Chapter 18 #2
He tilted her head so she could see his sly grin over this hard-fought victory as he pressed his finger right back into the damp spot on her panties.
And she had to keep some semblance of control, so she said, “I’m not getting naked in the kitchen,” but her words were whiny and his hand had gone still, torturously so, which meant she had to bear down on it to keep her high going.
Still, she said, “We don’t have any curtains out here.
Everyone’s probably looking at your bare ass right now. ”
Laurin tried to turn the light on in his bedroom, but the faintest whimper from Candace, like she was afraid that asking for that one self-conscious comfort was enough to stop him.
In his younger days, most of the women he’d slept with would have stripped in the middle of the street in broad daylight for him, but that didn’t mean he’d never had bashful lovers.
And just because the light was off this time, that didn’t mean that once she got more comfortable with him, he wouldn’t be able to convince her to bake in nothing but an apron for him.
God, he was already planning that far. In his mind, they were in his bakery in the wee hours of the morning, stealing a bit of time between bakes they mixed together to make love on the counter.
He didn’t have a fully-formed idea of the future in his head, probably because filling it in would show all the food-safety flaws, but the most tantalizing bits? Every detail fleshed out.
He had to nip that in the bud. He loathed the idea that their only future was in competition with each other, but there were a lot of problems he had no idea how to get past. And they barely knew each other.
But it had been a very long time since another woman had stoked this kind of heat in him.
So instead of turning the light on, he kissed her as he lowered her onto the bed, finally sliding his hands under her shirt to feel the gentle flare of her hips, over the pelvic bone that was perhaps a bit too prominent, to the tapering of her waist. Her stomach was soft and flat, and he forced himself not to think about how well-defined her ribs were as he continued up to deceptively firm biceps and all the way to her delicate hands.
He paused there, only nearly divesting her of her shirt and sweater, to lace their fingers together as he kissed her sweet, plush lips.
He felt her body move beneath his, urging him on even as her tension melted away.
Platitudes raced through his mind, but he kissed his way past them, silencing the praises he knew would raise hackles at this point by trailing his lips down her cheek and her jaw, her neck and her shoulder, down to nuzzle at the full swell of her breasts.
She was beautiful. He didn’t need the lights on to know that. He’d seen enough of her in their time together that he could fill in every creamy inch of her with what his lips and hands felt.
One day, he’d tell her that. One day, he’d tell her of this moment. He’d make it an erotic story as he seduced her, a reenactment that voiced all his thoughts right now, but not tonight.
He had to heal her first, however he was able to.
If nothing else, he would have to earn her trust so when he did say everything he wanted to say — so much more than just her beauty — she would believe him.
He knew she still had lingering suspicions about how accidental their pairing was.
Even now, it made him sick to think that as he finished undressing her, as he lathed his affection upon her nipples, pulling each proud, roughened nub into his mouth and scraping his tongue over it until she moaned her pleasure, she might still be thinking he was put up to this by the network.
His heart clenched, the vessels constricting.
He did away with her skirt and panties, thankfully already damp, in a rush and nearly fumbled the condom he retrieved from the nightstand — he’d been confused by the box prominently displayed in the drawer when he first arrived, only to learn later that there was a lot more sex behind the scenes of baking shows than any viewer could have suspected.
That slippery little bugger nearly flew out of his fingers in his rush to unroll it down his throbbing shaft so he could get inside Candace.
He needed to feel her clench around him, to hold her in his arms as she held him within her and hope that in this act at least they could fully depend and trust in each other.
“Candace,” he groaned as he made space for himself between her thighs and brought his lips once more to hers.
“Candace, I need you now.” There was so much more in his words than he expected her to hear, and that was okay.
Her face clenched as she nodded, and he gave her what she clearly wanted as much as he did by thrusting deep within her.
Only, with her startled cry, he realized the tightness in her face wasn’t desperation.
Her whimper as he plunged in greedily wasn’t of pleasure but pain, and the arms that went around his shoulders were suffocatingly tight.
