Swan Girls Book 2 - Coffee and Grinder

Coffee and Grinder

After a nice interaction with Tristan where Candace: 1) wasn’t worried about accidentally crushing his bones with her hand or carving through paved road with her toes, and 2) wasn’t worried about maybe mostly-accidentally putting her hand through a boor’s chest, she felt a bit peckish.

Usually, if she had actually gone outside at all in the mornings, she’d have tried to blow off some steam with some jerky, spastic flying, followed by either ordering delivery, or if she was feeling adventurous, torching some frozen food with her heat vision. Huge scorch marks on her wallpaper and a whole section of the wall tinted a different color from her first experiment served as a painful reminder of how badly she had failed at that.

But today was a different day! The radiant sky shone as bright and blue as Candace’s own eyes, the earth felt solid against her feet instead of like badly set gelatin for once, and the chirping of flocks of birds miles away didn’t make her want to squish her head like an overripe grape—which she had tried to no avail before. Truly, Candace felt freer than she ever had since manifesting her powers. She’d forgotten that a state of constant pain and anxiety didn’t have to be an everyday thing!

Feeling lighter than air itself instead of tumbling around trapped in a spinning top, Candace practically floated her way to Roast and Toast, her favorite bistro in town. No more delivery and drop off to her “secret lair” miles outside of town. Today, she would enjoy the meal while sitting outside in the mid-afternoon sun, breathing in the fresh air, and stretching her long, overtensed body.

R&T was a brisk 30 minute walk from her current location, and she was in no mood to rush it. The newly empowered blonde released her bun, fluffed her hair out, and still half-meekly strolled toward the cafe keeping her head down, tossing a smile at any passersby who seemed receptive.

Ten minutes later, a totally pristine Candace, fresh off her impromptu photoshoot, took a spot in line waiting to order. Most of the patrons were gobsmacked not only by her beauty, but by the fact that she stood nearly a head taller than everyone else there. The cashier just stared breathlessly at the towering blonde fitness model’s bewitching blue eyes as they approached.

“A light roasty with creamy cream and an avocado toast,” Candace chirped as she gingerly placed her hand on the counter. It was so easy now not to push her slender fingers right through it!

“You want the roasty hot or iced?” the worker asked.

“Iced, please! Oh, and a thick honey toast too. ...And a tomato cheese with microgreens toast please.” She felt great today, so why shouldn’t she go all out?

The cashier performed a double take on Candace’s trim and taut body before catching himself and ringing up the order with professionalism. How could she keep a figure like that while eating so much of R&T’s signature thick and sweet breads? Must be her cheat day, he mused.

“Okay... order number 43.”

Candace grabbed the lone credit card sitting in her pocket and inserted it into the card reader with all the joy and excitement of a teenager who had just received her own magic infinite money machine. It didn’t snap in half!

She stood in front of the baristas making the pour over coffee to order. All eyes had been on the statuesque Candace when she’d ordered, so all three of them rushed to pick hers up. A short brunette girl who could barely see over the brewing bar earned the privilege, so Candace walked over to her station while the other two growled in envy at the missed opportunity.

After showing off as best she could with her efficiency and high hot water pours, Candace’s barista served up her customer’s huge order.

“Do you, uh... need a hand with that?” She looked at all the thick toasts lined up eye level with her on the counter.

“Nope, it’s okay! Thanks!”

Candace picked up all three plates in one hand, deftly and effortlessly balancing them in her interleaved fingers before picking up her drink with no coffee cup wrap to protect her hand.

“Hey, that’s hot! Careful!” The brunette shrieked as Candace wrapped her sleek fingers over the paper container. She thought a huge order of java and bread were about to go flying.

“I’m okay. Thanks!” Candace just flashed a billion watt smile, bathing the lucky barista in her splendorous radiance before heading outside to eat.

The barista sighed in pure bliss. It was a minor miracle she didn’t dump her next two trays, and it was a few minutes before she could properly get back to work.

Back outside with the sun beaming down on Candace’s glowing golden hair, she pushed her chair far, far back from the little table so that it would accommodate her absurdly long, athletic legs. She brought the steaming cup to her cute nose and gave it a deep whiff. Notes of caramel, a touch of cardamom, and some fruitiness, the menu said. Candace had never really picked it up before, but now, she could... kind of understand where that was coming from! Her mind and her sensitive taste buds picked through all the complex notes that had made it into the flavor of her coffee, from the conditions the beans were grown, to how they were processed, to how they had been roasted...

