“The conference room,” she said with a crisp nod. “I’ll make sure your visitors are escorted out.”
Without delay, Turner opened the conference room door, where he found Kelly O’Connor and undercover agent Dante Cabrera, who had been beaten black and blue.
* * *
Candy knew it was ridiculous to feel this way, but she couldn’t help it—she felt a little disappointed. It was after ten o’clock and Turner wasn’t home. He hadn’t shown up at Lenny’s for lunch as he’d promised. He hadn’t even called. She’d spent the evening by herself in his house, watching satellite TV, eating a chef’s salad she’d brought home from the diner, and scribbling in her notebook.
Of course, he didn’t owe her an explanation as to where he was and when he’d be back. She wasn’t his wife—hell, she wasn’t even his girlfriend. Not really. In fact, the longer she thought about it, the more Candy realized she didn’t know what she was to him. What did it mean when a man called you “beautiful” and “baby” and brought you back to his house where he snuggled with you until you fell asleep? What did it mean when a man licked ice cream off your cleavage in a park and told you that you drove him fuckin’ crazy? What did it mean when a man made it perfectly clear that when the opportunity presented itself the two of you were going to go ravish each other?
Candy supposed all those things made her Turner Halliday’s potential girlfriend.
Okay, then. His potential girlfriend missed him, and she was disappointed that he hadn’t come home.
Candy wandered through the house, careful not to do anything that might be considered “nosy” while still getting herself acquainted with her surroundings. Turner’s bedroom was decorated in typical bachelor style—a brown and blue striped comforter, bare wood floors, very little on the walls. She guessed that he’d changed the look after Junie died, maybe to spare him from memories too painful to deal with every morning when he woke and every night when he tried to fall asleep.
Interestingly enough, there was only one photo of Turner and Junie that Candy had seen in the house. It was on the living room fireplace mantel, and it was a photograph from their wedding reception. The two of them were beaming, breathless, dancing with each other like no one else in the world existed.
Candy picked up the silver-plated frame so she could examine it closer. Junie had certainly been an attractive woman, her dark curls clipped loose at the back of her head, her exquisite white lace wedding dress tight on her slim frame. It struck her how perfectly Junie seemed to fit in Turner’s embrace, and how much love was conveyed in the way she looked into her new husband’s eyes.
And then there was Turner. She felt the slightest shiver of jealousy at his expression. He appeared transfixed by the woman in his arms. His handsome face was radiant. His smile was dazzling. Every bit of his attention was focused on her, his wife.
With a sigh, Candy placed the frame back where it had been, and in doing so noticed that a thin film of dust had settled on the mantel. She smiled. She could clean! It would pass the time. It would help earn her keep.
An hour and a half later, Turner’s house was spotless. She’d vacuumed, dusted, made beds, mopped the kitchen, and scoured both bathrooms, and all the while she’d let her mind swing back and forth between the questions and answers that haunted her.
Could Turner ever love her?
What a ridiculous question—she was leaving in two and a half months and that was that.
How would she compare to Junie? What if she wasn’t as sexy as Turner’s wife or as funny or as smart?
What a ridiculous question—she was probably leaving in a couple months.
And what if Candy fell hopelessly, madly, passionately in love with Turner Halliday? What would she do? What would happen?
What a ridiculous question. She probably would be leaving at some point.
To celebrate a job well done—and to clear her head—Candy took a long, hot shower. Then she painted her toenails in a dusky pink Lancôme shade she found at the bottom of one of her boxes.
It was twelve-thirty. Still no word from Turner.
Eventually, Candy gave up waiting. She checked to make sure the front door was locked and fell into the guest bed, exhausted, lonely, all her thoughts on Turner.
And she dreamed his arms encircled her, his weight was heavy against her, and the rhythm of his breathing rocked her to sleep.
* * *
Turner opened the front door and entered the house as quietly as possible, something he hadn’t needed to do for more than four years. He tossed his ball cap on the kitchen counter and took off his work shoes, leaving them on the rug by the front door. As he moved through the living room he stopped, sniffed, and whirled around.
The place was clean. Not that he’d ever let it get disgusting, but its current condition went way beyond tidy. It was immaculate.
He sighed. Candy shouldn’t have done this. He didn’t want her doing anything for him. She was his guest. She was …
Turner stopped in the hallway and peeked into the guest room. She’d fallen asleep with the bedside lamp on, a notebook and pen tossed aside, and one of her bare legs stretched out on top of the covers. A lump formed in his throat as he gazed at her. He itched to brush his fingertips down the back of her thigh, knee, calf. He yearned to put his nose in her blond curls and breathe deep. He ached to feel his lips on her soft and warm cheek.
Turner had to smile at how fast and completely he responded to Candy. His body was already humming and buzzing to life, simply being in close proximity to her.
Using all the self-restraint he possessed, Turner stepped into the room and turned off her lamp, then closed the guest room door.
