Wanting Mr. Cane (Cane 1)

“Just promise that you won’t avoid or ignore me. Things will change, yeah, but don’t let it be for the worse.”

He was quiet for several seconds. All I could hear was my pulse in my ears, trying to find a steady rhythm again. “I won’t avoid or ignore you, as long as you promise to behave when we’re around your family.”

I turned over, pushing my pelvis into his and sliding into his arms. “I promise.”

He kissed my forehead. “Good.” Stroking my cheek, he let out a deep sigh, looking over me to the window. “I haven’t felt this good before. Complete like this. It’s a strange feeling.”

“How so?”

“To be in bed with another woman and not want to leave? With Kelly it was just a quick fuck and separate showers. We’d lie in bed together but not for very long, and even while I held her like this…I didn’t really feel anything. But with you…” He trailed off, dropping his eyes to mine. The moonlight made his shimmer, and I saw more green than gray this time. “I feel everything, and I don’t understand it. Being with you is fucked up, we both know that, but…it feels so fucking right. And sometimes I hate how right it feels. If it felt wrong, it’d be much easier to let go. End it.”

“I feel the same way,” I confessed. “If only we both felt the same way you did with Kelly. A small connection. Maybe it would be a lot easier.”

“Maybe.”

I pressed my lips, a sudden guilt sweeping over me. “Why’d you have to be my dad’s best friend?” I laughed, but the laugh hurt my chest and my heart. “Why couldn’t you be a stranger I met on a bus or a plane or even in a dirty bathroom?”

“Why’d you have to want me so damn bad?” His laugh was deep and sweet and made my belly flutter. “And why did I have to want you just as much?”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled. My eyelids became heavy again, my whole body sated. It was amazing how content he made me. I’d never been so settled in all my life. “I don’t think we’ll ever know. I just know that it’s hard as hell to fight it.”

He was still stroking my cheek. His touch was comforting. I loved it—being caressed and held like this. I felt safe and whole and my body oozed with warmth and pleasure. I didn’t want to be anywhere else but in his arms.

“Well, one day,” Cane whispered, just as I was drifting off to sleep, “fighting is what you’ll have to do to save yourself from me.”

I fell asleep before I could respond.

39

CANE

I watched her sleep until slivers of gold spilled over the horizon and the sky transitioned from a silvery, midnight blue to an orange-y haze.

I’d never seen anyone sleep so peacefully. My family hardly ever slept, and if they did, it was because they were shit-faced and had passed out. Being around someone this good for so long was strange to me.

I truly couldn’t figure out what made Kandy so different, though I’d thought about it many times. For a while, I thought that maybe it was because she was my best friend’s daughter. I’d watched her grow up, spent many years around her and her family, which created an automatic bond.

Maybe it was because she understood me, too. She gave me what I needed during all the right moments, and received just as much from me.

But the biggest reason that hit me was that I knew I wasn’t supposed to want her. Our illicit time together gave me a thrill, even though that thrill could turn out to be my downfall.

If there was one thing I knew about myself, it was that I liked to torture myself. Sometimes I felt like I needed the punishment, especially when things in my life were going too well. I would rather punish myself than let the universe fuck me over.

I loved Kandy. I loved that little girl so fucking much. It started as something innocent and friendly, and blossomed into more. It hit me like a train when I realized how I felt for her. Before the night Derek was shot, she was just…Kandy. Just a girl. My best friend’s daughter, a friend, and nothing more. But after that, I saw her in a new light. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, I realized. She had breasts and full hips, and a beautiful, fresh face. Her creamy, tan thighs and ass had filled out so much. I noticed all those things and began to want her.

All I could think about was Kandy Jennings after that. At work. At the gym. While I traveled. Even in those rare moments when I dreamed. It was always Kandy.

She deserved so much better than this. I wasn’t the right man for her, and deep down, she knew that, but she wanted me anyway. Once this weekend was over, blissful moments together like this would never happen again.