Page 132 of Let the Game Begin

“And, in case you were wondering about it… Yes, we did also fuck while you were staying over at our house. In the room next door, in fact, and I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that one. Oh yeah, it was satisfying on an animal level. It was the most incredible orgasm of my life.” He taunted him again, coming to a stop right in front of his face.

Jared’s gaze was lost somewhere out in space, and his arms hung limp at his sides. His breathing was shallow, his lips slightly parted. It looked like he soul had left his body.

“You lost the best thing that’s ever happened to you, and it doesn’t matter how or why it happened. I found it, and that’s all that matters to me. Life’s a game, you know. And there are people who win and people who lose,” he said seriously, and Jared took a step back, leaning against the wall behind him.

Jennifer quit smiling and looked at Neil in disbelief, as did several other members of the Krew. I, on the other hand, was sure that I’d heard him wrong…

“I fucked up, Logan.” Neil turned suddenly to his brother, who was regarding him seriously with no reaction. “But if I could go back in time, I’d do everything exactly the same.”

Then, he approached me, towering over me with his great height. I bent my head back to look at him. He raised a hand and touched my cheek and moved his thumb along my lower lip. I winced, because I could still feel Jared’s slap throbbing against my face.

“You’re not going to touch her again, Jared. And I won’t be so forgiving if you try it again.” He took one last look at my ex-boyfriend, who was still motionless with his back against the wall.

“Let’s get out of here.” Neil gestured at me with his chin, inviting me to follow him. I hesitated, because I was still so shaken up and confused that I no longer had any idea who I should trust or what was the right thing to do. Next to me, Logan was watching the entire disastrous scene gravely but he didn’t intervene.

“Neil! Where the fuck are you going?” blurted out Jennifer as she advanced on us furiously, jealousy written all over her face. Mr. Disaster stopped and turned to her with an indifferent look.

“I’m taking a trip to my Neverland,” he answered, sounding amused and turning his eyes on me.

Everyone looked befuddled, including Logan, because no one else knew what he was talking about. I was the only one who could have understood his words—ours was a secret language that we could use to conceal our real thoughts.

I appreciated, then, that Neil had been defending me in his own way, even if he had aggressively kicked me out of the pool house the night before.

I didn’t know if trusting him was the right thing to do, just as I didn’t know if following him into his darkness was going to lead to inevitable suffering. What I did know, however, was that my entire soul wanted to take the risk and give Neil a chance instead of spending the rest of my life wondering what might have happened, had I listened to my reason instead of my instinct.

This man, beautiful and troubled, had dug a hand into my chest and clasped his fingers around my heart, marking me as his.

I was now subject to all of his disasters. And he himself was my disaster. My beautiful disaster.

It would be him and no other.

30

Neil

“What story are you going to make up to explain this gnarly bruise?” I asked Selene as she perched on the marble counter of my bathroom. I had no idea why I’d decided to take her away from Blanco with me. I just knew that I categorically refused to leave her there with that prick Jared. I had no idea he’d come in from Detroit at all, much less that Selene had decided to confess everything to him without telling me first. I could have helped her manage the situation, but once again, she’d done the childish thing.

She didn’t answer me, though. Her ocean eyes were still beautiful but listless; they had lost their usual light.

“Why didn’t you say anything about Jared coming here?” I pushed again, putting the first-aid kit away underneath the sink. I’d already dressed the cut on my palm and put some bruise cream on her cheek. Over the course of one evening, I’d become a fucking nurse.

“He texted me yesterday when I was with you,” she said finally, slipping down from the marble counter and turning to look at herself in the mirror. She was always beautiful to me, even with that large violet stain that stood out against her pale skin. “And I still don’t know whether to be pissed at you for the way you ran me off last night or for announcing everything we did in public or whether…” She turned and looked at me. “Or whether Ishould thank you for standing up for me, in your own way,” she finished in an uncertain whisper, looking at the jacket I was still wearing.

I thought back for a moment on the evening’s events. I’d gone out to distract myself, to spend one night with the Krew without dwelling on my nightmares, my mood swings, and all the other fucking problems that swarmed my brain.

It had been incredible the night before, feeling Babygirl’s hands on me as she followed all my instructions, learning how to touch me. For all the experienced women I’d been with, I had never come to easily as when I felt those timid, questing, and uncertain fingers on me. It was impossibly arousing.

I couldn’t tell her the real reason I’d made her leave: that some mechanism in my brain had been triggered in a way that would have seemed convoluted and illogical to anyone who didn’t have my precise traumatic experiences. Unfortunately, my memories had been resurfacing more and more often, and sometimes even the smallest, barely perceptible detail was enough to set me off. Sometimes, it was blond hair, or something someone said, a look, a situation—it could be anything, and I would be back there in the worst part of my life. My demons would rear up to remind me they were still there and I would never heal.

That was why I couldn’t have a relationship with anyone and why Selene needed to stay away from me.

I couldn’t believe in love, because the kind of love I’d known had destroyed me completely. The damaged remains of my psyche had no capacity for love.

“Jared called me a…” Selene spoke, and my thoughts turned back to her. She was wearing a simple outfit that was nonetheless attractive on her. I wanted to touch her, and strangely, to be touchedbyher. I wanted to feel those fingers clasped around me again, the way they had been before the moment evaporated because of my broken brain. “A…” She couldn’t finish her sentence, and I stroked her cheek softly.

I didn’t need to hear her say it; I already knew the kind of insults she’d heard from him. She was still afraid and upset. I could hear it in her trailing speech and see it in her trembling legs.

“And did you believe him?” I asked her, trying not to focus too muchon those full lips whose taste was still impressed upon my tongue. Selene looked thoughtfully at me, and I stared at the upward curve of her eyelashes, ringing her ocean gaze that currently looked so tempestuous.