Good Game: A Gamer Romance (Leveling Up In Love Book 1)

by Kat Alex Crystal

  She leaned the rest of the way forward, pressing her lips against his in a closed-mouth kiss, the longest moment passing in tension, as if they were both thinking, are we past this?

  And then her tongue was in his mouth, and then she was casting aside the comforter as his arms reached around her, pulled her close. They stumbled over to the bed and fell in a heap, graceless and joyful. Those talented fingers reached into all her most hidden spots and strengthened her somehow, reinforced the cracks in her soul and smoothed them over with ecstasy.

  It looked like breakfast was going to have to wait.

  Face-down on his pillow, Jack stirred and reached across the soft sheets, missing the soft warmth next to him. He kept on reaching.

  The sheets were cold. He propped himself up and looked around frantically. His heart pounded in his chest until he caught the heavenly smell of bacon.

  He sank back down on his stomach. Downstairs, a cabinet thumped closed. Something—a plate?—slid across the countertop. He breathed a sigh of relief. She was downstairs. Cooking breakfast.

  He glanced at the sunlight streaming through the curtains. Make that lunch.

  As he sat and listened to her, the events of the night before drifted through his mind. The bar, the car, everything that came after. Thank God the contract had been canceled. A weight had lifted off his shoulders. Nothing fake between them anymore.

  Huh. Why exactly had she wanted the money in the first place? He had never asked her. That felt remarkably self-centered all of a sudden.

  The good news was he could rectify that quickly. He jumped out of bed and pulled on his T-shirt and gym pants. There was that cowboy too; they’d never gotten back to that. So much they still didn’t know about each other.

  He made for the door, caught sight of himself in the mirror, and stopped short. So much she still didn’t know about him. Like his mother’s addictions. Like his own. She’d handled his idiosyncratic secrets well enough.

  But what about the truly dark ones?

  Sitting on his back porch in the snow flashed through his mind again. Maybe getting to know each other even better could wait a little longer. He’d tell her… just not yet.

  As he rounded the stairs and headed toward the kitchen, she hit the button on his toaster.

  He stopped in the doorway. Last night’s dress was still on the floor upstairs, and a pair of his gym shorts and an old T-shirt were showing off curves they’d never experienced before. This brilliant woman was in his house wearing his clothes. And waiting for him to get up.

  He headed for her like a noob diving for a tower; he couldn’t resist.

  “Good morning,” he said slowly, sliding his arms around her hips and clasping his hands in front of her.

  “Good afternoon, at this point,” she said, smiling. “But I made bacon. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? I’m just glad I had real food in there.” He nuzzled her neck, not trying to hide the way his eyes slid hungrily over her. “Are those…”

  “Your clothes? Yes.”

  “I don’t mind that either.”

  She rotated in his arms and gave him a quick kiss before turning back to the bacon. “Do you have anything to do today?”

  “No, not really. After the tournament last weekend, nothing big going on. Nothing that can’t wait. You?”

  “I had been planning to try one more configuration in the lab, but that’s probably not happening. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “You can bring your work over here. Well, not the lab.”

  “And if I bring work here, will I do it?”

  “Well, we can’t have sex every minute of the day. We have to take some breaks.”

  “Those are for sleep only.”

  He chuckled. “I have work I can do. If you want. One thing about employing yourself, there’s always more work to do. But otherwise, I’m all yours.”

  She took the bacon out with tongs and plopped it onto paper towels. “Well… I’ll consider it. I was thinking more Mortal Kombat and takeout.”

  “I might have something more modern to play.”

  “Oh, that newer Killer Instinct? Or do you actually have a LAN room here?”

  “I think I have about ten computers if you want to play, you know, seriously.”

  “Okay, now you’re starting to turn me on.”

  “I wasn’t last night?”

  “That was just a warm-up.”

