Most eligible, p.24
Most Eligible, page 24
“Where are we going?”
“Well…”—he hesitates—“this is the only place I can think of that will definitely be private. But it’s okay if you don’t want to—this is where Roland and Monica spent the other night. They’ve reset it by now.”
Eyes wide, I look from him to the cottage and back again.
“So…”—I turn around, squinting at the other cottages we passed—“are he and Addison…”
“Probably,” he says, craning his neck to look around the bushes at the neighboring cottage whose windows are conspicuously dark. “But it’s okay. There’s no cameras in the overnight suites. I think that would be illegal.”
I can’t argue with his logic. The little house is set back from the water, hidden behind so many cypress trees that I doubt anyone could see us unless they were pressed against the windows. To the right of the door is a wooden outdoor shower, nestled among the trees.
“I think we should wash off the sand first.” His voice strips me of my remaining hesitation, and he kisses me, guides me backward until my spine meets the wood paneling of the shower. Mouth still glued to mine, he reaches down and peels off my loose pants, tossing them aside. He lifts his lips only to pull off his own shirt, shimmy out of his jeans, and turn on the showerhead. I look at him, his green eyes almost eclipsed by the midnight darkness, the water spray making an aura around his head.
Above us: open black sky.
I press myself into him, our skin sticking together as I kiss his neck, running my tongue along his collarbone.
“Georgia.” His breaths are coming in rasps, his hands harder on my body. He drags his fingers under my soaked tank top, biting his lip when his fingers reach the bare swell of my breasts. “The fact that you never wear a bra…” His voice is ragged. He rolls his thumb over my nipple, and I breathe in sharply. “I think it might ruin me.”
I grin against his lips as water slides between us, from his mouth into mine. He grabs the hem of my shirt and wrenches it over my head, runs his lips down my neck to my chest, then takes my nipple between his teeth.
I drop my hands between us and tease his waistband until he groans and brings his mouth back up to mine. His hands fall to the hem of my underwear. He hooks a finger into the top and slides them down a few inches as I cling to his back.
With a throat-ripping groan, he kneels in front of me and presses his mouth to my hip, running his tongue along the bone, teeth grazing over my tattoo. He looks up at me through the dark spray of water and slides my underwear down my legs until it puddles to the ground, then reaches over to turn off the shower. Steady steam rises from our burning skin as he shakes his hair out, sending droplets flying.
Sitting back on his heels, he runs a hand through his hair and looks up at me before leaning forward to bracket my hips with his hands.
“Is this okay?” he asks, lips mere inches from the pulsing point between my legs. His voice is a growl, a challenge, a plea. “Or do you want to lie down for this?”
I don’t answer right away, so he stands and lifts me onto his hips. I wrap my legs around him and let him carry me to a lounge chair on the small deck of the cottage. He lays me on my back, then leans over me, nudging my legs apart with his hand. He kneels on the chair below me, silhouetted against the distant ocean.
My stomach tugs as he lowers himself between my knees. He hooks my leg around his arm and slings it over his shoulder. With a last smile, he nestles his face in the gap between my thighs and presses his tongue against me.
“Ohmagar—” I slur, then clap a hand over my mouth.
He laughs, and I feel it all the way to my core as his tongue moves in slick circles.
It takes everything in me not to shatter under his touch. He presses a hand to my stomach to keep me from wriggling, then lifts his mouth to look up at me. “You’re fucking beautiful,” he whispers.
He nips a kiss on my thigh, then moves back down, his mouth hot and heavy. I grip his shoulder as white-hot sensation builds inside me. My hands tangle in his hair as his tongue moves faster, deeper, his fingers pressing harder into my thighs.
“Please—” I beg, gasping for breath. I tear my eyes from the ocean and look down at him, the sheen of sweat on his forehead visible through the darkness. “Can you—can you look at me?” It comes out as a plea. “I want to see you.” I need to see him, to watch him taste me, savor me—to assure myself that this is real. “I want you to see me,” I whisper.
