Playing Games (22 page)

That left one more couple an hour after them.
No one was going to be six hours late.

We were totally eliminated.

~~ * * * ~~

I lay on the grass, Liam's head resting on my
stomach, as we waited for time to pass. Idly, I toyed with his hair
and we stared up at the brilliantly blue skies of Cappadocia,
watching the occasional balloon float past.

"This place is really pretty," I said
softly.

"Mmm." Liam's eyes were closed, and I
couldn't tell what he was thinking. We'd been more or less silent
for the past few hours, simply waiting. Abby and Dean had come and
gone, Summer and Polly had come and gone. There was one more team -
Joel and Derron - and we hadn't seen them anywhere, which made my
stomach jumble into knots as the hours passed.

Liam had put his clothing back on over his
oily chest, and his black shirt stuck to his skin, but there was no
place to go to wash the oil off. We had to sit at the location and
wait for our penalty to be over. It didn't matter anyhow, I told
myself. We'd be heading to the loser lodge shortly and would have
all the time in the world to shower.

We'd been here for hours on end. I didn't
know how much time had passed - the race didn't allow us phones and
neither Liam nor I had a watch set to the correct time since we
jumped time zones so often. Someone would just tell us when our
penalty was over, so we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Which was why I was so surprised when I heard
the sound of running feet. I turned idly and glanced down the path
that had led to the challenge.

Joel and Derron had arrived.

I sat up, knocking Liam's head from my
stomach, and he rolled away, surprised. We both stared at them as
Joel moved forward to do the challenge and Derron came to sit next
to us.

"I'm surprised to see you guys," he said,
beaming at us. He looked thrilled. Of course he was. We were still
at a challenge, hours after it should have been done. "What
happened?"

"Six hour penalty for brawling," Liam said,
glancing up at him.

"Brawling?" Derron's eyes widened and then he
grinned. "Don't tell me. Brodie?"

"How'd you guess?" Liam asked, even as I
stiffened in my seat on the grass.

"He and Tesla have been planning on trying to
break your game for a while," Derron said. "Told me all about it
last flight because we sat near them. Said you're too zen, so he
was trying to get under your skin. Figured if he rattled you he
might get the advantage."

My jaw dropped. My brother was a low down,
sneaky jerk. He’d been sweet and apologetic to me while plotting
behind my back the entire time. That little jerk.

Liam snorted. "Yeah, well, it worked."

Derron grunted. "He's kind of a shit." He
glanced over at me. "Sorry. I know he's your brother."

"No, it's okay," I told him, feeling more
than a little irritated at Brodie. "He
is
a shit." And he
was totally going to hear a mouthful when I caught up to his
ass.

He'd deliberately goaded my partner to try
and get us eliminated from the race. And then as soon as he got me
alone, what did he do? Played on me to get the Ace.

And I'd fallen for it. I felt like an idiot.
I gave Liam a guilty look. Maybe it'd take a while for the Ace
thing to hit the air. By that time, hopefully he'd have cooled down
and he wouldn't freak out.

Though if he did freak out, I couldn't blame
him. I'd fucked this up pretty good.

"So what happened with you guys?" Liam asked
Derron. "You're hours behind everyone else."

"I couldn't find the stupid signal," Derron
said, his face edging into unhappy lines. "I had to ride that damn
balloon four times. Finally found it right under my nose." He shook
his head. "I thought I'd cost us the race…."

His words trailed off but I knew what he'd
meant. He thought he'd cost them the race until he saw us still
sitting here. I glanced over at Joel as he emerged from the
changing tent, all hard, compact body and stocky legs. He was a
soldier, and incredibly fit. I had no doubt he could do this
challenge easily. Judging from the smug expression on Derron's
face, he thought the same thing.

The judge cleared his throat. "Liam and
Katy?"

We leapt to our feet, all tension returning.
"Yes?" I squeaked, my voice sounding ridiculous as I
straightened.

"Your penalty is over." He held out the disk.
"You may continue on to your next task."