  His hands grazed perfect curves, gliding across the white T-shirt. She feigned interest in patting the bacon as his hand slipped under the shirt, across her velvet skin, and up to where her nipples teased the thin fabric. He brushed his lips softly from her shoulder up her neck, breathing in that scent of incense and sex again. Almost of its own volition, his other hand plunged downward, sliding across the dark nest of curls and slipping his fingers inside her as she caught her breath.

  They’d be lucky if they stopped long enough to eat the bacon.

  Chapter 9

  The sound of her Rabbit pulling into the garage wasn’t as weird as he would have thought. Jack had given her the other garage door opener barely a week ago, but already the sound was just normal, part of life. Maybe the happy thrill was a Pavlovian response to what usually came next.

  Not today, though. Robo-Janet and Lawrence were getting married.

  At least they hadn’t insisted on him being in the bridal party. You win some, you lose some. But he was definitely not standing up there with those fuckers.

  He took one last look at the faded high school portrait, then set it back in its box in the top drawer of his dresser and pushed the drawer shut. His mother, before she’d married Lawrence or even met him.

  He clomped downstairs, filled with a weird mix of glum apprehension and eagerness to see Violet. The door from the garage opened, and there she was. The sleeveless navy-blue dress—like most of his house, he thought, and his shirt too, incidentally—was dotted with sparkles, like a field of stars, that went from sparse at the high turtleneck to dense at her feet. Her lips had lost their usual dark cast and instead were a vivid, knee-weakening red. He stopped midstep on the staircase, frozen, regarding her.

  She smiled at him, then fidgeted slightly. “So… what do you think? No bullets, but…”

  He laughed and started back down the stairs. “Are you kidding?”

  She looked down, didn’t meet his eye. Was she actually worried what he thought? Mouse was right, perhaps she looked a little tougher than she was. Sometimes.

  Reaching her, he put an arm around her and swept her close, burying his face in her neck to breathe her in. “You look breathtaking,” he said, brushing his lips against her neck.

  She sighed at the sensation. How much time did they have before they had to leave? No, he could wait a few hours. Or they could leave the wedding early. He wouldn’t be surprised if it came to that anyway.

  “Are you sure you want to go?” Her breath was warm in his hair.

  “No, I’m not sure. I threatened not to show when they tried the mail-stealing stunt.”

  “Have you talked to them since then?”

  “No.”

  She squeezed him a little tighter. “We don’t have to go. We can order Thai food and eat takeout looking like kings, or go out and—”

  “No, I have to go.”

  “Why?”

  Why, indeed. He heaved a deep breath. “I don’t know. I just don’t feel right about not going.”

  “You don’t owe them anything,” she said. “You know, that right?”

  He nodded, his chin brushing her shoulder. He was ready not to give them any more openings to sucker punch him in the soul. But it wasn’t that, not exactly. He didn’t feel obligated because of them, but because of an older, deeper ache.

  Just this one last opening. If his mother was being replaced, the least he could do was stand and watch in horror. That was what drove him. He was going for her. As witness, or memorial.

  “You okay?”

  He nodded again in silence, s
tealing a few more long, deep breaths of her. Sweet and earthy and mystifying.

  “Want me to drive?” She smoothed the back of his hair with tender fingers.

  He straightened to meet her gaze. “I was thinking of just taking my car. Frank probably told them about it anyway, right?”

  She searched his face. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m not going to be drinking anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  He hesitated. This was too close to the topic of the day for comfort. He didn’t want to actively hide it from her but… Now was not the time. “Then you can drink, if you want. And I don’t want to make a scene. Sober is the safer route. Help me not make a scene, okay? If… if the…” His throat failed him. She ran a finger along his jaw.

  “What’s wrong? You okay?”

  “Yeah. I can explain more later. Gotta work up to it.”

  “I understand. Not all secrets are fun to share,” she said softly.

  He swallowed. If she only knew how right she was. They’d dealt with the more pleasant ones. Did she have some as dark as the one he couldn’t voice right now? Darker? He hoped not, for her sake. He could probably force it out, if he had to, but he didn’t want to show up a total mess.

