"Tomorrow," I told her, pushing down the anger her statement inspired. I wasn’t going to think about that now. I was tired of bending over backwards to try to make my mother happy.
For now, all I wanted was to spend time alone with my fake fiancé.
Chapter 32
Join Me on This Clump of Dirt...
Trace
I parked at the address Magalie had given me, outside a squat two-story building near the vineyards. It wasn't much to look at, but the knowledge Magalie lived there upped its attractiveness level a lot. It was like anything associated with her was suddenly better—like she was friggin' Queen Midas or something.
There was something about her, about her soft-spoken tendencies coupled with that fierce personality, her soft big eyes and her straight talk. I just wished she'd done a bit more straight talking where her mother was concerned, but I didn't have much to say when it came to the way people should behave in family relationships. I had exactly one family member, and we probably weren't normal.
Everything about me seemed to piss off Mrs. Caron. I had searched my not-terribly-vast repertoire of conversational topics as I'd spent the day with her, looking for some place we might find common ground. And no matter what I tried, it didn't work. We had no common ground, from what I could figure. I didn't think we had even a common clump of dirt, not a common speck of dust. She pretty much just hated me, and I didn't know how much of that was because she believed I was going to marry her daughter and how much of it was just me. I didn't want to let a small angry French woman's opinion of me bother me too much. But it did. Mostly because I cared so much what her daughter thought.
Magalie pulled up next to my car and parked, her brow furrowed as she sat up straight and focused on driving. Once the car was stopped, she turned to look at me, and an enormous smile spread across her face, pushing most of the bad feelings the day had stirred up out of my head. She was gorgeous, and adorable, and there was a familiarity growing between us, which I found slightly uncomfortable. Uncomfortable mostly because it was actually too comfortable—it made me feel warm, even a little bit safe. And those were things I was not used to feeling with other people.
"I'm so sorry," she said, coming around to meet me between our cars. She slid her hands around my waist and tilted her head back to look up at me. I put one hand behind her head, desperate to touch all that soft dark hair.
"It was fine," I murmured, my attention caught by her lips, her eyes. I'd been with her all day, but hadn't felt like I could respond the way I wanted to. It was like I'd been in restraints and now that they'd been removed, something wild was coiling within me, desperate to stretch and move.
"No," she said, leaning her head into my chest as my arms went around her fully to hold her there. "It was awful. My mother was awful."
“Doesn’t matter,” I reminded her. “It only matters whether she believed it.”
“Judging by how mad she is? I am certain she does.”
“Good,” I said.
But I didn't care about that now. I just wanted this. To be near her, to hold her, to feel her in my arms and absorb some of her energy and magic while I could. Because I knew we were something together, but I still didn’t know if it was temporary. "Let's go inside," I whispered, pressing my face into the top of her head, feeling tension release as her scent of earth and sunlight floated around me, filled me.
She stepped back, slipping her hand into one of mine, and smiled up at me, a glimmer of uncertainty flashing in her eyes before she turned and led me to her door.
The apartment was small and sparsely furnished. The prominent feature was a plate glass door facing the vineyards that stretched across the hills behind the building.
"It isn't much," she said, an apologetic tone filling her voice. "I didn't bring anything with me except clothes, and I don't want to spend a lot on things I might not keep."
"Might not keep?" I was investigating a bookcase in the corner, which held just a few volumes of nothing that seemed appropriate to the woman who lived here. There were no knickknacks, no photographs. The couch held exactly two sad-looking beige pillows and the chairs at the small round table were slim and insubstantial. Rental furniture. Nothing that embodied the soft warm spirit of the woman I knew. My chest grew heavier as I looked around. What did she mean, she didn't want to buy things she might not keep?
"If I go home," she said quietly.
"To France," I finished for her, realization dawning. I knew Magalie was not American. I had never questioned her presence here though. She'd made a choice, she'd moved. It hadn't really occurred to me that her residency was temporary. My heart sagged inside me. "Are you planning to go back?"
She stepped near and the weight in my gut lightened slightly. "I don't know. Eventually, I suppose. I'm not a citizen here. I cannot stay forever."
I stared down at her and her eyes met mine. My body warmed under her gaze as her eyes shone in the dim light coming from the entryway.
"Drink?" she asked me.
I shook my head, one hand reaching to wrap around the side of her waist.
"Something to eat? Do you want music?"
My other hand buried itself in the hair at the back of her head, and I pulled her near, not as gently as I might have.
"Do you . . ." She trailed off, her eyes gleaming as she looked up into my face. "Oh," she said, as if she could see my longing written there, see my need to have her, to bury myself in her and forget the uncertainty of everything. To cast off the discomfort of the day, of our reality.
I leaned down and pressed my lips to hers, softly, testing. When she pressed herself into me, I threw off all veneer of softness, of tentative touches and careful glances. I scooped Magalie into my arms, her legs wrapping my waist as my mouth claimed hers and her arms threaded around my neck, and I carried her through the doorway at the side of the room, to the only place a bedroom could have been.
