“Are you ready for this?” Craig’s wicked black eyes gleamed into hers from a distance of inches. “Ready to take a leap of faith into the unknown of our relationship? Ready to plunge headlong into love? Ready to bungee into bliss?”
Strapped together in the bungee harness as they were, she didn’t have much room to maneuver, but she smacked his shoulder, fighting a grin. “Shut up. You’re ruining this beautiful moment for me.”
“Didn’t the producers ever see Speed? Don’t they know that relationships based on extreme experiences never last? We’re supposed to base it on sex.”
Before Marcy could respond, the segment producer waved his hands, shouting over the wind on the bridge, “Okay! The chopper is in position! We’re good to go!”
Beside them, the bungee expert yelled, “Don’t worry if you swing a little bit in this wind. On three. One. Two.”
“Swing?” Craig asked, the first flicker of doubt cracking through his self-assured cockiness.
“Three!”
They tipped off the bridge, Craig’s arms spasming tight around her as she let out a scream that almost drowned out his.
Almost.
The wind rushed past, gravity making the world race, her heart drumming so fast and loud she couldn’t hear a break between the beats. As they hit the limit of the bungee and sprang back, his scream cut off with a yelp. Hers converted into peals of laughter as they rebounded back up toward the sky. She’d never felt so wild. So alive. Like her heart had leapt right out of her body, but it was all right because she didn’t even need it anymore. She could fly.
And there was Craig’s face—white as a sheet—right in front of her. “Holy shit.”
She laughed as they bounced again. “That was awesome.”
They stopped bouncing and came to a rest, dangling upside down in the ravine, swaying and swinging at the end of the rope. Craig’s arms were still locked in a death-grip around her.
“Holy shit,” he repeated.
“Wanna go again?”
He groaned and pressed his forehead against hers, so close.
This was it, the moment when he would finally kiss her, when she would finally know if the bad boy was all talk or if he could deliver on the promise of chemistry that sizzled between them. Her heart rate was still high, every sense hyperactive. Even his scent was a turn-on—aftershave and fresh laundry.
He leaned in and her eyes fell closed, but it wasn’t her mouth he went for. His mouth moved against her ear, whispering, “Don’t tell anyone I screamed.”
She laughed, giddy with adrenaline and the rush of blood to her head and the fizzy feeling of delight that his words inspired. “Your secret is safe with me.” And the two dozen microphones that doubtless picked up his girly shrieks, but she didn’t say that. She was still waiting for that kiss.
But it didn’t come.
The rope jerked and began reeling them slowly back up to the bridge, and Craig leaned back, craning his neck to look around. “So what’s next? Lion taming? Sky-diving? Running with the bulls?”
“Nothing so extreme. Dinner.”
#
Marcy fidgeted in the confessional, impatient to get through the touchy-feely crap and get on with the date. “Craig joked about fabricating emotion through adrenaline, but the truth is I can’t imagine sharing this experience with anyone else and I do feel closer to him now.”
It was all true, she did feel closer to Craig, but it wasn’t leaping off the bridge that had done it. It was the little real moments around the edges—the way he made her laugh with his bluntness and sarcasm about the contrived romance of it, all masking what she realized now was his fear. A fear only she had seen when he had whispered in her ear for her to please keep it secret.
“We took this leap together and I know the risk was worth it. I wasn’t sure if Craig was here for the right reasons, but sometimes you just have to leap and he leapt with me. We’ll always be bound by that now.”
“Do you think he could be your husband?” the producer, Avery, coaxed.
“Uh…” For a moment her mind went absolutely blank. The thought of marrying Craig was too foreign to be considered and her brain shut down in protest. “We have fun together, but I guess I’m not sure I really know him?”
“So tonight, Craig needs to prove…”
“Right, yeah. Sorry.” Marcy cleared her throat and put on her Concerned Miss Right face. “I really enjoy the time I spend with Craig, but I feel like right now our relationship is all about fun and thrills and if we are going to have a future together I really need to get to know him on a deeper level. Tonight, if he wants to earn my favor, he’s going to have to prove that he can really be vulnerable and show me who he really is.” She twisted her hands together where the camera couldn’t see them. “How was that?”
