Just Like Candy Read online

  She rewrapped the thick towel around her oiled body and walked back to her bedroom and toward her closet.

  Candy stared at the contents of her closet for long moments, just trying to figure out what she’d wear for the day.

  It wasn’t like she had that many choices. Her closet was filled with all very similar clothes. The main differences were the pattern and color.

  The closet was filled with an assortment of long, loose-fitting dresses, a few pairs of jeans she’d had forever, what looked like a hundred T-shirts and tons of various colored and textured fabric.

  Just fabric.

  She wore her various fabrics most often. She’d stand with her legs spread apart so when she finished wrapping it, the fabric would swing natural and loose on her body. Holding both ends of the fabric in each fist, she’d then start wrapping the cloth around her body and end when the tips met, and knot it.

  She’d first started wearing fabric in college, after sharing a room with an exchange student from Ghana, but had soon loved the style so much she adopted it as her own.

  Candy had grown so used to wrapping herself, as her father once put it, that she never gave it much thought. Throw on a T-shirt, some chunky jewelry and she was good to go.

  As the director of a girls’ recreation center, thankfully, formality in dress wasn’t a job requirement, or she’d be in trouble.

  Growing up with a free-spirited parent, one who drifted from job to job, toting his small family with him, Candy had never given fancy clothes or designer labels much in the way of consideration.

  Often as a child, she’d had little more than the clothes on her back and a few other garments stowed in her knapsack when they moved on to the next job, the next town…the next opportunity.

  Today she opted to wear her luxury for the month: a new pair of jeans. She removed the jeans from the shelf in the closet and with near reverence ran a caressing hand over the material.

  She rarely bought anything new and when she did, it generated a feeling of guilty pleasure. But this time she ignored the guilt and focused on the thrill of the purchase.

  She grew tired of her self-inflicted guilt whenever she would buy some new thing or other, but old habits died hard.

  She carefully removed the price tag from the waistband of the jeans, not wanting to rip a hole in the soft material. She set the jeans aside and reached back in the closet to withdraw one of her favorite T-shirts and donned it.

  Before she eased the jeans up her legs and fastened the buttons on the low-riding waist, she tried to place the ends of the shirt inside but the ends didn’t quite make it and the gemstone in her belly ring showed.

  She caught enough grief about her lack of conventionality without showing off one of her piercings, so she reluctantly removed the shirt and reached for another.

  After putting on the second shirt, she nodded her head in self-approval. This one, although only fractionally longer, would do. It should stay in place, at least enough to cover her ring.

  A loud purr and strong push against her legs made her look down. Russell was twining his large body around her legs.

  “Are you hungry, big boy? Okay, okay, let Mama get her shoes and we can get us both something to eat, all right?” she both promised and asked.

  She rooted around the closet for her Birkenstocks. Once she located them, at the back of her closet, she slid the comfortable shoes on her feet.

  She turned and hefted the loudly purring cat into her arms and left the bedroom.

  “And maybe you can convince Mama all she needs is a good man, a real man, and all her nocturnal longings will be a thing of the past. Hmm? What do you think, boy?”

  The only answer the cat gave was to leap agilely from her arms, despite his massive size, and land gracefully at her feet. He quickly walked ahead of her toward the kitchen and breakfast, mewing so loudly he sounded more like a lion than a domesticated cat.

  “Men are all the same. One thing on their mind, and unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be me. Dang it,” she muttered to the empty room at large, before, with a self-pitying sigh, she followed the cat into the kitchen.

  2

  “A re you going to let me do it this time?”

  He waited with his breath held, waiting to see if she’d find his desires kinky and tell him to go straight to hell.

  She didn’t say anything, only looked at him from the corners of her big brown eyes, and he knew better than to rush her. The last time he had, she’d done exactly what he was afraid she’d do this time. She’d told him to go straight to hell. It was all a part of the game.