Generally, I was not a serious guy. I liked making people laugh and I liked keeping things light. It was easier to get through most of the shit I encountered if I could keep people laughing. But there was not a single cell in my body at that moment that felt anything but deadly intent on the task at hand.
And that task was taking this woman to bed and making her scream my name.
Within five minutes, we were both stripped of every stitch of clothing and Magalie was wrapped around me again, my mouth tracking a feverish trail from her mouth, down her neck, and directly to her sweet little center. I slid to the bottom of the bed, leaving her propped against the pillows at the top, and fought for control as her hands buried themselves in my hair.
"Oh God, Trace," she moaned as my tongue began tracing along her inner thighs in slow lines leading to my target. I teased around her hot silky folds until I found my objective, and when she began to writhe beneath me, I kept my focus there. There was something I was trying to prove, something driving me as I made love to Magalie. I wanted her to understand that this was good, it was right. It didn’t have to be a lie, or be temporary. We were right together, and I wanted her to feel it in every flick of my tongue, every grasp of my hands.
As she began to shake, short incomprehensible words flying from her lips in that sexy accent, I slid two fingers inside her and was rewarded with a moan that told me she was nearly there. I hummed against her tight little bud as I moved my fingers slowly in and out, and that did it.
And fuck if Magalie orgasming around my hand wasn't the absolute sexiest thing I'd ever seen or felt. When I was sure she was over the edge, I lifted my eyes to watch her. Pink filled her cheeks as she tossed her head and cried out while her channel tightened around my fingers.
This woman.
I was lost. If this all ended in disaster, I’d be a wreck.
Watching Magalie come just about sent me over the top myself, but seconds later, she was sliding down under me and reaching for my cock. I was a goner then. She worked me up and down with her hand, and I moved back up until we were side by side
on the bed, and then she met my eyes with her wide brown ones. "Do you have a condom?"
I didn't want to move, but I rolled back to find my jeans and removed a condom from my wallet, handing it to her. I watched, on the brink of losing it, as she unrolled the latex over my cock, giving my head a quick tease with her hot mouth first.
"You're trying to kill me," I said as her mouth closed over me, warm and wet and perfect.
I shouldn't have said a word, because she stopped what she was doing to put the condom on, and for that brief period, I felt the absence of her mouth like a void eating me from the inside. But a minute later, she was sliding herself over me as I knelt on the bed. She was straddling me as we faced one another, me holding her upright, and it was like the sun coming up, warming everything it touched.
"Fuck," I heard myself say in a voice I barely recognized. I pushed her back, unable to take the sweet tease of her tentative strokes up and down, and began a steady unrelenting rhythm as her arms clung to me.
We moved in tandem, every inch of her gripping me in a way that made me feel wanted, needed, and more alive than I think I had in my life—and that included every important game I'd ever played. Everything about this girl was perfect, like she was made just for me to be my perfect . . . to be my match.
"God, yes," she moaned. "Don't stop."
I never wanted to.
But tension coiled inside me, the tightening and tingling moving from the base of my spine like a delicious explosion through my body, and just as I was sure I couldn't stop the orgasm even if I wanted to, Magalie's body shuddered in my arms and her warm softness pulsed around me. Magalie moaned and gasped, and it was the perfect soundtrack for the orgasm rocketing through me. I held her tightly against me and for a few minutes, I wasn't sure exactly where I ended and she began. And then I collapsed on the bed, careful not to crush her beneath me.
"Wow," I whispered, tucking my nose into the soft hair gathered on the pillows around her head and breathing her in.
"Oui," she said.
* * *
Magalie and I didn't sleep a lot, and by the time the sun rose over the vineyards in the east, I was exhausted. And yet, a warm contentment flowed through me that was like nothing I'd felt before.
"You look happy," Magalie said, coming to stand behind me as I looked out the plate glass door in her living room.
"I am," I said. My voice held a kind of wonder.
"You sound surprised."
"I am," I said again. I turned to face her, knowing we probably needed to talk about other things, about the lies between us, about her terrifying tiny mother. "When do I get to see you again?"
The smile slipped a bit at the edges of her mouth and she blinked the dark brown eyes slowly. "I have to spend some time with my mother and Henri today," she said, her voice quieter. "Do you . . ."
"I have practice," I told her, relief at not having to spend the day with her mother making me sound more enthusiastic about practice than my tired body felt.
"Of course."
"We have a match Saturday," I said, thinking how nice it had been to have Magalie in the box before. "Do you think they'd like to come watch?"
Magalie's face scrunched up comically for a second and then she nodded. "Henri would love it, and I feel a bit like he deserves something nice after everything my mother has put him through."
"How do he and your mom know each other in the first place?" I asked, stepping back toward the window, Magalie looking out at my side.
"His father and hers were friends, though he is much younger than her."
I nodded. "And will your mother enjoy the match?" There was a slight double entendre there, and the wry smile Magalie shot up at me told me she got it too.
"She likes to be the matchmaker, I think," she said. "But maybe she'll be nicer to you after she sees you play."
"Magalie," I said, turning to her to ask a question that had my heart racing, my palms beginning to slick. "Once your mother is gone, do you think—"
But my question was interrupted by a knock at the door.
