James Games (22 page)

Everyone is watching me. But the only person watching me that I care about is James. He looks almost…scared? Uncertain? Hopeful?

I deal with the situation the only way I know how—by jumping out of the hot tub, running over to him, and throwing myself in his arms. He scoops me up and kisses me hard.

There’s two beats of silence. Then the singer of the reggae band starts clapping. Brooklyn joins in. And then almost everyone else is applauding, even the middle-aged couples who’ve dragged their chairs away from the pool.

“That was really romantic and all,” I tell him over the sound, relishing the feel of his skin on my skin, elation bubbling up in my chest. I’m not nervous anymore. “But right now, what I want more than anything else in the whole world is some privacy.”

Instead of answering, he just carries me away from the pool, the applause fading as he rounds the corner of the deck and brings me down the stairs.

“Soon I won’t need legs,” I laugh. I’m giddy with his words, with this night. “You’ll just carry me everywhere.”

He kisses my neck. “It’s hard not to. You’re so small.”

“In body, not in spirit.”

He brings me to his cabin and shuts the door behind us. I know we should talk about what he said back there, about what this means for us, but right now, I don’t want to do any of that. I just want to kiss him. And I want to kiss him on a bed.

He lays me down and fulfills that desire, his mouth burning on mine. I’m yearning for him. For all of him. I tug on his shirt and he yanks it off over his head, quickly doing the same to my shirt and bra.

“I need your lips,” I tell him breathlessly.

“Where do you need them?”

“Everywhere.”

And everywhere they go. He kisses the crown of my forehead, the tip of my nose, my cheeks, my chin. He kisses his way down my neck and collarbone, lavishing my breasts with kisses, indoctrinating my ribs and stomach until my skin is reacting like an electric fence.

And then he continues lower.

“James,” I gasp, reaching for his shoulders.

“You—” he kisses my hips, “are—” he kisses my knees, “so damn—” he kisses my thighs, “—beautiful.”

A shiver races up my spine as he runs his tongue over the crease in the innermost part of my thighs. I let my head fall back, unsure if the lightheadedness I feel is from the rocking of the ship or the closeness of him. When he finally licks my most sensitive place, the feeling shoots straight into my stomach.

“Damn it, James,” I groan, lacing my fingers through his hair.

“You taste so good…you know I think you always look great, but I have to say, I’m glad you picked a bikini this time. It’s sexy as hell.”

His tongue circles my clit as he fingers me. I clench the blankets and groan, sweat beading along my abdomen. He takes a moment to lick it off, tracing patterns on my skin with his tongue.

It doesn’t take long for me to come, the orgasm rushing through me, arching my back. When I finally settle back down, panting, sweat is beaded along my stomach. He climbs up and lies beside me, enfolding me in his arms.

“So what now?” he asks quietly.

“People aren’t going to be happy. You just canceled the James Games. That’s like calling off the Superbowl.” I nestle deeper into the nook between his arm and his shoulder.

“I wouldn’t say they’re canceled exactly,” he says into my hair. “You just won them, that’s all.”

“Right. Showing up naked to parties, wearing chicken costumes, that’s the way to win a man’s heart.”

“You won my heart by being you.” He brushes a strand of hair off my forehead. “Wild, brave, intense you. There was no competition.”

That feeling surges back into my chest, stronger than it’s ever been before. I take a deep breath. “This is scary for me, you know. I’m better at things when they’re fun and easy and shallow.”

“I know.”

“I’ll probably embarrass you, and I’ll be too loud, and you’ll have to deal with all the rumors about me.”

“I’m more than okay with that.”

“Why do you like me so much?” I whisper. “I’m just a weird girl from a weird town who tried to make up for all those years of weirdness by going as crazy as possible in college.”

“I like you for the same reason I noticed you at that concert.” He kisses my forehead. “You don’t give an inch. You claim what’s yours.”

I feel his warm skin, exploring him with my hands. How amazing it is to have permission to touch another human body. “Are you mine now?”

“Depends,” he murmurs. “Are you going to claim me?”

I sit up, rolling on top of him.

And I do claim him.

~19~

By the time the cruise ends and we’re back on campus, the memo that James and I are dating seems to have been delivered to every student’s mailbox by express mail.

