Matched

by Angela Graham

  We’re right beside them now—the last team between us and victory. I’ll deny it on my deathbed, but I turn my body left, cup my hands into the deepest scoop I can make, and douse the viperous eyes of Nadia with a fat helping of the Indian Ocean.

  She sputters and squirms, totally wrecking their pattern. Cruz and I sail a few more feet until we can both stand up in the water. I grab his hand as he slides off the tube, pulling him forward to plant both feet on the sand with me.

  The horn blows and I reach over, helping him take his blindfold off. “Surprised?” I ask when his eyes adjust to the sun and meet mine.

  He smiles. “Not at all.”

  “I just didn’t know if you knew my voice, or—”

  “CONGRATULATIONS!”

  Callie comes scampering over and throws her arms around Cruz in a big hug. “And you,” she says, grinning at me, “nice strategy. Oh captain, my captain! Showed that bitch.” She glimpses over at Nadia, then back to us. “Massages…you lucky ducks. Think of me.” She runs a finger down Cruz’s abdomen, then sashays away.

  Yep, she has a thing for Cruz. I smile, ignoring the familiar churning in my stomach that I apparently haven’t conquered. I’m happy for her—and for him, too. Maybe Emma will benefit from him being distracted, as well.

  “Nice job, baby!”

  Oakley picks me up and swings me around in a circle. “My girl’s a winner,” he whispers and I lean in, hoping for a kiss. But he cowers, his eyes rueful. Right…no PDA. Because calling me “baby” out loud and swinging me in your arms isn’t PDA?

  “Wish it was me with you, but damn, with all those females screeching over each other, I couldn’t tell what was what. Sorry, angel.” He sets me down and takes a step back, putting distance between us that takes a stab at my heart. “Nice job, man. Congrats.” He gives Cruz a fist bump, then looks at me. It’s clear he wants me in his arms, but always the MVP, he retreats even farther.

  “Thanks. I’m gonna go check on Emma.” Cruz eyes us both, then leaves.

  “Great job, everyone!” Tom says. “Especially Harlow and Cruz, our winners.” He pauses for obligatory applause. “Very clever strategy, by the way. Nicely done. Your charities are both $5,000 richer, and your car will be here at six to take you for a full massage treatment at Mi Belle Spa. Everyone else, enjoy your evening!”

  Oakley sits on the edge of Jasmine’s bed while I get ready for my outing. I have no idea where my roommates are.

  “So, you planning on being naked for this massage?” he asks pensively, deep grooves of aggravation outlining his tapered eyes.

  “I don’t know. Let’s ask Nadia what she thinks,” I reply with a bratty and proud edge, offering him my back.

  I hear the bedroom door slam, and a second later his voice is hot and stern at my ear.

  “No, ma’am.” Two large hands grab my waist and snare me backward onto his lap as he sits down again. “No fucking way in hell are you leaving to go get a naked massage with another dude while you’re mad at me.” He buries his face in my neck with searing, open-mouthed kisses and teases of his tongue. “Baby, I swear—I was disoriented and couldn’t hear, and she just jumped in. I didn’t even know it wasn’t you till she talked.”

  “You should’ve kicked her out and came back for me,” I groan, angling my head to give him better access even in the midst of our “fight.” I’m not mad—it was a hectic game—just irritated. More so with Nadia than him, if truth be told. But men don’t think like she-wolves, and I want him conscious of Nadia’s sneaky tactics for her future attempts—because I’m positive they’re coming.

  “I asked.” He suckles at the dip where my neck and shoulder merge, somehow connected to every last nerve ending in my body. He’s well aware I love it. I’m not sure if he loves it too, or if he’s just impatient and knows it’s the one-stop shop to set me fully aflame. Either way, I’m good with it. His hands trace from my hips around to the front, one sliding between my legs, which open wider for him. “She said you were already in with someone, but she wasn’t sure who.”

  Of course she wasn’t, because I wasn’t with anyone—I was standing on the island while she slithered her scaly self into his inner tube.

  “She lied.” I have every intention of screaming, but it comes out a hopeless purr as he teases my clit through my thin shorts.

