Chapter 36: Willow

It would have beenimpolite to celebrate their victory in front of the other contestants. That was why Willow and Leith waited until they'd gotten back to their suite to hoot and holler like a bunch of buffoons. Willow was actually physically unable to hold herself back from leaping on Leith like he was a very brawny tree and she an over-excited koala.

After that night, Willow felt for the first time like she might be able to see this through. She and Leith were the only couple left to have lasted for more than two consecutive weeks, after all. She hated to be such a cliche—she hated couples on dating shows that bragged about how strong they were in comparison—but maybe now she understood why they did. It was so exhilarating, she felt like she might be under the influence of something.

The promise of money, maybe.

Adrenaline, perhaps, having nearly gotten away with it.

Or maybe her thrill had more to do with her partner in crime.

Shouldn't that be the least of her worries?

Regardless, she hoped the audience would think their celebration to merely be relief at having successfully passed another challenge, though that had felt too easy to be true. Especially that last question.

Is there a future with your partner after the finale?

Would anyone with a brain in their head not immediately write down a yes?

Lainey had played it off like it was merely a throwaway, like they just wanted a clip of them confirming it for the episode trailer. Yet, Willow couldn't shake it. Couldn't help but wonder if it might be indicative of another challenge to come their way. Some sort of final test to ensure they'd truly earned a win.

She wasn't sure how she was meant to bring up her concerns, though. They couldn't pull another stunt with the shower. Carter might disqualify them on principle if they tried that again.

Inspiration struck when they rid themselves of their individual surveillance and climbed into bed together. There was a microphone tucked into the headboard so they couldn't be too obvious about it.

There were workarounds, though. Suggestive ones, but Willow was no stranger to what people thought of her. People had seen her do much worse.

The lights snicked off overhead and Willow wasted no time climbing into Leith's lap, settling herself with her thighs on either side of his hips and her torso pressed down into his so that her mouth could rest by his neck. Leith's hands went immediately to her hips, his fingers digging into her ass.

She could always count on him to play along, she supposed.

Willow pulled the blankets up around them and whispered into the ear farthest from the microphone. "We need to talk."

The delightful kneading he'd been doing stopped. Still, he took her cue and spoke soft. "About?"

"All the way under," she ordered first. The duvet cocooned them before she said another word. "I don't think they're done testing us."

She could just barely see his nod. "I've been thinking the same thing."

His words seemed to agree with her but his stress level did not match her own if his tone was any indication.

"And you're not concerned about it?" she asked.

"Not really, no."

Realizing it might look strange if they were just two still lumps, Willow began to rock back and forth over him, mimicking the rhythm of pleasure.

"Why not?" she demanded.

He swallowed and his neck bobbed against the side of her face. "We've passed every other test they've given us so far."

"But some just barely." She couldn't temper the argument. That closeness that had excited her earlier only made the stakes seem higher now. "What if this one is even worse than the others?"

"It won't be," he assured her.

"But how do you know?"

Her movements grew faster, harder, the more desperate she became for his answers. It wasn't that he was saying anything wrong. It was just that she wanted to know how he was so sure when all she could see were the potential obstacles in the way.

"Willow," he groaned, louder, when she rolled down a little too hard. She stilled, frozen over him. But Leith shook his head and rasped out, "I didn't tell you to stop."

Did he know that it was becoming her weakness to see him so frazzled?

She decided to tease him with her words instead of her body. "To keep up appearances."

"Yeah. Appearances."

Tentatively, she resumed her rocking. "Are you trying to distract me?"

"If this is what it takes to do it, I'll do it anytime you'd like."

"Leith, be serious."

"I'm so serious," he said. "Does humping me distract you, Willow?"

She swatted his chest. "I am not humping you."

Leith squeezed her and she hoped he might start the kneading again. "What do you call this then?"

"Umm…sensual scheming?"

"Oh, scheme harder, baby."

Her laughs had her collapsing, unable to continue holding herself up. "You ever considered going into porn?" she asked. "Or maybe phone sex. I can practically hear it now."

Leith's hands were getting dangerously close to tickling her sides. "If you want to have phone sex when we get out of here, Willow, all you have to do is ask."

"I'll let you know when I'm in the market," she promised.

"Please do."

Instead of tickling her like she thought he might, Leith skated his hands up and down her back, trading places between over and under her shirt. She loved the rough of his hands on her skin. Usually, it might drive her to desire but, for now, it just reminded her that she was in the arms of someone who had the drive and experience to take care of her. The strength to hold her without dropping her.

It was almost enough to make her forget entirely about this mysterious impending test.

