“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.”

“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 f**k 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 ni**les 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 pu**y 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.”

“I want it,” she murmured, the simplicity of the statement sending another surge of arousal up his shaft as she lifted herself high on her knees and held his c**k in position to impale herself.

“Sure you’re up to this?” he whispered, knowing the answer but needing to be sure.

“Oh, yes,” she breathed.

“Good girl.”

He reached out and tugged the crotch of her panties to the side, biting back a moan at how damp the fabric was. Given that, he had to touch her there, had to get some of it on his fingers, had to feel how hot she was. Otherwise the shock of her hitting his c**k might cause him to erupt on the spot.

She paused to let him play, her thighs trembling. She felt so good, so swollen, so wanton. He loved that she needed him so much. When he couldn’t touch her another moment without losing his mind, he jerked her into position and kept her panties wrenched to the side as she eased herself down over him. Her little white teeth sank into that lovely, trembling lower lip as she did so, and he wanted to growl from the very sight of it.

This time, her body drew him right into her tight, wet heat, deeper, drinking him in. There weren’t words for it. Rivers of sensation shot up his shaft, pulling every muscle in his body to the breaking point. Candace moaned, wrapping her arms around him as he locked tight into her body.

He smeared his lips down her throat. “I love that. All wrapped up in you.” Grasping her ass cheeks in his palms—he wanted to weep, having an ass like hers in his hands—he slowly lifted her until he teased only the shallow depths of her pu**y. Candace wiggled and bit his neck, rolling her hips in circles until he couldn’t stand it anymore and lowered her on him again. She threw her head back and gasped, that molten gold hair flipping back behind her shoulders. Just as he was marveling at how wet she was on his dick, her moisture flowing down around him, coating him…