Page 30 of Let the Game Begin (Kiss Me Like You Love Me #1)

Selene

Professor Cooper circulated through the large auditorium. I loved studying and taking notes, but on that day I was pensive and distracted. I drummed my fingers on the table and paged randomly through my textbook, bored.

“I’m starving to death,” Alyssa huffed beside me, digging out her phone to respond to some texts.

She wasn’t being at all helpful in my doomed goal of processing a single word of the lesson, mainly because every five minutes she was making some new complaint.

I glanced down at my watch—just a few more minutes and we’d be out of there.

My number one priority that afternoon was calling Jared and asking him to meet me in person and this time, I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

Professor Cooper ended her lecture and reminded us about our next session, and I immediately got out of my seat, examining my copy of the syllabus. I needed to ask some questions, but I wanted to wait until the lecture hall cleared out.

“You’re not coming?” Alyssa frowned at me, and I shook my head.

“I’ll meet you later; I need some information.” I gestured at Professor Cooper, who was intently shuffling some papers on her desk. I waved goodbye to Alyssa and tugged my bag over one shoulder as I descended the stairs.

Unfortunately, my teacher had also left the classroom in a marked hurry, so I had to chase after her. I called her name, but she didn’t seem to hear me. I wound up following her for a long time and stopped only when she fled into another classroom that I didn’t think I was allowed to enter.

“Damn it,” I blurted out huffily. I just needed to ask her a couple of questions; it would really take only a minute or two.

I was approaching the cracked door when heard her voice coming from inside.

I peered through the crack to make sure I wouldn’t be disturbing her when I spotted a man’s crossed ankles propped up on a desk and an embarrassed-looking Professor Cooper tucking her hair behind her ears.

Clearly this was a bad time. I turned to leave but then a voice, masculine and domineering, froze every muscle in my body.

“You’re late, like always,” the man informed her in that seductive, almost hypnotic tone, which was now so unfortunately familiar to me.

I held my breath, praying that I was only imagining that it was Neil’s voice. Then I turned back, compelled by curiosity and crept closer to the door again. My hand on the doorframe was trembling as I leaned closer to get a better look.

There before her stood Neil in all his glory.

The white sweater that hugged his masculine torso and contrasted sharply against his tanned skin.

The golden eyes that lasciviously examined Professor Cooper and those lips, curved into a menacing grin.

I sucked in a painful breath, afraid I was about to witness something inappropriate.

“I just ended my lecture.” Professor Cooper looked at him like she was afraid of him yet wanted him at the same time. I recognized the look because he had the same effect on me.

“Amanda…if you can’t do what I tell you to…” He moved closer to her, grabbing a lock of her blond hair and twisting it around and around his index finger. “I’ll go public with what happened and destroy your reputation forever,” he threatened her with an eerie calm.

Professor Cooper seemed dumbstruck in the face of him. I couldn’t see her expression because she was turned away from me, but I could see Neil’s—handsome and enigmatic as it ever was.

“Neil, please…” my professor begged, her fingers fluttering around her mouth. She was clearly about to cry and fighting it back. Neil, however, was cool and impassive in the face of the woman’s distress.

“Imagine what your colleagues and your students would think. You’d sully the good name of this university and show yourself for what you really are: a slut who fucks her own students.

” He brought his mouth right up to her ear and stuck his tongue out, licking first her earlobe then the side of her face.

My stomach tightened as though caught in a vice: Neil was really no different from his awful friends. They were all scheming and depraved.

“And I still remember how you loved it,” he added in an amused tone.

I heard Professor Cooper sob and Neil drank in her vulnerability.

He sniffed her neck but didn’t kiss it. He restricted himself to fondling her breast instead and grinned, satisfied with the fear he’d manage to generate in the woman.

“You don’t want to let me down, Amanda. You don’t want that at all,” he said, glowering.

I stepped back until I hit the opposite wall and decided I had to stop spying on them.

I was beginning to think that I had bound myself with invisible chains to someone very dangerous. Someone without a conscience at all.

Had I really imagined that I could trust him? How could I have let someone like Neil touch me without figuring out how dirty his soul really was? And why, despite now knowing for sure what he was, did my body still yearn for his?

