Page 15 of Let the Game Begin (Kiss Me Like You Love Me #1)

Every cell in my body was drawn to him; it was a force as incontrovertible as it was dark.

It was frightening, the way I could always sense his presence.

When my eyes eventually found his lips, they were pressed against Jennifer’s exposed neck.

I met his ravenous gaze, and I felt it like a punch to the stomach.

I jumped like I’d just been caught shoplifting by a police officer.

But I didn’t stop staring and he didn’t stop dancing his attentions upon the blond girl’s body.

He kissed her, touched her delicately, squeezed her tightly, and I could see the hidden malice in every gesture.

It was right there behind his eyes. He danced with her, but he looked at me, which only intensified the odd feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Again, it occurred to me how unreasonable and out of control my reactions to him were.

Jennifer tilted her head to seek Neil’s lips. And he did not deny her—far from it. He kissed her fervidly, giving me a sneak preview of what was going to happen shortly thereafter, possibly in an empty bedroom. And all at once, I realized exactly who he was like: my father.

It was as though I was transported back in time, remembering an incident when I had caught Matt in the act.

The image was still perfectly clear in my mind, despite the passing of the years since then.

I had only been fifteen, and my father hadn’t been expecting me back home so soon.

I’d spent the afternoon out with my high school bestie, Sadie, but a sudden storm had forced us to come back early.

When I went upstairs to his office to ask him if we could watch a movie together, I was halted by the sounds of female moans.

I wasn’t so naive that I didn’t understand what was happening behind that door, but I had sincerely hoped that it was my mother with him and not some stranger.

My breathing was labored as I approached the half-open door and peered inside only to see my father with his coworker, Leslie Hellen.

I knew her pretty well; she had even gone out to lunch with us a few Sundays before.

I was disgusted, particularly by the obscene way she begged for him to go harder and how Matt obliged her, grasping her hips aggressively.

The force of the unexpected memory had me staggering backward until I ran into one of the drink tables. I leaned a hand on it to avoid falling over.

“Selene, are you okay?” Julie touched my shoulder, giving me a particularly worried look.

“Let’s get a drink, Julie,” I suggested stupidly and proceeded to drink way more than a lightweight like myself should have been allowed.

I couldn’t tell her how I felt at that moment, how all I wanted was an escape from reality.

I brooded about the move, my alarming kiss with Neil, about Jared and all the sudden changes I had undergone.

I considered how toxic this current situation had become and how I suddenly had the desire to take the completely wrong path at every turn.

It was as though my body was now running my life, and my brain no longer got any input.

I got wasted like an idiot, even though I knew perfectly well that I was only hurting myself. I’d lost track of the number of drinks I’d downed, but I did notice that I was struggling to pronounce familiar words. In fact, I could barely recall my own name.

“Wesh… We should…stop,” I said to Julie, who wasn’t in much better shape. She mumbled something unintelligible while I laughed like a lunatic.

“Mav… Maffey… Maybe you’re right…”

I slumped against the bar and blinked several times. My vision was no clearer than my mind.

“Girls…” someone said. It was probably Logan’s voice. I turned to check. Yeah, it was him. But wait a minute…just how many Logans were there?

“Hello to every Logan present!” I waved a hand in greeting to all the Logans, even if the reproachful looks on their faces didn’t bode particularly well.

“Are you drunk, Selene?” I heard his words as a distant echo. I felt completely unmoored from reality, so I just nodded and wrapped my arm around his shoulders. I couldn’t stand it, and if I tried to walk, I would trip over my own feet.

Less than an hour later, I found myself back at home with Logan, who had also dropped off Alyssa and Julie along the way.

“D’ya know why the ladybugs are red, Logan?” I rhapsodized on the front stoop before stopping to closely examine the exterior wall.

“No, Selene,” he sighed, opening the front door.

“Because, in ancient times, red was the color of good fortune,” I continued, holding forth like I was some great expert on the subject.

Logan, by contrast, was tired of my ramblings. “That doesn’t explain why they’re red,” he grumbled, propping me up wearily.

We got into the house, and he dragged me toward the stairs. Fortunately, everyone else was already in bed, and Logan navigated us skillfully through the darkened house to make sure that no one would hear us.

“Explains why they’re good luck, though,” I argued after a few moments. He was no match for my incredible deductive reasoning.

“Yeah, yeah, okay. I think you’ve talked enough, and it’s time for us both to go to sleep,” he huffed and guided me slowly up the stairs. Every now and then my legs would give out and I’d hit my knees like a sack of potatoes, but Logan was always there to get me back on my feet.

He brought me into my room and helped me stretch out on the bed, pulling off my shoes.

I muttered a subdued “thank you” and followed his shape with my eyes as he disappeared out the door of my room.

I could feel my head throbbing and my stomach getting tight.

I’d already thrown up on the ride home, but the nauseous feeling still lingered.

