Million Dollar Marriage

by Evans, Katy

  He’s just staring at me. And I’m slightly aware it’s TMI, but I can’t stop. I look at my glass contemplatively.

  “You know why he broke up with me? Probably because I wouldn’t give him a blow job. I loved him, and he tossed me away because I wouldn’t suck his thingy. But really, if a guy was always telling you that you weren’t doing it right, would you want to give him a BJ?” I wag a finger at him. “Now, seriously, would you?”

  He holds up his hands. “Fuck no. For more reasons than that.”

  “Yeah,” I murmur. “You’re right. He ruined me.”

  “Nah,” he says. “You are far from ruined, girl. Some people just want to put you in a box. When people are like that to you, it’s your goddamn duty to break out of it. Say, fuck them.”

  I lean on the bar, thinking.

  “Yeah, right? Fuck them,” I say finally, being like him and draining my glass without the lime. It’s like water now. In fact, I can do this all day. I’m giddy at the thought.

  He spins on the bar, so now my knees are between his legs. “Sweetheart? You’ve had three shots in fifteen minutes. Take it easy. Tequila’ll hit you like a ton of bricks.”

  I give him a look and toss my ponytail wildly, like a sex kitten, something I never do. But I suddenly feel so free. Frisky and free and . . . hot. It might be that there are guys in the bar looking at my cleavage in this revealing pink top, or that I’m here with the hottest guy in the whole place. I put my hands on his thighs and lean forward so he can get a good look at my breasts, since I know he’s been sneaking peeks since I put this shirt on. I’ve never actually used my tits, my ass . . . but from the way it’s clearly mesmerizing Luke, I think I like it.

  I notice there’s a dance floor behind all the high-top tables. It’s crowded. “Hey!” I shout. “Let’s go!”

  I manage to pull him with me, and a second later I’m dancing in the center of the crowd, moving with it, feeling like a part of it, so happy and sexy and alive. We’re away from the cameras, and it’s like the old Penelope Carpenter is gone. New clothes, new attitude . . . new sexy man that I could easily lick from head to toe.

  Everyone’s jumping with the throbbing of the music. Everyone but him. He’s just gazing at me, his lips curved up in a smile like he likes what he sees.

  He wants me.

  And I want him.

  I do.

  I swing my hips as I come up close to him and touch his face. “Why are you not dancing?”

  “Because I’m watching you.”

  I smile. “See anything you like? Anything you want to sample?”

  “Yeah. All of it,” he rasps.

  Nice answer. I throw my arms around him and press myself up against his chest. He wraps his big arms around me, his hands massaging my ass, and I freaking die. Because every pore in my body wants him closer.

  “Let’s go, then,” I whisper in his ear.

  “No, Penny. The cameras . . .”

  “I don’t care about those,” I tell him, giving him my best pout. “Let them see. Let everyone see. Fuck me right here.”

  “Penny.” His voice is a warning.

  He looks around, then takes my hand and leads me toward the door. The cold air hitting my bare skin is a shock, and now there’s fog coming off the ocean and it’s drizzling a little too. He dips his lips down and presses a soft kiss onto my hairline, sending shivers through my body. I waver on my feet.

  He takes my hand and leads me down the street a little, toward the harbor. Away from the hotel. My body spikes with the thrill of the unknown as he suddenly swings me around to the side of one of the buildings into a closed-off, narrow alley.

  He cages me in there, against the side of the building, one strong arm on either side of me. His mouth descends on mine, hard and rough, his teeth taking my bottom lip, scraping over it. His tongue slides between my teeth, his stubble rubbing my face red. It’s all-consuming, not just a kiss anymore. This is thrusting, fighting, fucking with our mouths. It’s raw and hard and exactly what I expect from someone like Luke Cross. We’re in the middle of a busy city with all its distractions, but even so, there is nothing at that moment but his mouth and lips and tongue, taking me, making me his. His mouth is hot and hungry, making my breath shudder as his hands move down my bare arms.

