One Lucky Deal (16 page)

“Were you serious about bringing me back out here?” Candace leaned back against the side of the truck with the quilt still wrapped around her shoulders. Tad looked down at her and stalled with his hand on the handle of his truck.

“Do you want to come back out here?”

“I don’t know why this is the first I’ve been here.” She sighed and looked over her shoulder at the party.

“Me either.” Tad smiled and came closer yet. When she brought her face back to Tad’s she found him closer still and her heartbeat took off. When her nose got a whiff of his scent, heat began pooling low in her abdomen. She was putting a cap on this, though, wasn’t she? “You were a big hit.”

“I don’t think everyone thought so.” Candace’s breathing went shallow.

“I thought so.” Tad’s voice was deliciously quiet, sensual—teasing. “But I’m a little biased.”

“You are?” Candace’s breath caught in her throat when he nudged just the tiniest bit closer to her.

“Yeah, I always love being with you.”

When he bent his head Candace wanted so badly for him to kiss her, but for her own self-preservation she did not want that at all. She closed her eyes. She leaned in a little, and then having a moment of clarity she turned her head quickly away. “What are we doing, Tad?”

Tad braced himself with his hands on the bed of his truck on either side of her. “I want you.”

Shocked, Candace’s gaze flickered back and forth between his two intensely green eyes as she desperately tried to file this somewhere in her brain where it would make sense.

“I want you, Candy—bad. I am doing my damnedest day in and day out to keep my hands off you, but I don’t want to. There’s a part of me that doesn’t think you want that, either. If that’s the case, come on, reach out and take what you want.” Tad brought one of her hands up to lie flat against his chest. “I just need to know where I stand with you.”

“Tad—” Candace didn’t know what else to say. She knew what she felt, but she was afraid it was a little more than Tad was offering to share with her. She could do casual sex. Hell, that’s all she’d been doing for years and preferred it that way actually, but sex with Tad was not casual.

Sex with Tad blew her socks off. It was intense. It made her feel needy and desperate, and afterward they were left scrambling to pick up the pieces of their friendship. Juggling sexual desire and friendship was a whole different game and she didn’t think it could end well.

She needed it to end well because Tad was her longest relationship. She didn’t even have too many long-term friends—her sisters, but they were genetically obligated to like her. Tad wasn’t, and he seemed to genuinely enjoy spending time with her. Now he was saying things that made her weak inside because she had fantasized about those words coming from his mouth, but she was afraid to do what he said and jump out and take what she wanted. In fear that it would be counterproductive to what she was going to want tomorrow or the next day.

Tad must have taken her nonanswer as answer enough and he took a step back. “All right.” He nodded before turning it into a shake of his head. He let out a wry cynical half laugh, half groan and opened the truck door for her.

Candace, not knowing what else to do, hopped up inside the cab and clenched her eyes tightly when her door slammed shut.

Candace worried her lip and looked over beside her to where he was. Her heart had not slowed down, not even a little bit. She looked at Tad. His hands were gripped tightly around the steering wheel. His knuckles were white in the blue dashboard light.

He was covered in happy playful splotches of paint but he still looked stern, sexy, and manly. God, she was rumbling for him inside and blazing like a goddamn forest fire. She was hot. His words just kept echoing in her head.
I want you.

She wanted him too.

I want you bad.

She wanted him badly too.

He’d also said he didn’t do relationships, but she couldn’t seem to hear that one echoing as loudly anymore.

Reach out and take what you want.

She wanted him.
I want him.

*

Tad could have sworn she wanted him back. He knew how a woman looked at a man when she was interested. He would have bet anything that Candace had been looking at him like that. Maybe she hadn’t—obviously she hadn’t.

He scored a lot, but that also meant that he’d faced his fair share of shutdowns. He’d always handled them well. This one, though, had sunk in and latched onto his bones. He was trying to shake it off his back as if it were nothing but it wasn’t nothing—not even close.

“Pull over.”

