Chapter 21: Willow

Willow had only kissedLeith three times now but it was an activity she decided she enjoyed. The first time, she'd felt only his mouth. The angular lips that she'd studied and had determined would feel amazing against hers. The tongue that said some of the stupidest, kindest shit she'd ever heard.

The second had been quick. Not chaste, exactly, but not any sort of exploration. So caught up in the celebration of it, neither of them had taken advantage of the fact they were free to touch. They had, of course—he'd picked her up to do it—but he wasn't really touching her.

Now, though. This blessed third time, where his massive calloused fingers were digging into her ass and his hard chest was pressed against her soft one and her hands were gripping his jaw like he might float away. The pool water tried its very best to sluice between them, thwarted by their closeness, and only able to sneak in when Leith rolled her hips away from him, only to roll them right back.

Leith was hot. Willow had always thought so. It was just that she hadn't expected him to be such a hot kisser. Not after the first two times. So who could really blame her if she moaned a little into his mouth?

He reacted beautifully to that moan, gripping her ass harder, dragging her up further. She dug her fingers into his jaw to steady herself but also to ensure that he couldn't pull away.

When was the last time she'd been kissed like this? Maybe never.

Was this what kissing was like for everyone?

Behind them, more whistles pierced the calm summer breeze of the backyard, accompanied by whooping and hollering. She was sure if she turned—if she could bring herself to remove her lips from Leith—she'd see the other Honeymooners lined up on the sides of the pool.

Spectating.

Kissing Leith felt too perfect to become a spectacle. Too pure of a thing to do in front of the rest of them. She wanted that kiss to belong to them and them alone. Didn't she?

Her singular focus, when she did pull back from him and unlatch herself from all the places she'd held onto, was to get him somewhere without a spectator. She reclaimed him by wrapping her fingers around his wrist, tugging him towards the steps at the shallow end of the pool. The other contestants parted for them like they were walking a red carpet and not stomping their sopping bodies onto the concrete.

She kept going, her sights now set on the manor itself, uncaring that she might ruin the mahogany floors. To the first crew member she saw, she growled, "Tell Carter we're taking a shower."

The crew member—a young man in a crisp polo and attached to a clipboard—frowned at the two of them and held a hand out to stop their progress. "We'd really prefer you stay in the backyard during daylight hours. Can you use the outdoor shower, maybe?"

Willow cocked one of her brows, fixing her stare on the crew member before dragging her gaze to Leith behind her. To the way his swim trunks were vacuumed to the erection that had just been pressed against her. The crew member took her lead, following her stare before snapping his eyes back up to Willow.

"Um, I can ask Carter if we can open up the private suite, if you?—"

"Can we please just take a fucking shower?" she snapped.

She didn't want to wait for approval from Carter. She didn't want to go into another room with a million cameras. She couldn't think when the cameras were on her. Wasn't herself when the cameras were on her.

The crew member gulped and put a hand to his ear piece for a moment. "Go ahead," he said meekly.

She smiled her sweetest smile. "Thanks."

Her pace, hardly slowed by the interruption, had them in their suite, in their bathroom quick enough that Willow had no time to entertain a thought other than get his lips back on me now. Leith waited for her direction, standing and huffing air as she twisted the water on. She stepped inside, not bothering to remove her bikini, and reached through the opening in the glass to drag Leith in with her.

And it was peaceful, finally, when that opening slid closed. When their microphones were still sitting at the pool and the frosted glass hid them from the cameras poised above. Now, in here, her thoughts and her actions were hers alone.

Hers, and Leith's.

Leith, who was still sucking in air like her pace had been too much for him. Or maybe it was that his heart was beating too quickly to take in a full breath. Leith, whose bright playful eyes were dark and hooded as he stared at her. Hungry.

One of his hands snaked around her waist, the other coming up to cup her jaw much gentler than she'd cupped his. He pressed her against him once more, this time her feet on solid ground. His erection digging into her stomach and her breasts squishing against his torso. His thumb, the one at her back, toyed with the string back of her top. One little pull would be all it took to release her from it.

She still wanted it. She was still hot for it. But the shower beating against her back held her from making the first move.

"You good?" he asked.

"I needed to—" she nodded and cleared her throat. "I needed to cool off."

He flexed the fingers that had grown closer, somehow, to her ties, and let the water run over them. "This water is hot enough to melt gold."

Fair enough. She amended, "I didn't want to be watched."

Understanding flickered, allowing Willow's shoulders to lose a bit of their tension. She had braced herself for some sort of faux-alpha bullshit about how he didn't want anyone to watch her either. Something about how, from then on, her pleasure was only for him. But Leith didn't deliver that possession.

He just said, "Then I won't let them watch you."

Willow laughed. "Did you forget where we are?"

