We were so stinking boring.
I was lonely, too. And sad. It was weird, but that cabin in the middle of nowhere with Owen had felt more homey and cozy than being at home with my mother. I thought of the Christmas tree we’d put up, decorated with the world’s longest Christmas garlands, and smiled to myself. Neither one of us had wanted to concede to the other, so we’d ended up making chains over a hundred feet long, and then laughed ourselves silly when we realized how long it took to wrap around the tree.
I’d have loved to spend Christmas Eve curled up in front of the fire with Owen, drinking hot cocoa, eating his delicious cookies, and then fucking like bunnies. Instead, I was home. Home with my mother, because she’d struggled with being alone after my father died, and I’d moved back in…and stayed. I sighed.
“You’re moping,” my mother said, not looking up from her hat.
“I’m not,” I protested. “I don’t mope.”
“That’s the third time you’ve sighed in five minutes,” my mother said. “I recognize a mope when I see one.”
I glared at my laptop screen. My working draft of TERMITE 3: IT SLAYED UPON A CHRISTMAS EVE was open. I typed in, “Sugarman walks in. His mom is knitting a hat. She gives him an annoyed look.”
Then, I deleted all of it. It was crap. Owen would know what the scene needed. His ideas were always great. Mine alone? Sucked.
“Luna Marie Collins, don’t sit there and tell me you’re not moping. What’s wrong?”
I sighed and picked at one of the loose threads on the arm of the couch. “Nothing.”
“Is it because you lost at the game?”
“It wasn’t just any game,” I muttered. Count on my mother to make me feel like I was five instead of twenty nine. “It was Endurance Island. And I didn’t just lose, I came in last place.”
“But you still had fun?”
I shrugged. I had fun after I got voted off.
“So when do I get to see the footage of you on the website? I keep checking it and it’s never there.”
“Um. Well, I’m guessing ‘never’.” I’d checked the website, too, eager for a glimpse of Owen’s face, but it never appeared. In fact, there was no Loser Lodge footage at all, which disappointed me terribly. When Kitty had said the producers were mad at us, she meant it. They really cleaned house. “We sort of got in trouble and production decided to axe the whole Loser Lodge movies thing.”
“We?”
“Yeah…I met a guy.”
“Oh?” She put down her hat for that. “What’s he do?”
“He’s a pastry chef. His name’s Owen and he lives in San Diego.” And he hadn’t even asked for my phone number.
“Ah.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I understand the moping now.” She gave me a prim look and picked up her hat again. “You met a boy and he lives halfway across the world, so you’re moping.”
“San Diego isn’t so far from Boston,” I told her. But it was, really. Just like Endurance Island wasn’t anything like reality. There was a disconnect that was too big to overcome.
Sad to say, but I would probably never see Owen again. I’d even asked about the reunion show and Kitty had hemmed and hawed. “Oh, um,” she’d said when I’d called her. “See, they’re still deciding if they should include the non-jury members.”
Which meant no. I’d hung up, depressed.
No Owen. Merry Christmas to me. I sighed again.
My mother flung down her knitting. “Stop that, Luna!”
“I’m sorry,” I said, snapping my laptop shut. “Jesus. Forgive a girl if she’s all sad and crap, okay?”
“I understand being sad,” my mother said. “You don’t think I miss your father?”
I mentally groaned and felt guilty. “Of course you do. I’m sorry.”
“But you know, you have to keep on living,” my mother said. She shook her head as she looked at me. “You’re young. You can’t spend every holiday here with me, wishing your father was here.”
I blinked back a rush of tears. I missed him every day. On holidays, I showed solidarity to my mother, though. “I don’t mind being here with you.”
“You’re young,” she repeated. “You need to live more. I invited someone over tonight, by the way.”
I groaned aloud this time. “Seriously? Why?”
“My friend Barbie knows this guy that is new to town and she thought it would be good for the two of you to meet. Trust me. It’ll be nice. He’s bringing cookies.”