  “Do you think you’re ready for that, Davis? Are you ready for me?” she asked from behind the large desk, across the room from him.

  He stood and slowly walked over to her and looked down at himself as he did so. Judging from the raging hard-on he had, he’d say that was a definite yes. He took the base of his penis in one hand and stroked down to the end of its his bulbous, cum-filled tip and lifted his eyes to watch her as he did so.

  The quick breath she inhaled, coupled with the swipe of her tongue against her lush bottom lip, showed Davis that she liked what she saw and was ready for him.

  She sat behind her desk, wearing one of those wraps of fabric she loved to wear, one leg planted on the floor, the other over the arm of the chair, swinging back and forth, pendulum style.

  As he stood within a foot of her, he was surprised to see her skirt was much shorter than what she normally wore. It was so short in fact, he could see the dark, tight, curly thatch of hair surrounding her glistening pussy as it played peek-a-boo with every swing of her leg.

  She loved to tease him. Loved to see how far he’d allow her to take it, before he lost it and demanded she give him what was his. He knew it, but played the game anyway.

  She was ready.

  Davis could tell from the way her small breasts heaved, the look in her pretty brown eyes…and the glistening of cream easing down the inside of her smooth brown thigh. He bent his head, leaned in and inhaled.

  Damn.

  The scent of her pussy was a pungent combination of hot chocolate and peppermint. Heady and sweet, just like her. He reluctantly lifted his head.

  “You’re always ready for me,” she purred. “Physically.”

  When she amended her statement, he felt the first stirrings of unease.

  The uneasiness turned into a more demanding churning in his gut with her rebuttal.

  “But what about Gail?”

  “Damn it! She has nothing to do with this. With us! This is between you and me, and my wife has nothing to do with it!” He pressed her unresisting body down onto the desk.

  With a determination born out of frustrated desire, he pulled her short skirt higher. Grabbing the backs of her thighs, Davis lifted them over his arms. He leaned into her mound and stroked her, deeply, with his tongue.

  In satisfaction he watched as she nearly bucked him off her small body with the first touch of his mouth against her silken folds.

  “Oh god, Davis…what are you doing to me?” she panted.

  “It’s not what I’m doing to you, but what I have planned to do to you, that you have to worry about. What we both have to be worried about,” he promised grimly and leaned back in, prepared to give her what she’d been wanting, what he’d been craving, for nine long months.

  Ringgg. Ringgg.

  Davis was jerked awake when the jarring sound of his BlackBerry rang. He wanted to roar in anger and frustration with the interruption. Fuck! Even though it had been a dream, he’d been so damn close he could smell her distinct scent in the aftermath of the dream.

  He reached over and picked the cell phone up from the nightstand and stabbed the talk button viciously.

  “Hello.” His voice was scratchy from sleep and his dick was hard as a damn rock due to the familiar, erotic dream he’d been snatched out of reluctantly.

  “Davis? Are you okay?” a soft feminine voice asked hesitantly.

  “Yeah,
I’m fine. Just was asleep is all. What’s up, Mil?” he grumbled.

  “I didn’t interrupt anything, did I?”

  He heard the doubt in his sister’s voice. He was so predictable, it never crossed Milly’s mind he might actually have a living, breathing woman in his bed.

  By all rights, he should have one lying beneath him, limp and fully satisfied, instead of the dream lover he’d bedded. And even in his dreams, he’d only gotten a small sample, Davis thought in disgust.

  “No, it’s fine. I needed to get up anyway.” He looked over at the alarm, surprised it was already seven a.m.

  “I can give you a call back, once you’re awake,” Milly volunteered.

  “Just give me a few—make that fifteen—minutes so I can shower.”

  “You’re not running? Things change since I’ve been gone?”

  Milly had only recently returned from an extended time away from both the town of Stanton and Strong Construction, the family business.

  “No, I don’t have time today. I need to get out to the site in a couple of hours. We break ground today and Rodney can’t make it,” he said, mentioning his operations manager.

