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When he offered to apply sunscreen to my back, I fumbled the tube. “Lucy can help, but thanks.” I wasn’t ready to have this man’s hands sliding cream over my body. Okay, more like I knew I’d have a physical reaction to that happening, and I didn’t need him or anyone in our room to see my body respond to his touch. Especially not anyone watching us on camera.
Once we were outside, everything happened fast. As I’d dreaded and suspected—mud wrestling. But only for the women. Chauvinists. I supposed that beat wrestling in Jell-O. But getting slathered up in mud, forced on my knees to pin down other women while the guys watched . . . yeah, well, if I did make lists, that’d have been on my “Hell No” one.
I won all my rounds, though, so . . .
The obstacle course that followed must’ve been designed for Olympians. It pushed me to my limits and had me questioning whether I needed to add more cardio into my workout with how breathless it’d made me. But my team had won. Determination and grit I’d noticed in each of them packed into their every movement during the activities. They had “the fight” in them, as Mom always called it, and it was easy to recognize since I had it in me, too.
But damn the third event now. An actual fight, where I’d only be an observer because it was “every man for himself” while the women had to watch the men fight. Not mud wrestling like we did, this was a straight up brawl as long as everything was above the waist.
All four guys from our team had made it to the final round. They clearly had an advantage. Maybe Jack had been telling the truth and he was military trained. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. What’d he do for work now? Was he still tied to anything government-related?
“Wait, hold up. We have to fight each other? Really? We’re on the same team,” Oliver pointed out after Stephen had made the unsettling announcement.
Mya abruptly stepped forward, hands in the air as if she planned to push the idea away. “I don’t like this.”
“Relax.” Stephen wrapped a hand over her shoulder, and she backed up, forcing his hand to fall.
Oliver glared at Stephen, studying our host as if he might drag Stephen into the ring instead if he tried putting his hand on Mya again.
Stephen cleared his throat and shook off the rejection. “Mason. Oliver. You’re up. Winner fights Jack. Final winner fights . . .” He turned toward Carter, the man who’d destroyed the men from the other teams without so much as winding up breathless in the makeshift fighting ring. There was no question about who the boss-level fight would be against.
I had no clue how many points I’d racked up today, but I knew Jack was determined to win the night in the treehouse so we could be alone. But was he willing to hurt his friends in the fighting ring to get it? And I was ninety-nine percent sure they all were friends.
That one percent disappeared when Mason and Oliver faced off. Oliver may have acted like he didn’t want to fight his teammates, but the way he stared down Mason in the ring, it looked like he was okay with fighting him. When I looked at Mya, I couldn’t help but wonder if this fight for Oliver was more about him fighting Mason for her than for team points.
I didn’t need my sister caught up in that drama. Should’ve known Lucy would wind up in a red flag situation.
“Who do you think will win?” Lucy squeezed my arm, hauling herself closer to me while we waited for Stephen to wrap up his countdown for the start of the fight.
“I don’t know.” Both had the same build, and over six-foot height. Muscles for days, just like . . . Jack.
My focus landed on where he stood alongside Carter. Jack was shirtless in only gym shorts. Bare feet. No shades or hat to hide the uneasy look in his eyes as he stared right at the fighters.
I swallowed at the sight of him. His entire magnetic presence drew me in from twenty-plus feet away, just as he’d sucked me into his orbit back at that hotel bar in South Africa when Mila had canceled on me that night.
Jack truly was toned and hard everywhere. And the man had great legs. I never knew that was a turn-on for me, because I was an arms girl, but his legs were muscular and . . . perfect. Then there was the stunning ink on his shoulder. And if he really was a Green Beret like he’d said, well, his tattoos seemed to match that: an eagle, pine trees, the American flag, and a few other things, all blended into one artistic symbol that seemed to represent his love for his country. And the finishing touch was the bird wings shielding and protecting the symbols there.
“Well, I guess it’ll be interesting either way,” Lucy said, but I knew she was rooting for Mason.
I’d barely spoken a word to anyone on my team the entire day, including my sister, aside from what was required during our competitions. We’d been too busy and breathless from our events to chat. “You ever going to tell me what happened in the treehouse?”
She peeked at me from over her shoulder, shielding her eyes from the evening sun that’d soon be setting. “Nothing happened. He was a gentleman.”
I pointed my chin toward the ring where said gentleman had just landed a gut punch to Oliver that looked painful—painful enough Mya had stepped forward, her hand covering her mouth.
Lucy banded an arm across her bare stomach as if she’d taken the blow from Mason instead.
“The kiss you saw was our first one,” Lucy finally answered, now fidgeting with her belly button ring. “Well, I mean, our second. But the other didn’t count since we had to do it. But um, it just kind of happened as we were about to leave the treehouse, and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have had we known we had an audience.”
“Point for Mason,” Stephen called out.
Oliver shook it off and rotated his neck. He looked Jack’s way, and . . . oh shit . . . he was going to throw the fight, wasn’t he? Oliver didn’t want to be the one to fight Jack next, did he?
But when Oliver tackled Mason to the ground and they began grappling, and he forced Mason to tap out, it was clear Oliver wanted to get in a point or two first.
A few more back-and-forth points later, Stephen yelled, “Tied. Next point is the winner.”
It’d been hard to watch these two guys go at it, especially when it felt like they really did need to get something out of their systems. I looked for Mya, but she wasn’t ringside anymore. Instead, I spotted her up by the pool with her back to the fight.