  “Let’s go,” he whispered. “And get this over with.”

  Violet was not surprised to discover that the wedding of Janet’s dreams was both the event of the decade—probably the century, in half their minds—and also done up in the most predictably elegant way she could imagine.

  What did surprise Violet was how engrossed she got with it all. In a fashion entirely un-Violet-like, she found herself analyzing every detail and just exactly what she’d do differently when the time came. Far from now, of course. No, if, if the time came. If it came, she would definitely not phone in the flowers with balls of baby’s breath and hydrangeas, dramatic as they were. White might not even be present in the whole affair if Vi were in charge, but here it competed with beige to engulf the cocktail hour at the Grand Edward Fiskoff Hotel.

  “Have you ever seen such gorgeous flowers?” A woman who looked nearly as manufactured as Janet gestured vaguely at a ball of white as she and another woman passed Violet arm in arm.

  “No, never in my life,” her companion replied, sounding both awed and utterly insincere.

  Such close proximity to black holes of fakeness made her seriously concerned they might steal a bit of her soul.

  Tall white candles in high silver candlesticks. White carpets, white tables, white mints in great glass bowls. As if there was any purity here.

  Way too much white. Violet probably wouldn’t even go for a white dress. Maybe black would be nice. Or fucking laser-beam red. Her dad would probably like that. Robo-Janet, though, might die of shock.

  Jack’s new stepmother’s gown wasn’t conventional, though. Vi did have to give her points for that. The bride strode through the crowd, Aphrodite among mortals. Rich fabric draped across her genetically gifted form in a gown that would have been at home in ancient Greece. There were even little leaves of gold pinned in her hair. Okay, so Janet had not at all phoned in the dress; on that front, she was killing it.

  “What a beautiful couple,” another passerby murmured.

  “Yes, indeed. They’re so lucky to do this… at their age.”

  There was nothing strictly wrong with the whole affair, other than its utter lack of originality occasionally making Violet want to barf. Or mount an escape from this prison made of Martha Stewart Weddings. It was really all fine. Some would call it classic, and they would be right.

  But Violet was not a classic kind of person.

  The crowd of well-dressed, sophisticated professionals seethed and oozed, the well-bred mingling with each other. Attendees to Vi’s wedding would be another difference. Penny would fit with her taste for all things formal, but Mouse wouldn’t be caught dead in anything so boring as a black tux. Here, every man wore the customary uniform, bowtie and all, with compulsory accessorizing trophy on the arm in her little black dress and heels.

  “Beautiful dress,” Vi said every time she ran out of real things to say.

  “Thank you, you as well.”

  Jack had donned a tux too and was looking handsome as hell, if a few notches less polished and certainly not as well shaven. The scruff only added appeal to her, of course. She would have enjoyed the sight more if she hadn’t been able to feel the friction slowly curling in him, a storm building. There was a tension in his jaw, his temples, his small talk forced and tight-lipped.

  “What have you been up to?”

  “Oh, you know, the same old things…”

  The only spice of life among the guests were a few more eclectic types in ultra-modern formal wear in stark angular lines whom Violet had to guess were other Ragsford professors. Maybe getting tenure meant you could wear whatever the hell you wanted.

  “This is excellent shrimp cocktail.”

  “Isn’t it, though?”

  Violet, for one, had summoned all her discipline to not wear the dress she’d originally planned. Amusing as a print of unicorns vomiting rainbows might have been, she had admitted it was not something she would have really wanted anyone to wear to her own wedding. So it felt a little hypocritical to inflict it on someone else. Even Robo-Janet.

  Strangely, two weeks of not dealing with Robo-Janet and happily “dealing” with Jack had sown small seeds of sympathy in her heart for the woman. Flawed she might be, wrong on many counts, but she was still a human being and now Jack’s stepmother, and Violet was starting to entertain the idea that she might actually want to hitch herself to this family for a long time.

  Perhaps forever.