A few days later, I still haven’t been murdered. Though I think some people might be plotting it. At this point, though, I’ve been stared at so often by the students of UCSD that a few more homicidal glares don’t make much of a difference.

And even if someone fired an arrow into me from a distance, I’d probably smile and blame Cupid. James is an amazing boyfriend. He brings me my favorite pomegranate juice every morning—and I don’t even throw it on anyone. I spend so much time at his apartment that Iris asks if she can turn my bed into a goat-sacrificing platform. And judging by the teriyaki salmon he made me last night, I could live my whole life on his food without ever needing a fast-food burger.

On Saturday, he decides to teach me how to surf.      

“I should warn you,” I tell him on the way to the beach. “I am amazing at many things, but balancing on a small strip of wood on top of tossing waves is not one of them.”

“Luckily for you, that is one of the few things I am good at. That, and teaching.” He’s shirtless, and it’s immensely distracting. Good thing I’m not driving.

“I can think of a couple other things you’re good at,” I smirk at him.      

It’s a gorgeous day—hot but not blazingly so. The ocean is endless and glittering, blue waves crested with white. Surfers dot the shores, most with wetsuits but some without, carrying big colorful boards over their shoulders.

The second we hit the beach, I pull my cover-up over my shoulders and bask in the sunlight hitting my shoulders. James comes up behind me, hands sliding over my waist. “Could I volunteer to put some sunscreen on you?”

“Submit a resume and a video application and then we’ll talk,” I tell him.

“I learn better hands-on.” He squirts sunscreen into his hands and massages it into my shoulder blades, down my thighs. I quiver under his touch and he laughs.

“Don’t get too excited. We have surfing to do before anything else.”

We rent two surfboards, mine green and his blue, and hit the waves. The water is icy cold. I shriek as soon as it touches my ankles.

“No way, no way no how. It’s way too cold. I’m not going in.”

“Let’s go,” he coaxes. “You’ll get used to it. You did before. You just need to take the plunge.”

I’m about to tell him that submerging myself in refrigerator water was a hell of a lot easier when I was drunk, but he doesn’t give me the opportunity. He slings me over his shoulder and runs in. Should have expected it. I howl, pounding his back with my fists as he drops down, submerging me. I pop back up immediately.

“You are so dead,” I shriek, leaping on his back. As it turns out, I am nowhere near heavy enough to drown James Reid. He simply stands up, lifting me so that I’m on his shoulders. I laugh and cover his eyes so that he stumbles and falls in the waves.

“All right,” he says when he straightens again, the water plastering his hair to his forehead. “Surfing time.”

‘Surfing time’ mostly means me sitting on the back of his board, my arms wrapped around his waist while he takes us over the tiniest swells he can find. Every time I try to stand up, I immediately fall off. Eventually he gives up and pulls me around on the surfboard while I lie with my arms out.

“So where did you learn how to surf?” I ask, enjoying the way the water glistens on his chest and makes his eyes even bluer.

“It’s always been a hobby of mine. Haven’t gone in a while, though.”

“So show me what you got.” I hop off the surfboard, the water lapping at my calves. “It’ll be a good excuse for me to tan for a minute.”

I sprawl on a towel while he paddles out. Within minutes, he’s caught a wave. I watch in amazement as he balances on the board, soaring through the inner curve of the wave. His tan, toned body flashes through the water like a shooting star.

There’s one thing we haven’t talked about since that night on the boat—the fact that he said he loved me. I haven’t said it back yet. But I think I want to.

I fold a corner of my towel over my head and doze, dreaming soft things. I only wake up when sand scatters across my body. I throw the towel off, expecting to see little kids messing around, and then freeze. I pray I’m experiencing a hallucination brought on by the sun, but no—Sigrid is standing above me, resplendent in a tiny yellow string bikini.

“Well, look who it fucking is,” she sneers. “Piece of advice for you—no amount of tanning is going to make your pasty ass appealing.”

James is still surfing. She hasn’t seen that I’m here with him yet. I brush sand off my stomach, sitting up. “Great to see you too. We really missed you on the booze cruise. We hardly knew what to do without your general aura of bitchiness.”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Heard you got James to go out with you. What’d you do? Blackmail him? Offer to suck his cock every five minutes until February?”

