After a few minutes Gérard pulled out, motioned with his hand, and Juliette turned over onto her hands and knees. He entered her from behind now, gripping her hips, pulling her back hard against him as he pushed forward and into her.

Kingsley took the tiniest step forward and Juliette’s eyes flashed open. Had she heard him? He knew Gérard had not. He was too lost in his own pleasure to even notice her utter indifference to him. But Juliette, she stared into the shadows where Kingsley stood.

“Go.” She mouthed the word at him. “Go.”

It was the last thing he wanted to do. But Gérard gave a hoarse cry as he finished inside her and rested his body on top of hers.

Gérard pulled out of her body and she rolled onto her back. She smiled up at her lover and mouthed, “Merci.”

He had two choices as he counted them. He could kill Gérard right now for no other reason than he’d touched the woman Kingsley already considered his own property.

Or he could do what she’d ordered him to do.

She’d told him to go.

Kingsley left.

17

Upstate New York

JOHN APOLLO CHASED Daphne all the way into the woods behind the school. Daphne feinted left, but he didn’t fall for it. She took a sharp turn right, and he followed close behind. He was fast but she was faster. But he was male and had better stamina. After two miles on rough terrain she couldn’t go another step. She collapsed against a tree and swallowed air until she coughed.

“Don’t touch me,” she said when he came to stand in front of her.

“I won’t.” He was panting just as hard as she was. She’d never seen perfect John Apollo looking so wrecked. His dark hair fell over his forehead in a wet mass, his jeans splashed with mud and muck, his shirt stained with sweat. “I just need to talk to you. Please talk to me.”

“You killed my brother.” Her hatred for this man in front of her was like a poison arrow in her heart. She felt the point digging in deeper with every breath.

“I know,” he said between heavy breaths. “I know I did.”

Those were the last words she expected from him.

“I killed your brother, yes,” he said, and it sounded as though he were exorcizing a demon with his confession. “And I don’t regret it.”

“How can you say that? He was—”

“He was bashing another student’s face into the wall, Daphne. You’re sixteen years old now. Grow up and face the truth that your brother was a time bomb. And he went off.”

“You didn’t have to kill him.”

“Do you think that’s what I wanted? I was trying to restrain him, not kill him.”

“It doesn’t matter what you were doing. He’s dead.”

“He’s dead and another boy isn’t. My conscience is clear.”

“Well, good for you,” Daphne said, anger boiling as hot as her blood. “My brother’s still dead but you sleep like a baby at night.”

“I don’t. I don’t sleep at all at night. I can’t sleep.”

“Because you killed my brother?”

“Because I’m in love with you.”

Daphne only stared at him. He bent over and coughed.

“You’re in love with me?”

“Of course I’m in love with you. Do you think I’d run after you for three goddamn miles in the woods in loafers if I wasn’t?”

Daphne ran her hands through her hair.

She laughed.

She laughed and then John laughed. The laugh rolled through her like a wave washing all the anger out of her heart. It poured out sobs that crested and ebbed. Before she knew it, John had her in his arms.

“He tried to choke me once,” Daphne whispered in his ear. “I thought my own brother would kill me. But he loved me. He did love me.”

“He loved you,” John whispered, stroking her hair. “I’m sure he didn’t want to be how he was. He was lucky he had you to love him back.”

“I don’t love you back.” Daphne met his eyes. “I can’t.”

“I know.” John nodded. “It’s fine. I don’t expect you to. Just let me love you, and let me help you and that’ll be enough.”

“It’s not enough.”

“What else is there then?” he asked, wiping her face with the end of his sleeve.

She raised her face to his and kissed him. He pulled back and looked at her. She saw in his eyes it was the last thing he expected her to do.

His eyes changed from shock to something else. The change scared her, but she didn’t look away. And when he kissed her, she wasn’t shocked at all.

She opened her mouth and his tongue slipped inside. He grabbed the strap of her tank top and yanked it down her arm. A rough hand reached into her bra and cupped her breast, pinching the nipple and squeezing it. She’d never been touched like this before, and the pleasure of it left her gasping. He rolled her nipples between his fingers and she moaned into his mouth. His hips pushed into hers, and she felt something big and brutally hard against her, and it made her ache with a new kind of wanting. John lowered his head to her chest, pulled her bra down to bare her breasts and sucked on her nipple.

Nobody had taught her how to be kissed like this. She’d taken sex ed, but it hadn’t prepared her for being pushed up against a tree in the woods with a twenty-four-year-old cop sucking and fondling her breasts. She thought about asking him to stop, but right then he chose to slip his hand into her running shorts and touch her clitoris. All words, all rationality even, left her, and all she could get out of her lips was one desperate, “Please...”