She settled further into his warmth, nuzzling him now rather than provoking, and she wished she had the time to get used to this. That threat, she found, was nearly as scary as the threat of not going home with the money.

Her panic fizzled her filter. "I hope the world sees you like I see you," she told him. She should probably be speaking more quietly but whatever malfunctioning muscle controlled her speech seemed to control her volume, as well.

"How do you see me?"

"Like sunlight."

"Poetic," he breathed after a beat. "I do know how much you love the sun."

She pushed herself up, the duvet mussing up her hair. He wasn't wrong. Willow did love the sun. Every morning, when they first stepped out into the backyard, Leith would hang back with her a minute while she let the sun warm her face. And when they were idle, she had little interest in the shade. Even without those observations, though, she'd yapped incessantly to him about her love of the light. How warm and strong and happy it made her feel.

Was that how her confession had sounded to him?

Was that what she meant?

"I wasn't telling you I loved you," she rushed to say.

"Couldn't have that, could we?"

Her eyes found where the microphone would be through the duvet. If she did feel it, she certainly wouldn't admit it for the first time for everyone to hear. If she felt it, it should be for Leith and Leith alone. At first.

"Not yet," she said and she knew who she said it for.

Leith flexed, the pressure encouraging her to return to her position on his chest. She wanted to trace her own patterns on his skin, draw tattoos that he'd sworn he'd never get. He needed something permanent and Willow wanted to be that.

Yes, even with all the shit with her family and all the time and money she knew she was about to invest in them. She wanted to invest that same time into Leith. She wanted to ask him to tell his family to fuck right off and she wanted to ask him to move to Pine Springs and start his own business that she could do all the admin for. She wanted to build something entwined but not trapping, something to remind him that she would be there but that she would be there for him, not to take from him.

But how stupid was that? She'd known the man just over a month. Unfair, unrealistic, illogical. Those were all the things that would come to mind if one of her friends told her they were upending their life for a person they'd known for a month. She'd clap them upside the head and ask if they'd stopped taking their medication.

Yet, when she thought of Leith, she was about ready to fall to her knees to ask it of him.

His touch left her back. If she weren't so caught up in all her dreams for their future, she may have protested. But then he made a tent of the duvet above their heads with one hand, using his other to brush back her hair.

She imagined him doing it every night. She imagined the two of them wrapped together and laughing and so far from caring about the outside world. Or, if they did care, they weren't afraid because they were together.

It was something Willow knew she couldn't manipulate into being. She just…wanted it.

Leith broke their silence when he asked, "Do you regret it? Not sticking around to make things work with Killian?"

The Willow that hadn't been wading knee-deep in daydreams of their future would have thought he was asking if she regretted not committing to that extra money. The Willow she was now, though, remembered that they'd already earned that again, together. This Willow saw the request for reassurance for what it was.

She wouldn't lie to him, though.

"Killian's great," she admitted. "And I can see why we were matched. In another life, we'd probably be compatible."

"I see."

"But I don't regret abandoning whatever that was for this. This is…so much better."

"You really know how to stroke a man's ego."

Willow grinned. "That's not all I know how to stroke."

"Is that supposed to be my line?"

"Well, then you set it up wrong."

"I did no such thing, sweetie."

"Ew, try again."

"Sweet cheeks?"

He'd answered in an instant and she laughed. He always made her laugh and, when she imagined her life and her relationships like she was tonight, she'd always thought that was important. She liked that she could make him laugh, too. That his requirements of a sense of humor were for her to be funny and not just to think he was.

She didn't care that sometimes he sounded like he'd rehearsed entire conversations in his head before he ever spoke aloud. Maybe he had, but it never made her feel like he wasn't in the moment. It only made her believe that he cared what he said to her.

He cared what he said to everybody, really.

And she secretly hoped that no one quite got his charm like she did, cruel as it sounded.

Because it was polite to return questions and for absolutely no other reason at all, Willow asked, "What about you?"

"Yeah, you can call me ‘sweet cheeks' if you want."

"No, I mean, do you regret not sticking around for Maia?"

"Willow…"

"Yeah?"

Done with her hair, Leith pulled her face towards his. Let go of the duvet and let it encompass them again. That hand closed around her ribs, right under her breast. It wasn't sexual, the move. It was reassuring. His breath was warm and fresh on her face when he dissolved the remaining distance.

"How can I regret this?"

Their rules about kissing were so far gone and Willow didn't care, as long as she got to feel like this. Because she hadn't been lying, earlier. His lips—just, him—felt like the sun. She wanted them all over her, all the time.

And she believed when he kissed her that, unlike the sun, he wouldn't leave sometimes like the sun did.

He'd stick around.