Chapter Eleven
Though it killed her soul, she jerked herself away from him and back to her original position crammed against the passenger door, frantically trying to right her disarrayed clothing. Humiliation burned almost as hot as her unsated arousal.
“Hey,” he said, his voice gentle but with a rough edge, as if it was a struggle for him to contain his anger. She was a riddle to him, huh? What an understatement. She was outright insane. “Don’t do what? What is it you want, Candace? Because I’m trying here, but I really don’t get it.”
“I…”
“Are you scared?”
Yes. Of everything. She shrugged. “I thought you didn’t want this,” she said a little more nastily than she’d meant. “I begged you this morning, Brian.”
“I know you did, and I’m sorry. I haven’t been able to think about anything else all day.”
She pressed her fingertips to the center of her forehead, where she could feel a headache beginning to blossom, and refused to let herself look at him. “I came out here thinking I need to tell you goodbye,” she said, hearing the flat exhaustion in her own voice. “And then I was terrified you were about to do the same to me. That’s how screwed up I am right now. That’s why it’s best if we not see each other again. It’s not what I want, but I’m a mess. I have enough pressing in on me from all sides. I can’t be like this.”
He was silent except for his breathing, slow and steady where hers was still thin and shaky.
“Is that what you’re really prepared to do?” he said after several uncomfortable minutes ticked past and she steadily swiped at her insistent tears. “After everything that’s happened since you walked into my parlor, after last night, after you followed me here tonight, you want to tell me to forget it, it was a mistake? Because you’re feeling something wild and crazy you can’t explain?”
“It can’t happen, okay. You said no one has to know. I understand that, and you’re right, but I don’t ever want to have to hide the fact that I’m with you. No one would ever accept us.”
“What the f**k does that matter?” He did sound angry now, his words a crack of thunder. She realized she’d essentially insulted him. Again.
Oh, she needed to get out of here. Not because he scared her, but because she couldn’t take seeing him in any kind of pain, especially if she was the one inflicting it. “It matters to me,” she whispered.
“What did your mother say to you? She knows about us because she’s already called my brother freaking out.”
“What?” She’d called Evan? Already? Disbelief choked her. Oh, dear God, it didn’t stop. Humiliation burned even deeper into her chest, as if she’d swallowed sulfuric acid. She dropped her face into her hands. Calm down, don’t lose it…
“Did you tell her?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Tell me what she said, baby.”
His gentle command didn’t register through the chaos. “Don’t you see?” she asked, hearing the high-pitched edge of panic in her voice. “It’s hopeless. I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
Before he had a chance to reply, she yanked the handle and flung herself out of the truck, slamming the door on his protest. Instead of heading back inside where her friends were waiting, she ran to her car, sending up a prayer that she wouldn’t hear the sound of his footsteps pursuing her. She didn’t.
He would be a fool to do that, anyway. Or to ever speak to her again at all.
Once in the quiet safety of her car, she dialed Sam from her cell phone, trying to catch her breath, trying to ignore the fact that Brian’s truck was still sitting across the lot, dark and still. Was he going to sit there all night? Or go back inside and get Starla to finish what he and Candace had started?
The thought forced out more hot, helpless tears just as Sam answered.
“You’re leaving with him, aren’t you?”
“No,” Candace sobbed, despite all resolutions to keep it together.
“Oh, sweetie. What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it now. I just wanted to tell you guys you can take off. I’m not in any shape to come back in.”
“Sounds like you’re in perfect shape. Come in, let us buy you margaritas all night, we’ll chauffeur you around and you can crash at my place.”
“Sammy, I really appreciate it, but I need to be by myself. Okay?”
“Are you sure you’re all right? You sound so awful, I’m worried about you driving.”
“I’m fine, honest. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Well, call before then if you need me. I mean it. We love ya.”
“Love you too.”
Even her friends thought she was a basket case. She chucked her phone back into her purse, sniffling. Well, that might all change if she could quit acting like one.
Wretched. She felt absolutely wretched. And embarrassed. And confused. And…she shifted in her seat, remembering his touch tunneling deep inside her. Um, yeah. She was unbelievably horny on top of everything else. Every inch of her skin was so sensitized even the graze of her clothing was almost too much to bear. She knew the reason. She wanted to be nak*d and pressed against every hot inch of him. It’s where she could be tonight, if she could only stop freaking out. She wanted sex, dammit. Raw, scorching, amazing, merciless sex.
The irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d just made one guy go from zero to sixty in two-point-five seconds. A bar full of guys who would probably be more than willing stood a few dozen feet away from where she sat. She should take one home and get the whole thing over with already. Lose it to an anonymous stranger, no strings attached, and come away from it with her heart still fully intact and worth giving to somebody, someday. Brian would only take a piece of her with him, and right now she didn’t own enough of herself to share.
