Page 18 of Wicked Games We Play

I had never related to an inanimate object more.

CHAPTERTEN

There was a piece of my heart that had always been Noah’s. I couldn’t explain the connection that I felt to him when we were younger, but I was like a moth to a flame. Now that I was an adult, the flame only burned brighter and was even more appealing than it had been back then.

But I also knew better. I knew my attraction to that flame would singe my wings, and I had just gotten them back. My freedom wasn’t something I was willing to let go of just yet.

Over the years, I had let myself think about Noah from time to time, and I had hoped he was happy. I desperately hoped that he had met the love of his life, had gotten married, and was living a blissful life with a couple of kids.

We didn’t have any friends that overlapped, so my knowledge about his life was limited to what I could find on social media, which wasn’t much. My limited knowledge of him as an adult led to me conjuring up an idea of the type of man he’d become, but he wasn’t anything like how I envisioned him to be. He was better.

It killed me to keep pushing him away. The thought of what we could be made my heart flutter in my chest. I knew with every inch of my soul that things with Noah would be different. Passionate. Exciting. But it still didn’t change the fact that I wanted to experience just a little of my life without a man by my side.

These last months of being able to say yes to offers of going places on a whim, on the nights that I didn’t have Jordan, had been everything I had hoped for them to be. I no longer needed to run things by another person. If I wanted to go, I was going, and there was something very special about having that privilege.

Despite my instinct to tell him ‘yes, I’ll be yours’, I forced myself to remember that I needed more time. Even if he was wearing me down with every touch and lingering look and his deliciously sinful mouth.

* * *

“I can’t believeyou’re going on a date tonight, babe,” Alana told me as she watched me applying my makeup in the mirror. We spoke more frequently through video chat than we did on a normal phone call, but I preferred it that way. It felt like we were hanging out together, even if we weren’t.

Holding two different shades of hot pink lipstick in front of me, I scrutinized them, trying to decide which to wear. “I know, but I’m not thinking of it as a date. I just need to see what other fish there are in the sea. Fish that just want to have a little fun, not make me commit to them.”

“Ugh. I still don’t understand why he wants you to commit. Can’t he just fuck you and be satisfied with that? He’s a man.”

“You’d think, but he literally told me he won’t fuck me. He wants to make love to me, and I told him, that’s how you catch feelings.” I wrinkled my nose at her as if catching feelings was the most outrageous thing.

Alana laughed, readjusting the phone and propping it up so that she could move around her perfect bright white kitchen. She loved to bake and had the gourmet kitchen to prove it. I kept urging her to open a bakery, or at least do some baking at home to sell, but she insisted she was happy with her job as a preschool teacher. “I hate to break it to you, boo, but I can tell by the way you’ve talked about him that you’ve caught those feelings you’ve been trying to avoid. It’s totally fine that you don’t want to explore that though, you just got out of a marriage. I think it’s amazing you want to give yourself some time to play the field. Does Noah know about your date tonight?”

I stopped applying my lipstick, having chosen the darker of the pinks, to give her a pointed look. “What do you think?”

She shrugged. “You gonna tell him?”

“I have something in mind.”

Her eyes narrowed as she watched me put my makeup back in its train case. “I worry about these games you play with him, girl. I’m afraid the tables are going to turn one of these days and you’re going to end up hurt.”

“I won’t. Don’t worry about me, Lanie. I know what I’m doing, I promise.”

“Turn your location on for me tonight. I want to make sure your date doesn’t end up a serial killer. You know how those apps can be.” Although a party girl, Alana was a constant worrier and mother hen. If you were lucky enough to be her friend, she cared about you wholeheartedly.

“I will. I have to go. Love you,” I told her, picking up my phone and cradling it in preparation of hanging up.

“Love you,” she said as she disconnected her end of the call.

I huffed out a breath, moving toward my closet to grab my black patent leather pumps. For my date tonight, I had put on a black pencil skirt and a white satin tank top that had a drooping neckline that made my boobs look fantastic. While it felt a little businesslike, it was an outfit that I felt confident in. I paired it with a loose-knit black shawl and left my blonde hair in beachy waves.

There was a small pang in my chest knowing that Noah wouldn’t see me like this, and I felt slightly guilty about this date, but I tried to push the thoughts from my head. The date was purely for physical purposes. I needed to get laid. And I desperately needed to get Noah out of my mind, even if just for a little while.

They say the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, so I would test that theory to see if it would just help me push him out of my thoughts.

“Why can’t I show you that my feelings for you are deeper than the surface?”

Noah’s words played over and over and it was taking everything that I had not to just give in and go to him. But until he was ready to accept that, for now, I could only give him the physical, I knew I had to keep my distance. I wanted to give him my body, but he wouldn’t be satisfied until I gave him my heart, too.

That scared the absolute shit out of me.

While he was pushing for me to become his, he was skipping all the steps of a new relationship that I craved. Getting to know one another. The courtship. The dates. The sex. We had bypassed pretty much all of that and headed straight into the mind games.

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