“I know you want this,” Blake murmured against my ear, nibbling my neck. “You want this as bad as I do.”
His hand kept rubbing and exploring between my legs. I was so close to exploding, so close to…
I jerked awake as the train made a sudden loud sound. Blake was still rubbing my feet, and he frowned. “You okay?”
“Yes. The train woke me up.”
“It was just the tracks squeaking a bit. Were you having a bad dream?”
Bad? Hell no. Unwanted? Yes.
“Um… no.” I shook my head. “Why?”
“You were groaning a bit. I thought you were having a nightmare.” His eyes were filled with concern, and I realized that he was actually genuinely worried about me.
Blake Marsden acting like a thoughtful husband? Was it Opposite Day or something?
I smiled. “I’m fine, but thanks.”
“All right. Go back to sleep. I’ll keep rubbing.”
Oh, yes you will, right here in my mind, I thought to myself as I settled back down.
“I’ll do your hands next,” I heard him say as I drifted back off to sleep.
This time, my sleep was dreamless. It was probably because I was only half-asleep. I knew that because I was still vaguely aware of what was happening around me. Blake’s hands left my feet, and he stopped touching me altogether for a moment. Then his fingers were back on me again, only they were on my hands this time, kneading and rubbing the pressure points on my palm as something cold and metallic slid onto my…
Hold on. This wasn’t a massage!
I forced my eyes open just in time to see Blake slipping a white gold ring onto my left ring finger. It looked like he’d already slid another one on before it—another white gold band with what appeared to be a gorgeous square-cut diamond.
“What are you doing?” I asked, sitting up straight and holding my hand out to inspect it.
“We forgot one major detail in our fakery. Your engagement ring and our wedding rings,” he said, holding up another ring which he quickly slid onto his own left hand. “So I brought some along.”
“So you sneaked them onto me?”
He gave me a sheepish grin. “I had a feeling you’d say no otherwise, and say that you wanted to go ring-less on the show to ‘prove’ how bad our marriage is.”
“No, it’s actually…” I smiled as the faux diamond on the fake engagement ring caught the light. “It’s a nice idea,” I finished lamely.
“Glad I could contribute.”
“These are really good fakes,” I said, leaning closer. “The diamond looks totally real.”
“That’s because it is real,” Blake replied with an arched brow.
My eyes widened. “But…if it’s real, it’s gotta be worth a ton!” I said. It was huge and flawless, after all. “How could you possibly afford these rings?”
He shrugged. “The diamond one looks more expensive than what it’s actually worth. And the wedding ring belonged to my mother.”
“Belonged?”
“Yeah.” He pressed his lips into a thin line.
A pang of guilt bit at my insides. “Oh. I’m sorry. I had no idea she was gone.”
“It’s fine. No need to say sorry. Happened a long time ago.”
“Well, it’s a gorgeous ring. Thank you,” I murmured. “It’s a really good idea. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it.”
He smiled again. “See, I have my uses.”
I nodded, my eyes crinkling around the sides as I returned his smile. “Yes, at least you’re good for one thing. Even if it’s just picking out rings.”
“Speaking of picking out rings, you could always give me one in return.”
I cocked an eyebrow in a puzzled expression. “What?”
“You know, the vibrating kind that goes on my—”
Suddenly I knew what he meant, and I groaned and elbowed him before he could finish. “Ugh! A cock ring? Really? It’s all about sex for you, isn’t it?”
I turned away as he began to chuckle, annoyed as hell. Just when Blake was beginning to show a more human side, he had to revert back to his sleazy self.
I rolled my eyes as he continued to chuckle next to me, refusing to react any more than that. Shame on me for being so dense and overly-hopeful. Just when I thought Blake might have grown up a bit over the last few years, he proved me wrong. He hadn’t changed at all.
Not one bit.
Chapter Eight
Blake
“Just breathe,” I said, giving Indi’s hand a squeeze as we headed down the boardwalk toward the designated meeting spot at one of Vancouver’s many marinas. She jerked away.
“I’m fine,” she said curtly.
