Arabella’s voice droned on and I was well past pretending to even be slightly interested. It was a downright struggle just to keep my eyes open. Sure, the woman was hot; she’d given me her full regimen on how she kept her weight at the perfect balance as she pooled water on her toned flat abdomen. Too many crunches in my opinion. There was nothing soft about her. Even her breasts looked like two hard balls on her chest.

With a sigh, I ran my fingers through my hair as I tried to pretend to concentrate on her tale about how she’d tempted some Italian prince into her bed. Did she really think I’d buy into that? The way she bragged about every aspect of her life turned me off completely.

I didn’t want a weak woman who couldn’t stand up for herself, or one who waited to be told what to do. I wanted someone who would be my partner, would be by my side for anything and everything. Someone like Laney.

I knew she was out of her depth on this show, and that she was very reserved around others, but I’d seen her when she didn’t think anyone was watching. She was observant, quiet, and always aware. When she was talking with Kelly, her face lit up. I saw the woman who attracted me the most; confident, assured, and happy with life. I’d also seen her when she thought she was hiding her anger, when she was trying to bite her tongue around Carol and Arabella. She was a fighter and I knew it.

Just the kind of woman I wanted at my side to face the world I’d found myself in.

I listened to Arabella as she told me about how her family was rich and always had been. How her father had never been able to refuse her. I looked at her, my eyes squinted in a way that should have warned her she was on my last nerve, but she just carried on regardless.

“You know, there’s not a man on this planet that has ever been able to say no to me.” She swam closer to me, her voice low and husky as she traced a path down my chest.

I’d propped myself against the wall of the pool. I watched her long acrylic fingernail as she wound it down my chest, but grabbed it before she reached the bottom of my ribs.

“Not a single man has ever told you no, huh?” I asked, a dark eyebrow cocked. I gave her a sexy, teasing look, an intense look that made her catch her breath.

“No, not once.” She thought she had me now.

“That’s... interesting.”

Her own eyebrow cocked, a perfect wing over her dark eyes. “Is it?” she asked, caught in my snare now.

“Oh, yes, it is. You see,” I said, pulling myself out of the pool, water sluicing down my body, “you’re about to find out what no sounds like.”

I stood and walked away from her.

She was just too much to take in large doses. I knew I was supposed to spend the entire day with her but I just couldn’t.

She’d walked onto the set in a tiny gold bikini, fully on display. I’d barely noticed because I was lost in my memories of Laney panting above me, in the way her stomach muscles had fluttered as she came, the way she cried out my name.

I went into a bathroom and locked the door just for five minutes without her grating voice. I didn’t think she realized she sounded as if she’d been smoking five packs of cigarettes a day since she was sixteen and then chewed razor blades as a snack. Fuck, it was annoying.

“Jake, can you come out, please?” I heard Carol’s voice through the door, but ignored it.

Why can’t these people just give me five minutes of peace? Seriously, my head was going to explode if they kept this up.

“I’ll be out in a little while. I just need a minute.” I didn’t care if she thought I was in here with the worst stomach flu ever. I wasn’t leaving this quiet, cool place that wasn’t artificially overheated until I was ready.

“We need to keep filming, come on, Jake. Be a big boy for me.” Her snide voice came across as demanding, not coaxing.

She wasn’t very good at this, no wonder she was working for reality television.

“How about you just fuck off, Carol? I’ve given you everything you asked for, you have lots of footage of Arabella slithering all over me like a snake. What else do you want?”

Knowing this crazy woman, she probably wanted full on sex.

That wasn’t going to happen at all.

“Just give me another half hour. Then we can call it a day.” I could all but see her checking her watch through the door. She was likely checking the time to make sure she could keep me away from Laney.

I knew that was what this was all about. Carol had decided I was to choose Arabella, and my fascination with Laney was breaking her balls. She wasn’t going to have it.

Normally I would have just walked off by now. I needed to be at home where I could concentrate on my work and on how to convince Laney I was the only one she’d ever need. I’d never believed in old-fashioned love at first sight, but I was starting to. The woman truly did fascinate me.

I knew Gran was at home and probably already bragging to her friends at her bingo nights. Gran wanted this, and she’d never asked me for anything. I could give her the one thing she had asked me for. I knew she’d give Arabella and Carol both a piece of her mind. She wouldn’t stand to have her boy talked to like this.

It made me smile to think of her. She’d done so much for me and never complained, not even when she was in the depths of her own grief when her child—my father—died. I settled against the door, my head nestled on the oak panel, as I thought about my grandmother. No, she wouldn’t put up with this nonsense from either of those women. She’d likely take a baseball bat to them.

That made me outright laugh.

She would definitely do that, especially if she’d had a nip of gin before she met with the two harridans.

I stood up, swiped at my face once more, took a pull of the hand disinfectant in a dispenser and wished I could bathe in the stuff after suffering Arabella’s touchy-feeling escapades, and opened the door.

“Look, I’m done for the day, alright? Unless you want your billionaire to walk off the set, you’ll listen to me, got it?” I gave her a look that she could not mistake, and for the first time the woman backed off without another word.

Good.

I went to my room, and despite being in water for far too much of the day, I turned on the en-suite shower and stepped in after I stripped down. I let the hot water wash away that other woman’s touch and memory. I’d turned on the music player provided in the room, a selection of my own choosing, and let the music fill my head.

