Hard Candy (9 page)

“
Shit, Penny. I don’t know. Mack is just complicated. We slept together back in high school, but we both knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere. He’d already gotten his scholarship, and I didn’t want to move away.”

Penny finally crouched down in front of him, placing her hands on his knees. “Is this all still from high school? Because if you’re this torn up after this many years maybe that means something.” As much as she wanted to be with Craig, she didn’t want to stand in his way if he wanted to be with Mack. And, yes, she never thought she’d be having this conversation.

“
No, he came back last year. Just for a weekend. We met up, and for lack of a better term, we hooked up.”

“
And?”

“
Then he left. And I started talking to you online, and all of my old feelings for you came back stronger than ever.”

She didn’t want to sound like a broken record, but this was important. “And Mack?”

“
I don’t know what I feel. Look, can we talk about this later?”

Penny shrugged. “What do you want to do instead?”

The look in Craig’s eyes was easy enough to read. But, he shook his head instead. “Maybe we should call it a night. You’ve had a trying day.”

No, they weren’t going to play it that way. She wasn’t going to lie and say that the idea of Mack and Craig together wasn’t getting her hotter than the fourth of July. She’d never had anything against seeing two men together, and the idea of
her
two men was an aphrodisiac in and of itself. They were her friends. Never mind that she hadn’t spoken to Mack in close to a decade. They’d been so close before that the years in between hardly mattered.

She wanted to get to know both men. She’d had the pleasure of becoming closer to Craig, and now she wondered if there was some way she could fix this so everyone was happy.

Penny wasn’t stupid, she realized that any kind of relationship with three people took hard work and half the time it didn’t work. How could it if you had three people who all wanted something different. But, if she didn’t try then she’d never know. She wanted to try. She just had to find a way to convince Craig and Mack it would be worth it. Actually, scratch that...she had to find out if there was any way Mack would be interested in a relationship that involved her. She’d walk away, but she wasn’t quite ready to do that, yet.

She couldn’t get the image of her dad’s letter out of her mind. He’d missed his second chance because he couldn’t forgive her mom for being with another man. Penny wasn’t going to judge anyone for their actions so long ago, but she could sure learn from it. With that thought in mind, she grabbed Craig’s hands and pulled him up to stand in front of her.

“
I need...”

“
What?” He brushed the side of her face with the backs of his fingers. So gentle, her Craig was.

Her Craig. She liked the sound of that. “I need you. Tonight. Please?”

“
Are you sure?” Craig asked.

“
More than I’ve ever been. I need you.”

“
I can do that,” he said, smiling at her wickedly.

He leaned down, capturing her answering smile in a heated kiss, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. She moaned in response, bringing her arms up to hold him close. Running her hands over his broad shoulders, she brought them down his chest to toy with the bottom edge of his tee.

Slowly, she drew the tee upward, moaning when he slid his mouth over her jaw to kiss along her neck. Penny gasped, pushing his shirt up and then laughing when it got caught around his head. Craig grinned at her, leaning forward once more to bite at her lower lip.

With his shirt free, he moved in, pulling her own tee up and over her head. Her shirt landed on the ground at their feet. His chest heaved as he looked down on her, bringing her eyes to the mass of golden flesh he had on display. He was seriously ripped, every muscle corded and hard. When the hell had that happened? She brought her hands forward to press against his chest, rubbing over his nipples.

“
You do know that this means I get to do whatever I want to you in response, right?” he growled.

Craig reached behind her, unsnapping her bra and letting it fall off her shoulders as he immediately went for her nipples, pinching them when she arched her back in response.

“
Yeah, I like the look of that.”

“
Oh God, Craig.”

She gasped when he grabbed her hips, pulling her hard into his body before pushing her back against the hallway wall. She stared up at him, panting for breath.

Craig squeezed his hands tighter on her hips, before moving one hand up and palming her breast. He leaned in further, his moist breath ghosting along her jaw line before he whispered in her ear.

“
Tell me you missed me.”

“
I did,” she gasped, her breath hitching as his fingers unerringly found her nipple, pinching it between his thumb and finger before soothing out the ache.

“
You’re so beautiful, you know that? I can’t get enough of you. I want Mack to see this, see you all splayed out for me. I just know he’s going to want you the way I do.”

She moaned at the demand of his fingers, close to shattering from just his words and his heated palm on her breast. He placed a tender kiss against her ear, before sucking the lobe into his mouth.

She ground herself against Craig when he inserted one iron hard thigh between her own, desperate to ease the throbbing in her pussy.

He continued to press his thigh against her while he administered to her aching breasts. Leaning his head down, Craig sucked one rosy nipple into his mouth, catching it with the edge of his teeth.

Without warning, he released her breast and dropped to his knees, causing her to gasp as she looked down at him. Sliding both hands up her thighs, he squeezed them gently.

“
Open up, Baby,” he growled.

“
Oh, God, Craig. Please...”