Similarly, the toast was delicious as always, but with her senses calm and relieved, Candace could process all of the delicious fattiness of the avocado, all of the subtleties of the sweetness of the honey and the culture of the butter, not to mention all of the tongue-tingling acidity and milkiness of her affectionately named pizza toast.

Candace licked her lips salaciously as she polished off her scalding hot coffee in a few large gulps down her gullet. Life was good. No, it was great. Her flighty little sister might have literally saved her life, or at least, make it well worth living.

Speaking of Coral, her little sister was too young to be traumatized by the events surrounding their mother’s disappearance. The party girl loved their father and even their step-mother without pause, but Candace suspected that he must have done something for this to have happened. There were loud fights, crying, and incomprehensible threats that Candace had overheard but could never decipher the meaning of... As such, she had always kept their step-mother Paris at arm’s length as well.

When Candace finally looked back up, she could see all the amorous stares she was receiving from the gathering crowd. She blushed redder than the tomato sauce on her pizza toast. Putting her hair back up, she quickly took her leave.

What should she do now? Candace looked at the bracelet that Coral had unearthed. Now that all of her inconceivable superpowers were seemingly under her control, surely there had to be more to do than continue to work in the family business, being groomed to take over the reins from her father. She could survive in the vacuum of space totally naked and probably melt meteorites, for gods’ sake!

Her phone buzzed. Speak of the devil.

“Hey boss’s daughter. Sorry for the weekend work talk, but I’ve been mulling over a potential project at work and I’d like to get your blessing so that I can get some clout to have it approved. Have some time?”

Candace chuckled as she read the message. Rohan had been extremely charming when they met at work, but once he realized she was literally the daughter of the head of the company, one of the richest men in the world, he’d backed off. Now, there was nothing between them but professionalism, and the oft-repeated jab about needing her help to get his work through. His womanizing charm had been weaponized toward other targets.

She liked him. He was genuinely hardworking.

“Hey. Yeah sure, I’m not doing anything right now. Are you near the office?”

“I can be.”

“You didn’t snare any young interns?” Candace typed out on her phone before deleting it. What was she thinking!? Playful was one thing, but that had to be beyond the pale. Their relationship had never worked like that! Instead, she went with, “Want to meet up at the office?”

“Sure. Don’t dress up for my sake.” Rohan’s message concluded their conversation.

Candace chuckled. He’d been so mortified the first time she’d shown up on a weekend, dressed in her oversized baggy top and ripped sweatpants. Her dumpster goblin outfit, Coral called it. Now, she just owned it when working overtime with Rohan.

However, she was feeling saucy today.

Ducking into a side alley, Candace quadruple checked with her super hearing and x-ray vision that nobody could bear witness to her abilities. Then, her feet left the floor, and she soared straight up into the air faster than the human eye could process. About a minute later, she landed in the rooftop gardens of a ritzy highrise apartment building just a few blocks from the Connor’s offices. A powerful gust of wind followed in her wake, stirring the roses draped over the trellises. Not many people in the building even remembered the gardens were up here after signing their lease. She let herself in the rooftop access and two flights of stairs later she reached the front doorstep of her apartment,  key in hand. 

She unlocked the door, slipped inside, closed it, and then became a tall, flesh-colored blur. Her most precious books were in her library in her ranch house out in the woods, but she’d still managed to fill the handful of rooms here with more reading material in what was originally just a place she’d bought to have an excuse for being able to ‘walk to work’ in only a few minutes.She did keep some clothes here, though. Her closet door slid open, all of her hanging garments jiggled as Candace rifled through them, trying to find the perfect blend of sexy, professional, and not torn clothing. After making her selections, all of her clothing nearly flew off their hangers as Candace flew to her bathroom.

One more blur later, and she was fully draped in her new outfit: a business suit that did nothing to hide the dramatic swell of her heavy, jutting breasts coupled with a black, knee length pencil skirt that hugged her hips and highlighted the luscious length of her legs.

Leaving the floor, Candace opened the large window and twisted her body through it like a ballerina, skillfully avoiding putting more holes into the wall by bumping it with her breasts or shoulders unlike her past hesitant, jerky motions. 

