Body Games (A Games Novel) (24 page)

“Don’t worry. You can have a shower before we go to bed.” His eyes grew dark as he adjusted the collar of my bathrobe, sliding it shut where it gaped. “Together.”

Jiminy cricket. I crossed my legs so my sex would stop throbbing, and just stared at his mouth. God, he had a pretty mouth. All smiling and wonderful with beautiful teeth—

Jendan leaned in. “The faster you eat, the faster we can get to bed.”

I shoveled more ice cream into my mouth.

~~ *** ~~

It turned out that we didn’t get to bed anytime soon after that. The cast party went on for hours, and when someone decided they wanted late night fajitas, both Alys and I wolfed down every serving they put in front of us. We were starving, and everyone was content to sit by and let us eat while they picked at all the delicious food laid out for the cast and crew. Jendan nursed a beer or two and kept a hand at the waist of my bathrobe, letting everyone know I was taken.

God, it was a great feeling.

My eyelids began to close as exhaustion set in, and I nodded off once or twice mid-conversation, only to jerk awake again a moment later. Jendan retrieved me from face-planting into someone’s plate a moment later. “Annabelle’s tired. She needs to head to bed.”

We said our goodbyes, though it was mostly a blur to me. I struggled to stay awake, pinching my arms and widening my eyes to try and wake my body up. I couldn’t be tired. This was my last night on the island. I wanted to spend it talking to Jendan and then seeing if he was interested in kissing me more.

And then maybe doing more than kissing.

But I couldn’t stop yawning. By the time Jendan steered me to my room, I was too sleepy to appreciate the fact that my bag of clothing was in one corner. “A bed,” I said between yawns. “Look at that. A big fluffy bed.”

“I hear they have one of those in every room,” he teased.

“Oh God, a
bed
. I can’t wait to climb into it,” I said, running a hand across the crisp white duvet.

Jendan tugged me away from it. “You should shower first. You don’t want to get it all dirty.”

“Oh, that’s right.” I sniffed my arm. Couldn’t smell anything. After so many days of living in my own stink, I could no longer sense it. But judging from other people’s reactions, I was pretty sure I reeked. Okay, shower first. I stripped off my robe and tossed it to the floor, heading into the bathroom…and then paused. Should I have been concerned about stripping down in front of Jendan? I hadn’t given it a second thought. I’d been naked in the game for the last six weeks.

But…we weren’t in the game any longer.

My skin prickled but I ignored it, heading directly for the shower. Maybe Jendan wouldn’t even stick around. I saw a teeny tiny bar of soap on the counter and grabbed it, unwrapping the paper and giving it a sniff. Oh wow, even soap smelled good. “Mmm.”

As I sniffed the soap, Jendan entered the bathroom behind me and leaned against the wall, arms crossed. Was he…going to watch me shower? “So where’s your room at, Jendan? I—oh God, is that shampoo? And toothpaste? This is heaven, isn’t it?” I clutched the bathing products to my chest with glee.

He laughed, watching me race around the room. “I’m a few doors down. I thought we could hang out for a bit, though, if that’s okay with you?” His gray gaze followed me as I went around, grabbing toiletries.

“Of course,” I said, glad he probably couldn’t see my blush under my grime. Neither one of us seemed ready to lay it out in the open.

“Great. I’ll just wait out here while you clean up, then.” He slid out of the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

Well, that made things slightly less awkward. I turned on the water and gave my reflection a quick glance…and then stopped in horror.

Lord have mercy, I looked awful. My face was a nice shade of brown, but bug bites and scratches covered almost every inch of my arms and legs. My hair looked like dirty straw, my eyebrows like caterpillars. My body was skinny, my boobs deflated, and my butt was non-existent. My fingernails had half-moons of grime under them. I gave a small moan of horror, leaning in close to look at my pores in the mirror. Clogged. Gross.

I looked like I’d been sleeping under a bridge. Why on earth had I thought Jendan would find this sexy? No wonder he was rushing me to the shower. I climbed in under the hot water and immediately began frantically scrubbing.

