Million Dollar Marriage Read online

  “I’ll let you have the shower first,” I say, my voice clipped. “Then you should go to medical and get your hands looked at.” So you can get away from me.

  He gets the hint. “Wait. Are you mad at me?”

  I give him a look, like, What do you think?

  “Why?”

  I cross my arms. “I’ll give you a hint: ‘Why don’t you sit there and do nothing?’” I mimic, dropping my voice an octave.

  He shrugs. “I was frustrated. That asshole Ace’s trash talk was getting to me.”

  “But you don’t take it out on me!” I shout at him.

  He sucks in a breath and lets it out slowly. Stretches his arms up over his head. “You know what the problem is with you?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “You don’t appreciate shit,” he growls, storming to his bag and unzipping it. “I ran about ten miles today carrying your ass so that we could end up in first place, and what do I get in return? A thank-you?”

  My jaw drops. “A thank-you? Are you kidding me? Like I wanted your thingy jammed between my legs all day!”

  He laughs. “My thingy?” He shakes his head like he can’t believe he’s having this conversation with me, a grown adult who can’t seem to say the word in front of him. “Sweetheart, you’d be lucky to have my thingy jammed between your legs. Maybe it’d give you a sorely needed dose of chill-the-fuck-out.”

  I stare at him, so angry I’m shaking again. All witty retorts have flown clear out of my head.

  He kicks off his shoes, shrugs out of his jacket, and rips his shirt off before I can remind myself to look away. Once I capture a single eyeful of those glorious tattooed pecs, it’s like my eyes become glued to him. I can’t look away.

  And then he goes for his cargo pants. It’s only when he smirks that I realize I’m transfixed. “See anything you like?”

  I whirl away from him. “Sorry!”

  Then I realize it’s all his fault for being such an exhibitionist.

  “You know, you could get naked in the bathroom and spare me the embarrassment.”

  He shrugs. “Can’t sell if you don’t advertise, baby. And it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. If you see anything you want to sample, just let me know.”

  How about . . . all of it?

  I curse my greedy little brain, zip up my jacket, and do my best to face away from him as I skirt to the door. “Don’t make me sicker than I already am. I’m going to go to the mess hall. I need saltines for my stomach.”

  “I don’t want anything, sweetheart. Thanks for asking,” he calls after me as I slam the door.

  I make it to the mess hall, cursing him. He’s hot, there might be a marriage certificate with our names on it, and obviously we were really close today, but that doesn’t mean he can treat me like that. All we do is bicker like an old married couple. And stripping naked in front of me? What does he think I’m going to do, jump on him?

  I’m sure most women would. But I am not most women. And I’m sure I’m not the kind of woman he’s used to. They probably love his tattoos and his dirty mouth and his blatant talk of sex.

  Not. Me.

  There are a few couples dining in the mess hall. Natalie, the biker woman . . . and Brad? Ivy, the body builder, and Cooper? I can’t remember. They actually all seem to be getting along swimmingly compared to me and Luke. They don’t look at me, so I don’t speak to them. I grab my saltines and go back, since I’m dying to get in the shower.

  When I open the door, the first thing I see is Luke’s sculpted, naked ass. He’s standing by the bed, scrubbing a towel through his wet hair. He turns and I shriek. I squeeze my eyes closed and drop my saltines. “Put some clothes on!”

  “Shit, girl. I sleep au naturel. If you have a problem with it, you can go somewhere else.”

  I’m standing there in the door, eyes cemented closed, afraid to open them for what I might see.

  “Your saltines?”

  When I do open an eye, he’s holding them out to me. Wearing boxer briefs. “My thingy’s all covered now, sweetheart.”

  I let out a sigh and snatch the crackers from his hands. There are water droplets on his shoulders and chest, and the smell of him is thick in the postshower haze. His wet hair is falling in his face, and he’s looking at me with a predatory gleam in his eye. “Don’t do that to me.”

  “Do what?”

  “Make fun of me. Or . . . look at me like that. Like you want to . . . devour me.”

