Playing Games (10 page)

The teacher showed us the moves, and I caught
a few of the other dancers tittering as we clumsily tried each
step. Still, after several minutes, we had figured out the basic
steps and the order they went in. I wasn't the best with rhythm,
but I was good at memorizing. I stole a few peeks at Hal and
Stefan. Surely we had to be better than them. The dancers were
giggling at the other team’s attempts to practice non-stop. We
could do this.

Just then, Liam put his hands on my
waist.

I shrieked and squirmed out of his grasp,
much to the surprise of my partner, and the dismay of the
teacher.

"What are you doing?" The teacher looked as
if I'd just insulted her.

"Ticklish," I gasped, putting my hands on my
sides.

Liam chuckled and wiggled his fingers at me.
"Can you hold it in for this challenge?"

"I'll try." I exhaled, trying to compose
myself, and then assumed the dance position I'd been shown.

When his hands went on my waist again, I
laughed once more, but held, my lips twitching. I could do this. I
could. I—

Liam's fingers brushed over my sides in what
had to be a deliberate tickle.

I squealed and darted away again.

The dancer rolled her eyes, but Liam actually
laughed. Laughed aloud. Like I'd just done the funniest thing ever.
And that warm, hearty laugh? Made my insides go all gooey with
warmth. Liam had an aloof sort of attractiveness to him normally,
but when he laughed? I quivered. All over.

It was going to be really hard to concentrate
now.

"He's going to have to put his hands on you,"
the dancer said in a displeased voice. "You need to
concentrate."

I nodded and forced myself to loosen up,
giving Liam a mock-warning look. This time, when he put his hands
on my waist, I felt his thumbs caress my sides, as if he couldn't
help but give me little additional touches.

And instead of getting ticklish, I was
instantly aroused.

Oh, damn. I blinked rapidly, forcing myself
to pay attention to the dance moves and the cameraman that hovered
nearby, taping everything. I could feel my nipples getting hard and
prayed they weren't sticking out against my leotard enough that the
camera would catch it. Our ballet dancer made us go over the waist
move, over and over again, until we could do it without me breaking
down in a fit of giggles or getting all flustered.

This challenge was taking a long time, but I
didn't care. We were making good TV like Liam had said…and he was
touching me. And I couldn't quite bring myself to suggest that we
go and screw some light bulbs instead.

"Now to practice the lift," the dancer
informed us. "The female partner must get into the modified
arabesque
I showed you."

I grimaced and raised my arm into the air,
raising my leg as high as I could. I ignored the amused snorts of
the other ballet dancers, knowing my form was terrible.

"Now," the teacher said. "The man should
place his hand on her thigh to begin the lift."

I felt Liam's hand curve along the inside of
my thigh, and I jerked in surprise at how his fingers had felt,
skimming along my flesh. A hot pulse of desire raced through me,
and I felt my face flush.

"Keep form," the dancer snapped.

"Sorry." I pressed my lips together and
lifted my leg in the air again, wobbly.

"Ready?" Liam asked. At my nod, his hands
slid to the inside of my thighs again and I shuddered, feeling the
heat rock through me again. Okay, I shouldn't have been turned on
during a challenge, but I was.

Because Liam's hands were strong, and they
were between my thighs. How could I not get all hot and bothered
from that?

"Keep your body stiff," the dancer snapped at
me as Liam lifted me with a little grunt, about a foot into the
air, and then dropped me back down again. Our goal was to have him
lift me from his right side and move me to his left in an extended
hop while I held my form. Judging from the ballet dancer's
near-sneer, it wasn't a real move at all, but we'd probably pull
something if we tried a real
pas de deux
. Heck, we weren't
exactly good with this one.

She made us practice the lift. Over and over,
I'd hold form as Liam's hands slid against my inner thighs. And I
quivered each time.

"Close enough," our teacher told us. "You can
perform once the stage is free."

~~ * * * ~~

It took us three tries to get through the
dance. On the first try, the ballerina judging us stopped me
halfway through and informed me that my posture was horrendous. We
had to go to the back of the stage and wait as Hal and Stefan
attempted to dance their routine again. They were stopped by the
ballerina as soon as the music started, since Stefan's timing was
off.

