Wicked Games (Games #1)(20)
Author: Jessica Clare

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 n**ples 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’.

How embarrassing. Shoot me now, God. I colored and wished I could get up from my seat to grab my shirt. Instead, I crossed my arms over my chest and rubbed them as if pretending to be cold… in the hundred-degree oppressive tropical heat. Yeah.

Leon looked at me like I was crazy. “You guys read your Tribal Summons yet?”

“Tribal Summons?” I glanced over at the treasure chest and sure enough, a long scroll was sticking out of one side, the lid ajar. Of course. The game went on, even if Dean and I were no longer paying attention. “My ankle injury kind of distracted us,” I said and stretched it out in front of me to remind them.

That changed the focus of the conversation entirely. Lana immediately sat down next to me and glanced at my ankle with a worried look. “How bad is it?”

“Sprain,” I admitted. “I thought I’d broken it but the game doctors told me that if I keep my weight off of it, I should be able to walk within a week or so.”

“A week!” Lana exclaimed, as if it was the end of the world.

“You gonna evac?” Leon asked me, standing over me and blotting out the sun with his huge tattooed shoulders. “Quit the game?”

“Me? No. I want to keep playing.” The thought of quitting the game and screwing Dean over? Never crossed my mind. He wanted this badly and I wanted to spend time with him. Despite the bugs and the sand and the stress of the game, I was enjoying myself, oddly enough. “I’m in this to win it.” Well, kind of. More like I was in this to pad my book deal.

Oddly enough, I hadn’t thought about my book deal much since getting on the island and meeting Dean. Thinking about it now kind of made me feel… unclean. Like I was deceiving him. I didn’t care for that much. Would he hold it against me once we were out of here?

Was there anything for us when we were out of here, I wondered. Why was I even thinking that?

Lana and Leon were still discussing my ankle, though. Did it hurt to walk? Did I think I’d be able to perform in challenges? What about helping out around camp? I endured their grilling, answering mostly with “I don’t know” and “Yes, but it hurts.” Lana finally revealed the reason behind her grilling. “Leon’s joined our alliance,” she revealed. I glanced up at the big tattooed guy and he nodded at me.

“I’ll have to tell Dean,” I murmured, not sure what to think of this. Another person? We had five for sure, then, if Will was still with us. “Do you think the other five have allied?”

“Nope,” said Leon. “Shanna’s on my team and we haven’t been approached by anyone. She’ll vote with me when the next Judgment comes.”

So that was six, really. That sure seemed like a lot of people if only ten were left. I said nothing though, since Lana was running the show and she seemed utterly confident in her actions. “So what’s the plan?”

“We’re merging, which you would know if you had checked your Island Mail,” she said with a pointed look at me that made me blush and cover my arms over my chest again. “That means ten of us, all on the same beach. With six of us voting together, that means we can pick off the other four.”

It seemed like an obvious question, but I had to ask. “And what happens when we get down to six?”

“The big prizes come at the final four,” she said, just as Dean reappeared from the underbrush, sweaty and carrying a bucket of water (and sans boner, thank goodness). “It’ll be you, me, Leon, and Dean to the four. We can decide who goes after that.”

“What about Shanna and Will?”

“We don’t tell them,” Lana said with intense eyes as Dean moved toward us. “The final-four pact stays with us here on this beach, since we won’t have any privacy at the new camp.”

“New camp?” Dean said, wiping at his forehead with his forearm. He flicked a concerned look over me as if checking to see that I was doing okay, then turned his focus back to Leon and Lana.

“We’re merging,” Leon said, gesturing at the Tribal Summons. Dean cast me a wary look and then pulled the chest open. Two bags—just like Lana and Leon’s—had been left for us, along with the long parchment scroll that told us of the merge and drew a map to the new campsite.

“It’s a few miles down the beach,” Dean said and squinted at the blue line of water just off in the distance.

My heart sank at that. “A few miles?”

“I can carry you on my back,” Leon said to me. “Won’t be nothing.”

“I’ll be the one to carry Abby,” Dean said, his voice taking on a sharp edge.

