Familiar gray eyes crinkled and smiled back at me from the other side. “Hello, beautiful.”
My eyes widened.
He shifted on his feet, then glanced down the hallway. “Your neighbors are giving me the stink eye. Can I come in?”
The walls were thin – they’d probably heard me crying. At least someone was on my side. I frowned at Jendan. I didn’t know what to think of this. “No. What are you doing here? How did you know where I live?”
Most importantly, why the hell hadn’t he called?
He looked surprised at my refusal. The charming grin faded a little. “I missed you, Annabelle. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, so I contacted the casting department and got your information. I’ve been packing up my stuff in LA for the last few days. I’m taking a hiatus from the stunt man shit for a while. Let my MCL heal up fully. Thought I’d come and visit. See if you and I could…make something…of us.” His words got slower as he spoke, his face more solemn. “But maybe I was wrong…”
I was silent, processing the information. He was here to visit?
Jendan gestured at the hall. “You know what? I think I’ll just go. It was nice seeing you, Annabelle. You look…great.” A faint smile touched his mouth again. Then, he gave me an awkward wave and turned to leave.
“Wait,” I blurted.
He turned quickly, and I slammed the door shut, fumbling with the chains. Then I slung the door back open again and almost charged out after him…then waited, suddenly unsure. “You came to see me? Why?”
The look of hope on his face quickly changed to confusion. “Because I like you? Because you’re the most stubborn, smart, funny, clever, and fun girl I’ve ever met? And I want to spend time with you? And I thought you liked me, too? Is that reason enough?”
“No,” I said, though my voice sounded a little sulky, even to myself. I crossed my arms over my chest and didn’t move from the doorway. “How come you never called me? You said you’d call.”
His face lit up with understanding, and Jendan fumbled with his pocket. “So, right before I came out, I totally forgot that I’d dropped my phone when they called me for the show.” He pulled a smartphone out of his pocket and held it out to me.
I took it from him hesitantly. Two thirds of the screen was cracked in a million places. Only the bottom part was intact.
“See,” Jendan said, moving closer to me and leaning over my shoulder. He pointed at the screen and tapped it to unlock it. “It’s all messed up. I can get calls but I can’t dial out.” He punched another button and the keypad displayed. He touched the screen repeatedly, but it never registered.
“Oh,” I said softly.
“I wanted to call you, but it wouldn’t go through. The phone wouldn’t work. And I kept waiting for you to call me—“
“I can’t call you first! I’m a girl!”
“What, it’s against the laws of physics for women to call men?” His mouth crooked in that smile again. “Pretty sure I never learned that in college.”
“That’s not it,” I told him, handing his phone back. I was starting to feel a bit silly. “Girls don’t call guys back first. And, well, I sort of have a bad history with men following up.”
Recognition dawned on his face. “Ah. Kip.”
“Yeah.” I crossed my arms protectively over my chest again. “So you’ll forgive me if I thought the worst when I didn’t hear from you.”
He studied my face, then stepped forward and caressed my cheek. “Have you been crying?”
I brushed his fingers away and averted my gaze. “Maybe. Just a little. No big deal.”
“Oh, Annabelle.” He leaned in to kiss me.
I ducked out of his grasp. “It wasn’t over you!”
“Then who – or what – is making you so upset? Tell me, so I can go punch that person in the balls.”
“Okay…I lied. It was you.” I snuck a glance at him and then gestured. “Punch away.”
His mouth quirked. “I was kind of hoping you’d want to do something more productive with my balls.”
I started to laugh, then stifled it again with a sigh. “You couldn’t have borrowed a friend’s phone?”
“I should have,” he admitted with a grimace and rubbed his neck. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. All I could imagine was coming back out here to spend more time with you. To be with you again like we were in Fiji. And I kept thinking that if this meant something to me, I needed to act on it. So I spent the last few days going through my crap and tying up loose threads. I ditched all my stuff to come here to be with you.”