“Yeah, you seem totally fine,” I said, raising a brow.
I caught sight of the I Do Or Die filming crew a minute later. They were standing huddled together, and to the right was another group of people whom I assumed were the other contestants. I counted eighteen of them, so including Indi and me, there must’ve been ten couples accepted onto the show altogether.
A tall middle-aged man with dark hair and piercing green eyes hurried toward us. “Are you Indi and Blake?”
“Yep.”
“Good. Everyone’s all here, then.” He clapped his hands together, drawing everyone’s attention. “Contestants, welcome to I Do Or Die! Firstly, I’d like to thank you all for participating in our very first season. I’m very excited, and I hope you all are as well.”
There were a few murmurs from the crowd, and the man continued. “Secondly, I guess I should probably introduce myself,” he said with a wink. “I’m Ed Kramer, and I’m the executive producer. Any of you ever heard of Haplin, South Dakota?”
I looked at Indi and shrugged, and she raised a brow, obviously equally confused by Ed’s random segue. All the other contestants were shaking their heads too, except a couple who were nodding. Behind Ed, the show crew were rolling their eyes, so I guessed this speech was something Ed commonly did.
He finally ended his dramatic pause and went on. “It’s a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. Hardly anyone’s ever heard of it. It’s where I was born and raised, and at the age of eighteen, I decided to get the hell out of Dodge and make TV shows. And you know what? Here I am. I’ve got this job, and I live in LA, which people have actually heard of, unlike my hometown.” He paused to let a few people laugh. “I have everything I ever wanted, and I’d like to keep it that way. So what d’ya say, guys? Do you want to help me out in making this the best damn reality show ever made?”
Most of the contestants clapped. A few cheered. I remained still and stony-faced, already annoyed by Ed. I knew guys like him. They talked like slimy car salesmen, and they acted like it too. His little speech sounded like a motivational tool, but it was clearly also a little brag about his amazing accomplishments in the TV world. Douchebag.
He kept going. “Great! Anyway, I’m lucky enough to have my son working for me as a junior producer. Say hi, Stephen.”
He paused, and one of the bored-looking show crew members nodded and waved weakly. “Hey, everyone.”
Ed went on. “I’m sure you’ll all get to know the rest of the crew, and each other, over the next few days. So let’s get into it. We’ll board the boat, and you can all introduce yourselves and talk while you enjoy the free canapés and Moët. Don’t worry about your luggage—the crew will take care of it all. Just leave it where you’re standing,” he said. “Some of the camera crew will be roaming around doing little interviews for our online video blog. It’s very casual, so don’t worry about what you look or sound like. Our viewers just want to get to know everyone, that’s all. Anyway, let’s go!”
He made a grand sweeping gesture with his right arm, and everyone began to mill around the nearest boat’s boarding ramp. It was a huge, shiny white vessel, obviously equipped to carry a lot of people, and I had to say, I was quite impressed. Usually the boats that ferried people back and forth between islands and the nearest mainland wer
e pretty average. This boat was expensive (believe me, I could tell) so the showrunners had clearly gone all out.
I wasn’t gonna turn down any of that free expensive champagne, either.
Indi and I boarded together, and we immediately found ourselves staring down the lens of a hand-held camera. “Blake and Indi?” a young camerawoman said. We nodded, and she handed us some name stickers. “Great! Would you mind telling us a little about yourselves, and why you’re on the show? It’s for the online video blog.”
I put my sticker on and threw an arm around Indi’s shoulder. I felt her stiffen, then quickly relax. “Sure. I’m Blake, and this is my wife, Indi. We’ve been married for a year now, but we’ve been involved with each other since we were kids back in our hometown. Isn’t that right, babe?”
Indi forced a smile, affixing her own name sticker to her grey sweater. “Yep. Childhood sweethearts.”
“That’s so cute. So what do you do?”
“Indi runs a bookstore, and I work in the shipping industry. Port of Seattle,” I said smoothly.
“Nice. And why are you here?”
