One Lucky Deal (8 page)

This was the apology she’d been looking for ever since it happened. The sincerity in his eyes and the sweet regret in his voice broke down a little piece of the fight inside of her. It was the tequila—definitely the tequila, but Tad looked good. He smelled even better.

Before she could think about what the hell she was doing, Candace leaned up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips across Tad’s. Her heart was beating like her veins were full of syrup, and she wanted to let go and allow that squeak in the back of her throat to escape. She wanted to collapse against his chest and fall into his arms. But those arms never reached out to grab her.

The kiss was quick and his lips were soft. It wasn’t what she had hoped it would be. He didn’t pull her in and devour her. Disappointed, freaked out, and more than a little bit embarrassed, Candace pulled away quickly. “I shouldn’t have done that. Let’s pretend I didn’t.” Candace walked away.

Tad grabbed her wrist. “Candace…”

Humiliated and hurt beyond repair for the night, she shook off his hand and slid into her bedroom. She shut the door behind her—not even waiting for the dogs to file in with her.

Chapter 6

“What…” Tad stared at the empty air in front of him. He pulled the heating pad out of his pants and threw it unceremoniously onto their couch.
Their couch
. God, this was messy.

He’d just had her lips on his mind. If it hadn’t just come out of nowhere, maybe if he’d thought for a second he’d had a snowball’s chance in hell that she was ever going to kiss him again, he wouldn’t have been so freaking stunned.

If he was granted one “do over,” he wouldn’t know what to do with it. He screwed up around every single corner when it came to her. He rubbed a hand over his mouth as he racked his brain about what to do. He felt clueless.

If Candace were any other woman, he wouldn’t be in this weird position. He wouldn’t be living with her if she were any other woman. He wouldn’t have stood there and done absolutely nothing if she were any other woman. If she was anyone other than who she was, he would have been on the other side of that door right now, with his head between her thighs.

He scrubbed a hand down his face and finally got around to closing the door to the outside. He walked to her door. His fist was raised to knock. He shook that thought from his mind and placed his hand on her doorknob instead.

He didn’t turn it.

He pulled his hand away and braced himself against the trim—head bent, trying to figure out what in the hell he was supposed to do now. If she thought he didn’t want to, she was crazy. He couldn’t remember the last time he was so consumed with any idea as he was about the idea of putting his hands all over her.

But she still scared him.

He turned away only to walk back and pace back and forth in front of her door. Rudy sat in front of him with his head cocked to the side. Tad stopped and looked at the dog and thought to himself, what had he done?

Tad looked back at Candace’s door and realized he’d been pacing and debating with himself for a good twenty minutes now. It was too late. He’d missed his window. He hated that he hadn’t reacted faster. He hated that, with her, he second-guessed himself.

When he headed to his bed for the night he’d convinced himself it was better this way. As hard as he was trying to prove otherwise with this challenge, he was not the relationship kind of guy. He wasn’t built for it, and Candace deserved more than he could give her.

She was right. They needed to forget that it had ever happened.

The only problem was Tad couldn’t forget.

He lay there all night, wide-eyed. Every time he closed his eyes he felt her lips and it was perfect for five seconds until he remembered the way she’d looked when she’d pulled away.

*

Candace had waited until the pacing had stopped and she’d heard Tad’s door squeak shut before she’d opened hers and let all the dogs come inside and cuddle her. It was the only way she was going to get any rest.

In the morning, Tad hadn’t left for work by the time Candace needed to start getting her things around if she wanted to take the dogs for a walk and get back in time for a shower before heading off to work. She sighed and told herself she couldn’t avoid him forever. They lived together and he was her best friend. If she couldn’t laugh this off with him, then they weren’t as good of friends as she thought they were.

Candace came out of her room in a tank top and shorts. “Oh, man.” She pasted on a smile as she walked into the kitchen where she found Tad looking worse for wear than she did. “Must have been a good night.” She leaned back against the counter. “Because I don’t remember a thing.”

Tad gave her a look, and she knew that he knew she remembered every single second of it. She just hoped he would play along. She was granting him this gift, his one-way ticket out of one hell of an awkward conversation.

