STAY WITH ME
Friends to Lovers High Stakes Romance – Act Two
Jessica Aniston
Copyright © 2019 by Jessica Aniston
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
DESCRIPTION
With the competition on Love Roulette getting tougher as the stakes get higher, Karin and Declan know they must step up their game if they’re going to make it to the end and return home triumphant. That, however, seems easier said than done as temptation and longing fills their days and nights, and it takes everything they have to hold back. Will the pair be able to dampen down the desires of their hearts? And will winning mean anything if it takes away the one thing, they want more than victory?
Table of Content
DESCRIPTION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER ONE
T he girls, artfully arranged on their lounge chairs by the pool, are supposed to each talk for a time about their significant others, much like the guys are doing too, Karin supposes. This is going to serve as “a more in-depth introduction to each of the remaining couples in episode two,” as Marietta informs them. Gorman and Marv, the fourth camera guy beside Hank and Alexander, are filming them and Karin feels a little bad for all the clothes they’re wearing. The sun has come out and she’s sweating even in her skimpy, little bathing suit.
The conversation, despite the fact that they have been asked to have it, flows naturally and a short while in, Karin finds herself genuinely interested in hearing about the way each of her peers sees their partner. It’s endlessly fascinating the way Aileen talks about Rickard like he hangs the moon for her every night, how amazed she still is by his dedication and faithfulness to her through five years of a long distance relationship. It’s equally endearing to listen to Mimi describe in great detail how hard Grace works at her accounting firm every day, having had to overcome terrible anxiety and PTSD in her late teens from a drugstore robbery she got into through a coincidence.
Courtney waxes poetically about Bobby and the words “he’s the best man in the whole world, he makes me so happy I cry every night” leave her mouth. Karin nods at that, smiling and thinking ‘Sure, you do.’ She encourages this, asking some follow-up questions for the simple reason that the thicker Courtney lays it on, the more the others might start to question the sincerity of it, too. After all, if you tell someone how much you completely love them every single day for the most mundane and dull reasons, it loses all its weight. But bless her anyway. Given that Karin knows who the fake couple is, in a certain light its adorable how smitten Courtney is. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s annoying to be told about it all day.
When the torch passes to Karin, it’s Mimi who hands it to her.
“So, Rinny, what’s Declan like?” She asks, leaning forward on her deck chair to see Karin better across Courtney and Aileen’s chests. “He seems like a ham and a half.”
“Oh, he is,” Karin assures her. “He’s a really funny guy. It’s quite tragic that after all these years I still find him hilarious. He still cracks me up every day. But he’s also so sweet and supportive.” Karin takes a breath, thinks she’s done, but then finds that she has more to say, and maybe she sounds like Courtney for a second there but she doesn’t care. She’s never really said nice things about Declan before because that usually invites too much scrutiny from her friends and family that she does not want to deal with), so now that she’s started, it’s a bit hard to stop.
“He’s very generous and kind,” she continues. “He does so much for his community. But he’s also very fiery. Very passionate.”
“Nice,” Courtney says beside her and flips to her side to look at the other woman. “So, between the sheets, too?”
How did the conversation turn to sex so quickly? They had not talked about it for anybody else? Is this a strange joke? Or just fate kicking her in the shin? That the person on this deck who actually can’t speak on matters of the flesh regarding her “partner” is now supposed to?
Karin panics a little inwardly, trying to create a quick strategy of how to deal with this. What does she know about what Declan is like between the sheets? Lord knows, she doesn’t have the slightest idea and not for the lack of interest. So what do I do? She asks herself. She decides quickly that making it up as she goes is her only viable course of action. Just go off on assumptions and hope for the best. What other choice does she have?
“Well, yes,” she stammers and makes the rest up as she goes along. “He’s got a lot of energy, let’s put it like that.”
“I wish,” Aileen groans. “Rickard is like…” The woman illustrates her words by flopping around to her back from where she had leaned on her elbow before and puts all four limbs out, so she looks like a bug on its back. Then she drops her voice to pretend she’s her boyfriend and growls: “‘You do your thing, babe’.”
“That sounds sad,” muses Mimi. “Can we help you?”
“No, no,” Aileen hurries, a brief flash of panic darting across her features, like she just heard how her words sounded. “I mean, it’s not bad, you know, but he’s just not very dominant. He likes being ordered around.”
“That’s me,” Karin says, unthinking and generally speaking. “With us,” she adds, more for herself than for the others, to remind herself that she is currently making up her and Declan’s sex life. “I like when he just grabs me and tells me what he wants and gets it, like hair-pulling and biting and things like that.” That particular sound-bite won’t make the cut later on because it’s the 8 p.m. broadcasting slot, “He’s never harsh or disrespectful or anything but he…”
Karin is swimming, unsure how she got here or how to get out, only aware that she suddenly got very open and potentially a little bit vulgar and definitely a lot private and tries to rectify that letting the rest of the sentence turn into a somewhat spastic gesture. She realizes as it’s happening that she’s still illustrating pretty obviously that he likes to fuck her good and thorough.