He raises his eyes to mine and holds them as he nestles deeper into me. “Georgia,” he breathes. The way he says my name is orgasmic, the quick bite before the sweet, dripping release. “I always see you.”
His words push me over the edge, and I hold his gaze as heat rips through me. My toes curl, my back arches, and I let out an unsteady groan, wrapping my fingers around his wrist to stay tethered to earth—to him. I need his gravity now that it seems I’m flying.
When I go still, he smiles and presses his lips to the tattoo on my hip. As he climbs over me, burying his face in my neck, I shiver from a breeze I hadn’t noticed before. “Come on,” he says, rubbing my arms. “Let’s go inside.”
I retrieve our discarded clothes from the shower stall as he opens the door to the cottage. He steps in ahead of me, looking for a light switch.
Crash.
Rhett jumps back. “Who—”
“I’m sorry!” cries a familiar voice.
Clutching my arms around myself, I scurry forward to where Rhett stands in front of—what the hell?—Olie.
“I’m just … I’m gutted, honestly. I thought Cassidy and I had something really special and … well, we didn’t. So all that—all of it was for nothing. Shit, is this thing on?”
—Rhett Auburn, season 18 lead of Love Shack, to TMZ, one year ago
Chapter Thirty
“What are you doing here?” I squeal.
“Like here as in here or here as in Europe?” Olie asks. Her hair is messed up, her eyes are bloodshot, and she’s buttoning up her collared shirt like she was naked only moments ago.
“Either, both, all of them!” I flip the lights on, arms still twisted in front of me in an attempt to preserve my modesty.
“Um, I…” She looks around evasively and glances behind her at the back entrance of the cottage. “I was sightseeing.”
“Olie,” I warn. “Tell me the truth.”
“I swear!” she insists. “I was in town and my hotel had an … infestation, so I found out where you all were filming and figured that some of the rooms would be empty, so I came over.”
I narrow my eyes at her, but if she doesn’t want to give me a straight answer, I’m not going to get one. “If you tell anyone…”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” she says. Then she glances at Rhett, smirking. “You better treat my girl Georgia right.” Her eyes stray down his body and rest for a moment on his very erect … situation. “Nice going, G.” She winks at me.
“Yes, yeah, um, I will.” Rhett stammers, ignoring that last bit.
“Well, I guess I’ll be on my way then,” Olie says.
Once the door has shut behind her, Rhett lets out a giant breath and sinks onto the end of the bed.
“I just lost ten years off my life.”
“Why the hell is she here?” Still clutching my hands over my chest, I scamper to the window and watch Olie walk across the beach in the direction of the cottage where Roland and Addison are no doubt making the most of their off-camera time. “I bet she came to see Roland.”
“They really hit it off,” Rhett says, coming up behind me and peering out the window. “Lainey isn’t a fan—doesn’t think Olie fits the image of the future Mrs. Roland.”
“Do you not know his last name or are you making a point?” I spin around and land in his arms, his fingers tapping against my waist then straying lower. A shriek of laughter comes from somewhere outside, and I turn to look out the window, but Rhett guides me back into him.
He smirks. “Both?”
I glance behind him, momentarily distracted by our surroundings. The one-roomed cottage is an explosion of sex—a sexplosion, if you will.
The front area of the cottage comprises a large L-shaped couch and coffee table. In the back is a huge bed with so many embroidered pillows that only a few square feet of the light green comforter are visible.
“Who did they set all this up for? If Roland and Monica already…”
Rhett winces, then inclines his head to me.
“Oh no.”
“Just as a backup,” he says. “You’re supposed to be going somewhere else, but in case it falls through, they figured…”
“I get it,” I say faintly. My eyes fall to the waist-height table next to the bed and—
“Holy cow,” I breathe. A bowl of about a hundred condoms rests on top. “How many penises do they think Roland has?” I cross over and pick up some of the foil wrappers. “Lemon-flavored. Tangerine. Blueberry. Vanilla. Ew, beer-flavored? Gross. I’m surprised they don’t have one that smells like a fresh can of tennis balls.”
