Page 67 of Let the Game Begin (Kiss Me Like You Love Me #1)

I wrapped a towel around my waist and brushed my teeth, scrubbing until my gums were bleeding again. Then I rinsed the toothpaste and spit into the sink, making note of how the white foam mingled with the smears of blood.

I wiped my lips with the towel and turned off the faucet, staring at my reflection in the mirror.

I frowned when I noticed a purple mark on my neck and a few more on my chest. My lips were red and swollen.

I ran my tongue over my upper teeth and tasted the fresh mint that permeated my palate.

Then I put my hands on the marble countertop and stared at my eyes with their strange yellow-gold color, streaks of bronze visible only in the reflected light.

Was it my unusual eyes that had attracted the attention of that evil woman? I scoffed at myself with a fixed smile and thought about how truly different sex with Selene had been.

I had been captivated by her.

I kept on taking my blonds to bed, but the only person I really wanted was the redhead with the ocean eyes.

My Neverland.

My fairy.

My tigress.

My Goody-Two-shoes…

“Tink…” I whispered, giving voice to my thoughts. I just wanted to use her again, because when I did, I wasn’t thinking about Kimberly for the first time in a long time. I could feel something closer to human, less different from everyone around me.

The next moment, something appeared in my reflection that snapped my single thread of reason. It was him again, the child. I sighed and prepared myself for what he had to say.

“You like her…” murmured the Peter Pan who lived inside me, holding tight to my memories.

The attraction I felt toward my beautiful tigress was palpable, a visceral want that had me imagining her naked underneath, though I was well aware that I’d never be able to give her anything other than sex.

“We can’t have her, and you know it too,” I told the Boy in the mirror, who fixed me with an insolent stare and an unpredictable smirk. “There’s no Neverland for us. There’s nothing but reality,” I added impatiently. Both of us longed to escape, but we were trapped together in my soul.

“There’s nothing but blond women who remind us that we’re not victims anymore, you got me?” I told him, tired of fighting with myself.

For a second—a fraction of a second—I thought about how much I missed talking to Dr. Lively.

He was the only person capable of listening to both me and what lived inside me.

I ducked my head, ending my internal monologue, and spotted my iPhone lying right next to my hand.

I saw the tiny circle of the front camera and immediately snatched it up and turned it face down.

I sighed in relief but too soon: now the back camera was pointing up at me.

I was motionless as I stared at it, getting lost in the darkness of that tiny lens that wanted to draw me in, confound my subconscious and take me far away from this reality.

And thus the memories began…

“Smile, Neil.” Kim aimed the lens at me. She had rummaged through my father’s stuff and found an old Argus C3 camera that she’d been turning over in her hands for several minutes.

“I said smile,” she ordered, irritated because I never listened to her. I hated it when she gave me orders, and she never tolerated my attempts at disobedience.

I was sitting on the Persian carpet in the living room drawing, and I gave her a serious look. With an angry motion, she launched the camera at me and I flinched. She regularly had angry outbursts that she couldn’t seem to control, and I always tried to hide how much she scared me then.

“You are such a spoiled, stubborn kid.” She sat down huffily on the couch, spreading her legs wide. She was wearing a tight shirt and an extremely short skirt. Short enough that I could see her white panties underneath it.

She caught me looking between her thighs and grinned. I’d never been a particularly brazen kid, but Kim was teaching me to become one.

“What’re you looking at?” she asked, as I hastily went back to my drawing.

“Nothing,” I answered, refusing to turn back in her direction.

“Little perv,” she chuckled, blowing a big bubble with her chewing gum.

I began to experience all the usual awful sensations: anxiety, trembling hands, heart racing in my chest. I shifted uncomfortably in my shorts.

At the time, I couldn’t tolerate wearing my underwear.

Kim’s attentions had irritated my groin and caused redness on my genitals, but I’d never told my mother about it.

I was too ashamed.

“Do you want to play?” she asked then, amused. That was what she always proposed. Kim loved to play; I didn’t.

I didn’t like the games she played. I didn’t like the things she did to me. I didn’t like the way she looked at me or touched me.

I shook my head slowly and continued drawing. I was trying to draw a vase, but I couldn’t concentrate.

“Cat got your tongue? Come on—answer me,” she urged impatiently.

