Page 19 of The Billionaire Dating Game

CHAPTER TEN

Candice

They spent the rest of the weekend in her bed fucking and the two weeks that followed that. There was no other way to describe what they were doing. It wasn’t love-making, though her heart sped like a bullet train each time he was near. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. He occupied her thoughts often. Even now, her clit pulsed in anticipation of him coming home. The man was gorgeous, both naked and in his designer suits.

Sometimes their coupling was tender after they’d spent hours locked in a frenzied embrace, sweaty, and panting. Other times, it seemed he was on a mission to discover every inch of her body—inside and out. And she wanted him to.

The more time that passed, the harder it was to remember their relationship was fake. It felt real. So real.

He didn’t mention Jasmine anymore, and she didn’t ask. She knew he’d sold his shares and warned off all the investors he’d brought into the company, but he didn’t seem bent on revenge anymore. Yet, he hadn’t asked Candice to leave.

Instead, she played house as she looked for an apartment while he went to work or sometimes worked from home. She was having a shittier time than usual finding a new place. Each time she felt hopeful, the search had ended in a disappointing email rejecting her application. And each time, Alexei had tended to her disappointment by giving her more orgasms than she could count or buying her expensive designer dresses.

He bought her an entire new wardrobe when only her boxes of books showed up at his place. She’d told him countless times she didn’t need new stuff, just the boxes of clothes the movers had misplaced, but he’d insisted.

He had a thing for seeing her in dresses. Short or long, dresses with high slits—it didn’t matter. She liked dressing up for him. Especially when he stared at her as if no one else in the room mattered.

Tonight, she was doing something special for him, something she hadn’t done in a very long time…baking. She wasn’t a great cook by any means—years of sticking to low-maintenance dinners in her dorm didn’t help—but she enjoyed baking.

She’d spent the morning gathering the ingredients and making the dough for the Khrustyky and the Strawberry Hand Pies in the oven. They were almost golden. The Khrustyky cookies were more complicated than they looked, but by the third try, she’d managed what she hoped was a decent batch. She was dusting the cookies with icing sugar when she heard the chime of the elevator inside the suite.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, yourself.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

Kissing Alexei always left her feeling drunk. Intoxicated. She wrapped her arms around his neck as she’d done these past weeks, sinking into his strong embrace. She wanted more, so much more, but didn’t ask for it. Couldn’t. She’d promised herself to enjoy the summer without expectations. It was for the same reason she didn’t ask about his past or his family. Those things were personal, that meant emotional wreckage because there was no way she wouldn’t fall deeper in love the more she knew about him.

In truth, she was already there, but loving him was her problem, not his.

She sucked his tongue into her mouth and chuckled when he moaned. Pushing a salt and pepper lock of hair off his forehead, she stared into his eyes. He didn’t look angry anymore, not like the first time she’d met him. Alexei appeared happy.

He lowered his head for another kiss when the oven timer beeped. His brows furrowed. “I hope that’s not what I think it is.”

“What do you think it is?” She cocked a brow.

“Dinner?”

“Are you knocking my cooking, Popova?”

“I love my life,” he said, backing up. “And you haven’t cooked for me.”

“You’ll live.” She slipped on a pair of oven mitts and took the strawberry-filled hand pies out of the oven. “I wanted to do something special for you,” she said, glancing over her shoulders. He wasn’t smiling anymore as she followed his gaze to the Khrustykys on the counter. “I thought we could order dinner and hang out in front of the television, getting fat off deserts.”

Silence.

“They’re strawberry hand pies,” she said, “and I made Ukrainian cookies, but I don’t know if they’re any good.”

He continued to stare at the cookies. “I know what they are.”

Had she angered him? Did she cross a line? Candice pulled her lower lip between her teeth. She was playing house again. Cooking, cleaning between maid visits…no wonder he didn’t look happy. She was setting expectations.No expectations, Candice.

“I had these as a kid,” he said, catching her off guard.

She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. They didn’t talk about those things. Intimate things. It was an unspoken rule and their way of keeping distance between them, but it wasn’t working. Though she knew little about him, his qualities were unmistakable. Alexei was loyal like her. He knew his worth while she hid behind jokes and a ready smile. He was kind even when he flexed his muscles, and he was a generous lover.

He didn’t call to check in on her while he was away…that would be too much like playing house, but he was there. They kissed and had sex each morning before he left, and he kissed her the moment he returned. Long kisses that she held onto as she anticipated the next. Kisses that made her pulse throb even after he’d left her in bed blissfully spent.

“You did this for me?”

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