Chapter 17

seventeen

MARK

I was waiting for her when she knocked.

I’d gotten home from the parade more than an hour ago, tense and worried over the conversation I knew needed to happen between Candace and her sister. I just hoped whatever was said didn’t do more harm to their relationship than good.

Opening the door, I was surprised to find Candace just how I’d left her.

“I’m realizing now that I probably should have showered or at least gotten all the popcorn out of my hair before coming over.”

My laughter was soft as I reached for her hand and led her inside. “How about a bath? I’ll wash your hair and you can tell me what happened.”

Candace’s hazel eyes brightened. She nodded and then followed me to the bathroom I never used.

I’d remodeled the primary bedroom and attached the en suite right after Hannah and I had moved in. It was wide and spacious with a white claw-foot tub and subway-tiled walk-in shower. The room was painted a soft robin’s-egg blue and the fixtures were all antique bronze. But there was no toothbrush resting on the counter or towel next to the sink.

Candace took in the space with wide eyes. I turned on the water to warm, and after adjusting the knobs of the faucet, I straightened and said, “I’ll go grab a couple of towels and some soap.”

When I returned with my supplies, Candace was already undressed and sitting in the bathtub with her knees to her chest. She’d wrapped her arms around the tops of her long legs and her dark hair streamed down her smooth back. She looked relaxed and beautiful. I thought I’d been pretty stupid not to use this bathroom until now.

There was a stool next to the still-filling bathtub. It was mostly decorative, a place to set a watch or a pair of earrings, but it suited my needs. I shifted it beside the white porcelain and sat.

Candace pivoted, placing her hand on the edge of the tub and resting her chin atop it.

I smiled down at her and reached for the pieces of popcorn trapped in her long strands.

“Thank you,” she said. “This is really nice.”

Eventually, I leaned over and turned off the water. The sudden quiet seemed to echo with a hundred things I couldn’t bring myself to say.

Tilting her face back, I took a wet washcloth and began gently wiping away her glittery elf makeup. “So how did it go with Joan?”

She hummed as the fabric passed over her closed eyelids. “Pretty well. We talked. She apologized and I apologized. We’re both going to try to do better.”

“That’s good,” I said, relieved. Joan could be stubborn, and I knew how badly Candace wanted to connect with her sister. If they’d made peace, that was a very good thing.

Her eyes were still closed when she admitted quietly, “I feel pretty dumb for the whole fight before the parade.”

As I considered what to say, I nudged Candace toward the center of the tub and tilted her head back. With the mason jar I’d brought from the kitchen, I wet her hair over and over until it was shiny and saturated.

Eventually, I replied, “I think it needed to happen. I don’t know if you and Joan would have talked it out otherwise. ”

“Still embarrassing,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh.

“Let’s go with ‘a period of personal growth.’”

Her smile brightened.

I watched her for a moment. With her eyes closed and her head tilted back, she was so trusting, so open—gorgeous beyond belief. I wanted to lean forward and taste her wet skin, trail my hand along the surface of the water, reach beneath.

My eyes shifted to the bottle of lavender-scented shampoo I held in my hand, and I had to take a steadying breath.

Our deadline was fast approaching—less than a month—and Candace hadn’t shared her plans for the future or her exit strategy.

She was rooted in every aspect of my life—my work, my home, my damn heart. I didn’t know how I was going to let all this go when the time came. How I’d scrub this house of memories all over again.

She spoke a bit more about the conversation with Joan, how they’d been mistakenly viewing each other for years.

I was quiet as I listened and washed her thick hair, soaping up the strands and massaging her scalp. My fingers brushed away droplets along her hairline and trailed them down the elegant line of her throat.

Candace was all graceful compliance, tilting her neck this way and that as she spoke. She made these appreciative little groans that had me shifting on my stool.

After I’d rinsed out the last of the conditioner, she opened her brilliant green-gold eyes and murmured, “You’re really good at this, you know?”

“Thanks. It was always my dream to work in a salon.”

She laughed, causing ripples to fan out around her in the soapy water. When the water had settled but happiness still lingered on her face, she clarified, “I meant, you’re really good at taking care of people.”

I took a towel and dried her ears, not knowing what to say. Taking care of someone was what you did when you loved them. To me, it was as simple as that. I’d known I loved her for a while now. It wasn’t news to me, but it might not be what she wanted to hear .

“You’re always taking care of me,” she explained as she twisted her wet hair on top of her head and used a clip to hold it all in place. “Making sure I’m comfortable and content.”

I thought of my past life, with a wife I couldn’t make happy. I considered this empty room and the attached bedroom that hadn’t been used in over two years. Maybe I was only now learning how to take care of someone. Maybe Hannah had been right to go out and find a partner who could look after her in all the ways she deserved.

I picked up a washcloth and massaged some of Candace’s shower gel into it. Then I gently unwrapped her arm from where it rested around her knees. I worked the wet, sudsy fabric up the length of her forearm and asked, “Are you comfortable now?”

She smiled over at me. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this relaxed in my whole life, Mark.”

