“How? What? That’s cheating!”
“Exactly.” He presses a kiss to my lips before swinging the bucket a bit too close to me and making me jump back. “And a little cheating when the game is already rigged won’t hurt anyone.”
“How in the hell did you . . .” I’m dumbfounded. I point in the direction of where Ed just was. “One of the locals?”
“Yep.” He looks into the bucket. “I may have stopped to chat a bit with him on my morning runs. We talked fishing. We discussed a mutual acquaintance we know at the hospital. And he was more than willing to help a nice guy like me to win a contest to impress a girl.” He winks at me.
And if Ed knows Slade was trying to impress a girl, then that means he was talking about me.
With a random stranger.
“I told him a bit about what was going on. He told me a lot about how he may have done a few things to trick his wife into falling for him.” He shakes his head as the cutest smile forms on his lips. “After that, he asked if he could help.”
“But why?” I ask. Why would that man help Slade, and why would Slade do that for me?
“Because I didn’t know if you were going to put Heather in her place or not—mind you, this was before I knew you had a secret plan—so I figured I’d help a little. Plus, he didn’t come out of the deal empty handed.”
“Care to explain?”
He smiles sheepishly. “I gave him some advice on a medical issue—he really loves his wife—”
“You prescribed him Viagra?” I sputter.
“No. That would be unprofessional of me, and I’m already in enough trouble in that department. But I gave him the name of a few specialists I know at the hospital who can most likely help him. In turn, he offered to give me the biggest fish he caught today, so long as I promised not to kill it and then release it after everyone sees it.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“As a heart attack, and you know us cardio guys don’t say that lightly.” He chuckles and leans in. “Now, we just need to scream really loud so everyone knows you caught one.”
“You’re so bad.”
“I know, and doesn’t it feel good to be?” He leans forward and presses a chaste and unexpected kiss to my lips. “So let’s scream and make some noise, then I’m going to pick this guy up so you can snap a photo of him—without the bucket in the background, of course—and then we’ll throw him back to live another day.”
“Are we really doing this?” I ask.
“Yes, Blakely, we are. She wouldn’t hesitate to do it to you.”
Blakely
“That was cooler than cool. You have to know that.”
Slade is leaning back in the lounge chair and hooks one of his legs under his other and angles his arm behind his head. Those light grayish-blue eyes of his just stare at me.
“What was?” I ask and take a sip of wine as the smell of meat on the barbecue on the other side of the lodge wafts our way. My stomach growls, but regardless of how hungry I am, I’m soaking in this silence with him.
“You telling the team that even though you won the contest, you wanted them to share in it too. The offer to take them to dinner will go a long way with them. It’s something a leader does, and I think they’ll remember in the future that it was your win, but you made it about them too. It was admirable of you.”
“It’s the least I could do considering I didn’t win fair and square.” I shrug. “Besides, we’re a team. We’re supposed to win together and lose together.”
“And to think you still get a one-on-one mentorship meeting with Heather,” he says sarcastically then snorts. “The look on her face was priceless when she realized you were the winner of her esteemed prize.”
“It took everything I had not to burst out laughing.”
Her stilted expression when the counselors posted the pictures on the projector screen and our, er, Ed’s fish, was the biggest by far.
Her tight smile. Her fake enthusiasm. Her very crafted words as she had to concede her loss to me because, let’s face it, the way she was talking before the proof was posted, you would have thought she had won.
But she didn’t.
Score one for the good guys.
“I truly think she had every intention of winning the contest so the whole one-on-one thing with her for the winner was pure bullshit.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I raise my glass up to toast the tip of his bottle of beer. “Thank you. I mean it.”
He smiles. It’s soft and warm and makes me want to crawl into that small space beside him on his chair.
“I do believe I’m making progress towards winning our little side bet. She’s coming around. The promotion is in sight.”
“I don’t know . . . I did tell you satisfaction was a hard thing to measure,” I tease.
“Then I guess I’ll have to try a little harder,” he says before sitting up and pressing a kiss to my lips.
When he leans back, when those eyes of his dance with humor, I’m left wondering when exactly this charade we were putting on started feeling like more than just a sexy distraction.
Because no one was around for that kiss to be needed.
No one was there to pretend for.
It’s just him and me and a whole lot of satisfaction left in the balance.
Slade
She’s gorgeous.
Dark hair fanned across the pillow, skin that’s been kissed by the sun contrasting against the white sheets, dark eyelashes against her cheeks, lips that beg to be kissed.
It’s a snapshot I want to memorize.
I think of last night. Of her sitting atop me with the moonlight coming through the open blinds. Of the arch of her back. Of the
