dream he’d been snatched out of reluctantly.
“Davis? Are you okay?” a soft feminine voice asked hesitantly.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just was asleep is all. What’s up, Mil?” he grumbled.
“I didn’t interrupt anything, did I?”
He heard the doubt in his sister’s voice. He was so predictable, it never crossed Milly’s mind he might actually have a living, breathing woman in his bed.
By all rights, he should have one lying beneath him, limp and fully satisfied, instead of the dream lover he’d bedded. And even in his dreams, he’d only gotten a small sample, Davis thought in disgust.
“No, it’s fine. I needed to get up anyway.” He looked over at the alarm, surprised it was already seven a.m.
“I can give you a call back, once you’re awake,” Milly volunteered.
“Just give me a few—make that fifteen—minutes so I can shower.”
“You’re not running? Things change since I’ve been gone?”
Milly had only recently returned from an extended time away from both the town of Stanton and Strong Construction, the family business.
“No, I don’t have time today. I need to get out to the site in a couple of hours. We break ground today and Rodney can’t make it,” he said, mentioning his operations manager.
Usually Davis ran three miles every morning without fail, but the dream had kept him enthralled so strongly his internal alarm hadn’t gone off.
“Okay, I’ll give you a call back in a bit,” she agreed and they hung up.
When Davis disengaged the phone, he reluctantly got out of bed and made his way, barefoot, to the adjoining bathroom. After adjusting the showerhead, he allowed the water to heat before he stepped inside the steaming, black-tiled, roomy stall. He turned his body fully into the hot, stinging spray and rubbed both hands over his face.
He’d had the dream again. This time, he’d almost gotten a real taste of her, this time he had been determined to shut his brain off and allow his libido to take over.
No thinking about the past, present or future. No thinking about Gail, his late wife.
Not this time.
This time he was going to fulfill the desires he and his dream lover had been flirting around with for the last nine months. This time he wasn’t going to think, even if it was just a dream, about anything but the pleasure two willing bodies could give each other.
He turned his face upward, allowing the invigorating spray to wash over his face, and thought about the woman who played the starring role in his dreams.
Candice Cain.
The kids called her Miss Candy. Her name alone was silly and immature.
He had no damn business thinking of the young woman constantly, not to mention the wet dreams where she’d been cast in the starring role. Dreams reminding him of his adolescence they were so graphic. Hot and so damn real he woke up hard as hell, dick in hand, with cum splashed against his thigh.
Shit.
He was too old for her. He was almost forty years old and Candice couldn’t be any older than her early twenties. Not only that, but she appeared to be the exact opposite of Gail.
He’d always been careful, sexually, with his wife. Before she’d been sick, she’d been the same way. When they’d made love, Davis had always been forced to hold back.
And it had been damn hard to do.
He was a man with a strong sex drive. After one disastrous time when he’d been less than…gentle, Gail had made him feel like a pile of shit. From that time on, he’d refrained from deviating from the norm with her, the sex had been done straight missionary style, and once he came, Gail quickly eased her body away from his.
He definitely never thought to ask her to do some of the freaky shit he’d had on his mind of late, when he saw or thought of Candy.
Damn, it was getting worse and worse every day. With everything going on with his daughter, it was a complication he didn’t need.
He didn’t know what had come over his Aunt Mildred when she’d suggested to the board to hire Candy as the center’s director.
Candice Cain had come barreling into his life nine months ago and things hadn’t been the same since.
Aunt Mildred had been in the process of turning the reins of the business over to him and his sister, Milly. She’d told him she’d found the perfect replacement for the previous center’s director, who’d retired.
Girls Unlimited had been one of Mildred’s projects and she’d held a position on the board for years. The board members respected her, just as they appreciated her sizable donations to the center. Therefore, when she’d found a replacement they’d eagerly accepted the young woman without hesitation.
But Davis had enough reservations for them all. There was something about Candy, besides her youthful appearance, that made him question his aunt’s judgment.
She was an intelligent young woman—she had a bachelor’s as well as a master’s degree in psychology and early childhood development. The girls seemed to like her and she’d made some noticeable improvements already in the time she’d been the director.
Still. He wasn’t going to bring Candice into the picture and ask for her help with his daughter. To do so would be a set-up for disaster. He had enough problems with Angelica without adding the complications of Candice.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on with Angel, Milly. What would you do? I’m at a loss. I freely admit it.”
Davis held the receiver propped between his ear and the top of his shoulder as he searched the fridge for something decent to eat.
His housekeeper was on vacation and he hadn’t bothered to go shopping for groceries since his daughter, Angelica, had been spending the last few days with her great-aunt Mildred, after her latest bout of trouble.
With pure disgust, he noticed the refrigerator was all but bare. There was nothing in its hollow caverns but a quart of milk, butter, a half-dozen or so eggs, juice and a carton of vanilla yogurt. He needed to eat something more substantial than yogurt, so he opted for the eggs, milk and butter and hunted for bread.
“French toast will work,” he mumbled after scanning the refrigerator.
“What? Who are you talking to?” his sister asked.
“No one. Who else would be here other than me anyway? Anne’s on vacation and Angel is with Aunt Mildred. It’s just me, myself and I.”
“And I thought I had no sex life.” Although she spoke low, in an aside, Davis heard the comment.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” As he spoke, he deftly cracked the eggs into the Pyrex bowl and added milk.
He
