Playing Games (18 page)

In response to that, he poised his cock at my
entrance, and then pushed deep. And then held there.

I sucked in a breath, my eyes going wide as I
tried to process the sensation. Liam felt large inside me, thick
and delicious, but the thing that had made me breathless? The rub
of that piercing, even through the condom. That odd, strange stud
that had rubbed along my walls as he pushed his way in….and had
nearly driven me out of my mind.

"You okay?"

I nodded, clinging to his shoulders. "Do it
again?"

He pulled back, and then thrust slowly,
watching my face. Then, his hips began to make small rocking
motions, back and forth, inside me. Short, fluid little thrusts
designed to rub that piercing.

I moaned and wrapped my legs around him,
raising my hips with his movements. "Oh god, that's good. Oh,
god
."

He chuckled at my reaction and leaned in to
kiss me again, hips continuing to rock against my own short, jerky
movements. "It's called an apadravya."

I bit my lip to bite back the rather
animalistic groan rising in my throat Was apadravya a foreign word
for
drive you fucking mad with pleasure
? Because it was.
Every stroke of his cock inside me was just a little bit wilder
than I was used to, and that strange little piercing rubbing
against me was driving me wild. I dug my fingers into his back and
began to raise my hips harder, encouraging his strokes to become
rougher. "More."

Liam pulled back and thrust into me so hard
that the entire bed bounced.

I screamed. Oh damn,
yes
. I threw my
head back and gave myself over to the sensation, eyes closing.
There was nothing but Liam's body rocking over mine, his cock
thrusting deep inside me in rough, hard motions that I loved, and
that infernal piercing that I wanted to claw out of his body and
rub up against at exactly the same time.

"No," he said softly, and grabbed my hand.
"Look at me, Katy. I like it when you look at me." He pressed my
hand back over my head, pinning me to the bed and pinning me
against him.

Like I was going anywhere? Not when this felt
so incredible. I opened my eyes and watched him as he thrust into
me again, concentration and intensity in his dark eyes. It felt
incredibly intimate, feeling him thrust into me while I stared up
at him, his mouth hovering inches from my own.

And as he pressed my hand to the bed, his
fingers jerked in a strange motion, and I realized he was trying to
tap out a frantic beat on my hand. Our rhythm in the bed had
inspired him, maybe. Or maybe he could never get away from the
music, but the intensity in his eyes was making me lose what little
control I had.

I felt the tension rising in my calves, and
gave a loud whimper as I felt my body start to lock up with
pleasure. The next orgasm was cresting fast, and I didn't want this
to be over. I clenched my internal muscles around him, trying to
fight the sensation, to extend this crazy pleasure just a bit
longer.

He bit out a curse and slammed into me,
harder, as if surprised by my response.

And then I lost any hope of control. I cried
his name out again, and my release flooded through me like a tidal
wave.

Liam thrust into me again, hard, and those
fingers pressed down as if in an intense cord, his face tightening,
eyes closing, and I realized he was coming, too. I watched him as
he did, awed by the expression on his face. For a moment there, it
almost looked like it had when he'd been doing the guitar solo in
the video.

And I couldn't help it - I giggled at that
thought.

His eyes flew open, and a sated half-grin
curved his mouth. "What?" he panted.

I ran my hand down his sweaty chest, still
feeling the aftershocks of our lovemaking even as he relaxed
against me. "I was just thinking that your o-face looks the same as
your guitar solo face."

Liam snorted and rolled to the side of me,
pulling off the condom. He tossed it into the nearby garbage and
then cleaned off with a towel he'd brought, then dragged me against
him. "Anyone ever tell you that you need to quit laughing at a guy
when he's coming inside you?"

"Nope," I said smugly, and then teased him.
"Usually they're thinking, 'holy shit, Katy, that was
amazing.'"

"It was," he said, and kissed my
shoulder.

And really, how could I refute such a sweet
thing? I curled up against him, enjoying the feel of his naked
flesh against mine. God, he felt good against me.

He pressed another kiss to my neck. "You got
quiet. Thinking about the race?"