  “I’m sorry,” he breathes onto my skin in the voice that always gets him anything he wants from me. “Say you forgive me, baby.”

  “I do.” I grind my ass into his groin. “Say you won’t fall for any of her tricks while I’m gone.”

  “Promise. Love you, Harlow. My pussy,” he growls, strengthening his ministrations. “We have time? Been too long…need some of my girl.”

  “I think so.”

  I start to turn my face to him, and Jasmine bounds through the door.

  “Car’s here, have fu—oh, sorry.” She slaps a hand over her eyes. “Sorry,” she repeats, “but you gotta go, Harlow. That is, unless you want to forfeit your massage to me.”

  I stand and pull myself together. “You can look now. And no way,” I laugh. “Just keep an eye on this one for me.” I bend and kiss Oakley in a way that leaves a man thinking about only you until you kiss him again. “Back soon.”

  I grab the duffel I packed and skip out, giddy at the thought of a massage. Cruz is already waiting in the back of the limo when I slide in and, surprise, his brow’s furrowed, eyes dark and daunting.

  “I don’t like leaving my little sister alone in a house full of horny, single guys who’re here for the sole purpose of finding love—which, in Guylish, is ‘a hookup,’” he grates from deep in his throat, saving me from the obligatory “What’s wrong?”—the answer to which I was already certain anyway.

  “Not completely true,” I reply. “A, all the guys aren’t single, and many men—spanning far beyond this house, even—know the difference between love and sex, and are capable of both. B, Oakley, Callie, and Jasmine would never let anything bad happen to Emma. And C, we won’t be gone that long.”

  “Hmph,” he grunts menially, staring out the window.

  “Have you ever had a massage before?” I ask, refusing to cater to his attempt at a mood-dampening tantrum any further.

  He gapes at me like I’m stupid. “I race motocross, so yeah, I’ve had a few.”

  Well, I tried.

  The remainder of the ride is silent, which is fine, because the scenery is almost as beautiful as the sunset and I’m mesmerized. And if he’s not talking, he’s not mentioning that night.

  We arrive at Mi Belle and are treated like royalty from the minute the doors open. We’re whisked into a private suite in the back, complete with hors d'oeuvres, champagne, and two beautiful women assigned to only our comfort.

  The talker of the two ladies hands us both robes and points to the dressing rooms. “No clothes or jewelry, please. It be safe there. Then we get started. I’m Laloni, and she Simone. You need anything special? Allergies?”

  “No, thank you,” I respond graciously. Cruz shakes his head, already halfway to one of the changing rooms.

  Five minutes later, we’re both flat on our stomachs on tables maybe five inches apart, towels pulled down to the tops of our butts.

  “Where you hurt?” Simone asks me.

  “Nowhere specific. Just tight all over,” I answer in time with Cruz’s brash snort. I’d shoot him a stink eye if my face wasn’t stuck down in a hole.

  “You hurt where?” Laloni asks him.

  “Well, I have severe swelling in my biggest muscle from time to time,” he replies as calmly as if he was asked the time.

  I cringe—twice, actually, because Laloni doesn’t catch on and needs further clarification. “Which muscle? You show me?”

  “Cruz!” I yelp, my head flying up. I throw a warning scowl his way. “Don’t even think about it.”

  He looks up as well, his cocky grin antagonizing me further. “Doesn’t lying like this smash your tits? I find it makes my—” />
  “I’m serious!” I wail, embarrassed. “Stop it!”

  “You’re the one hell bent on me having fun. So I’m having fun.” He laughs, then finally drops his head back down.

  I do the same, getting as comfortable as possible considering his herculean efforts to make me as uncomfortable as possible. “You know what? Never mind—be miserable. Just do it with your mouth shut. I don’t care anymore. Simone, may we have some music please?”

  She puts on relaxing melodies of an island sound, and Cruz doesn’t make another peep aside from the occasional groan of approval. And when I’m all but asleep, we’re asked to turn over onto our backs.

  I’m extremely careful to clasp the towel in an optimal coverage position as I flip, averting my eyes as far from Cruz’s as they’ll go…except for the one, itsy-bitsy accidental peek his way, which he of course catches.

