“Cozy,” I agreed, feeling a little ashamed.
“You’d better lay out so I can crawl over you, or I don’t think I’m going to be able to work my way in.”
I nodded and did so, sliding down over the palm leaves that made my bedding. My skin was still slightly oily from the latest batch of the lotion, and I actually slid surprisingly easy. “We’re all greased up, so it shouldn’t be a problem getting in,” I joked, then wished desperately that I could see his face in the darkness. But to make room for him, I turned on my side and faced the frame, trying to suck in and hold my body still enough that he could get in next to me.
It was… interesting, trying to squeeze another full-sized human being in my tiny, makeshift bed. I felt Dean’s big body, all arms and legs and hard chest, and it became painfully obvious that there wasn’t room for both of us to lie comfortably. His skin was touching mine no matter what he did, hot and slightly moist from the lotion. His was slick and slid against my back, his legs brushing up against my own as he twisted, trying to get comfortable.
After a moment, Dean swore, the sound close to my ear. “This isn’t working.”
I wanted to turn over in the shelter but I was afraid of conking him in the nose. “Why isn’t it working?” His body constantly touched mine here and there, and every time it did, Dean backed away again. I kept myself poker-stiff, trying not to flail about and make it worse in my efforts to help him.
“Because,” he began, shifting again. “I keep… touching you… no matter what I do. There’s not enough room for us to both be in here and not touch.” His breath exploded in a frustrated burst.
Oh, awkward. He didn’t want to touch me? “Look, I’m not going to freak out if you happen to touch me the entire night. I’ll feel a lot worse if I wake up and you’re covered in sand, all right?” I reached over and tapped his arm, trying to indicate that he should lie down. “Just pretend I’m your girlfriend and we can spoon,” I joked.
I needed to learn to shut my big mouth. No sooner did I say that, his hand slid over my waist, causing shockwaves to jitter through my body. His big body nestled next to mine, pulling me close in the most intimate embrace that I’d ever had. His legs were pressed to the backs of mine; his c*ck nestled hard against my ass, his chest plastered to my back. I almost complained, but it felt too nice to gripe. And the man radiated heat. I liked being snuggled up to him a bit too much.
“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 c*ck 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 h*ps 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 pitched a fit on the beach that sent cameramen 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 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 br**sts 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.