Wicked Games (17 page)

“Come on,” he said in a low voice, and began to help me up from my seat. He gave me a meaningful look that made my body flare with need.

I leaned heavily on him and glanced at the others, wondering how we’d ditch them. Dean solved the problem, however. “I’m taking Abby to bed,” he said to the group, who waved us off without looking back. And with that, he swept me into his arms and whispered, “They’re too drunk to realize where we’re really going, and by the time they do, it won’t matter.”

“Sounds good to me,” I whispered back, trying to hide the nervous giggle that threatened to erupt. Sneaking away to have sex? It felt so very high school. And damn if I wasn’t excited about it, too.

We barely made it into the bushes before Dean’s mouth was hot on mine, tasting of champagne, the scent of Dean’s skin – smoky and masculine – surrounded me.

“Look out for my ankle,” I murmured against his mouth as he set me down on a nearby fallen coconut tree.

“I have no intention of forgetting any part of you,” Dean said, kneeling between my spread knees. He crouched on the sand and stared up at me from between my thighs, a devilish grin on his face.

I clung to the tree for support when he began to tug off my bikini bottom. “What are you doing?”

His mouth pressed hot against my flesh as he bared it, his hands anchoring at my hips. “Team building exercise,” he breathed against my belly.

“We’re merged now,” I protested weakly, scanning the tree-line in case one of our tribe mates went looking for us.

“Give me a minute,” Dean said with a low chuckle. “We’ll do all the merging you want.”

I began to get caught up in the moment, especially when his mouth pressed a few more kisses on my inner thigh. My fingers tangled in his short hair, wild from our days on the island. “So what is this ‘alliance’ going to do for me, I wonder?”

“Let me show you,” he said, and his mouth dipped lower.

~*~

“Wake up.” Someone nudged my arm.

I mumbled, ducking my head under my arm to avoid the sunlight. The bed was so comfortable that I didn’t want to get up. My head rested on a soft pillow and two warm bodies were pressed against both sides of me. Behind me, someone had their arm wrapped around my waist, and I heard the soft chatter of voices in the distance.

“Not just yet,” I mumbled and snuggled deeper. “Five more minutes.”

A hot mouth pressed to my bare shoulder. “Wakey wakey,” Dean brushed his mouth against my skin.

My eyes flew open and I stared at the broad back that I was currently snuggled up against. Tattoos covered one arm and “LIVE FREE” was scrawled across the shoulder blades six inches from my nose.

Leon. With Dean behind me.

A bit unnerved at realizing that Leon had crawled next to me in my sleep (and that I’d cuddled up against his warmth), I sat up, pushing my curly hair out of my face and trying not to frown. Dean’s hand lay low on my hip, resting possessively on me.

We were the only three left in the bed. I squinted at the distance, where the others stood near the fire, the early morning sunlight trickling in and bathing everyone in a dull gray pallor. Storm clouds had rolled in overnight, and the warm sun was hidden, leaving only storm clouds behind. One or two of the tribes mates in the distance didn’t seem to be super chipper – Shanna held her head in her hands, probably the result of over-indulging last night.

I glanced over at Dean. He lay in the bed looking up at me with an amused face, his other arm tucked under his head. Beneath him, a thick bed of palm leaves had been crushed and trampled – probably by the rest of the tribe. He looked so sleepy and sexy that I wanted to run away from everyone else and do a repeat performance of last night’s lovemaking.

“How’s your ankle?”

I glanced down at it. It did seem a bit less swollen than yesterday, though it was turning a lovely purple shade. “Still attached.”

“Always good to hear,” he said, his thumb grazing idly along my hip. Just that small motion was enough to make my breath catch in my throat and start a pulsing low in my sex.

I reached down and brushed my thumb over his lower lip. He bit down on it and I inhaled sharply at the look he sent my way. We might have been closer to the end of the game now that we were with everyone else, but I knew he was thinking what I was – that we wouldn’t have minded a few more days alone in our small cove by ourselves.

“Hey,” someone called nearby, and it came with the sound of someone approaching through the sand. “You guys awake?”

