Page 75 of Let the Game Begin

I looked from Neil to Logan, rubbing my hands anxiously on my jeans. For the first time, I felt like I was in real danger.

***

Still shaken a few hours later, I decided to make myself a hot cup of chamomile tea. I needed to calm down. I’d even tried calling my mother to improve my mood, but hearing her voice only made me feel worse.

I missed her, like I missed the rest of my life. Yet, I still wasn’t sure that I wanted to go back to Detroit.

God, I was so at odds with myself.

I brought the steaming mug to my lips and blew on it slowly. I paused in front of the large glass doors in the kitchen, looking out at a sky robed in total darkness. I’d come to New York with the intention of fixing my relationship with Matt; instead, I’d been thrust into a bunch of problems I had no business dealing with at all. I sighed and gripped the hot cup tighter, basking in the warmth that radiated into my cold palms.

“It had nothing to do with you,” Neil said, his voice shattering the silence that had enveloped me. I kept my back to him, though I could feel his presence behind me.

“That’s not true. I live here with you. It hassomethingto do with me.” In reality, I had no enemies in Detroit, and I didn’t think I had any New York, either, but I couldn’t be certain about anything anymore. I brought the mug to my lips and took a tiny sip as I listened to his footsteps draw nearer to me. It felt like my heart slipped down into my stomach along with the chamomile.

“Have you ever done something truly bad to anyone, Tinkerbell?” I felt Neil’s warm breath against my ear, and he began to rub my back with one hand, following the curve of my spine. I tried not to quiver, but I couldn’t control the little tremors that moved across my skin.

“No, never. Not before cheating on Jared,” I whispered, hanging on to my mug as though it might anchor me in place. Neil made a thoughtful noise and got even closer, until his chest was pressing into my tensed back.

“And has anyone ever done something bad to you?” he continued in that same low, seductive tone. I hesitated before answering. I thoughtabout Matt, about my mother’s tears, about the day I caught my father with another woman, about their divorce, and his absence and then…my gaze moved to the pool house. Neil rubbed my arms tenderly, balancing his chin on top of my head and breathing in my scent.

“I know you saw everything,” he whispered in my ear, as though it were an unspeakable secret. I stopped breathing altogether. I wanted to break away, to put some safe distance between us, but my legs had turned to concrete and my arms to lead.

“You’re just like my father.” I continued to stare at the pool house until the reflection of us hovered in the glass in front of me.

The reflection of us…in my room, bent over the desk, Neil behind me. Our fused bodies, our intertwining pants, kisses, tongues, hands…

“You’re wrong, Tinkerbell. You’re the one who’s like him.” He stroked my hair and I gasped.

Was I like Matt?

I stared blankly.

He was right.

There was Jared in Detroit, who loved and trusted me and would have welcomed me back with open arms, and I was chasing a man who didn’t even want me. It was not very different at all from the way my father had been unfaithful to my mother. My hands started to shake, and two tears rolled down my cheeks until they reached the Cupid’s bow of my mouth and then slipped between my lying lips.

“That’s not true. I haven’t told Jared yet because his mother is sick, maybe dying, and I can’t just tell him something like that right now… I don’t…” My voice cracked and Neil took me by the shoulders. He turned me slowly around to face him and stared into my eyes. He lifted the mug out of my hands and set it on the counter next to me, then turned his gaze back to me.

“I’m not like my father,” I whispered uncertainly. Neil’s hands traversed my cheeks; he gathered my tears up on his thumbs and then smiled faintly at me.

“You are, though. You absolutely are, Babygirl. We are all like your father. Flawed sinners, inclined to make mistakes. Mistakes give us the chance tolearn things. Like maybe that we can’t judge anyone else.” He continued touching my face. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to break me down or rescue me. He leaned closer and touched his lips to my cheek. Then, he stuck out his tongue and used it to follow the track of my tears, licking them away.

“You smell so pure, and you taste like innocence, but you’re a sinner, too,” he whispered again.

“Because of you.” I grabbed his wrists and tried to pull free from his grip, but Neil didn’t budge.

“Another mistake, Babygirl. Never attribute to another a sin you yourself committed.” He grinned smugly, like an insolent devil. I tried to move away from him again, but he grabbed my hips and pinned me against the glass of the door, smothering me underneath him.

“You’re a bastard.” I writhed, trying to get him off me, but he was so much stronger than me. He put one hand around my throat, holding but not squeezing. I was rendered immobile by the feeling of his fingers against my jugular.

“Am I a bastard because you want me all the time? Or because you’ve conjured up a relationship between us that doesn’t actually exist?” He pressed his forehead to mine. “Answer me, Selene. Which of those two reasons were you referring to?” His deep voice was firm and austere.

I didn’t know how to answer. I felt all alone, trapped and confused. Maybe he was right and it was all my fault. Mine, and no one else’s.

“Not everything has to be explained. We don’t have a relationship; we don’t have feelings for each other. I’m physically attracted to you just like you are to me, and that’s the only truth that brings us together,” he finished in the face of my silence, loosening his grip on my throat before gliding his hand from my neck down to my breast. He squeezed it, and I sucked in a breath at the amount of force he used.

He closed his eyes, a deranged desire appearing to get the better of him. “I am what I am and I can’t change. I don’t expect you to understand, but don’t judge me.” His eyes opened again and stared at me with the same chill he always showed me whenever he touched me. Whenever he kissed me. Whenever heownedme.