  “I go too fast, or did you get another good look?” he asks with the smirk of a thousand smug men. Yes, if they all got together and bombarded me with their most infuriating smiles, Cruz alone would have them beat.

  I’m unarmed. I have no such expression in my arsenal, or depthless eyes that dance and, at the same time, breach one’s every security. So I perform the only trick my own mundane eyes are capable of—rolling—before beginning my second, even more mystifying act of ignoring him and getting resettled.

  “Wonder how Oakley would feel about that?” he goads again. My prayers go even farther into unanswered territory as he adds in a bass timbre, “Or about the other night?”

  “Laloni?” She looks at me. “The biggest, swelling muscle he needs help with? It’s his ego. Do you have any special treatments or oils for that?”

  He chuckles, and about twenty seconds later murmurs a barely audible, “Good one.”

  “Thank you,” I boast; it was a good one. “And just for the record, Oakley is very secure in his manhood, and place in my life. He’d understand someone watching, for a few seconds, something so shocking it couldn’t be helped. I don’t enjoy car wrecks—they’re awful—but I still look. Which is the sane and only reason for my totally out-of-character behavior the other night. And just now? I saw nothing.”

  “Not for lack of trying,” he dishes right back. “Harlow, you want a nice, long look? Just say the word.”

  My head flops to the side, my mouth falling open momentarily as I gawk at him. “What would Callie have to say about that?” I throw his words at him, aiming right between his eyes.

  He rolls his head to face me as slowly as possible, those cobalt eyes of his more calculating than usual. “I imagine not a whole helluva lot, seeing as how she and I are just old acquaintances.”

  “Do you always let old acquaintances suck your dick?”

  Oh, shit. I slap my hand over my mouth and hide behind my eyelids. I can’t believe I just said that out loud—or the surge of adrenaline currently powering through me.

  “If they offer, and we’re both single?” He laughs. “Yeah, I do.”

  My retort is coated in condescending sarcasm. “Lovely. You must be so proud. And they must feel super special. Lucky ladies.”

  “You wanna make this personal, Harlow? All right.”

  I hear the shuffle of him sitting up and look in his direction idiotically, without any regard for the myriad of instincts telling me it’s a very bad idea. I was right, and my face heats at his blatant effort to only just cover himself with the towel. Poor Laloni backs away from him slowly, having given up on relaxing this broody storm of a man.

  “Let’s do it then.” His cutting snarl hauls my eyes quickly up his body to his own eyes. “How many episodes does Oakley have to appear on to appease his PR team?”

  I don’t know, and I assume my ignorant silence tells him as much.

  “You should ask him. ’Cause I, for one, am curious as hell why you’d try to stick around a house full of sneaky bitches and give up the pleasure of touching the woman you’re sure is your one and only if you don’t have to.” His patronizing stare bores into me, unnerving but not unkind. And definitely not unseeing. “Or why he chose this show to begin with.”

  I’m speechless. My gaze is fixed on his, unable to conceal my hurt at his bluntness. He’s not completely wrong—it’s crazy that Oakley brought his girlfriend on a show to find love—but then again, I understand his reasons, career and charity.

  My eyes close, head dipping. I want to support Oakley more than anything, but out of all the television shows he could’ve landed, why this one?

  My weary contemplation is interrupted by the heavy sigh I hear Cruz release.

  “I’m sorry, Harlow. Shit. I shouldn’t be a dick to you.” I look up to find his expression has softened. “You’re not the one who deserves any anger. I just…hate watching it.” When I don’t respond, his head slants to the side. His face is pensive for a bit before he finally continues.

  “It’s none of my business. Forget I said anything.”

  On a roll today, he’s right again—it’s not any of his business. Just like the dynamics between him and Emma, or him and Callie, aren’t any of mine. Seems you become quite interested, quite quickly, in the people you live with every day.

  I bet a mouthful of crow is easier to swallow with something to drink. Sure wish I had something to drink.

