Page 16 of Let the Game Begin (Kiss Me Like You Love Me #1)

Selene

Weird.

That’s how I felt.

I was warm, lying in a soft bed, wrapped up in fluffy blankets.

I was awake, but I couldn’t seem to open my eyes.

I had no idea what time it was, though I knew I had definitely missed some of my classes for the day.

Slowly, I raised my eyelids and stretched my sluggish muscles, feeling an odd soreness in them.

I glanced around and immediately spotted a dark wall in front of me, decorated with a poster of a…

basketball team? When did my room get such…

masculine furnishings? Everything ranged in color from cobalt blue to black.

Perhaps I was still sleepy? Or was this some bizarre hallucination?

I sat up, my head spinning, and discovered that I was completely naked.

I sat there staring down at my breasts for an unknown amount of time, trying to reconstruct what had happened the night before.

I racked my brain for some reasonable explanation, an excuse that could justify my lack of clothing, but nothing came to me.

I was starting to feel confused and lost when I felt a body moving next to me.

I felt like dying when I turned immediately and saw the powerful shoulders of some guy with his face buried in the pillow.

My hands started trembling, and my stomach felt like it was being crushed in a vise.

I leaped out of the bed and pulled the warm blankets along with me, revealing the naked form of the boy who continued to sleep unconcerned.

I could see solid legs, buttocks like carved marble, and an expanse of relaxed muscles, all completely exposed. Under normal circumstances, I might have been able to appreciate an Adonis like that, but not when I was inexplicably naked in his room.

“Oh my God!” I shrieked uncomfortably, clutching a long white sheet to my chest. I swallowed down a retch triggered by the disgust I was feeling toward myself. This was an actual tragedy; I had done irreparable damage this time!

Who was this guy? Had I just gone to bed with some stranger I met at the party?

“Mmh…” the boy muttered, burying his head deeper in the pillow. He didn’t seem aware of anything.

I looked around, and from the corner of my eye, I saw a photo on a shelf. It was of Logan and Neil as children at the beach. I reached out to the boy in bed. I touched his disheveled hair and stared at his bent arm, which was marked with a tattoo. Māori style…the same one…

The room began to spin around me as reality sank in.

“N-Neil,” I stammered, in shock. Then, the boy, no longer a mystery, lifted his face up and greeted me in a tired fashion, not even bothering to look at me.

“Hey, whatsyourname…last night was great but you can go now.” He clearly hadn’t yet realized the gravity of the situation but… Wait, was this the way he typically dismissed his conquests the morning after?

“Bukowski got it right…” I pulled the sheet more tightly around me and watched the muscles in his neck tense at the sound of my voice.

He propped himself up on his elbows and turned his head toward me.

He couldn’t hide the shock that showed in his still-sleepy golden eyes. Probably the same as mine.

“Selene?” he asked, sounding troubled, and I saw a flicker of surprise cross his face as he kept his gaze fixed on me. His lips were swollen, and his hair was a riot. Was I the one who had done that to him? And what about me? What sort of state was I in?

I began to pace the room like a maniac. I didn’t want to accept what had happened. I felt so profoundly soiled and wrong. I wished for nothing so much as the magical power to go back in time so that I could turn this reality into just a bad dream.

“What are you doing in my room?!” He tried to get up, but I immediately raised a hand to halt him. Was he insane? The last thing I wanted right then was to see more of his nude body.

“Do not sit up!” I demanded sternly. Neil registered first the sheet wrapped around my body, then that he himself was completely naked.

Sigh.

“Calm down, Selene.” He balanced on his elbows, motionless. He was beautiful, brazen, and terribly attractive as he stared at me like a guilty little imp, but that didn’t change the reality of the situation: I should never have made a mistake of this magnitude.

“Calm down? Calm down?” I shouted furiously. I knew, though, that the fault was mine, not his. If I was going to be angry with anyone, it should have been myself.

“Hand me a pair of clean boxers. I can’t just stay like this all day.

” He sighed and adjusted a chestnut-brown lock that had fallen over his left eye.