God, the last thing I wanted was to see some new guy here with cookies. “I’ve got to work on this script, Mom. I’m really busy.”
“Oh, clearly,” my mother said, nonplussed. “I can tell by the way you’ve been sighing over the same three words all night.”
I gritted my teeth just as the doorbell rang.
“Get that please, Luna.”
“Mom,” I hissed. “No!”
“Do it for your mother.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Mom, I don’t want you to hook me up with anyone on Christmas Eve. Seriously. I’ll just go to my room, all right?”
“Not before you answer the door,” she called out.
The doorbell rang again.
“Just a moment,” my mother shouted, and then nodded at me.
“Mom, pleaaaase.” If she was going to treat me like a five year old, I’d act like one. I didn’t want this guy. I didn’t want anyone but Owen.
“Door,” she said, and pointed at it over her shoulder. “Now.”
Clenching my jaw against my mother’s stubbornness – guess I’d inherited it from her – I went to the front door and flung it open.
Owen stood there, red roses in hand, a plate of Christmas cookies tucked under his arm. A sprig of mistletoe hung above him on the porch.
I screamed and flung my arms around him.
Owen laughed and dropped the flowers on the ground. They fell in a crunch onto the icy porch but I didn’t care. His arm wrapped around me and then his mouth was on mine, and we were kissing. My desperate lips clung to him, and I gave a little whimper of joy when I felt his tongue slick into my mouth.
A moment later, the cookies crashed to the ground. Owen’s other arm went around my back, and he clung to me. He held me pressed against him as if just as desperate to see me as I was to see him.
We kissed for what felt like hours.
Eventually, my mother cleared her throat from behind us. “Excuse me.”
I pulled away from Owen almost sheepishly, wiping at my (deliciously) wet mouth. “Oh. Uh, Owen, this is my Mom. Mom, this is Owen. He’s the guy I met.”
“I know,” she said in a dry voice. “He called a few days ago so we could set this up.”
“Your friend Barbie, huh?” I said, staring up into Owen’s dreamy eyes. “So you guys were lying to me?”
“Not really lying,” Owen said, a wide grin spreading across his gorgeous face. “I told my Mom I wanted to see about opening up a second bakery, and I might have suggested Boston to her. Your mom’s friend Barbie owns a storefront that would be perfect for my needs. So…here I am.”
My fingers twined in the front of his silly, silly cupcake shirt. “Please tell me you’re coming in,” I whispered.
“Absolutely.” He kissed me again, and then stuck his hand over my shoulder for my mother to shake. “Mrs. Collins, it’s nice to finally meet you in person. I’m sorry that the cookies I brought got, uh, trampled.”
“That’s perfectly okay,” she said, and I could have sworn her eyes were damp as she smiled at me. “Merry Christmas, Luna.”
“Merry Christmas,” I whispered back. God, my mom was awesome.
She shut the door, letting us have our privacy on the porch. I turned back to Owen and dragged his face toward mine, kissing him over and over again. “I can’t believe it’s you,” I said in between lip locks. “I can’t believe you’re really here. I thought I’d never see you again.” A horrible thought occurred to me and I dra
gged my mouth away from his. “You’re here to see me, right?”
He laughed and kissed me back. “Yes. Absolutely. Why else would I come to this place if not for you? It’s not because of the delicate way you guys pronounce ‘parking lot’.”
“You’re such an ass,” I said as I cuddled him.
“I know, Boston,” he said. “Anyhow, I figured I had one last competition in mind for you and I.”
“Oh?” The pit of my stomach dropped just a bit. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well,” he said, and his hand went to the small of my back as he pulled me against him. “I kinda thought it’d be fun to see which of us says ‘I love you’ first. I’m totally willing to bet you all the hot water, too.”
“You’re on,” I told him.
Best Christmas ever.
FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you for reading this book! Seriously – thank you. Somewhere out there, a unicorn just farted a rainbow out of sheer happiness. And your hair sure is pretty today! Have you lost weight? No? Well, keep doing what you’re doing, because you look fabulous.
