The silence stretched out until Macy finally spoke. “Please don’t lose your head over him.”

“I’m not. I just…” I just want to live my damn life. Is that so much to ask? She didn’t want her parents making any more decisions for her. Brian wasn’t the only issue here. The situation with him was only dredging up emotions that had been festering within her for years. Giving them an outlet.

“Candace, everyone else aside, I don’t think he’s good for you, either.”

Her vision was momentarily washed in red. “Why not? Yes, he’s different. But other than that, what’s really wrong with him?”

“Because he is different. I’ve known you for a long time. I’ve known what your dreams were since we were twelve years old. You wanted the white knight on horseback coming to rescue you. You wanted a romance novel hero. You wanted a guy like John Cusack in Say Anything, standing under your window, holding up a boom box.” Macy laughed. “Remember?”

It was hard not to chuckle at the memory of them sneaking out of bed to watch movies in the middle of the night, comparing notes over which movie star they were going to grow up and marry. “I can see Brian doing that. Except instead of Peter Gabriel, he’d be playing, I don’t know, Slipknot or something.”

“I don’t think you’ll ever have your fairytale ending with him.”

“Who needs a fairytale? In the end, I only want to be happy with a guy I love, and who loves me just as much. That’s all I need. As far as sweeping me off my feet…he did that last night.”

“With all due respect, you haven’t been swept enough to know. Don’t confuse lust with something deeper. As far as your parents, they’re like me, just trying to protect you.”

“It’s not their job anymore. Or yours.”

Macy was depressing her so much, she finally had to hang up to keep from bursting into tears. Was she really crazy, and everyone else totally sane? Should she simply lock last night up in her heart, keep it a delicious secret she could revisit whenever she was enduring sex with a man she and her parents could agree upon?

Hell, no. She shuddered, thinking of allowing someone else to do all the things Brian had done to her last night. She couldn’t live like that. She wouldn’t. She’d rather die a virgin. Her parents could send her to a convent and she would gladly go.

But oh, God, she didn’t want that. She wanted him. His gaze gently roving her bare flesh. His mouth on her br**sts, his fingers invading her body. He had to be the one. It had to happen. The very thought made excitement zing through her as she wondered if he would be sinister and aggressive and push into her hard and fast, getting it over with in one blinding instant of pain and ecstasy. Or if he would be gentle and considerate and take all night coaxing her through. Some moments last night and this morning had been so intensely sweet, and some so dark and frightening, she had no idea what to expect of him. And she didn’t know which she’d prefer. The mere speculation stirred an ache deep inside her and made desire pool anew in her br**sts and lips. When she saw him tonight, she might not be able to control herself.

What if he didn’t forgive her for her hasty overreaction this morning?

Minutes ticked by. Another hour passed. She couldn’t remember what time the place closed, and she didn’t dare get close enough to see if their hours were posted out front. There were still cars in the parking lot, so she imagined they operated until the last customer walked out the door.

Her eyes were beginning to drift shut and she was contemplating going to get a coffee when movement caught her attention, and she sat straight up. Brian was leaving. She knew it was him from his tall, lean figure and the way he walked, with a loose, easy confidence that sparked off a tremor from the roots of her hair all the way to her toes. Her heart rate doubled, and she reached for the door handle, only to stop cold when the door opened behind him and a girl rushed out. A girl he stopped and waited for.

Damn. Was she an employee? Candace couldn’t remember seeing her in there the day she’d gotten her tattoo.

She squinted, leaning as close to the driver’s-side window as she could, but it made no difference. It was too dark, but the lights from inside haloed the girl’s blond hair. She fell into step beside Brian as the two of them headed toward the vehicles in the side lot, where the employees parked. Brian’s dark blue truck sat in a pool of dim light cast down from one of the overhead lamps.

She was an employee, then. They were leaving for the night. Candace nearly collapsed in relief. But unfortunately, it dashed her plans on the rocks. She wasn’t about to rush up on him when there were other ears in the vicinity. She would just have to find the guts to call him.

Once Brian and his companion reached his truck, they lingered, talking about something the girl seemed especially passionate about, given her wild gestures as she spoke. Candace fought down the urge to crack open her window. She wasn’t going to eavesdrop. She was not that far gone yet.

Brian listened to the blond girl, occasionally laughing and interjecting. Candace began to get a sinking feeling. Especially when he hooked a thumb toward his truck and she nodded. He popped open the door for her and she climbed in, making sure to put her ass in his face as she did. It was already half hanging out of the skirt she wore.

No!

It took everything she had not to fly out of her car and run screaming toward them. But all she could do was sit and fight tears.

And follow them, of course.

What was that about not spying on him, you psycho?

She ducked frantically before his headlights could sweep over her car, letting a couple of seconds tick by before she dared to pop up and crank it.

Macy’s voice still echoed in her head. Go home. Just go home, Candace. You don’t want to see this.

But she did. Maybe it was nothing and she could ease her mind. If she didn’t go see what was going on, how would she be able to sleep tonight? She would find out where they were going, that was it. That way, it would be decided whether she should try to pursue this or settle into the life of agony her parents had chosen for her. Agony would be any life that didn’t include him.

She didn’t pull away from the curb until Brian’s truck made a left at the intersection up the street, and then she sped to catch up, making sure she kept several car lengths between them. Speculation over what was being said in that cab started a burn in her chest she feared would turn into tears if she couldn’t get a grip on herself. If he was moving on to someone else the very damn night after staying with her, he was a colossal ass**le, and she wouldn’t mind telling him that in front of his skank.

She was working on gnawing a hole in her bottom lip when his right blinker flashed to turn into a sports bar.

“Damn him,” Candace murmured, quickly hitting her left blinker to zip into the lot across the street from the bar. It didn’t take an expert in quantum physics to realize what would happen here tonight: they would get drunk, go back to his or her place, and do all night the very thing he’d denied her over and over again.

Well, he would do it with the knowledge that he’d been caught. Candace screeched to a stop in an empty parking space and grabbed for her cell phone.

Chapter Ten

Brian slammed back his whiskey and tried to ignore whatever Starla was jabbering about.