The Game Series (77 page)

I was so wrong. Every single fucking time.

I’m the first to admit I can be naïve. I can be stupid and impulsive and thoughtless. But I’ve never been so right about anything in my life.

Kyle Daniels is my One. He is The One. Capital fucking letters and all.

I slam my empty glass down on the table next to me. The need to get away from this place, from his penetrating gaze, is more than I can take. I can’t fight it the thread pulling me to him anymore, so I leave the hall and I step into the night.
Home.
My heels click against the sidewalk as I head toward my house.

“What is it about you?” His voice drifts to me through the night. “What is it about you that keeps me coming back no matter how many times I try to walk away?”

I stop. “My brother.” I call the words over my shoulder.

“No. Not Cam. In fact, I think he’d kill me if he knew what I was thinking right now.”

My feet come to a standstill.
Walk, you motherfuckers!

“I’ve tried to work it out since I got back. Every day I’ve sat and tried to figure out what it is, the reason I can’t stay away from you, and you know what? I can’t. I don’t have a goddamn fucking clue, Rox. Except you. Whatever it is, you keep me coming back over and over again.”

Breathe.
“Go back inside, Kyle.”

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
He stops behind me. “I’ve tried. Fuck, Rox! Don’t you think I’ve tried to walk away from you? Don’t you think I’ve tried to stop this crazy shit in my head? I’ve succeeded, so many times, but not this time. This time I don’t wanna stop it.”

I take a deep breath, not wanting to hear this. I can’t hear this. “You’re lying.”

His hand settles on my waist. “Am I? Am I lying about the times I’ve thought about holding you in my arms until you’re begging for more? Am I lying about the times I’ve held your body to mine and wished there were no clothes between us? Am I lying about needing to make love to you so bad I’m going fucking crazy with need?”

Heart. No beating. Lungs. No breathing. Mind. No thinking.

“Kyle.”

Lips ghost my neck. “I’ve tried, Rox. I’ve tried so fucking hard, but it’s you. I can’t fight this shit anymore. All of it is true. Every goddamn word.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Am I lying about falling for you? About your eyes being the ones I look in and your lips being the ones I kiss every day? Am I lying about your body being the one I hold, one, two, three, fucking ten times a day? Am I hell!” His voice echoes through the empty woods. “Do you know what it did to me to see you crying and knowing I’d put those tears there? I know, babe. I know you feel the same, so why don’t you just admit it and put us both out of our misery?”

I can’t do this. I can’t stand here and listen to him. I should run. I know. But I don’t.

“Why?” I turn and yell at him although he’s right in front of me. My voice seems to echo in the empty village. “Why, Kyle? I’m nothing special. I’m nothing to scream from the rooftops about!”

“You are to
me.
” He sinks his fingers into my curled hair. “I told you you were everything to me. I wasn’t lying about that either. Rox, babe, believe me, for the love of God.”

I press my lips to his. It could be the small amount of alcohol or it could be his words. I don’t know and I don’t care. I just know I want him. I need him. Four years of a crush and I can’t give up now. I don’t give a shit about our past or the pain we share. I just care about the guy I’m holding onto like he’s all I have left in this world.

“Get on my back.” He smiles slowly.

“You’re kidding.”

“Get on before I put you on.” Kyle grins like a little kid and I stand behind him. My hands on his shoulders and his on my thighs help boost me up. I laugh. Hard.

“I feel like a six year old again.” I wrap my arms round his neck.

He laughs and jogs through the woods. I cling to his back, stifling my giggles the whole way, and wonder how I can go from not wanting to be near him one minute to needing him the next. It doesn’t seem right how quickly my feelings change – how quickly my mood changes around him.

His hand dips into my pocket, and he produces my house keys. The key flits into the slot of my front door and we step inside. Kyle puts it in the other side and locks it.

“Tell me now,” he whispers into the silence of my house. “If I’m wrong about how you feel and you’d rather a jackass than me, tell me now.”

I sink my fingers into his hair, gripping onto it. “You’re the only jackass I want,” I mutter against his lips.

I sweep my mouth against his and run up the stairs, sliding my jacket from my arms. Thundering steps tell me he’s following me, and I can’t help the laugh that leaves me when I throw my jacket to the side and run into my room. I’m not used to being chased. Every step, every pound against the wood, it sends a thrill through my body I can’t explain.

Kyle catches me just inside the door. His lips are hot and forceful against mine, teasing and pulling at every part of me. I walk backward with him attached to me, and we fall onto my bed, smiling against each other’s lips. Every part of my body is on fire where he’s touching me and I need more.
Always more
. I’ll never get enough where he’s concerned – I’ve wanted him for years, and I don’t know if I’ll ever stop wanting him.

