A vision of himself spanking Candace’s sweet ass as she cried out on his lap gave him no choice but to plunge as deeply as he could go. Mindless with the need to ravage her, to blow his seed as deep within her as he possibly could, he dragged her legs over his shoulders and rammed into her again and again.

Joined to him in the most elemental way, Candace’s hips bucked wildly, taking him all the way inside, then forcing him back out along her slick canal. She cried out his name, begging him to send her over the edge, but the roaring in his ears was so loud, he could hardly make out her words. He thought he tasted blood in his mouth, figured he must have bitten his tongue in his crazy rush to savage her.

Breaking through his fog, he heard Candace’s impassioned sob, “Oh Charlie, oh god, yes, yes, there, now!”

Gripping her hips against his, they pounded back and forth in perfect rhythm. And as he collapsed beside her, with his heartbeat sounding louder than a bass drum in his ears, he said, “Sweetheart, you are definitely an A+ student.”

Chapter Seven

Sunday morning, less than twenty-four hours after the most mind-blowing sex of her life, Candace sat in her cozy home office at her cherry wood desk with her laptop open to a blank word processing file. She stared blindly at the cursor as it blinked at her.

“What happened to me yesterday?” she asked herself for the hundredth time. Her breath fogged up her computer screen, but she didn’t notice. She couldn’t see anything beyond the images in her head of her writhing beneath Charlie, of Charlie plunging into her, of his fingers wet with her, touching her, making her scream out his name again and again.

She couldn’t for life of her figure out how she had managed to put her clothes on, find her way to the front door, get in her car and drive home. Less than twenty-four hours later, she looked back on the entire experience and could barely make out the details of the scene through the thick sensual haze that blanketed her memories.

It was as if she was looking into a forbidden realm of pleasure, where only the privileged, where only the elite were allowed to participate. And since Candace knew she had never been one of those elite, her brain was bewildered by the entire experience.

She had hardly slept the night before. Every time she closed her eyes she could swear she felt the imprint of Charlie’s tongue between her legs, and when she gingerly touched herself she was wet. So wet that she couldn’t resist touching herself some more. She couldn’t resist thinking about everything he had done to her body. Everything he had done that made her feel so damn good.

As soon as Sunday morning had arrived, bright and shiny through her windows, she dragged herself out of bed. She put on her robe, made herself a hot cup of strong coffee and sat down at her desk.

Candace had never let another human being control her before. Always, even when she thought she was in love, she held a part of herself back. Kept a part of her soul safe.

But with Charlie, surrounded by rose petals, candles, and sumptuous fabrics, she had given in to his every touch. If he had stopped touching her, stopped tasting her at any point, she would have begged him for more.

Disbelieving still, she shook her head and tried to make sense of her feelings. After she caught her last boyfriend cheating on her, after he had made it perfectly clear that it was her fault for being a prude, for being cold and lifeless in bed, she accepted that she was never going to know true passion. Even worse, she believed she wasn’t good enough for the bastard and all the men who had come before him. They all wanted to f**k her boobs, but didn’t give a shit about her heart.

But now that Charlie had pleasured her more ways in one afternoon than she had ever felt in the first twenty-eight years of her life, she wondered if it was because they had a deeper connection than just bodies.

She sighed and told herself to get over it. Just because their mentoring lessons had spiraled way out of control—Candace hadn’t forgotten that it was entirely her own idea to take off her clothes—he was probably thinking how she was just another fan, another wannabe writer who wanted to get into his pants.

“I’m not in love,” she said aloud. “I’m in lust. Big difference.”

Feeling a little better, a little saner, Candace took a sip of java. Suddenly words began to dance through her mind.

Jolene was a good girl. She was the kind of girl boys took home to their mother’s and said, “I’m going to marry her, Mom.” They took one look at her angelic blue eyes and smooth golden hair and knew she was pure as driven snow.

Jolene had spent her entire life with nuns. In Catholic school uniforms. When she was a little girl, she thought every other little girl got ready to go to school in the exact same way she did, automatically reaching into their closet for the blue and white plaid jumper and white cotton shirt. She thought the only clothes in the world were white cotton knee socks and black patent leather Mary Janes.

Mary, Jolene’s mother, was pleased with how well-behaved her daughter was. They were more like sisters than mother and daughter, and Mary thought Jolene told her everything. But if Jolene ever had secret thoughts in her pink and white ruffled bedroom late at night, under the covers with a flashlight, reading the latest Nancy Drew mystery about a mysterious boy who kidnapped her and gave her forbidden kisses, she never told her mother about them.

The day Jolene turned twenty-one, she was offered a full-time position playing piano for the church. For the first time in her life she was torn. She loved the nuns with all of her heart. Growing up in the safe environment of her private school had brought her nothing but happiness, but lately she had begun to feel a yearning inside of her that grew stronger every day.

Unbeknownst to her teachers, to her parents, and to her few chaste and respectful boyfriends, Jolene had been sneaking off to the used bookstore downtown and spending her allowance on books.

Jolene had long ago outgrown Nancy Drew. Her fingers trembled as she read Judy Blume. And then Jude Deveraux. And then Katherine Woodiwiss.

Jolene would have sworn that no one liked sex, that her parents had copulated only to create her and then settled back in their separate bedrooms as soon as her father’s sperm sunk into her mother’s egg.

In these books she saw a far different reality and knew it was something she had to experience for herself. Before she agreed to marry one of the boys who wanted her only as a wife and mother. Before she agreed to spend the rest of her days playing piano in accompaniment for little girls as they sang their hymns.

Bravely she told her parents and the nuns that she was going to spend some time in the city. She told them she was going to work with a local church there—which in fact she was, part time—and they were all so proud of her. Her parents found her an apartment and paid for six months’ rent and didn’t worry about their precious daughter. Why would they, when she had never given them even the slightest bit of trouble?