“Sorry, Mom,” she says into vaguely Gorman’s direction and hopes that maybe they will cut out that last bit too. They don’t and two weeks later at the Bronstown fire-station group-watch of the second episode, that’s the very scene Darla and Scarlett start drinking to as the rest of the audience hoots and laughs.
“Bobby is very romantic,” Courtney supplies at the poolside, sounding like her boyfriend’s sweet streak is in opposition to Declan’s 'roughness’ which is something Karin does not appreciate.
“Declan is too, that’s not what I meant,” she says intently. “He’s very sappy and attentive in every area.” She shrugs. “But he’s also a very passionate guy.”
“Yes, I get that from him,” Courtney nods and then turns to ask Kaidan a round of questions because he hasn’t shared anything yet, and Karin is glad to move on.
That was a ride. She’s not all the way sure why or how she got such details about her and Declan’s non-existent sexual exploits but now that she has devoted some time to imagine it, it makes listening to Kaidan gush about Kaelan a lot harder than it ought to be. Truthfully, she’s distracted all the way to the end of the shoot and even still when Marietta takes her to the side and tells her that as soon as the guys are done, she and Declan are going to be taken to the Georgetown main beach to go on their reef dive.
Karin is still distracted when she sits in the production SUV with Declan on their way to the beach. His proximity, while she wonders how much of what she’s made up about his pref
erences in bed is true, is not helping at all with her lack of focus on the task at hand. The task is to appear like a sane member of society that can be trusted to learn how to scuba dive in under an hour.
“If a shark eats me, will you miss me?” He asks her when they are already out in a boat over the reef, dressed in neoprene suits being instructed on how to breathe through the mouthpiece attached to their oxygen-tanks, and it’s the first time she comes out of her head again.
“Babe, the reef sharks are so tiny, you could eat them,” she tells him because she had been paying a bit of attention to the speech their diving instructor just gave them three minutes ago while in Declan’s head was probably in the clouds, dreaming about sharks.
“Let’s assume they were huge,” Declan suggests and she knows he’s being cute for the camera because Gorman is filming their whole preparation phase.
“Yes, I’d miss you,” she says accordingly, humoring him. “Don’t get eaten, please.”
A couple of minutes later, they are all set to go and Gorman hands Karin a Go-Pro on a stick so she can film underwater while he and Marv get their waterproof-cameras to film Karin and Declan as they explore the reef.
They explore. Declan gets antsy, even underwater, because the forty minute crash course in diving is too long for his taste. Karin can tell by the speed with which he charges ahead once Rudy, their instructor, finally gives them the go ahead to go chart their course for themselves. She has a hard time catching up with him, not as surefooted under water or at ease with the diving gear. It’s all very heavy and restricting, even in the water. There is a bit of a puddle at the bottom of her goggles which annoys her disproportionately and she is a bit anxious about making a mistake and accidentally drowning herself. But Declan, happy and natural as a clam, keeps looking back at her over his shoulder, checking in and giving her a cheerful thumbs up and so she swallows the lump of fear in her throat and follows him further down.
The reef is truly magical. Even two minutes in, it’s well worth taking the proverbial plunge to actually start taking stock of her surroundings instead of just staring at the black guiding rope set up there for inexperienced divers like it’s her line of breadcrumbs she can’t afford to lose. Everything glows around her, the corals, the fish that are flurrying past her head, swimming around her like she isn’t even there, Declan’s grin around the mouthpiece of his scuba gear. It’s all dazzlingly beautiful.
While Declan explores like an excited child and keeps pointing out especially noteworthy rock formations and fish-types out to her, Karin allows herself to float for a bit. To enjoy the weightlessness in the water as her body gets used to the pressure of the diving gear and warms up to the temperature in her neoprene. She feels lighter by the minute, untethered, like she could be anyone down there and it’s glorious. The only thing that tops that delicious state of catharsis is the moment that they finally find the sharks. Even through all his armor and shielded from view by his gear as he is, Karin can see Declan light up like a Christmas tree. He’s so giddy, it makes her eyes water beneath her goggles. She keeps the Go-Pro trained on him through all of it and wonders if at the end, she can ask for the footage. Surely they will show a bit of it on the show but she thinks his Mother would appreciate having all of it and so would Karin.
All in all, they spent a good ninety minutes underwater before they come back up and climb back onto their boat, exhausted but blissfully happy. Declan is talking a new ear into Rudy’s skull, going on and on about the last shark they encountered that was so much bigger than the rest.
“That was Big Louis,” Rudy tells him patiently. “She’s a girl but Big Louis still fits her best.”
“She was really big, isn’t she?” Declan says to Karin, turning to her to involve her in the conversation as they are taking off their tanks. “I got a little nervous.”
