Kissed by Reality Read online

  Leighton sat on my couch, her hair up in one of those top-of-her-head buns she favored when it was just us. Those crazy thick black waves ballooned over her skull, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  She was so damn adorable. And sexy, and amazing, and…just everything. I still couldn’t believe I’d landed her. That she’d said yes when I asked to put my ring on her finger.

  “What?”

  I walked to the couch and plopped down, taking one tit through her pink cotton t-shirt in my hand and palming her cheek with the other. “I was just admiring how fucking sexy my fiancé is.”

  She smiled, planting a kiss on my lips that had my cock stirring in my sweatpants. “I love when you call me that.”

  It had been three weeks since we'd gotten home from Right Now Island, the reality TV show that we'd met on. And while most people, especially our families, were calling us batshit crazy, I knew this girl was it for me. I'd taken one look at Leighton, given her my first "date card" on the show, and had already fallen half in love by the time the director called cut at the end of our meal.

  She was spunky and sarcastic, but with a sweet and demure side too. She was the typical California girl, with her high-maintenance but laid-back contradictory ways; one second she needed the right kind of facial cream and the next she didn't care if she had dirt running up and down her arms on a nature hike. She was the quintessential cool girl, feminine one minute and one-of-the-guys in the next.

  I loved her personality, but her looks were what had blown me away first. I was such a guy.

  She was a classic beauty, with those thick, black waves, long eyelashes and lush mouth that I had imagined wrapping around my shaft the entire first day of filming. When I had finally gotten the real thing, it was even better than I'd dreamed.

  She was the full package, and I had practically begged her to marry me on the finale.

  We'd missed the first three episodes aired on TV since the show began to run before the finale was taped due to summer programming. The window was too short to film the entire season and then air it after; there was always an overlap.

  It didn't matter though, I knew what happened. I'd gone after Leighton that first episode and we hadn't been apart since. Sure, we would be the boring couple who fell for each other right away, but there were plenty of castmates to take the drama out of our hands.

  The credits began to roll for Right Now Island as I put my arm around Leighton and shoved a handful of popcorn into my mouth. I stuck my hand between her ass and the couch, kneading it the way I knew got her turned on. We probably wouldn't make it through this episode fully clothed.

  And then we came on the screen, grinning at each other as we made our way down the beach in Bermuda. Ah, I remembered this day. We'd talked about what we wanted to be when we were kids.

  "An actress, duh. Just like any little girl who grows up this close to Hollywood." On-screen Leighton pinched her thumb and forefinger together, signaling how close she'd grown up to the celebrities and stars.

  "Well, looks like you got there." On-screen me slings an arm around her shoulder as we sit in the sand.

  I see a look pass over her face on the TV, disappointment or misery, I can't quite tell what. Because for as open as Leighton is about some things, she's even more closed off about other things. I know it's something she is trying to work on, and I'm okay helping her through that. More than okay, because its just another obstacle we can knock down on our walk towards the aisle.

  "Yep, I got my fame and fortune." She smiles again, on screen, and I move my hand up (in real life) to her hip, the olive skin there exposed thanks to her rising t-shirt.

  I brushed her smooth flesh with my fingertips, feeling the goosebumps rise under them as I softly tickled her hipbone.

  "Finn...I thought we were watching the episode..." She said in a whiny voice, even though she leaned into me and tilted her neck to the side.

  I took that as an open invitation to trace the slender arch with my tongue, grinning against her skin as I felt her shudder. The tip of my cock shuddered too, swelling and warming as all of the blood in my body rushed to the appendage.

  "Twice wasn't enough already today?" Leighton purred, leaning back and inviting me to lay between her legs on the couch. The popcorn was pushed to the floor, spilling over the rug in my small Nebraska apartment.

  It was never enough, not with her. Sure, I'd been with other women before, my fair share and then some. But Leighton was intoxicating. She was the drug I would never get enough hits of, that I would never be able to get out of my system.

