Chapter 5
‘No!’ I yell out loud as I dive for it, stabbing my fingers at the buttons until Rena’s message pops up.
Left out of the doorway!
Count twenty steps forward, three trees to the right, two forwards, and then five to the left!
Climb to find the rings!
First team to put the treasure on the coffee table to show Command HQ wins the point!
And then another.
Get out of the bloody bathroom and find those rings, your dress can wait!
And a third. Shit.
Jesus Connie! He’s going to find them while you’re still titting about in the bathroom! GET OUT THERE RIGHT NOW!
Oh, bugger bollocks and shit! Surely they could see that I was having a problem. They obviously want the Grooms to win. I glare up at the camera and shake my fist, furious.
’Nice one, Roberto, you tanger-sodding-rine! You pulled a fast one on me there, and you bloody well know it!’
A message flashes on the TV screen.
FIVE SECOND PENALTY FOR ABUSE OF HOST.
I look back at the camera in the corner and am about to turn the air blue, but suddenly I think of Rena and how excited she was about those rings and I pelt out of the front door and turn left instead. I’ve got to try, at least.
Counting twenty steps forward, I pause to read the pager again.
Three trees to the right…I touch them and count aloud as I dash past, and then two more forward. Nearly there. I glance around for Ryan, but I can’t see him anywhere. My heart races; maybe he went wrong, and I’m in with a chance of winning after all. My chest hurts because I’m as unfit as a toddler, but adrenalin has me counting five trees to the left. One, two, three, four, five.
It’s a majestic oak tree, ancient and broad trunked with low hanging branches. Thank God, because my climbing abilities are slim to none in this dress. I stand back to pick out my best route, wishing like mad for my jeans.
‘Much as I’d love to watch you climb up here in that dress, I’ll do the gentlemanly thing and save you the trouble.’
My heart sinks into my boots as I follow the sound of Ryan’s voice and look up deeper into the branches. He’s up there already, and he’s holding a ring box. Slithering down, he lands amongst the tree-roots and drops down to one knee.
‘You’ve got the dress, I’ve got the rings.’ He snaps the box open and looks up, batting his stupidly long eyelashes at me. ‘Will you marry me?’
I forget all about my dress malfunction in my fury and reach out and shove him backwards with both hands, sending him sprawling on the ground.
‘Shall I take that as a yes?’ he asks. ‘Fucking hell.’
His eyes drop, because my stupid dress has just has failed me for the second time today and my bare boobs are suddenly swinging freely in the wind. I freeze, and then make a snap decision to go all Boudicca. I am woman. I am warrior. And I’m ever so slightly insane. I must be, because I let out an almighty battle roar and rugby tackle him for those rings.
‘Fucking hell.’ He gasps again when I straddle his hips and try to forcibly grapple the rings out of his hands. ‘This is an unexpected turn of events. Is now an entirely inappropriate moment to mention you’ve got the most beautiful tits I've ever seen?’
I stop for a second, hyper-aware that I’m naked from the waist up and my boobs are squeezed together by my current stance.
‘Err, yes?’ I say, even as it occurs to me that I should use what my mamma gave me to claim the advantage here. I cross my fingers and hope there aren't any cameras in the woods, or if there are, that what I'm about to do won't be broadcastable on decency grounds.
I stop struggling and let go of him so I can cup my boobs in my hands instead. Ryan watches me, going really still, his breathing shallow in his chest. The fact that I’m straddling him means that there’s no hiding the fact that he’s got a raging hard on.
‘It’s cold out here,’ I murmur, plucking my pebble hard nipples.
‘So I see,’ he says, and I wriggle a little bit over his cock. I won’t lie. He’s not the only one turned on here. The denim of his jeans is forcing my lace knickers between my lips in a way that makes me want to forget all about vintage diamond rings and let him do me hard against the old oak tree.
‘Jesus, Connie,’ he moans, and it registers that that’s the first time he’s actually said my name. He struggles into a sitting position, and I slide my hands into the warm conker-brown thickness of his hair.
