Chapter 22
Candace didn’t know what to expect of Laurin’s bedroom when she sneaked into it.
The rest of the house was feminine, definitely his mother’s, and he was just living here with her.
The kitchen was modern, an upgrade he explained that he paid for when he was still overseas and on the cusp of major product sponsorships.
The rest of the shared spaces were floral and kitschy, all soft pastels and delicate knick-knacks.
It was a surprisingly spacious five-bedroom, four-bath, with an additional wing for an in-law suite.
Atlanta was notorious for its mini-mansions; this would have been one of them if it had been on the right road.
The suburb they lived in had an expensive feel to it, so Candace couldn’t imagine it was worth any less than seven figures.
She didn’t want to be rude, but she’d lived the bakery life long enough to know how little money came with it.
When she nudged at the topic, Laurin said the entire place had been a gift from him in his World Cup days.
He’d bought and paid for the bakery, too, when the landlord threatened to hike the rent, and there’d been a housekeeper once upon a time.
He’d had a grand notion of a place to host events for his teammates when they were in the states and to sprawl on family holidays, only for Pauline to get saddled with him and Vivvy instead.
He said it sheepishly, but she could tell it was more in jest than anything.
Pauline had been divorced for nearly a decade and had been in the house by herself for three years before Laurin’s return.
She’d made it her own space. Vivvy’s dolls and tea ware had taken over the corners.
There was no sports memorabilia or oversized recliner, no fancy bar or game systems, nothing to indicate anyone but a grandmother and granddaughter lived here.
So when she knocked on Laurin’s door and he opened it, when he pulled her into his arms and she looked over his shoulder, she forced herself to pay attention to the room.
It wasn’t what she expected from him. He’d admitted that he was more of an athletic wear guy at home, no surprises, but this room was surprisingly rustic.
Gigantic, ridiculously large for an in-law suite, with hardwood floors and muted ivory walls, just like the rest of the house, but everything in this room blended into it deliberately.
A dark green rug, an earth-toned quilt on the king-size bed, a cherry headboard to match the cherry dresser.
Two corners had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and yes, the recliner she’d been looking for was there as well, with Laurin’s little gray cat, Minoue, curled up on the seat.
On the stand next to it was a small stack of books, the print too small to read the spines, but she could see the accents.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t believed him before when he said he was French, but until today, it came off more like her saying she was Scandinavian when really, that was so many generations back that she wasn’t sure which country or if it was a mix of all of them.
He’d even said he was only French because his mother was French.
Laurin truly was French.
Candace held back a laugh about how silly and inconsequential it was.
She was here in this room for a reason, she had a plan, and she couldn’t get distracted by something like Laurin reading in French.
She could get distracted by the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, though, and how low his pajama pants were slung on his hips.
He loosened his grip on her to kiss the crown of her head, and she took the space as an opportunity to run her hands down his smooth chest to his sculpted abdomen, around to his hips to dip into his waistband to squeeze his butt.
He had a great butt.
Laurin made a sound somewhere between a purr and a chuckle before peeling away, leaving only a hand on her back to rub it briskly. “Like I said before, we can just sleep. I feel like you must be exhausted after today.”
He could have said it with a bit of smarm.
A surly wink and a fluff of hubris. Her ex-husband pulled that kind of machismo for far less noteworthy bedroom activities than what she and Laurin had done in the past twenty-four hours.
But he didn’t. Regardless of what Laurin thought or hoped this was between them, he was sincere in his words, concerned and, if Candace read his big green eyes right, genuinely anticipating sharing his bed with her, not just for the brownie points he would earn in thinking of her comfort.
But she wasn’t here to sleep, so she dug deeper into his pants, dropping them down a few critical inches.
Laurin’s laugh was hoarse. “I’m also down for that.
” He glanced down at where her hands were, at the way his waistband and erection were in a bit of a tussle.
