Wicked Games
Page 29

I sucked.
My ankle was wrapped tightly but swollen to twice its normal size. As soon as the cameras had stopped rolling for the competition, medical had swooped in and checked me out. The verdict? A bad sprain but no breaks, so I was left in the game unless I chose to bail out (and thereby drag Dean into the loser lodge involuntarily). I chose to stay.
Even if it was just until Judgment.
Jack and Meg sat next to us on the Elimination Bench, and they seemed quite a bit more confident than Dean and myself. After all, they were both whole. They’d had trouble working together to cross the mud pond with the rope swing and had ended up wading through. Their clothes were still dark and covered with mud, but they seemed confident as they flicked glances over at me and my monstrous ankle.
“Teams, pass your slates forward. I’ll read the first vote,” Chip said in his best TV-host voice. He pulled up the first slate, regarded it, and then flipped it as he read the name.
“Team Six.”
I regarded the slate with mixed emotions. The next would be for us, for sure. Dean was a strong competitor.
Chip held up the second slate. “Team Six.”
I sat up a little at that, surprised. I glanced over at Lana, who sat in the audience, and she gave me a meaningful look, her eyes hard. Had she orchestrated something quietly at Judgment Council to save our asses? I would so have to thank her when we got back if that was the case. She could eat all my peanut butter if she wanted it.
Well, maybe not that.
She was stone-faced as they read the next vote. “Team Six,” but I noticed the faint hint of a smug smile on her partner Leon’s face. Further down the row, Will was openly smiling, his arms crossed over his chest.
Sure enough, Lana had saved our asses. I owed her.
Dean seemed to realize the same thing, slowly. He sat up straighter as the last two votes were read, and I glanced over at him and smiled, delighted, and reached for his hand. I wanted to hug him, but such a brash display of affection would work against us.
Apparently Dean felt that any sort of affection would work against us. He pulled his hand out of mine and gave me a hard frown.
I pulled back away, trying to brush it off, but his cold rebuff had hurt my silly, stupid feelings. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. It was stupid, but my ankle hurt, my pride was wounded, and my emotions were completely strung out. I wanted Dean to hold me, not push me away. I glanced over at Lana to see if she’d seen my small gesture as well.
She had. The look on her face had turned hard and unfriendly. She didn’t approve of my needy actions.
“Team Eleven! You live for another round,” Chip crowed as he moved over to us and helped me to my feet. “How do you feel?”
“Ready to keep playing,” Dean said in his smooth, effortlessly cocky voice.
“Great,” I added, forcing a smile to my face.
 
***
 
With the help of a shirt-wrapped stick acting as my crutch, we were able to hobble back into camp once the boat dropped us off. Dean hadn’t said much to me, which was just as well—I wasn’t in the mood to talk to him either. All of my energy was going into walking without maiming myself further.
When we made it back to camp, I sat heavily on a log and put my head in my hands, frustrated. Frustrated at myself for screwing up in the challenge, frustrated that I’d tried to be needy with Dean and he’d turned me away because it was the smart thing to do. Frustrated because Lana had noticed and she was unhappy with me. This day had been one big mess of crap from the start.
To my surprise, Dean sat next to me and began to brush the hair off my shoulders, rubbing the frustrated knot at the base of my neck. “How are you holding up?”
“I feel stupid,” I admitted. “I almost blew it for us.” I decided not to bring up the part about him rebuffing me in front of the others. It was stupid to get hurt feelings over it.
“It happens.” He pulled me into his lap, careful of my injured foot, and began to nibble on my neck. “Don’t beat yourself up.”
“Too late,” I said in a grumpy voice, but twined my arms around his neck and leaned in so his lips could have better access to my skin.
His lips moved to mine and his tongue slid along the crease of my mouth. I parted to let him in and his tongue flicked against mine, and a small moan rose in my throat as I forgot about my wounded ankle. He groaned low and slid his hands to my hips, shifting me in his arms. His hips lifted against my own in a suggestive move. “Can you slide your leg over?” he breathed against my mouth and then bit at my lower lip, as if his mouth couldn’t stand to be parted from mine for a single moment.
Sounded like a good idea to me. With his hands on my hips to steady me, and my hands on his shoulders, we maneuvered a little awkwardly, watching for my injured foot. After a bit, I was able to straddle him as he sat on the log, and the cradle of my sex was firmly slid up against the hard length of his. It felt enormous and hot even through his swim trunks, and I flexed my hips forward and was delighted to hear his breath suck in. He grasped my ass and ground me down against his cock and his mouth lowered to nuzzle my breast through my bikini. I gasped as his mouth grazed my nipple and I twined my fingers in his hair to hold him in place, my eyes focused on his intense, handsome face. His short buzz of dark, ash blond hair was growing out and it stuck up from his head like a spiky bed of grass.
Something moved behind his head. I glanced up just as he pushed aside the fabric of my bikini, exposing my nipple and placed his mouth on it again.
The moan of pleasure died in my throat at the sight of Lana and Leon heading down the beach toward us.
I grabbed at my bikini, nearly snapping his head backward.
“Abby, what—”
I wiggled on his lap, trying to extricate myself from his grasp before they could see us in such an obvious position and guess what we were up to.
Unfortunately, my hurt foot was seriously compromising my ability to move. I twisted on Dean helplessly for a few moments before he glanced over his shoulder and saw the same thing. “Shit.” He stood up quickly, me still in his arms and then set me down on the fallen log that served as our bench.
“I’m going to grab water,” he said, leaving me alone on the log and swinging by the other side of the fire pit to grab our water bucket. I was about to protest when I caught a glimpse of him in profile—and the massive tent he was sporting in the front of his swim trunks. All right, water was probably a smart move. Still, it left me stranded and breathless as I raised a hand to my eyes, squinting at the sunny beach as Lana and Leon approached.
Lana wore a scowl on her face as I greeted her, as if she’d guessed what we’d been up to and was mad at catching us red-handed again, like we were a couple of horny teenagers. Leon was far more blasé about it, to the point that I wondered if he’d seen anything. Both of them carried bags on their shoulders.
“Where’s Dean?” Lana said in a sharp voice.
I cocked my head toward the dense jungle a few short steps away from the sandy encampment. “He went to get water. What’s up?”
She glanced down at the front of my swimsuit and rolled her eyes. I quickly glanced down as well—on top of nipples that were standing at attention, I had a gigantic wet spot over one from Dean’s mouth, directly in the center of the Y for ‘ABBY’.