Page 26 of Cupid Calling
He shoved down the soft, insecure part of himself screaming that he was being a little too confident, considering the good looks and prowess of the other men.
With his confrontation with Obiora still buoying his spirits, Ejiro was going to utilise this burst of energy and his renewed confidence in order to outshine everyone else in the group date, and secure himself the Red Heart.
“WELCOME, EVERYONE, TO EPISODE TWO of Cupid Calling!” Ameri said brightly when Sophia and the bachelors had gathered in the marked clearing. “Today, we have an exciting event planned for all of you.” Ameri’s expression turned sly, a playful, teasing grin on her lips. “If you’ll all just follow me.”
She headed deeper into the forest, cameras, the bachelorette, and the contestants following close behind her.
“What do you think it is?” Ricky asked Obiora. He was moving with a lazy swagger, his arms crossed behind his head.
“Hm? I don’t know,” Obiora replied, a little distractedly. “Guess we’re about to see.”
Stop.
Fucking.
Staring at him.
Obiora could no longer count how many times he’d said those words to himself since his confrontation with Ejiro two days ago.
After Ejiro had walked away, and Obiora had felt the strong stirrings of attraction, he’d written it off as the heat of the moment, only for Ejiro to appear in his dreams that same night in an even more heated re-enactment of their argument, except this time, it had ended with a desperate, passionate kiss. The kiss had immediately evolved, as dreams often did, to them suddenly naked in his bed back in his flat in Sheffield, Ejiro’s eyes blazing, his hands holding Obiora’s wrists flat to the mattress as he rode Obiora like he fucking loathed him.
Obiora had woken up hard and desperate, the dream so vivid that for a moment he couldn’t remember what was real and what wasn’t. He’d managed to stumble to the shower after he’d realised where he was, still clinging to that half-asleep state, and had jerked off rough and quick with the faux-memory of the touch of that full mouth, the sting of sharp teeth—all that bare brown skin, flushed with sweat—still clinging to the forefront of his mind.
When he’d come back to his senses, Obiora had consequently spent the hours following avoiding the fuck out of Ejiro, spending most of his free time in his room like a fucking hermit, or outside by the pool when he was sure Ejiro himself was in his room, or heading downstairs to the sitting room if Ejiro was nowhere else in the house to be found.
Now, back in forced proximity, despite the setting and the fact that they weren’t the only ones here—far from it—Obiora couldn’t take his eyes off him.
Like most of the men, as Ameri had ordered them the night before, Ejiro was dressed for outdoor exercise in black tights covered by loose black exercise shorts, a fitting short-sleeved white spandex t-shirt, and plain grey trainers. Compared to most of the other men, whose chests, arms and thighs strained against their clothing, Ejiro looked almost unassuming with his own slight frame. Yet, something about his demeanour today had Obiora’s pulse racing, his blood rushing like he’d taken a shot of pure euphoria.
Layers of the tense, antisocial man of night one had been peeled off, revealing something peeking underneath that Obiora found himself almost desperate to fully unmask.
His eyes unwittingly dropped to Ejiro’s ass, which was sadly hidden underneath his loose shorts.
God. What the fuck would Obiora have done if Ejiro had decided to forgo the shorts? The memory of Ejiro bending over flashed through his mind’s eye.
Fuck. Best not to think too hard about it.
“Whoa.”
The collective sounds of surprise, amusement and excitement forced Obiora to look away and take in their new surroundings.
His eyes widened when he spotted what looked to be an obstacle course lined up ahead of them.
There were monkey bars, a short wall with grooves, what looked to be thick pipes, tires forming a pathway, and a wide net made with thick rope nailed about a foot off the forest floor.
“You got it, folks!” Ameri said, sounding entirely too pleased with herself. “For this week’s group date, you all are going to be competing via this obstacle course for a chance to go on a personal date of your choosing with our bachelorette!”
At a cue from the background staff, the bachelors began to cheer and wolf whistle and applaud, some of them looking genuinely excited.
“In four teams of six, you will all be required to complete the entirety of the obstacle course. The winners from each team—that’s right, each team—will be immediately qualified to take our beautiful bachelorette on a private date of their choosing. That means four of you will have the opportunity to wine and dine Sophia without the rest of these interlopers trying to steal the spotlight. I’m looking at you, Obiora.”
“Ooooooh,” some of the bachelors sing-songed, while others laughed.
Obiora deliberately didn’t look in Ejiro’s direction as he said, “Don’t worry, I won’t be pulling any smooth moves—” He paused to wink at the camera, “—this time.”
Sophia, along with some of the men, laughed out loud. Obiora grinned.
After a moment, he couldn’t help it, he glanced in Ejiro’s direction. Though he’d looked away from Ejiro earlier as Ameri had been speaking, Obiora’s body seemed attuned to Ejiro’s presence, and his gaze instantly zeroed in on him like he had some kind of Ejiro-radar.