She hadn’t been desperate, she’d been afraid and too embarrassed to admit it.
He withdrew ever so slowly as the walls of her pussy warred against him, and he hugged her back, albeit gently.
“Talk to me,” he urged, rubbing up and down her spine with a firm hand.
His heart was on the edge of palpitations, terrified that he’d read every single moment wrong and she didn’t want any of this.
But she only pressed her cheek into his shoulder, and though the pain was evident, so was the comfort she took in his embrace. She did want him. Hopefully, more than she cared to admit. This was purely a physical discomfort. “It’s okay,” she lied, “don’t stop.”
He absolutely stopped. “Not until you tell me what’s wrong.” He knew already, or at least he knew enough. The hold her pussy had on his cock was a fist crushing him.
She sighed. “It’s just been a while, that’s all.”
“How long?” he asked, easing her down and rubbing his hands along her sides.
He massaged her as he languidly teased at her entrance, warming her up as he should have done instead of plowing ahead like some stupid kid his first time around.
“Candace, I was . . . a slut in my younger days. I won’t lie about that.
But even toward the end of my career, I’d lost interest in casual sex, and I was celebrity enough in the circles I ran in that forging a relationship was complicated.
” He took a moment to nuzzle at her neck, to push a little deeper, dipping his tip fully into her warmth and taking a breath with her to feel her chest rise into his.
“The last time I hurt my leg, I was in a bad place, and every doctor who refused to fix my knee — rightly so — made me more self-destructive. Manon saved my life by getting pregnant with Vivvy, letting me take her. I’m convinced of that.
But that wasn’t without complications, either. ”
He must have made some pensive sound, some indication of mild distress, because Candace rested her hand on his cheek.
His heart swelled as he nudged into it before turning into it to kiss her palm.
She was still intoxicatingly snug around him, but her muscles had eased off, so he took a languid, easy pace over her, going only a little deeper each time, giving her the time to stretch to accommodate him.
“I’m not a US citizen, Candace. I’m here legally, I own the bakery with maman, so you don’t need to worry about me leaving the country or anything, but I’m not Vivvy’s father, either, and that’s caused some difficulties for us. It’s hard to let anyone in anymore. So it’s been almost a year for me.”
He hoped his words would be enough to encourage her to open up, but she’d gone warm and soft, and her legs hooked around his so her body could move with his, and he let that be enough.
He held himself back, making himself savor every inch of her warmth, every gentle sound she made, even though every muscle of his body screamed for him to take. To claim. To mark.
Finally, she hugged him again, hooking her chin over his shoulder as though to hide her face as she said, “It’s been five years since I was first estranged from my husband. And we didn’t really have a sex life a long time before that.”
He thought he knew what she was saying, but it seemed so absurd that he had to confirm it. “And after the estrangement? Any partners—”
“I remained faithful, even if he didn’t.”
Five years. Maybe six. And she was so young. Barely thirty. The feelings that had been simmering inside Laurin for a while now, since at least the day of the cookie episode, threatened to boil over at the notion that she was practically untouched but still wanted him.
He propped himself up enough to put some space between them. Despite having seriously good friction going, she scowled.
Needy girl. And he liked that a lot.
He laid his hand flat on her stomach below her navel, stretching a finger down to scrape along her clit. Her back bowed immediately, lifting her half off the bed.
“Kiss me,” he told her, and he saw the flicker of retreat warring with the urge to obey and the need to take what she wanted.
The way she talked of her family and her ex, Laurin got the sense that there’d been a lot of traps in her life, the sort of thing that made someone scared to take what was offered to them.
On the surface, it seemed counterintuitive that she could be so timid while also being one of the most talked-about contestants on America’s favorite competitive cooking show, but it was beginning to make perfect sense.
Candace couldn’t accept what was handed to her. She could only fight to the death for it. It was the only way she could trust that she’d done what she needed to for it.
It’s why she insisted she was here because the network wanted a villain, why she was so sure they’d paid Laurin to be nice to her.