Tad looked around. They were closer to town but not by much. They were still on a dirt road surrounded by trees and wilderness everywhere. He looked over at her. Tad couldn’t figure out what she’d want him to pull over for, unless his sulky cold shoulder routine had pissed her off enough that she was threatening to walk. Tad shook his head. “I’m not pulling over.”

“Pull over.” She was firmer this time.

“No.”

“Goddamn you, Tad Dundee. Pull this truck over now.” Her voice held a bite to it that Tad hadn’t heard her use on him in a very, very long time. That wasn’t what made him pull over, though. It was the fact that she had unbuckled and had her hand on the door handle. She had even unlatched the door as if she was going to get out whether he pulled over and let her out safely or not. She looked just determined enough to jump out of a moving vehicle too.

“Jesus, Candace.” He pulled over. The truck jumbled over some ruts in the ground, formed in the spring when the ground was wet and soggy. He pulled all the way over until his truck was completely in the grass, not even close to being on the red dirt road any longer.

Candace hopped out, slamming her door shut. He watched her start back the way they came. “Candy,” he called to her. “I’m sorry. Just get back in the truck.”

To his surprise she walked around the back of the truck and was approaching his side of the vehicle. He put the truck in park as he tried to figure out what in the hell she was up to. Candace pulled his door open. She reached over and quickly released his seat belt.

“Get out,” she demanded.

“What? Why?” But Tad found himself jumping out of the truck regardless of her reasons. She pulled him until he was standing directly in front of her. Boxing herself in manually, she placed his hands on the side of the truck as they had been just before they’d left the party.

The truck was rumbling against his palms, as the engine was still running, and the headlights were still streaming a ways up ahead of them. “Say it again.”

“What?”

“You know what. Say it again.”

*

She watched Tad’s eyes searching out hers, and when the realization flooded his vision she saw it. Her breath caught in her lungs. Her heart hung in suspension and she was suddenly worried, now that her brain had caught up with her actions, that he’d changed his mind about her.

He stood up from the lean she’d put him in. She closed her eyes and braced for the rejection she was pretty sure she deserved and then she heard him speak.

“I want you.” It was so much throatier than the first time. It was raw and husky and this time it did more for her than it had the first time. Her eyelids fluttered open and she searched his face. “I don’t remember what else I said.”

“It’s okay.” Candace took a step closer. “You got the important part.” She was going to reach up for him but she was nervous. She bit her lip and knew, though, that she had to call this. He was not going to be making another move without some reciprocation.

Candace tugged a little on his shirt front, bringing his mouth just a little bit closer to hers. “I want you too.” She nodded. “Bad.”

Tad groaned. “Candace—”

She shook her head because he seemed to think she was toying with him. So she jumped up to his mouth and pressed her lips against his. It took him no time at all to come into the kiss. He wrapped his arms around her tightly and held her to his chest. Tad growled in pleasure against her lips.

He pushed her back against the side of the rumbling truck. She jumped up and wrapped her legs around his middle. She opened her mouth to him and they both sighed when their tongues slipped by each other’s.

Candace balled her fists in his short hair. She didn’t want to let him go. It felt like it took an entire lifetime to get here and she didn’t want this moment to end. She didn’t want Tad to pull away and for it to all be over with again.

Tad’s hand had inched up her under her shirt, and when he palmed her breast she tightened her grip around him with her legs. His mouth left hers so he could kiss along her neck, and she tilted her head back to give him all the access he desired.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Candace admitted breathlessly. “I’m an idiot.”

“Yeah, you are.” Tad laughed against her throat. “A very sexy idiot.”

“You really think I’m sexy?” Her voice caught. She wasn’t even a blonde.

Tad pulled back from her neck and gave her a look that told her she was crazy for even having to ask. “Baby…” He grabbed her hips and rubbed her intimately against him. “So sexy.”

Candace cupped his scratchy jaw in her hands and brought his lips to hers again. “I want you,” she whispered against them. “Tell me I don’t have to wait until we’re all the way home to have you.”

Tad groaned and tossed her down across the seat of his truck. “No. We’re not going to make it home.” Tad got back in his cab and shut the door behind him.

“Condoms?” Tad pointed to the glove box. She opened it and there were at least three in there. She grabbed one. “There are some times when I really love that you’re such a slut.”