Heather, from Team Five. I pulled away from Dean and shot her a guilty look. Her hair was pulled into two pigtails on either side of her face and she gave us both a curious look that had me blushing.

“Am I…interrupting?” she began.

“Nope, we were just waking up,” I said. “Breakfast ready?” I began to slide off of the bed platform, then frowned down at my ankle. Drat. Still stranded.

“Here, I’ll help ya,” Leon said to my side, and before I could protest, he was swinging me up in his arms and carrying me over to the fire with the others. Alarmed, I shot a look over at Dean, who looked less-than-thrilled with Leon’s actions. His fist was clenched – angry? – and I watched him calmly lower it and delivered a cheerful smile to Heather, reaching over to tweak one of her pigtails in a flirty manner.

I didn’t like that at all, especially when she giggled and poked him back. “Tribal Summons this morning.”

“Already?” I asked, but my question went unanswered as Leon set me down on one of the log-seats in the middle of camp. All eyes turned to my ankle.

“It’s better today,” I assured them, despite my grand entrance. All that focus on my injury made me nervous. But then Lana came and sat next to me, linking her arm through mine, and the nervous feeling fell away. She was doing her best to show everyone that things were fine, and she was supporting me. I appreciated it, too.

“We already read the mail once. Sorry we didn’t wait for you,” she said in a tone that wasn’t that apologetic after all.

“No worries,” Dean said in his cheerful drawl. I took a cue from his manner and didn’t protest, though part of me didn’t care for it. Being on an entire tribe of people was different than just hanging out with one. “Can we see it?”

Shanna handed Dean the card, and he immediately handed it to me before he even had a chance to read it. I flushed at that casual gesture that seemed so completely uneasy to me, and my face turned bright red. I flipped over the note and gave (what I hoped was) a casual laugh. “He knows I’m impatient.”

No one else laughed. Awkward.

With that, I began to read aloud. “Roses are red, violets are blue, keep your team in the lead, don’t be number two. The sky is blue, the grass is green, there can be only one winner from the chosen team.” I flipped the card over to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything. Nada. “That’s, uh, interesting.”

“Any thoughts?” Alys asked me.

“They need to hire better writers for this show,” I said. “They rhymed “team” with “green.””

“She meant the challenge, you egghead,” Lana said and pinched my arm, a little hard.

“Ow! And I know she meant the challenge,” I said, trying not to sulk. Great, now my arm throbbed in addition to my ankle. “Obviously they’re going to split us into teams, right? And I guess whichever team advances, only one person gets to win?”

“That’s kind of what we thought too,” someone else admitted.

The conversation spiraled out from there, and soon everyone forgot about the awkwardness between Dean and I, and Heather seemed nonchalant. Only Lana watched me with hawk-like eyes as the team discussed if teams would be picked or randomly chosen.

“What if it’s a running challenge?” Someone said, and immediately all eyes swung back to me.

I forced myself to smile in a lighthearted manner. “Then I guess if it is, I won’t be much of competition, will I?”

Several smiled at that. Dean didn’t, but he didn’t frown, either. Instead, he took the note from my hands and read it thoughtfully again, saying nothing.

I had no idea what was going on in his mind.

~*~

Luck must have been smiling on me, because when we got to the challenge, I saw chairs instead of an obstacle course. That was a good sign.

“You'll be divided into two teams for this challenge,” Chip said, as if we hadn't already guessed as much. “The first round will be trivia – how much do you know about this show?” He paused to let that sink in, and then continued. “The next round will be for the winning team alone – you will compete individually in an endurance challenge.”

My heart fell at that. So much for hoping my ankle would not be a liability.

Team captains were randomly selected – Lana was one, and to my surprise, Dean was the second one. Lana had first choice, and she selected Riley, the strongest remaining guy. No surprise there.

“Dean, select a female player,” Chip reminded him.

“I pick Abby,” he said, and glanced over at me.

“Interesting choice,” Chip said. “Care to explain it?”

“Abby's smart,” Dean said with a shrug. “And we work well together.”

I hobbled over to his side and looked out at the remaining players. It could be seen as a strategic move, really – I was too hurt to compete in the second half of the competition. Providing our team got past the first round, it'd be a smart move and I wondered if the others saw it that way.

