by Evans, Katy
I sit up. “First, we’d better get dressed,” I tell her. “Then we’d better go down and get dinner. We don’t want anyone wondering what we might be up to.”
She gives me the cutest pout. “But then . . . can we come back up here?”
Yeah. And the glint in her eyes almost makes me take her, right there. But god help me. She should save herself for the man she’s in love with. The man she deserves to be with. The man she’s going to spend the rest of her life with.
And that fucking can’t be me.
SWEET AS PIE
Nell
I was so tired after that confidence course that I could barely move a muscle. After dinner, we just crashed.
—Nell’s Confessional, Day 11
We go downstairs to the dining room, where we find out the other remaining teams are Ivy and Cody, Brad and Natalie, and Ace and Marta. Charity and Tony were eliminated back in Alaska, and the outpost in Julian was a non-elimination round. The other remaining couples, sans Ace and Marta, are there, eating, and they greet Luke like he’s their best friend.
“Hey!” he says to Brad and Natalie as we’re led to our table. I hear him tell Natalie that she’s a total badass, because she shaved her blonde hair off in the last challenge. They wave at me. I let the hostess guide me to the seat as he crouches down in front of them, telling one of his more animated stories.
I watch him from my seat. The new haircut bares the back of his neck, and it’s incredible to realize that every little part of him—even those parts he keeps hidden—is perfection. My fingers itch to touch him again. And god, I want him to touch me. I want it with a fever.
A couple of minutes later, he turns around, strides over, and sits across from me. “Ace and Marta are in second again. Fuckers,” he says with a smile. “That’s okay. We’ll take them.”
Luke is pumped that we’re down to the final four. He seems to think that the prize schedule in the folder said that we should each be getting $100,000. He’s back in game mode, trying to talk strategy with me as we feast on baked chicken and mashed potatoes.
But all I’m thinking?
I came.
Holy god, did I come. I came, and all those clichés they say about orgasms happened to me. The world shook, mountains moved, planets collided.
And I can’t wait until I do it again.
I was nervous, once the adrenaline from the confidence course wore off. I mean, he’s Luke Cross. I can’t even look at him and his beautiful body without blushing all over. But he was so good. So sweet. So patient. He gave without expecting anything in return.
Our table could be considered romantic, since it’s in a corner away from the others. We’re sipping on wine and toasting the fact that we’ve kept Ace and Marta out of first place for the second leg in a row. I’m not drunk, just pleasantly buzzed. I can’t stop grinning goofily at Luke. Our legs are tangled under the table, and we’re sharing the apple pie for dessert. I haven’t even thought about the cameras, though I know they must be catching all of this.
I don’t care.
Let Gerald and my father see. If they do, they’ll only see good—me, blissfully happy for the first time ever.
So what if it’s a cheesy reality show?
So what if the ring and the marriage aren’t even real?
So what if Luke looks like a thug and we’re complete opposites on paper?
He’s the first person who gets me. The first person who took the time to take care of me. And the first person in this world I think I might actually trust.
So as I sit there listening to him tell a story about his days growing up on a farm outside Atlanta, I decide that I’m going to stop being so uptight. I’ll let the chips fall where they may. Let this crazy journey take me wherever it wants. And leave the driving to someone else for once in my life.
I lean in closer to him, just wanting to absorb him into my skin. His skin is a warm caramel in the firelight; his eyes sparkle. Even with the buzz haircut, he looks ridiculously sexy. I want to rub myself all over him tonight. As I take another sip of my wine, I decide that yes, I will.
Like Luke said. Fuck them all.
“Why did your parents throw you out?” I ask him, swirling my wine and feeling oh so relaxed and content. “You never told me.”
He shrugs. “I was a junkie. They had every right to. I started with pot when I was twelve, then I was taking my father’s painkillers, then it just spiraled out of control and I was shooting heroin every chance I got, just to get myself through the day. I was stealing from them all the time to pay for my habit and making their lives a living hell. I tried to come to them and get clean, but they were done with me. So I lived on the streets for a couple of years.”