Rhett barks a laugh and comes over. There are several other objects on the table—a few dildos, at least a dozen vibrators, something else I can’t even hazard a guess at.
“Probably best to leave those alone,” I say hesitantly. “In case they haven’t been disinfected. I don’t think the producers would be too happy about an STD outbreak.”
“Trust me,” Rhett says darkly. “It’s happened.”
“On your season?” Heat rushes to my face. “Please don’t answer that. I don’t even want to know—actually, I kind of do. Has the selection changed at all?” I gesture to the wall of sex like a car saleswoman.
“Probably the same bowl of condoms,” he says dryly, picking one up and tossing it back into the bowl. “Though the main difference is the woman in front of me.” Everything inside me contracts as I take in his frame, his strong thighs, black ink tattoos, smooth sloping shoulders. I drag my eyes to his face.
Slowly, he walks me backward until the backs of my knees brush the bed. He reaches over and pushes the pillows to the floor with a sweep of his arm, then guides me onto my back. He shuts off the light and grabs a condom from the bowl on the shelf. “It’s just a regular one, is that okay?”
“They don’t have a cowboy special?”
Laughing, he climbs over me, one leg between mine, hands framing my face. He drops a kiss on my nose, my jaw, then whispers in my ear, “You said your favorite was missionary, right?”
I press my face to his neck, laughing weakly. “I was hoping everyone would forget about that.”
“Not a chance,” he says, leaning back slightly to put on the condom. “But I can’t argue with you—it’s a classic after all.”
His grin stretches across his face and makes my chest heat. “A classic,” I repeat.
“A classic,” he says. “Something you can’t get enough of. Kind of like you.”
He drops his mouth to mine and skates his tongue across my bottom lip as he reaches down to guide himself into me. I wrap my legs around his back, digging my fingers into his skin to pull him as close as possible.
Rhett fucks the way he sings. Slow, commanding, and devastatingly good. It’s mesmerizing, like moving through a soundscape with my eyes closed.
He pushes deeper, slow at first, then picking up speed. The cottage is quiet except for our breath, the slap of my palm on his back, the giddy scrape of his stubble on my neck.
“I think my favorite is just—with you,” I gasp.
Rhett shudders and presses into me one last time before he goes still. He pulls back, forehead shining with sweat, and even in the dark I can see the beautiful, earnest expression in his green eyes.
“Remember back in LA,” he breathes, “when I said I didn’t want it like that?”
I nod, still gasping for air, and train my eyes on his face. His words come back to me like a kick to the stomach. No … Not like that.
He bows his head and rests it on my sweaty chest. His whole body shakes with a long, gasping breath before he speaks.
“I meant like this.”
* * *
He falls asleep curled against my back between the petal-soft sheets. I listen to the ocean rushing outside, and as I close my eyes, I pretend I’m back in my apartment with him. His eyes were ringed with purple from exhaustion, and I lay awake for hours listening to him breathe. When I finally drifted off to sleep, I thought when I woke up, he’d still be there. Maybe he’d make me coffee and we’d chat over pancakes. Maybe he’d come with me to the animal shelter to help me find another cat. That would be a cute official first date, right? At least until I realized that as a celebrity, he probably wasn’t into elder cat care or making women coffee.
As it was, I woke up and he was gone, like I should have known he would be. I made myself coffee and snapped his records in two. Then I drove to the animal shelter and adopted the toothless Ringo, who died six months later.
Rhett snores lightly, and I press into him, his warmth wrapping around me like a handmade quilt.
In sleep, his fingers reach toward me, and I cover his hand with my own. I bring the pad of my pinky finger to his and press them gently together.
This isn’t like last time. This time, somehow, I’ll get to keep him.
Inside sources reveal that last year, “Six Packs and Six Strings” singer Rhett Auburn was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct. And really, is there anything more poetic than cowboy karma?