“Or up for it. But can we talk first? I feel like we need to do that, and we keep getting distracted. In really great ways, but time isn’t on our side right now, and I don’t want to mess things up—”
Candace let him ramble in that surprisingly but endearingly nervous way for a moment as she eased away from him.
She allowed herself to paint a picture of the two of them sinking into that recliner together, her on his lap, sharing playful kisses and touches and laughs as they found a future for themselves together, one that would just magically work for her and wouldn’t mean giving up what little was left of herself, a world of happily ever afters and all that.
But she wasn’t here to talk, either, certainly not to plan a future.
She wasn’t rewriting her life for a man who couldn’t rewrite his life for her.
She couldn’t start a relationship at a disadvantage like that.
And they’d known each other for two high-adrenaline weeks.
She was already a terrible enough judge of character as it was.
So as Laurin rambled, she fiddled with the tie of the robe that matched her most attractive nightgown and dropped it to the ground, showing Laurin that she hadn’t put on the gown at all.
His words faded, and his eyes drooped. One hand went straight for her breast, and she didn’t mind at all. He had said he liked her boobs, after all.
“We can talk later,” he said, his voice silk on her ear, before bringing their lips together.
Only for a moment, though, before Candace put her hands on his chest and pushed him back toward his bed. He graciously stepped back — Candace wasn’t foolish enough to believe she could actually push him like that — and sat on the edge, parting his knees so she could fill the space.
She let him indulge. She let him grab her butt and sweep down her thighs as he took one nipple and then the other into his mouth to suck and lick at them, to warm her up and steal her breath.
She also used that time to finally liberate his cock.
It was already thick, and a few good strokes had it straining for her, stretching for more.
The sounds he made, deep and low, gentle but expectant, vibrated on the puckered flesh in his mouth, already oversensitive from his earlier enthusiasm.
It was enough to make Candace briefly forget her plan again, instead conjuring thoughts of what would happen if she stroked him to completion just like this, of how they would clean up the mess he made between them, of if she would enjoy this sort of thing better than she had with her ex, whom it always felt degrading with.
Reminding herself that in the earliest days with him, he had been very sweet and romantic and enthusiastic with her, too.
It was enough to encourage her to push Laurin down instead of following through with that experiment.
He fell back with a big grin but propped himself up on his elbows to watch her finally tug his pants off.
He remained a good sport when she realized she hadn’t thought this through and needed him on the bed properly, situating himself the right way before she could embarrass herself too much by attempting to move a man of his size.
He did snag her by the waist, though, dragging her over him to kiss as he much more adeptly manipulated her body.
Next thing she knew, he’d parted her legs by snagging one knee up next to his hip and nestled his cock between her folds to slide through the slickness building.
He made a move to roll them over, but Candace resisted, and Laurin didn’t fight back.
He relaxed when he realized her intention, stretching his arms up and tucking his hands under his head, showing that he was all for Candace taking the lead with a pose he surely knew would accentuate all his best features.
He deserved his self-serving grin as Candace took a brief detour, pushing through her more timid, conservative instincts to run her tongue and teeth across his sculpted arms and chest. Only when she took hold of his shaft and lined herself up over him did he attempt to stop her.
“Wait,” he groaned, unhappy about halting her progress but attempting to be responsible. He reached toward his nightstand. “Let me grab a condom.”
She grabbed that hand and, with an impish grin, tucked it back under the pillow.
Neither of them had had another partner in ages, and she was on birth control.
Just this time, she wanted to be ever so slightly irresponsible.
So before he could protest further, she lowered herself down, taking him fully within her.
His head rolled back. “God, Candace,” he moaned. “Your cunt feels so fucking perfect.” When he brought his eyes back to her, they consumed her, taking in every inch of her body as she worked herself over him.
Instead of the old urge to lean down and hide herself, not even the words he’d said the night before about her weight loss could stop her from holding her own hands behind her head to give his eyes a feast of her flesh.