“A couple of years?”
“Yeah. Every day I woke up, I thought it’d probably be my last. I thought I was gonna die, and I was okay with it. Then my grandpop took me in. My grandfather never got along with my parents.”
I gasp. “You were so young.”
“Yeah, but . . .” He reaches over and shows me the track marks on the insides of his arms. “I was hardcore. The scars don’t go away. It’s been ten years, and I still got them.”
He has such magnificent parts, even scarred. I run my finger up his strong bicep, down to the crook of his arm, taking in the corded muscles. He’s so beautiful, and the scars only make him more so. “Are you ever scared you might go back? I mean, you work at a bar. Don’t you ever worry about relapse?”
“Every damn day. I did drugs because I was bored, but also because I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know how to cope with shit either. When I was working at the bar, handling things for my granddad, I learned who I was and also the person I wanted to be.”
“You want to be like him. He’s your inspiration.”
“Yeah. Try to, at least. But we all have limits of how much bad shit we can take being piled upon us before we break. I know it better than anyone, because I’ve been there. I try not to think about it, but I know I’m always only a couple of hits away from falling back down again. It scares the shit out of me.”
His arm trembles. I blink when I realize I’m still holding his arm in both of my hands, mesmerized by him, by his sincere words. I let go. “And your granddad?”
“Died a few years ago, not before teaching me everything he knows about tending bar,” he says, tucking his arm against his side. “Though, like I said, the place is a shithole now. My fault.”
“I truly doubt that,” I say to him. I can’t believe that anything this man touches could possibly turn bad. “So your parents still don’t talk to you. Do you have any family at all?”
“Gran. She’s a tough old lady. I told her I was going on this television show and I wouldn’t be around for a little bit, and she thinks I’ve gone to Hollywood to become a famous movie star. She was telling everyone that before I left.” He grins, his eyes dancing. I can tell how much he loves her, just from the expression on his face, and it makes my heart do a little flip for him. “Anyway, paying for her in the home was really cutting into my ability to pay the mortgages on the bar, and the banks are closing in, which is why I’m here to begin with. I’m kind of at the end of my rope. Part of me thinks I should just call it a day and turn the place over to the bank, but then . . .”
His eyes darken, and I know what he’s thinking. The bar is all he has. If he doesn’t have that, then he’s not much better than that aimless kid he was at sixteen. “You shouldn’t do that. It’s your grandfather’s place. It’s probably not as much of a shithole as you think. I bet you just have really high standards for the place, because it was your hero’s.”
One corner of his mouth twists up. “Could be. All I know is, never saw myself running a whole business on my own. What the fuck do I know about that? Nothing.”
I drain my glass of wine. “You know more than you give yourself credit for.”
“Nah. You give me too much credit. I’m not smart. I don’t know a hell of a lot about anything. I didn’t even know what
this competition was. I don’t watch reality television—didn’t even know what the hell this show was.”
“I don’t either. I’m so in debt with my college loans, mostly because I’m too afraid to enter the real world. I just kept burying my head in the sand, not wanting to face it. So when I found out about the show from my friend, I decided it might be my chance to get out of the hole I’m in. It was like fate, you know?”
“Yeah. I never would’ve even known about it if it weren’t for Jimmy.”
“Jimmy?”
“James Rowan? YouTube sensation? He’s my closest bud. Kind of like my brother. You saw him at the auditions. Remember?”
“Yes. But I am not that familiar with YouTube,” I confess. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a YouTube star.”
A slow smile spreads over his face. “Goddamn, girl, you’re like a blank slate. There is so much I could teach you.”
I’m thinking a thousand and one thoughts, many of them surprisingly dirty. Whatever a YouTube star is doesn’t even make the list. “I’m willing.”
“There’s way more you could teach me. All those sexy words in French you can say.”