  As I snaked my hand under her tee, I palmed one full, perfect tit, a carnal sizzle racing down my spine as I realized she had no bra on underneath. Leighton's breasts were the thing of gods, they were once-in-a-lifetime tits. And now I had them all to myself, for an entire lifetime. Lucky, lucky Finn.

  "Remember the first time we did this?" Leighton murmured in my ear as she wiggled beneath me, her legs locked firmly around my waist as she pushed her pelvis up into my cock.

  How could I ever forget it?

  It was the second week we'd been in Bermuda, three dates or so into our "courtship." While two of the girls in one of the heated love triangles were feuding up at the house, we'd snuck away, dodging the cameras and escaping to explore one of the hidden coves the producers had told us about.

  I remember running down the beach, the only sounds were the waves crashing on the sand and Leighton's puffy, giggling breaths as we flirted and jostled each other down the shoreline. The air had stuck to our skin, hot and muggy, and I remember feeling more alive and liberated than I ever had in my life. I wasn't worrying about my nightmares, I wasn't worrying about my leg, I wasn't even worrying about the patients and vets I'd left behind at home. All I saw in that moment was the magnificent creature next to me.

  We came to a stop at a cave about two football field-lengths down the beach. Who knew if it was the actual cove the producers had mentioned, but it was far enough away that we were alone. Finally.

  Neither of us said anything for a minute, just stood there and stared at each other, breathing deeply under the moonlight.

  Leighton made the first move, of course. It was one of things I loved most about her, her confidence. That woman was afraid of nothing.

  I remember how she shed her clothes, one slow article at a time. I think I held my breath the entire time she stripped. It wasn't in a seductive, teasing way either. It was just a slow process, she took her time and let me look my fill.

  Her body, the setting, Leighton…it was like a hazy dream. The moon cast a pale light over her, making her glow and look like a fantasy, some mythical goddess sent to steal the air from my lungs and make my cock harder than it has ever been in my life.

  I remember undressing for her, stopping at the button on my pants as the shame crowded in. How she’d moved to me then, rubbing my abs with her small hands, fingering the dog tags I still wore around my neck to this day.

  “I think you’re beautiful. The things you consider flaws only make you more attractive, more gorgeous to me.” She’d whispered, unzipping my jeans for me and sliding them down my legs.

  I had to look up at the starry night sky as her fingers grazed over the gnarly scar on my right knee, coming to a stop as my leg ended and gave way to the molded piece of metal that was now in my calf and foot’s place.

  Leighton looked up, her eyes heating as she surveyed my body from her knees. My dick was so hot and heavy I almost put it in my hand right then to relieve the pressure.

  “You’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  I’d made love to her right there on the sand, nothing but the moon, the ocean and our moans. I’m not typically the soft, mushy “make love” type either, despite my affinity for romantic reality TV. But with her, that first time, it was just that. Making love.

  “Of course I do.” I licked the sensitive lobe of her ear and got the reaction I’d been craving when her whole body bucked beneath me. />
  “Will you go on a date with me?” I heard come through the speakers on the TV. In the back of my mind I placed the voice. Ian, one of the guys on our season of Right Now Island.

  “Of course I will, hun…” Someone responded to him.

  Wait.

  My head snapped up from where I’d been nibbling on Leighton’s lips, my neck pivoting to watch what was unfolding on the screen.

  On-screen Leighton was leaning across the kitchen island in the house in Bermuda, her perfect tits nearly spilling out of the little tank top she had on. She had a half full glass of wine in her hand, and I could tell from the look swimming in her hazel eyes that she is drunk.

  “But aren’t you with Finn?” Ian is ogling her body, not even bothering to look at her face when he talks to her.

  A couple of other people linger on the main floor of the house on the TV, playing drinking games and overall just being assholes in paradise.

  My body goes cold, pinpricks of anxiety and looming fear moving over my flesh as I still lay on top of Leighton on the couch. I still haven’t looked down at her, dreading what emotions I’ll see on her face when I do.