Pulling her thighs apart, he licked her stomach when she quivered from the feel of him against her body. He pressed moist, hot kisses against her. Undoing her jeans, he began to slide the thick denim down her thighs while he moved his mouth closer and closer to her core. She kicked her jeans off when they reached her ankles, eager to be as bare as possible.

Craig moved excruciatingly slow, placing bites and licks against her stomach as he neared her mound. He briefly nipped at the skin above her briefs before moving his mouth lower to blow hotly against her pussy, causing her thighs to tremble.

He suddenly stood, grabbing her around the waist and twisting to set her down on the bench set against the opposite wall. She felt the cool wood against her ass before he was once again kneeling in front of her.

He reached down with both hands and slid her panties off as he looked up and caught her gaze.

Craig caressed both ankles, releasing her gaze to look down at what he was holding in his hands.

He raised one leg, brushing his lips against her ankle, causing her to moan and lean her head against the wall behind her. He slowly moved his lips up her leg, lingering at her knee until she whimpered. She felt his smile bloom against her skin, tickling the inside of her knee. His hands were a hard presence against her calf, biting into the flesh.

He licked his way up her thigh. He paused briefly at her core, causing her to clench her thighs as she waited for his wonderful lips to kiss her right where she was dying for it.

Instead, she groaned when he lowered her leg, lifting its twin and starting the whole process again. He kissed around her ankle, before licking a path up her calf. His hands were hot as they pressed against her skin, following the curves when he slowly moved upwards again.

This time she was determined that he was going to touch her between her legs. Her pussy gave one welcoming spasm at the image of him before her. Releasing her hands from their death grip on the bench, she brought them to his head, letting her fingers tangle in the silky strands.

“
Please, Craig!”

“
Please what, Baby?” he asked.

“
Please...” she whimpered, unable to form the words.

Thank God, he didn’t make her spell it out for him. He chuckled darkly before spreading her legs further apart. Craig leaned in, exhaling a hot breath against her core as he stared at the results of his handiwork.

She glanced down to see him between her legs.

“
Christ Jesus. You did not have that before.”

His voice sounded tight to her ears, and her lips curled in response. She knew exactly how she must look, her bare mound would lead his gaze right to the glint of gold nestled at the top of her folds. There would be absolutely nothing to distract from the jewelry decorating her clit hood.

Craig leaned in once, licking up her slit to tease the gold barbell resting against her clit. She clenched her thighs. His hard hold on her legs was the only thing that prevented her from closing her legs when she moaned at the sensation.

He continued to tease with the tip of his tongue against the metal, causing the bottom ball to press against her clit with every movement. She gasped, shivering as she felt herself moving closer to a powerful orgasm. She couldn’t stand this. It had never been like this with any man she had been with before.

He leaned further in, taking the barbell in his teeth and tugging when he bit down. At the same time, one of his big hands released her thigh and he pressed two of his fingers into her.

She screamed when she shattered from the sensations. Her pussy pulsed while Craig continued to thrust his fingers into her, prolonging her orgasm. He rubbed his fingers inside her core, causing her to moan again when she was thrust back into another orgasm, just as strong as the first.

She tightened her hands in his hair, and had a vague notion that she might just pull out the thick strands if she wasn’t careful. But, oh God, it’d be worth it to see him bald as long as he didn’t stop what he was doing.

When he finally did stop his ministrations between her legs, she was one big mass of jelly. She didn’t think she would ever be able to move again.

Craig backed up after one last lick against her core, soothing this time instead of inflaming her senses and stared up at her.

Suddenly she was in his arms, and he was striding down the hallway toward the master bedroom.

Without pausing, he dropped her to her feet before pressing her backwards and lowering her to the bed. Stepping away, Craig stared at her laid out in front of him. She resisted her small urge to cover herself and instead just gloried in the heated expression in his eyes.

Craig’s hands went to his belt buckle, releasing his belt and moving to the button at the top of his jeans. He kept his eyes on her as he slowly lowered his zipper, letting the denim fall to his feet before stepping out of them.

She couldn’t breathe as she looked at the hard length of him on display.

He moved away briefly to grab a square of foil from his bedside table. With a winsome grin that had her heart clenching, he smoothed on the condom, watching her face as he did it. He was full of contradictions. This gorgeous man, who made her laugh harder than anyone else, had touched her in places she’d only ever achieved with him.

He moved forward to cover her body, capturing her mouth in a kiss when he pressed her down into the mattress. He ran his hands down her body and took hold of her hips as he ground himself into her softer flesh.

Then he was right where she wanted him, rubbing the head of his cock into her slick folds. They both gasped when he hit the barbell over her clit, and he repeated the motion when she arched up into him.

Craig buried his head in her shoulder as he pressed forward, pushing the length of himself inside her pussy. She moaned at the fullness, he was stretching her in the most delicious way. She brought both knees up to clutch against his waist. He began to pull back, and she gasped, pressing her thighs tight to keep him inside her.

Craig moaned once before he began to drive back into her body. She cried out as she felt herself hurtling toward an explosive orgasm, her body trembling and she held tight to him. She shattered, keening as she threw back her head in abandon. Craig growled, pressing into her once, twice, before joining her in release.