Finding Mr. Right Now (23 page)

“It’s the second most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. The most exciting thing was getting on the show.” Ronnie gave her that dazzling grin. “That’s always going to be number one. Always.”

As Monica turned up the road to Alpine Highlands, she wondered if that was really such a good thing.

Not your problem, Monica.

True. But she couldn’t help feeling a little guilty about it nonetheless.

Chapter Sixteen

In Monica’s opinion, the production meeting after the cut ceremony that night was way too jubilant, considering what they’d been through in the past forty-eight hours. Ronnie had pulled a switcheroo at the ceremony, saving Billy Joe, Paul, and surprisingly enough, Brendan. When she’d cut Lex, he’d stared at her blankly and then muttered, “Fuck me, I didn’t see that one coming.”

Neither had anybody else, but Glenn made sure somebody had caught it on camera.

They’d decided to use some of the less harrowing video from Ronnie’s fall at the rodeo then cut away to Billy Joe and Paul rushing out from behind the barrier. Faisal had even caught a couple of shots of Brendan leaping off the washtub on the other side of the arena and then cursing in desperation as the relay race cut him off from running across to follow the others to Ronnie.

And then they had Lex’s response to Ronnie. They’d have to bleep it, of course, but most of the country would figure out what he’d said.

“Gold.” Glenn rubbed his hands together. “Pure gold. Makes up for all the crap that came before.”

Adding to this enthusiasm were the overnight ratings for the first night of
Finding Mr. Right
that had just come in
.
By broadcast standards they were puny, but for cable, and particularly for Fairstein, they were more pure gold. It looked like the viewing public’s love affair with Ronnie was still going strong.

Lex had moved out of the Bachelor House but was still staying in a B and B in Salt Box along with the other two bachelors who’d been eliminated since they’d come to Elkhorn Run. Given that
Finding Mr. Right
had a much tighter production schedule than other bachelor shows, they didn’t try to keep all the eliminated bachelors under wraps. But the final six were worth protecting. And the bachelors who were no longer in the running didn’t seem to mind having a two-week, all-expenses-paid vacation.

Monica just wished she felt happier about the whole thing. She was glad Ronnie had spared Brendan, but part of her really wished she’d just cut Paul and get it over with. On the other hand, if Paul wasn’t cut, he could stay at Elkhorn Run. There was the possibility that Glenn might send an eliminated Paul back to L.A. since Harriet was hurting for writers.

Now Monica paced slowly across the empty terrace where they’d held the cut ceremony earlier in the evening, pulling her denim shirt a little tighter against the brisk night air. Events felt slightly out of kilter all of a sudden, not exactly out of control, but not really unfolding the way they were supposed to go. Not that she’d had any control over the way things were supposed to go in the first place.

For a moment, she glanced up at the stars overhead. Very pretty, but not like they had been down in Salt Box. But then nothing up here was like it had been down in Salt Box. Unfortunately. At least there she hadn’t felt like she was riding on a bus that was heading toward a cliff.

“Monica?”

She started, her pulse pounding. When had somebody else walked out on the terrace with her? She turned quickly, then recognized the voice. Her pulse speeded up again for an entirely different reason. “Paul?”

“Hey babe.” He walked across the terrace toward her. “We live to fight another day.”

“So we do. Or you do, anyway. Sort of.”

He ran his hand across her hair, lightly. “How are you doing?”

“Okay, I guess. Just a little…tired.” She took a deep breath and told her nether regions to settle down. Jumping him every time she saw him probably wasn’t a good idea.

He slid his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. “You feel tense.”

You have no idea.
“It’s been a long day.”

He shrugged. “Cold out here. Want to sit by the fire?”

No. We shouldn’t. Glenn might see.
“Sure.”

The last embers were still burning in the fire pit. She sank down beside him on one of the couches on the lower level.

“So what’s bothering you?”

She shrugged “Nothing. Everything. I feel like I’ve been off balance ever since we got back from Salt Box. Usually I can predict what’s going to happen on the show, but I feel like I’m totally out of sync right now. I don’t know what’s coming next.”

“I don’t think anybody could have predicted what happened at that rodeo.” He sighed, draping his arm across her shoulders. “I take that back. Most sane people could probably have predicted it if they’d had all the details. Darryl, on the other hand, apparently sees life as a video game.”

She managed a chuckle, but it sounded a little half-hearted. A night breeze moved across her skin, and she shivered again.

Paul leaned back, pulling her closer. “Are you cold?”

She blew out a quick breath. “A little.” She pulled herself tight against him, feeling the heat from his body surround her. For the first time since the production meeting, her shoulders began to relax.

Of course, other parts of her body were feeling a lot tenser.

He pressed his face against her hair, his voice rumbling through her body. “Well, like I said, we live to fight another day. But fighting isn’t exactly what I was thinking of at the moment.”

She turned slightly, resting her head against the warmth of his shoulder. “So what are you thinking of?”

He smiled. “I could probably be more subtle about this, but I don’t know if we’ve got time for subtle. I want to make love to you again, Monica. And I want to do it right. Not on a creaking wicker sofa and not against a wall on the terrace. That means we sneak into your room or we sneak into my room. I don’t really care which one we use, but since Faisal’s likely to show up at the Bachelor House with a camera at some point, it might be best not to be there when he does. Like I said, I want to do it right, which means we take our time and we don’t worry about Fairstein Productions.” He pressed his lips lightly against her ear, running his tongue along the edge, then moved down to nip at her earlobe.