"I haven't thought about the race in at least
a half an hour," I told him lazily. "Though I guess we should be
spending this time planning."

"I've got a plan," Liam said, pressing his
mouth to the soft skin on my arm. "I figure we have at least one
more round we can squeeze in, as long as you let me get my stamina
back. Then, we shower. Then, we sleep for a few hours before
returning to the starting line. And that's about as far as my plan
goes."

As plans went, it was an excellent one. "I
like the way you think." I ran my hand along his arm. "Plus, this
gives me the chance to see how you look in pink."

"I aim to please."

CHAPTER EIGHT

"What did Katy and I do last night? None
of your business. Turn off that camera."
— Liam Brogan, Turkey
Leg of
The World Races

We had to leave for the finish line in the
middle of the night. It sucked, but my internal clock was so
incredibly messed up from bouncing around Europe that I probably
would have been tired no matter what time we left. Holding Liam's
hand and sneaking kisses when we thought the cameras weren't
looking, though? Kinda helped my mood and I didn't mind that it was
two in the morning, local time.

We'd stopped to snag cups of coffee and
headed back out to the dock at Alexandria, where the starting mat
was. It overlooked the harbor, and I stared down at it, feeling the
air ruffle my hair as we waited for the clock to tick down to our
start time. "Who do you suppose got booted?" I asked Liam.

He thought for a moment. "Joel and Derron, I
think. They were big guys and I'm betting one of them had trouble
with the pyramids, too. Those were some cramped spaces."

I shuddered at the memory.

"Two seventeen am," an assistant announced,
and tapped a watch. On cue, our cameraman hovered, light shining in
our faces. A local came forward, camel reins in one hand (nice
touch there,
World Games
) and our disk in his other.

"Thank you," I murmured to him and took the
disk with a small smile. As was our usual, I turned it over and
Liam read over my shoulder. "Make your way to Canakkale, Turkey.
There, look for the marked car lot at…." I wrinkled my nose at the
unpronounceable street name, and then skipped it. "You will find
five marked vehicles and your next destination. You have one
hundred and ninety-eight dollars for this leg of your journey." I
looked up at Liam. "Is it just me, or are they giving us a lot of
money?"

"How so?" He took the disk from me and pulled
off his backpack to slip it in.

I thought back to the prior seasons I’d
watched, frowning. "I don't know. I just seem to recall that on a
lot of the shows, no one ever got much money for each leg of the
journey."

"Maybe we're going to expensive places," Liam
suggested.

Or maybe they want us to keep getting
hotel rooms
, I thought, but didn't say it aloud. That was just
Cranky Katy being cynical all over again, no doubt. I'd keep my
suspicions to myself.

Plus, I liked getting a hotel room with Liam.
It was kind of a win-win as far as I was concerned. I just hoped my
parents didn't watch our season of The World Races. Ugh. I tried
not to think about that. The last thing I wanted was my parents to
see me hook up with a rock star while in a game.

~~ * * * ~~

Once we arrived at the marked car lot, I
counted the marked cars that were left. All five. "We're still in
the lead," I told Liam. "But we shouldn't be." All five teams that
were left had been on the same flight, though separated into
different parts of the plane. Liam and I had snagged two seats in
the very front, while Brodie and Tesla had been in the back of the
plane. Too bad for them. The Olympians - Summer and Polly - and
Joel and Derron sat together on one row. They put their heads
together and I knew they were plotting on how to overtake the lead.
It worried me a little…until Dean and Abby got the seats behind us.
Seeing them made me feel better, and we'd planned on following each
other out to the next destination so we could tackle our tasks
together.

But at the airport? We'd gotten separated
when our cab driver had stopped for gas and we'd had no way to flag
down Dean and Abby and let them know. They'd zoomed on past while
we'd waited at the gas station, and I'd felt first place slip away.
Liam hadn't been concerned, though. He'd only squeezed my hand and
then pulled me in for a long kiss while our driver went in to
pay.

And I found I couldn't be all that concerned
about last place, either.

