Wicked Games (9 page)

“That’s nice,” Dean said in a low voice. “Much better.” I felt my hair move slightly, and could have sworn he inhaled.

Sniffing my hair? Surely not. I probably stank of eucalyptus and coconut and sea salt.

There was still a little bit of sand stuck to our skin, obvious with our bodies rubbed together, but strangely enough, I didn’t mind it. And when Dean pulled the blanket over the two of us and then settled his arm back against my belly – under the blanket – I didn’t say a thing. I only shifted so my head was pillowed on my bent arm, and tried to go to sleep.

‘Tried’ being the operative word, of course. Despite the exhaustion of living on the beach and eating almost nothing all day long, my entire body seemed to vibrate from within, and I was constantly aware of Dean’s hand splayed on my stomach, pressing my slick body against his. Our bodies locked together, heated flesh against heated flesh, the only thing separating us being two tiny swimsuits. Part of me hoped that he would move his hand lower, or rub his hard cock against my ass a bit more and let me know that he was interested. Nip my shoulder. Something. Anything.

But he lay as quiet as me, and after an eternity of hoping, I fell asleep.

~*~

The next few days fell into a predictable pattern. Each morning we would wake up, clean up camp and stoke the fire, and cook breakfast. We’d work on improving our camp in the morning, and wander over to visit with Lana and Will in the afternoon. When dark hit, we headed back and curled up in our tiny bungalow, together, bodies pressed tight against each other.

It was playing hell with my self-confidence, too. Every day, it seemed that we shared an electrically-charged moment or two. Our fingers would touch and our eyes would lock. He’d spend a moment too long rubbing lotion onto my back. I’d watch him a bit too long as he arose from the ocean, glistening with sea water. The way his mouth would crook up on one side when he smiled down at me. The feel of his hips pressed up against my own at night.

It was making me so incredibly, unbelievably horny. And the man was completely uninterested. If I was sending signals, he wasn’t receiving them. If I smiled at him, he turned away. If I pulled him a little bit closer at night, he snored. It was the uncertainty that held me back from making a full-on move. I was the least attractive woman on the island, sure, but I wasn’t a troll either. How would he react if I flung myself at him? Would he just take what was offered and not think twice about it (which would be bad) or would he recoil in disgust (which would be very bad)? Even worse, how would it change our team dynamic? We were comfortable around each other now, and working smoothly as a team.

Smoothly enough that no one suspected our Honeymooners-like display was a total put-on. At each challenge, we made sure to bicker and shove at each other. I gave him open-handed slaps on his arm to convey my disgust, and he settled for withering scorn. In the four challenges in the past week – three immunity, one reward – we’d managed to carefully place just near the end. Lana had suggested that we purposefully lose the next reward challenge to throw people off, and so when it came to another swimming race, I was the one that swam. We lost by a mile, and Dean had pitched a fit on the beach that had sent camera-men flurrying about us and I rubbed my eyes so much after swimming in the salty ocean that I didn’t have to fake the trickles that leaked from my eyes, especially when Lana and Will walked away with a big plate of peanut butter and chocolate that they devoured in front of everyone else. Back at camp, Dean had given me a comforting, friendly hug and tousled my hair. Like a kid.

That had depressed me far worse than losing the chocolate.

We’d squeaked out of landing in the bottom two spots in all of the immunity challenges, though we’d managed to perform poorly enough that we still looked incompetent. The next three teams that went home were the ‘Mareen Biologest’ – which made me smile widely – one of the swimsuit models, and Jody the Intern.

Judging by the information I’d been given prior to joining the show, we had three more group eliminations to go through before we merged as one big happy tribe. Dean and I kept track of the days by hash-marks on a tree, and we’d been out here for a little over two weeks. Incredible, that. My body was tanned and a good deal leaner than when I’d first landed on the island, my hair was a tangled mess that I wore in a thick braid just to keep it off my head, and my clothes were a briny mess that smelled like salt water.

I supposed it was just as well that Dean wasn’t interested in me, I mourned as I picked rice kernels out of my breakfast bowl (made from a coconut half) and licked them off of my fingers. I didn’t exactly look fresh-faced. I looked like I’d been stranded on a deserted island.