Didn't seem like it. As I glanced over at Heather, she made a kissy face and giggled, which caused me to flush. So much for strategy.

The rest of the teams were picked accordingly. Leon ended up with Lana, and we had Will, Alys, and Heather in addition to myself and Dean. After teams were selected, we moved to the designated playing area. Two benches had been left – one for each team, with a slate for each team to write their answer. I sat on the end of our bench as Dean took up the chalk opposite Lana, who stood at the chalkboard for her team.

“First team to get ten points for correct answers will move on to the next round,” Chip said. “First question...”

The trivia questions were random things about the islands – the history of the native people of the Islands, the explorers that found them, and a few questions scattered here and there about the game and players that had been voted off. It was clear from the get-go that Lana's team was lacking in the history department. As for me, since my day-job was to retain useless bits of trivia and pepper them into magazine articles and book reviews, well, we did really well. By the time Dean put down the chalk and our team hit ten points, I'd been responsible for half of them. My shoulders ached from so many vigorous slaps on the back. We were winning, and it was exciting.

“Let's move on to round two,” Chip said, and everyone stood but me. “The endurance part of the challenge.” He gestured to the nearby edge of the water. “Do you see the poles out there in the distance?”

Five poles jutted from the water a good deal out from shore. Each one was colored a separate color, and I had to raise my hand to my eyes and squint to make them out. More like a sprint than endurance, but it didn't matter because I wouldn't be able to do either.

“Your job is to run out, swim across and get to the top of your pole. At the top of your pole is a lever you can release. Doing so will shoot your flag into the air. The person that releases their flag first wins immunity and will be safe at our first Judgment.”

The others lined up at the designated starting line. Chip glanced over at me at my spot on the bench. “Going to participate, Abby?”

I could practically hear the smirk in his voice. Bastard. He liked seeing me suffer. “I'm going to sit this one out, unfortunately. Sorry.” I was tempted to hold my injured foot out and wiggle it, but drawing more attention to it than I already had would be a bad idea.

“Contestants ready?”

“Set...”

“Go!”

I held my breath as Dean surged forward, his muscles flexing and golden in the sunlight. He was beautiful and lean and strong, and the others stood no chance against him. Within moments, Dean had cut through the water and swam twice as fast as his closest competition. His flag shot into the air a moment later, and Dean punctuated this with a yell of enthusiasm and pumping his fist. From my spot on the bench, I clapped excitedly, exhilarated at his win.

The others looked markedly less enthusiastic. I couldn't blame them – Dean was making the rest of us look like amateurs.

~*~

“So who are we voting for tonight?” I limped toward the Judgment campfire, a few steps behind Lana. Camp had been noisy, with everyone congratulating Dean on his win and chattering about Judgment that night. I'd thought the tribe would be pensive after realizing we'd have to get rid of someone, but they seemed buoyant. Everyone hung around camp and talked and laughed, and Dean was the center of attention. Shanna seemed to be paying a lot of attention to him as well, and that irritated me but I said nothing. After all, Dean was sleeping with me. We had plans for a Final 2 and who knew where it would go from there?

I didn't have a chance to talk to Dean, either – people were constantly around and I was avoiding walking because of my ankle. I had waited all day to try and get a few moments alone with him, but the only time he'd left camp was to go get water with Lana. When they came back, she'd given me a thumbs-up that made me feel better. Even if I hadn't had a chance to talk to Dean, she had my back.

Still, I was going in to the vote with no clue who to vote for. And when we lined up, Dean was at the front of the line because he had immunity. I pulled up the rear because I couldn't walk fast, thanks to my bad ankle. Lana loitered at the back near me, and I slowed down, pretending to catch my breath.

“So who are we voting for?” I leaned heavily on my makeshift crutch and put my other hand to my ribs, pretending to catch my breath.

She paused as well, waiting for me. Her hands were on her hips, and she flicked a glance back to the front of the line. “Riley. He's strong and we need to get rid of him.”

Made sense. I gave her a thumbs up and we began to catch up with the others.