He shook his head. “No. I appreciate it but … no.” He caught my gaze with his own, and something in his eyes tugged at a part of me I didn’t want to examine too closely. This giant of a man—famous for being a modern-day gladiator unlike any we’d seen before or since—looked like a frightened, wild animal on the verge of fleeing. It was ridiculous, but I wanted to protect him somehow. Keep him safe.
Uncomfortable with this unwanted bit of insight into my growing feelings for him, I stood and gestured over my shoulder with my thumb.“Do you want me to stay with you, or … ?” I’d stay if he asked, but suddenly I was the one wanting to flee.
He took another deep breath, and I watched as he visibly pushed his fear to the furthest recesses of his mind. He shook his head. “Thank you. I’ll be fine. I just need a minute.”
“Hi, guys.” Allie stood at the head of our small semi-circle and lifted her hand in a friendly wave. Her eyes scanned the group and her lips split into a shy smile. “Thank you for joining me today.”
The seven of us greeted her with a chorus of hi, hello, and what’s up. If she noticed that Oliver’s hello was a bit more subdued than the others, she chose to ignore it, just like I was doing.
She looked back over her shoulder at the bridge in the distance, and then turned slowly back to face us. She pulled a deep breath into her lungs and then let it out in a long, slow gust. “Agreeing to be your Heroine was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. It’s pushed me to the edge of my comfort zone, and made me address some of my greatest fears. That’s what today’s all about for you guys.”
Zayne bounced on the balls of his feet and rubbed his palms together eagerly, the muscles in his biceps stretching the fabric of his sleeves. “Yeah, babe. Can’t wait.”
Allie smiled in his direction, but to me it looked forced. Her dimples were on display, but the light in her eyes was unusually dim. “Some of you are afraid of heights—” she looked directly at Oliver now, “—so tackling that fear will be difficult. But I’m asking you to do it for me. For us. To show that you’re committed to facing life’s challenges by my side.” She took another deep breath, and her gaze swept slowly over her remaining suitors.
I was used to reading people, and something about her body language gave me pause. I could tell she didn’t enjoy this any more than Oliver did, and I briefly wondered why we were even here. From where I stood, feeling like you were going to throw up or piss yourself with fear didn’t exactly spell romance.
“Fear strips us bare,” Allie continued, answering my question. “Figuratively, and, in our case, literally.”
“What did you just say?” Zayne barked, no longer quite as excited as he’d been a few minutes before.
Allie took another breath and began toeing off her sandals. “Today, gentlemen, the producers have arranged to have us jump naked.”
Oliver sucked in a startled breath. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Her eyes found his as she continued to remove her shoes. “Sadly, I am not.”
He shook his head and turned to face me, hands planted on his hips. “Tell me I’m hallucinating. That this is all a bad dream and I’m going to wake up any second now.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t. “There’s a naked challenge every season.”
“There is?” He looked shocked, but at least some of the color had returned to his face.
I nodded slowly. Not for the first time, I was reminded just how little research Oliver had done before signing up for the show. That first night he’d told me he didn’t watch much TV, but I hadn’t understood that what he’d really meant was that he’d come into this nearly completely blind.
“This seems early though,” I added, thinking back on past seasons. Naked challenges usually happened just before hometown visits when the Heroine was comfortable with the guys she’d be seeing nude. Rarely, however, did the Heroine herself strip down to her birthday suit. Briefly, I wondered if the producers were worried about this season’s ratings. If it was obvious to most of us this early on that Allie was going to end up with Brett, the producers had probably noticed as well. It made sense then for them to try and add in some drama where they could.
“Too fucking early if you ask me,” Allie muttered under her breath, confirming my suspicions.
“What happens if we don’t do it?” Oliver asked suddenly.
Allie stood up from her crouch and locked eyes with him. “If you don’t go through with this, I’ll have no choice but to send you home.” From the bleak tone of her voice, I got the impression the choice wasn’t hers to make.
“I don’t know what the big deal is, dude,” Quentin remarked as he started to unbutton his shirt. “We’ve all seen you on the cover of that magazine, and you spent years in a locker room. You’ve probably seen more dicks than all of us combined.”
Oliver’s gaze snapped to the medical device salesman. “The big deal, dude, is that I’m not in the habit of forcing people to look at my junk when they obviously don’t want to. It strikes me, though, that you’re probably the type of guy who sends dick pics to unsuspecting women. And for what it’s worth,” he added almost as an afterthought, “I had on a sock in that photo.”
All eyes—including Allie’s—were on Oliver as Quentin sputtered out a rebuttal. When Oliver refused to engage any further, Quentin pressed his lips together, seeming to realize that he wasn’t doing himself any favors by continuing to speak.
“Anyway,” Allie said, her voice clipped. “I’m sure—”
Whatever she’d been about to say next was cut off when a production assistant carrying a metal clipboard approached, telling her to follow him.
“What now?” Zayne asked the group when she disappeared into a tent some two hundred feet away.
Oliver tunneled his fingers through hair and linked them together at the back of his neck. “What the hell have I gotten myself into?”
I knew it was a rhetorical question, but Quentin wasn’t as quick on the uptake. “Dude, if you just fucked this up for us, there’s going to be hell to pay.”
Oliver cast him a withering glare. “Fuck you, asshole.”
Quentin strode forward, stepping into Oliver’s space, proving once again what an absolute idiot he was. Oliver had at least five inches on him, and maybe twenty pounds of pure muscle. Not to mention, as a professional quarterback, he’d been conditioned to take hits from men much larger and meaner than the one currently pressing a finger into his chest.
As for me, I couldn’t seem to tear my gaze away from the scene in front of me. Not because I was interested in watching Oliver pummel Quentin. Rather, I felt like I was seeing the man I was slowly falling for in a whole new light. We’d spent every waking moment together when the cameras weren’t rolling, but the man who stood there now—his chest heaving with angry breaths—was an Oliver Cooper I’d never met before.
It wasn’t just his broad shoulders or the six pack abs I knew were hiding under the thin, vintage t-shirt that advertised his alma mater—though those were pretty fantastic too. It was the whole knight-in-shining-armor thing that apparently turned my crank. Only days ago, I’d told him I didn’t need anyone riding in on their white horse to rescue me, but here I was rethinking that stance. Because watching him put someone’s needs before his own made him even more attractive to me, if that were at all possible.