For the first time, I noticed black straps on his shoulders. I frowned and tugged at his arm, looking at his back. There was a backpack there. “What’s that?”
“Just the stuff I couldn’t live without. Mostly underwear and a change of clothes.”
I blinked rapidly. “You…really got rid of your stuff? All of it?”
“All of it,” he agreed. “My roommate back in LA kept most of it, but yeah, I ditched the rest of my crap and bought a ticket out here.”
I just stared at him.
Jendan gave me a sheepish look. “For once I do something impulsive in my life and it seems like it backfired on me. I don’t think impulsive is my thing.”
“It’s not,” I agreed, even as I moved toward him and curled my fingers in the front of his t-shirt. “So what are you going to do now?”
He licked his lips, and that small motion made my heart begin to pound all over again. “Well… I see this as going either one of two ways. One, I get to come in and kiss those tears away, or two, I find the nearest airport and figure out what the hell to do with myself—“
I pulled his mouth to mine before he could even finish the statement. I kissed him fiercely, my lips and tongue claiming him for myself. I let that kiss be my apology. And when we broke free, I gave a happy little sigh and wrapped my arms around his neck.
“I…guess we’re going with number one?”
I nodded. “Wanna come inside and make up on my couch?”
“Love to.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Would I come back and play again? That depends…can I pick my partner? Because I can think of only one person I’d like to be stuck on an island with again.” – Jendan Abercrombie, Post-Game Interview, Endurance Island: Power Players
I dragged him into my apartment and we barely shut the door before we were on each other, kissing and ripping at each other’s clothes. “My Annabelle,” he murmured as he tore off my t-shirt. “God, I missed you. The last four days have seemed like forever. At least when we were on the island, I got to watch you play.”
“You did?” I asked between kisses, fumbling with his belt. God, belts were so inconvenient!
“Yeah, I sat with the camera crews when they’d let us. We weren’t allowed to see the camp stuff, but I could view the challenge footage.” His mouth kissed every inch of my skin he could reach. “I loved watching you. And not just because you were naked – though that certainly helped things.”
I giggled, finally undoing his belt buckle and moving on to his fly. I paused to raise my arms above my head as he stripped my top off, then worked on my bra. He unclasped it and tugged it down my arms, and then my breasts were free. Immediately, his hands went to them, cupping them and rolling the nipples against his thumbs. “You’re so beautiful, Annabelle. I love touching you.”
I clutched at his clothing, moaning as twin streaks of desire rocketed through me. “Oh, Jendan, I missed you. I missed you so much.”
He continued to rub and stroke my nipples as he leaned in for a kiss. “Missed you too, baby. Felt like forever.”
“Next time, fucking call,” I told him breathlessly as I pressed my breasts against his hands.
“I will,” he said, bending down to take a nipple into his mouth. “Couldn’t think about anything but getting to you again.”
Good answer, I decided, and shoved his jeans and boxers down. “Condoms?”
“
Condoms,” he agreed, sitting down on my couch and dragging me along with him. “Straddle me, Annabelle. I need to be inside you.”
I pulled free from his arms long enough to shimmy out of my sweatpants and panties. “Sorry I’m not wearing anything sexy.” Self-consciously, I touched my hair. “I probably look like a wreck—“
“You don’t,” he told me, grabbing me and dragging me back against him. His mouth went back to my breasts. “And you’re beautiful. You’re always beautiful.”
Okay, so Jendan had a knack of saying the right thing. I let him pull my body against his, one of my knees sliding over his thigh. When he encouraged the other, I followed his lead, and then I was seated atop him, facing him, his cock pressed between our bodies and my breasts in his face.
His mouth dragged across my nipple, taking it into his mouth and toying at it with his teeth. I moaned and closed my eyes, clinging to him and enjoying the sensations rippling through me. I loved breast play, and Jendan was terrific at it. His other hand massaged and teased my breast in tandem with his mouth, until I was squirming and writhing on his lap, my breathing coming in short, gaspy pants of need.
