Chapter 19
Candace was a cuddler. Of all the ways she’d surprised Laurin in that hour that had stretched into all night — the cameraman definitely had the hot gossip now — the biggest surprise was waking up to find her cuddled against him.
Clothed. When had that happened?
But that was even better. She must have gotten up, skittered to her room to put on a nightgown, and come back. To cuddle.
His heart tightened. He didn’t know where this was going. Two weeks of high adrenaline and a thousand miles between homes wasn’t a great start. But Candace’s head was on his chest, her hand was balled into a fist, and her satin nightgown was a muted, almost-gray blue. He didn’t want to let her go.
He wasn’t going to let her go. But the first time he got that stray cat to eat out of his hand, it had run off the moment it got a bite of the roast turkey. So he needed to be prepared for whatever Candace was about to do.
He ran his hand along her side, feeling the gentle dip and swell from her waist to her hips, running back up to her chest, and felt another ache, this one less pleasant.
Last night had confirmed something that had been nagging at him.
The missing weight he blamed on the infamous camera ten pounds, the darkness in her face when he caught her without make-up, the way she ate — and didn’t.
She had so much energy, but there were odd moments of fatigue, too, where she suddenly looked tired and had to brace herself.
She was sick. He doubted it was anything fatal.
No, this was sick from stress. This sort of wasting wasn’t common among athletes, not at a professional level where health could not be compromised, but he’d seen enough other variations to recognize it.
He may not have had to force his teammates to eat, but he’d had his hands filled with steroid abuse and violent tempers many times.
He’d helped his teammates. He would help Candace, too, but not because she was his teammate.
He would help her because she needed help, and if he had any chance of taking this beyond their little cabin, he needed to make himself as important to her as she was to him.
His heart had already been getting in the way before last night. Now? He was playing for keeps.
She stirred when he probed her ribcage too firmly. A stretch and another snuggle, a wiggle of her butt and a throaty murmur of comfort. She tilted her head up to look at him and shot him the most comfy, satisfied smile.
He had to keep her.
More stretching. She tucked her hand beneath him, hugging his waist. “What time is it?”
He looked over at the ancient clock on the nightstand. “A little after seven.”
“Mmm, early still.”
Laurin pulled her thigh over his so he could stroke the supple, exposed flesh there, and maybe get his fingers to within a couple inches of where he wanted them to be if she meant what he thought she did.
“I wonder when we’re back on set. They said we’d be back by end of weekend, but—”
“Ten o’clock today,” Laurin said with a frown.
“Lame. And weird. They normally give us a day between, but—wait, how did you know that?”
“Got some water a couple hours ago. There was a note in the kitchen.”
Candace groaned and faceplanted on his sternum. “Someone was in the cabin while we were . . .” She sighed. “This was dumb.”
“It was absolutely not dumb,” Laurin said.
He probably wasn’t going to get any early morning play now, but it was more important that he keep her happy in the long term.
He didn’t need fun. He just needed her. “Everyone’s thinking this already happened.
And no one was hurt here. I wanted this, you wanted this.
Neither of us have anyone back home.” He hesitated, unsure of whether he should say any more, before remembering himself.
He did not hesitate. “I want to see you back home. Stay a few more days down here now or at Christmas, or I’ll visit you. We don’t end in this cabin.”
Candace sighed, but Laurin couldn’t say it was a happy or contented sigh.
It sounded more like defeat, and he couldn’t understand why.
He was positive he hadn’t read things wrong and that Candace may have desperately needed last night just for the purely physical sake of it.
She needed more than just an on-set affair.
What he’d just said felt like exactly what she wanted from him, so why the pensive sigh?
“Whatcha thinking about?” he murmured as he dug his fingers into her hair to rub her scalp.
She rolled onto him and propped herself on her elbows, looming over him as her eyes dragged up from his stomach to his face. She pouted. “Why are you so perfect?”
That had Laurin’s chest puffing right up. False alarm. Everything was fine. “You’ll visit me, then?”
“No, I mean this. Look at you. You’re perfect. And I’m . . .” In her position, her nightgown hung loose enough at the neckline that they could both see right down it. “This.”
