Chapter 27: Wig Twisting Season

I blink groggily, the world swimming into focus as Candice helps me off the couch. My limbs feel disconnected from my brain, moving with a delayed response time that would be fascinating if it weren’t so inconvenient.

“I got you,” she says, her arm around my waist providing much-needed support as I sway on unsteady feet. “One step at a time.”

We move through the house in slow motion, the hallway stretching and contracting like an accordion with each shuffling step. The stairs loom before us like a mountain to be conquered, each step a potential disaster.

“Maybe I should just sleep on the couch,” I suggest, eyeing the stairs with growing apprehension.

Candice tightens her grip around my waist. “Nonsense. You’re a guest. You get a proper bed.”

Somehow, we manage the ascent, though I’m not entirely sure how. One moment, we’re at the bottom, and the next, we’re at the top, time skipping like a scratched record in my intoxicated state.

The guest room door swings open, revealing the navy comforter and soft pillows that look like heaven to my exhausted body. Candice guides me to the bed, and I collapse onto it with a grateful groan, the mattress enveloping me in its embrace.

“Thank you,” I mumble into the pillow, already feeling sleep tugging at the edges of my consciousness. “You’re really nice.”

Candice laughs softly. “Get some rest, Adam. You’re safe here.”

Her words follow me down into darkness as consciousness slips away.

*****

Something pulls me from the depths of sleep, a sensation so pleasant it weaves itself into my dreams before I’m fully awake. Warmth and pressure and rhythm, a slick, tight heat enveloping me. My hips move of their own accord, seeking more of this delicious feeling.

My eyelids are heavy, reluctant to open in the pitch darkness of the unfamiliar room. The pleasure intensifies, and I become aware of a weight on top of me, of soft thighs straddling my hips, of hands braced against my chest.

“Cat?” I murmur, the name slipping out before my brain can catch up. My hand reaches up, seeking her face in the darkness, fingers trailing over soft skin, tracing the line of a jaw that feels familiar yet different.

“Shhhh,” comes the whispered response. “I couldn’t help myself, and you were so hard when I put you to bed.”

Reality blurs at the edges, my consciousness floating somewhere between sleep and waking. The pleasure ripples through me in waves, each one stronger than the last. My eyes struggle to focus in the darkness, catching only glimpses, the curve of a shoulder, the outline of short hair.

“Just let me take care of you,” the voice whispers, and in my addled state, it transforms into Caterina’s voice, that perfect blend of command and affection that always unravels me.

“You found me,” I murmur, my hands finding her hips, feeling the softness there that my fingers instinctively recognize. “How did you find me?”

She doesn’t answer, just rolls her hips in a slow, deliberate motion that makes me gasp. The sensation is overwhelming, wet sloppy pussy enveloping me completely, muscles squeezing with perfect pressure. My head falls back against the pillow, eyes fluttering closed as pleasure courses through my veins like liquid gold.

“I’ll always find you,” she says, and I believe her. In this moment, nothing else matters, not my escape, not my fear, just this connection that feels like coming home.

Her movements are unhurried, almost reverent. There’s no rush, no desperate chase toward climax, just the slow building of pleasure like a tide gradually rising. Her hands trace patterns across my chest, fingertips dancing over my skin with tender possessiveness.

“You’re mine for the night,” she whispers, leaning down to press her lips against my neck. The scent of her is different, warmer, with notes of vanilla and something earthy, but my intoxicated brain doesn’t register the discrepancy as strange. “Let me show you how much I want you tonight.”

I surrender completely to her touch. I cup her breasts with reverence, feeling their weight, the hardened peaks of her nipples pressing against my palms. They feel fuller, heavier than I remember, but the thought dissolves as quickly as it forms, washed away by another wave of pleasure.

“So good for me,” she praises, her voice honey-sweet in the darkness. “My beautiful boy.”

The endearment sends a shiver down my spine. My hips buck upward of their own accord, seeking deeper connection. She responds with a soft moan that vibrates through her body and into mine.

“Cat,” I whisper the name, a prayer on my lips. “I missed you so much.”

She guides one of my hands between her thighs, showing me exactly how to touch her. I follow her silent instructions, fingers circling and pressing where she needs them most. Her breath catches, her rhythm faltering for just a moment before resuming with renewed purpose.

“That’s it,” she encourages, her voice thick with pleasure. “Just like that.”

I feel myself drifting in a haze of sensation, reality, and fantasy blurring together. My body knows this dance, responds to her touch with practiced ease even as my mind floats somewhere above, watching with detached wonder.