My breasts are exposed as he pulls my shirt over my head. His lips leave a blazing trail across my skin, and I pull his mouth to mine again. The need to feel his skin against mine overcomes me and I slip his shirt up his back. This is hot. It’s passionate. It’s filled with that burning need escaping me, the one I’m sure will never be satisfied.

His shirt lands on my floor at the same time my fingertips creep below the waist of his jeans. His lips push into my neck, making every part of my skin tingle, leaving every kiss and every touch to shoot downward. My core aches, desperately, frantically, insatiably. He’s doing this to me and I have to wonder if he knows. If he knows just how my body craves him.

I undo the button on his jeans and push them over his bum
.
There isn’t a part of my body not crying out for him right now.

One of his hands slips beneath my bra when the other slips beneath the lace covering my core. His thumbs tease both my nipple and my clit, flicking and rolling until I’m so wet he’d slip inside me with ease.

And he does. Before I can curl my fingers around him, our jeans are on my floor and he’s wrapping my legs around him. I take him, long and hard, clenching as he pushes ever deeper. Yet it’s not enough. I need every part of him.

My hands pull his head into mine and our mouths crash together. I flick my tongue across his lips until his lips meet mine and his tongue dives into me as deeply as his dick is into me. I need to feel every inch of him. I need to feel like he’s owning me completely and utterly.

I need everything he has to give to me.

And he gives me it. He gives me every bit of himself. Every stroke of his tongue, every probe of his fingers, every pound of him inside me. He gives me all of him until I can’t take anymore.

My body clenches around him, clinging him to me, and I cry out. I let go of all the feelings building me and I shout into his shoulder. One, two, three, four, he pounds into me until he groans into my shoulder. Our bodies slump together, our fingers pressing to the other’s skin, and we hold each other.

He was right. There is a difference between fucking and making love. And the way he slides to the side, pulling me against him like he can’t bear to let me go, lets me know that was making love.

I snuggle into his chest, happiness taking hold and forming my lips into a smile. Kyle holds me tight, his chest rising and falling against mine and his heart pounding beneath my cheek, our legs twined together.

And that, the physical love we just made, wasn’t the only one that happened tonight. The crush I’ve been convincing myself of for the last few weeks is so much more.

I slide out of Roxy’s bed slowly, making sure I don’t wake her, and kiss her forehead. She’s sleeping so peacefully. Her hair is tumbling over her shoulder and her lips are parted as she breathes deeply. I hesitate before slipping my clothes back on.

I don’t want to leave.

I want to climb back in that bed and wrap my arms around her and never let go. I’m trying not to think of what her reaction will be when she wakes up alone – but I know neither of us want to explain to her parents in the morning why I’m here. My phone says it’s three a.m., and I know it’s too late to go where I want to, but I’m going anyway.

I hold my breath at the quiet click of her door closing and creep through the house, deliberately not looking at Cam’s bedroom door. A part of him still lives in that room. A part of KyleandCam lives in that room, and it’s a part I’m not ready to face yet.

I jog back through the woods and toward the cemetery. A sliver of guilt is snaking its way into my mind, but I’m clinging to the fact I know he’d rather it be me than anyone else.

If anyone had to fall in love with Roxy, he’d rather it be me.

I have to hold onto that thought.

The cemetery is closed, the gates locked, so I scale the railings on the wall that surrounds it. It takes me all of five seconds to jump over them, and I make my way to his grave. Even in the darkness it’s easy. I’ve been here so many times in the last month, its unconscious.

I blow out a long breath as I drop in front of Cam’s gravestone. So many things I want to say are rattling around in my mind. So many words and excuses that just won’t come out.

So I sit here. I sit here in silence, a rock concert level of noise in my head, and I stare at his name carved into the marble. So many things are wrong here yet so many are right at the same time. Roxy and me, it’s so wrong but so right. Everything over the last few weeks has been building to this moment. Every word, every looks, every touch, every kiss. They’ve all snowballed until tonight and it exploded between us.

There was no way I was letting her walk out of that fucking party without me. There wasn’t a chance on this goddamn Earth she was going anywhere without listening to what I had to say.

She has this incredible skill of hearing but not listening, and I know that’s what she did when I dragged her outside. She heard but only listened to what she wanted to – to what she believed – so when she left she was always going to listen. She was going to listen and she was going to understand me.

More importantly, she was going to damn well believe me and every word I said.

Now I’m sitting in front of my best friend’s grave, wondering what he’d say. He wouldn’t slap me on the back or laugh with me. He wouldn’t ask for details or high five me.

He’d ask me what the fuck I was thinking sleeping with his sister. He’d go ten shades of apeshit, then he’d give me an ear battering using every cuss word he’d ever heard. Then, and only then, would he tell me he’s glad it was me.

Because that’s it. He’d always want it to be me. He trusted me with her and he believed I’d always keep her safe.

But it doesn’t stop the guilt, and it doesn’t stop the fact a part of me feels like I took advantage of him not being here. Like I planned it, no matter how many times I say I didn’t.

