Candy Store (8 page)

Deftly he threw his gloves to the ground and unbuttoned the fly on her snow pants.

Unzipping them, he slid his warm hands onto the soft skin of her belly. “I need to see if 53

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you’re telling the truth,” he said as his hand dropped another inch, just grazing the edge of her already damp mons. “Mmm,” he murmured against her ear lobe, sucking it into his mouth, “good so far.”

The feel of his mouth against her brought goose bumps to her skin that had nothing to do with the cold. She arched her hips into his hands, forcing his fingers to slide across her swollen nub into her wet folds. “Oh god,” she moaned.

“I want to see you come again, Callie,” he said. He made several slow, torturous circles on her clit and then slipped his fingers down into her labia, finally pushing her open with one thick finger.

Callie drove her hips into his hand.

“Come for me, sweetheart,” he said against her lips and Callie, who wanted to please him more than anything else in the world, felt everything inside and outside of her go perfectly still, as if the whole universe was waiting for her to explode.

Tobey’s hand stilled. He looked into her eyes. One simple word, “Now,” was all it took. She closed her eyes as the earth starting spinning fast, too fast. She came out of her body and lifted higher and higher. Everything turned red, then black, as pleasure coursed through her. And then she was kissing Tobey and he was kissing her back, their lips mating in perfect rhythm to her waves of ecstasy.

Tobey quickly stripped off his winter coat and laid it on the ground, seemingly impervious to the cold. Gently, he lowered Callie onto it. She lay back on her elbows and looked at him, excitement making her breath come out in short, quick white puffs of air.

“I wish I could take off all of your clothes and see you naked,” he said as he pulled her pants and soaked panties down far enough to spread her thighs.

“Later,” she moaned, not feeling the least bit inhibited about lying in the snow in the forest, naked from her waist to her ankles.

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Tobey nodded. “Later,” he echoed as he bent his head over her mound, lapping at her sweetness with his tongue. He ran his tongue up her lips, from her anus to her clit, giving equal importance to every square inch of engorged flesh.

Callie arched up into his mouth. She felt like she could come and come and come and come and it still wouldn’t take the edge off her arousal.

Tobey slipped his tongue inside of her vagina in one firm, long stroke and then another. Callie gasped and her muscles clenched around his tongue. His thumb found her clit and he plunged his tongue in and out of her as he swirled her firm bead.

She cried out as the orgasm ripped through her, her cries muted by the thick canopy of the pine tree. Tobey replaced his tongue with two fingers and sucked her clit into his mouth, faster and faster, harder and harder. Callie writhed beneath him, her fingers tangled in his thick brown hair as she pushed his mouth harder to her. She was tumbling through space, dizzy with pleasure.

Tobey reared up over Callie, pushing her thighs open just a little more so that he could kneel between her legs. Callie opened her eyes and saw his perfect cock, so hard and pushing out from his dark pubic hair, already sheathed within a condom. She wanted to reach out her hand to stroke him, to fill her small hand with the heavy weight of his shaft, but before she could even think about taking off her gloves, he was unzipping her coat and running his hands over her turtleneck, teasing her taut peaks and plunging his hips into hers.

“Squeeze your thighs together,” he said.

Callie barely managed to obey him, she was so concentrated on the feel of Tobey over her. On her. In her. She wrapped her hands around his shoulders to pull him closer to her while she squeezed her thighs together as tight as she could.

She felt his cock growing impossibly bigger within her with every stroke and suddenly she was floating and he was coming and saying her name and she was moving with him, bucking her hips up off the blanket of his jacket, trying to get closer to him, as close as she could possibly get.

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* * * * *

Afraid of crushing Callie, Tobey tried to prop his weight up on his forearms, but she was holding him so tightly to her that he decided to just let himself go.

He rolled them over slightly, so that he was cradling her in his arms, their bodies still joined together. The truth hit him like a bolt of lightning.

He was in love with her.