He was so tired his body hurt. The day had been a crazy rush of emergency meetings with the task force and prosecutors, with efforts to obtain search warrants for the Spivey property and an arrest warrant for Gerrall, who had gone missing after the ruckus. With the picture Dante painted for them today, everyone agreed they were going to have to move fast before someone got killed in the chaos out in Preston Valley. Dante insisted it was safe for him to go back in, that no one had any suspicions about his identity, but Kelly fought him hard. Finally, it was agreed that he go to the Western Carolina Medical Center’s emergency room under his assumed identity, and go back to work with Spivey once he was patched up.
This entire operation was making Turner increasingly uncomfortable. Gerrall being unaccounted for made him anxious as hell, especially after Dante’s description of his erratic behavior the night he got fired. He wanted nothing more than to arrest Bobby Ray and his crew, shut down the meth lab, and get Gerrall behind bars.
Turner stripped out of his uniform and took a quick shower. He set his alarm for six and pulled down the neatly made bedcovers, slipping inside with a groan of relief. The weeks of pulling double shifts were really starting to wear him down. He closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come.
And he waited.
A half hour later, Turner sat up in bed and flipped on the light, knowing there was no way in hell his mind and spirit could rest while his physical form was on alert the way it was. His dick was so hard it was uncomfortable. It was as if his body instinctively sensed Candy’s presence through the wall, down the hall, behind the shut door. He was nuts if he thought sleep would find him.
Turner rubbed his hands over his face and sighed with frustration. He looked up in surprise when he thought he heard a soft tapping at his bedroom door. He listened carefully. There it was again.
“Yes?” he asked, his blood pounding in his head.
Candy pushed the door open a crack and peered in, a smile on her sleepy face. “Are you okay?” she asked, blinking into the light.
Turner couldn’t speak at first. She stood there in an old T-shirt and a pair of panties—at least he assumed there were panties involved but the shirt came down to the tops of her thighs so he couldn’t be sure—and he could see the outline of her breasts. He could see her hard little nipples under the
thin cotton fabric. Turner bunched the covers up over his erection, suddenly, painfully aware of his own nakedness.
This felt way too dangerous.
“Fine. Good.”
“I was worried about you,” she said, yawning, raking her fingers through all that thick hair. Turner noticed that she shifted her weight and stretched out one of those gloriously long legs, letting it poke through the crack in the door. He had to believe she didn’t know what she was doing to him. He had to believe that she was half asleep and didn’t realize she was driving him insane.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” he said, hearing a scratchy desperation in his own voice. “It was absolutely wild today.”
She nodded, then shrugged. “Okay.” Candy tilted her head slightly. “Sleep well, Turner. Good night.”
And she was gone. The door shut. He heard her footsteps heading down the hallway. He listened for the click as her door closed.
“Oh, fuck,” he whispered, rubbing his hands hard over his head. He felt as if he were going to die if he didn’t find release for all the pent-up lust inside him—lust for Candy—even if he had to do it himself. How pitiful could a man get?
Turner threw the covers off and staggered into the bathroom. He ran cold water in the sink, splashing it in his face until he’d knocked some sense into himself. He returned to his bedroom, but couldn’t put himself back in bed. Instead, he threw on some boxers, went to the door, pressed his ear against it, and listened.
What did he expect to hear? The sound of her breathing? Her voice calling out to him, begging him to come to her? Morse code?
This was ridiculous, he knew. He wanted her. She wanted him. He’d have to go get her.
Turner opened his bedroom door and gasped. Candy stood in the center of the hallway, eyes wide, biting her bottom lip, pulling down on the front hem of her T-shirt to cover her crossed thighs.
“Hi,” she squeaked.
“Oh, hell, yes,” he said, moving toward her.
Chapter 17
Candy couldn’t move and she couldn’t breathe. Turner was coming right at her, that slow and sensual walk of his sending electric jolts right into the sweet spot between her legs. He was mesmerizing, his body exquisitely naked from the waist up, his black boxer briefs revealing nearly as much as they hid.
She tried not to whimper, but she failed.
Candy swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She stared at him, illuminated by the overhead hall light fixture, unashamed that she was staring, determined not to miss a detail of that gleaming, smooth brown skin, the muscles and tendons rolling beneath the surface, the confidence in how he carried himself. Turner was surely tall and strong and masculine, but he was beautiful at the same time. He’d always been so.
She’d seen Turner in swim trunks a thousand times out at the lake, and it had been impossible not to notice his agility and grace. Whether he was swimming, diving, rowing, running—he’d always seemed to take joy in what his body could do. But those days had been a dozen years and a good twenty-five pounds of muscle ago, and Candy could honestly say that she’d never seen a man as fine as Turner in the flesh. No one in her life had even come close. And though she wasn’t a particularly religious woman, she said a prayer right then that she’d have other opportunities to study every facet of him, because right at that moment, she was too nervous to pay close attention. And she was running out of time.
Turner moved closer. His eyelids were heavy. His smile was sly. His hips rolled and the muscles in his torso and thighs rippled. She noticed he didn’t have much body hair at all. Oh, God, she planned to lick him everywhere.
Only a few seconds remained before he was right in front of her and the choice would be made. They would choose to touch each other. They would kiss and caress and devour each other—this time in private and barely dressed—and everything would change. Her life would change. His life would change.
Oh, God, it was happening.
