Jinxed!

to the side, kissing her, seeking entrance with his tongue. In, out, around…

Rocking against him, she groaned, becoming drenched. But just as she seemed about to fall over the edge, he sucked her other lip into his mouth, slowly drawing back at the same time until it slurped out-his own favorite candy to enjoy.

“Wes-”

Without pause, he rose up, sliding his hands up her hips, her waist and then to her breasts. Her distended nipples were dark and ripe: cherry decadence. Taking the fullness of them into his palms, he weighed their heft, eased his thumbs over their centers, then took one into his mouth to gnaw gently at it.

This time her cry was strangled. He guessed she was ultrasensitive there, so he doubled her delight by trailing his fingers down her belly, brushing over the soft skin, the hint of pubic curls.

Low sounds, like impatient winces, came from her throat. He laved her other breast, slipping his hands between her thighs again, working her clit until she scratched at his back.

“Now,” she insisted. “Do it now.”

His cock pounded, making it almost impossible for him to fumble out a condom from the vanity counter where he’d stuffed a string of packets earlier. He managed to sheath himself.

Finally, he took her by the hips, their gazes meeting.

And the curse?

Screw it.

Tested beyond endurance, he tugged her forward, impaling her on his erection. She leaned back her head, grunting softly with the sudden act of taking him in. She was tight, wet and hot.

“Erin…?”

“Gone,” she said. “It’s gone…”

She began to churn against him, tightening her legs around him to bring him deeper.

Now it was his turn to groan, enveloped by her. And he welcomed it, finding freedom in the captivity-a heightened joy that’d escaped him until he’d accidentally found it.

Grinding, she brought him to the point of a primal yell. He pushed into her again and again, their rhythms syncopated as they eventually slowed down, rolling like waves under a ship, rocking it side to side.

Tenderly, he nuzzled her, and she responded in kind, embracing him as if she’d never let go.

But then the waves grew rougher, slapping against him, stripping him raw, rushing and invading until they tore at him from the inside out.

He came with a searing release, falling over her as she sank back against the mirror. His breath fogged the glass, blurring his image as he burrowed against her neck and held on to her with desperate fury.

She gently kissed his ear. “I could get used to this,” she said, voice quivering with emotion.

As he gathered her closer, skin plastered against skin, the mirror unfogged.

Revealing the Wes Ryan he’d been looking for.

Epilogue

Two months later

WHEN ERIN SAW WES come through the door of Yes, Sweetie, where she’d been tasting new candy for the inventory, she ran out from behind the burnt-oak counter, practically bowling over the barrels of bulk candy. She crashed against him in an exuberant embrace.

“Finally!” she said, digging her fingers into his wild hair and bringing him in for a kiss.

“Mmm? Mmmm.” His surprise turned into obvious pleasure as he soaked into her, fitting their mouths together and probably tasting the root beer candy she’d just been noshing on.

She tasted him, too, luxuriating. Then, with cheeky suggestion, she sucked at his lower lip, pulling away at the same time.

They laughed as she leaned her forehead to his cheek. “You know how to keep a girl waiting.”

“Isn’t that the secret to maintaining a spontaneous, exciting relationship?”

He led her over to “The Candy Bar,” a more popular hangout now that Constant Cravings, the business complex’s former coffee shop, had relocated. Another java house had taken its place, but had enjoyed little success. Here in the wood-planked room of The Candy Bar, amid the smells of saltwater taffy, licorice and bubblegum, patrons could partake of hot chocolate: white, dark, laced with vanilla-however they wanted it. Every drink came with candy, so it wasn’t odd to see both adults and children using the bar: even now, there was a crowd of preteens sharing an iPod, but there was also a customer with liver-spotted hands lingering behind a newspaper at the other end.

“Of course-” Wes said, removing a newspaper from a barstool and taking a seat “-I’m no expert at this relationship thing, so what do I know?”

“You’re a natural, so stop being coy.” Absently, Erin played with the leather bracelet Wes had given her after their first time together. When he’d tied the simple piece of jewelry around her wrist in the afterglow, it’d been the most priceless thing Erin could’ve asked for.

Wes pulled her onto his lap. She’d really missed him, even if they’d seen each other this morning when he’d tumbled out of bed early. In fact, it’d been the crack of dawn when he’d started east-coast business on his personal computer, where he’d remained trading even after Erin had gotten ready for work. She didn’t stop by her own place much now, had her own armoire at Wes’s condo, actually.

Who would’ve predicted that she would agree to her own closet space with him so soon? But he was her “definite man,” and it made sense to be halfway moved in with the guy she loved.

A chipper voice interrupted the canoodling. “Keep it PG, kids,” Cheryl said.

From Wes’s lap, Erin turned to her best friend and partner in the franchise they were creating. “Don’t you have some paperwork to go over for our franchise venture?”

Cheryl scrunched her nose at Wes. “Control your woman, please?” She shot a pseudo-mean look at Erin, grabbed some empty mugs, then took off toward the back room.

From the teeny bopper end of the bar, giggles sounded. The newspaper patron turned a page, ensconced behind the inked barrier.

That reminded Erin…

She tugged over the morning edition Wes had discarded on the bar’s surface. She’d been reading it earlier while taking a break.

“You’re not going to believe what I found today,” she said, opening to the Baxter Hills announcements page. “Look.”

Wes scanned the paragraph she’d indicated. “Evan Sawyer and Lacey Perkins announce their engagement…”

“Remember?” Erin just about bounced on Wes’s lap. “They’re the other couple that dissed Madame Karma’s prediction. They managed to beat the curse, too, just like Chloe and Ian.” The accountant and Erin had started talking more, ever since the fortune-teller crisis. They’d even bonded over their shared experience, Chloe inviting Erin to her own engagement party.

“‘Curse’? Did you say the word curse?” Wes asked. “I thought we were never going to mention the damned thing again.”

“Don’t call it damned!” Erin whispered. “Don’t curse the curse. You don’t know what can-”

Wes cut her off with a kiss-a deep, long, limb-melting press of his lips. At the end of it, he sucked her lower lip in a sexy promise of what would happen when they were finally alone again.

“I love you,” he said, “but stop fretting. You know what fretting brought on back when you were having those issues-”

Now she kissed him, shutting him up for good.

As they fused into each other, the preteens giggled even louder at the kissing adults and sprang from their stools, leaving the candy shop as if they had much better things to be doing.

And, at the other end of the bar, the shop’s newest customer, Isabelle Girard, aka The Legendary Madame