He had never been so sexually compatible with any woman, but it was more than just the sex that made him so positive that Callie was the one. She was funny and bright and just seeing her smile made him want to do or say something to make her smile again.

Callie’s breathing began to slow to normal and he rubbed her back, savoring the feeling of having found the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

He knew they needed to get back to the rink, but he didn’t want to move too fast, to fall back into real life. He slowly pulled out and zipped his pants back up.

Callie blinked and then fumbled for her snow pants. Pulling her to her feet, Tobey took care of getting her back in order within seconds.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her, long and slow and sweet with all of the love he had in him. “This isn’t a one-night stand,” he said, his voice firm and tender all at the same time.

Callie smiled back at him and covered his hands with her own. “I know.”

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The next two weeks were the best weeks of Callie’s life. After their incredible lovemaking in the forest, they had gone back to the rink to pack up her sales table.

Much to Callie’s surprise, Tobey had insisted that they talk about their relationship. She had never met a man like him before, one who was willing to broach difficult subjects.

Every man she’d ever known before had hidden from emotions, had ignored anything that wasn’t cut and dry.

“I want to date you,” he said, and she said, “Me too.”

“I know I’m working for you,” he said, and she said, “And I’ve hired you.”

“I want to be your lover as well as your business associate,” he said, and she said,

“Thank god.”

They had both laughed and suddenly the air was clear and full of endless possibilities.

Not only was Callie constantly glowing with joy, but her business was growing by leaps and bounds as well, with a huge spike in business from Internet orders.

One night after a romantic dinner at her house where they had done more hand-holding and kissing than eating, Callie said, “You really are the Candy King, you know,” her tone teasing.

Tobey stiffened slightly at her words, but then relaxed again so quickly she was certain that she had imagined it.

“How did you know that you were so darn good at selling candy?” she asked.

Tobey kissed her on her neck, right below her ear, in just the way that was guaranteed to make her nipples hard and aching. “You don’t want to hear about my boring business,” he said, trying to coax her into another incredible sexual interlude, his 57

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palm coming to cup her between her thighs, searing her with his heat even through her jeans.

But even though Callie was already responding to his touch, her breasts heavy, her mons throbbing, Callie had had enough of his putting her off. Last night after making love in her bathtub, she had finally realized that whenever she asked him questions about his company, he deftly changed the subject. Usually by kissing or touching her, until she was naked and coming beneath him, all thoughts of business gone.

Callie scooted away from Tobey on the couch, hating how empty she felt without his touch, but knowing they needed to have this conversation more than they needed to have sex. “Why do you keep pushing me away?”

Tobey looked at the empty place on the couch where Callie had been just seconds before and then up at Callie, now several feet away from him. His voice gruff, he said,

“What are you talking about?”

Callie sighed. “Every time I bring up your business, you change the subject. For the past two weeks all we’ve talked about is Callie’s Candies.” Her voice softened. “I want to find out more about you, Tobey.”

When she felt Tobey tense, Callie scooted back into the circle of his arms and planted several kisses on his forearms and hands, pulling his strong arms around her.

Tobey’s muscles relaxed slightly. But still, he didn’t offer Callie any information about his past.

Trying to hide her growing exasperation, Callie said, “What was your favorite kind of candy when you were a kid?”

Tobey, who was clearly surprised by her innocuous question, laughed. “That’s easy,” he said, as he let his guard down. “Necco Wafers.”

Sticking her tongue out, Callie scrunched her face up. “Yuck,” she said.

He tickled her stomach playfully and the fuzzy feeling throughout Callie’s body intensified. It was taking everything she had not to forget the whole conversation and 58

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just fuck his brains out instead. She could feel his large erection pushing into her bottom, and she wriggled up against him.

“They’re sweet and sort of chalky,” he whispered in her ear. “Just like somebody I know, minus the chalk of course. All sweetness.”

Callie sucked in a breath as his fingers moved to the curve of her breast. She laughed, but the sound was breathy and aroused. “That was a close one, buddy,” she said. “I don’t know any women who like to be compared to tasteless chalk.”