Tad moved her legs over, and she repositioned herself to let Tad slide all the way to her side of her seat. Then she straddled him. “Oh, come on.” Tad nuzzled her neck and pushed her shirt from the back up over her head, mussing her hair in the process. “You’re the only one I’ve slept with in over a month.”

Candace smiled because she loved that. Her smile turned into something else altogether when Tad expertly removed her bra and tossed it aside. She watched him look at her and it had her hot enough that she couldn’t stand that he was wearing any clothes at all.

She tugged on his paint-splattered shirt. There was still paint smeared on his neck and ear. She tossed his shirt aside with hers. His hands came up her ribs to cup her breasts in his callused, work-roughened hands.

“I love your breasts,” he whispered against her shoulder while she worked on his belt. “They’re my favorite.”

Candace laughed a little breathlessly as his buckle finally came loose. “Why are mine your favorite?”

“Because they fit in my hands so nicely.” He cupped her breast in his palm and kissed lower. “It’s just a little more than I can fit in my mouth.” Tad illustrated his point and generated a low whimper out of Candace as she ground against the bulge in the jeans she was trying to rid him of.

Tad raised his hips for her and sighed against her skin. “And because they’re sweet and always hard.” He ran a finger over her hard, wet nipple, and Candace bit back another whimper. “Always hard—always. God, I love that.” She didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or turned on that he’d noticed that. She was currently a strange mixture of both. “And because they’re yours,” he hoarsely whispered into her ear after kissing his way up her neck.

His words, his whispers and—oh God—his whiskers had her panting and grinding on him. She didn’t want to wait. She was cramped; her head bent against the roof as she rose up on her haunches so she could unhook Tad’s button and then work his straining fly down.

She couldn’t get it. Her head was pressed against the low-hanging headliner. He was so hard his zipper was angry about it and it didn’t want to budge. She
needed
it to. She wanted what was inside. Every time she moved against him he bit his lip and grew even harder.

“Jesus, Tad.” Candace continued to struggle. “Help me out here.”

“Are we getting impatient?” Tad smirked as his hands came down to brush hers away. Candace started working on shucking her own pants.

“Yes.” She nodded. “And it’s not a new thing. I can’t take it. I need it, like now.” Candace took a deep breath as Tad moved aside so she could use the seat to sit down and kick out of her pants. “I need you.”

Tad pushed his pants down around his ankles. He couldn’t seem to get them off any farther unless he took his work boots off. He didn’t appear to want to take the time to monkey with them. Candace was glad for that. She didn’t care if he left his pants on around his ankles. She was here—she was ready, and she wanted him—
needed
him. She’d actually told him so. He responded by pulling his pants down but not bothering to take them off. It didn’t get much better or more urgent than that.

Candace finished shucking her pants before she tore the packet with her teeth and spit aside the tiny triangle from her mouth. “I’ve always wanted to do that.” She laughed briefly before she sat up a little to roll it on him. He was groaning before she even touched him.

“I think I’ve always wanted to see you do that.” His words were strained with need.

“Maybe I’ll give you a second viewing later.” She lay back, tugging him down across the seat with her.

*

“Oh God.” Tad buried his face in her neck as she guided him to her opening. “Tell me that’s a promise.”

“Oh, it’s a promise.” He felt Candace smile against his shoulder and raise her hips for him. He gripped them and with gritted teeth he pushed inside her. He lost his breath in a great exhale.

Tad was buried deeply inside her before he cupped her face and kissed her fully on the mouth again. “You feel better than I remember—every single time. How do you do that?”

He slid his thumb between the two of them and found her swollen, hot and so wet. He cursed and then moaned her name. “You’re the hottest fucking thing.” He shook his head in disbelief and kissed her hard. “I swear to God…” He sucked her lip roughly and bit down a little before soothing the bite with his tongue.

He teased her into a frenzy. She was bucking and wiggling beneath him, begging for a release. He pressed his forehead against hers and tried to pull back a little. Tad was afraid that seeing her so hot for him was going to push him over the edge before he took her there.