Wicked Games
Hot weather, hot guys, hot girls – hot drama!Good guy Carter is about to find out that hell has no fury like an ex-girlfriend scorned…Carter and Lilah seem like the perfect It Couple – sexy, beautiful and madly in love – but their relationship is about to brutally unravel before everyone’s eyes in Dream Point, Florida.Carter has always been a good guy, and while Lilah has a troubled past, she’s been a loyal girlfriend. So when smart, sexy Jules turns up at a senior-year bash, Carter doesn’t intend to succumb to temptation… and he doesn’t intend for Lilah to find out.But by the end of the summer, the line between right and wrong will be blurred beyond recognition. And nothing in Dream Point will ever be the same.Lust, love, danger, revenge, betrayal and hot Florida weather that makes everything sexier!
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Table of Contents
On their third date, way back in freshman year, Carter Moore and Lilah Bell spent the evening at Harpoon Haven, the small amusement park that Dream Point had erected near the beach ten years earlier to entice tourists away from Miami. They ate cotton candy until their tongues turned blue. They rode the Ferris wheel and did the bumper cars three times in a row. Carter popped five balloons at one of the dart games and won Lilah a stuffed lion that was so large, she had to carry it with two hands.
When ten p.m. hit and their curfews drew near, neither of them wanted the date to end. They wandered the promenade that wove between the palm trees and across the plush green lawn along the edge of Dream Pointâs sparkling white beach.
âFull moon tonight,â said Carter. âItâs beautiful. The way the moonlight glimmers off the sand. We donât get this sort of thing in Savannah.â
Carter had only just moved to town for the start of the school year. Thereâd been something preppy about him, but a hip preppinessâit was a style choice, not a symptom of uptightness. He wore khakis and gingham shirts, and he parted his shaggy, not-quite-short brown hair on the sideâso different from the surfer dudes and football players and fashion-obsessed Cubans who made up the majority of Christopher Columbus High Schoolâs population.
âWell, youâve only been here for a month,â Lilah responded. âWhen youâve lived here your whole life, you start to take all this beauty for granted. You need someone else to remind you to see it.â
âI mean, look at how high the waves are coming in tonight. And how much power they seem to have. Thatâs because of the moon. When itâs a full moon the tideâs just so much stronger.â
Lilah readjusted the stuffed lion in her arms. She really could see the beauty in Dream Point tonight. It was like the old town sheâd known her entire life had been transformed into the most magical place on earth. âI wish I could see this town through your eyes all the time,â she said. âThe way you talk about it, everythingâs just so much more alive. Maybe itâs âcause youâre into nature and science and stuff.â
Carter gazed at the beach for a moment, and Lilah wondered what he was seeingâsomething much more nuanced than the simple lapping of the waves against the beach that she saw, she was sure. She sensed a deep seriousness moving behind his clear, hazel eyes.
âIâll make a deal with you,â he said finally. âWhen I notice things, Iâll point them out for you. Iâll help you remember the beauty. Cool?â
âAbsolutely,â said Lilah. She felt like she was seeing some special secret place in him, like he was showing a tiny bit of the sensitive, attentive person hidden beneath his tan skin. She felt very lucky in that moment and she wondered what she could do to prove she was worth the attention he was showing her. Then she had an inspiration.
âLetâs go down to the water,â she said.
âI thought the beach closed at eight.â
âSo?â
âWonât we get in trouble?â
âYou worried? Itâs not like they enforce that rule,â said Lilah.
Carter ran his hand through his sandy hair and grimaced nervously.
âOkay,â she said, âhow âbout if I dare you?â
Before Carter could either reject or accept the challenge, she threw the lion into his arms and quickly pulled her wavy light-brown hair up in a ponytail.
âRace!â she said, and then she took off, her flip-flops clacking along the concrete of the promenade, the knee-length purple jersey dress she wore flapping behind her.
He chased after her, holding the lion with two hands above his head and trying to make up distance, but she was an athlete, a swimmerâsheâd been on the team since sixth gradeâand even in her flip-flops she could pack a lot of speed in her powerful legs. They made their way down onto the beach, churning up cascades of sand under their feet. There was no way Carter could catch up. Lilah was just too fast. And he was wearing boat shoes and long pants, not the sort of thing for sprinting.
Turning around, Lilah ran backward. She slowed her pace until Carter came within a few yards of her, and then she matched his speed, teasing him, just out of his reach.
âCome on, slowpoke,â she said. âYou gonna let a girl beat you?â She couldnât remember the last time sheâd felt so free, and she couldnât hide the grin that spread across her face.