  “Oh come on, I’m not settling down just yet! I came here to meet some hot, interesting guys.” The girl on screen gives Ian a seductive smirk and hits his bicep in that purely-feminine way.

  They continue to talk on the TV, but I don’t hear it. She said she didn’t want to settle down? We’d already had our night in the cove at that point in the season. We’d already been on three dates, had numerous hangouts off camera. I’d almost told her I loved her at that point, and in her eyes I knew she meant it back.

  “What. The fuck. Was that?” I gritted out the words, moving off of Leighton and standing. After pacing a few times around the rug, I looked at her.

  Her face was ashen, her eyes big as saucers and her mouth drawn into a tight circle like she might be sick at any second. “Finn—“

  “You weren’t there to settle down? You wanted to meet hot guys? What the fuck, Leighton?! We’d already had sex. You knew how I felt about you at that point!”

  I was shouting now, feeling the fury ratchet up a notch in my veins.

  “I was drunk Finn, and we…Ian and I, we were just messing around. You know how I felt about you then…”

  “Apparently not. Apparently you can’t know everything about someone you get engaged to after two months of knowing them!”

  I kicked the spilled popcorn and it went skittering across the floor as Leighton walked to me and tried to brush her hand down my arm. I shrugged her off, almost violently, and she flinched.

  I try to reign it in, feeling the monster inside of me biting at its leash. I roll my neck, walking all the way across the room and urging myself not to pry the Kansas City Royals vintage framed picture off the wall. My fingers tingle with the need to rip something limb-from-limb. Leighton has never seen it, has only gotten a dose of it in the nightmares I wake up screaming from.

  “I’m sorry, Finn. I’m so sorry. It’s no excuse that I was drinking, I wasn’t…the producers suggested just flirting with someone, making my storyline interesting. You know it was always you. It’s only ever going to be you.”

  She moved closer, the pleading tone in her voice allowing me to tamp down on the beast flexing its muscles inside of my chest. She looks small and fragile, and I notice that she’s shaking.

  “Please…Finn, I can’t…can’t lose you…” Leighton chokes on a sob and I see the big, fat tears dropping from her eyes. She tries to hold them back, but I can practically smell the desperation and sadness coming off of her.

  And it breaks me. Her sorrow always breaks me. I rub her shoulders, stooping down to eye level and running the tip of my nose up against hers.

  “You’re not losing me. We just need to communicate. This doesn’t work if you keep secrets from me. I love you, Leighton. I want to spend my life with you. We have to figure this out as it comes. No more secrets?”

  “I promise. I love you, Finn. No more secrets.”

  How wrong I had been to believe that.

  Chapter Eight

  Leighton

  I wasn’t neglected as a child. I had a normal, average life, with normal, average parents who had loved me just the same as any other person who had a normal, average family. Sure, they had their bad parenting moments and I’d had the usual temper tantrums in my teenage years. But my life had been good. Normal.

  I say this because that was one of the first things the media attacked when my relationship imploded in front of the entire country, splayed out in six-page spreads any Sally Homemaker could browse on her trip through the grocery store checkout line.

  Going on Mr. Right, and then Right Now Island, had nothing to do with wanting attention, with feeling neglected in my youth. Flirting with Ian had nothing to do with my daddy issues.

  Sure, he’d left my mother and I when I was in my freshman year of high school. We were sad, but we’d moved on. I didn’t harbor any resentment towards him or his new family, we still spoke, just not often. Like I said, normal, average childhood. Tons of kids grew up with divorce and survived perfectly well. Thrived actually.

  On Right Now Island, I’d simply put my trust in the wrong people, been too naive about the beast that was this reality TV franchise, or show business in general. I thought that I’d always be the franchise darling, that they’d give me good cuts and I’d be able to fall in love. That they were happy for Finn and I.

  But Mitchell, Chuck and their minions were teddy-bears with razor sharp teeth and poisonous smiles. Their venom and cruelty were masked behind supportive hand holds and gentle coaxing.

