Page 110 of Let the Game Begin

I did what I had to do to protect Logan.

“So pick up that camera and go wait for me in your parents’ bedroom. We’re going to play a new game.” She released my wrist and looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to follow her orders.

“In Mom and Dad’s room?” I repeated incredulously.

“In Mom and Dad’s room,” she confirmed.

When I was little, I never worried about monsters under the bed or in the closet. I never believed stories about aliens coming through a kid’s window in the middle of the night to abduct them. One thing that had scared me, though, were tales of child-eating witches. And Kim was a real life child-eater.

She fed on their innocence, ended their childhoods, annihilated their lives, and destroyed their dreams.

And, every time, I tried to fly away. Far away from Kim.

But she always reached out and caught me.

She ate the child in me; she devoured his purity, and there was nothing I could do to stop her.

I picked up my phone and walked out of the bathroom to toss it on thebed. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of sex that hung around the room. I’d forgotten to open the window and gather up the sheets for Anna to wash. I did both hurriedly with just my towel on.

Then I got dressed, putting back on the same clothes I’d stripped off a couple hours earlier. I rolled up the sleeves of my white sweater. It smelled clean, like the rest of my body, and it made me feel a bit calmer.

It was about eleven p.m. by then. After spending the afternoon in the library with Logan and Selene, I’d gone out with the Krew to distract myself and have a drink. About an hour later, I’d ended up in bed with a blond I’d picked up at Blanco. Or rather, she offered herself to me on a silver platter, and I took her up on it.

Exhausted, I sat down on the edge of the bed and put on my shoes. The air outside was cold, so I also put on my brown leather jacket before I left the pool house. I felt in my pockets for my phone and keys before I shut the door.

As I turned to cross the lawn and go back inside the house, I spotted a figure huddled on a chaise longue next to the pool. A blue blanket was draped over her slim shoulders, and her auburn hair was scraped back into a high ponytail. I recognized her perfect profile and generous mouth immediately. Selene.

How long had she been out there?

I walked toward her, the shape of her gradually solidifying as I approached. She was reading a book by the light of a tiny reading lamp, though I didn’t see why she’d be doing that outside in the garden in the bitter autumn air rather than in her warm bed, clad in those awful pajamas with the tigers on them.

“You’ve chosen a rather strange place to dedicate yourself to your reading.” I took out my pack of Winstons and extracted one cigarette with my teeth before fishing my lighter out of my jacket’s inside pocket. A mild breeze scuttled my first attempt at lighting the cigarette, so I cupped my hand more tightly around it and turned to protect myself from the wind before trying again. I succeeded in my goal and put everything back in my pocket before taking a seat on the chaise longue in front of Babygirl. The dark sky, devoid of clouds, stretched over us like a starry blanket. A viewI would have happily enjoyed, had I not something more beautiful right there in front of me.

Selene’s long eyelashes stayed lowered, protecting those crystalline eyes as they scrolled line by line through her stupid book. She was ignoring me, and I was absolutely not used to it. I inhaled deeply and then pursed my lips to exhale directly into Tinkerbell’s beautiful little face. She lifted her ocean eyes to me and coughed, wafting a hand in front of her nose.

“What the hell was that?” she snapped. Finally, I’d caught her attention. Though I didn’t understand why she was so surly and irritated.

“I asked you a question,” I insisted.

“And I didn’t feel like answering. Where I choose to read is none of your business.” She turned back to her book, but I immediately knew that something wasn’t right. We didn’t know each other very well, but I had learned a thing or two about her. I knew how to read the things she wasn’t saying in her eyes.

“What did you see?” I asked her bluntly, and I heard Selene’s sharp inhalation. Who knew how long she’d been out there; she’d probably caught me fucking that blond. Not that I cared about her reaction—I didn’t have to justify myself to her or anyone else. It was just that I knew she wasn’t capable of separating sex from emotions, and she couldn’t differentiate a physical encounter from a relationship; she perceived the whole situation very differently than I did.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She was lying. I could tell by the way her hands were trembling.

“How long have you been out here?” I tried again. I didn’t even know why I was sitting out there in the cold, chasing the whims of this girl instead of just going into the house and falling blissfully asleep. She sighed and looked at me with those ocean eyes that infected my thoughts every time. And in that moment, I could perfectly recall every time I had touched her, every time I’d kissed her and dominated her body.

The occasions had been few, yes, but each one was so intense, giving me the kind of all-encompassing orgasms that I’d never experienced with anyone else.

“Long enough to realize what an asshole you really are.” She finallyadmitted what had been eating her up this whole time. She’d seen the blond, though I didn’t know exactly how much she had witnessed.

“You enjoy spying on me, huh? This is the second time you’ve done it.” I teased, delighting in the blush that painted her high cheekbones. Selene stood up immediately, and she was in such a hurry to escape that she left her closed book on the chaise longue. I knew by now how reactive and even childish she could be, and on one hand, this aspect of her personality irritated me, but on the other hand, it also got me hot.

“Sorry to disappoint, but it actually only happened once, and it was repulsive,” she snapped back. All of sudden it was confusing to me, how we’d gone from ignoring each other for weeks to collaborating on solving a puzzle to arguing now about…what?

About nothing.