On our second try, Liam flubbed the lift and
I didn't help by giggling when he touched me.

The third time, though? We nailed it. As we
finished the Coda, we held our positions, waiting for the
ballerina's verdict. She scrutinized us, then gave a sharp nod and
held out the disk for our clue.

I gave a happy cry of delight, and turned and
leapt into Liam's arms. He grabbed me and twirled me around, and my
legs automatically went around his waist as I clung to him,
cheering. When we slowed, I was reminded of the fact that we were
both wearing skimpy ballet leotards that allowed you to feel every
curve of your partner's body, and he was wearing a belt that gave
him a massive bulge.

A bulge that I slid down as my feet landed on
the floor.

We stared at each other for an electric
moment longer, and then Liam recovered his senses and took the disk
the ballerina held out to us.

Everyone stared and waited for us to leave
the stage, so I grabbed Liam's hand and dragged him off to the
side. "Come on. Let's go."

He gave himself a little mental shake. "We
need to change clothes and get out of here."

"We could stay in the ballet clothes," I told
him thoughtfully. "Buy ourselves a few minutes and just head
straight to the next task."

"Hell no," Liam told me, and grabbed his
bulge.

I laughed at that. “Point taken.”

He held the clue disk out, flipped it over,
and then smiled at me.

Damn, that smile. I gave myself a little
shake, then started to read the instructions in a low whisper.

Time to concentrate on the game once
more.

~~ * * * ~~

As we left the Palais Garnier behind, we
passed by two teams working on the chandeliers, and had left Hal
and Stefan still at the dance challenge. That meant we had a decent
lead on the others, though we were pretty sure we weren’t in first
place.

The disk instructed us to head to a French
patisserie, and we ran into Abby and Dean there. Liam and Abby
decided to take the first challenge, since it involved bicycling
through the streets of France. Unless I had a map? I was bad with
directions, so we’d elected to have Liam participate for our
team.

He and Abby worked together to deliver
baskets of fresh baguettes to six different locations in Paris
while on bicycles. Dean and I sat at the corner of the bakery and
split a hot, fresh loaf of bread ourselves, speculating as to what
the next challenge would be. We agreed to run it together, since we
knew we were ahead of at least three other teams.

The next challenge sent us into
l'Ossuaire
Municipal
- the French catacombs. We headed down the dank steps
into the shadowy cavern, and a chill raced through me. Inside, the
walls were covered with hundreds of years of graffiti, and some of
the rooms seemed to be nothing but skulls.

Our task was to find
the hidden message that would give us our next clue. Dean took one
portion of a wall while I took the next, and we worked our way
through wall after wall, looking for a message.

My heart nearly stopped when I saw along the
bottom of one wall, written in English, "
Make your way to the
Italian ruin of Pompeii at the base of Vesuvius and look for the
Games flag
."

Yes! Hiding my excitement, I quickly read the
phrase over again, memorizing it so I could repeat it back.

Summer from the Olympian team moved to my
side, scanning the wall. "Find anything yet?"

I blinked in the low light, considered, and
then shook my head. "Nope." I headed further down the wall and
pretended to keep scanning. I sucked in a breath when Summer
crouched at the base of the wall I was standing in front of, gave
it a cursory look, then sighed and flounced over to a row of lined
up skulls, peering at them as if they'd have the clue.

She hadn't seen the phrase.

Biting my lip, I pretended to keep looking,
and moved closer to Dean. I tapped him on the shoulder when I
passed by and gave him a meaningful look. When Summer headed
further into the tunnels, I leaned over to Dean. "I found it."

"Really?" His eyes widened and he jerked
around. "Where?"

"Base of the wall nearby," I whispered. I
gestured at it furtively, making sure that Summer didn’t see my
hand motions. "We need to fly to Pompeii."

Dean left my side and pretended to continue
searching the wall, knelt, read the clue, and then wandered away,
still pretending to look for the answer. He circled back to me a
moment later, an excited look on his face. "That’s it," he
breathed, grinning. "Flying straight through to the next leg
without a rest? Damn."