Her words made me warm with pride, or maybe it was the steam from the bath or the way she looked so damn beautiful beneath my hands.

I dragged the cloth up and over her shoulder blades, around to her other arm. She lifted it wordlessly for my ministrations. Then Candace stretched out her long legs until her red-painted toes touched the end of the bathtub, exposing her breasts above the waterline. Her skin was shiny with moisture, a bit flushed from the heat of the water, and her perfect nipples were tight in the cool air.

Gooseflesh pebbled in the wake of the washcloth as it passed over her skin.

With a voice so deep I hardly recognized it as my own, I asked again, “And now? Are you still relaxed?”

I didn’t know whether she recognized the direction my thoughts had taken, but she regarded me with dark eyes. Then slowly, she leaned back, using her hands for support, and opened herself even further to my gaze.

“Can you keep washing me?”

In answer, I brought the fabric to her neck, gently brushing back and forth along her collarbones. The corner of the washcloth dipped low, dragging over one pert nipple. Candace’s breathing picked up, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, so fucking eager to do this for her—to take care of her, to make her feel good.

My hand dropped down, caressing her breasts through the cloth I held. I watched her lips part on a soft moan, and her eyelids closed once more.

I started to lower the cloth below the water, across her taut stomach, when her voice stopped me. “You should probably take that shirt off. Wouldn’t want to get your sleeves wet.”

The request seemed innocent enough, but when I’d drawn the fabric over my head and tossed it onto the bath mat with Candace’s clothes, I found her eyes taking me in.

“The pants, too,” she said with a mischievous smile. “I’m a splasher.”

My grin was amused, but I slipped off my jeans as she requested, happy to play this game with her.

When I sat back down on the stool in nothing but my boxer briefs, she propped one long leg up on the side of the tub. I fished the cloth out of the water and resumed washing. The fabric slid easily over her smooth calves. I took a few slow passes behind her knee that had her squirming before dragging the terry cloth up her thigh.

Candace placed her foot back into the water but left her bent leg spread wide. As my hand dipped below the surface to pay particular attention to her hip and side, the washcloth slipped from my hand. She didn’t seem to mind as my touch drifted over her stomach. A fast exhale came between parted lips, and Candace tilted her hips ever so subtly.

I took the direction and dipped my hand low, the pads of my fingers finding her center, smooth and warm, even in the bathwater.

Her head was still tipped back, eyes closed and features relaxed, as I took three fingers and circled her clit slowly.

I’d been half-hard the moment I’d started washing her, but, now, my arousal was straining the fabric of my underwear. Suddenly, I was grateful she’d asked me to remove the constricting denim.

She made a low whimper when my middle finger drifted down to her entrance and pushed slowly inside before I returned to the apex of her thighs, focusing my energy there. I watched her full lips and her panted breaths, the way her breasts moved above the water. Candace was straining toward release and getting close, but then her eyes opened and she looked at me.

She straightened and stilled my hand, and I worried I’d done something wrong, misread a signal. Maybe she couldn’t get there like this—with just my fingers, in the water.

But then she smiled and reached over the side of the tub for a towel. Candace stood quickly and stepped out onto the rug. I steadied her hips as she ran the fabric quickly over her skin. She was still damp a moment later when she surprised me and climbed into my lap.

Jesus .

She was a welcome weight in my arms. Her center pressed down on my erection as she straddled me on the stool. I wrapped my arms around her tight when she leaned in to whisper, “I didn’t want to come yet. I wanted you to be inside me.”

I pressed my lips to the skin of her shoulder, still damp and unbelievably warm. “Whatever you want.”

I felt her reach between us and pull the front of my boxer briefs down.

I groaned as she gave me a few firm pumps before inching her hips forward and positioning me at her entrance.

“Candace,” I breathed out roughly. Her delicate, soft skin—the heat of her—enveloping just the tip made me lightheaded with want.

“Can I?” she asked. “I wanted to feel you. Just you.”

We’d used condoms in the weeks we’d been together. Always careful. Always controlled.

My confusion must have registered in my stillness and hesitation because she pulled back to look at me and clarified, “I have an IUD and I’ve been tested.”

I wanted it—the possibility of feeling her like this, with nothing between us. The intimacy of it. The trust.

It wasn’t like I needed to admit I’d been celibate for five years before she came along—she knew the truth of my marriage and the vows I’d kept. So, I simply nodded and replied, “If you’re sure? ”

In answer, she kept her soft gaze locked on mine as she lowered herself down. The heat and the pressure and the stunning pleasure of her bare skin had my eyes slipping closed as a groan escaped my lips.

My forehead dropped and rested against her collarbone as she rolled her hips and then found her rhythm—legs spread wide, raising herself up onto tiptoe, and then falling on my length. I let my hands skim her shoulder blades, her back, and then lower, cupping her backside as she ground against me.

A thousand images flashed behind my closed eyelids as we moved together—things I had no business wanting, desperate wishes for tomorrow and next year and forever—until they all evaporated in a brilliant blinding light. Candace’s inner muscles contracted around me and her arms clutched my shoulders in a desperate grip, so I held her tight in case she was feeling what I felt—like I might come undone when this was all over, as insubstantial as a memory, faded and lost.