Moments later, she was landing in the middle of the Connors building complex, touching down in her high heels. It would be a few more minutes until Rohan arrived; she regretted not getting more toast to go. Maybe a large Golden Water Roasty to try out the lightly toasted beans too.

Four minutes later, Rohan was approaching her office door. Four. Whole. Minutes! It felt like an eternity! Candace had been buzzing around her office, leafing through her cabinets at super speed, organizing and reorganizing them for no real reason. Her superpowered bod demanded release and satisfaction despite Candace finally being in full control of her power! Or perhaps because of it.

Her blue eyes and bracelet glowed as she peered over to the Timber City port, nearly a quarter of which was owned by her father’s empire. Those huge freight ships, designed by the apex of human ingenuity, were no match for the extreme strength contained in her beautiful, feminine limbs! She could haul so much more freight at speeds whole magnitudes higher than these state-of-the-art machines could do! And as far as she knew, she was wholly impervious to harm. Why, she could take over this whole planet if she wanted! Subjugate its entire population within a single day; any and all dissenters would find themselves... neutralized. All at her mercy.

Who would even challenge her? Who indeed, a foreign, ominous voice whispered in her mind. Besides maybe Coral... but from just their brief interaction, Candace knew that while Coral had blossomed into something almost unimaginably powerful, her little sister stood no chance against her either. At least, not yet.

She floated there, sitting cross legged in midair, hypnotized by these strange, intrusive thoughts. The sounds of Rohan’s footsteps snapped her free of these wholly unfamiliar fantasies. Candace shook her head clear, checking her lustrous hair was still firmly bound in her habitual bun.

As he shifted his laptop in his hand and reached to knock, the door swung violently open to reveal a stunning and strangely flushed Candace.

“Took you long enough!” she chirped, opening the door all the way to invite him in.

Rohan Miller just stood there, stunned. It was so unfair the boss’s daughter was also an absolute supermodel.

“Rohan?” Candace prompted as she adjusted her thick rimmed glasses.

“I, uh. Yeah,” the half Indian half American cleared his throat and strode into her office. He was long aware that she had a killer body, but normally she was so meek and skittish it was kind of wasted on her. Toady she was… proudly vibrant.

“So what did you have in mind?” Candace got down to business, though her direct eye contact and bright smile was a strange sight to behold. A strange, and unbelievably charming sight.

Rohan suddenly found his tie too tight for his collar, only to realize that it was the weekend and he wasn’t wearing one. He tugged at his shirt and cleared his throat once more. Candace’s office never felt this small before... but the statuesque beauty had never been quite so imposing before, dressed to kill and occupying the space like she owned it.

“Okay, look,” he opened his laptop. A map of the western coast trucking routes and logistics appeared, filled with red dots and green lines. It was a sight that would confuse any of the uninitiated, but Candace and Rohan knew it like the backs of their hands.

“Yeah. The ToCr line. It’s bad. So what?” Candace half-looked at the diagram, and spent the other half of her attention checking out Rohan’s body with her glowing eyes. She liked what she saw.

“We can’t get them to open new stops or run more trains for us either. These rat bastards want to charge us a fortune.”

“Mm hmm.”

“So why do we depend on them for business? I think we can have our cake and eat it too! Look at this hypothetical line I’ve plotted out.” Rohan hit a button, displaying a new rail line with new stops that the Connors empire had always wanted on the west coast.

“Do you have a plan, Rohan? You know ToCr will never go for this. We even gave them very favorable terms.”

“I’m proposing new rail!” He declared proudly. “Their infrastructure is crap. We should have returns on this compared to our fleet of truckers within ten years. Less, if we successfully take business away from ToCr. Then we can acquire them, lay new rail, connect our lines... listen, I know it’s crazy, but everyone said it was crazy when we began our own fleet of delivery trucks instead of relying on the existing suppliers. Why not this?”

“You want to start... a whole domestic freight rail? We’ve never done anything like that before!” Candace objected.

“Precisely! The lines drawn out here are from the 1800s! It’s woefully out of date! Think of it, Candace. A privatized, high speed rail, for the modern times. The existing rail already does both freight and passenger. People bemoan the lack of good public transportation. If we can actually build this, it’ll basically market itself.”

“Rohan, this is a huge investment.” She placed her hand on the back of his.

He was so engrossed in his vision that he didn’t even notice for a moment.