I guide her hands to my throat, my fingers wrapping around her wrists with gentle insistence. “Could you maybe do it like usual?” I whisper, the request falling from my lips without thought.

She hesitates, her hands hovering just above my skin, her rhythm slowing but never quite stopping. “Uhh, baby, I don’t think this is very respectful for such a beautiful man like you,” she whispers back, uncertainty coloring her tone.

I grab her palms and tighten them against my throat, craving that familiar pressure, that perfect edge of danger that always sends me spiraling into ecstasy. “Please, Cat,” I plead, my voice breaking with need. “I’m sorry I ran away. I was just scared.”

Her hands tighten experimentally around my throat, hesitant at first, then with growing confidence as she feels my response. The gentle pressure sends sparks of electricity down my spine, my body arching beneath her like a bow drawn taut.

“That’s it,” I gasp, the words barely audible. “Just like that.”

The darkness wraps around us like a cocoon, intimate and safe. I can feel her weight shifting above me, her thighs trembling slightly as she maintains her position. My hands find her hips again, fingers digging into soft flesh, guiding her movements to match the rhythm that’s building inside me like a gathering storm.

“You like this?” she asks, her voice husky with desire but tinged with something nervous. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I breathe, lost in the sensation. “You know I do.”

“I missed you,” I murmur, reaching up to touch her face in the darkness, fingers tracing the curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw. “I thought I wanted to get away, but I was wrong. Just please don’t hurt them.”

She leans into my touch, her movements faltering slightly. “Honey,” she whispers, her voice gentler than I remember, “what are you running away from?”

“Cat,” I breathe, my hips rising to meet hers, seeking that perfect connection. “I’m running from you.”

Her hips stop rolling altogether, though I can feel her pussy twitching around me, causing me to whimper at the sudden pause in stimulation. She cups my face between her palms, thumbs stroking my cheeks with a tenderness that makes my heart ache.

“Why are you afraid of me?” she asks, her voice soft and concerned.

The question pierces through the fog of pleasure and intoxication, demanding an answer I’m too far gone to withhold. “Because you’re a mob boss,” I confess, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. “Because I saw you hurt people. Because you hurt me. Because I’m afraid of what you’ll do to me if I try to leave again.”

She goes completely still above me, her hands frozen against my face. Even in the darkness, I can sense her shock, feel the sudden tension radiating through her body.

“Honey,” she says, her voice gentler than I remember, almost maternal in its warmth, “I’m not Cat, okay? I’m Candice.”

The words float around me like bubbles, pretty and fragile, not quite connecting in my intoxicated brain. Her hips begin to move again, slow and deliberate, her inner muscles squeezing me with delicious pressure that makes it hard to think, hard to focus on anything beyond the building pleasure.

“Candice dick fit in yo mouth?” I say with confusion.

“What?” she says lost.

“Candice?” I whisper, confusion and desire warring within me.

She leans down, her breasts pressing against my chest, her lips finding my ear. “I’m sorry I tricked you,” she murmurs, her breath warm against my skin. “But let me keep you safe from now on.”

Her words vibrate through me, settling somewhere deep in my chest, a promise that feels like shelter after a storm. My hands find her waist, fingers splaying across soft skin that’s different from what I remember fuller, warmer, marked by the gentle evidence of a life lived fully.

“Candice,” I repeat, the name feeling strange yet right on my tongue.

She rocks against me, her movements more confident now, guiding us both toward release. One of her hands cradles the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair with tender possession

“Your Ex clearly scared you, but there’s no way she’s a mob boss, honey. Let me take care of you,” she whispers, her voice a velvet caress in the darkness. “Let me show you what love is supposed to feel like.”

My hips rise to meet hers of their own accord, falling into a rhythm that feels both new and familiar. The weight of her above me is grounding, her body a warm anchor in a world that’s been spinning out of control for too long.

The room spins around me, reality distorting like a carnival mirror as pleasure builds at the base of my spine, coiling tighter with each roll of Candice’s hips. Her movements become more deliberate, more focused, drawing me inexorably toward the edge of oblivion.

‘Candice Harper!’ I finally realize.

“Wait, Candice,” I gasp, my hands suddenly gripping her thighs, trying to still her movements as clarity cuts through my drunken haze like a lightning bolt. “You can’t do this.”

But Candice misinterprets my protest, she takes it as encouragement, her pace quickening as she leans down to press her lips against my collarbone, her teeth grazing the sensitive skin there.