My mind’s never in the gutter. I’m usually the last one to get a dirty joke, and even then, it has to be explained to me. But it’s the way Luke’s looking at me, with that devilish glint in his eye, that has the strangest effect on me. I’m a total gutter rat where he’s concerned. “Oh. Like, Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?”
He doesn’t get it. “Yeah. Like, whatever that means. What does that mean?”
I raise my eyebrows.
He narrows his eyes. “Are you shittin’ me? So you won’t talk dirty in your native language, but you have no trouble talking dirty in French?”
I shrug innocently. “It’s easier when you have no idea what I’m saying.”
“So. You gonna tell me what you just said, or am I gonna have to guess?”
I wink at him. “We should probably go up to our room. Maybe I’ll tell you there.”
I don’t have to suggest it twice. He doesn’t hold my hand, doesn’t put a hand at the small of my back to guide me, because cameras are capturing our every move on the way to the elevator. He’s protecting me. Us.
As the elevator rises, I tamp down any nervousness inside me. I’ve made the decision. I’m doing this. I’ve spent twenty-five years of my life afraid. So tonight, I’m telling everyone and everything in my life to go to hell, and I’m giving myself to the only man who has ever made me feel anything.
We go inside our room, and I expect him to pin me against the door like he did before. But he slowly walks to the end of the bed, ripping the T-shirt over his head. “What side do you want?”
I gaze at his beautifully muscled frame, so warm in the low light, at his new haircut that I’ve already begun to get used to. I’m so ready for him I think I might burst. I need him to bridge the distance and take me. But when I don’t answer and he doesn’t look at me, I know something’s wrong.
“Did I do something wrong?” I ask, my voice fragile because I swear, if I did, I might kill myself.
He sits on the edge of the bed and starts to unbuckle his pants. “No, sweetheart. But we’d better get to bed. Tomorrow’s going to be tough if we want to keep our lead.”
“No,” I tell him, gathering my courage. “I’m not tired.”
So I take a step forward. Then another. And when I am right in front of him, his knees touching my quaking thighs, I lift off my shirt, freeing my hair from it and tossing it to the side.
He gazes at me in my bra top, his eyes hot with desire. I see it. I feel it. But something is holding him back. I want him to touch me with his hands, but he curls them into fists at his sides. His voice is tortured, desperate. “Don’t do that.”
My every nerve ending is tingling as I unsnap my jeans and wiggle my hips out of them. It’s hard to speak without my voice trembling, but I want him to see that I have control and I know exactly what I’m doing. “Do what? I’m getting ready for bed.”
Suddenly, his hands fly out from his sides and he grabs my wrists, holding them immobile. “Don’t fuck with me, Penny. I can’t fucking do this now. You said you want to save yourself for the man you marry.”
I’m breathless, my body quaking for him. “Right. I’m married to you.”
He shakes his head, his eyes full of a pained desperation that makes me want him all the more.
“But not for real,” he says with a ragged breath, and my heart drops. “You’re saving yourself for the man you love. Mr. Perfect. And you should.”
I knew it. Knew I’d say something to ruin things. I said too much. If I hadn’t told him about my past, he’d be all over me now, making love to me. A thousand emotions roil in my chest, and I can’t seem to get one out. “What if I never find him?”
He exhales, his nostrils flaring. “You will. Even if you don’t, that’s no reason to settle.”
“You think I’d be settling with you?”
He squares his shoulders and grits out, “I am one hundred and ten percent sure you will be settling if you let me fuck you.”
“Why? How can you think that?”
He sits back, his chest heaving. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. It matters to me, Luke. Haven’t you ever wanted something so bad it made you change your mind about everything you once thought was true?”
He shakes his head slowly, his eyes on the ground. “If I fuck you, it won’t give you what you’re looking for.”
He means that fairy-tale love that I believed in back when I was dating Gerald and naively thought he was it, that it would be me and him for the rest of my life. “Maybe I’m not looking for that anymore.”