A half hour later, my hair was deep-conditioned and repeatedly shampooed, my nails were as clean as I could make them, and I’d shaved, soaped, and scrubbed every inch of my body. There was a killer ring at the bottom of the tub, but when I got out, I felt so much better.

Human, even.

Toweling my hair dry, I slathered on some lotion before wrapping a towel around my body. Next, teeth. I think I brushed them for a good twenty minutes before I decided to call it a day. They just felt so clean and delicious. That done, I stepped out into my room, and found Jendan stretched out on one side of my bed, remote in hand as he watched TV.

“Anything good on?” I teased, pulling out my bag and grabbing an old t-shirt and a pair of panties to sleep in.

“Nothing, actually,” he said with a smile at me. “The TVs aren’t hooked up to a satellite so we can’t see the news. All we have are DVDs. Old ones, at that.”

I eyed the TV. “Is that…”

“
Ernest Goes to Camp
? Yeah. Don’t ask. It was either this or
Leprechaun II
.”

I laughed, grabbing my clothes and heading back to the bathroom to dress. I don’t know why I felt weird about it, but I did. We were in that bizarre neutral zone where we weren’t quite friends, but weren’t quite anything else, either.

I quickly dressed and returned to my room, dragging my damp hair over my shoulder. It smelled so fresh and clean that I couldn’t help but touch it. Ditto my teeth. I ran my tongue along their surface again. “I don’t know how you kissed me earlier. I was gross.”

He tilted his head, watching me from my bed. “You’re never gross.” Jendan patted the side of the bed. “Want to join me?”

“Sure,” I said, feeling nervous. This was just Jendan. There was no reason to feel skittish. I climbed into the bed and snuggled up against him, like we had in our shelter so many times. It felt weird to have all the clothing separating us, and I remembered all the sessions of skin to skin, limbs wrapped around each other.

He tugged me closer, and my cheek rested against his pectoral. His scent enveloped me - soap and clean aftershave, and underneath that, the faint smell that was uniquely Jendan. He always smelled good to me, but tonight, he smelled heavenly. I buried my face against his shirt. “You smell incredible.”

“That would be deodorant,” he chuckled. “I hear it’s all the rage.”

“Mmm.” I sniffed again, and then closed my eyes, cuddling close. It was so nice to just lay in a soft bed here with him and not feel sand grit between my toes. “Can we just lie here for a minute and appreciate the finer things in life, like a real bed and air conditioning?”

“We can do that for as long as you like,” he said softly, tone amused. “I’m still in awe of food. Real food that’s not coconut.” His fingers played with a lock of my hair. “And water I can drink that hasn’t been boiled first.”

I stretched a hand over his stomach. He was so warm, my own personal furnace. The sleepiness I’d been fighting returned full-force. “You know what’s nice? A bed that isn’t infested with hermit crabs and sand fleas.”

“And I promise nothing at all will rain on you here,” he said, fingers tracing along my cheek. “You’re safe and sound.”

Safe with him. That was exactly how I felt. Like I could suddenly relax after six weeks of tension and scheming. My fingers curled in the soft, clean fabric of his t-shirt. “I like being safe with you,” I murmured sleepily. “You make me feel good.”

“The feeling’s mutual.” His fingers continued to skim and caress my cheekbones, the soft touch soothing me.

I really needed to wake up. This was my last night in Fiji, and Jendan was here and didn’t hate me. We were both clean, and I was pretty sure there were plenty of condoms in the bathroom. And I’d spent six weeks longing for this man.

But, warm and clean after six long weeks, my stomach full of something besides coconut, I couldn’t help it.

I fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Any regrets? I’m not the kind of guy to focus on regret. Things play out how they’re meant to.” — Jendan Abercrombie, Juror Number 2, Endurance Island: Power Players

God, I’d slept so well.

