Free Romancing Miss Right by Lizzie Shane

“Ready to
take a leap of faith into the unknown of our relationship? Ready to
plunge headlong into love? Ready to bungee into bliss?”
    Strapped together in the bungee harness as
they were, she didn’t have much room to maneuver, but she smacked
his shoulder, fighting a grin. “Shut up. You’re ruining this
beautiful moment for me.”
    “Didn’t the producers ever see Speed ?
Don’t they know that relationships based on extreme experiences
never last? We’re supposed to base it on sex.”
    Before Marcy could respond, the segment
producer waved his hands, shouting over the wind on the bridge,
“Okay! The chopper is in position! We’re good to go!”
    Beside them, the bungee expert yelled, “Don’t
worry if you swing a little bit in this wind. On three. One.
Two.”
    “Swing?” Craig asked, the first flicker of
doubt cracking through his self-assured cockiness.
    “Three!”
    They tipped off the bridge, Craig’s arms
spasming tight around her as she let out a scream that almost
drowned out his.
    Almost.
    The wind rushed past, gravity making the
world race, her heart drumming so fast and loud she couldn’t hear a
break between the beats. As they hit the limit of the bungee and
sprang back, his scream cut off with a yelp. Hers converted into
peals of laughter as they rebounded back up toward the sky. She’d
never felt so wild. So alive. Like her heart had leapt right out of
her body, but it was all right because she didn’t even need it
anymore. She could fly.
    And there was Craig’s face—white as a
sheet—right in front of her. “Holy shit.”
    She laughed as they bounced again. “That was
awesome.”
    They stopped bouncing and came to a rest,
dangling upside down in the ravine, swaying and swinging at the end
of the rope. Craig’s arms were still locked in a death-grip around
her.
    “Holy shit,” he repeated.
    “Wanna go again?”
    He groaned and pressed his forehead against
hers, so close.
    This was it, the moment when he would finally
kiss her, when she would finally know if the bad boy was all talk
or if he could deliver on the promise of chemistry that sizzled
between them. Her heart rate was still high, every sense
hyperactive. Even his scent was a turn-on—aftershave and fresh
laundry.
    He leaned in and her eyes fell closed, but it
wasn’t her mouth he went for. His mouth moved against her ear,
whispering, “Don’t tell anyone I screamed.”
    She laughed, giddy with adrenaline and the
rush of blood to her head and the fizzy feeling of delight that his
words inspired. “Your secret is safe with me.” And the two dozen
microphones that doubtless picked up his girly shrieks, but she
didn’t say that. She was still waiting for that kiss.
    But it didn’t come.
    The rope jerked and began reeling them slowly
back up to the bridge, and Craig leaned back, craning his neck to
look around. “So what’s next? Lion taming? Sky-diving? Running with
the bulls?”
    “Nothing so extreme. Dinner.”
    #
    Marcy fidgeted in the confessional, impatient
to get through the touchy-feely crap and get on with the date.
“Craig joked about fabricating emotion through adrenaline, but the
truth is I can’t imagine sharing this experience with anyone else
and I do feel closer to him now.”
    It was all true, she did feel closer to
Craig, but it wasn’t leaping off the bridge that had done it. It
was the little real moments around the edges—the way he made her
laugh with his bluntness and sarcasm about the contrived romance of
it, all masking what she realized now was his fear. A fear only she
had seen when he had whispered in her ear for her to please keep it
secret.
    “We took this leap together and I know the
risk was worth it. I wasn’t sure if Craig was here for the right
reasons, but sometimes you just have to leap and he leapt with me.
We’ll always be bound by that now.”
    “Do you think he could be your husband?” the
producer, Avery, coaxed.
    “Uh…” For a moment her mind went