Playing Games (19 page)

"Well, you're definitely a different partner
than Brodie," I grumped, squatting next to the pieces with him. "He
wouldn't have asked for my opinion."

"I should hope I'm a very different partner
than Brodie," Liam said, and wiggled his eyebrows at me.

I blushed beet red. I was pretty sure the
camera caught it, too. "I think I’m going to save Abby and Dean.
They’ve worked with us. It’d be unfair for us to leave them out to
dry.”

Liam nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

~~ * * * ~~

We had the bottom half of our
wooden-horse-on-wheels constructed when a flood of cars suddenly
showed up in the parking lot. I snapped a board into place, then
grimaced as I watched the other four teams charge forward. "Looks
like everyone caught up," I told Liam.

He grunted, continuing to work on our
horse.

Abby and Dean trotted up to the challenge mat
next to ours and began to work on their horse. I glanced over at
her. "What happened?"

"Our cab driver was an idiot," she told me.
"He took us over an hour in the wrong direction and then tried to
charge us for it." She made a disgusted face and pushed her sweaty
curls off of her forehead. "Luckily, I pitched a fit and got us out
of it."

"The good news," Dean leaned in to tell me
with a grin, "was that apparently everyone else was following our
cab. Which is why we're all late except you two."

I glanced at the other teams. They all looked
pretty annoyed. Brodie's forehead was set in frustrated lines, and
I felt a twinge of pity for my brother. He wanted to win this race
so badly and they were not doing well at all. I squashed the pity,
though. Brodie wouldn't help me if the tables were turned.

"Hand me that piece?" Liam told me,
interrupting my guilty thoughts. I automatically handed it over to
him and began to work on our horse once more.

The arrival of the other teams spurred us on,
and a few short minutes later, we had used all of our wood and had
a rather rickety-looking horse completed. There was a handlebar on
each side for us to push on, and Liam and I pushed ours forward,
heading for the marked path.

It was like pushing a shopping cart that was
full of sand and held together by string. The thing creaked and
groaned as if it were dying with every bump, and the tail wobbled
like it was going to fall off. We pushed through the maze of walls
and ruins, grimly determined. To my relief, our Trojan Horse held
together and we crossed the finish line of the marked path.

The Greek soldier was there in his corny
costume, and gave us our disk with a flourish. We took it from him
with a nod, and quickly read the back.
Take a train to Nevsehir.
From there, take a bus or taxi to Cappadocia, Turkey. Make your way
to the Goreme Open Air Museum to receive your next
challenge.

"A train?" I asked, surprised. This was the
first train we’d been instructed to take.

"Maybe they want us all to bunch up together
again," Liam guessed. "Come on. Maybe if we hurry, we can catch an
earlier departure."

He put his hand out for me to take and I
clasped it, racing alongside him as we ran through the ruins and
back toward the parking lot, heading for the car. As we did, we
passed the others, still working on their horses. No one looked
close to done, though everyone stopped and looked at us as we ran
past, cameraman racing next to us.

"Hey, Katy!"

I turned, dropping Liam's hand at the sound
of my brother's voice.

Brodie was on the far side of the horse, and
he was frowning. He waved me over as if he wanted to talk to me. I
hesitated, looking back at Liam.

He'd stopped too, and was watching me.

"Brodie wants to say something to me," I told
my partner in a low voice.

Liam glanced at the cars, then back at me,
clearly impatient but trying to hide it. "He might be trying to
slow you down, or get information from you about the horse so he
can get ahead of the others."

That did sound like my brother. I looked over
at him again. "What is it?" I called back.

Brodie gave me an exasperated look and waved
me over again, not wanting to say whatever it was aloud. He was
definitely up to something.

I shook my head and gave him an apologetic
look, then grabbed Liam's hand again. We raced back toward the cars
and jumped back into ours. I pulled out the maps, studying for the
nearest train station. "We should probably head back into
Canakkale. The city's big enough that any train station would be
there."

"Gotcha," Liam said, easing the car back onto
the highway.