I stretched an arm over my head, my eyes still firmly closed. Sunlight was streaming in through a nearby window, and I was so deliciously comfortable that I didn’t want to wake up and ruin the cocoon of bliss I was currently ensconced in. There was no need to wake up anytime soon. The game was over, after all. I rubbed my foot along the strong leg wedged between my own and burrowed deeper against the warm body. There’d be plenty of time in the morning to find Jendan…

Morning…

Sunlight…

Something tickled my mind as ‘not right’ and I cracked an eye open. There, sprawled against me on top of the blankets, was Jendan, fast asleep. My cheek was pressed to his chest, and there was a patch of drool where I’d been sleeping. My legs were tangled with his, and my hair was all over his chest. Bright early morning sunlight streamed in through the plantation blinds.

I gasped and sat upright. “Oh my God. What time is it?”

Jendan shook himself awake and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, blinking up at me. “Good morning to you, too.”

“We slept through the night?” I asked, dismayed. Here I’d had all kinds of plans for a sexy reunion and the moment I’d cuddled up to Jendan, I’d conked out.

“Yeah,” he said with a yawn. “You must have been exhausted.”

“But what about us? What about you and me?” I wiped my wet chin and then scrubbed at the wet mark I’d left on his shirt.
Not sexy, Annabelle. Not sexy!

“What about us?” He was smiling up at me in a soft, sleepy way that made my heart do silly little flips.

“We missed out on
us
time.” God, I felt like crying. “My plane leaves today.”

“So does mine.”

“That doesn’t leave us much time together. I wanted to spend all night with you.”

“You did.” He grabbed me by the waist. With neat, effortless precision, he rolled until our bodies flipped. Then, we were on the bed, but our positions were reversed. He was looming over me and I was under him. Jendan grinned down at my expression. “I seem to recall someone dragging her cold feet against mine over and over again.”

“Yes, but…I didn’t want to
sleep
the entire time.” To my dismay, I felt tears pricking at my eyes. “I wanted us to spend it, you know,
together
. Seeing what it means to be us now that we’re no longer in the game.”

“I think it’s too early to predict how we’ll be post game. It’s barely been twelve hours since you left.” His mouth crooked slightly, in that way I loved. “Maybe you slow down a little and give yourself more time?”

“That’s just it. We don’t have more time.” My fingers slid along the rumpled collar of his shirt. He’d slept in his clothes right next to me all night. Funny how that made me feel all aroused and pleased at the same time. “They’re sending us home today.”

“And then what? We never see each other again? Is that what you’re thinking?”

I bit my lip. It was what had happened last time. Once I’d boarded my flight, the game was over, and so was that relationship. But Jendan wasn’t Kip.

He gave me another one of those heart-tugging grins. “You not going to call me when you get home?”

“Of course I will.”

“And there’s always the finale.”

Six months from now, yes. I made a face. “I’m trying not to think about the finale, or else I’ll worry about whose vote I got and whose I didn’t. Let’s concentrate on me and you right now.”

“Fair enough.” He leaned in and brushed his lips against mine. The weight of his body pressed mine into the mattress in a rather glorious feeling. “You’re here. I’m here. We have hours and hours before our planes leave.” His tongue slicked against my upper lip, tracing it.

I sucked in a breath, all my frantic thoughts immediately turning to desire.

He nibbled on my upper lip. “And…”

“Mmm?” My mind was already distracted, lost in kisses and the knee he pressed between my thighs.

Jendan’s lips grazed mine again. “Your morning breath is atrocious.”

I gave an outraged squeal and pulled away, smacking his shoulder. There was a mischievous look on his face that he couldn’t hide, and I giggled. “If it’s so awful, quit kissing me!”

“I’m not going to stop kissing you until it’s time to go to the airport,” he told me with a grin, brushing his lips over my nose. “Just maybe not your mouth.”

I snorted and pushed at his chest. “Let me up and I’ll brush my teeth, Prince Charming.”

We got up from the bed and brushed our teeth together, laughing and teasing each other. Jendan flicked water on me as I brushed, and then we both flossed - he was a flosser, yay! Just another thing I liked about him. When my teeth were clean, I pointed at my mouth. “Would you like to inspect the goods?”