Page 69 of Let the Game Begin

“Are you trying to turn me on, Babygirl?” He grinned into the crook of my neck, and I continued to gently grind my pelvis against him.

“Exactly like you did to me,” I managed, out of breath. I would have died if he didn’t keep stimulating me just as he was. He knew far too well which parts of me to touch; he’d found the rhythm that my body liked the most as easily, as if he’d known it his whole life.

“Actually, I haven’t even started yet,” he whispered in a deliberately velvet tone.

This thing of ours suddenly seemed more like a war, a genuine battle to the death.

Neil kissed my neck, then sucked and licked it. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to get a handle on the moans that were vibrating in my chest. I continued to rub my ass on him, trying to make him give in, admit defeat, but Neil was determined to win. He wanted to dominate me, to overpower me.

“You keep that up and I’m going to fuck you against this door,” he murmured menacingly, his breath coming in pants. Then he pushed a finger inside me, finding me a yielding, liquid mess.

He rubbed me with a practiced control and a meticulous attention to detail. I lost myself against the marble of his body and soaked up the pleasure that, thus far, only he had ever been able to give me. The knowledge that he had been the first enhanced the feeling that I’d had for some time by then—the feeling that I belonged to him totally.

His breath tickled my neck as I turned my face toward him, meeting his gaze. He was too tall, I never would have reached his lips by myself so I stared intensely at him until he could read my every desire in my face. Then, I lifted myself up on my tiptoes and Neil immediately realized what I was doing. He bent to kiss me, and it was magnificent.

He tilted his head to deepen the kiss, and when his tongue touched mine, an intense heat roared through my middle, all the way up to my nipples. I savored it passionately and he responded with the same intensity. Both of us were starving. Longing for that connection between one another.

I pressed my back harder into him and ground my hips against his hand. The burning strokes of his tongue began to mimic the rhythm of his fingers. I panted against his mouth, our scents mingling. I would let him cross any boundary, take everything from me. I was shaking and my cheeks were flushed. Neil didn’t stop kissing me; it was obvious that he couldn’t stop himself anymore, just as I couldn’t.

In that moment, I decided that I would never let another man touch me like that.

I felt likehis.

The more I kissed him, the more his fingers took ownership of me, grasping like they wanted to reach my very heart. I moaned and he grinned proudly, devouring my lips until they ached.

And that’s when I came.

I came on his hand.

I came in a prolonged climax. I came again, then again, maybe three times. It was slow and devastating each time.

The physical exhaustion that followed was so intense that it had me swaying on my feet for a few seconds. Then, as though I’d just woken from a dream, I twisted in his arms and broke away from him. I needed to clear my head, so I rested my back against the door and tried to catch my breath.

I felt exhausted but sated.

“You know what; I just had a romantic thought,” he whispered impishly as I stared into his eyes, enthralled.

“What’s that?” I asked, brushing two strands of hair off his forehead. Neil brought his fingers to his mouth and sucked on them, maintaining eye contact with me the whole time. When I caught the smell of my own release, sweet and pungent, I blushed. At the same time, the fact that he seemed to be savoring my taste was flattering.

“I was thinking how nice it would be to taste this straight from the source.” He rested his hand next to my head on the doorframe and loomed over me, all six feet, three inches of him. He searched my face, a spark of amusement mingled with his lust, and I blushed even harder.

“You are a rare sort of romantic, it seems,” I commented sarcastically. And he was a rare sort of beauty as well. A singular beauty.

“Oh yeah, I’m arealromantic,” he corrected me with an ironic twist to his mouth, making me smile in return. Then he pressed a chaste kiss to my lips. Finally we had forged a completely new understanding.

Or, at least, that’s what I thought…

19

Selene

I had deluded myself.

In the days that followed our intimate moment, Neil went right back to being distant and brusque, as though nothing had happened.

But it was my refusal to give up on that troubled, fucked-up boy that pushed me back to the room that contained the “memory boxes.” But when I tried to enter, it was locked.

“Now, let’s see…” The evening after I found the door locked, I sat cross-legged on my bed with my MacBook open to Google.