Every movement he made was alluring. I shook my head; now was not the time to be bewitched by his erotic energy.

Not after I had already fallen victim to it.

“Are you seriously more worried about your boxers than about what happened between us?” I was stunned by his equanimity.

“Do you want me to deal with this while I’m naked and not allowed to stand up? Check the dresser.”

He had a point. I immediately went hunting for a pair of boxers.

Once I’d found them, I threw them to him and turned around so he could get dressed.

In the meantime, I stared first at the blank wall and then at the desk, where there was a laptop, some books, and two photos of him with Logan.

Neil couldn’t have been more than eight or nine in either of them.

I noticed that there was no sign of any mementos from his adulthood.

“You can turn around now,” he ordered after a few moments, and I obeyed.

I found myself presented with a spectacular tableau: Neil was seated on the bed, his muscular body saved from nakedness only by a pair of boxers.

He had the weary but satiated expression of someone who’d had a really good time the night before.

“This is a real shitshow,” he remarked, chewing nervously on his lip as he took in our clothes, scattered all over the floor.

“What were we thinking? Neil, I was wasted.” I started pacing again in total panic.

“I’ll never be able to forgive myself.” I accidentally stepped on something, and I froze when I looked down and realized with was a torn condom wrapper.

Neil followed my stare and was silent for a few moments.

The overwhelming evidence of what we’d done the night before just kept piling up.

“Selene, it was an accident. We weren’t thinking clearly.” He was trying to comfort me, but a bitter laugh escaped my lips instead. Sure, it was an accident. One that could have been easily avoided if I had been just slightly less stupid or slightly more mature in my decision-making.

“That’s easy for you to say, Neil. How many people do you sleep with in a week?

How many of their names do you even remember?

But it’s not like that for me; it’s never been like that.

” The guilty feeling washed over me, and I felt deeply disconcerted.

I could no longer recognize myself. The old me would never have just slept with some guy like that, not even while drunk.

I felt like crying, but I didn’t want to appear weak in front of Neil. On top of that, my head was spinning, and I felt a distinct burning sensation between my legs with every step I took. The bottom of my abdomen ached, as did my hips. Muscles I hadn’t even known I had before were sore.

The worst part, however, was seeing the evidence of my virginity on the mattress.

My innocence, which I had guarded so carefully only to throw it away without a second thought.

That was a real blow to my heart, one that took my breath away and made me feel sick.

I stood there motionless with a blank look on my face, and even Neil didn’t have the guts to say anything to me.

“I’m so disappointed in myself. This wasn’t how I wanted it to happen.

” I continued looking at the red stain and Neil frowned, not realizing what I was talking about.

Once again, he followed the direction of my stare, and from the surprised look on his face, I guessed that he hadn’t noticed, and I hadn’t told him.

Of course, I’d never talked about it with anyone before, why would I have started with him?

I felt his fiery honey gaze turn to me, but I was too ashamed to meet his eyes.

I bowed my head so I wouldn’t have to see pity on his face.

“I would never have figured that you were…” He left this horrified sentence hanging in mid-air and got out of the bed, rubbing a hand over his face in disbelief.

“Yeah…”

There was no need to say anything else. He was the first man I had ever been with. I died a little inside at the idea of him laughing at me, bragging to his friends about deflowering Selene, the sad virgin who had come all the way from Detroit to fix her relationship with her daddy.

“I’m not going to say anything. It’ll be our secret.

You have my word.” He moved in front of me, and he smelled so good it was almost stunning.

I lifted my face and was further amazed by his extremely sincere expression.

Still, the thing that worried me the most wasn’t my secret that was no longer a secret, but…

“Jared.” I swayed dizzily and Neil stabilized me.

I rested my forehead on the warmth of his chest and closed my eyes.

He put his hands on my hips and then, in a completely unexpected move, he pulled me close into a comforting embrace.

Somehow, it only made the whole thing worse.

I was a collection of indecipherable feelings, all screaming and demanding to be free, but I just wanted to erase every one of them.

To forget all of this and start thinking of Neil as something wrong and deleterious in every way.

Neil took my shoulders and shook me.