Page 111 of Let the Game Begin (Kiss Me Like You Love Me #1)
“And you’ve read Nabokov. Lolita ?” I couldn’t help a small, pleased smile because it made me happy that Neil was familiar with my favorite author.
“It’s about a pedophile,” he noted colorlessly, brushing my left ankle with one hand. I flinched and automatically clapped my knees together in a protective gesture, which only made him laugh his guttural laugh at me.
“Exactly.” I cleared my throat and felt another caress, this time on my right ankle.
Neil watched me through his long eyelashes and gave me a sly smile, floating closer to me once again.
“Get in the water with me, Tinkerbell. I won’t bite,” he murmured huskily, and I blushed at the sound.
“It was a gift from my maternal grandmother,” I told him, referring to the sweater which had since become one of his favorite objects of ridicule.
Neil frowned in confusion, so I explained.
“The sweater with Tinkerbell on it, it was from my grandma Marie. People might think it’s hideous or childish, but it has a great deal of sentimental value for me,” I informed him, feeling my heart beat a little faster at the memory of my beloved grandmother, who’d been gone for two years at that point.
Neil grew serious again and stroked my calves with both hands, drawing lines and circles with his fingers and igniting a white-hot flame within me.
Then, he moved up to the hollow behind my knee and rubbed me there slowly, so slowly that a shiver moved across my shoulder.
A spark of irrepressible cunning flickered in his golden eyes.
“All the more reason to keep calling you…” He paused for effect. “Tinkerbell,” he finished, his tone light and pointedly angelic as he ceased the minor contact between us. “So are you coming after me or not?” he demanded before diving back into the water and swimming away from me along the bottom.
My eyes widened in sync with the elegant movements of his strong arms, pushing through the water.
Neil seemed to me like both a marvelous dolphin and a dangerous shark at the same time.
I took advantage of his submersion to pull the hair tie off my wrist and put my hair up into a high ponytail, a few strands falling loose around my face.
Then I lowered myself slowly into the pool, though I continued to hug the edge.
With my back to the crystalline expanse, I looked over my shoulder to see where Neil had gone.
Suddenly, I sucked in a breath as two hands positioned themselves on my hips and a flawless body pressed itself into my back.
“Finally…” he whispered, brushing the nape of my neck with the tip of his nose, and the sheer wickedness I heard in his voice had me standing at attention.
My body tensed immediately, and I gulped as I felt his erection poking between my butt cheeks. Neil had no problem letting me feel it. In fact, it seemed he was trying to provoke me because he slowly ground himself against me, triggering the familiar yearning between my thighs.
Damn it.
“You… You…” I babbled softly, unable to articulate the questions that hung on the tip of my tongue. I licked my bottom lip and exhaled in a desperate attempt to get the words out.
“I… I… What?” he asked in a singsong voice. His voice was low and teasing, and this time my lower abdomen quivered as well.
Goddamn it.
“Weren’t you… I mean.… What happened to…stargazing?”
“They can gaze at us,” he whispered, and I raised my face to look at the glass ceiling over us, offering a panoramic view of a spectacular starry sky. I turned to him and met his eyes, which could have given the stars a run for their money, so golden and luminous.
I lowered my gaze and slipped away from his humid breath on the back of my neck and the curve of my collarbone because I didn’t want him to seduce me, though he could have done it without much effort.
“What else do you like to do? Besides reading?” I swam a distance away before stopping and looking at him.
He heaved a defeated sigh, and after a few moments, answered:
“Draw, play sports.” He moved toward the steps, giving me a sidelong glance.
“Wanna get out?” he suggested with a severe expression, as though something were suddenly irritating him.
I watched his masculine hands grasping the ladder and then Mr. Disaster used his biceps to lever himself up and out of the pool.
He stood there, pausing to allow me to appreciate his sculpted form.
I saw what appeared to be a white bathing suit wrapped around his rock-hard backside.
The fabric, extremely thin and practically transparent, made me suspicious.
I climbed out as well, following him over to one of the chairs, and sincerely hoped that he wasn’t just wearing his boxers.
