don’t, I’ll go batshit. There are so many things I want to do next to her, and every single one of them will only make me feel like I’m taking from her more than I can give in return. I may have made her come, but I’m not a doctor. I’m not husband material. Hell, I can’t even carry on a halfway intelligent conversation with her. I’m sure as hell not the type of person a woman like her should go falling in love with.
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