“Challenge today,” Dean said as he opened our red mailbox and pulled out the message. Normally our messages were fairly straightforward, tied in a roll with a piece of twine to hold it shut. Once we’d gotten one written on the back of a coconut, and the challenge was coconut bowling (which we’d done terribly at, and not on purpose). This message was a square of parchment with long green grasses hanging off the edge, almost like a, well, like a grass skirt. It shivered and slithered when Dean shook the message, and I stood up and moved to his side to read over his shoulder.

As I did so, my breasts brushed against his arm and he glanced over at me in surprise.

“Sorry,” I said in a meek voice and took a step backward, wishing he wouldn’t look so darn surprised when I did that. It made me apologize. I didn’t want to apologize to him – I wanted to grab his shoulders and climb all over him.

It was so very wrong.

Ignoring my apology, Dean handed the letter over to me and I began to read it aloud. “Today’s challenge is a special one. You’re guaranteed to have some fun. Pack your bags and pack your things. Who knows what tomorrow brings?” I flipped it over, just to check if anything was written on the back, and then frowned and handed it back to Dean. “That tells us nothing.”

“Something’s up,” he said, shaking his head. “They wouldn’t want us to bring our things unless they plan on doing some sort of switch-up.”

My stomach dropped. “A switch-up? You mean, like changing partners?” That ruined everything. Oh no – what if I was stuck with someone like Leon or Olaf the biker? I’d be screwed. Worse yet, Dean would be paired up with some cute little hottie and he’d forget all about me and my unrequited lust that he was determined to ignore.

Dean gave me a scrutinizing look. “Do you want to stay together?”

What? Why was he asking that? How was I supposed to respond to that? Or was he just taking the easy way out? Of course – it struck me at that moment. He probably wanted a more athletic partner. Someone a bit more pleasant than me. Someone cute and pretty and as athletic as, say, Lana. “Maybe.”

His mouth crooked on one side. “Don’t sound so excited at the prospect.”

I was just being cautious. After all, leaping onto him and screaming, “Dean, I want to have your babies” seemed a little extreme, especially given that he’d never wanted to be paired with me in the first place. So I said, “Well, whatever happens, the four of us are going to stick together to the end, right?”

His mouth twisted slightly, his smile faint. “Right. The odds are in our favor if we work together, no matter who is on our team.”

“Maybe it’s for the best that we split up,” I ventured slowly. “So we can influence our other partners.” It sounded purely logical. It made me want to throw up. “After all, it’s not like we wanted to be paired together in the first place.”

His half-smile turned cold. “No, you got that right. We’re in this for the money.”

Ouch. That hurt a little more than I’d thought, hearing it come from his mouth.
We’re in this for the money, and you’re a lousy partner
. He might as well have spoken the rest of it out loud.

This felt ludicrous and hurtful. We should have been working together, trying to formulate some sort of plan. Figuring out how to stick together despite any sort of switch-up. Instead, here I was telling him it was for the best that we split up, and he was agreeing with me. My cynical heart that had been throbbing so hard in his presence felt crushed.

“We’d better get going,” Dean said, crossing camp to grab his bag. “Boat’ll be here soon.”

I retrieved my pack out of the small shelter and felt the heavy weight of the peanut butter inside it. We’d been extremely stingy with it so far, taking small nibbles only before challenges. I remembered the scene with the first taste of peanut butter, how Dean’s mouth had licked my fingers clean and I’d stared at him, dumbfounded, as my pulse beat loudly in my ears.

And with that memory in my mind, I opened the can and dug a finger into the peanut butter one more time, and offered it to him. “Energy for the challenge?”

He glanced at me, and at my finger. I hadn’t offered to ‘feed’ him the peanut butter since the first time, when he’d automatically reached out and taken me into his mouth. I could tell that he was thinking about that too. After a moment’s pause, he nodded at the can. “I’ll get my own.”

I shrugged as if that didn’t bother me, and put my finger in my own mouth, licking it clean and trying not to show how hurt I truly was at his refusal.