“Even my father couldn’t just authorize this. He’d need to convince the whole board,” she mused as her other hand slid into the bun on the back of her head and let her hair down.

“I know, Candace. But I really think it could work. Let me try to pitch it to you some more. Is that okay?”

“Mm... I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Candace pressed her body against his.

“C-Candace!?” Rohan was taken aback. Had Candace always been this tall? A shift in her posture really did wonders. He slipped into his suave player persona quickly. If she was the one who was going to make the first move, how could he be blamed? Though she’d never acted like this before...

“What’s happened to the quiet little mouse I worked with? She’s gone, and now all I see is a lioness!” Rohan returned her caresses with a squeeze of his hand.

“I hope you like what you see...” Candace purred, not sure if she was doing it right.

“You are... oomph!”

Before he could continue to pour the charm on, a surprisingly domineering and strong Candace had pushed him back up against her office wall, away from the windows. And that tall, tall body of hers pressed into him, actually compressing his chest so hard that he couldn’t breathe! He looked down and confirmed what he was feeling—two luscious, gorgeous, huge orbs squashing his torso, with absolutely no give at all!

He looked at Candace both in fear and lust. His body responded with a half-arrested groan of lust, stifled by the lack of oxygen flowing to his brain.

“Tell you what. Let’s go look at some of these sites together. We’ll hire a geological survey team, and then, if it looks good... I’ll see what I can do about getting it approved for you. I am the boss’s daughter, after all.” The superpowered blonde exhaled her hot, sweet breath all over his face while she stroked his chest with a finger. Impromptu pillow talk was not a thing she had any experience with. “How does that sound?”

Rohan, his light brown complexion now a total beet red, nodded in pure excitement.

“Great!” Candace swiveled her body, removing her unbreakable hold against his body by releasing her breasts. A quick brush of her thigh against his erection confirmed just what she wanted to know.

“I’ll see you later, kay?” Candace walked out of the office, throwing Rohan one last big smile over her shoulder.

And then she fled the scene.

Oh my god oh my god I’ve never done that before! Candace replayed the recent event over and over in her mind, totally dying of embarrassment while regretting that she hadn’t done more. Why didn’t she talk about hard rock, or laying pipe, or metal shafts!? Which only led to further internal embarrassment.

Hot and bothered herself, Candace had climbed to the roof of the building and flown straight up into the blue sky. She found herself hovering over the Connors shipyards that she had spied with her super eyes earlier. That had been... fun. Tristan, and now Rohan. It had only been one day with the bracelet, and now she had two potential suitors she was interested in. What a change! But how to choose between them? 

What if she took both of them? She was so fast, she could almost be in two places at once. Or maybe she would just decide to take them both. It’s not like they could stop her, and probably wouldn’t even want to...

A loud, screeching grind of metal broke her out of her reverie. One of the cranes carrying a container had just halted, and it was about to drop its load. Candace’s super senses combined with her superspeed identified the defective machinery immediately, and then noticed that two of the dock workers were about to be crushed to death.

Without pausing to think, she broke the sound barrier, ripping her clothing as she materialized underneath the container just as it was about to drop. With one hand outstretched, she caught the several ton container in her dainty hand. The whole thing stopped with a loud whumpf, covering herself and the two almost victims in shade.

They both peeked up from underneath their hard hats. Hovering before them was a blonde angel.

“Don’t. Tell. Anyone,” Candace threatened in her scariest voice.

Both men gulped and nodded.

“Now get out of the way!” she hissed.

“Oh fuck! Fuck!” some voices from around the dock shouted.

The two men weren’t scrambling fast enough for Candace’s taste. She pursed her pink lips and blew a gust of superbreath at them, sending them rolling along the concrete docks. Then, she let the container drop and vanished from her position, with none the wiser save those two.

Everyone on the dock bounced as the container landed on the earth. Huge lines of cracked concrete shattered from the point of impact.

“Ugh. Looks like we should take maintenance more seriously. Outdated rail? Look at our own stuff,” Candace regretted.

She pulled out her phone idly and wondered what to do. Morgan... a high school friend. He was only a few slots down on her phone’s recently received text messages. Not a womanizer like Rohan, and not artistic like Tristan. And far down on the physical attraction scale. But he was smart and thoughtful and loved comic book characters.

Candace sent him a text suggesting that they meet up. His reply couldn’t have come any quicker.