Page 47 of Let the Game Begin (Kiss Me Like You Love Me #1)

“We need to figure this out, Neil,” Logan chided him, still focused on the screen. I took a seat on the bed next to him and glanced at the search engine results he’d pulled up.

“Ok, knock yourself out, Sherlock.” Mr. Disaster dug in the pockets of his black leather jacket for a pack of Winstons, pulling out a single cigarette with his teeth. He lit it and exhaled smoke into the air.

“At least open a window.” Logan shook his head and kept typing. Neil obeyed him but muttered incomprehensibly under his breath the whole time.

“Hmm… I’m not finding a lot of positive associations,” Logan said after a few moment.

“Seriously? I could have told you that,” grumbled Neil.

He stood by the window smoking with the typical arrogant ease that set him apart from everyone else.

I wanted to snap at him to shut up and stop acting like an ass, but I knew that, if I did, I’d only be venting my anger from the night before. So I resisted the urge.

“Here’s something interesting.” Logan adjusted his glasses and focused on his reading.

“The raven has inspired a number of legends and beliefs. It feeds on the corpses of animals as well as human beings, which is why it has so often been associated with death and evil…” He glanced up at both of us, and Neil gestured for him to continue, so he kept going in a mournful tone.

“The raven is often used in black-magic rituals or séances designed to call on evil spirits.” I shivered, and Neil must have noticed because he shot me a concerned look.

“This isn’t a horror movie, Sherlock. Cut to the chase.” He leaned against the windowsill and took a long drag on his cigarette. Then he looked at me again, like he was worried about me. Or maybe I just wanted to believe he was.

“In mythology and esotericism, the raven is often associated with macabre messages or portents of disasters that are to occur in the future…but, listen to what it says here.” Logan stopped again, sighed heavily and continued.

“Legend has it that a dead raven often heralds revenge,” he finished, slowly removing his glasses.

Neil tossed the cigarette out the window and walked over, staring at his brother, who still looked worried.

“We really need to watch out. Trust as few people as possible and watch everyone: friends, relatives, acquaintances, friends of friends. Whoever sent that box knows where we live, knows who we are. They know us and we might know them.” Logan glanced between the two of us before standing up and pinching his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger.

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 has something to 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 thought about 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 to learn 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 he owned me.

“I can’t go on like this. I can’t do it. I can’t keep letting you use me whenever you want. I feel soiled.” I stared down at his hand squeezing my left breast then glanced back up at him, silently begging him to release me.

Neil blinked and glared at his own hand as if it had moved by itself—an instinctive, possessive gesture.

He relaxed his fingers and stepped back.

For a brief instant, he even looked upset, but then he turned inscrutable and apathetic again.

Neil seemed to be having these confusing moments more and more often.

But he was in another world, too far away to know.

A person could face almost anything in life—hatred, anger, pain, desperation—but not an absence of love. I could deal with anyone who felt something , but I could not deal with someone who didn’t feel anything.