"No. But I mean it," he insisted. "Yeah, I may not be able to block them all the time. But whenever you need, I can step in front of you. I'll help hide what you want to hide."

"Carter won't be happy if you do."

"I'm not here to keep Carter happy."

What a silly thing to say, that was. Because Carter's happiness felt like the center of it all. They were all his puppets to maneuver and record, their only taste of autonomy when they did something drama worthy. Something television worthy. A ratings booster.

"I'm here for you now," Leith said.

And she was grateful for it but what had she actually done to earn it? Still, the admission had her secret romantic heart jumping and her brain short-circuiting. She lifted herself onto her toes, just to get a little closer. Leith took it for the invitation it was and made the distance between their mouths disappear.

This fourth time was just as good. It wasn't as sex-charged as the last, sure. It was a little softer. More of a promise of intimacy than a threat of seduction. The way his tongue slid into her mouth to taste her was an act of savoring this time, not devouring.

And what fucking business did she have, kissing Leith like that? She hadn't applied for this show to snag herself a boyfriend, and he hadn't applied with a girlfriend in mind, either. Everything about the two of them was for show so why the hell did she need privacy to kiss him?

He hadn't asked for privacy. Who was to say that everything she read into his kisses was actually there?

If she were being the honest, pessimistic version of herself, she'd acknowledge that she had no real way to know what his intentions were in kissing her. It wasn't like he could come right out and say, in the middle of that pool, I'm kissing you for real or I'm kissing you to convince everyone we're falling in love.

And if she didn't know why she was being kissed out there, could she trust the reason when they were in here? She wanted to. Really, she wanted to. It was just that she wasn't sure she could trust herself—in the exact same way she wasn't sure she could trust Leith.

Out there, her mind was on winning the prize. It was her only goal, just like it should be. She couldn't allow herself to get distracted and jeopardize that.

That was good enough reason to put a stop to the secret kissing. She didn't need the second one, the one that flitted across her mind. The one that mocked her for being frightened of her own intentions and the potential consequences of acting on them.

If she kept kissing Leith like this, she might convince herself that she liked him. If she liked him, she might convince herself that she could have him. And what good would it do her, really, to be reminded that he wasn't hers when they stepped out of this manor?

Willow broke their kiss, the both of them panting when their eyes met. She didn't let him see how difficult it was for her to say, "I don't think we should kiss."

He blinked, dropping his hands, her skin apparently burning him as the water should have. "Like, at all?"

"At least not like this."

He stared at those hands he'd removed. "I thought…" His face scrunched when he met her eyes again. "I'm sorry. You brought us in here and I thought?—"

"It's my fault," she told him. "I thought I wanted to."

"But you don't." It wasn't a question.

"I do. Just not here."

Then where? he stopped himself from asking. She could tell that he did. Because she knew that look on his face meant he was dying to know what she was thinking. And because she knew that his sense of rightness wouldn't allow him to ask her something that suggested crudeness, or even anger at her decision.

She answered the question anyway. "I think it's better if we keep stuff like that to when the cameras are around."

Willow was exposed under his stare and, for the first time, she realized that he'd shifted them. She didn't know if it had been while they'd been making out or while they'd been talking but her back was no longer directly under the stream. Instead, her back was to the wall of the shower, the water slicing the little space between them while Leith blocked out the camera's view with the back of his head.

For the first time since she'd gotten to the manor, she was wholly hidden. And Leith was to thank.

"I'm confused," he told her. "You kissed me in the pool?—"

"I didn't?—"

"Whatever. I kissed you. You kissed me back. Same fucking thing." His head shook, wet curls sticking to his forehead. "You kissed me out there and then dragged me in here and kissed me some more and now you're saying you only want to kiss me when there are cameras. If you don't want me to kiss you, Willow, I wish you'd just say so."

"I do," she repeated.

"But not off camera."

"I just think it'll be easier," she explained. "To keep things straight."

"Because you don't want to kiss me. You just want to put on a show."

She should say yes. She should tell him that he's totally nailed it and high five over the fact that there was no confusion between them. But Leith was soft-hearted and so was Willow. She didn't want him to think he wasn't wanted when she was only trying to work out how much she was allowed to want him. She didn't want him to think of her as some calculated bitch. Selfish as it was, she also wanted to know that he wanted to kiss her.

So many men and it was so rare for her to find one with which she returned the sentiment.

"I want to kiss you," she whispered, loud as she dared. Not because she was scared of the cameras hearing but because she might be afraid of him hearing it. Of her own ears hearing it.

He reached for the shower handle, shutting off the water and taking away their noise barrier. His smile was tight but not unkind when he said, "I don't really want to wait for when the next camera's around."

And Willow didn't know what the hell that meant.