I liked being on Dean’s side, oddly enough.
For some reason, I kept picturing his mouth on my hand, and the feel of his tongue against my skin. I blushed at the memory and forced myself to concentrate on what Chip was saying.
Chip pointed out at the water. “Each colored buoy has a bag of puzzle pieces underneath. One partner will swim out to grab the bag. Once you have a bag, swim to shore and turn it over to your partner. You need five bags total. The other partner will use the puzzle pieces to solve their board and raise their team’s flag. The first six teams to raise their flag win a prize. Want to see what you’re playing for?”
I nodded and clapped my hands as eagerly as the others. After a few nights of being stuck on a barren beach, we were all excited at the prospect of luxury items.
Chip slowly pulled a decorative box off the first plate. “Matches,” he called out, and held it aloft.
We clapped—who wouldn’t want matches when you had to build your fire by hand?
The next two items were shown—food. One plate had sandwiches and the next had cookies. I heard a collective groan from the girls at the sight of the cookies. I had to admit that chocolate sounded pretty good right now.
The next few items were equally good—a blanket and a set of pillows. The last item to be revealed was the one that truly caught my attention. Chip lifted the final box and displayed a large, dark green bottle. “Something for the skin,” he announced. “A native bug repellent made from eucalyptus oil.”
Just hearing that made me scratch, and I glanced up at Dean, who was having the same reaction I was. Bug repellent would be very nice.
“Line up, teams, and let’s get ready!” Chip lifted his arm in the air, and we sprang into action.
It didn’t take much convincing for me to agree that Dean would be our swimmer. He nodded at me and moved out to the edge of the beach with the other men, and I stood behind our table, sizing up who else was working the puzzles. All the female partners had been left to do the puzzles except for ex-military Ginger, who was moving down to swim with the guys. If anyone could do it, it was her, I acknowledged with a wry smile.
I glanced down at my puzzle-board, noting the edges. The colors were striated in a zebra pattern that consisted of several different colors. It was supposed to be confusing, but that would actually make matching up the pieces easier. The best thing to do would be to create the edges and build in from the middle. Confident, I glanced down the line at the others designated with the puzzles. They weren’t even looking at their boards, but were staring at their partners. The men were stripping down to their swim trunks, and it was an impressive display of bronzed male flesh. Several eyes, I noted, seemed to be focused on my partner in particular and his rock-hard body with the abs that you could bounce a quarter off.
Not that I had noticed, of course.
“Contestants ready?” Chip raised his arm in the air, lifting up a flag with the green Endurance Island logo on it. “Set… Go!”
Dean was the first one in the water, his muscular legs pumping as he splashed into the water until it was waist high and then doing a half dive into the water. Those of us waiting on the beach cheered our partners on—well, except for me. I didn’t want to cheer for Dean in front of the others. They were still giving us smirking looks, clearly expecting the two of us to self-destruct again. For some reason, that made me feel safe. They didn’t know of our little deal to try and get along, and they clearly didn’t see us as a threat. So I didn’t cheer him, just stood at my table with my fists clenched, my body a nervous pillar of tension.
The swimmers began to immediately tackle their first buoys, but Dean swam further out, to the far end of the lagoon, heading toward the furthest piece. I bit my lip at the sight, but realized that he was making a very smart move—when he was tired and the race was down to the wire, he wouldn’t have as far to swim.
Others began to notice too, and as the first puzzle pieces were handed off, I could hear scolding from the other partners. “Get the ones out farthest first! Go! Hurry!”
But they had their puzzle pieces in hand and I did not, so I was forced to stand on our mat and wring my hands, waiting for Dean to arrive again. We were far behind the others at this point, but I saw a couple adjusting their strategy and knew it would all make up in the end—I hoped. Some of the others were already tackling their puzzles, and all I could do was stare at Dean as he emerged from the water.
And oh my, was he gorgeous when he did. The water glistened off of his rock-hard abdomen and sluiced down his chest, and my mouth went dry when his loose shorts dipped low on his hips. Water dripped from his skin as he raced up to me, and I held out my hands like a marionette. He shoved the bag into my arms and turned around before I could talk to him, running back for the water again, his feet spraying sand in my face.
The moment was over.
I grabbed the puzzle pieces and ripped the bag open, throwing the pieces down on my board. There were ten pieces in my bag, so fifty altogether. I immediately flipped them and began to separate them by color and edge. Before I could start with the edges, Dean was back and threw another wet bag onto my table, then darted off again, and I started the whole process once more. All around me, people were screaming and running and spraying sand, and it was difficult to concentrate. I bent my head low and continued to sort my puzzle pieces, trying to tune out the others.
Three more times, Dean came and dropped a bag of puzzle pieces on my table, and the third time, he sat down on the mat, breathing hard. Good! Done! We had all of our pieces! I immediately finished sorting them by color and began to grab the ones I’d designated as edges, shoving them into place on the board. I’d been a whiz at puzzles when I was a kid, and a Tetris nerd as a teenager, and this was the same thing, I told myself. I worked rapidly, shoving pieces back and forth, filling in my puzzle by completing each color and working from right to left.
“How did they get all their pieces so fast?” Someone grumbled to the side of me, and I heard low whispering. I didn’t dare look up from my puzzle, but the tone of that voice had given me a cold shiver. If we weren’t perceived as useless and weak… we wouldn’t last long if we got in the bottom again. Not with Dean’s impressive athleticism.
I slowed down, shoving a yellow piece in the midst of several pink ones, and began to pretend to think hard, even though my mind was mentally fitting the pieces with ease and I was almost done with the puzzle. I didn’t want to be first. It’d be a death-knell for us if we were first.