  I want him inside me. I want more than that. As if he feels that longing, his fingers trace a sweet, insane path to my breasts. He finds my nipple through the thin fabric of the tank with the pad of his thumb, already hard for him.

  He tweaks it, and I writhe against the side of the building, my eyes rolling back in my head. I’m desperate for the feeling of his hot tongue on my bare breasts. I want to keep going. I want him to taste me. I want him to taste me everywhere.

  He lets out a small groan, and his hands skim down the sides of my ribs. I let him slip his hands under my backside and scoop me up, wrapping my legs around him, feeling him, so hard against my aching sex.

  I cry out as his tongue explores its way down my neck. I will never, ever get enough of this.

  I want him to eat me up alive. I want to eat him up alive.

  He pulls away suddenly.

  “Penny?” he murmurs, running a finger down the side of my face.

  “Mmm?” I lick my lips, studying his lips, red and wet and raw, the exact place I want to kiss again and again and again.

  He’s silent as he waits for me to force my gaze up—into his fiery, intense yeti eyes. “You wanted to forget your daddy. But this? You just right done lost your mind completely.”

  “Do you think I’m frigid?” I ask him, pleading.

  He slowly drags a finger from my cheek to my lower lip, resting it there. My tongue slips out, tasting his finger. Salt and lime and him, yum. He lets out a ragged breath as I take his finger into my mouth, sucking lightly on it.

  He groans. “No. Holy fuck, Penny, no,” he mumbles, his body falling against me. “Now I’m losing it too.”

  I cast him a hooded gaze through my eyelashes. I don’t know how to explain it, other than that Luke unleashes a side of me no one else can. With him, I’m only doing what feels right. Putting as much of my skin against his, tasting whatever I can of him, bathing in his essence . . . that feels right.

  “Baby,” he whispers, his voice low and throaty. “You keep doing that and there’s gonna be trouble.”

  I suck on his finger more, dancing my tongue along the tip, sliding it along the sides, giving him a promise of what’s to come.

  Because right now? I want trouble.

  Luke

  Yeah, come to think of it, no. We didn’t see the cameras. But we had a good night. Penny fell asleep on the cab ride back, so I carried her inside. We’re ready, though. We’ve never felt better. We’re gonna make up some ground.

  Luke’s Confessional, Day 8

  I didn’t sleep all night. Didn’t even try. Sat out on the balcony and watched the sun rise over Boston Harbor before I went off for a quick morning confessional.

  But Penny? She’s another story. Out like a light from the moment I carried her inside.

  I knew the second I laid her down in bed that I wouldn’t be able to sleep. My mind was racing with thoughts of her, my cock hard as a rock for her. For this little girl who keeps opening herself up to me in the best of ways, like a Christmas present I get to unwrap every morning.

  At six, I have to wake her up.

  She’s lying with her face under the pillow, her hair loose around her. When I tell her we have to go, she moans. “Oh, no no no. I’m dying.”

  “No, you’re not,” I tell her when she rips the pillow off her face and stares at me with bloodshot eyes. “What do you want? Hair of the dog? Grease? Or the old standby—water and ibuprofen? I got it all. Your choice.”

  She feels around for her glasses. I hand them to her. She puts them on and smooths her hair back as she blinks at the tray of bacon and eggs I brought up from the restaurant and the full minibar I have open for her. “Hair of the what?” She squeezes
the bridge of her nose. “Forget it. Ibuprofen, please.”

  I hand her two and a bottle of water. She downs them. “Are we late?”

  “We got about fifteen minutes to be downstairs.”

  She starts to pull off the covers and looks down at herself. At my T-shirt. And she goes from green to pale. “Why . . . what did we . . .”

  She doesn’t remember. Doesn’t remember any of it. Doesn’t remember that if she’d have had her way, we would’ve fucked in the street. I bet she doesn’t even remember the way she licked my fingers and wrapped herself around me and told me she wanted to fuck.

  “No. I couldn’t find your pajamas.”

  Color floods her cheeks. “You . . . changed me?”

  I nod. “Didn’t peek. Much.”

