He took her breath away with his tenderness. Her delicate chiffon duster drifted to the cushions. Soon, strong fingers were lifting the hem of the satin sleep top over her head. Candace straddled Pitch’s lap wearing nothing but the matching pink shorts. Shivers coursed her body, not so much from chill as from the fact that he was still fully dressed. His fingertips skimmed the indentation of her spine as their tongues circled and nudged. When he dragged his mouth from hers to her jaw, then earlobe, Candace turned into the caress. She wanted as much sensation as she could grab and moaned her dismay when he withdrew.
He lifted her high, so that he could nibble the beckoning undersides of her breasts. Then, he held her in place to take his pleasure from a stiff nipple. Candace rubbed her cheek across the top of his head, luxuriating in the dark waves there.
She didn’t realize her shorts were gone until she felt his thumb graze her mound seconds before his fingers took possession of her sex. Candace cried her arousal into the air, approving sounds mingled with his name on her voice. She moved on his fingers with a sinful grace, set on finding her satisfaction.
Pitch allowed it, until she was almost in the grips of her climax. He withheld his talented attention for a time then. Amusement and anguish fueled the sound that drifted from her throat. Pitch left the sofa, taking her with him at virtually no expense of his superior strength. One arm was more than enough to keep her high next to him and he used his free hand to fondle her nipple that was still wet from his earlier attention. He favored her earlobe with gentle gnawing and suckling as he took her down the short, soft lit hallway to her bedroom.
Pitch set her feet to the bed instead of the floor and filled his mouth with her breast for just a fraction of a moment before his palms cradled her generous bottom. Lifting her up, he brought her to his mouth. At such height, Candace had nothing to hold onto. Yet, she felt utterly secure. Besides, there was more to occupy her than security. She shuddered out his name each time his tongue stroked her high and deep, penetrating and branding her at once.
After long, sensually tormenting moments had passed, he returned her to the bed. He never once deprived her of his intimate caress, however. Candace writhed and rocked her hips until his already smothering grip at her waist restricted any movement. He kept her thighs spread wide and took his fill of her with his mouth. He loved her until she came apart in his arms and her moisture coated his tongue like warm cream. He left her to arch and twist seductively against the white cotton sheets while he turned away to undress.
Candace had only partly descended from her captivating high, when Pitch returned to take her body with a longer, harder part of his anatomy. He took more than her sex, he took her breath. She could barely keep her eyes open with the weight of pleasure consuming her, flooding her veins like her life’s blood. The slow, steely drives of his erection pressured her walls with an intensity that was almost equal parts rapture and pain. Candace never wanted it to stop.
Pitch kept one hand folded over the headboard that quaked under the treatment, same as the mattress beneath their bodies. His dark bronzed face was sheltered in the softly fragranced dip of her shoulder. There was no hurry in the achingly slow drives his hips put to hers. He kept one of her shapely caramel-toned legs draped across a massive shoulder. The other moved restlessly against his hip until he covered her thigh and kept it still on the mattress.
“I don’t want to come yet,” he groaned.
“Not my problem.”
“Damn you.”
She laughed with gleeful wickedness as he spasmed his surrender, spilling his seed deep and abundantly into her. Candace’s heart didn’t stop pounding in her ears until he’d thoroughly spent himself and refueled for more.
~~~
Much later, they rested in a haphazard tangling of limbs against the abused sheets. Candace’s leg draped Pitch’s back while his head rested between her breasts. He began to speak, so quietly at first, that Candace wasn’t sure he was talking.
“My mother never had to settle before she had kids,” he said. “Who she was, her family name and stuff...that gave her choices a lot of women like her-young, black, didn’t have. First time she settled, she was just trying to save her marriage. My step-father was a real prick long before I came along. She didn’t want to break up my brother’s and sister’s home. Second time...she loved my dad, had from the first, she said. She stayed with my step dad though. She didn’t settle because of her marriage that time, but because my being born really trapped her then. She couldn’t be a woman in the world with three kids- one from a married man. A white married man. One, who was settling just like she was and couldn’t do a damn thing to change it.”
“There’s always a choice, Vic,” Candace’s voice drifted, soft and huskily into the bedroom. “A person just has to make it,” she added. “The reasons they stayed in their marriages were their own. None of that was your fault.”
“Knowing and believing are two different things,” he said.
“Then how about forgetting it altogether? I can think of much better things to dwell on.”
Pitch responded with a cunning look to her question. “Us?” He guessed.
Her shapely mouth curved into a wicked smile. “Mmm hmm...”
Candace shifted, pushing Pitch to his back. “You know the best thing about dwelling? It can take all night. Well into the morning.”
“Miss Strong.” Pitch tipped up her chin, angling her mouth for his kiss. “You really do have a way with words.”
~43~
Gabriel and Giselle Tesano’s home was a hub of activity that night. Bossa nova livened the air as did the conversations taking place all over the house. The guests were practically assembled. Pitch and Candace were engaged in discussion with Rena and Giselle. Imani was on her way from the museum. The elder Tesanos were still on their way as well.
“You think our mother is ready for this?” Aaron asked Roman.
Roman replied with a hard, quick laugh that translated into ‘no’. “At least she’s got her support staff on hand.”
Aaron followed Roman’s glare across the spacious living room where Humphrey and Vale stood talking with Gabriel.
“You had anytime with Grek?” Aaron asked.
Grimacing, Roman threw back the rest of his Rum and Coke. “Doesn’t look like that’ll be happening any time soon,” he said. “Guess he’s not ready to forgive us for not telling him about Stone.”
“Hmph, that’s the least of it,” Aaron waved off Roman’s questioning look for details.
Roman didn’t appear ready to give up on his request, but didn’t have the chance to make a play for more. Giselle was approaching him with the phone receiver in hand, its long coiled cord trailed after her.
“It’s the museum,” she said.
“Thanks Giselle. This is Roman,” he greeted once the phone was at his ear. “Hey Pam, is-...what? She’s where?”
Aaron traded a concerned look with Giselle. They both visibly stiffened as Roman paled beneath his coppery complexion.
Conversations ceased as the sound of shattering glass pierced the room. Roman’s drink hit the floor along with the phone receiver. He ran for the front door without another word to anyone.
~~~
After Roman’s rampant departure, Giselle finished the call from Imani’s coworker Pamela Harris and learned that her sister-in-law had been found unconscious in one of the galleries. She’d been there working on one of the exhibits for an upcoming Civil Rights display yet to open to the public.
Much of the staff working that evening, had followed the ambulance to the hospital. Pamela stayed behind to call Roman. The office told her where to locate him.
Pitch didn’t stay to get all the details, but left on Roman’s heels. He caught up to his brother in time to take his car keys and assume the driving role. Pitch forced himself not to panic when Roman told him where they were headed.
***