Then, Jendan’s hand slid between us and his fingers stroked through my folds. He groaned against my breast. “You’re so goddamn wet, Annabelle. God, I want to put my mouth on you.”
I quivered at the mental image. “You do?”
“Yes.” He nipped at the tip of my breast and then looked up at me, giving it one last, lingering lick that implied all kinds of naughty things for my other body parts. “Let me go down on you.”
“Well, I’m not going to tell you no,” I said, a nervous, excited hitch in my voice.
He turned to the side, dumping me on the couch with my legs still around him. Jendan slid downward, between my parted thighs, and before I could wonder what he was doing, buried his face between my legs.
I gasped, startled and titillated all at once. Okay, I had not expected that. He seemed so…eager to go down on me. That was not my normal experience. I’d learned not to ask for oral sex, since a lot of the guys I’d dated in the past hadn’t been eager on that front. If it happened, great. If not, no big deal.
But Jendan was a man with a mission, and that mission was clear. His tongue slid through my folds, licking me up and down. I shivered when he stroked across my clitoris. That seemed to encourage him to zoom in on that spot, and he began licking and sucking on that tiny piece of aching flesh, his fingers circling at my core, driving me wilder and wilder until I was writhing on the couch, begging for more and more.
When I came, I came so hard that stars burst behind my eyes. I gave a tiny little wail, my thighs clamping around his face, and that only made him suck harder. I came down slowly, every inch of my body feeling languid and marvelous.
Jendan moved on top of me again and kissed me, his mouth tasting of my orgasm. “Be right back.”
“I’ll be right here,” I said languidly, stretching out on my sofa. Okay, so I’d have to flip the cushions to hide the wet spot, but I didn’t care. I was feeling too darn good.
He got up from the couch, headed to his bag, and I closed my eyes, luxuriating in how good I felt. A moment later, I heard the rip of a condom package. A pause, and then Jendan was back on top of me, his mouth pressing hot against mine as I felt his cock nudge against my core.
“Annabelle,” he murmured, and then pushed into me, exquisitely slowly.
I moaned, lifting my hips to encourage him to move faster, but it seemed that Jendan wanted to take his sweet time now that he’d made me come. Each stroke seemed to last an eternity, and was clearly intended to drive me wild until I was clawing his back with need. He knew how to angle our hips just so, to where his cock drilled against my g-spot, making me erupt with a shrill little scream at each rock of his hips.
Within moments, I was crying out with a second, even fiercer orgasm. Jendan’s thrusts took on a wild edge, and then he was pushing into me so hard that the entire couch was rocking with the force of our movements, and my breasts bounced wildly with each stroke. “Jendan,” I gasped, my toes curling. I hadn’t come down from my last orgasm yet, and another one seemed to be barreling right in my direction. “Oh God! Keep going!”
His response was to clamp a hand on my shoulder and hammer into me harder than before. When he came with a groan of my name and a wild surge of his hips, I was right there with him, orgasming for an un-heard of third time in one session.
Damn, the man was good.
We lay clasped together, panting and sweating from our turbulent lovemaking. I ran a finger along his shoulders, feeling utterly content. How funny to go from the pits of despair to post-coital rapture in the space of one afternoon.
As if sensing the turn of my thoughts, Jendan kissed my breast and glanced up at me. “I should have called you.”
“Mm, you should have.” Was I angry? I couldn’t remember. I felt too good.
His fingers began to tease one of my nipples erect again, even as he spoke. “There was just so much to do to get ready to come out here. All I could think about was seeing you again.”
“Apology accepted,” I told him, and squirmed when he flicked my nipple. “So…wanna move in?”
He laughed, grinning up at me. “Is this the part where most guys say things are moving too fast? Because…I do want to move in. I have a hard time sleeping without you beside me. I think our time on the beach ruined me for alone time. It’s not nearly as pleasant as being with you.”
“Why, Jendan,” I teased. “Is that a declaration of love?”