  When you’re unable to recognize the current version of yourself, it’s probably best to remain silent. So I do, and he seems content to follow my lead through the rest of our awkward massages and the ride back to the house. I use the quiet time—something I haven’t had since Oakley reentered my life—to try and sort through the continuum of thoughts circling in my head, my brain hamster spinning the damn wheel into dust.

  I’m undecided yet if I’ll still be talking to Jasmine about things—clearly, that would fall into the none-of-my-business category—but I absolutely have some questions for Oakley.

  Confessional: Cruz McCall

  “They said I have to do a confessional. If I don’t, I guess I get sent home? And that’d be a bad thing how?

  “‘Emma.’ Dickhead on the Spot literally just held up a cue card that said ‘Emma.’ Thank you—I needed reminding that this is all for my little sister, ya fucking nutlick.

  “But yeah, she wanted to come on this ‘once-in-a-lifetime adventure’—her words, not mine. So here we are, the McCalls, in all their glory. No lie, I do hope Emma has a great time…as long as ‘great time’ doesn’t mean any of the assholes in this house think about laying a finger on her. My sister deserves more than every guy here combined could ever even think about offering her.

  “Same goes for a few of the other ladies. ‘Like Callie?’ Reading the cue card again. Yeah, exactly like Callie. She’s a cool chick, and deserves to be treated well. And you can shove that next card square up your ass. Jesus, is anyone not going to ask me about that today? Callie and I met a couple years ago at a charity event. She was cool then, she’s cool now, that’s it. No big story, no torrid affairs. No interest like that whatsoever.

  “Am I done?”

  Chapter 7

  I’m heading to the shower the next morning when a large, determined hand reaches out and drags me inside. The opaque door slams behind us.

  Oakley turns on the hot water, and fog instantly helps shroud us. Then he whispers in my ear, “They cannot film past the glass, per contract. Arms up.”

  I comply easily, needing this as much as he does, desperate to feel connected to him. He slides my sleepshirt up over my head, bowing his own to suck an aching nipple into his mouth with a hungry moan. His thumbs hook inside the waist of my shorts, and they’re gone with my panties in one smooth tug.

  Anticipation, separation, and a starving libido have me greedier than usual, so I don’t fight it. I yank his shorts off, my eyes raking over his naked body that’s large, chiseled, and defined. His engorged dick is so hard it looks painful; the head’s a deep purple, veins pulsating along the entire length.

  “I love how you look at me, Harlow.” He guides
my chin up to capture my full attention.

  “How’s that?” It escapes raspy and indolent. I can’t concentrate on enunciation right now.

  “Like mine’s the only body you’ll ever want—that I’m your whole world. Now hop on this dick before I explode.”

  He grasps me by the backs of my thighs and draws me closer, his cock begging for entry. “Been way too long. God, I’ve fuckin’ missed you.” He sounds truly agonized, a desperate famine in his gruff voice.

  Oakley’s aware I am on the pill and have never been with anyone else, but I’m silently grateful when he maneuvers back to roll on a condom. He’s a football star, and we were broken up for so long…groupies…I don’t want to know.

  He shifts me higher, always making me feel weightless and protected, and lines his bulbous head with my core as he walks us forward. My back hits the tile.

  He tries with one urgent, impatient thrust, but is denied, and I yelp in pain. “That’s my tight girl. No one’s ever been in this sweet cunt but me, huh baby?” he grunts around my breast, which is buried in his mouth. He tries again, and with short, shallow ease drives partially into me. “Reach down and play it, babe. Need you wetter so I can get in there.”

  I seek out my clit with one hand and circle it, closing my eyes, my body and muscles relaxing with each deep breath. “It’s too—”

  “You can take all of me. You always do. Relax.” He bites my nipple, and I rest my head back on the wall as he grips my ass in both hands and changes my position. “Fuck, you feel good, Har. So tight and warm, for only me. Incredible.”

  Soon, he’s fully inside me. There’s still a sting to it, but he keeps his momentum gentle, absorbing the ecstasy of each constricted glide of our union. I love it—the intimacy and emotional connection—but I don’t think I can come with the hint of discomfort.

  “What’s my Harlow need? Tell me…anything…want you to come with me,” he pants.