each one of them in turn, giving them flicks with his tongue, finally capturing them in his hands. The sounds she made as he kneaded gently were delectable, helpless and enough to drive a man wild. Her fingers came up over his, and her head rolled back on her shoulders.

“Take your hair down,” he whispered, watching as one slender arm lifted and she pulled the scrunchie out of her hair, so that it fell in one luxurious shudder of gold waves about her slender throat. Some of the tendrils reached his hands. He wanted to ball it up in his fist. Wanted to push her down and shove himself deep into her mouth. There were a thousand things he wanted to do to her. But above all else he wanted to be inside the tight heat of her pussy again. That had been the most incredible thing he’d ever felt in his life. She was already working on it, attacking his fly until she had him sprung loose and into her gentle hands. He sank into the cushion and let his head roll on the back of the couch while she stroked him. “Oh, God.”