“It’s not a big deal, man—”

“I’ll do it,” Dean said, and I could hear his teeth gritting. I had a mental image of me splayed across Leon’s back, my br**sts pressing up against his shoulders, legs wrapped around his hips. Dean apparently had the same picture I did, and he didn’t like it.

Dean moved to my side, as if to cement his claim. “If you guys can carry our bags…”

“Chill man,” Leon said. “I already got a girl.”

I blushed.

Lana looked like she wanted to murder all of us. “Can you guys stop thinking with your dicks for five minutes? We are here to win the money, not play Beach Blanket Bingo.”

“Like I said,” Dean drawled, helping me to my feet. “You guys carry our bags and we’ll be just fine. We’ll even bribe you,” he said with a wink at me.

“The peanut butter?” I said slowly. I realized what he was doing—cementing our alliance at the last moment and bribing them to forget about the small spat that had just happened. Not to mention that we’d have to share the peanut butter with the others once we got to the beach anyhow. Best to fuel our alliance.

“You guys have peanut butter?” Lana whispered. Leon slapped Dean on the back, grinning his pleasure.

I nodded and pointed at where it was buried in the sand, a stick poking up to mark the spot. “We’ve been eating before challenges to stay strong. It was my reward item,” I confessed.

“You lucky!” Lana exclaimed, her eyes wide.

Between the four of us, we quickly devoured the remaining peanut butter left in the jar. We’d carefully saved a third of it, and at Dean’s meaningful glance, I hung back on the food and let Lana and Leon eat the lion’s share, though it was hard to do so. My stomach grumbled at the rich peanut smell and I wanted to devour the whole thing on my own. Still, this was a game about allies, and mine were currently rather pleased with us.

“What about the bug oil?” Lana asked.

“Bringing that,” Dean said, and moved to the shelter to pack our bags.

Our small bits of clothing were packed into one satchel, the other full of necessities from the camp—the cooking pot, the blanket, the plates we’d made out of shells. Once the stuff was bagged up, Leon belted Dean’s axe at his waist and Dean hauled me onto his back. My legs stuck out from around his torso and I clung to his shoulders like he was giving me a piggyback ride. His feet shifted as he moved into the sand, and I was struck with a pang of guilt. “Going to be a long walk for you,” I whispered in his ear as we began to head down the beach. Lana and Leon were a few paces ahead, bags on their shoulders as they studied the map.

“You’re mine,” Dean said simply. “I’m not about to hand you off to someone else.”

I wondered at his choice of words.

Chapter Eleven

I’m thrilled that we merged. Thrilled. Can’t you tell from the sound of my voice? No? Me either. I preferred when it was just us on the beach. Lots of alone time.—Dean Woodall, Day 20

We stopped a few times so Dean could rest, but he insisted on being the one to carry me. It was just as well—Leon was sweating in the hot afternoon sun and I wasn’t relishing the thought of rubbing up against him. Dean was sweating too, but leaning against his body and letting him carry me just let my wicked imagination run away with itself, to the point that I was ready to drag him behind the nearest tree and have my way with him.

If it weren’t for the way that Lana kept looking back at us with a frown.

And the fact that we were meeting up with six other people who were about to share living space with us.

“Are you nervous about meeting the others?” I asked Dean as we approached the new camp. I could see people standing in the distance and smelled the smoke of a fire. The sun was setting, so I couldn’t make out who it was, though I knew the faces remaining in the game by now: Chris and Alys from Team Five (both extremely athletic), Heather from Team Eight (the young, cute grad student), Riley, whose profession I couldn’t recall, but I remembered his freckled shoulders from other challenges, and of course Will and Shanna the Bunny. I was a little surprised she’d made it this far, but then again, she was probably good at latching on to a strong man—like Leon before the switch. She seemed to be good friends with Riley now, though she squealed with delight at the sight of Leon and rushed over to hug him as we arrived in camp. She also looked like nothing but skin and bones… and a large set of implants. The others just looked skinny in comparison.

They watched me with interest as Dean moved close to the fire and set me down gently and then the introductions began. The men slapped Dean on the back and congratulated him on arriving, and the women hugged him. I kind of sat on the bench and watched, elevating my foot and trying not to look as awkward as I felt.