“Not yet,” he told me. “But give me a week.”
Epilogue
Six Months Later
The Endurance Island finale crowd roared when I came onto the stage. They’d cheered when Alys had arrived, but my fans were deafening. I waved happily, loving the moment. How different this was from last year when I’d had to hang my head in shame over my portrayal.
No longer. This year, I was a bad-ass.
I’d been worried when the show had begun to air, concerned that I’d get a bad edit again. Jendan, that sweet, patient man, had been calming my fears for months on end, but the proof would be when the show actually aired. To my surprise, I’d gotten a fabulous edit. Instead of looking like a villain or a jerk, they’d spun me as a woman scorned and out for revenge, and even my dirtiest moves were edited in a positive light.
Well, almost all of them. The episode where I’d had to vote Jendan off had won me some mixed reviews and online haters, but they’d cut it in with some footage of me sobbing in my bed that night, alone, to show that I wasn’t heartless.
It had affected Jendan as well as the audiences – he’d made love to me so long and so tenderly that night that I’d had sore muscles the next day…not that I was complaining.
And here we were, back at the live finale, ready to see who’d won the money.
I almost didn’t care. I’d come on the show to change my reputation, and to knock Kip down a peg. I’d done both, had come away a TV hero, and I’d gotten the guy. Of course, if I won the million dollars, I’d happily take it. I wasn’t stupid. I was a broke college girl – or I would be, once the semester started. I needed the money as much as the next person. The participation money had been a nice fifty grand, but most of it had gone to catch up my student loans. I’d take the prize money for sure.
It was just that…I felt like I’d gotten so much more out of the experience than just money. I’d come out with a sense of who I was again.
And I’d gotten Jendan. Just thinking about him made me smile, and I scanned the stage looking for him. There, seated between Rusty and Kip, was my honey. He looked fine as hell, too. His tan (and his muscles) were nicely offset by the open-throated white dress shirt he’d worn.
I’d worn a white dress too, so we could be all matchy-matchy like dorks. Because that was how we rolled.
When I looked over at him, he winked at me. I blew him a quick kiss.
The crowd went nuts.
Months of rampant internet speculation? Just confirmed. The Endurance Island fans were going to have a field day with that, but I didn’t care. Let them make gifs out of something besides my boobs bouncing in a challenge.
The roar of the crowd quieted when the lights flickered, and I sat at my designated seat next to Alys, who was glammed up and looked fabulous. We hugged quickly, and then sat and adjusted our clothes, waiting for the final vote to show up on the screens. The finale played while those of us on stage waited, and we watched along with the audience as Alys, Kissy and I fought through the last few days of the game.
As we waited, Alys nudged me. “Is that what I think it is on your hand?”
I beamed and showed her my engagement ring. A month after Jendan and I had more or less moved in together, we were engaged. Jendan liked to joke that he was never impulsive about anything except for me.
(He’d said it’d take him a week to tell me that he loved me. In reality, it took about two more days. Like I said, impulsive.)
“It’s huge,” she mouthed to me, and I beamed proudly. Okay, it was a huge ring. Jendan, it turned out, made a really good living as a stuntman. I felt a little guilty that he’d given it up to be with me, but he was excited about starting a martial arts school and turning over a new leaf. I guess being lit on fire for the camera got old, even to people as steady as Jendan.
“It’s time to reveal our final vote,” Chip said, interrupting our silent gossip. The crowd cheered again, and I felt an excited tingle in my stomach. As blasé as I tried to be about the whole thing, being here on the stage with all these people just emphasized how much I wanted to win.
The gigantic screen flashed and changed to the last night of the game. I watched the screen as it showed an up-close of the voting booth, the box of slates waiting. On screen, Rusty walked into the booth, scribbled something on his slate, then turned and held it up to show the cameras.
ANNABELLE, it read. Rusty began to whisper. “You were always real nice to my wife and you played hard, even when you played dirty. At least you had the balls to tell things how they were. I hope you win.”