  “Baby, if I wanted to devour you, it already would’ve happened. Since I’d rather do women on a desert island than actually, you know . . . live.” He slips on a T-shirt and cargo pants and leaves as I sit on the edge of the bed.

  Trembling at the thought of . . . sampling. What would I sample first? His lips? Yes, of course. He has nice lips. But my mind trails to his hard chest, with all those tattoos, and lower, to his thingy. To his cock. I’m surprised that I like the dirtiness of that word. I’ve felt his cock pressed against me, but I closed my eyes before getting a good look at it a few seconds ago. I imagine it, imagine touching it, taking it into my mouth.

  Oh god. I’ve never sucked cock before. Gerald wanted me to, but there is no way I can compare Luke with Gerald. Gerald was cute, but Luke is . . . a man. Hard, masculine, every part of his body big and sculpted and . . . almost too much to think about.

  When Luke’s gone, I take a heavenly shower, watching as caked-on mud that I wasn’t able to get off in the airport bathroom turns the drain at my feet black. I think about Gerald, wonder if he’ll be watching the show, but only for a moment, because my mind soon finds its way back to Luke. His ass. He has those little dimples on the sides. I bet you could bounce a quarter on each cheek. I find my hands lingering near my sex and force myself to do what I came into the shower to do.

  When the water runs clear, I step out, slip into my pajamas, towel-dry my hair, and settle down in the center of the big bed. Au naturel? If he thinks he’s going to bring his au naturel ass into this bed, he’s sorely mistaken.

  As perfect and hard and amazing as it is, no.

  Just no.

  A minute later, I hear it. A banging noise coming from the cabin next door.

  I scoot to the edge of the bed, open the door, and peer out.

  It’s coming from Marta and Ace’s cabin. Are they . . . having sex in there? Oh my god. Gross. They’ve barely known each other for two days.

  I go back to bed, pull the covers to my chin, and try to sleep through the noise as a thought occurs to me: Whatever chemistry they have, it’s working for them. They aced the Marriage Test, and they’re in first place.

  But it doesn’t mean I’m about to do the same with Luke. If that’s what it takes to win, no thanks. Sure, we worked together all right in the corn maze, but then it all fell apart after that.

  We’re just too different.

  Case in point: I can’t wait to curl into bed and go to sleep. Him? He never comes back to the cabin. He stays out all night long.

  I thought that would’ve made me happy. But I was wrong.

  Luke

  The lock challenge was a killer. It was made worse because it was pure luck, hitting upon the right key. We weren’t lucky. I thought with her brains and my brawn we’d have something, but I guess you don’t got nothin’ unless you got luck. I need a drink.

  —Luke’s Confessional, Day 2

  I rub my hands over my face and look down through bloodshot eyes at my hands. My fingers are raw and sting from turning those keys.

  But it’d been a good night. Once I lost Dr. Carpenter, Her Royal Bitchiness, I found a watering hole behind the mess hall, stocked with a full bar. Tim’s doesn’t close until two, so I rarely haul my ass to bed until four. I found myself downing tequila shots with Ivy, Brad, Zach, and Charity.

  We talked a little about the game. I learned that Webb and Daphne had been eliminated. Webb, a swimmer and one of my athletic alliance, had looked like a threat, but his coupling with Daph
ne had damn near been suicide. The rumor was, the second it started to get a little muddy, she asked to leave.

  After that, we bitched about our spouses. It was good to hear that everyone was having the same problems.

  Then we bitched about Ace and Marta. Brad, the most. Brad hated Ace since he’d very nearly had his balloon burst by him too. “I think,” I’d said as I lit a cigarette, “we’re all just jealous that that asshole is having all the luck.”

  “Why?” Charity asked me. Charity is a bikini model—blonde, skinny, big tits. Where I was chosen to pick up the female audience, I get the feeling Charity was picked to get the guys. She’d been paired with Tony, a rocket scientist. “Aren’t you happy with your wife?”

  I’d shrugged, motioning to the camera filming behind the bar. “She’s all right.”

