Marriage Material

Chapter Fifteen: Week Six - Elimination Ceremony

Ravi kissed her urgently and feverishly, and she swore she felt his hands everywhere on her body all at once. He tasted sweet, like the last bottle of wine they had shared. Her nerve endings were alight with a burning desire to be touched and teased and she couldn't seem to get close enough to him.

But he pulled away to take off his jacket and as she watched him loosen his tie the realization of what they were about to do hit her like a Mack truck. Standing there, in her underwear, she was about to ruin everything.

"I can't," she croaked, grabbing her dress from the floor and covering herself. Ravi managed to get his tie off, but he immediately took three steps back, giving her room to dart around the bed and to her suitcase. She hastily grabbed the baggier sweats she'd packed and threw them on, aware of Ravi taking a seat on the edge of the bed, facing away from her. She sank to the floor and brought her knees to her chest, hugging tightly. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have anything to be sorry about. Maybe I do."

She shook her head, but realized he couldn't see her. "No, you don't."

"Okay, then, let's just forget it."

"Ravi?"

"Yeah, Jules?"

"I don't think I've said thank you, yet."

"For what?"

Her voice broke, "For Rome."

He laughed awkwardly. "Thank the show."

"The show didn't know it was my lifelong dream to come here. You could have sent me home two weeks ago, but you kept me for this trip, didn't you?" He didn't answer, so she continued, "I know I was weird this morning, and just now... but I had a lot of fun today. I don't think I would have wanted to see Rome with anyone else. This - all of this - just really caught up with me this week. I'm sad it's ending, but excited to go home. I love the friendship we've built, but confused by my very obvious physical attraction to you. My head is a mess. Maybe it was a mistake to do this at all."

He took in a sharp breath and stood. He bent down, the bed obscuring her vision of him, and when he straightened up, he had a pair of flannel pants in his hand. "I'll be right back," and he closed himself in the bathroom. She buried her face in her arms. How were they going to face another day together after that? And the plane ride home?

"Although," she said to the empty room, "things would have been even more awkward tomorrow morning if we had gone through with it."

"You sure about that?" Ravi sat beside her, in his pajamas now, too.

She laughed. "You think it would have been less awkward?"

He shrugged. "Who knows? To tell you the truth, I wasn't planning on sleeping with anyone on these fantasy dates, but the wine, the room, and a half-naked woman, well, that's hard to resist."

She swallowed the lump in her throat.

"But that doesn't mean I'm incapable of resisting."

"What?" Her head swiveled quickly to face him.

"I didn't have sex with any of the other women."

"Oh." Could he hear her heart beating against her chest?

"But I would have just now. If you hadn't stopped."

"I'm-"

"No, don't say anything. I'm glad you stopped us. Not because I didn't want it to happen, but because I care deeply about you and our friendship. Anyway, I just thought you should know - about the others."