‘Your eyes,’ I say, because I’m looking into them and it’s like suddenly looking into his raw, exposed heart. I see his lust, clear and direct, but I see fear too, and brittle, patched up hurt. I kiss him as my brain dictates, slowly, and his hands slip around my ribs to press me into his chest. He has big, gentle hands as he holds me, cupping the back of my neck as I bend my mouth down to his.
‘I didn’t expect this,’ he whispers, his breath in my mouth. I wrap myself closer still, rocking my hips as his hand moves between our bodies to cover my breast. He licks into my mouth as his fingers close over my nipple, stroking his other hand slowly down the bumps of my spine.
‘You’re like some fucking beautiful wood nymph,’ he says. ‘I love your tits.’
His hands give me the same message as he palms the fullness of my breast flat against my body, massaging and firm.
I open my mouth, and he heats up the kiss from hot to crazy intense, fast and deep and filthy out of nowhere.
‘When this is over, I want to fuck you,’ he says. ‘I want to fuck you hard against the wall, and soaking wet from behind in the shower, and gentle over you in bed. Tell me yes, Connie.’
I’m truly and completely overwhelmed, and I could be wrong, but I think he is too. I don’t think either of us expected to feel this sudden jolt of emotion or lust when we touched. We met less than five hours ago, but it feels more like a million micro meetings; The Tube, the studio, the limo, the chopper, the cabin, and now out here in the woods. It’s like we’ve known each other for years.
‘I…’
I’m interrupted by the buzz of our pagers, first mine and then his. It takes both of us a second to focus, for the noise to register, for reality to kick back in hard. I look down at the ring boxes he’s discarded on the earth, and grab them a second before he does and jump up. I don’t care that my dress is around my waist; I run like the wind for the cabin, my tits swinging free and wild in the breeze. Behind me, I hear him stumble and swear, and as I skid through the door, he’s hot on my heels. I drag the dress up over my chest as I scrabble around the sofa and slam the rings down on the coffee table.
We’re not alone, of course. Rena and Brad fill the TV screen, shouting encouragements at us, yelling and leaping around as if they’re watching the cup final. Rena punches the air and cheers when I’m first to the table with the rings.
‘Yes! Connie, yes! You’re the best bloody friend the whole goddamn world!’
Roberto appears and raises Connie’s hand in the air.
‘First blood to the Brides,’ he says. ‘Well played, ladies. Well played.’
‘Con, plait your hair around your head like Katniss Everdean! You’re TV gold!’ Rena shouts, elbowing Roberto out of the way to get back on the screen. He hip bumps her off again and leans in until his face fills the entire screen, making me shrink back in horror.
‘Brace yourselves for challenge two soon, people! I can exclusively reveal that it’s called ‘Something New.’
Somewhere behind him, Brad shouts ‘you better pull this back, twat-boy!’ before the screen goes grey and eerily silent.
Slowly, I turn and look at Ryan. Crap, he must have taken quite a tumble; his T-shirt is ripped up the middle and dirty.
‘Did you just use your tits on me to get an advantage?’
I fake shock. ‘What kind of dumb guy would that make you if I did?’
‘Unfair move, lady,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘I don’t have tits. My cock is nowhere near as pretty as your tits.’
I can’t argue. Cocks are many things, and I love them dearly, but pretty isn’t one of them.
Words flash up on the screen.
IF YOU WANT TO EAT, DO IT NOW
‘I’d lay money on the fact that Sean-the-Unwed typed that message. I can hear his grump from here.’ I wrangle the dress up over my boobs and turn my back to Ryan. ‘Would you mind fastening this? I can’t reach.’
He answers by stepping in close and sweeping my hair over my shoulder to reveal my back. His touch is warm and confident as his fingertips brush my skin, pulling the dress snugly around my body to hook the catches in place. Finally, I’m secured. His hands settle light on my waist as he brushes a barely there kiss against the back of my neck.
‘I’m hungry,’ he whispers against my ear, and I want him to crawl up beneath my skirt and have me for his lunch.
My pager rattles on the table, and I reach for it to read Rena’s message as Ryan watches me, suspicious because his own pager is silent.
Stop flirting and chop your skirt off! It’s only going to get worse!
I can’t help but laugh. Rena’s nothing if not dedicated to her task.