Still, it was weird to get to the car lot and
realize we were the first ones there. Had everyone else gotten
lost? We paid our taxi and picked out our car, settling in even as
the cameraman sat in the passenger seat to film us. Liam sat in the
front seat and I slid into the back, picking up the packet of
paperwork back there.

It was the next clue. I tore open the paper
seal attached to the map and began to read. "Make your way to the
village of Hisarlik, just outside of Tevfikiye. This is the site of
the ruins of the ancient Homeric city of Troy. There, you will meet
a Greek soldier at The World Races flag who will give you your next
clue."

"Off we go, then," Liam said, and our little
car sped out of the parking lot.

~~ * * * ~~

The ruins were not all that difficult to
find, or that impressive. I guess I'd been expecting some sort of
massive city, but it was really just a bunch of half dug-out hills,
tumbled stones, and areas that had been roped off that we weren't
allowed to see. Nothing at all like Pompeii, and since we’d just
come from there, they paled in comparison.

There was an enormous fake Trojan horse at
the entrance of the ruins, though, and sure enough, the flag and
The World Races station was there. Liam parked the car and we
bounded out, racing for the flag.

Our next disk was handed to us. A team task,
and one that didn't surprise me, given the five stations and blocks
of colored wood set aside. Our team task was to build a duplicate
of the Trojan Horse. Once we had our wheeled contraption built to
the specifications of the Greek soldier supervising the task, we
had to push it across the ruins on the marked path. Once we'd
arrived at the end of the path, we'd receive our next disk and
clue.

We set to work, heading for the pile of wood
that had been colored black to match our team shade. As we did, I
glanced around at the four other piles that still had no one
working on them. "Liam," I said quietly. "While we're the only ones
here, should we talk about the Ace?"

He picked up one of the four wheels on our
mat of pieces and examined it, glancing over at me. "What about the
Ace?"

"There are only three more eliminations," I
told him. "Should we make a team decision on who we want to use it
on?"

He gave me a serious look. "Katy," he
murmured, moving closer so no one could overhear us. Not that it
mattered. We were wired and mic'd for sound. Had been the entire
trip. "The only team I think worth saving that would help us out is
Abby and Dean. But…"

"But," I agreed. There was that whole 'Tesla
and Brodie' thing. "So basically we can either play the Ace to be
nice and save Brodie and Tesla if we need to, save Abby and Dean to
try and propel ourselves ahead, or be dicks to everyone and not use
it at all."

"Heh. That about sums it up."

I considered, then sighed. "Abby promised me
that if she got an Ace, she'd use it to save us."

"Did you promise the same thing back?"

"No. It didn't come up in conversation. But
I'd feel bad if we had an opportunity to save them and we
didn't."

"Well," Liam told me, handing me the wheel
and then picking up another, considering it. "The way I look at it,
someone's feelings are going to get hurt. We can use it to push
ourselves ahead in the game, or we can use it to salvage
relationships outside of the game."

"And what if the Ace means another split?" I
hated the thought of it.

"It won't."

I shielded my eyes from the sun and squinted
up at my partner. "How do you know that?"

"Because splitting us up made good TV." He
leaned in and gave me a firm kiss on the mouth, ignoring the fact
that the cameraman hovered merely feet away. "Splitting us up again
robs them of a lot of romantic scenes. Tesla and Brodie, too. They
won't part us."

I blushed and handed him the wheel back. "So
what do we do?"

"Whatever you want to do," Liam told me, his
expression serious. "I'm leaving it up to you."

"Up to me?" I hated the squeaky note in my
voice. "Why me?"

He squatted by the pieces, sorting through
the jumble, the wheel still in his hand. I knew we should have been
working on the task, but I wanted to get this squared away.

"It's up to you," Liam told me, picking up a
painted dowel rod and comparing it to the hole in the center of the
wheel he was holding, then discarding it. "Because it won't bother
me either way. Dean's a good friend, but he won't hold a grudge if
we don't save them. But I know you and Abby are close. As for
Tesla?" He glanced up at me and grinned. "I don't care if she's mad
at me after the race, but Brodie's your brother. You gotta do
whatever you gotta do. The Ace is your choice."