“You’re too thin.” Laurin internalized his cringe as his refusal to hesitate came back to haunt him, but he meant what he said.
Before she could kick up a major fuss, he added, “I worry about your health, that’s all I mean.
I know a lot of female athletes, Candace.
Beefy weight lifters and hockey goalies all the way down to the tiniest gymnasts. ”
Candace crinkled her nose. “I need to go put my onesie on.”
He grabbed her by the ass and flipped her onto her back, kissing her hard to shut her up and pressing into her the erection she had to have noticed in her perusal of his perfection, just to remind her that he was with her now — and he hadn’t said he’d slept with most of those athletes.
A couple, yeah, but most were just friends.
“You need to lie here and listen to me and feel this. You feel that, right?”
She swallowed as she nodded, and Laurin took the opportunity to rub his cock along her folds, already slick despite her protests. But she wasn’t wearing panties, so surely it was an invitation.
“I told myself not to tell you this because you were going to take this the wrong way, and now you definitely are, but you are beautiful, okay? When I say you’re too thin, I’m saying that everyone has an optimal size, and you’re not there.
Gymnasts are built to weigh ninety pounds and be healthy, but most weight lifters would be dead at that weight.
This weight. Your life is a disaster right now, so I understand it.
I see the stress you’re under, and I see how much you’re struggling just to eat.
I’m not judging, but it hurts me knowing how sick you’re making yourself. ”
In a bid to make her feel better, he kissed her, debating if maybe what would make her feel even better was his dick back in her pussy. Ultimately, he decided this was a time for words first, although he was certainly tempting them by rubbing his shaft up and down her clit.
“There was an episode from the Garden Party season. You were wearing this checkered dress that made you look like Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, and I don’t think you meant it to be a sexy outfit, but the skirt flared enough that I got a peek at these thick thighs.
” He gripped them and, yeah, they felt good, but he wanted more.
“And the top was that scrunchy stuff that made your breasts look gigantic, and—”
“Lucas put me in that.”
Bloody hell. He’d just wanted to point out that she wasn’t too far from being healthy again.
Candace shook her head at the face Laurin made. “It’s okay. Obviously, it got the job done.”
It wasn’t okay, though. Despite everything, Candace was still here.
Everyone who should have lifted her up her entire life had only pushed her down.
She’d lost her shop and her livelihood, she’d been branded a villain for someone else’s wrongdoing, but she was still here, still holding her head high.
She was still Queen Candace.
If she hadn’t been hurt by so many in her life, Laurin bet she would have conquered the world, and he wanted to see that.
He would never be in another World Cup. He’d made his peace with that, but that didn’t mean he was no longer competitive.
The baking show was great for that, but he’d rather a competition he and Candace could both win together.
A long-term competition, with a victory that included sharing a bed for a very long time.
“I just want to take care of you, Candace. And I’d like you to take care of me.”
Her lips pulled tight in defiance. “Your diet seems perfectly fine, and it sounds like you’re pretty independent. Not sure how I could take care of you.”
“I live with my mom and my daughter,” he reminded her soberly. “My entire life is baking and PTA. My football mates don’t get my life. The moms I sit in the drop-off lane with don’t, either. I like being a father and a son, but I’m still a man.”
Candace rolled her eyes. “So you want to trade food for sex?”
“Not sex.” But then he grinned and stole a kiss.
“Yes, absolutely sex, but more than that. I spend all day saying and doing the right thing. What happens here, on camera? All those rules they have and these personas they expect us to match? That’s every day for me.
I can never be anything but a family-friendly version of myself.
Just taking Vivvy to the park can be a nightmare if my eyes wander in the wrong direction.
And I’m good with it most of the time, but then I’ll stop and think about it and realize that there’s this whole part of me that’s withering away. ”
“So then, trade food for locker room talk?” But she said it with a chuckle as she dragged her hands down to his butt and gave it a good squeeze. “You’ve got a great ass, Laurin.”
“I like your boobs.”
Candace’s laugh was much louder. “Okay, but let’s be better at this man talk thing.”