Page 111 of Let the Game Begin
I grabbed her wrist and dragged her down onto my lap. Selene clutched the thin blanket that had fallen off one shoulder and wrapped it close around her, like she was trying to protect herself from me. I stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray and put my hand on her hip. The other one traversed her thigh, concealed by black leggings. Soon, my fingers were not far away from her crotch, my palm so large that I almost covered her completely.
“What, exactly, was so repulsive?” I whispered sensually a short distance from her lips. She watched me with wide, wary eyes. She was afraid of me, and I didn’t like that at all.
“Seeing you do those things…” she answered vaguely, looking into the crystalline pool water illuminated by underwater lights rather than facing me.
“What things?” I wanted to hear her say something filthy, but I knew Selene would never do that. I rubbed her side in an attempt to get her to relax, because, perched there on my legs, she felt as stiff and taut as a violin string.
I examined her face, that little upturned nose, the dark pink lips pressed together, and long eyelashes that stood out clearly around the crystals she called eyes. It was a beautiful face, and I couldn’t stop analyzing it like it was some architectural masterpiece that I wanted to re-create in my notebook.
Suddenly, my mind suggested that I do something very dumb. I lifted myindex finger and delicately traced the outline of her profile. Selene gently turned her face toward me, watching and letting me touch her. My index finger continued down her nose, over her lips, along her slim jaw. A little gasp told me she was nervous, and I couldn’t tell whether it was from fear or anticipation, but I had known for a long time by then the effect I had on her.
I inched closer and sniffed her. She smelled like coconuts and a clean and that made me want to do other, equally dumb things.
Dumber, even.
I cocked my head and put my lips on her neck. I traced them up and down and up again, letting my tongue make a wet trail across her skin. Her hands clamped down on the blanket and my hands clamped down even harder on her hip and thigh.
“There’s no point in covering yourself up when the shivers are under your skin,” I whispered into her ear, grasping the lobe between my lips and sucking it, strong and slow. She dropped her hand to my stomach and clutched my sweater between her fingers.
“I can’t give you what you want. But you can use me and take what I have to offer…” I grabbed her hand and pulled it lower, right where I wanted it. “And it’s not my heart, Selene.” I underscored the point by pressing her hand into my crotch. I wanted her to understand and stop spinning up these nonexistent fantasies. Love was for the delusional; this right here was for the disillusioned. Like me.
“I’m not blond,” she murmured. I expected her to snatch her hand away at that point and run screaming. Maybe even slap me. But none of that happened.
Instead, she stroked me and my breath caught as I considered her words.
“I’m the only darker-haired girl you want…” she said thoughtfully.
She was the only one I wanted because she was Neverland, a fairy from a story, the door between reality and illusion. She was all of that, and at the same time, nothing at all because she didn’t even exist in my world. I wanted to say all of this to her, but I didn’t. Instead, I just soaked in the heat of her hand, touching me just the way I’d been wanting for the last two weeks.
To be perfectly honest, I’d only been giving her time to recover afterJennifer’s attack. Fortunately, I’d been able to come to her rescue then, but I since wondered many times further Jennifer, in her frenzy, would have gone if I hadn’t been there.
“May… May I touch you?” She had stopped rubbing me between my thighs, and I had to shut my eyes as I nestled into the crook of her neck, only then registering how ridiculously close we were to one another.
She was me asking for permission to touch me? Where? And more importantly,why?
She had probably realized a long time ago how weird I was in that way. She had noticed that I hated to be touched without my consent and that was why she was now asking my permission.
I didn’t say anything but nodded. Selene lifted her index finger and touched my forehead, which wrinkled as I frowned, realizing what she had in mind. Her finger stroked down my straight nose and she smiled.
She was echoing my gesture from before.
The tip of her finger was cold on my skin, but I didn’t object to her touch, which was soft and delicate.
“You have a perfect face,” she whispered, staring at my lips before moving her finger over them as well. She traced the shape of my mouth and swallowed. She wanted to kiss me; I could tell by the way her pupils dilated, shrinking the circle of ocean blue around them. She drew her finger farther down to my chin and stroked the scruff on my jaw, continuing along to my throat.
The fabric of my sweater kept her touch from reaching my collarbone, yet it still felt as though I could sense her presence on my skin. Then, her palm flattened on the left side of my chest, right over my heart.
“Pounding. I can feel you, you know? Pounding so hard,” she murmured, as though she were actually speaking directly to the muscle inside my chest. And in that brief moment, I felt like I actually understood what it meant to be human, but it was such a fleeting feeling that I immediately snapped back to who I really was.
“It’s calledarousal.” I moved into the crook of her neck again and pressed a small kiss there, breathing in her good smell. “Tachycardia is just a symptom of physical arousal. You look at things from the wrong angles,Tinkerbell, and it’s no good.” Destroying her illusion, I felt her legs shift as she moved to stand up, but I held her down on top of me. She was going to stay there until I decided she could go. “It pounds for a lot of women, you know? And not because I love them,” I added in a soft voice, and Selene tried again to wriggle away, but I still didn’t let her.
“Stop it,” she pleaded, squeezing her eyes shut. She shouldn’t have done that. She needed to look at me and listen to me and understand me.
“It was pounding for the blond from before, the one you saw coming out of the pool house,” I continued, not because I wanted to hurt her, but because I wanted her to see things the way I saw them.
“I said stop it!” she said, raising her voice and glaring at me. She tried with one hand to push me away, but I knew it was in vain. She was too small and delicate to fight someone like me.
“You should tell your boyfriend everything and start over fresh with a person you can actually fall in love with. And not because he knows how to fuck you or because you find his problems fascinating, but because he’s a serious man with whom you can build a future,” I said, making it all clear to her. All the things I couldn’t give her and all the hopes she should never, ever project onto me.