  I had been in love with Finn by the time they asked me to start flirting with the other men on the show. I didn’t think they’d give me a bad edit. I didn’t they’d use it all against me, only to bring my relationship, and my world, crumbling down around me.

  So I flirted and teased. I shook my ass and scampered around in teeny tiny bathing suits while Finn slept, probably dreaming of our life after the show. I let the show and the producers make me the person I never wanted to become.

  Don’t get me wrong, I loved being on each show, being part of this franchise. I’d never really had anything I wanted to pursue, anything I was good at. And suddenly I was. I was great at being Leighton Aldridge, superstar of Mr. Right fame.

  Only too late did I realize that this all meant fucking nothing. That without Finn, without love, my entire life was pointless.

  That’s why I was back. Why I would make myself look desperate and crazy to the American TV audience. Why I would take all of the insults Finn slung at me, why I would trudge through the shit with him.

  I needed Finn. Wanted him. Loved him. I’d found the person I was put on this planet for, and I wasn’t giving up until I was bruised, beaten and bloody.

  Plus, my mother wouldn’t allow it.

  I’d showed Finn my cards earlier than I would have liked, but I needed to move into the next phase of Operation Win Finn’s Heart. We needed to work through our issues, all of the hurt and unspoken baggage between us. Finn knowing the reason why I came back? It was a good thing, even if I wished I could have kept it closer to the vest for a little while.

  Today was another one-on-one date, and you could cut the tension and jealousy in the house with a knife. After Finn sent two women, whose names I’d already forgotten, packing three days ago at the Charm Ceremony, the girls were skittish.

  This week would feature the single date between Alexandra, a slim redhead who worked in pharmaceutical sales, and Finn. There was another group date with four women, as well as a group date with 10 of the ladies. Only three women didn’t get a date this week, and Erin, my roommate and one of the only girls I respected here, and I were two of them.

  “I’m definitely not getting a charm this week.” She swirled her wine glass as her feet skimmed the water of the pool.

  Erin had the kind of body I’d always wished for; slim and athletic with a rou
nd little butt and boobs. She looked like a shorter version of Candace Swanepoel, but with brunette hair and the same iridescent green eyes as one of the most famous Angels.

  I rolled my big brown ones, pushing my sunglasses up on my nose as my float made its way to the other end of the infinity pool. While competing against 20, well now 18, other women was exhausting, at least the perks were good. Nothing to do all day but primp, drink wine and tan on a hill overlooking Los Angeles in all of its glory. The months that I got to do this were nice indeed.

  “You’re going to stay. The second week dates are always for girls the lead isn’t sure about. It’s a good thing if you don’t get a date, it means he’s so sure about you that he’s going to keep you. Have you never watched this show?”

  I flicked a pink manicured finger into the water and splashed her. Readjusting, my strapless lilac one piece twisted and gave me a wedgie, my hands reaching under me and burning on the hot plastic of the float. The sun was ingraining itself into my skin, and I couldn’t have been happier in that brief moment. Well, except for if Finn was in here with me.

  “I’m a teacher from rural Illinois, of course I’ve watched this show. My friends were joking around when we went to Chicago and filled out applications at the casting booth. I never thought I’d actually end up here. Or that I’d actually feel a connection with Finn…”

  I felt a pang of jealousy and hurt when the words left her mouth. A beat of silence passed as I circled my arms in the cool, sapphire water of the pool. This was the hard part, befriending these women when you were all after a common goal, a common end game.

  Even if Erin wasn’t of the bitch variety, and I already knew her not to be, she was too sweet, she still wanted Finn. I’d watched them together, heard her and the other women’s stories from their group dates and time with him. He liked her. He liked a good amount of them.

  And while I wished I was a good enough person to walk away and let him have a chance with one of the ladies I thought might be worthy of him, I wasn’t. Yes, Erin and some of the women were people I could actually see myself being friends with. But I would not let that get in the way of winning Finn’s heart. And sadly, neither would they.