I spread out my hands. “Apparently, it’s just my personality that he finds appealing.”

“Ah, I see.” She nods, tossing her long red hair over her shoulder. “You gave him some sort of mental illness-inducing drugs. Enjoy it while you have it. He’s only interested in you for the easy sex, obviously. Once he gets tired of it, he’ll toss you out with the trash. That’s what happens with boys who date sluts.”

Fire kindles in me. I stretch languidly to hide it. “He loves me, in fact.”

She laughs so hard that she nearly falls on her ass. “Is that what he told you? How cute that you believed it. Boys don’t ever love girls like you. If you hear that word, it’s because they’re in the mood for sex and they think it’s the magic word that’ll get you to open your legs faster. Open sesame. Guess it worked for you.”

“What the fuck is your problem?” I stand up, shaking sand off myself. In the corner of my eye, I can see James floating on his surfboard, coming down from a wave. She still hasn’t noticed him. “Were you that obsessed with him that you’re completely unable to move on? You never actually loved him—you do realize that, right? Obsession is not love. It’s creepy and stalkerish and he’s better off without you organizing a weird contest for his affection behind his back. He’s better off without you in general.”

A searing impact erupts across my face, snapping my head to the side. It takes me a moment to realize she’s slapped me.

“You,” she hisses, “are a filthy, STD-ridden, mouthy little bitch. I don’t even want James anymore. Like I’d touch a dick that came within a mile of you. If he’s such an idiot that he’ll get with you, I want nothing to do with him.”

Red flashes across my vision and before I even know what I’m doing, I tackle her. We plow into the sand together, me on top. I deliver one well-deserved revenge slap before she grabs my hair and wrenches my head forward, graduating from slaps to full-on punching. My nose bursts in a shower of blood. I wrench my hair out of her grasp and we roll around together, each hitting every inch of the other that we can reach.

“
Get off her!”

James’s voice cuts into our epic battle. Suddenly I can breathe again. A shadow is lifted and the sun sears back into my eyelids. I blink, nose aching, as a wet and shirtless James hauls a panting Sigrid off me.

“Are you kidding me?” He thrusts her away. She stumbles back a few steps, hair in disarray, breathing wildly. “Are you crazy?”

“She—she—” She clearly did not see James coming. “You don’t know—you don’t know what—”

He ignores her, turning to me and gently wiping some of the blood from under my nose with the towel. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I say, and I can’t help but add a sweet smile. “She’s not a very hard hitter.”

Sigrid smoothes her hair and takes a deep breath, forcibly composing herself, though her hands are still trembling with fury. “James,” she says. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“I’m not terribly interested in doing that at the moment, considering you just attacked my girlfriend,” he says coldly.

“She’s a slut.” Sigrid’s voice rings out like an anvil, and I flinch. Such a hard, heartless word. “You shouldn’t be with her, James. You have to know that. She fucked half the school before she met you, and that bullshit with Damien was just that—bullshit. She took him upstairs, she wanted to be with him—”

“Don’t you dare.” His voice is ice from the last circle of hell. A shiver runs through me at the sound of it. I look at him and wish I hadn’t. He’s James from when I first met him, but worse—the James I thought he was, cruel and stone-cold. “Don’t you dare.”

“You’ll regret this.” Her voice is threaded with malice. “Both of you will regret this.”

James takes my hand and silently leads me away.

When we get to the car, neither of us talks for a while. After a few minutes of silence, I speak up.

“She’s the one who got me stuck in that tree.”

He looks up, startled. “What?”

“She and Amber came to my room and got me. They’d put Mags’s inhaler up there with a ladder. Once I was up, they took the ladder away.” I sigh. “I’m sorry I lied.”

“Did she do that…because I spoke to you?” His face is so stunned and furious that I wish he would pull over so I could give him a hug.

“Well,” I hesitate, “she didn’t like me off the bat. She also made me go to that party naked. Although, to be fair, I let her make me—”

“She’s been hazing you. That’s hazing.” He’s so furious. I’m surprised by it.

“That’s why Brooklyn kicked her out.” I look down at my hands. “Thanks for sticking up for me.”