Her knees seemed to be melting. All of a sudden not worrying about Fairstein Productions sounded like a very good idea. “Oh.”

“Oh what?” He sounded like he was grinning.

“Oh that strikes me as an…interesting idea. And my room’s closer.” She pointed toward the outer door to the stairwell, then ran her fingers along his chest, reaching for the top button of his shirt.

He caught her hand in his. “Much more of this and I won’t be able to walk. I think we should visit your room, which I assume, unlike my own, has no cameras.”

She shook her head. “Not the last time I looked.”

She started to turn away from him so she could stand, but he caught her face in his hands. “Wait a minute.”

His lips were hard against hers, pressing, demanding. She opened for him, pushing her body against his as he buried his fingers in her hair. Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart thumped against her breastbone. She felt the kiss all the way to her knees.

“Shouldn’t we go now?” she whispered a little desperately.

He lifted his head, his eyes glittering. “Oh yeah. Definitely. Right now.”

He took her hand, pulling her up behind him then down the stairs from the terrace to the outside entrance. “Elevator or stairs?”

“Stairs. Nobody uses them except me, so they won’t see us.” She managed to pass her keycard through the card reader, although her fingers were trembling so much she wasn’t sure she could.

He jerked the door open as soon as the light turned green, then pulled her through after him, climbing the stairs two at a time. At the door to the next floor, he paused to look back at her. “Where am I going again?”

She managed to catch enough breath to answer. “Another couple of flights. Room 436.”

His teeth flashed white in the dim hallway. “Good thing I’ve got a lot of excess energy all of a sudden. Two more flights doesn’t seem that bad.” He turned back to the stairs again, pulling her along behind him.

Monica didn’t want to think, not that she had any thinking time right then.
Forget about Fairstein. Forget about associate producer. Forget about it all.
She was almost running up the stairs, her blood pounding in her ears, her breath rattling in her throat.
At this rate, I’ll probably have a heart attack before we get to the right floor. Not that it won’t be worth it.

At the top of the stairs he paused again, cracking the door so that he could peer down the hallway. “Looks clear to me.”

She shrugged. “It probably is. It’s just Ronnie and her support crew up here and everybody goes to bed early except for me.”

“Yet another thing I don’t have in common with Ronnie.” He pulled her to the door and then paused to run his lips along the side of her throat, small butterfly kisses that made her ache inside.

“Now,” he whispered, “we go for it.” He slipped through the door, jogging silently toward her room.

She trotted up the hall behind him, trying desperately not to laugh. She wasn’t sure why she suddenly felt like they were back in high school, only in high school she was pretty sure she’d never felt this aching need to have someone hold her. And not just anyone. Paul Dewitt. Right now.

She fumbled for her keycard again, holding her breath to keep from breaking into hysterical giggles that wouldn’t be funny at all if anybody opened a door to see what was going on. Paul finally took the card from her fingers and inserted it deftly in the slot so that she could turn the knob. Clearly, he was better at insertion than she was right then.

Well, he would be, wouldn’t he?
A strangled giggle escaped before she could stop herself, and then the door opened in front of her.

They tumbled inside, and he managed to close the door behind them. “Made it,” he muttered. “I haven’t done anything this nutty since college.”

She stared up at him, and all impulses to giggle disappeared. How had she managed to forget how tall he was, how full and sensuous his lips were, how much she wanted to kiss the slight dent at the corner of his mouth?

She reached up on tiptoe, touching her lips to the indentation, but then he turned his head, and his mouth covered hers. His lips were soft and firm at the same time, rubbing gently. She could taste a slight remnant of beer, but more a taste that was purely him, all male.

He buried his fingers in her hair, tilting her head back so that he could plunge deep. The taste of him filled her mouth, his scent filled her head, setting off a wave of desire that was sharper than anything she’d ever felt before, dissolving her bones so that she sagged against him.

He tightened his arms around her, holding her close against the hardness of his body, the swell of his arousal at her belly. Without thinking, she pushed herself up so that the V of her legs pressed the ridge of his erection.

He groaned, tightening his arms more so that she could hardly move, didn’t want to move, wasn’t going to move because it felt so good, so good. The heat of his body matched hers, leaving her panting and needy. She moved her lips to the base of his throat, darting her tongue into the hollow of his collarbone then moving to nip at his shoulder.

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, the pulse throbbing through her fingers as she touched him. She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt like this before, certainly not since she’d traded in her love life for her career.
He must know. He must feel it too.

She reached behind him, pulling his shirt loose so that she could slide her hands underneath and touch his skin, the muscles of his back as he flexed, the heat of it radiating against her palms.

“God, Monica,” he whispered. “My God.”

She kissed the V of skin at the top if his shirt, and then she was pulling the buttons open, pushing the shirt apart so that she could touch him again. She ran her hands across his chest, feeling the slight tickle of hair against her palms, then the hard points of his nipples.

He wrapped one hand around the back of her head, pulling her mouth to his again, hard this time, commanding. His teeth scraped against her as his mouth moved over hers, pressing. She rubbed her tongue against his, feeling the heat grow again, low in her body.

His other hand jerked at her shirt, pulling it up so that he could take her breast in his hand. His thumb moved across the nipple, rubbing the lace of her bra against the tender flesh. She felt it pebble, drawing tight. He pulled on the clasp at the front and the bra slipped open. He brought both hands to her then, cupping her breasts, rubbing the nipples against his palms, before he pulled back to look at her.

“We should move,” he grated.

“Move?” Her brain was full of misty pink haze. Trying to process what he was saying was suddenly very difficult.