Her release triggered my own, and the sensation was nothing I’d ever felt before. I couldn’t stop touching her skin. I couldn’t get close enough. My lips lingered everywhere I could reach.

When our breathing finally evened, and Candace’s skin pebbled from cold, we cleaned up and climbed into bed, still touching, always touching.

I woke when it was dark but still early. We were in the same positions we’d gone to sleep in. I was flat on my back with Candace tucked into my side, her head resting on my shoulder and her cold feet nestled beneath my legs.

A moment later I realized what had woken me. I’d heard Candace mumble in her sleep a few times before. Mostly it was indecipherable, but occasionally there were a few words I could pick out. One time she’d said, “Bubble gum snow cone,” and I’d been quietly amused, smiling into the dark of my bedroom before drifting off again beside her.

But I wasn’t smiling now.

Candace repeated her quiet admission three more times before she released a deep breath and rolled over.

Love you. Love you. Love you .

As I watched the steady rise and fall of her back—clad in one of my tee shirts—I couldn’t help but want to hear her say it again when she was awake. But then the reminder of a slim silver laptop stole into mind. The job listings. Her intent to leave Kirby Falls...and me behind in just a few short weeks.

I couldn’t ignore the fact that whatever she was dreaming right now didn’t match what she wanted in the light of day.

Eventually, I climbed out of bed, too restless to settle.

It was a few hours later when I heard her alarm go off. I’d already set my mug down on the kitchen table, prepared to go back in there and shake her awake, maybe bring her a cup of coffee too. Let the sharp scent do what the blaring alarm couldn’t, but before I could rise, the sound switched off.

A few minutes later, I heard the door to the bathroom close, and I figured she was up and not passed back out again.

Enough time went by that most of my coffee was gone and I’d gotten lost in my own thoughts when I noticed Candace enter the room from the hallway.

My mug hit the table with a graceless thunk, and my mouth dropped open in shock.

This time, Candace wasn’t standing naked in my kitchen, in only my wool socks. She was wearing my clothes though. Candace stood at the threshold in a black hoodie I hadn’t seen in over seven years.

“Why— How?” I stammered. “I didn’t think you even remembered.”

She slowly approached, a secret little smile turning up the corners of her kiss-swollen lips. “I remembered, once I placed you as Mark and not Mercer. I found an old yearbook the day after we were reintroduced. It all came flooding back when I could put your face with your name.”

“And you kept it?”

Candace took the seat next to me, her bare knee pressed to mine. “I did. I brought it to school every day leading up to graduation, with the intention of returning it and thanking you. You were so sweet to help me the way you did. Not many teenage boys could handle talking to a girl about her period, but you kept me from embarrassing myself. I was grateful, Mark. ”

I remembered that day. Of course, I did. I’d been a nervous wreck trying to get the words out, to speak loud enough for the object of my very one-sided crush to hear.

“When I didn’t see you before I left town that summer, the hoodie came with me. Made the move from dorm room to dorm room, and eventually apartment to apartment. It was comfortable and cozy and it reminded me of home.”

Shaking my head in disbelief, I muttered, “Teenage Mark can die happy.”

Candace laughed. “Would you like it back?”

The question, so innocent and teasing, had me going quiet suddenly. Did I want this piece of me back? One that was more hers now than it had ever been mine.

Part of me wanted to smile and shake my head. You already stole my fucking heart, what’s an old hoodie?

But the bigger part—the one who’d replaced a crush with the real thing—couldn’t manage it. I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t love her and watch her leave. I didn’t know how to protect myself because the damage was already done. She’d just dealt the final blow with a black hoodie.

As I remained quiet, I watched concern crease her dark brows.

My hands shook, so I clasped them together on the wooden tabletop. “I don’t think I can do this anymore, Candace. Be casual or temporary or whatever the fuck we are.”

I didn’t say, I can’t sleep from wanting you. I can’t lie beside you one more second knowing you can’t be mine. I’m in too deep. It’s not the same as having your body. I want your heart too.

I’d been cowardly these last few weeks. She hadn’t mentioned applying for jobs or interviewing, and I didn’t want to push. Afraid that the reminder of how temporary everything was might put an end to us sooner.

It had been a mistake to let myself fall deeper into the fantasy. I could see that now.

“Mark,” she said, drawing my attention from the regret swirling among my thoughts .

“Do you know what I do every time you leave?” I asked suddenly. I didn’t give her the chance to answer. “I make myself watch. I force myself to look. When I wait in the garage while you drive away. When you go inside the farmhouse or the Apple House or your office. When you climb in your car in the afternoon after work. I watch and I wait, and I try to get used to the idea. I try to get used to watching you go. It’s inevitable. You’re not meant for here. Kirby Falls is just a stopover until you find your way back to where you really belong. And I think”—I swallowed the roughness from my throat—“I think I didn’t prepare myself nearly well enough.”