“Holy shit!” Colt ran up to us. “Someone said Jason was crying, you guys okay?”

“I am not crying!” His voice was muffled from the rag.

“There, there.” I patted his back and winked at Colt.

Colt, being Colt, took the opportunity to fall to his knees next to Jason and start yelling loudly, “Let it out, man, just let it out! She’s not worth it!”

“I can’t see you guys.” Jason swore. “So when I lift my middle finger please assume I’m directing it towards all of you.”

“Jason?” Milo jogged up to us. “Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?” He threw his hands up in the air as the rag fell off of his face. His eyes were so red, his face so puffy, that honestly it looked like a giant spider had decided to bite every inch of skin it could.

“Oh.” Milo put her hand over her mouth.

Little G quivered in my pocket, so I lifted the rag and dropped it back on Jason’s head. “You’re scaring the gecko, man, not cool.”

“As much fun as this is”—Reid grinned—“you have your first date in a half hour, Max.”

“I need food.” I stood.

“What about me?” Jason asked from the ground.

“Do you want me to get Hades to sit with you or something?” I offered, thinking it a kindness.

I received the middle finger again.

“See if I let you goat-sit,” I muttered, and walked off, leaving Jason on the ground, rubbing his eyes.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

BECCA

“So, how does it feel to be the favorite?” Rex asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“I wouldn’t know.” I shrugged.

“You have to know.” Rex sighed. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with our Bachelor. Some of the girls even said you’re with him during every free moment you have.”

“I highly doubt he takes me to the bathroom,” I said through clenched teeth, hating that he was right.

“Any jealousy?” Rex sighed. “A lot of the girls are very beautiful.”

Right, but they were also clinically insane. “It’s all part of the game, right?” I tried to keep my voice light. I was a woman, which basically meant I harbored insecurities like any other living, breathing female out there. Of course I was worried, because as much as Max said he didn’t like the other girls . . .

I still had to wonder.

I mean, clearly they’d made it on the show because they offered something unique. What if Max discovered whatever that was and fell for them?

“All right.” Rex clapped his hands, causing me to jump. “Any last confessions for the camera?”

I could have easily said something like “Max is mine, bitches, back off,” or any other type of threat. Hey, I’d watched the show before so I knew how crazy the girls got. Instead I shrugged indifferently and said, “Max is a grown-up, he can do whatever he wants.”

“Perfect.” Rex’s teeth snapped together.

I took off the microphone and made my way toward the breakfast hut just in time to see Jason on the ground, Reid hovering over him, Max yelling, and Colton grinning.

“I need food,” Max grumbled, leaving Jason on the ground. His head lifted, his eyes zeroing in on me. “Care to join me for breakfast?”

“That depends.” I glanced down at Jason. “Will I end up like that?”

“That depends,” Max repeated. “Do you actually know how to use Mace?”

“You point and shoot, what’s so hard about that?” I shrugged.

Max laughed. “Apparently the shooting part.”

“Aw, Jason.”

“I’m fine!” Jason yelled from a sitting position with a rag draped over his head. “I’m just a cop who panics in the line of fire, no big deal. That doesn’t mean I’m going to die before I hit thirty.”

“There, there,” Max said gently. “Come on, Little B, I gotta carb up, this day’s going to be—”

“—Fun?” I offered.

“Yes, if the definition of fun is getting your teeth pulled by a blind dentist who doesn’t know how to use pliers.”

“Even my date?” I squeezed his arm.

“Your date?” Max licked his lips and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me against him. “Is going to be epic.”

“How epic?”

Max pushed me behind the hut and into the shadows. “Epic enough”—he nipped at my lower lip—“that we’re either going to have to hide from the cameras or there’s going to be a hell of a lot of censoring.”

A warm blush crept over my face.

“Aw, don’t go getting all shy on me.” Max licked my lower lip and then sucked it. “I could taste you all day.”

“B-breakfast,” I said lamely.

“You.” He nibbled harder, his teeth digging into my lip. “I’ll snack on you all day.”

My body trembled.

“I love it when you do that.” His hands moved from the small of my back up my sides. “I promise.”

“You promise what?”

Max grabbed my hand and led me around to the front of the hut. “I promise that when I kiss the girls, when I keep who I’m choosing to keep, it won’t be their lips I’m touching. I’ll be imagining it’s you and even then I’ll make it brief, so at the end of the night? You better be ready to pay up . . .” He pinched my ass. “Because I’m collecting.”