I was insane. Just as insane as he was.

I fled to the women’s restroom and splashed cold water on my face.

I wasn’t worried about ruining my makeup because I almost never wore any.

I stared at myself in the mirror. My eyelashes, long, black, and wet framed familiar blue eyes; eyes I tried to recognize myself with.

The old me. The one who never gave into temptation.

The one who didn’t lie, who respected other people, who lived her values and believed in her own goodness.

When I was done, I dried my hands with a paper towel and got my phone out of my jeans pocket, hitting the last number in my recent contacts.

“Baby,” Jared answered on the second ring. I leaned against the wall and pressed the phone to my chest, sucking in a breath. Then I scrounged up the courage I’d need to tackle yet another of our conversations and put the phone back to my ear.

“Jared,” I whispered.

“Selene, are you okay?” He could tell right away that something was wrong, just from the sound of my voice. I felt like crying because all of a sudden it really hit me, what I had really done. It was too late, though.

“Jared, I’ve been telling you that we need to talk in person,” I scolded him too sharply. I was screwing this up—I shouldn’t have taken my misery out on him.

“I know…” He gave an exhausted sigh. “But between going to class and my dad needing me at the company, I never have time for other stuff,” he lamented.

So I was “other stuff” now? He was the one who was so sure we’d be back together when I went home to Detroit.

“I’m telling you that this is urgent… It can’t wait any longer. Please…” I swallowed thickly. My throat was tight and my lips were dry. I wasn’t doing well at all. I hadn’t been eating; I hadn’t slept in days, and I was corpse-pale.

“I’m going to talk to my father. I’ll try to get out to you this weekend.”

“That’s what you said last week.” I stared out the open window. The sky was gray and overcast, listless and shadowed, just how I felt that morning. A group of squawking girls entered the bathroom, so I tried to tuck myself further into the corner and go unnoticed.

“You’re freaking me out here, Selene. You know that, right?” he said softly, sounding worried. That wasn’t my intention. In fact, that was the reason I didn’t want to discuss Neil with him over the phone and was waiting for an in-person meeting.

“Let me know if you can come out this weekend, okay?” I tried to soften my tone and turned to observe the girls, who were focused on applying lipstick.

“Yes, I’ll try my best,” he promised before telling me goodbye and ending the call. I needed to get home, my head was spinning.

I dashed out of the bathroom, completely distracted until my forehead crashed into what felt like a bumpy mountain face.

I was saved from falling by two strong hands that caught me just in time.

I raised a hand to my aching forehead and the smell of amber and tobacco floated all around me.

I glanced up and found Neil’s eyes, golden and intense as they always were.

“I’m fine.” I gathered myself, pulling away from his touch. I tried to step past him, but Neil grabbed me by the wrist and held me in place.

“You’ve been avoiding me for days. Why?”

I felt goosebumps raise up at the sound of his severe tone, and I hated myself for responding to him like that.

He was toxic.

Nothing but toxic.

“Please, Neil, not today. I don’t feel good and I just want to go home.” I tried to free myself, but he tightened his grip until my skin began to feel hot. He could have crushed the bones in my wrist if I kept fighting him. My strength was nothing compared to his.

“I’m headed home, too. I can give you a ride,” he offered flatly.

But I didn’t want to be alone with him. Neil overpowered my critical-thinking abilities.

When we were together, I felt lost in slow, aching need.

He triggered these insane desires in my body and blurred my very identity.

Spending more time with him was extremely inadvisable.

“Don’t worry about it; I’ll take an Uber.” I tugged on my arm, but it seemed he had no intention of letting me go.

I quit trying to leave with a sigh. I knew how stubborn he was and that fighting him was useless.

“I’ll remind you that we live in the same house. Avoiding me now won’t keep you from seeing me at home later,” he observed. He was right: bypassing this particular obstacle was not the solution. I stopped struggling against him, and he released my wrist and we walked down the hall together.

It occurred to me that everyone was watching us. With envy in the case of the girls; curiosity for the boys. What were they thinking about me?

Or rather, what did they think about any of Neil’s “companions”?

I avoided answering my own questions so as not to die of shame.