“I Feel like I’m gonna…,” I manage, the words slurring together as I struggle against the dual influence of alcohol and overwhelming pleasure. “Candice, please stop. You don’t understand...”

Images of Caterina flash through my mind. Her crimson eyes narrowed in rage, her elegant hands stained with blood, the casual violence she inflicted on those who crossed her. What would she do to this woman, this gentle, maternal figure who’s shown me nothing but kindness?

‘Besides this rape.’

“Wait, Candice,” I plead again, more urgently, this time, my hands fumbling at her hips in a desperate attempt to lift her off me before it’s too late.

But it is indeed too late. The pressure that’s been building inside me finally breaks like a taut wire snapping. My back arches off the bed, my fingers digging into the soft flesh of Candice’s thighs as wave after wave of pleasure crashes through me. I start cumming deep inside Candice’s pussy, my body betraying my mind’s desperate attempt to protect her.

“Oh fuck,” I groan, the words torn from somewhere deep inside me as my vision whites out completely. “I’m so sorry.”

Candice collapses against my chest, her breath coming in quick, shallow pants that tickle my skin. Her inner muscles continue to pulse around me, milking every last drop as my hips jerk with aftershocks of pleasure.

“Don’t be sorry,” she whispers against my neck, her voice warm with satisfaction. “That was beautiful.”

But horror is dawning on me now, cutting through the alcoholic haze like a knife. My body trembles beneath hers, not with pleasure but with mounting terror. Tears spring to my eyes, unbidden, hot, and sudden.

“No, no, no,” I whisper, my voice cracking as the first tears spill over. “No, no, no, no.” Each repetition grows more desperate, more broken until I’m sobbing openly, my chest heaving with the force of my distress.

Candice shifts immediately, concern replacing satisfaction as she moves off me and to my side. Her arms encircle me with what feels like motherly instinct, pulling me against her chest where I can hear the steady rhythm of her heartbeat beneath my ear. Her fingers stroke through my hair with tender, soothing motions.

“Shhh,” she murmurs, her lips pressing against my forehead. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

But her gentleness only makes me cry harder, great heaving sobs that seem to be torn from somewhere deep inside me. The tears flow unchecked down my face, dampening the soft skin of her chest where my cheek rests.

“You’ll get your family killed,” I choke out between sobs, my words slurring together as alcohol and emotion combine to loosen my tongue. “You’ll get Connor killed. She’ll find me.”

‘It’s my fault.’

My fingers clutch at Candice’s arm, digging in with desperate intensity as if I could physically anchor her to safety. The room spins around me, darkness and moonlight blending into a disorienting kaleidoscope as I try to make her understand the danger she’s unknowingly invited into her home.

“She has people everywhere,” I continue, my voice dropping to a terrified whisper. “She’ll hurt everyone I touch. She’ll hurt you. She’ll hurt your daughters. She’s not just some ex-girlfriend, she’s…”

“Shhhhh,” Candice interrupts, her voice impossibly gentle as she tightens her arms around me. “No one’s gonna kill us, darling. No one.”

She rocks me slightly, the motion as old as motherhood itself, designed to comfort and soothe. Her hand continues its steady rhythm through my hair, occasionally wiping away tears from my cheeks with a tenderness that breaks my heart.

“You’re safe here,” she whispers, her breath warm against my temple. “I’ll protect you.”

I want to believe her. I really do.

“You don’t understand,” I murmur, my words slurring together, each syllable running into the next like watercolors in the rain. “She’s not normal... she’s... she’s got these eyes like blood... and she... her friend cut off someone’s hand... right in front of me...”

“Just sleep for now, darling,” she whispers, her fingers continuing their gentle rhythm through my hair. The sensation anchors me somehow, a steady point in my spinning world. “We’ll figure everything out in the morning.”

I feel Candice pull the comforter up over both of us, the soft weight settling around my shoulders like an embrace. She’s still holding me, one arm around my waist, the other cradling my head against her chest, where I can hear the steady, reassuring rhythm of her heartbeat.

“Sleep,” she says again, and this time it sounds almost like a spell, a gentle command my body cannot resist.

My eyelids grow heavier with each blink, the darkness behind them more inviting than frightening now. Candice’s warmth beside me feels like a shield, her steady breathing a lullaby, drawing me deeper toward un

As my consciousness fades, one thought peaks through.

‘I will not let Connor get hurt no matter what.’