  She looks around, almost accepting that, but then alarm fills her face. She rushes to the bathroom and starts puking her guts out. A minute later, I find her sprawled on the tile, her cheek pressed against the toilet seat. “I don’t even have clean clothes for today,” she whines.

  I hand her the water. “You do. I told the producers, and they let me pick out some underwear for you at the gift shop. And Charity loaned you some of her shit.”

  She sips the water, then crawls over to the pile of clothing. She picks up the panties with a finger. “This is, like, dental floss. You really think I wear underwear like this?”

  Back to the old Penny. “Just get changed, girl.”

  We wind up having to rent a car and drive through to Vermont. It’s a good thing. Penny gets to sleep off her hangover in the passenger seat as I drive the four hours to our next challenge. But on the way there, I start sneezing. By the time we pull up at the Maple Run Sugar Shack, I’m blasting the heat but can’t get warm.

  I nudge Penny awake. “We’re here.”

  I know it the second I step out of the car and my head feels like it’s been hit by a ton of bricks. I’m fucking coming down with something.

  Penny climbs out of the rental car and starts to walk toward the shack, wiggling her ass in a way that’s half-funny, half-sexy. Charity’s jeans are too long on her, so she has them rolled up at the cuff. They might not be her size, but her ass looks perfect in them. Even with a killer headache, I can’t stop staring.

  Then she goes and adjusts herself uncomfortably, reaching into the crack of her ass and pulling out the wedgie. “This underwear is the devil,” she tells me, jumping around like she’s got ants in her pants. “I can’t believe people actually wear these on a regular basis.”

  Normally I’d tell her to suck it up, but my throat hurts. I blink and start to follow her in. She eyes me curiously.

  “Are you okay? Your eyes look weird.”

  I nod and we go inside the sugar shack. A guy in flannel and overalls is there. “Welcome to Maple Run Farm, travelers,” he says to us as he motions outside. “Today you and your partner will be harvesting maple sap from our trees. Maple Run Farm usually has anywhere from twenty to forty thousand taps running at a time in the spring when the snow thaws. However, because it’s autumn, harvesting sap is a little trickier, though not impossible. I’m going to teach you how to tap a tree and harvest sap. You will be given all the tools to do this yourself.”

  He hands us a few liter jugs. “You can make up to five taps. All you need to do to win your next envelope is fill one container to the red line.”

  Penny nods excitedly, then follows him out the back door into the woods. I trail behind. It’s cold, but the sun feels hot on my face. My vision bends. My throat feels thick.

  Fucking hell. This was in the contract. It’s your duty to inform us if you develop any illnesses or conditions during filming so that you may be immediately evaluated by our in-house medical staff. “Immediate evaluation” . . . to me, that means elimination.

  And I’m sure as hell not going to be eliminated because of a little cold.

  Or . . . whatever this is. Even a big one. Fuck that. I can get by. I will get by.

  I kneel on the ground and watch the guy drill a hole in the tree, insert the spout. Or I try to. Penny follows along and does her own, and the man tells her she’s got it, and leaves us alone. “You want to do one?” she asks me, handing me the drill.

  “You’re good. I’ll just . . .” I fall back on my ass in a pile of dried leaves. “I just need a minute. Too much fun last night.”

  She sucks in a breath. “Luke. We’re dead last. We need to make up time.”

  “I know.” I try to get to my feet. After that, everything about the challenge happens in flashes. I haven’t gotten high since I was eighteen, but I feel like I’m in a drug-induced haze. Operating on half a brain, only semiconscious. I help drill the rest of the holes for the taps, but I can’t focus. By then, pain is screaming through my head like someone’s drilling a tap into me. Somehow, we get the sap we need, get the next envelope.

  “We’ve got to get to Burlington Airport,” she says to me as she reads. “It says to be prepared for a long flight. I wonder what that means?”