I tried to close my eyes. Sleep might have made me feel better, but the sounds coming from the next room were keeping me awake. I knew it was Neil getting his rocks off with some girl, and I decided that I wasn’t going to let him get to me tonight.

I stumbled out of bed and toward the door.

I tossed furtive glances up and down the empty hallway before making my way to his room, one hand on the wall next to me for stability.

The walls kept rotating and the floor looked like an ocean of marble, rocked by invisible waves. I blinked and refocused on my goal.

I pounded insistently on his door until Neil appeared, in the flesh, wearing just a pair of track pants with his torso bared.

I examined the well-defined lines of his solid musculature, including those sculpted pecs that I would have happily stroked before forcing myself to look back up and meet those eyes, gleaming like gold.

He had a confused expression on his face, but I was determined not to let his perfect body distract me this time.

I cleared my throat and started in on him.

“What are you doing? You want to knock it off with all this noise? And don’t tell me you have someone over tonight, because I need to sleep!

” I shoved him aside and forced my way into his room.

I looked at the king-sized bed and was surprised to find no one in it.

There was just a punching bag, swinging from a hook mounted on the ceiling and the scent of amber and tobacco in the air.

“Are you crazy? What do you want? I’m not fucking anyone; I was just training.” He brushed past me irritably, and I looked first at the contours of his sweaty back then at the powerful muscles in his arms before I finally noticed the white wrappings around his hands and wrists.

I kept silent, aware that I had screwed up, while Neil bent down to grab a bottle of whiskey. I tilted my head and stared intently at him. His eyes were glassy, and his cheeks were flushed. Suddenly, there was a flare of understanding on both of our faces.

“Are you drunk?” we asked each other in unison. I was suddenly very aware of the danger in this moment because, with neither of us sober, there was no one to keep the situation under control.

“I-I-I’d better get back to my room.” I went to leave but stopped in the doorway and turned back.

“I apologize. That I thought you were… I mean, that I came over here because…” I didn’t know what to say, I had screwed up, and it would have been better to just apologize and then walk away.

But my body remained motionless. Waiting. For what, even I didn’t know.

Neil set the now-empty bottle on the floor and walked over to me.

He was covered in sweat; it turned his skin into polished amber stretched over the clean lines of his body.

For a second, my eyes caught on the Māori-style tattoo on his right bicep, and I wanted to ask him why he’d chosen that particular design.

I quickly snapped out of my silly thoughts, however, when I felt his big, warm hand touching my cheek.

I wanted to squirm away from the gesture.

I wanted to feel disgust. I wanted it to be an unwanted advance.

Instead, it just reignited those sensations in me that I had now learned to recognize as lust, fear, and confusion.

“You’re very beautiful. Do you know that?

” He seemed to be murmuring it more to himself than to me.

I stared at his lips and wondered what it would feel like to taste them again.

I hadn’t forgotten how soft they were and how skillfully they moved against mine.

Those lips could scramble a woman’s brain.

“So are you,” I answered.

It suddenly seemed to me that the two of us standing there together, saying what we were thinking, just might be the most right thing in the world.

Why did I have to be so attracted to someone so far removed from who I was?

In that moment, I didn’t even care. Neil and I were just two young people trying to figure ourselves out against every rule and all good advice.

“Why’d you get drunk?” He brushed my lower lip with his thumb, and I opened my mouth breathlessly, feeling the rough texture of his fingertip.

“Why did you?” I asked him back and he smiled at me…almost sweetly.

“You know what Bukowski said about that?” he asked abruptly, still touching me.

I shook my head, and he went on: “If something bad happens, you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens, you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens, you drink to make something happen.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled our bodies tightly together.

Feeling awkward, I looked down at his bare chest, which did absolutely nothing to banish the odd feeling of arousal inside me.

His knuckles brushed my cheek, so I slowly raised my eyes until they locked on his.

All I saw there was desire. I wondered what he was reading in my gaze, but then his lips touched mine for the second time and the real world fell away.

I couldn’t reason; my brain shut down completely. All I knew was the heat of his body against me, my skin presented for his kisses, our hearts pounding together, our tongues chasing one another feverishly.

Neil tasted like alcohol, tobacco, sin, and mistakes.

But also like dreams, certainty, experience, knowledge.

I was drowning in his eyes. We freed ourselves from our clothing.

A mix of pain and pleasure coursed through my body, carrying me away to some other plane.

I felt my eyes stinging and moisture on my cheekbones…

Am I crying? I didn’t realize it in the moment, but my nails were digging up his back while my body was racked with tremors and sensations I’d never experienced before.

I felt at one with him and complete. Bound to this troubled boy about whom I still knew so very little.

We were gazing deep into one another, our bodies hot and intertwined, our minds clouded and dim. We were all irrationality and instinct.

Lust and error.

Reality and dream.