I glanced back out the rearview window.
Brodie was watching us leave, even as Tesla knelt on the ground,
piecing together the horse. My brother didn't look upset, just
thoughtful.

And I wondered what it was he'd been trying
to tell me.

~~ * * * ~~

The train to Nevsehir was a sleeper. I eyed
it skeptically, considering that we were the only ones in our small
compartment. Either we'd had some serious luck, or this was another
'tweak' by the race runners to give the couples on the race some
more alone time.

"Don't you find it suspicious that we keep
getting stuck alone together?" I asked him as we set our backpacks
down.

"Suspicious, yes. Unpleasant? Not in the
slightest." He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my mouth. "Besides,
you heard the lady at the train station. We could have taken a
fourteen hour bus ride. Let's just count our blessings."

He had a point. The lady at the train station
had tried to convince us (repeatedly) that we should have gone by
bus. It would be much faster, she told us. It would leave much
earlier than the train, which left at the end of the evening. But
the race had said train, so we took the train.

I eyed the tiny bunk beds in the sleeper car.
Perhaps I was too suspicious after all. Those didn't look exactly
big enough to get frisky on. "I suppose." I glanced down the
hallway of the train car as other passengers moved past. It was
late at night and I didn't see too many people around. If there was
anyone else on the race in this car, they weren't out and about.
"Do you think the others got on this same train?"

"Without a doubt," he told me. "I can't
imagine anyone spent hours building that horse."

I nodded. He had a point.

"Come on," Liam told me, shutting the door
and hanging a 'do not disturb' placard outside. He wiggled his
eyebrows at me suggestively. "You have to be tired."

"Are
you
tired?" I asked in a light
voice.

"Exhausted," he told me, his voice husky as
he sat down on the lower bunk and tugged me between his legs. "I
was just thinking we should lie down and relax."

I arched an eyebrow at him. "So I guess this
means I get the top bunk?"

"Bottom."

"And where are you sleeping?"

"Oh, were we talking about sleeping?" His
hand slid down to cup my ass. "I think, perhaps, we're talking
about two different things, my lovely pig-tailed Katy."

"Mmm." I ran my thumb along his lower lip,
then grazed it over his piercings. "Maybe you should be more
specific as to what you were thinking of."

"I was thinking," he said, flexing those
delicious fingers over my buttocks. "That maybe I'd climb into this
bed and you'd squeeze in next to me and we'd see what color condoms
we had in store for today."

I laughed softly at that, my fingers moving
to brush his shaggy hair out of his eyes. "That doesn't sound like
a bad idea to me."

"I think it's a fucking awesome idea,
personally," he said, and leaned in, pressing his face between the
valley of my breasts. "Because I haven't been able to get you out
of my mind all day."

Just like that, all the teasing in me
vanished, and every nerve ending flared to life. I sucked on a
breath, my fingers tightening on his scalp as he nuzzled between my
breasts, then kissed the curve of one through the fabric.

"Want to take this off?" Liam asked me,
tugging at the hem of my shirt.

Did I ever. I ripped it over my head,
exposing my belly and the ugly sports bra they'd given all the
contestants. I quickly dragged the bra over my head as well, my
torso bare.

Liam leaned in again, brushing his lips over
my breastbone and then kissing the now-naked curve of my breast. I
shivered, leaning against him, my eyes closed as I enjoyed the
sensations. His mouth nipped at my skin, a languid trail to the tip
of my breast.

I sucked in a breath when his mouth latched
on to my nipple and he rolled it against the piercing on his
tongue. A little moan escaped me as his hand slid to my other
breast, his fingers plucking and playing with my nipple as his
mouth worked the other in tandem. He felt so good against me, and I
could feel my pulse racing at his touch, desire centering between
my legs in response to his touch. "God, Liam, your mouth."

"And here I've always thought my fingers were
the talented ones," he murmured against my breast, then bit lightly
at one nipple even as he tweaked the other.

I whimpered, my knees going weak, and I
sagged against him, clinging to his broad shoulders.

"Such pretty breasts, Katy," he murmured. "So
small and perky, just like you."