We exchanged a confused glance, and Magalie straightened the T-shirt she'd pulled on after getting out of bed to look through the peephole. "It's Maman."
Wonderful.
I spun around and dashed to the bedroom to pull my jeans on over my boxers and put my shirt back on. I scraped my wallet and keys off the night stand and shoved them in my pockets. "I might just make a quick—" I stepped out into the living room, planning to sneak out the glass door, but it was too late.
Mrs. Caron and Henri stood in the living room, and my disheveled arrival caught their attention.
"Oh, I see," said Mrs. Caron drily.
"Bonjour,” Henri said in a friendly tone.
"Ah, good morning," I managed, cringing with every part of me that was capable of cringing. I kissed Magalie on the cheek and tried to send her an apology with a look. My telepathic skills needed work, though. "I've got to get down to practice," I said. "Have a great day!"
I slipped around the visitors and out the door, and hoped Magalie wasn't about to catch hell for having an overnight guest.
A hard knot formed in my stomach as I drove back toward my own house. We needed to talk about the future. My hopes were rising and I was beginning to feel invested in this woman. If she planned to walk away once I'd served my purpose, or if she was going to go home to France, I needed to know. I needed to start shoring up my defenses, because there was no doubt I'd been careless.
If I didn't know better, I'd believe I was falling in love.
Chapter 33
Men with Tiny Balls
Magalie
There was little time to process all that had happened between Trace and me before my mother and Henri appeared unexpectedly at my apartment. Trace disappeared quickly, and seconds later I was barraged with complaints and questions from my mother while Henri looked on apologetically, pouring himself some coffee in the small kitchen and finding a chair. My mother did not settle herself quickly, pacing around the apartment and offering comments on everything from my choice of bedmate to my decor. I barely managed time to pull on jeans before she began her tirade.
"I don't know why we have to stay in that house, so far away from you, Magalie," she began, as soon as Trace was gone. "I didn't come here to stay in this place. I came to spend time with you, to help you see why you need to come home."
"Maman, I—" I was definitely not going home and was ready to tell her in no uncertain terms.
But this was clearly not the time for me to speak.
"Henri and I had to take a taxicab to come here to find you! Did you plan to leave us there alone? It is ten o'clock in the morning, and you did not answer when I called you."
I shook my head, unsure where my phone had even ended up after Trace and I had arrived here the evening before. It was probably in my purse on the floor somewhere. I glanced around, and spotted my purse at the side of the couch. "I'm sorry, Maman, I—"
"Oui. I know what you have been doing. And while I can see that your friend is attractive, I think you are doing the thinking with the wrong parts of your body. He is not a good fit for you. He is not a serious man, Magalie. He plays a child's game for a living." She was on a rant now, waving her hands around and standing in the middle of my living room.
I sank down on the couch to wait until she tired herself out, steeling myself for an assault on the man I was realizing I cared for. A lot.
"He will play with you and then get bored, I think. He doesn't want an intelligent woman like you, a woman with goals and education. He will want someone to follow him around, to tell him he is wonderful as he kicks the little ball into a net."
"He's the goalie," I informed her. "He keeps the ball out of the net."
Henri nodded and smiled at me, but my correction only seemed to add fuel to my mother's annoyance. "Exactly! What kind of career is this?"
"A good one, if that's what he loves," I suggested. And a lucrative one, if his house was any
indication.
"Non," she said, slicing the air with her hand.
"Maman," I tried. "Why don't we sit? You can have some coffee, we can talk about how you'd like to spend your week here, what you'd like to see."
She stiffened in the center of the room and glared at me, then turned and went to sit with Henri and sniffed. "Very well."
"Good," I said, standing to get coffee from the kitchen. "We should definitely see the zoo or the wild animal park," I said. "Both are incredible."
Henri nodded and smiled, but my mother didn't respond as I slid a cup in front of her.
"Or spend a day down at the boardwalk in Mission Beach," I suggested. Even the mention of Trace's neighborhood had my limbs tingling, remembering his touch.
"I would like to see as much as we can," Henri said. "I don't know when I might ever be in California again."
"Right," I agreed, happy that at least one of them wasn't going to make everything impossible.
"Perhaps you two should spend the day together," Maman said, her voice lightening slightly. "I am finding I am tired. Maybe I will just rest here."
I wasn’t surprised that my mother was tired, but there was something else in the resigned slump of her shoulders. A little flit of worry ran through me as I remembered what Henri had said about Emile.
“Maman, is everything okay at home? With Emile, and—”
She waved off the question with a hand. “I’m tired. I don’t want to talk. Can I just rest here? Maybe read a book, watch television? The flight is catching up with me, I think.”
This was not like Maman. I glanced at Henri over her head, and he shrugged.
"We could do that, if you're sure," I said. I wondered if I’d come home to find my suitcases packed for me and a ticket to France ready to go.
"You should. Yes." Maman said, a slight air of the martyr in the way she lifted her nose. "I will stay here.”
Scoring a Fake FIANCÉE: Mr. Match Book 2 Page 16