  Oh, who was she kidding. As she and Jack milled about the cocktail hour, eating the predictable beef Wellington and sipping the typical champagne—well, he had tonic water in a champagne glass—she was not just thinking about Robo-Janet and how much she felt sorry for her for marrying the One True King of the Assholes.

  Nope, she was getting carried away imagining better themed cocktails. And making up excuses to move them on from acquaintances and relatives when it looked like Jack had run out of his very small supply of conversational steam and might want to die. Each time she would take his arm, make an excuse about needing more food or water or champagne or fresh air, and draw him away, a slight bit of the tension would slip out of him until the next dreaded tuxedo approached.

  He’d been coiled like a cobra throughout the ceremony, but luckily it had been extremely short and to the point.

  His hand had pulsed around hers as the wedding vows commenced, though why exactly she wasn’t sure. She certainly hadn’t been thinking about him when “With this ring, I thee wed” had echoed through the hotel ballroom. No, sirree.

  She’d caught him staring at her, and the smile he’d given her had been pensive. But there’d been something else in there too. Hope? Maybe he’d been thinking some of what she’d been thinking. Maybe not.

  Of course, thinking about marrying Jack today was about as stupid and rash as accepting his contract to begin with. Or falling for him after having accepted his contract. Clearly, while she was good at physics, she was remarkably stupid—or at least impractically romantic—about other things.

  Fortunately, the formal part of the reception didn’t take long either. After the standard but well-executed surf and turf—a rich man’s chicken and fish, she reasoned—Vi and Jack were able to escape from the ballroom for a little while. The cocktail hour had taken place in a vast hall outside the ballrooms, which was mercifully empty now. The place was decorated like an atrium, with high ceilings and skylights and unfeeling beige wood and stone and marble everywhere.

  They found a quiet alcove behind a large palm to hide in. They sat on a small stone bench, the kind intended to be outside in a park somewhere. It lent the hallway some of that effect, even indoors in early February.

  He put his arm around her, and she leaned her head into his shoulder, and they simply sat in silence
for a while, the rigid stiffness built up in him relaxing slightly.

  “I’m going to go get another drink,” she said, holding up her now-empty champagne glass. “Why don’t you stay here?”

  “Stay here?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah. The small talk might turn you into a vampire if this goes on much longer, I think.”

  “How so?”

  “You know, stealing your soul.”

  “I didn’t notice anyone drinking blood.”

  “They’re doing it metaphorically, I assure you.” She winked at him. “Want some water or anything?”

  “Sure.” He nodded. She gave him a peck of a kiss and headed just inside the ballroom to fetch a drink as efficiently as possible.

  “Cabernet and an ice water,” she told the bartender. Enough champagne for one night. She leaned against the bar, already tired of her heels. Boots were so much more comfortable.

  “Oh, it’s you.”

  The slurred words sent a chill through her. She turned. Looming just above her was none other than Lawrence.

  “I shoulda given you more credit.”

  “Excuse me?” she managed.

  “You’re more savvy than I thought.” He poked her in the shoulder with one finger, the rest wrapped around a tumbler clinking with ice. A drop of water splashed and slid down her arm.

  “What?” Violet frowned.

  “I thought, what is it with this girl, she’s got nothing to gain by taking my Jack, and I’ve got everything to get out of it, everything—and here she is, mucking up my plans.” He poked her again.

  “Your Jack? Jack isn’t yours.” He’s mine.

  She glanced away, trying to disengage. A man with heavy white eyebrows was approaching on the other side of her, but his eyes caught on Lawrence. He hesitated, stopping a dozen feet off to watch the two of them talking.

  Lawrence’s fingernail jammed harder into the skin of her shoulder this time, and she winced, covering it with her hand. “But I shoulda given you more credit,” he slurred. “I thought he was sucha waste of space, and here the kid’s loaded. Loaded! Had no idea he had his own damn company. No idea! His own company!” He was possibly even more sloshed than she’d originally assessed.