I looked at Indi, feigning a vaguely sad expression. “Things have been rough for the last eight months or so. It’s like ever since we actually went ahead and tied the knot, all these issues have suddenly sprung up. We’re both at fault, so we’re hoping we can reignite that flame, move on from all the drama, and just be happy.”
“Great to hear. Okay, last question. Sorry, I have to ask everyone this. Are you excited?”
I turned to Indi and winked. “Yeah,” I said slowly, my eyes coasting over her bountiful cleavage. “I am excited.”
“Awesome. Good luck!”
The camerawoman swept away to find another couple, and Indi breathed a sigh of relief. “That seemed to go pretty well. Thanks for carrying it.”
“No worries. You looked like you were about to pass out.”
“Sorry. I’ve been trying to psych myself up for all the cameras, but I wasn’t prepared for one to go straight on us like that.”
“You’ll get used to it,” I said, patting her on the back.
We headed inside to the main room of the boat, where crew members were scurrying around with trays of champagne and snacks. Across the room, a vampy-looking petite blonde woman was staring at me in the way a shark might stare at a raw rack of lamb, even though her husband (at least I assumed it was her husband) was standing right next to her. Nice. Real nice. I could already guess their reason for being here—infidelity.
I turned my head away but used the old peripheral vision trick to look at their name tags. Vanessa and Jay Varrone. Vanessa was now staring at another male contestant with a raised eyebrow. She may as well have been licking her lips with the way she was checking him out.
Okay, mental note: stay the fuck away from Vanessa. More red flags there than at a damn Communist parade.
Two nervous-looking couples approached us just as I grabbed two glasses of champagne for Indi and me. “Hi,” I said as they drew close enough to hear.
“Hey,” one of the guys said. His nametag said Keenan Howieson. “Thought we’d come over and introduce ourselves. We only just saw you come in.”
“Yeah, they got us with the cameras out there for that damn video blog,” I said with a grin. I held my right hand out. “Anyway, I’m Blake, and this is Indi. And I see that you’re Keenan.”
He shook my hand. “Yep, that’s me. This is my wife, Donna.” He gestured toward a pretty redheaded woman who smiled and nodded at the both of us. “And these two are Amy and Dean Browning.” He motioned toward the other couple standing before us.
Indi and I both smiled and shook their hands as the six of us launched into some small talk about the show as we all checked each other out and quickly worked out each other’s personalities.
Amy had mousy hair and seemed to have an equally-mousy personality, but she had a killer smile and pretty green eyes that lit up along with that grin when she wasn’t shyly looking at the floor. Her husband, a tall skinny blond with pale blue eyes, seemed a little more confident than her, but most of all he seemed friendly. Donna and Keenan seemed really nice as well. I was glad. I’d been half-expecting all the other participants to be attention-seeking divas, but so far, almost everyone seemed pretty great.
“C’mon, we’ll introduce you to some of the others we’ve met so far,” Dean said, nodding toward a bigger group in the center of the room.
As we headed over, I heard two show crew members grumbling to each other as they refilled champagne glasses. “Honestly, it’s total bullshit that Stephen got that promotion to junior producer,” one of them was saying. “It’s total nepotism. He’s the fucking exec producer’s son, for Christ’s sake.”
The other one snickered. “No shit. And you know Neil Kingston? The guy in charge of lighting who gets paid nearly quadruple what the basic crew get? He’s Ed’s cousin. Channel Six apparently fired him for incompetence, but he still got the job here. Even more nepotism!”
Their voices faded away as we headed farther over and joined the group in the center. Most of the other couples were there by now. I couldn’t remember all their names, but I immediately got on well with a guy named Mike Blackthorne, a carpenter from Virginia. His wife’s name was Meredith, and she seemed to have quickly formed a mini women’s chat group with Indi, Donna and Amy.
I smiled over at Indi, glad she was already making some friends. Some of the women—like Vanessa Varrone from five minutes ago—seemed a little hostile and were obviously here to win, but at least there were a few Indi could chat to when she needed some girl-time.