“I saw that,” Karin chuckles.
“You weren’t worried at all about it?” Declan asks her, working his feet out of his fins.
“You would have hit her on the nose if she got too close to me,” she shrugs easily.
“Fair enough,” Declan says the same time that Rudy protests: “She would have never attacked you. She’s a gentle shark. They get a really bad rap because of the movies but they’re such serene creatures usually. They are far calmer and better behaved than dolphins are actually.”
Rudy sounds like he’s about to go on a tangent about the behavior of various marine animals when Gorman holds up a hand and interjects, gesturing at Karin and Declan.
“Sorry to interrupt but can you two dry off for a second so we can mic you for the instant reactions?”
“There are towels downstairs in the boat,” Rudy offers and as soon as they follow his suggestion and start moving towards the inside of the vessel, he starts lecturing Gorman and Hank about how badly dolphins actually behave on occasion.
Inside, it’s the first time since that morning that she and Declan have a moment of privacy and because of that, Karin holds him back by the arm after he half-heartedly dabs himself off and is already on the turn to go back.
“Wait,” she says and takes a deep breath to steady herself when he does. Just tell him, Rinny, she thinks. It needs to be said. He makes a face at her, as if to say: "Out with it, I haven’t got all day."
.
“I should tell you that I talked on national television about how you are in bed," she says, ripping the proverbial band-aid off. "Or will be talking about it when it airs. I mean, when we shot the pool segment earlier, I talked about our fake sex-life. Just so you know.”
“Sorry, you did what?” Declan asks and stands frozen just in front of the door like he’s just been a million years away from thinking about things like their pretend sex life. It’s a good thing Karin has been thinking of little else all day now.
“Yes, but,” Karin sets out to elaborate, aiming to just tell him quickly so he’s aware of it and they can go back to Gorman. “I got steamrolled and suddenly we were talking about what kind of lover you are so I made it up. Well, I went on assumptions. But if anybody asks you, we should probably match up answers.”
“They had you talk about what we do in bed at the pool?” Declan asks, looking gob smacked and a bit scandalized.
“No, Courtney asked,” Karin tells him and he grimaces.
“Alright.” And there is a pause as he processes. Until: “So, what am I like in bed?”
“Don’t laugh,” Karin says, suddenly not so sure that this was a good idea after all. Of course he was bound to ask and he needs to know what she said, that was kind of the point in telling him, but does she have to? Can’t he just watch it back? “I might be way off.” She looks away from him at the wood paneled cabin walls. “I just pulled it out of my ass.”
Judging by the startled look on his face that wasn’t the best phrasing.
“Interesting word choice in context,” he says dryly, raising an eyebrow, pleased with himself, obviously feeling very clever making fun of her. He looks far too smug.
“Declan!” She hisses sharply and throws her towel at him in retaliation for catching the involuntary innuendo. “I didn’t say you liked that. Do you like that?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “I never tried it.”
“Well, anyway,” she continues, hoping to leave this leg of the conversation behind and fast. “I said that you’re very passionate.”
“That’s fair,” Declan provides helpfully.
“And that you usually take the lead,” she goes on and chances a look at him. “I said I’m more submissive.” He tilts his head at her, eyes going marginally wider. “Mostly because that’s true. I mean, true for me.”
“Yes,” he exhales and it sounds like that was the last of his breath. “Go on. What else did you tell them?”
“I said there’s hair-pulling and biting,” she adds, slowly, and a bit embarrassed. “But that you never hurt me or anything. But they think we go hard.” A little more embarrassed, enough to look at her hands
again. “And you’ve got energy and stamina. Was that fine?”
Declan is silent as a grave which lends itself perfectly for filling the quiet with her nerves and panics a little. God, did she completely overstep the boundaries? Did she paint him like a nasty pervert who likes to manhandle women and he hates that thought? And why did she do that anyway? Because it turns her on? How selfish. That’s not a good enough reason to make things like that up about someone who might not be fine with it and put it out there on a recording for prosperity. Oh dear God, she’s the worst person in the world. What if he’s mad at her now?
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said all that for the cameras, probably,” she sputters hurriedly and looks at him only because she thinks apologies should be made while looking someone in the eye for them to mean anything. His are unreadable. Eventually though, after Karin ages a hundred years, he shakes his head, ever so slightly.
“No. I mean, that’s very flattering,” he says and almost smiles. “Pretty high expectations.” Expectations for what? For her? Does he mean he has high expectations to fulfill for her now? Will he try to?) “For the future,” he goes on. “With whoever comes next and sees the show, you know.” Whoever comes next is very likely Tina again. But then, she already knows what Declan is like in bed, unlike Karin.
“Sure,” she says, forcing herself to look at him and act like this is not an uncomfortable conversation. “But, now you know, so if anybody asks - ”
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