Coming home, I never planned to sleep with Roxy. I never planned to do anything but pull her ass into line. The second time we met, I knew something more would happen. She was more than Cam’s sister. She was more than anything I’d ever felt, and she still is. She’s so much I don’t even have the words for it.

I stay here until the sun begins to rise. The rise casts orangey hues across the sky that sneak through the leaves of the trees, bathing the cemetery in a dull light, and I stand. Then I say the only words I can. The only words that’ll ever comfort him.

“Sorry, man. Guess I went and fell in love with your sister.”

Empty.

I sit upright and look around. He’s gone. His clothes are gone. My stomach clenches and my heart pounds once painfully. Of course. I cover my eyes with my hands when my phone buzzes.

I dive over the edge of my bed, feeling under it for my cell like a woman possessed.

“Bingo!” I produce the white block and unlock it, bringing up the messages.

Didn’t think you’d want to explain last night to your parents.

I smile and breathe a sigh of relief. This is Kyle, I remind myself. Kyle.

That could have been awkward,
I reply.

Don’t think the worst, Rox. I meant what I said last night.

I want to believe it. So I do. I believe it because it’s Kyle, and I trust him with my life.

The house is silent, so I get dressed quickly and slip downstairs. I avoid Cam’s door. I have to go and see him but I can’t handle being around his things this morning. It’s almost as if I have to explain myself to him… Even if I don’t have the words to do so.

Verity Point is quiet as I wander through the village. The cemetery has just opened and I meander through the rows of headstones until I reach my brother’s. I sit slowly, holding my thighs to my chest, and read the headstone over and over until I feel like I can speak.

“I wish you were here,” I whisper loudly. “I wish you were here so you could tell me what to do. You’re supposed to be here, hitting the guy who did what Kyle did last night. Maybe you wouldn’t have hit him because it’s Kyle, but whatever.

“It would be easier if you were still here. If you were I could ask you if Kyle really does care about me because of me. I think he does, but you’d know. Then I could ask you if you mind. I feel like I did when I was six and needed your Action Man for Barbie to marry because I’d lost my Ken doll. You minded then and I guess you do now, too. Just don’t do any freaky haunting crap, alright? I know what you’re like. You’ll go all Nearly Headless Nick on me – you did say once if you be a ghost you’d be him, but that would just scare the crap out of me.” I laugh quietly at the memory and swipe my cheek.

“I just miss you, y’know? I miss you being here for everything and kicking my ass every five seconds. I miss you treating me like a kid and warning off every guy who tried to date me, and I miss you going all big bro on him when you find out I dated him anyway. You were never angry at me, and while I hated you pulling that shit with other guys, I don’t mind anymore. I know you were just looking out for me. I wish you could do that now. I wish you could give Kyle a shake and give him your big bro chat.

“I guess it was inevitable, though. You never told him how I felt. Hell, Cam, you shouldn’t have even known. You only do because you read my diary two years ago – which, by the way, I’m still pissed at you about – but you never said anything. You never teased me about it. I didn’t get it, but now I think I do. If your sister was gonna fall in love with anyone, it’s only fitting she falls for the one guy you trust around her.

“I want you to tell me I’m wrong. I want you to walk through the trees next to me and yell at me, dammit! I want you to tell me I’m stupid for sleeping with him and I want you to kick his ass! I want you to be here. Like you should be. With me! I want my brother back. I’d do anything to get you back. Nothing feels right anymore.

“Except Kyle. He’s all that feels right without you here. He fills a part of me that was lost when you died. He heals a bit of my heart that broke the same night. I’m in love with him, Cam. I don’t know exactly when or how it happened but I am. And I feel guilty. I need to know its okay and you don’t mind, but you can’t ever tell me that. Can you? I need you to tell me you’re happy, you’d rather us be together. I need to know so much you’ll never be able to tell me.”

Tears pour from my eyes. My vision is blurred from them but I can still see his name perfectly on the headstone like a cruel joke. I can barely breathe for the pain raging inside, for the ever-present breaking of my heart.

“You were my best friend and my brother. Why did you have to go and die on me, huh? Why did you have to leave me? Don’t you see I need you? I feel so fucking lost without you I think I’m going crazy over it. Dammit, Cam! Tell me its okay!”

I bury my face in my arms and let it out. My whole body wracks with each gut-wrenching sob I take, and I leave every tear to soak into my clothes. Every breath is harder to take than the last and every tear fatter than the last.

Until I look up.

A bird is perched on top of his gravestone. Its sitting there perfectly, looking around, and its eyes land on me. I sniff and wipe under my eyes with a deep breath. I touch my tattoo. The bird tweets once and takes flight.

It’s my heart talking, the dreaming part of me, but I’ll take it.

I’ll take that as my brother’s blessing.