“Any idea how long this boat ride is?” Mike asked me.
I shrugged. “Not sure. Fremantle Island is pretty far out, so it’ll probably be a couple of hours.”
“All right. Wanna come outside with me? I need a smoke.”
“Sure.”
I quickly told Indi where I was going, and then I headed out with Mike and kept chatting to him while he puffed on his cigarette. About ten minutes later, Meredith came out onto the deck and grabbed him to talk about something. Mike waved an apologetic goodbye as he headed off with her.
Now that I was alone, I turned and looked over the side of the boat, staring at the grey skies and the deep blue ocean. It was so dark it almost looked black. In the distance, I could see a few tiny rugged islands, peppered with pine trees. I adored this kind of environment. Honestly, give me this over a tropical vacation any day—I loved pine trees, loved mountains, loved cool weather. Way better than sweating on an overcrowded beach somewhere.
“Hey.”
I turned around to see Indi heading toward me. “Hey,” I replied. “I thought you were in there bonding with your new girlfriends.”
“I was, but I needed some air. I don’t feel so great with all the boat-rocking going on,” she said. “So, um…sorry if I’ve seemed grumpy. I’m still nervous about being on the show, and sometimes your sense of humor is a bit…”
“A bit off-putting?” I said with a laugh. “Yeah, sorry. I’m working on it.”
She smiled shyly, and I frowned. “Hey, while we’re talking—there’s something I was thinking about the other week. I’ve wanted to tell you for a while, and I don’t know why I never did.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Yeah?”
“Do you remember that day back in Lakewater, when you were around fourteen, and you couldn’t find your dog’s leash? And I—”
“You stuck up for me to your friends?” she said. “Yeah, I remember. Clearly, in fact. It’s not often men stick up for women when other men are doing that gross bullshit ‘boy talk’. You know, because they don’t want to seem uncool by calling them out.”
My brows furrowed. “Hold on, you knew? I thought you only overheard the last part of what I said. I always thought you assumed I was a total asshole because of that.”
She shook her head. “I came down the stairs and heard everything you said. You were ripping those guys a new on
e, telling them not to talk about me like that. Then you said a bunch of stuff as like…an impersonation of them, kinda. To rub it in their face how bad they sounded. Right?”
I rubbed my chin. “Right. Well, shit. I had no idea you knew.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I knew. I might’ve thought you were an arrogant sleazeball who got laid more than a big pile of bricks with an even bigger selection of girls, but I still knew how you stuck up for me sometimes. There was that incident, and then there was the time you beat up Tommy Turner for throwing my bike in the lake. Man, that was so long ago.” She grinned and shook her head. “Yeah, you weren’t all bad, Blake Marsden.”
I grinned. “Glad to hear it. And for the record, I didn’t beat up Tommy. I just roughed him up a bit, dipped him in the cold lake, then gave him a bit of a talking-to.”
She laughed. “Same thing.”
I chuckled along with her. This was fucking great. Indi had apologized for being so grumpy, and I also now knew that she hadn’t always despised me quite as much as she’d led me to believe. Somewhere in that tough exterior of hers was the same shy little girl from our hometown who had a soft spot for me.
Perhaps I was closer than I originally thought to scoring more from her.
The look on her face told me I was right about that. Her eyes crinkled slightly in what looked like a lusty expression, and her gaze slowly traveled down my face. Hell yes, she was looking at my mouth. Everyone knew what that meant. She totally wanted a repeat of our fake wedding shoot kiss, and shit, I wasn’t gonna say no to that.
I stepped slightly forward and leaned down. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as I readied myself to kiss her, and I could’ve cut the sexual tension surrounding us with a knife. Here it was. A real first kiss with Indi, not just a staged one for a fake photo shoot.
Just as I leaned down, I noticed that her eyes weren’t actually on my lips. They were over my shoulder on the ocean. They also weren’t crinkled in a lusty expression… it was more like a sickly expression. She stumbled forward, and I dodged out of the way just as she hurled her guts up over the side of the boat.
Husband For Hire Page 6
