Wicked Games (Games #1)(7)
Author: Jessica Clare

And after what seemed like eternity, a small plume of smoke rose. “You got it!” Dean yelled in my ear, and leaned in to blow on the small kernel of fire. It flared and we hastily shoved the fire-making sticks aside, adding more bits of dried coconut husks to try and keep it going. And when it was a real flame, Dean wrapped the entire thing in the palm leaf and carried it back to our fire pit, placing the smoking bit at the bottom of the wood pile with delicate hands. I followed behind him, wiping my brow.

“How did you know?” He glanced over at me, then turned back to blow on the flame some more.

“Know what?” I said. “How to build the fire?”

He shook his head, not taking his eyes off the fire pit as he fed the flickering flame more and more tinder and small sticks of wood. “I’ve been trying since last night. I rubbed those sticks for so long and so hard I thought my arms would fall off, and you managed to do it in twenty minutes.”

I moved closer to the building fire, pleased that he’d been so struck by my efforts. “I reviewed a book for a celebrity survivalist once. Very big deal for the publisher, and the guy was a total a**hole. He wrote it himself instead of having his ghostwriter do it, or so he told me. Anyhow, he was a real jerk, so I hired a wilderness survival guide and we went through each ‘survival’ tip in the guide. And I gave him an F.” I nodded at the fire, my mouth curving into a smile in remembrance. “He got the whole fire-making thing wrong too. Same reason—that stupid notch at the bottom.”

Dean shook his head at me, his mouth not quite curving into a smile. “You just love proving people wrong, don’t you, Abby?”

I didn’t respond, but I didn’t need to. The smile on my face was enough. It felt good to smile after three days of complete and utter misery, and I got a funny, warm feeling in my stomach when Dean smiled back, his own mouth moving into a slow and devastating curve.

God, why did I have to get stuck with such a beautiful—and arrogant—man?

To distract myself from the look he was casting in my direction, I nodded at the fire. “I can take care of it.”

Dean glanced over at the stump with our Tribal Summons. “We have mail, you know.”

I groaned at that. “Again today?”

He nodded. “Probably some sort of reward challenge. The boat should be here soon.” He glanced over at me, blue eyes focused on my face, so vivid against his dark tan. “I think we need to have a serious talk before we go, however.”

I wanted to growl at that. We were being civil adults for the moment, and it was a nice change. I didn’t want to go back to hating him just yet. It was far too exhausting. “Do we have to?”

“Look. We’re both here because we want to win. I think we need to reconsider our… tactics.”

I had to smile reluctantly at that. “What, you mean screaming at each other is not exactly going to get us to the end?”

A hint of a smile tugged at his mouth as well. “Something like that. We need to work together if we’re going to make it to the final rounds. If we keep ending up at the bottom of the heap, we’re going to get knocked off, no matter how much of a train wreck we seem to be.”

I nodded at that. He had a very good point.

“I hate losing, and I think that we’d be a good team if we could just get it through our hard heads that we need to work together—”

I began to roll my eyes at him. “You don’t need to butter me up—”

“I’m serious,” he interrupted me again and gestured at the fire he was slowly feeding. “Look what we’ve accomplished in a short hour. We’ve eaten, we’ve got fire, and we can boil our water. You have a shelter, but you’re still freezing at night. I have a blanket but no shelter, so I’m warm and covered in bug bites from sand fleas.” He paused to scratch his arm, as if emphasizing his point. “The point is, neither one of us is sleeping.”

I remained silent at that, thinking about how well I’d slept last night with his borrowed blanket. The blanket that he’d given to me. He’d gone and walked the beach the entire night, probably trying to keep warm, and spent the morning trying (unsuccessfully) to build a fire. Yeah, we weren’t exactly rocking Endurance Island with our skills.

At my silence, he sighed. “Look, Abby, I realize you’ve gotten into your head that you don’t like me because I’m a handsome, athletic guy—”

I sputtered at that, my goodwill toward him teetering dangerously closer to zero.

“—but you can hate me after the game, when one of us has won two million dollars.”

“I don’t hate you,” I protested. “But you didn’t exactly endear yourself to me when you stepped on me to swim your way to shore and win, you know.”

“Was that you?” He grinned widely. “Oops.”

I clenched my jaw. Half of me wanted to sock him in the face—old, cocky Dean—but the other part of me wanted to laugh at the boyish smile he wore as he glanced up at me over the fire. To me, that seemed to be new Dean. The Dean I was going to be living and sleeping with for the next six weeks.

Sad to say, but in the past hour, I had really warmed up to new Dean. I scratched at my bug bites and gave him a small, reluctant shrug. “All right. We can work together.”

He nodded. “What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine. I’ll stop hiding the axe and the map to the water well.”

My jaw dropped. “You were hiding stuff?”