  Usually Davis ran three miles every morning without fail, but the dream had kept him enthralled so strongly his internal alarm hadn’t gone off.

  “Okay, I’ll give you a call back in a bit,” she agreed and they hung up.

  When Davis disengaged the phone, he reluctantly got out of bed and made his way, barefoot, to the adjoining bathroom. After adjusting the showerhead, he allowed the water to heat before he stepped inside the steaming, black-tiled, roomy stall. He turned his body fully into the hot, stinging spray and rubbed both hands over his face.

  He’d had the dream again. This time, he’d almost gotten a real taste of her, this time he had been determined to shut his brain off and allow his libido to take over.

  No thinking about the past, present or future. No thinking about Gail, his late wife.

  Not this time.

  This time he was going to fulfill the desires he and his dream lover had been flirting around with for the last nine months. This time he wasn’t going to think, even if it was just a dream, about anything but the pleasure two willing bodies could give each other.

  He turned his face upward, allowing the invigorating spray to wash over his face, and thought about the woman who played the starring role in his dreams.

  Candice Cain.

  The kids called her Miss Candy. Her name alone was silly and immature.

  He had no damn business thinking of the young woman constantly, not to mention the wet dreams where she’d been cast in the starring role. Dreams reminding him of his adolescence they were so graphic. Hot and so damn real he woke up hard as hell, dick in hand, with cum splashed against his thigh.

  Shit.

  He was too old for her. He was almost forty years old and Candice couldn’t be any older than her early twenties. Not only that, but she appeared to be the exact opposite of Gail.

  He’d always been careful, sexually, with his wife. Before she’d been sick, she’d been the same way. When they’d made love, Davis had always been forced to hold back.

  And it had been damn hard to do.

  He was a man with a strong sex drive. After one disastrous time when he’d been less than…gentle, Gail had made him feel like a pile of shit. From that time on, he’d refrained from deviating from the norm with her, the sex had been done straight missionary style, and once he came, Gail quickly eased her body away from his.

  He definitely never thought to ask her to do some of the freaky shit he’d had on his mind of late, when he saw or thought of Candy.

  Damn, it was getting worse and worse every day. With everything going on with his daughter, it was a complication he didn’t need.

  He didn’t know what had come over his Aunt Mildred when she’d suggested to the board to hire Candy as the center’s director.

  Candice Cain had come barreling into his life nine months ago and things hadn’t been the same since.

  Aunt Mildred had been in the process of turning the reins of the business over to him and his sister, Milly. She’d told him she’d found the perfect replacement for the previous center’s director, who’d retired.

  Girls Unlimited had been one of Mildred’s projects and she’d held a position on the board for years. The board members respected her, just as they appreciated her sizable donations to the center. Therefore, when she’d found a replacement they’d eagerly accepted the young woman without hesitation.

  But Davis had enough reservations for them all. There was something about Candy, besides her youthful appearance, that made him question his aunt’s judgment.

  She was an intelligent young woman—she had a bachelor’s as well as a master’s degree in psychology and early childhood development. The girls seemed to like her and she’d made some noticeable improvements already in the time she’d been the director.

  Still. He wasn’t going to bring Candice into the picture and ask for her help with his daughter. To do so would be a set-up for disaster. He had enough problems with Angelica without adding the complications of Candice.

  “I don’t know what the hell is going on with Angel, Milly. What would you do? I’m at a loss. I freely admit it.”

  Davis held the receiver propped between his ear and the top of his shoulder as he searched the fridge for something decent to eat.

  His housekeeper was on vacation and he hadn’t bothered to go shopping for groceries since his daughter, Angelica, had been spending the last few days with her great-aunt Mildred, after her latest bout of trouble.