  We climb back in the car and make it to the airport in the early afternoon. I’ve come to hate flying in a cramped cabin with a bunch of people, but this time I’m fine with it. I get in my seat and, ignoring Penny’s questions as to whether I’m okay, conk out. I awaken for the layover, buy a bottle of water for me and one for Penny, and nurse it while we wait to board. Feeling like shit. Aware of Penny eyeing me curiously. And once again, I conk out on our second flight.

  The next thing I know, Penny’s shaking me. “Luke. You will never believe where we are.”

  My blood feels like ice. I hope we’re in some nice, warm paradise where I can lie in the sun and let it warm me.

  I manage a look out the window, and all I see is darkness. “Where the fuck are we? Is it nighttime?”

  “No. That’s the weird thing—it’s actually seven in the morning!” She nudges me to get up. “We’re in Alaska!”

  Fuck. Me.

  SNOWBOUND

  Nell

  Yes, clearly we’ve been at the bottom of the pack for much of the race, and there have been a lot of times where we made it through by the skin of our teeth. We’ve experienced a few setbacks, but we’re not giving up.

  —Nell’s Confessional, Day 9

  The taxi takes us to some little town in the middle of nowhere, and meanwhile, I can’t stop talking to the chatty cab driver.

  First, I can’t believe we’re here in Alaska. Second, the more I talk to other people, the less I have to talk to Luke.

  Not that he’s talking much. I don’t remember much of that night after the first shot of Cuervo. I remember his hand on my ass and me gyrating while he stood perfectly still and the room spun around me. I remember his mouth on mine. I remember asking him to fuck me on the dance floor.

  After that . . . nothing. And if I think about it too much, I might die of embarrassment.

  No wonder he’s been practically ignoring me since then. I swear, he looks like he can’t stand me. He’s distant and removed, and it’s like his whole attitude had changed. Before he was all gung-ho over the game. Now it looks like he’s deliberately trying to lose so that he can get away from me. He barely lifted a finger during the syrup challenge. I want to grab him and shake him and tell him to get his act together.

  I shouldn’t have gotten drunk.

  I shouldn’t have thrown myself at him.

  I shouldn’t have acted like a total megaslut and turned him off. I even think I may have told him about Gerald and whined about my pathetic lack of bedroom skills.

  Oh holy God. I’m a loser.

  We’re nearly halfway there. There are only five teams left in the running. This is serious. And what did I do? I went and . . . shook my boobs at him.

  I might as well die here. Really, what was I thinking? I’m not sexy in the least. He must think I’m a total ass.

  I’m tense and restless while Luke sits in the back of the cab, silent.

  The driver drops us at the corner near a gas stati
on. I climb out of the car, and wind whips against my face. I lift my hood over my head. The ground is covered in mounds of snow. I see Will Wang huddled with the camera crew in a nearby bus shelter.

  “Hello, travelers!” he says to us as we arrive. “I hope you had a lot of sleep on the plane ride here, because you’re about to get into your next challenge!”

  I nod and rub my hands together excitedly as Will’s helper hands us snow boots, bibs, extra-fluffy coats, and gloves and hats, all with the MDM logo on them. I start to kick off my shoes so I can pull on my snow bibs.

  Then I look at Luke.

  He’s starting to worry me. He has his hands in his pockets, and his eyes are blearily staring at nothing in particular. I snap my fingers at him, motioning for him to get ready, and he startles. “You okay?” I mumble to him as he pulls on his snow bibs.

  “Yeah. I’m good.” His voice is rough but weak.

  “This is not a challenge for the weak of heart,” Will says, smiling at our coming agony. “Or the weak of body either. First, one of you will need to carry the other on a dogsled, a mile up that hill. Then you’ll need to work together to construct an igloo out of snow, where you will have to spend the night. When the sun rises tomorrow, you and the other four teams will have one more challenge, where you will compete head-to-head to determine your placement for the last half of the adventure.”

  I peer through the darkness toward the hill. I can see the ruts in the snow of the contestants who came before us, which disappear into the darkness. Luke should have no problem pulling me. And building an igloo . . . that shouldn’t be hard. But the last thing I want to do is spend the night in an igloo. Outside. Ice cold. Cramped. No running water.