Anyhow…
If you are the type that likes to review what you’ve read, I’d love for you to leave me a review – let me know what you thought. Feedback is super important to people like me that juggle three or more series at once. We love feedback like chocolate loves peanut butter. And the more feedback I get, the more it tells me what I need to work on next. So if you want more Games books, let me know!
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Wicked Games (Games 1)
Playing Games (Games 2)
Ice Games (Games 3)
Bedroom Games (Games 4)
Reindeer Games (Games 4.5)
Body Games (Games 5)
Partner Games (Games 6)
Pleasure Games (Games 6.5)
Want to see how the Games series started? Read more for the first chapter from WICKED GAMES…
WICKED GAMES
Abby Lewis never pictured herself on the survival game show, Endurance Island. She’s just not the ‘survival’ type. But when her boss offers her a spot on the show and the opportunity of a lifetime, she packs her bags and heads to the tropics to be a contestant.
Once in the game, it’s clear that Abby’s in over her head. The game itself is full of competitive, aggressive people, and no one’s more aggressive than sexy, delicious – and arrogant – Dean Woodall. Sure he’s clever, strong, good at challenges, and has a body that makes her mouth water. He also hates Abby just as much as she hates him. That’s fine with her; she’ll just ignore the jerk.
But the rules of Endurance Island are working against them. Abby and Dean are teamed up – alone – on the beach. It’s either work together, or go home. Stuck with no one else’s company but their own, they learn they do make a good team after all.
And that with just a little bit of kindling, the flames of hate can quickly turn to flames of passion. This book features enemies, lovers, enemies who become lovers, and lots and lots of tropical heat…
CHAPTER 1
I’m looking forward to the competition. Test myself against elements…and the other players. Romance the ladies? If I need to. Anything to win, but I’m not specifically looking to meet a girl. I’m looking to win. — Pre-Game Interview with Dean Woodall
~~ * * * ~~
In the four years that I’d worked for MediaWeek magazine, my boss had never seemed pleasant. I suspected she wasn’t the smiley type unless she was signing your pink slip. Seeing that many white teeth in her mouth at once as I entered her office? I’d be lying if I didn’t find it a little bit creepy.
“Hello Abigail,” she cooed at me. “So very nice to see you again.” She took me by the elbow and led me into the room, shutting the door behind her.
Another ominous sign. Well, that and my full name. All my friends called me Abby. My boss? She only called me Abby when…well, come to think of it, she’d never called me Abby.
I noticed another man was sitting in the room, a wide-brimmed adventurer’s hat in his hands. He wore a shirt that looked like it had been yanked off of a safari tour and grinned at me, flashing more white teeth in my direction.
All these teeth. I was surely in trouble.
“Hi,” I said lamely, not sure what else to say, and plunked down in the only open chair. My palms were sweating already, and I wiped them against my jeans. “What’s going on?”
Jeannie trotted back around to her side of the desk, her heels clacking on the tile floor. She sat in her chair delicately and swung around to face me, clasping her hands in front of her and giving a sidelong glance to the stranger in the room. “Abigail, I’ve called you in because…we might have an interesting assignment for you. What’s your current workload look like?”
Oh boy. If the boss had an ‘interesting’ assignment for me, I was totally doomed. I smiled through my pain and tried to sound busier than I really was. “I have a couple of editorial pieces I’m working on, and that two page spread for the fashion article next week—”
She waved her hands at me. “Oh. That stuff? Thank goodness. We can put you on something important, then. Mr. Matlock here will be working with you on this assignment.”
The man in question looked over at me and peered, and I could have sworn he was checking out my legs. “She’d be good, I think. Seems to be in decent shape, young, and reasonably attractive.”
“Reasonably? You sweet talker you,” I said before thinking better of it. “I bet you tell that to all the ladies.”
To my relief, he laughed it off. “And a personality. Even better.”