#
Craig shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking on his heels as he waited for Marcy. So much fucking waiting. Sometimes it felt like there was nothing but waiting. Waiting for his dates, waiting for her on their dates while they were separated to tell the cameras how they felt about everything. He’d been asked to talk about his emotions more in the last week than he had the rest of his life combined.
He’d bullshitted his way through so far, but tonight he felt… something. Off balance. Edgy.
Jumping off that bridge today had scared the ever-loving shit out of him, but Marcy had gotten him through it, grounded him when he would have panicked—all without seeming to realize what she was doing.
It was ridiculous to think the show’s heavy-handed emotional manipulation tactics were working, but the truth of it was he liked her. He hadn’t been supposed to like her. That wasn’t supposed to even enter into the equation. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything. That wasn’t why he was here.
A PA hovered nearby, listening intently to the buzz of conversation in his earpiece. Craig jerked his chin to get the kid’s attention.
“What’s the deal with tonight?” he asked. “What do I need to do to score the favor?”
“Be vulnerable,” the PA said instantly. “Private dates are all about intimacy and honesty. You really need to reveal your inner soul tonight.”
Craig snorted. “I don’t have an inner soul. What you see is what you get.”
The PA blinked, visibly unsure what to make of that. “You could always just kiss her, I guess. That usually works too.”
The camera crews suddenly surged into action, one taking aim at an archway at the opposite end of the garden while another swiveled around to get Craig’s reaction shot as Miss Right herself stepped into view. She looked like a Grecian goddess, all flowing fabric and graceful curves—and the moonlight loved her.
Craig ate her up with his eyes. “That I can do.”
Seducing her wouldn’t be a problem, but emotional intimacy? That wasn’t happening. Craig didn’t do vulnerable.
#
“So Craig, tell me more about yourself. What’s your family like?”
He took a long swallow of wine—even though he was more of a beer guy—to buy himself time. He’d been dodging the intimacy crap all through dinner, but now they’d fed one another the last few bites of chocolate cheesecake and their plates had been cleared away and he was running out of excuses.
He had to give her something. Best to keep it brief. “It’s just me and my mom. She’s an incredible lady.”
“And your dad…?”
“Was never in the picture.” The muscles across his shoulders tensed as he braced himself for the usual Psych 101 abandonment issues crap, but Marcy surprised him.
“Your mom—so she’s the one who wished Miss Right would be someone else?”
He grinned in spite of himself. “That’s her, yeah.”
“Was it a sort of no woman is good enough for my baby thing or was it me specifically? Is this something I should be worried about if things progress and I meet her?”
“I don’t think she’d be rude to you.”
“But it was me specifically?” She cocked her head to the side, her loose brown curls flowing over her shoulders. He didn’t know why, but he couldn’t seem to get enough of her hair.
What were they talking about? Right, his mother. “Yeah, I mean, I think she thinks what a lot of people thought of you.”
“And what do a lot of people think of me?” Marcy straightened in her chair, eyes flashing, and Craig felt a moment’s guilt that he was deflecting the heavy emotional crap onto her. But she was the one who’d wanted to open up…
“That you’re, you know, emotionless.”
Marcy’s green eyes flared wide. “Emotionless?”
“Unfeeling.”
“I know what the word means, Craig.”
He shrugged, playing at innocent even though Marcy would never buy it. “I’m not saying you are, just that some people think that, my mother included, and she wanted me to date someone who was going to bring out my touchy feely side rather than be another emotionless void.”
“Did you just call me a void?” She didn’t look emotionless now. Her lips were slightly parted, eyes turbulent and filled with shock and tinges of hurt.
“I don’t think you are,” he protested, “but…”
“But?”
“I can see how people who don’t know you could get that impression. You’re very composed. People who come on this show tend to buckle under the pressure. There are a lot of tears, a lot of emotional outbursts, and you never really did that. You didn’t cry when you were rejected. You didn’t scream at him that he’d be sorry—”
“Jack was in love with Louisa before he even met me—”
“Yeah, but you never opened up your heart to him. Which was probably why he kept you around so long, because he knew he wouldn’t break your heart when he dumped you, but I think some people—my mother included—thought you were a little cold.” While Craig couldn’t help thinking she was one of those fires that took longer to coax out, but burned twice as hot.