After all, this was a game. He was playing for two million dollars, and so was I. Of course he wasn’t going to get romantic – especially with someone like me, so clearly not one of the other supermodel Playboy bunny types. I was far too normal for a god like Dean.

I continued sucking on my finger, sighing. Perhaps a new partner would be the best thing.

I think Abby hates me. Why else would she be so determined to get away from me? – Dean Woodall, Day Fifteen

~*~

The teams filed onto the challenge beach, apprehensive. Bags were slung over shoulders, and I scrutinized the rest of the contestants for a moment. Everyone always seemed to look different after a few more days on the island, and today was no exception. Everyone was browner, their clothes dirtier. Shanna – the Playboy Bunny – had a very deep tan, but her legs were thin as twigs, and her implants stood out like boulders in her too-skinny frame. She looked like she needed a sandwich, and she wasn’t the only one. Lana was starting to become wraith-thin, though still lovely. The other men were starting to grow extremely thin as well, losing their bulk. For once, I thanked the extra fifteen pounds I never seemed to shake. Lucky me.

I glanced out over the water, checking for challenge markers of any sort. Nothing. Interesting. Ahead, Chip stood atop a tall platform decorated with the Endurance Island logo. Eight booths were lined up facing him, but from the contestant angle, we couldn’t see what was behind each booth, as they were covered with filmy white coverings that blocked the eye. Normally, everything was color coded and numbered to match up with our teams – Team Eleven always had purple markers, for example. Today, though, there was nothing to mark each of the items as ours. I began to have a funny prickle in my stomach, and suspected that Dean was right.

This was a switch-up of some sort.

Chip greeted the teams as we entered, and I could tell by the expressions on the faces of the others that they were equally wary of this unusual set-up. The host raised his hand. “I need all the men to go and stand in a row on the red mat off to the side.”

As a one, we all turned to look at the red mat. It was a long, single row off to the side with a bench behind it. That the men were moving over only gave me a bad feeling.

All around us, the other contestants were hugging their partners goodbye and separating. Dean turned and looked at me, and before he could say something or pretend to pick a fight, I reached out and gave him an awkward handsqueeze. For some reason, I really wanted to touch him before we got separated for good. He seemed a little surprised at my spontaneous gesture and did not hug me back, but looked as if he wanted to say something. The moment was broken too fast, though, and Dean moved away with the other male contestants, sitting in the midst of them like a king with his subjects.

“Ladies, if you’ll move toward one of the booths here, but do not remove the coverings until I instruct so.”

We moved forward, picking our way across the sand toward the covered booths. The camera-men zoomed in on the outskirts, hovering nearby to catch a glimpse of our faces at the big reveal. Chip seemed in his element, wearing a battered straw hat and beaming down at us, hands on his hips. “Today is a very important day for the ladies of Endurance Island,” he began, launching into his host spiel. “On day one, the men chose their partners in a schoolyard pick. Today, however, Day Fifteen is Sadie Hawkins day. The ladies will fight for first place and the right to choose their partners.”

Around me, the women clapped and showed enthusiasm, high-fiving each other. I crossed my arms over my chest and glanced down at Lana. At least I wasn’t alone in my lack of enthusiasm. Lana’s plans were ruined too, and she looked twice as annoyed as me.

“Today’s challenge involves...fire!” Chip moved forward and leaned off of his platform, yanking the covering off of the nearest booth, displaying it to us. The booth was set up with a wide table, wood stacked underneath a small painted stool. Tufts of tinder were stuck in a decorated box, and small sticks and bits of kindling in a second box. On the table itself were a small knife and a flint. Across the table was a rope, which seemed to be attached to a pulley system and a big flag in front of the booth itself.

Chip pointed at each of the items and began to explain the rules to us. “The object of this competition is to build your fire high enough and hot enough to burn through the cord. When the cord snaps, this will raise your flag. The first flag to raise will win the challenge, get first pick of partners and the special bonus envelope.” He held up a bright red square of paper in his hand. “The rest of the contestants will pick in the order that they finish. If you finish making your fire last, you pick last. Everyone understand?”