Why the heck was my appearance some sort of criteria for the job? I did book reviews for an entertainment magazine, for heck’s sake. I shot my boss a confused look. “What sort of assignment are we talking about?”
The man leaned forward and grinned again, as if sharing a secret. “I’m Jim Matlock.”
Obviously I was supposed to know who he was. I racked my brain, thinking.
The look on his face grew vaguely insulted as moments passed and I remained blank. He glanced back at Jeannie, sitting back again.
“Jim Matlock,” Jeannie stressed. “From Endurance Island. Executive producer.”
“The game show?” I was surprised. “Really?” I’d caught a few episodes here and there of the first season—it had been all about pretty people on the beach, jumping through colorful hoops and eating bugs to win a big cash prize. Not really my thing, but I’d heard bits and pieces about it here and there. Mostly about how last year’s finale had been a total letdown. Not that I could say that to him. “I hear you’re about to start shooting season two,” I said, deciding on tact.
“In the Cook Islands,” he agreed, and the mega-watt smile returned. “I’m afraid the network is a little concerned about ratings, however, so we’re resorting to a couple of different strategies in order to create a bit more buzz about the second season.”
“Oh?” I said politely, wondering where this lead to me. “And you want me to give you a favorable review?” I guessed, though a few things didn’t add up. The show was for the fall season and we were just hitting spring at the moment—far too early for a review. And a fake gushing review? Jeannie knew I hated those—I was known for my scathing book reviews and not my glowing ones. They didn’t call me ‘Abby the Book Bitch’ for nothing.
“We want you to write, but not really for a review,” Mr. Matlock began slowly.
Jeannie cut to the chase. “Jim has had a high profile player drop out at the last minute, and filming starts in three days. The parent company of his network—you know they own the magazine, darling—has decided to stick an insider into the show to give a ‘first hand’ exclusive experience to the thing.”
“Can you run? Swim?” Matlock asked me.
My heart sank and my stomach gave a nervous flutter. “I don’t really want to be on TV.” God no. See my name mocked and reviled in the same magazine that I wrote in every week, mocking and reviling others? No thank you.
“There’s a rather lucrative book deal attached to this after the show,” Jeannie added in a sly voice. “With a guaranteed push at all major media outlets.”
“And a TV special,” Jim added.
A book deal? I swallowed hard at that. It would be a lot of money. A lot. And infamy. Money and infamy, always hand in hand. I glanced over at Jeannie, but her slender jaw was set in a firm manner that told me that if I refused, I wouldn’t find myself with very many more assignments at MediaWeek, if ever again. Not that she could fire me if I refused…but she could conveniently edge me out the door over time.
Let’s see—fame and fortune and six weeks of island misery and eating bugs? Or no fame, no fortune, and one severely pissed off boss?
I swallowed hard. “Why me out of the team? Why not Roger? Or Tim?” Both were handsome, young, athletic and gay. Tim was my best friend, and a media darling if there ever was one. Me, not so much. I tended to blend in with the wallpaper, and I preferred it that way.
“We need a female contestant,” Matlock said without hesitation. “The one we lost was female, and we need the teams evenly balanced. Young and reasonably attractive helps as well.”
That did narrow down the staff quite a bit. Old Mabel that did the crossword and Gertie that set the TV listings probably wouldn’t be good picks. All the others I could think of had small children, so I was the only candidate. It really grated that they kept saying ‘reasonably’ though. Jeezus. Way to make me feel like their last resort. “Uh huh.”
“Here’s the deal, Abigail,” Jeannie said in a blunt voice. “You go out there and join their little game show and don’t tell anyone about the deal. You’ll meet up with production assistants that will allow you to record a video diary every day, exclusive for MediaWeek’s usage. You stay until you’re voted out, and when you come back, you do the press tour like a good girl, write your articles that give us an exclusive inside look, and then you write your book. It gives MediaWeek a nice bit of leverage and free advertising, and Matlock’s show gets a boost as well. That’s how the parent company wants it. Do you understand?”