’She wants me to forgo lunch in favour of making more adjustments to my dress,’ I say, sharing the message because it’s of no benefit to him.
His eyes light up. ‘I’m all for that.’ Disappearing into the kitchen, he comes back with the scissors and a couple of fresh beers. ‘Liquid lunch.’ Taking my hand, he instructs me to climb up and stand on the coffee table and I tower over him, beer in one hand, Rena’s ring box in the other.
‘You’re not going to take revenge on me with those scissors, are you? Because I won these fair and square.’ I wave the rings around and take a celebratory slug of beer.
‘I’ll just put them somewhere safe, shall I?’ He takes the jewellery box from me as I catch the words on the screen out of the corner of my eye.
FOR FUCK SAKE TAKE THE RINGS OFF HER! SHE’S A LUNATIC, SHE’LL PROBABLY EAT THEM FOR HER FUCKING LUNCH!
I give Sean-the -Unwed the finger. They can take the rings. First blood is still mine.
‘Take it up to around my knees?’ I say, gesticulating with my hand where I think Ryan needs to cut with the scissors.
‘Something new,’ I muse, looking out of the window as he starts to snip behind me. ‘What do you think that’s going to be?’
‘I don’t know, but you can guess that the other games will be something borrowed and something blue.’ He’s cutting steadily through the layers of the dress.
‘How’s it looking?’ I ask.
He doesn’t answer, just keeps trimming, and as he moves around to the front, it becomes apparent that he isn’t anatomically au-fait with the kneecap. He can’t be, because he’s taken my dress off at crotch level.
‘Jesus, Ryan!’ I yelp, feeling behind me and finding I can now touch my knickers. ‘It’s a bloody tutu!’
He kisses my thigh. ‘You’ve got cracking legs.’
Climbing down, I realise that I’ve gone from Bo-Peep to Darcy Bussell in the space of five minutes. It’s not a good thing. I’m terribly ungainly, far too clumsy to ever be a ballerina. Whatever our tasks are from here on in, it’s a fair bet that the great unwashed are going to get a good view of my undercarriage.
I look at Ryan standing there with a lopsided grin on his face, and I know that I need to even the score.
‘Thank you, that’s so much better now,’ I smile, and then I reach for the snagged bottom edge of his T-shirt and rip it right the way up the middle. It tears loudly, and he looks down, taken by surprise. It takes him a couple of seconds, but he recovers himself admirably.
‘If you wanted to see me without my shirt on, you only had to ask.’ He shrugs the T-shirt off like a cardigan and lets it fall to the floor, and all at once I’m in my lounge with Rena lusting over Magic Mike again. Who has a suntan in March in England? Ryan does, and he clearly works out because he’s all hard surfaces and angles.
‘Christ, what are you, a bloody Marine?’
He absorbs the compliment. ‘Something like that.’
I frown. ‘SAS?’
‘Just a regular Joe,’ he shrugs. ‘I like the gym.’
‘No one likes the gym.’ I shudder at my one and only gym memory. It turned out that my feet move at a speed that is incompatible with standing up on running machines. Who knew that could be a thing?
He shrugs again, clearly not enjoying the line of conversation. ‘I do.’
Well, it’s working for him. I want someone to pass me a bucket of popcorn while he gyrates for me. Would it be wrong to ask him to unbuckle his belt in a slow, suggestive way and wink at me? My pager buzzes. Rena.
I’m dying. You’re out in the woods with the freakin’ Hulk. For God's sake don’t make him angry!
‘Insider tip?’ he asks, trying to see.
‘Something like that.’ I tuck the pager securely into my bodice and finish my beer.
‘We’re ready whenever you are,’ I call, challenging the camera in the corner of the cabin. ‘Bring it on.’
ROBERTO IS TAKING A NATURAL BREAK appears on the TV screen in massive letters, at the same time as Ryan’s pager bleeps.
He reads it, then flips it in the air with a sigh as he catches it. ‘Five minutes. Roberto’s outside having a fag.’
I have to wonder about the wisdom of a man wearing the entire contents of a can of hairspray around a lighter.
‘I might just use the bathroom quickly then,’ I say, glad of the chance to grab a couple of minutes to myself.