A song by a British band came on, a deep, bluesy sounding guitar introduced a song that asked if the singer wanted to know about the woman that has him obsessed. I could totally get why I loved that song now. I wanted to know more about Laney. I wanted to know if she felt the same.

Most of all, I wanted to know what it would feel like to sink into her wet heat. I groaned, I couldn’t help it, and let my hand find the part of me that ached the most. Soap made my light stroke a slick heaven.

What would it feel like when she touched me there? Would it feel even better than I imagined? That led me to wondering what it would be like to watch her swallowing me.

My hand stroked faster, harder, as hot water cascaded down my body, making my nipples tight as I thought about her tongue stroking the tight buds, then down to wrap around my hard cock. More, fuck, more. I pictured her swallowing me, those impish eyes of hers teasing me as my cock disappeared down her throat.

“Fuck!” I spit the word out as I fantasized about the woman with captivating eyes. It was those eyes more than anything that got me.

I knew she’d be sweet, dirty, but oh so fucking sweet.

I’d stroke under her chin as she took my come, as she swallowed all I had to give her, those eyes telling me how much she adored everything I gave her.

I slowed my pace. I wanted this to last. I had a lot of time to kill and a lot of hot water to get through.

I leaned back against the wet wall, trying to slow myself down, but I thought of Laney bent over, her ass high in the air as I bent her over the bed. She’d be whimpering for me to fuck her. I knew she would because I wouldn’t put her on her knees until she was begging for it.

“Laney.” I whispered her name out loud as I imagined her ass, all that long red hair splayed down her back, pictured how pale her skin would be, and then my cock, sliding between her thighs, straight into her tight walls.

I couldn’t stop it, the explosion came, and I was helpless to hold back. Laney was just too much to resist. I’d felt that smooth ass, I’d held it and kneaded it as I made her come on my tongue. I’d just not seen her totally naked.

That would be the first thing I’d rectify when we got out of this hellhole. I would take her somewhere, Paris if she wanted, and strip her down until we were skin to skin.

That’s how I wanted her right now. If she said she wanted to do nothing but talk, that’s what I would give her. But if she said she wanted more, I would give her more than she’d ever bargained for.

I had to lean against the wall as the final burst jolted me, almost bringing me to my knees. I needed her. Only Laney. Not Arabella, not some other woman, just Laney.

This show couldn’t end soon enough.

I finally left the shower, a large chocolate brown towel wrapped around my hips, and stopped short. Arabella was on my bed, on full display in black lingerie that showcased her body well.

I have to admit, for a moment, she made a luscious picture, but then she spoke.

“Don’t you think it’s time you stopped fighting yourself, Jake? You know you can’t turn me away.” Her smirk was not sexy, and it was far from becoming.

I leaned against the doorway that led to the bedroom and stared at her.

“Come on, big boy. Show Momma how you do it.” She patted the bed, her nails gleaming in the light of the bedside lamp. She’d put a red silk scarf over the light, and it gave the room a romantic glow, but she wasn’t the one I wanted to have in my bed.

“First, I’m not your big boy. Second, you’re the furthest thing from my mother that could possibly be. Lastly, you can get the fuck out of my room.”

Instead of getting up she came around the bed and stood in front of me, her overpowering perfume cloying and stifling.

“Aw, Jakey, come on, baby.”

She tried to kiss me, but I pushed her away gently.

“No, Arabella. I know this might be hard for you to grasp, though it is often repeated but no means no. I don’t want you, I don’t want you in my room. I certainly don’t want to fuck you.”

Rather than leave, she leaned more deeply into me. “What were you doing in the shower, Jake? Were you touching yourself? Thinking of me?”

She was trying to sound seductive again, but it had no effect on me. In fact, I laughed at her.

“Oh, I was definitely touching myself in there, Arabella.” I laughed again, and I hated to be cruel, but directness wasn’t working. I leaned over her, my finger pointing her chin up to me. I lowered my head, until our lips almost touched, before I started to speak, our eyes locked together. “I was thinking of Laney, though, not you.”

That made her turn on her heel and leave, roughly grabbing her robe as she did so. The door almost shook out of its frame she slammed it so hard, and I let out a loud laugh. Perhaps the loudest laugh I’d let loose since I’d been there.

I pushed the covers down on the bed and looked around the room. A large, antique bed filled it, mosquito netting pinned to four posts on each corner. The comforter was gold, the room decorated with dark wood furniture and dark paneled walls. It was rather like a coffin, at times, but it was only to sleep in.

I pulled out one of the books I’d brought, a horror novel by one of my favorite authors. You’d think with a past like mine that horror would be the last thing I should read. But I’d faced the worst life had to offer at an early age. It had made me hide from life for a long time; my studies, then work had kept me busy.

I’d played the field, yeah, but I’d played it with women that understood I wasn’t a second date kind of guy. They’d obliged, as had I, and we’d gone on to live our lives. I’d never really wanted a family. It was something to lose, right?

Laney was changing that, though. I was starting to think about the long-term, about futures, and maybe, one day, maybe even children. Gran had been right. I needed a woman. I needed Laney.

The Beatles started playing and I smiled. I wasn’t going to let Laney down. I settled down into the covers, checked to make sure the door was locked with a glance, and settled down for the night.

It was almost done, thank fuck.