Candy Boys (Hot Candy 1)

It rings a faint bell. “Bry…” Not sure I want to hear about Joel’s scandal right now. Or think about him and Jet, period.

“It was a picture of him,” Brylee says, obviously not noticing my pained tone. “Jacking off with two girls. Guess who one of them was?”

“Who?” Dread is curling in my stomach.

“Ellen Davenport. Guess all that pretending she didn’t want him was all for show. He slept with her all right.”

I feel sick. He told me… What did he say? That he’d never even kissed Ellen.

He lied to me. What else did he lie about? And I know it sounds hypocritical when I’m debating which parts of the truth to tell them, but God… I’m debating whether to tell them how long I’ve wanted them, while he lied about wanting Ellen, about having sex with her.

Who’s to say he isn’t still seeing her?

“Know what?” I hop off the bed and head toward the kitchen. “Hot chocolate won’t cut it tonight. We need something stronger.”

Chapter Twenty Three

JOEL

In my dream, Jet is lying still, too still, in a growing pool of blood. I try to wake him up, but he won’t. He can’t.

Again I wake up drenched in cold sweat, my heart pounding.

This is fucking nuts.

Like always, I pad over to his room to check on him. When I see his chest rising and falling, I relax.

This has to stop.

I come awake, not sure why, and now I can’t go back to sleep. My goddamn brain won’t rest.

Normally after mind-blowing sex like I’ve just had tonight with Candy and Jet I drop like a rock—but between the newness of this threesome thing, Candy’s admission and sudden flight… Yeah, with all that plus my worry about work and the uneasy feeling I get when I’m there, it’s no wonder my sleep is shot.

At least I didn’t dream of Jet dying this time.

Throwing the covers off me, I pad to the bathroom to drink some water and take a piss. Maybe I’ll watch some TV until I fall asleep on the couch. I’d read, but I’m too tired to focus on actual words.

My plan goes to hell when I enter the living room and find someone sprawled on the sofa already, the TV playing on mute.

“Jet?” I prepare to shove him over and demand he make space for me, when I realize his eyes are closed.

Fucker is asleep. He’s twisted in an awkward position, though, on his stomach, his legs tangled in the cushions, his face buried in the crook of one arm. He’s only dressed in black boxer briefs, the ink on his upper back and arms stark against his pale skin. A few swirls of black decorate his lower back, too: a sort of curling wave.

I study his tattoos. It’s beautiful, arresting art, dark and sprawling and complex, like him. I stare at them, wondering like every time what they mean to Jet. There’s a violence in them I don’t like, and I wish I knew more about his past. I wish he’d tell me.

/> He shifts uneasily, twisting his legs more, one arm clutched over his head. His drawing pad is on the floor where it must have fallen out of his hand.

Fucker was working on the comic. The page I can see looks fucking awesome. How can he breathe like that, though? His damn face is stuffed in the cushions.

I sit down on the edge of the sofa, rub my hands over my face. The TV is playing some late night show with women dressed as bunnies and men in caveman gear chasing them.

Fuck, is that a thing? I imagine Candy dressed as a bunny, and my dick perks up. Huh. Guess it could be. My dick sure thinks so.

Jet mutters something unintelligible into the cushion and then moans.

The sound freezes me up. It’s not a good, I’m-having-a-good-time moan. It sounds like he’s in pain.

“Jet.” I stretch over to put a hand on his shoulder, but his head comes up and collides with my fingers.