She wished she could give herself a ticket out of the awkward, stern talking-to she was going to give herself. Her chest should not ache. She was drunk. Their friends had set them up for this. All this forced intimacy and no sex. It was a recipe for disaster, and disaster just happened to strike last night.

Tad handed her a cup of steaming hot coffee. He checked his watch. He looked at her for a long time, and Candace wished he’d just leave already. “I’ve got to go. Reed’s called five times.”

“Okay.” Candace smiled and lifted a shoulder like it was no big deal. To help her feel more nonchalant she moved to the sink to rinse out a few dishes. “Have a good day.”

Tad moved to the refrigerator and moved the letters around. Candace didn’t look until she heard the door close and she was sure he was gone.

It was one word and it made her feel both dread and as if her limbs had been set on fire with tingles.

TALK?

Things didn’t get any better after that, either. Candace had the day from hell. Everything that could have gone wrong did. Equipment broke, files had been misplaced, her computer was acting up, and it must have been a full moon because they had a serious number of emergency calls. To top it all off, she still had to face Tad and the music when her workday eventually ended.

* * * *

Tad’s day wasn’t much better. He was changing the oil on a Ford F150 when he noticed antifreeze in the oil. This was a big problem; he’d hoped that all he’d have to do was change a head gasket. That alone took him all day to do. When he’d finally got the whole thing torn apart he’d found that the heads were cracked and he’d have to replace them.

On the drive home his stomach was knotting. He wasn’t looking forward to the tense air or the awkward, unsure place they’d been in when he’d left. Walking into the house, though, seemed to ease some of the weariness of his soul.

The windows were all open and a beautiful breeze blew through the house. The music was cranked up to ear-bleed, and it didn’t help that half of their dogs were trying their damnedest to howl along.

He found Candace in the kitchen, dancing along to some country song as she pulled baked cod out of the oven. Tad’s stomach growled but he just stood back and watched her for a moment. She was a horrible singer, but she was loud, so he gave her points for that. If Tad didn’t know better he would have thought she sang off-key on purpose. She wiggled to the beat in a way that forced him to bite his lip and fight back a groan.

She stirred some potatoes on the stove. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her cook. His stomach rumbled—screw that—his whole body rumbled. He was a hungry man. Starving.

“Hey.” Tad finally announced himself. Candace jumped, and Tad tried not to smirk about it.

“Oh, hi.” Her smile dissipated, and he wasn’t used to that. It cut him deep enough to bleed.

“It’s our next challenge.” Candace forced a laugh. “I have to cook for you. You have to cook for me and then we have to … cook together. I don’t know when we’re going to accomplish these things because I’m swamped until this weekend after this wedding.”

“Candace.” Tad started and walked toward her. She held up a hand to stop him.

“Tad.” She looked down at her feet for a second. “I—” But she shook her head. “Truce?” She held her hand out, poised for their ridiculous handshake that they’d developed all those summers ago at camp.

“But—” Tad began.

“Truce. Tad, please?”

He searched her blue eyes. The vulnerable look on her face grabbed him by the gut. He reached out and clutched her fingertips with his. They both leaned in. Candace with her eyes closed. Tad kept his wide-open. They sealed their handshake by kissing briefly the pad of the other’s thumb.

“Truce.” Candace pulled back and gave him a wide smile. Her shoulders slumped like a weight had been lifted.

“I don’t know why we needed one of those,” Tad told her. “I’m always on your side.”

She stared up at him, and he wondered why what he’d said made her cheeks flush and force her to look away. He decided not to push the issue. She obviously needed him to drop it. So he did, and with one discreet move of his hand along the front of the fridge the word he’d spelled out for her earlier was gone—just another scrambled jumbling of letters.

“It smells amazing,” he told her.

“Thanks.” She smiled and that’s when he noticed the grease he’d smeared accidentally across her lips from his thumb and their ridiculous truce handshake.

“Candy.” Tad cleared his throat and stepped closer to her. “You’ve got a little…” He wanted to wipe it off for her, but he was afraid he would just get her dirtier.