  She didn’t seem to get the picture. She leaned in closer, pressing her tits into me, and said, “I can’t even understand a thing Tony says half the time.”

  Zach begged off early, and then there was just the four of us. Then Ivy and Brad, the two serious athletes who obviously didn’t give a shit about their “spouses,” went off together, to who knows where, probably to compare muscles. That left me with Charity.

  And I could tell what was on her mind. I spun on my chair and told her I had to go. She followed me down to the back of the mess hall and wrapped her arms around me.

  She was hot, sure. After the cocktease I’d been through with Penny, I wanted release. She gave me those puppy-dog eyes that said, Take me. “You know, there’s a place over there we could be alone.”

  I didn’t follow where she pointed.

  She tried to kiss me, but I pulled away. “Come on. Stop it.”

  “Why? We’re not really married. You like that fake wife of yours? Is that it?”

  I shoved her aside, gritting my teeth. “Cameras,” I muttered.

  But there were other reasons. First, I was married to Penny. Even if it was a fucking sham, even if she hated me, I’d meant what I said. We were each other’s first and best alliance. I didn’t need anything or anyone to interfere with that.

  I spent the next hour trying to get sober. Now I’m sitting on a bench outside the cabin where Penny’s sleeping, watching Will Wang giving Ace and Marta their marching orders for the next leg of the journey. Because they found their key first, they get to start out before us.

  In a few more hours, when it’s our time, we’ll get to leave.

  A little while later, the door opens behind me and Penny pokes her head out. She sees me, pulls her hood over her head, and stomps past me to the mess hall.

  Fuck. She’s still mad.

  It won’t be good if we have to complete another challenge still pissed at each other.

  I push off the bench and go after her. “Hey. What’s the problem?”

  “You,” she mutters, throwing open the door and stalking inside.

  She gets in the line and grabs a tray, then starts loading it up with fruit, cottage cheese, eggs. I follow, doing the same. “And why am I on your shit list today?”

  She whirls to me, about to unleash, then looks around for the cameras. “Where were you?” she whispers.

  “What do you mean? You didn’t—”

  “Oh my god. Were you . . . drinking?” she says incredulously. “You smell like a brewery! Are you drunk now?”

  “No. I had a few drinks. I’m—”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “What? You don’t—”

  “No. I don’t. I don’t drink myself silly. I don’t smoke. And I don’t do any of the things that you seem to find appealing. That’s why you disgust me.”

  I let out a low laugh. “You didn’t look so disgusted last night when you were sneaking looks at my thingy.”

  Her jaw drops. Her face reddens as her eyes scan to the camera that’s filming close by. Instead of answering, she storms past me, shoving into me and upending my tray. Fruit scatters everywhere. She doesn’t stick around to help clean it up.

  Ten minutes later, I go out to the eating area. The remaining contestants who haven’t yet left are talking together at one table. But Penny is sitting all by herself, reading her French poetry shit. I push my tray on the table. She slowly raises her head and scowls at me.

  I sit down across from her. “Look,” I say in a low voice. “There are cameras all over us. Can you just pretend to be civil to me?”

  She ignores me.

  “Today’s a new day. Can’t we forget about what happened yesterday?”

  Nothing.

  “Come on. I still want to win this, and I know you do too. We can’t do that if we’re pissed at each other.” I offer her my hand. “Truce?”

  She eyes it warily and then shakes just the tips of my fingers. “Fine. But only because I want to win.”

  “Fine.” I glance down at my tray, then start to shovel eggs and toast into my mouth. “You psyched for today?”

  She shrugs. “I guess.”

  “Why aren’t you sitting with the others?”

  She looks at them for a moment and hitches her shoulder. “I’m not social.”

  “So what are you trying to say?” I ask, bringing my coffee to my lips. “I’ve got the strength game, the cunning game, the intelligence game, and the stamina game . . . and now you want me to have the social game too?”

  She looks up at me, and I see the scowl starting to form.

  “Kidding,” I finish quickly. “Geez. I thought if you slept well, you wouldn’t wake up on the bitch side of the bed.”