I gave Liam a look of excitement, and he
grabbed our bags as I raced for the disk. I glanced over at Derron,
who'd gone stiff with frustration, his gaze on his partner in the
ring. He wouldn't look over at me. That was for the best, since I
couldn't hide my excitement.

As Liam came to my side, I read the disk.
"Make your way to the finish line for this leg of the race. Return
to the Goreme Open Air Museum and look inside for Chip
Brubaker."

"Come on. We need to run it. We gotta make up
time," Liam said, grabbing my hand just as the judge blew a
whistle. Joel had just finished the task.
Already
.

We exchanged a look, then ran for the museum
as if our lives depended on it. Liam’s hand clasped mine so tight
that I thought my knuckles would break, but I couldn’t say that I
wasn’t doing the same to him. We rushed back to the Air Museum and
circled the grounds, looking for the finish line.

“There!” I spotted it just as Joel and Derron
turned a corner behind us. Liam cursed and we surged forward.

We got to the finish line seconds before Joel
and Derron did.

CHAPTER NINE

"Is it wrong to be so intensely attracted to someone like Katy
and hate her brother so very, very much?"
- Liam Brogan,
Cambodia Leg of
The World Races

Twelve hours later

"Make your way to the Angkor Wat temple
grounds in Cambodia. There, you must search the grounds for the
marked mat and receive your next clue. You have thirty two dollars
for this leg," I read aloud, then glanced up at my partner. "Guess
thirty two dollars won't get us another hotel room."

"Now that's a shame," he said, leaning in to
lightly kiss the tip of my nose. "I'm still bummed about this last
round."

We hadn't had enough money saved to cover
food and a room, so we'd opted on eating. Liam had taken a quick
shower at a local hostel and we'd catnapped in chairs at a movie
theater. Not the most restful of options, but cheap with our
limited money. Of course, it meant that we hadn't been able to have
more alone time together. We'd had to settle for furtive kisses and
groping in the dark of the movie theater.

And I'd originally thought I'd be fine with
us not getting more privacy, but it turned out I was totally lying
to myself. Every time Liam looked in my direction, I got all hot
and bothered once more, imagining his mouth on my skin and his cock
sinking deep inside me, filling the ache between my legs.

It didn't seem that I was the only one
affected by this. Liam constantly touched me, his fingers brushing
against my skin, as if he needed those quick, soft touches to
anchor him. And of course, those touches just made me all fired up
all over again. I got caught up imagining his tattooed body over
mine, my hands gliding over the black lines on his arms—

"—Travel agency," Liam murmured in my
ear.

"Huh?" I blinked back to reality, my dirty
daydreams instantly disappearing.

"We should find a travel agency," Liam
repeated. "See what flight gets us closest to Angkor Wat."

"Oh. Yes. Of course." I tucked the clue under
my arm and took the hand he offered me, and we sprinted away from
the starting line to a nearby row of cabs.

An hour later, we arrived at the airport and
booked flights to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We'd just missed the prior
flight a half hour ago, and ours wouldn't leave for another
hour.

We were still firmly in last place, and the
other teams would have at least an hour jump on us thanks to the
flights. And that was on top of the several hours we'd had to wait
out for our penalty.

Liam sat down on the floor at the airport and
patted his side. I moved next to him and curled up under his arm,
pillowing my head on his shoulder and trying not to think of the
logistics of things. "We're screwed unless there's a miracle of
some kind," I told him, ignoring the camera-man that hovered nearby
and taped our cuddling.

"Mmm. We'll catch up," Liam told me, his
fingers idly playing with one of my blonde pigtails. "Don't lose
faith."

"I won't," I told him, linking my fingers in
his free hand. My other traced the lines of one of his tattoos,
even as he stroked my hair and then my shoulder. Crap, now I was
getting all turned on again. "I just worry that we're going to get
booted before we even get started."

"We'll have a chance," Liam told me. "Worst
comes to worst, we can just trade the Ace to Abby and Dean for a
chance to get ahead or something. I bet they'd do it."

I said nothing, my stomach giving an awful
clench of dismay. For once, I was glad that we were the last ones
at the airport, because then no one could tell my partner - my
sexy, gorgeous, hard-working partner - that I'd screwed us both and
given the Ace to my lying brother.