  With pure disgust, he noticed the refrigerator was all but bare. There was nothing in its hollow caverns but a quart of milk, butter, a half-dozen or so eggs, juice and a carton of vanilla yogurt. He needed to eat something more substantial than yogurt, so he opted for the eggs, milk and butter and hunted for bread.

  “French toast will work,” he mumbled after scanning the refrigerator.

  “What? Who are you talking to?” his sister asked.

  “No one. Who else would be here other than me anyway? Anne’s on vacation and Angel is with Aunt Mildred. It’s just me, myself and I.”

  “And I thought I had no sex life.” Although she spoke low, in an aside, Davis heard the comment.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” As he spoke, he deftly cracked the eggs into the Pyrex bowl and added milk.

  He moved to the center of the kitchen and removed the pan hanging above the butcher-block island counter, placed it on the stove and added the half-stick of butter.

  “Damn…I’m out of real vanilla!” he scoured the cabinet, looking for the spice.

  “And I suppose you don’t have any of the fake variety, like a normal man would, huh?”

  “Fresh is best. Doesn’t taste right, otherwise. I think I have some nutmeg, that’ll have to work.” He added the powdered spice to his mixture.

  He brought out the wire whisk and beat the eggs, milk and spice to a frothy blend before he dunked the thick bread slices into the mix and carefully placed them into the sizzling pan.

  “I can smell it through the phone. Just what me and my hips need,” Milly groaned.

  “Thanks…but don’t think I forgot your little comment.”

  “What comment?”

  “About my sex life…or lack of one,” he mumbled and sucked his thumb when he burned it after flipping the French toast over by hand.

  The hot butter popped from the sizzling skillet, landing on his bared chest. Uttering a low curse, he jumped away from the stove.

  If Milly could see him using his hands and not a spatula, she’d probably revise her opinion about how “uptight” he was.

  He knew the impression he gave, to his sister, along with his daughter: that he was conservative, uptight and, if Angelica was right, a stick-in-the-mud.

  But what the hell else would any nine-year-old say after she’d been busted skipping school and her father wasn’t
jumping up and down cheering over the fact?

  He’d done the exact opposite and had gone off in nine different directions, beyond angry she’d done something so stupid.

  It made him wonder if he was doing a good enough job with her. Maybe what Anita Watson, her school principal, intimated, was true. Maybe she needed a stronger female presence in her life.

  Then again, he knew damn well Angelica’s well-being was not the reason for Anita Watson’s concern.

  “My sex life isn’t up for discussion, Mil. Angelica’s behavior is what’s paramount on my mind right now.”

  “I know. It’s what’s on mine as well.”

  “Did Angelica tell you why she did it?”

  “We didn’t talk about it when I spoke with her. I didn’t think it’s was a good idea to talk about it at the time. I think she’s been punished enough.”

  “I disagree. I don’t know what the hell to do. She’s skipping school and her entire attitude is changing. It’s like I have a different child, and I don’t like it, Milly. Gail is probably turning over in her grave,” he said and flipped the French toast onto his waiting plate.

  “Davis, you’re doing fine. You’ve got to expect this. Most kids go through a rebellious stage; don’t beat yourself up. And Gail isn’t turning in her grave. I don’t think Angel’s behavior has anything to do with her mother being dead. I think if Gail were alive, it would be something else.”

  “Yes, I know. You’re probably right, Mil, but lately, I keep remembering what Gail asked me, before she died.”

  “That you make sure Angel has a black female role model?”

  “Yes, I think maybe she was right.” He thoughtfully chewed the French toast. “Until now, I never gave it much thought. She has you and Aunt Mildred as good role models, so it’s not as though she doesn’t have any females in her life. But when you left, she didn’t have anyone. She lacked a mother figure to talk to and I think it was hard for her. She’s not as close to Aunt Mildred as she is to you.”

  “God, I’m sorry, Davis. I didn’t realize the impact on Angel when I left. I was being selfish,” Milly replied, sadness in her voice, and Davis instantly wanted to retrieve his words.