  Her fingers tighten on her fork. I think she may be thinking of launching it at me. Instead, she smiles. “I think I would like you so much better if we didn’t talk. Even better, go away.”

  I hold up my hands in surrender. I know when I’m beaten. I go over to the other table and hang with them—having enjoyable conversation for a change—until it’s time for us to set out. I’m surprised that even though Ivy and Brad keep giving each other We hooked up looks over the table, they both seem to be getting along better with their respective jilted spouses than I’m getting along with Penny. Charity’s talking to Tony like she didn’t just make a pass at me. We’re the most fucked-up group of married people ever.

  No. What’s most fucked up is that I feel the need to be faithful to a woman who clearly hates my guts.

  We meet Will Wang at our scheduled time, and before he gives us our envelope, he has to taunt us with memories of the shit we went through yesterday. “So, Luke, you were getting frustrated last night, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Give me the damn envelope, asshole.

  “And, Nell, did you worry your husband had blown a gasket?”

  She huffs. “I don’t worry about anything where he is concerned. He is not my problem. The only thing I’m focused on is winning.”

  Will grins. “You didn’t seem to do very well on the first Marriage Test. And I noticed you spent last night separated. Trouble in paradise?”

  “No,” I say flatly.

  He gets the message and hands us our envelope. “All right, guys, good luck. You are on your way!”

  Penny tears open the envelope and reads it out loud. “Proceed northward on Ravine Trail to the stables to be matched with your horses. Oh.”

  “Horseback riding?” I say. “Kick ass.”

  “You ever been?” she asks as we take off, finding the trailhead.

  “I’m a southern boy. May have grown up on the outskirts of a big city, but I lived on my parents’ farm before they kicked me off it.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “Why did they do that?”

  “You don’t want to know. They teach you how to ride horses in Paris?”

  She shakes her head. “Back home.”

  “Let me guess. Your daddy gave you a pony for your tenth birthday.”

  She frowns. “Eleventh, actually. Brownie. Haven’t ridden him in ten years, though.”

  “Yeah. I haven’t ridden in a long time either. Bet it’s like riding a bike. We might
be able to make up some time on the others if they don’t know riding.”

  “Hope so. But if so . . . oh my gosh. I think this may be a physical challenge I can actually do. Who’d have thought?”

  I give her a sidelong glance. “Don’t get cocky.”

  The path is steep, but we make it to the stables while the sun is in the sky. We’re given our two horses—I get a big black one called Maximus, and she gets a girl named Sweet Pea—and a map, and told that we need to get to the top of Frank’s Summit.

  She reads the map. “There’s a roundabout route that looks less steep, but the direct route would probably save us time.”

  I look down the trails. One definitely looks rough. Knowing Ace, that’s the one he took. Ace doesn’t look like the type to know shit about horses, though. “What do you think?”

  She looks surprised. “You’re actually asking me? Wow. I didn’t know you were capable of that.”

  Maximus whinnies and tosses his head as if to tell us to cut it out. “Well, that route looks steep. I don’t want you getting halfway up and chickening out.”

  She snorts. “I won’t.”

  She snaps the reins and flies ahead of me, fearless, up the steep trail.

  That answers that question.

  I catch up to her, and she doesn’t waste time. She leads her horse easily up the rocky path, fearless. She doesn’t turn around or hesitate. I get to spend the next hour looking at her perfect ass in those jeans.

  When we get to the top of the hill and dismount, we’re met by a couple of park rangers, who point our way through trees. I can tell she’s feeling good about herself by the rare smile she’s sporting—she doesn’t smile nearly as much as she should, but when she does, it lights up her whole face.

  This confident Penny is sexy as hell.

  She walks ahead of me toward a clearing, then stops dead in her tracks.

  We’re at the edge of a steep drop, and there, ahead of us, is a long wire, stretching down as far as the eye can see. It’s a zip line.

  I pump my fist. “Fuck yeah. I’ve always wanted to try this.”

  “Welcome to the Heart Attack, one of the longest, steepest, and scariest zip lines in the world!” the guide says.