"I don't know if you should be telling a girl
that her breasts are tiny," I told him, then sucked in another
breath when he nipped at the underside of my breast with his
teeth.

"I like their size," he told me. "A perfect
mouthful." And he slowly licked my breast, that piercing flashing
against my skin.

I moaned, pressing up against him. "I want to
lick you, too."

"But I'm enjoying licking you so much," he
protested, flicking his tongue over my aching, hard nipple. "You
wouldn't want to take that away from me, would you?"

"Never," I breathed, and my hand slid between
his legs, stroking his cock through his clothing. He was already
rock hard against my hand. "But I never got my turn to lick
this."

He groaned then, and his hand left my breast,
both of them moving to the waistband of my pants and tugging them
down my legs. "Want you naked, Katy. Naked and sprawled under me
right now."

Just the mental image of that drove me wild.
I shoved at my clothing too, pushing them to my ankles and kicking
them aside. I was naked then, and my hands tugged at his black race
t-shirt, wanting to feel his naked flesh against mine.

"Help me get changed." He jerked at his shirt
even as my hands went to the studded belt he wore.

I slid to my knees and tugged the buckle
apart, then undid his fly. His cock pushed out against my hands,
straining through his boxers, and I couldn't resist. I leaned down
and rubbed my mouth against him through the thin cotton fabric of
his underwear.

He jerked to a stop, groaning. "Ah, fuck,
Katy. You're distracting the hell out of me."

"Am I? Gosh, that's a shame." I leaned in and
grasped the waistband of both his jeans and his underwear, dragging
them down until his cock was freed. "You're really going to hate it
when I do this, then."

And I put my mouth on the head of his
cock.

Liam groaned like a man in pain, so loud that
it made me giggle, and I shushed him, wrapping my hands around his
thick, hot length. "If you don't keep quiet, I'm going to
stop."

He bit his lip, eyes closing, and leaned back
against the tiny bunk. His hand moved to my hair, but didn't push
me forward. Didn't do anything, just rested there.

But I was feeling heady with power and
arousal. I was making Liam lose control, and eating it up. I moved
in a little closer, until my bare breasts were pressing against his
thighs, my nipples scraping against his legs. This was a major
turn-on for me. I wrapped my fingers around his cock and ran my
mouth over the thick head of him, exploring him with my tongue.
Beads of pre-cum formed, and I licked them away as they appeared,
then took the head into my mouth and lightly sucked, feeling those
piercings with my tongue.

The breath hissed out of his throat, and his
hand clenched in my hair.

"Sensitive?" I asked in a sultry voice.

"You could say that." He sounded like he was
gritting his teeth.

I rolled my tongue over one of the piercings,
then the other, and then took him into my mouth again. I didn't
take him deep into my throat - I didn't know enough about how that
would work with his piercings - so I just licked him like a
lollipop, over and over again, with my clenched fist stroking his
hard length occasionally.

He groaned again, and he tugged at my hair,
trying to drag me away from his cock. "Katy," he panted, "You have
three seconds to get on that bed."

"Or what?" I purred, but I was so slick with
need that my flesh was rubbing back and forth when I pressed my
legs together, and I wanted him deep inside me. So I crawled onto
the bed and flipped over to my back, watching him.

He got up and opened his bag, and I watched
in fascination as he pulled out a condom - blue this time - and
rolled it carefully over his cock, adjusting it around his
piercing. And then he glanced over at me and gave me a wicked,
wicked look that made my entire body shiver with anticipation.

Liam pounced on me in the next second,
sliding between my thighs. I flexed them against him in
encouragement, but instead of sliding inside me, he got to his
knees and grasped one of my thighs, pushing it back until my foot
was in the air. Then, he pressed a kiss to the side of my foot and
placed it on his shoulder. The movement stretched me wide, and I
moaned with arousal, anticipation getting the better of me.

He ignored my needy sounds, placing his cock
at my entrance with slow, deliberate care. I tensed, waiting for
that delicious slide home, but it didn't come quite yet. Instead,
he held there. His hand moved to my sex and his thumb grazed
against my clitoris.