“Just because I didn’t embarrass myself on national television—”
“Everyone’s an idiot sometimes. It’s called being human. I think the viewers probably just want to see that you are.”
She released a frustrated huff, holding herself stiff in her chair. “I’m human.”
“Are you? What about today? I was scared shitless, but you were cool, calm and collected. Jumping off a bridge like it was nothing.”
“You weren’t acting scared either.”
“I couldn’t show you how terrified I was when you weren’t the least affected.”
“I was affected,” she insisted. “I had butterflies.”
“Butterflies. Plummeting to certain death and you had butterflies.”
“It wasn’t certain death. We’re both fine, in case you missed it.” Irritation flashed in her eyes, darkening the green to emerald.
Time to change course. If he pushed her too far she might send him home.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t shoot the messenger. I’d never call you cold. I think you’re hot as hell and twice as naughty.”
She glared at him. “You’re one to talk. You aren’t exactly an open book with your emotions.”
“True. Luckily, when you’re a dude, the mysterious hides-his-true-self thing works in your favor. Women always want to know what’s going on beneath the surface with me. They can’t stand the idea that I’m exactly as shallow as I appear to be.”
A frown line popped up between her brows as she studied him. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re trying to make me dislike you. Why did you come on the show, Craig?”
“Honestly?”
She waved a hand in a go-right-ahead gesture. “Absolutely. Don’t start lying now.”
“I want a career in television.” Nearby one of the producers made a choked, horrified noise. “I want to be a personality. Bigger than radio. This is my shot.”
“So it had nothing to do with me or finding love?”
He snorted. “Have you seen these shows? That isn’t what they’re about.”
“It’s not very flattering to hear that you came here just to use me to catapult yourself to fame and fortune.”
“I came here to use Miss Right. I didn’t know it’d be you. I like you.”
She frowned. “I’m still Miss Right. Still the girl you’re using.”
“No. You’re more than that.” He leaned in, reaching for her hand beneath the table and lacing their fingers together. The position of the chairs was awkward—a little too far apart for comfortable making out, but he could work with it.
Her expression softened, the heat in her eyes changing direction, and he inclined forward another inch, sliding to the edge of his chair.
“I like you, Marcy. A lot more than I thought I would.” His gaze dropped to her lips, the full perfect curve of them.
“I shouldn’t like you,” she whispered, but she swayed toward him.
“Don’t I get points for honesty?” he murmured, millimeters from her mouth now. He lifted his free hand and caught one of her curls, rubbing the silky length between his thumb and forefinger.
“You’re trouble.”
“Yeah. But you like trouble.” The last was whispered against her lips.
And then there was no more talking, only a kiss that burned far hotter than any chaste, made-for-public-consumption lip lock had any right to be.
He could have left it at that. Kept it PG for all the kiddies back home. But that wasn’t who he was. Craig had never met a boundary he didn’t want to push.
He dropped the curl and plunged his hands knuckle-deep into her carefully arranged hair, not caring that the stylists would be cursing his name. Angling his head, he traced his tongue along the seam of her lips, urging her to open them. His bad girl didn’t even hesitate, a sexy little sigh brushing against his lips as hers parted for him. He took what she yielded, stroking his tongue against hers, deepening the kiss.
She broke away from him, her eyes dazed and breath coming quick. “You don’t have brakes, do you?” She reached for her glass of ice water, taking a sip and then pressing it against her flushed cheek.
He grinned, reaching for the curl again and twining it around his forefinger. “You wouldn’t like me if I didn’t go all out.”
She shook her head, but she was smiling, and looking at him from beneath her lashes. “You really are a bad influence, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.” He leaned in, but instead of going for her lips, he gently nuzzled her ear and whispered, “I dare them to call you cold now.”
She flushed. Hot.
His mother may not approve, but Marcy Henrickson was an inferno beneath her calm and collected exterior, and he was looking forward to bringing out her fire.
And riding that fire all the way to the finals and a gig on daytime television.