Neil stretched out on the lounger, crossing one ankle over the other. I swallowed hard when my eyes caught on the massive, crude bulge visible through what I now realized were, indeed, waterlogged white boxers.
“Well? Are you going to join me?” He looked at me, pretending not to see how obviously embarrassed I was. His gleaming golden eyes, however, rimmed with wet eyelashes, lit up with mischief, and a slow smile curved those beautiful lips.
Feeling uncomfortable, I grabbed my bathrobe and patted my chest and thighs dry.
Then I tossed it back down and walked right toward the mysterious devil who was brazenly staring at my breasts.
My nipples were hard, and the wet fabric did nothing to hide them.
I was feeling especially appealing in that moment, and I sincerely hoped he was suffering as much as I was.
“You can sit next to me or on top of me. Your choice.” The evil glitter in his eyes was terrifying yet inexplicably seductive.
“The last time I sat on top of you, you destroyed the pool house,” I reminded him and twisted my mouth into a thoughtful expression. I had never really understood what had happened in that moment, right after we…
“Because I hate that position. It makes me feel suffocated,” he answered vaguely, his gaze sinking down hungrily to my legs. I let him trace their lines with his eyes, like I was a blank canvas and he was a paintbrush.
“Then why did you just suggest that I—” But he answered before I could finish the question.
“Because I know you like feeling me between your legs.” His voice was a sweet whisper, a stark contrast to his burning gaze that laved me slowly as though Neil longed to envelop my body in his hands.
“What makes you think that?” I asked but Neil leaned forward, and in one firm movement, took me by the wrist.
“Shut up and get over here.” It was a subdued order but an authoritative one.
In no time at all, I found myself lying motionless on the chair, like a mouse in the clutches of a venomous snake.
Neil moved on top of me, supporting himself on his forearms on either side of my head.
Then, his hips slipped between my thighs and pressed down right there, where I had been throbbing for so long.
Silvery drops of water streamed down his tanned skin, while his eyes grew dark with deranged desire. I tried to resist, but I began quivering all over: my shoulders, my hands, my legs, everything.
“Don’t tense up,” he said, his whisper like a caress. He pressed his lips to my neck and pulled them slowly up to the space beneath my ear. He touched the lobe with his tongue, making me gasp.
“I’m right here…” he added when he noticed that I was staring up at the sky through the glass ceiling rather than looking at him.
In all honesty, I was focusing on the sensations he coaxed from me.
I could feel my heartbeat throbbing in every square inch of my body, to the point where it made it hard to breathe.
“You know, Tinkerbell…” He went back to teasing my throat with his mouth before slipping down to my clavicle.
It felt like he was etching the way into my skin with his hot breath.
“I showed you what I like and how I like it…” He began moving his hips against me, swaying in a slow, lovely way until my knees locked around him.
“Now I just need to show you when I like it and how much I like it…”
And thus he declared his true intentions, which I should have known right away. I also realized that it was now up to me whether I chose to go “flying” with him or not.
I closed my eyes and arched my back as he tugged down the neck of my swimsuit, freeing one breast. He cradled it in his hand before bringing it to his lips to suck. My first reaction was surprise but then my craving body recognized his touch and a look of pleasure and approval spread over my face.
“You told me we would talk and…” My words died as he began to worry my nipple with his teeth. Like a delicate new bud, it stiffened in his mouth as his tongue flickered over my areola. I couldn’t focus on anything just then other than what he was doing to me.
“I’m about to tell you lots of things, Tinkerbell.” He helped me get my bathing suit off with rapid, impatient movements and tossed it aside, turning immediately back to me. My now uncovered sex rubbed against his hard-on, and my nipples dragged against the muscles of his chest.
We provided a spectacle unparalleled for the stars which, shining down from above, illuminated our bodies as they trembled with need and want.
He stared at me, and in that moment, I caught a glimpse of the beautiful yet terrible creature inside him.
All at once, his lips cracked in a lewd grin, showing off the white gleam of his teeth.
Then Mr. Disaster tilted his head slightly and licked the curve of my mouth, deliberating leaving a trail of his saliva on me like a brand of possession.
He gave me another look, this one more ambiguous, as though he were waiting for me to understand something.
Then he leaned in and kissed me the way he liked.