Jesus—just looking at her mouth—he had no idea why he couldn’t look at her anymore and just see his friend. She was something so much more than that; headliner of his recent fantasies for one. He wished he understood it. Complicated was not even in his vocabulary, and somehow over the last month he’d sure managed to make the easiest relationship in his life the epitome of complicated.

“What?” Candace asked and dipped her head to catch her reflection in their shiny toaster oven. “Damn it, Tad.” She laughed and left the kitchen to go clean her face.

* * * *

The week was crazy. Work was demanding for both of them, and Reagan was more accident-prone than anyone Candace had ever met. Her wedding was coming up fast—the end of that week, to be precise. Ronnie—not Reagan—was freaking out. Reagan was cool as a cucumber and looking happier and more excited by the day, but Ronnie was losing her freaking mind.

Candace was still getting two a.m. text messages, but not from Tad anymore. They were from Ronnie about things like seating arrangements and if every table should get flowers or just every other table. Or what color toenail polish Candace was going to be wearing because Ronnie wanted to coordinate.

So when Tad and Candace found a second to cook dinner together, she took the opportunity to shut off her phone. It was pizza. It sounded amazing. They’d shredded cheese, made the sauce already, and had sliced the pepperoni. Candace could not stop sneaking pieces of it.

“Okay, want to toss it?” Tad asked with a grin.

“Yes.” Candace popped one last bite of pepperoni into her mouth.

“Here.” Tad handed her the dough. “Now just stretch a little with your fingers and toss it.” Candace attempted it but it was a miserable fail. “No.” Tad shook his head. “Try again.”

Candace tried and tried, and each time the dough either fell on her, the counter, or she poked a finger—or several—through the soft, squishy dough. “I can’t do this.” She stared at the sad-looking clump of wet flour in her hands.

“Yes, you can.” Tad came up behind her, and Candace’s breath stalled. He covered her hands. She couldn’t think. She knew he was talking but she couldn’t focus on his words. He was blanketed around her. Her back was flush against his front. His legs were tucked against the backs of her thighs.

She felt his heart beat. She felt his breath on her neck. Something was happening between them. Something had sparked and she didn’t know how to snuff it out. Then she realized she didn’t want to, and it was the most foreign thought to her.

She was suddenly struck with the idea of testing its strength and its boundaries. It was perverse because he obviously wasn’t feeling the sizzle she felt, like the flash of a pan whenever he was around, because if he had he would have kissed her back, and he hadn’t.

She couldn’t help, though, but to relax her back against his chest, or add a little extra wiggle in her hips when she tossed the dough again. This time she messed up on purpose, and that was dirty pool. She knew that it was tricky and manipulative, but she didn’t give a damn. This felt too good and she wasn’t through taking it all in yet.

“No. Here.” Tad’s breath blew against her ear, and she didn’t even care if he noticed the goose bumps that he stirred in her. His hands were covered in flour but they were still rough against hers, and she couldn’t help but slide her skin against his a little more than necessary. “Turn your fingers like…” He positioned her hand for her. “Like this.”

She turned her head to look up at him. She brushed her face against his jaw as her gaze came up to meet his. He was looking at her hands, and for some reason that struck her as being really sexy. She couldn’t think of when it happened that she’d begun to want him again, and a horrible thought came over her. She wondered if she had ever stopped in the first place.

*

Tad helped her throw the dough that time. He made sure she caught it correctly. For the most part, putting his arms around her had been innocent. He had no idea it was going to be such torture. The way she had settled back against him, looked up at him, the way she dragged her jaw over his, and even how her hands brushed against his, it all about pulled him right out of his skin.

She didn’t want to talk about that kiss so he was sure as shit she didn’t want him to try for another one. But God, was it ever difficult with her standing there in his arms smelling like dessert, looking good enough to eat, and her skin feeling like butter against his.

If he ever had a chance to get her naked, he was going to take it. To hell with the consequences. Then he remembered that she was his friend and he mentally kicked himself. He needed to start thinking with the right head, or shit was going to get out of hand.