“I know. We need to tell the others.”

He leaned past me and gazed to where Summer
was. "She find it yet?"

I shook my head. "She'll suspect something's
up if we leave together, though."

"I'll leave," he told me. "After a few
minutes, come up and we'll all head to the airport together."

I nodded and pretended to examine the wall
he'd been staring at while he sneaked out. Slowly, I counted to
sixty as Summer moved past again, then shook her head and headed
further into the long, dark tunnels.

I pretended to keep searching the walls until
she disappeared down a tunnel curve and was no longer in sight. As
soon as she was gone, I raced up the stairs and headed back out to
where Liam was waiting. Abby and Dean were still there, practically
bouncing with excitement.

"So should we head straight to the airport?
Or do you think there’s another part of the clue that we missed?
That almost seems too easy," Dean commented, shrugging on his
backpack.

"I didn’t see anything else on the wall," I
told him, then glanced at Liam. "I guess we'll know for sure if we
head to the airport and the other teams are there."

"Good point," Liam told me. He leaned and
whispered so only I could hear him. "And good eyes."

"Thanks," I said as he handed me my backpack,
and wondered why that small bit of praise made me so freaking
flustered. It wasn't like he'd told me that I looked hot, or he'd
been as aroused as I'd been when he'd grabbed my inner thighs.

He'd simply told me I had good eyes. Good
lord, I needed to get over this crush I was forming.

~~ * * * ~~

When we arrived at the airport, we purchased
tickets to Naples, the closest airport to Pompeii, and I purchased
a travel guidebook. There was a three-hour wait on the flight,
which meant the other teams might have time to catch up to us.

Sure enough, we arrived at our gate, and
there was Joel and Derron, the war heroes, and Brodie and Tesla.
Brodie and Tesla were cuddled by the gate, wrapped around each
other like they'd been a couple for years. As I watched, my brother
leaned over and gave Tesla a long, tongue-filled kiss.

Ew.

I shot a look at my partner, and he was eying
Tesla and Brodie with the same mixture of disbelief and disgust.
Abby and Dean went to go find something to eat, and Liam and I
found a quiet corner of the terminal and sat down with our travel
guide. There were plenty of chairs, but I wanted to stretch out my
legs, and I was getting used to sprawling on the airport floor to
get comfortable, so I sat down against a nearby wall and stretched
my legs out in front of me. Liam sat next to me on the ground, his
shoulder pressing against mine.

"They're kind of ridiculous, aren't they?" I
told him, and nodded at Tesla and Brodie, who were still making out
and hadn't acknowledged our presence.

"That's Tesla for you," Liam said, his voice
wry. He glanced at me. "I can't believe you thought I was with
her."

I shrugged, and thought of his hands on my
inner thighs again, then shivered.

"Cold?" He looped an arm over my shoulder and
pulled me close.

I'd been about to protest that I wasn't all
that cold, but his arm against me felt really, really good.
Comforting. Warm. Heavy and delicious. So I snuggled a bit closer
and pulled out the travel guide so we could review it while we
waited for the flight.

And put it away again when a cameraman was
suddenly in our faces. "Katy, why don't you tell us what place you
think you're at right now?"

I mentally groaned. We were sometimes
dive-bombed by the cameramen who wanted us to do insta-interviews.
The more footage they had, the more they could create a compelling
story, I supposed. And an insta-interview usually meant that you
had to get away from your partner and go quietly speak one-on-one
with the camera. I'd never had one shove into my face and start
interviewing me like this. Maybe it was because I was cuddled
against Liam.

Good TV and all.

Damn, Liam was really good at this pretending
stuff. Might as well make good TV myself. I put my hand on Liam's
thigh and glanced at him, appearing to consider things. My nails
scratched at his leg through his jeans, idly rubbing. "Well, there
are three other teams here besides us, so we're definitely in the
middle of the pack. I think that's a good thing." I squinted up at
the camera. "Though I wouldn't mind if the other teams missed the
flight. It sounds mean to say that, but I have to keep reminding
myself that this is a race."