—“Rhett Auburn’s Past: Revealed,” TMZ, today
Chapter Thirty-One
I wake up to early morning sunlight seeping through the windows. Even through the gauzy curtains, the sea is bright enough to match the smile on my face.
But when I turn over, my lips go slack.
Rhett isn’t next to me. His spot on the bed is still indented, still warm from his body heat, but he’s not there. I sit up, frantic, and search the little cottage, but he’s not hiding behind the couch, not in the tiny bathroom, not outside taking a shower.
The initial hollow feeling at his absence, the wondering if I’d imagined everything, feels sickeningly similar to that morning last year. But it can’t be, right? There must be some explanation, some reason he’d leave before I woke up.
This can’t be like last time. It can’t.
I search for my clothes and pull on my shirt, but stop cold at the sight of my palazzo pants. Lying on top, glistening in the morning sun, is the new burner phone from Serena. On the tiny front screen, there’s a short message from her.
Clock is ticking, G. If you don’t get me more on Roland, I’ll go live with the texts from Rhett. TMZ posted about the arrest so I need to get ahead of that.
My heart stutters. I toss the phone onto the mattress like it’s burned me. The phone was hidden in my pocket last night. I must’ve dropped it during our lust-crazed entrance to the cottage. I fall to the floor as the truth sinks in.
Rhett saw. And he doesn’t have the whole story.
I’m sick to my stomach, but I scramble to my feet. I need to get to him, to explain.
As fast as I can in the sand, I run back to the hotel, arms wound around myself against the chill coming off the ocean. I step into the cool shade of the hotel lobby and pass Norbert on my way to my room.
“Georgia!” he exclaims. “A nice morning walk, then?”
I nod silently.
Norbert’s face falls as he studies me. “Yer lookin’ a bit peely-wally.”
“I—what?” I blink at him, but he just claps me on the shoulder and bounces off down the hall, whistling.
I walk past room after empty room, the hallway seeming to stretch on and on like a horror movie. I stand there for a minute, hoping one of the rooms will speak to me, emit some sort of leathery, citrus-infused odor bomb to alert me of Rhett’s presence. I won’t even care about the cameras when I pull him into my arms and explain. I’ll kiss him for everyone to see.
A door to my right opens, and I jump back against the wall.
Rhett is standing in front of me. But instead of drawing me to his chest, he stares at me in shock. The hallway is deserted except for us.
“Why did you leave?” It’s all I can get out past the lump in my throat.
He puts a hand on my shoulder, but I instinctively shrug it away. I wish I could take it back the second I do it. His jaw tenses and he shoves his hands in his pockets. I open my mouth to tell him it was just a reflex, that I was hurt to wake up and find him gone, but he cuts me off.
“You told your friend about me?” he says quietly. “About my arrest?”
“No,” I protest, but it’s only half true.
“Enough with the lies,” he says, his voice like a hacksaw cutting across my lungs.
“When we were in Nashville I sent her screenshots from Lainey’s computer,” I say. “Of texts between you—from last year. They don’t specifically mention the arrest but it’s not hard to guess what they’re about. She’s the one who tipped off the press, not Lainey.”
He runs a hand down his face.
“I did it when I thought you’d told Lainey about me,” I say, “that I was here as Gracie. I overheard you and I thought you sold me out and I just … I thought you’d betrayed me. But I’m so sorry, please believe me.”
“Why should I believe you? I haven’t lied to you this whole time, Georgia.”
“Well, I have,” I snap. “And I’m so fucking sorry, I swear. It all got out of control, and I didn’t know how to stop it.” A sob escapes my throat, but he doesn’t reach out to comfort me. It’s not lost on me that I’m still lying to him. If I told him I was trying to protect him now, would he believe me? I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.
“This was a mistake,” he says, retreating a few steps back into his room. He sets a hand on the door like he’s considering slamming it in my face. “I should’ve known better, I shouldn’t have…” He trails off, shaking his head. I shouldn’t have trusted you. The unspoken words ring in my head.