She got up from the sofa and came toward me.

The floor seemed to vibrate with every step she took, and my heart sank as the familiar fear twisted through my body.

I wasn’t brave enough to look up at her.

Instead, I stared at her white ankle socks and the flat black shoes that matched the rest of her outfit.

“What do you want to do instead? Watch that stupid cartoon again? The Peter Pan one?”

Suddenly, I no longer saw anything at all. I just heard her voice, mocking me the way she always did.

“It’s my favorite,” I answered in a shaky voice.

“For real?” she said in mock surprise. “I don’t give a shit.”

She knelt down to look me in the face, and only then did I look into her eyes.

They were gray. Cold. Cruel. Dangerous.

“I don’t want to play with you.” I continued to be stubborn even though I always knew how it would end.

Kim was going to win. She always won.

“I’ve got a lot of things in mind. I need to get you ready.” She reached out and pushed a curl off my forehead. Then she smiled as she stared fixedly at my lips.

“Get ready for what?” I managed to ask, trying to ignore how my soul splintered every time she touched me.

“When you’re ready, I’m going to introduce you to some people. They’ll be your new friends,” she continued, petting my hair, and I smacked her hand away from me. Kim frowned and gave me a severe look.

“I don’t want any new friends, and I don’t want you, either!” I yelled. Then I scrambled to my feet, wiping away a tear. I hadn’t even realized I was crying, and I knew that I wasn’t supposed to. My father would have been mad at me. He said crying was for sissies.

“Pick up the camera. I’m going to teach you something new today,” she said, gesturing at the old Argus lying on carpet. But, once again, I disobeyed. I kicked the camera away from me, cracking the lens. I didn’t care; I was used to challenging Kim.

She tried to bend me to her will, and I fought with everything I had not to give in to her.

“You little shit.” She took me by the wrist and bent down to look into my eyes.

I got a whiff of her vanilla perfume and turned up my nose at it because I couldn’t stand it.

I couldn’t stand having it on me, on my skin, inside me.

That smell had invaded me; it had insinuated itself into every part of me without my permission, and I was disgusted by it.

“Should I go play with Logan instead?” She grinned smugly, because she knew she had me in her clutches.

She always used the same tactic in the end: blackmail. She knew that I would never allow her to touch my brother, that I would give in to her instead.

I did what I had to do to protect Logan.

“So pick up that camera and go wait for me in your parents’ bedroom. We’re going to play a new game.” She released my wrist and looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to follow her orders.

“In Mom and Dad’s room?” I repeated incredulously.

“In Mom and Dad’s room,” she confirmed.

When I was little, I never worried about monsters under the bed or in the closet.

I never believed stories about aliens coming through a kid’s window in the middle of the night to abduct them.

One thing that had scared me, though, were tales of child-eating witches. And Kim was a real life child-eater.

She fed on their innocence, ended their childhoods, annihilated their lives, and destroyed their dreams.

And, every time, I tried to fly away. Far away from Kim.

But she always reached out and caught me.

She ate the child in me; she devoured his purity, and there was nothing I could do to stop her.

I picked up my phone and walked out of the bathroom to toss it on the bed. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of sex that hung around the room. I’d forgotten to open the window and gather up the sheets for Anna to wash. I did both hurriedly with just my towel on.

Then I got dressed, putting back on the same clothes I’d stripped off a couple hours earlier. I rolled up the sleeves of my white sweater. It smelled clean, like the rest of my body, and it made me feel a bit calmer.

It was about eleven p.m. by then. After spending the afternoon in the library with Logan and Selene, I’d gone out with the Krew to distract myself and have a drink.

About an hour later, I’d ended up in bed with a blond I’d picked up at Blanco.

Or rather, she offered herself to me on a silver platter, and I took her up on it.

Exhausted, I sat down on the edge of the bed and put on my shoes. The air outside was cold, so I also put on my brown leather jacket before I left the pool house. I felt in my pockets for my phone and keys before I shut the door.

As I turned to cross the lawn and go back inside the house, I spotted a figure huddled on a chaise longue next to the pool.

A blue blanket was draped over her slim shoulders, and her auburn hair was scraped back into a high ponytail.

I recognized her perfect profile and generous mouth immediately. Selene.

How long had she been out there?