~~ * * * ~~

Abby, it turned out, was right on the money
with her advice. Make good TV? The producers will knock themselves
over trying to save your asses.

We arrived at Siem Reap on schedule, got in
the marked car left for us, and drove out to the Angkor Wat temple
grounds. We blew through the first challenge - counting devas
listed on the temple walls. It was time-consuming, but not too
awful. As we counted, we'd also seen a group of musicians at the
center of the temple, and Polly from the Olympian team working on a
task. She finished up just as we approached, racing past us to
return to her partner.

The first individual task? To select one of
the traditional Cambodian musical instruments and learn to play a
tune for the nearby judge. Liam had taken the task, and one of the
instruments was a stringed instrument - a krapeau. Within a short
time, he managed the strings, was humming the melody, and played it
for the judge, who handed us our next clue.

That one had been almost too easy.

For my task? We'd had to turn around and race
back to Siem Reap and head to a nearby restaurant, where Khmer
Cuisine was served. The second individual task was there, and as
soon as I saw that it was at a restaurant, I knew the producers
were rigging things to get us to stay. I was the only one on the
race that had culinary school experience. If there was a challenge
I was going to excel at, it was going to be cooking.

Sure enough, when we arrived at the
restaurant, I saw that not only was Summer there, working on the
challenge, but Brodie and Abby were both there as well. We'd caught
up with the other teams somehow.

"Good luck," Liam told me, and gave me a
quick kiss before I dashed to my table.

For this challenge
, my clue read,
you have a table full of traditional Khmer ingredients. You must
taste the provided dish to determine how to prepare it and then
make it from scratch. A judge will taste your dish to determine if
it has been made properly. Once you have completed both dishes to
his satisfaction, you will receive your next task.

I sat down at the only empty table - right
next to Abby, who gave me a queasy smile. Her table was torn apart,
ingredients spread and sprinkled everywhere, and both of her
'taster' dishes half eaten. I picked up the first one and studied
it, blanching. "Are these ants?"

"They are," she told me. "And they taste
every bit as nasty as you'd think."

"Lovely," I said, and gave Liam a grateful
smile when he dropped a bottle of water off at the corner of my
table. Good man. The other plate seemed to be full of wiggly
tentacles on a stick. Okay, that was not nearly as bad. I'd just
think of that as the local calamari dish.

As soon as I sat down, Brodie got up and
sprinted to the exit, his task completed. Damn. Well, that was all
right. The other two teams were still here. I studied my table
ingredients, and didn't recognize many of the spices or herbs. The
easiest thing to do would be to taste the dish, then taste each
spice until I figured out which ones it had been made with, and go
from there. Steeling myself, I grabbed a pair of chopsticks and
took a tiny bite of the ant mountain. It was bitter tasting, but
there were spices mixed in, and it wasn't so terrible as long as I
didn't think about what I was eating. Lemongrass, I decided. There
was lemongrass in there, and garlic. I took another bite,
contemplating. Lemongrass, garlic, and something else I couldn't
identify.

Abby took one look at me, and swigged more
water, clearly having issues with the challenge. "I am not so good
with insects."

I set the plate down and licked the tip of my
finger, then stuck it into a plate of what looked like spices. It
was hot and unpleasant, and I swigged more water. Not what I was
looking for. I did notice a bit of greenery at the corner of the
table, broke off a small blade, and chewed. There was my
lemongrass, at least. I pulled my bowl of 'fresh' ants closer and
set the lemongrass next to it, contemplating my next spice.

"You guys are doing really well," Abby told
me, leaning in to whisper. "Making good TV?"

"Guess so," I said, and couldn't resist a
blush. I pointed at the lemongrass at the corner of her table. "You
need some of that."

She tore off a handful and shook her head.
"This is going to be it for Dean and I, I think. If you turn in the
wrong dish, they make you start over, which means you have to keep
tasting over and over again, and my stomach can't handle it right
now." She patted her lower belly. "Maybe in another seven
months."