Keep him talking
, she told herself, but at this point, she wished that he would talk a little faster so that she could tear off all of his clothes and take his cock into her mouth.

Callie had always thought that patience was one of her strong suits—after all, she dealt with children as customers on a daily basis—but in the silence that ensued, where all she could hear was the crackling wood on the fire and Wolf’s heavy dog breathing, she realized how wrong she was. She was about to give up on ever finding anything out about Tobey’s past when his hand stilled on her breast.

“I worked for Mr. Jonas after school at his grocery store. He had a small candy section in the corner and he put me in charge of it.”

Aha, now they were getting somewhere. “Free candy?”

Tobey grinned against the top of her head and he scooted her in more snugly against his lap. “All I could eat. I started arranging things differently, putting up new signs, created some package deals, and by the time I graduated from high school, Mr.

Jonas’s candy store was about ten times bigger.”

“And then?”

He sighed. “And then I went to college, got an MBA with a focus in food retailing, and the rest,” he said with a note of finality, “is history. Now let’s good to the good stuff.”

Callie tilted her head up and reached around behind her to lace her fingers into his thick dark hair. Pressing her lips to his, she kissed him with all of the growing love in 59

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her heart. She wasn’t ready to say the words to him yet, but every time she touched him she knew that her feelings were obvious.

“Thank you for telling me all that,” she said, her lips bruised with their passionate kisses.

Tobey leaned down and licked her full lower lip. “You’re welcome, sweetheart.”

Callie shivered. She loved it when he called her sweetheart. Even though they’d only been formally dating for two weeks, she felt closer to him than she ever had to another person. She had shared her body and soul with Tobey and somewhere in the back of her head she knew she wanted to continue doing so for the rest of her life.

She was so relaxed and content in his arms that when he said, “Now is probably a good time to tell you that I’m closing my business and going to work with my brother,”

she jumped with surprise and the top of her head knocked into his chin, clacking his teeth together.

She spun out of his arms. “You’re doing what?”

Tobey’s face instantly turned from loving to grim in the space of a heartbeat.

“You’re my last client.”

Callie forgot all about being supportive and gentle in her shock. “Why would you do something like that?”

His eyes steel, he said, “It’s time to finally grow up.”

“What are you talking about? You have a wonderful business. And from working with you, I know for a fact that you love what you do.” She narrowed her eyes. “What are you planning to do instead?”

Tobey nearly winced. “Accounting.”

Callie’s eyes grew wide. “Excuse me? I must have heard you wrong. I thought my talented, creative boyfriend just said he’s going to give up his dream job to go into accounting.”

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Tobey got up off the couch and headed for the door. “You heard right. My brother Jed is going to bring me into his department.” His voice was hard and Wolf, who was lying on the rug in front of the roaring fireplace, whined. Looking angry and hurt, Tobey said, “I’ll call you later.” He walked out the front door and closed it behind him with a deliberate click.

The tears that were welling in Callie’s eyes started to fall. Wolf got up and padded over to her, licking her face several times before plopping his head on her lap.

“I’ve really blown it this time, Wolf,” she said, her heart heavy. “No wonder I always date jerks. The one time I find a great guy I drive him away.”

Callie scooted out from underneath Wolf’s head. She walked into her kitchen and pulled out the ingredients for cocoa fudge. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight, not for one single minute, not with the distressed look on Tobey’s face playing in her head on repeat every five seconds. The only thing that would keep her from going crazy would be baking. She wiped at the tears on her cheeks and put on her apron.

“Here I am again,” she said aloud in her empty kitchen. “Just me, my dog, and sugar.”

* * * * *

By the time Tobey got back to his large loft, his anger was gone. All he felt was a deep sense of shame at the way he had treated Callie. She had called him her boyfriend, a word that made him feel better than any industry award ever had, and he had stomped out of her home in a huff.