He still hadn’t left. Maybe he was hoping she would change her mind and run back to him. She wanted to. One night, if nothing else. Even if she left his apartment tomorrow morning and never saw his face again, would she really regret it more than taking home a complete stranger? It didn’t make any sense. He was someone she liked and respected and…well, she loved him.
Other people might struggle with admitting that particular emotion, but to her, it was quite a simple truth, and at the root of all the confusion. She loved him. Probably from the moment Michelle had introduced them almost two years ago, her heart had been his for the taking. The first time their eyes met, the helpless organ had lost its steady, sure rhythm. It had tripped over itself, and she’d been following suit ever since.
Her fingers tightened around the door handle before she realized she was gripping it.
See? Even your body knows what to do. Go back, you stupid girl. Go.
Brian’s taillights suddenly flared red and she jumped in her seat, thinking it was now or never, do or die…but he whipped out of the parking space and lurched forward so fast she could imagine he would run her down if she tried to stop him. Releasing the door handle, she collapsed in her seat and stared down at her hands while his truck zoomed past. She expected him to lay rubber when he hit the street, but he didn’t. He eased out and was gone.
Well, you did it. Are you proud? Now go home and drown in misery.
Goddamn it all to f**king hell.
So many things he wished he had or hadn’t done. He shouldn’t have let her chase him away. But since he had, he should have gone back in the bar and drank until he puked.
But he couldn’t. No, he was going to have to go back to his frigging apartment and jerk it so he didn’t end up with a case of blue balls to go in the books. Finding another girl to slake his frustration wasn’t an option. He would hate her for not being the one he wanted, the one he could’ve been bringing home tonight. And he wasn’t up for the hate f**k tonight.
Home was his destination, but as he passed his parlor—all darkened and closed up tight—he whipped his truck into the parking lot without really thinking about it. Home would depress the hell out of him right now. If he watched a movie, he would only wish she were there watching it with him. When he went to bed, he would only remember that she could’ve been there with him if he wasn’t such an a**hole.
There was stuff at work he could do to mellow him out, keep him occupied. Several designs were dancing through his thoughts even now, all of them involving splattered, stabbed or otherwise mutilated hearts. He’d inked his own onto Candace the day she’d come in here. There was really no denying it.
Entering the front door and closing and locking it behind him, he sighed with relief. This was his sanctuary. It was the very thing he’d dreamed of since he was eighteen years old: helping other people achieve their self-expression. And while he was still pretty much in Candace’s boat and in debt to his dad for helping him out, the old man was getting back every red cent. Thank God he didn’t really keep Brian under his boot heel like Candace’s folks did her.
He guessed he didn’t have a whole lot to complain about, when he stopped to consider it. They were all looking out for him, in their own obnoxious, meddlesome way.
Leaving the front lights off, he headed to the back and got a Monster out of the fridge in the break room. His employees left crazy messages to one another on the bulletin board in there, a little running joke. There was a new one for him: “B: You totally need to get laid.” It looked like Ghost had written it. He smirked. Apparently he really had been in a funk all night.
Grabbing a Post-It from the counter, he scribbled, “Talk to your sister, she’s not fulfilling my carnal needs of late,” and tacked it up amid all the other good-natured insults and name-calling.
Yeah, he often complained of being treated as if he was fourteen again, but he damn sure enjoyed acting like it. Something else there was really no sense in denying.
Except where Candace was concerned. She called forth a violent protectiveness in him he’d never known before, and it was kind of freaking him out. Oh, he’d always been capable of the alpha male bit, had never liked another guy sniffing around his turf, but this was…different. Those feeling had been about marking his territory. These were a deep, primal need to defend something precious to him.
He wanted to be with that girl. He wanted to take care of that girl. He wanted to give her whatever she wanted in life and beat the ever-loving shit out of anyone who ever hurt her. That included pretty much her entire family right now.
Shit. Ordinarily he would think there was no way she could have him so sprung after one night, but this had been ongoing for a while, hadn’t it. He just hadn’t realized, and he damn sure didn’t want to think about how long it had been or he might feel more wretched.
Once he left All That Remains’ “Two Weeks” playing so loud on the stereo system it drowned out most of his chaotic thoughts, he carried his energy drink to the drawing room, prepared to spend the night there until he exorcised some of this aggression. If he was here until the sun came up, so much the better. Maybe the harsh light of day would kill some of this dark passion he had roiling inside him. Drill some sense right between his eyes when he walked outside in the morning.