Page 31 of Heat & Hard Candies

Please let him be here.

Please let him be here.

Please let him be here.

When we finally walked up the three stairs leading to the platform, and stepped into view of the remaining contestants, my entire body relaxed.

He was there.

Our eyes met immediately, and he grinned at me.

I didn’t have it in me to smile back, but I finally started breathing normally again.

We’d made it.

We’d done it.

We survived.

Now, all there was left was to live our lives together.

The final moments of the game passed by in a blur.

Reid and Nate said a few words. Kyle told me he loved me again, much to Reid’s shock.

I chose him, and he lifted my hand up, whooping the way he always did when he won a challenge.

I laughed.

We kissed.

And finally, it was over.

Kyle scooped me up and carried me away from the council area, his bare feet on the sand as he headed toward the private plane that waited for us.

The showrunner stepped into pace with him and offered us a few weeks at a vacation home, but Kyle’s sister, Kenna, was getting married in a week and a half.

So, we’d take our vacation later.

There was life to live first.

All of thefae contestants would be traveling back home together, so they all piled into the plane after us. Kyle and I would need to have a lot of sex while I was adjusting to the change after sealing the bond, so we couldn’t make things official until after the ride back home.

We snuggled in a chair together through the flight to Kyle’s place. No one seemed angry with us, but they tried to give us privacy, and didn’t really start conversations with us.

We were quiet through most of the flight.

The fact that we’d survived and won the game together was still setting in, and it felt insanely surreal.

He hadn’t been home in six months, so I wasn’t sure how he was feeling about that. It seemed like too private of a question in a plane full of other people, so I didn’t ask.

As weird as the situation was for me, I knew it had to be weirder after six entire months playing a game with the men around us. He’d only had a few days off between each season. That had to do a number to a person’s—or fae’s—mind.

Both of us dozed on and off through the long flight back, and when the plane finally landed, I saw the relief in everyone’s eyes.

We were all done.

The guys all said their goodbyes after we got off the plane. Some of them traded bro-hugs, and I noticed that everyone except Travis hugged Kyle.

---