Dean grinned and gave me an innocent look. “You’re hiding your peanut butter, aren’t you?”

I bristled at that. “The peanut butter is pure protein and sugar. I’m saving it,” I began, and then choked on the words when his expression changed. Sigh. “We need to save it,” I corrected myself. “For when we’re tired and exhausted and a challenge is coming up.”

“You mean like today?” he said and squinted at the shore. In the distance, a small red boat was pulling up, and I knew we were going to rush off to the challenge soon.

He did have a point, though. Even after a belly full of coconut, I was still weak and shaky and he looked exhausted too. We could use a little energy before the challenge and to cement our deal together. So I got up, brushed the sand off my bottom, and glanced over at the boat.

Dean cursed under his breath. “Man, they have shit timing, don’t they? Just when we got our fire started.”

I moved toward the shelter, gesturing at a massive log I’d dragged over the other day. “Put that big hunk of wood over the fire. It’ll smolder and keep it burning.”

“More tips from that book?”

I smiled as I ducked into my makeshift shelter, digging for my bag. “Never piss me off.”

“Boy, no kidding.” But his laugh was admiring. “What are you doing?”

I pulled the peanut butter jar out of my bag and brandished it. “Cementing our alliance of two with a goodwill gesture,” I said, and when he reached for the jar, I pulled it out of his reach again. “Not so fast there, buddy. We need to parcel this out and make it last if we’re going to be taking hits before every challenge.”

I expected him to bitch about it, or get ugly with me, but his mouth only curled into that amused smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. Damn, his eyes were really blue, especially under the bright sunlight. “You’re the boss,” was all he said.

With deliberate, almost shaking fingers, I screwed off the cap of the peanut butter jar and removed the protective seal. A thin layer of peanut oil covered the top. The scent wafting up from the jar—roasted peanuts and oil—made my stomach growl, and Dean gave a small, deep moan. “Damn, that smells good,” he said.

I nodded and glanced around—the only sticks we could use for scooping out the peanut butter were covered in sand and camp filth, so I decided to use the next best thing. I stuck my dirty finger in my mouth and sucked all of the grit off it and then carefully dug into the jar. After all, my mouth was probably the cleanest thing on this island at the moment. With careful precision, I scooped a glop of the chunky peanut butter onto my finger, the mound glistening, and held it out to Dean. Just a small amount, a tablespoon at the most. Just enough to stave off hunger pains and give us a burst of energy.

My thought was to hold out the peanut butter so he could transfer it to his own finger. Perhaps the sight of me sucking on my finger before had distracted him, because he leaned in and took my finger in his mouth, rasping his tongue against it.

And just like that, the world flipped.

Heat rushed through me at the feel of his tongue, his hot mouth sucking on my skin. I forgot about the peanut butter that was his original goal and my body flushed, my mind skidding to a halt at the sight of his beautiful mouth over my skin, the feel of his tongue against my flesh. I must have shivered or tried to pull away, because his hand grasped my own and held me there as he lapped and rasped against my finger, cleaning my skin.

Searing me to my core.

A wave of heat pulsed through my body and I inhaled sharply. Dean’s gaze moved to my face, and I knew that he was realizing the same thing I was. His tongue moved slowly against my skin, sensually. His eyes were locked on my own, and his tongue gave my skin one last flick that I felt all the way down to my sex. Then he released my hand. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said in a daze, my gaze still locked on his mouth.

He nodded at the shore and stepped past me, clearing his throat. “Boat’s here.”

In a daze, I stared down at my finger and wondered if I could put it in my own mouth after that… or would it be dangerously close to kissing him?

Our team dynamic had changed again. I touched my finger to my lips and stared after Dean thoughtfully.

Chapter Six

I have no idea why I licked the peanut butter off of her finger. One moment she’s just standing there, taunting me, and the next, I’ve got her finger in my mouth and I’m licking her with my tongue and I’m getting turned on. And now I can’t stop looking at the way her butt looks in those bikinis.—Dean Woodall, Day 4

“Welcome to today’s challenge,” said Chip as the teams filed in and moved to stand on our numbered mats. When we were in place, he continued. “Today’s challenge is going to be a Luxury Challenge. Teams will compete in the race today, and instead of the bottom two being marked for Judgment, the rules are a little different. This time, the bottom five teams will not be eligible to win a reward. The teams that place in the top six of the event will be. Understand?”

We nodded our agreement, and my eyes kept straying out to the course. I could see a table from where I stood behind Dean. The tables were set up on the edge of the lagoon, and in the water I could see colorful, numbered floats bobbing out in the distance. It sure looked like a lot of swimming. My stomach clenched a little at the thought. Dean was great at swimming. I was not. And if I lost this for us, would our tenuous agreement to not kill each other end?

I liked being on Dean’s side, oddly enough.