Page 57 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
Candace’s jaw dropped, but no one was the wiser.
Jannie and Kate gave the breakdown of the challenge: what Patty and Zara had to make, how much time they would get, and which surprise elements they needed to include. It would be three types of candy, at least one containing chocolate and one containing citrus, and the display also had to be edible. The prep time would be four hours, which really meant five hours with production breaks, and that could have been extended further, what with the thinned-out crew. Through all of that, Laurin was waiting to hear one thing, which they didn’t announce until the very end of the brief.
The judging would be blind.
Laurin and Candace would not only not be needed at the pavilion, they would have to go somewhere else.
He took a single, well-planned step behind Candace, casually positioning her body in front of his to prevent Food2Love network from accidentally broadcasting his erection into three million homes worldwide.
Lord knew Candace didn’t need another season of scandal, and he was finding it impossible to keep his hands off her. Hecouldn’t help it. He felt better touching her, and this was a high-stress moment, after all. He lived for this kind of stress. He’d had to remove himself from it too long and welcomed back the adrenaline with open arms, but that just made the good stuff feel so much better. It made touching Candace feel so much better.
He locked his knees to keep from nudging into her so she would know what was on his mind. But he was distracted enough by escaping that he practically tripped over her when Mike called cut and he tried to drag her out while she held her ground.
“Why did you change the rules?” Candace asked into the ether as he righted himself. “Not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but we weren’t originally going to be the judges, were we? You would have given everyone a call home, then.”
Laurin beamed over how clever she was. Those rare times immunity was awarded, that was always the only prize they got. Same with the call home. It was coveted enough that any contestant would be happy to get that prize alone. In fact, when this episode hit the airwaves, boards would be lighting up with complaints over this. Candace and Laurin would both get roasted over how excessive and unwarranted this was. Favoritism, they’d call it, and it wouldn’t be the first time Candace was accused of it.
So, yes, Laurin wanted to know the full story now for that reason alone. He hoped whatever the reasoning was would be beyond reproach.
Kate and Jannie approached them, and it was Candace who got her hackles up when Kate’s eyes scanned her and Laurin, narrowing too intensely on the hand Laurin had on Candace’sbicep. It wasn’t anything much, just a straightening of her back and a lifting of her head, but it was enough for Kate to look away.
“You’re all perfectly safe,” Jannie led with, but Candace stiffened and put her hand on Laurin’s, giving him an excuse to rub her back where no one could see it. “But the network has decided to evacuate all non-essentials. There’s a weather emergency. We’re safe here, but there’s a storm cell sweeping across the country that’s left a trail of gnarly tornadoes in the Midwest and messed up a bunch of flights, and now it’s looking like it’s about to wallop the Northeast. The network wanted to make sure they got as many people as they could home. They couldn’t bring the judges in, either.”
“We’ll be able to get you home, Patty,” Kate added. “There’s an executive flight straight to Phoenix that will be taking off at seven tonight, so we’ll have you pack your bags while Candace and Laurin judge and get you out of here immediately after we’re done filming. Candace, Zara, it’s not looking good for you right now. They’re already starting to cancel flights into the tri-state area. But don’t worry. We’re getting everyone back to civilization tonight. They’re booking rooms for you in Atlanta. Mike’s even got a few things planned out for you — promotional stuff — at the network offices downtown this weekend. You’ll get paid, of course, with a food stipend and everything.”
Jannie jumped in then, saying, “Lucy would love for you to guest-host an episode with her tomorrow, Candace,” and Laurin got the feeling from the tension still between Candace and Kate that Kate would have gladly omitted that.
The way Candace melted a little showed how much that meant to her, though. Lucy and Candace had done a couple seasons together before Lucy got her own show. It was a standard baking show, one of their afternoon fillers before theirflagship shows hit primetime — which included reruns only of the Food2Love challenge, since the new episodes had been poached by their parent company’s major network — but it was still a big deal to Candace. She needed this now, when she was still so weighed down by her recent scandal. She needed someone from her past to show this kind of support.
Jannie and Laurin met eyes and gave knowing nods to each other. Candace had far more support than she knew.
“She’ll stay with me,” Laurin announced before correcting it to, “They, I mean. Candace and Zara. I have plenty of space at my place, and my family would love to host them for the weekend. I can get them down to the center, give them a tour of Atlanta, all that. You can see my little bakery. The network is welcome to send a cameraman up, too, if they could use that for more promos.”
He was expecting a protest, the polite sort of thing that happened when people volunteered their time or services without compensation, further complicated when corporations were involved. Instead, Kate laughed without malice and said, “Oh, look at you garnering camera time from the network. Very clever. We’ll pass the offer on, see how it goes. Now go on, you two, get out of here. The sooner we get filming, the sooner we can get this evacuation done.”
They got all of ten yards from the pavilion before Laurin had his hand up Candace’s skirt.
“We’ve got six hours!” she reminded him with a playful swat at his hand and a nervous glance around, just to make sure no one was watching. When he’d insisted on driving the golf cart, she’d assumed it was just a man-being-man thing. Her dad always drove. Her ex-husband always drove. Even when she had her bakery and was running a delivery with any of her male employees, if they could legally drive, they drove. It was just a thing she didn’t fight.
But now she was thinking that he’d been planning this moment and didn’t want her to crash the cart.
“And I’m not wasting a minute of it,” he said as he gently coaxed her knees to part.
“Don’t think I’m not onto your littlestay the weekend, I’m a tour guidemove,” Candace added with a side-eye.
And of course he grinned proudly at that, not even pretending his motive was innocent. “There’s a guest room onmaman’sand Vivvy’s side of the house, so Zara can stay there and only Manon will know if you want to just sleep with me.”
“I’ll take a guest room!” Candace squeaked as Laurin shoved her panties aside to dip a finger into her while swiping the pad of his thumb over her clit.
“Yeah, I like the idea of you sneaking into my bedroom, too. I mean, there will not be a single doubt in anyone’s mind about what we’re doing — I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off you, and we’re going to be running off at the most inappropriate times for all the dumbest reasons — but the sneaking in thing is just fun.”
Candace attempted to protest, but he curled his finger, and the best she could do was brace herself. She anchored her feetinto the curve of the floorboard and gripped the frame of the cart, but the only place for her other hand was his thigh.
She gripped.
“Fuuuck,” Laurin groaned. “Higher up, baby. I want you to squeeze my cock like that.”
“You’re driving,” she pointed out even as she crept her hand up, figuring she could just kind of rub.