“You should be. You deserve that. You deserve someone who appreciates every last little fucking amazing thing about you, Penny,” he says. “If we do this, it’ll just be a fuck. That’s all. That’s all I’m capable of. All that’s possible here. That’s not what you want.”
“Don’t tell me what I want!” I shout at him. “Give me what I need.”
It raises something in his eyes I’ve never seen before. Something hot and almost feral. His hands are still clasped on my wrists. He pushes off the bed, coming to his full height and towering over me. My breasts rise and fall with every breath as he holds my gaze. I’m nervous I might have done something to really hurt him, to make him reject me once and for all, and it eats me raw as I wait for him to make the next move.
In a sudden motion, he drags me aside and throws me down on the bed.
He leans over me and, placing both big hands at my hips, drags my jeans and panties down together in one swift movement, baring me completely. I try to sit up, but before I can, he scoops his hands under my ass and drags me to the edge of the bed, resting each ankle upon his bare shoulders.
And he dives in. Without warning. He plants his mouth so full on my core that I cry out.
“This what you want?” he says, his angry words muffled by my body, his breath hot and hard. No one has ever done this to me before. I’m half-surprised, half-embarrassed . . . but all turned on when his tongue circles my clit, in just the way his fingers did hours before.
But this is that times a thousand. He licks me from bottom to top, not a place unexplored. Embarrassment gives way to a clutching need. The wet heat of his tongue has me twitching with pleasure. I venture a look at him, and he’s gazing at me with a dark, hooded, angry look that only serves to make me hotter. He’s delivering just what I asked for, and damned if he’ll stop until I’m done.
“Oh god!” I cry out, my moan nearly shaking the walls as he flicks his tongue over my most sensitive spot, then dips it down to probe deep inside me. He lifts his head and then adds the pressure of one finger inside my canal, pumping me, sending all coherent thought out the window.
All I can think is More. More. More.
And he gives it to me. His tongue licks in faster circles, and his finger pulses inside me,
and the friction is growing to a head. The coiling inside me is suddenly unfurling, and his licking is only become wilder and faster. I wish he had hair for me to pull on. I buck against his mouth, and suddenly I’m screaming and coming, and he plunges his tongue deep inside me as I come. Holy god, do I come. I turn liquid around him, and every little part of me that had been starting to ache feels suddenly cured.
“Is that what you wanted, sweetheart?” he says to me, his voice gruff, his eyes glinting. I look at him, his mouth covered in my juices, this sexy, masculine pride on his face.
It actually wasn’t. At least, not when I started.
But I doubt that anything could feel much better.
So I nod, dazed and wild eyed and ready to let him take the lead. Ready to let him do whatever else he wants to me.
Luke
Yeah. We overslept and missed the start of the leg out of Julian. What can I say? We were bushed.
—Luke’s Confessional, Day 12
In the morning, I wake, sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows over our bed.
We made out like teenagers all fucking night. I made her come, then we kissed silly, kissed our lips raw, kissed and touched and massaged each other until we somehow fell asleep. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me and why I’m so protective of this girl, but she’s not like any other woman I’ve ever had, in a million ways other than the most obvious. I want her by my side, in my veins, everywhere.
Penny looks fucking fantastic, her head resting on my biceps, her hair tickling my chin, her lips like a ripe strawberry where I marked her with my own. I’ve been staring at her for the past hour as she sleeps, not wanting to wake her, completely into every little expression that crosses her face as she floats from dream to dream. She looks completely at rest. Completely satisfied. Completely happy.
And she feels like she’s completely mine.
Even if she isn’t. Can’t ever be.
But holy god, I want to be inside her, with a passion that shreds me from the inside. I feel like I know her body intimately, every little beauty mark and curve, and all that’s left is that last hurdle. I can’t do anything with it. If I claim her, if I take her where she wants me to take her, it’s like putting punctuation on this sentence, and I’m not sure if that’s a period or a question mark.