Turner put his hands on her. He gripped her by the upper arms. He slid his grip up to her neck and down again to her wrists, where he clutched her tight. She thought she saw him nod ever so slightly before he lowered his mouth to hers, as if to reassure her that, oh, yes—he was fixin’ to have his way with her and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to put a stop to it.
And that was okay with her. Candy didn’t want to stop him. She wanted nothing more than to finally, truly, fully feel what it was like to be taken. Somewhere in the back of her brain this moment felt familiar. It felt ancient, like she’d dreamed of it and wanted it for as long as she’d been alive, like she’d always wanted Turner in exactly this way.
His lips landed on hers. The kiss started gently. Candy decided it felt like a kind of introduction, where Turner explained to her how it would be. With only the use of his lips and tongue and teeth and varying pressures and angles, Turner explained to her that she was his, and that he’d be taking her somewhere she’d never been but had always belonged.
He released her wrists. She raised them up, skimming her palms along the smooth front of his body, groaning in appreciation as the kiss intensified and her fingertips encountered firm muscle, tender nipples, a hard clavicle. Eventually she brought her hands up along the ridge of his shoulders, along the sides of his neck, then clasped her hands on either side of his head.
He used his tongue to nudge Candy’s mouth open, and she made everything available to him, everything delicate and vulnerable was his. He could have it. And he pushed his tongue into her and she felt it as intensely as if he’d just entered her pussy.
Turner began to walk forward, forcing Candy back. She had no concern about that. She didn’t need to know where he was pushing her. Whatever he chose was fine. She continued to edge backward until she felt her heel hit the baseboard. He pushed her until her butt thudded against the log paneling of the wall, then, more gently, the back of her head.
“Feel me,” he whispered. “Put your hands on me.” And though the instruction wasn’t specific, Candy knew exactly what he wanted. Slowly, she trailed her hands back down the front of his body, feeling the places she missed on the way up—his sternum, his ribs, his rigid abs, the protrusion of his hipbones. She slid her fingers down the front of his boxers, and opened her grasp to accommodate his width.
She had to keep opening.
“Oh, my God,” Candy whispered, looking down to where her hand linked their bodies.
“Let me get hard in your hand.”
Candy glanced up at Turner’s face, seeing the pleasure wash over him as he stared at the ceiling. His Adam’s apple danced as he concentrated on the gentle movement and squeeze of her hand.
“Um, you mean you aren’t hard?”
“No.”
Candy let her head fall back against the wall.
“Does that scare you?” Turner looked down at her, nothing but seriousness in his eyes—serious lust.
“Not at all.”
“Good,” he said, propping his hands on the wall over her head and leaning closer to her. “Because you’re going to be spending a lot of time with that big dick and the last thing you need to be is scared of it.”
She swallowed and nodded.
“I want you to love it. Crave it. I want you to get to the point where you can’t go a day without it.”
Candy tilted her head to the side as she cupped his balls in her hand. “A day? How about an hour? How about five minutes?” Then she nipped his bottom lip.
That’s when Turner kicked her feet apart, almost causing her to lose her balance. “I need this off of you,” he said, using his teeth to pull at the neckline of her T-shirt. As soon as Candy nodded, she felt his hands at the bottom hem. He ripped it over her head and she stood wearing only a pair of white bikini panties, breathing hard, her legs wide apart.
Turner’s mouth opened. “Lord have mercy,” he said. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“Ha!” She watched him rub his han
d roughly over his mouth, his chin, cheek.
“Is something the matter?”
“Ah, no.” When he rubbed his hand over the top of his head she knew he wasn’t telling the truth. She recognized his little dance of anxiety. She’d seen it the night he pulled her over and she kissed him for the very first time. She saw it again when they’d kissed in the parking lot of the municipal building. And now. She knew what it was—he hadn’t been with a woman since Junie died and it was a lot to process for him.
Right then she noticed that his hands were shaking. And that he was no longer wearing his wedding band. The realization hit her with a thud. She had no idea when he’d decided to remove the ring or why. All she knew was that it was a very big deal, and it was because of her.
“We can go as slow as you want,” Candy whispered, touching him gently along the side of his face, along his chin.
Turner chuckled. He shook his head slowly. “That’s not what I’m worried about, darlin’.”
“Tell me then,” she said. “Your hands are shaking. Your ring is gone.”
Candy sucked in air as she felt his fingers trail up the inside of her thigh. He leaned in and hovered over her, his lips grazing hers when he spoke. “Yes, I took off my ring. But my hands are shaking because I’m trying to hold back. I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop once I start.” His finger skimmed over the damp crotch of her panties and slid down the inside of her other thigh. “I’m afraid I’ll go at you so hard and for so long that you’ll run away and never come back.”
She laughed. “There’s only one way to know if you’re right.”
“Hmph.” Turner raised an eyebrow. “You’re in for it now, baby.”
Turner began kissing down her throat, across her chest, then dragged his lips and tongue to her breasts. Slowly, gently, he kissed and caressed each breast, cupped their weight in his palms, nuzzled his nose into her cleavage. After paying homage to them like that he began to suck on her nipples, first softly, then with more pull, his teeth nipping and tugging at her until she began to cry out.