Wicked Games
Page 32

“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, and the scent of his 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 tribemates 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 into 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 tribemates in the distance didn’t seem to be super chipper—Shanna held her head in her hands, probably the result of overindulging last night.
I glanced over at Dean. He lay in the bed looking up at me with an amused expression, 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 the bed platform, then frowned down at my ankle. Drat. Still stranded.
“Here, I’ll help ya,” Leon said at 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 deliver 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 in 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 me, and Heather seemed nonchalant. Only Lana watched me with hawk-like eyes as the group discussed if teams would be picked or randomly chosen.