“Will…” I breathed out, unable to catch my breath. “Don’t.”

“I’ll never stop.” He shook his head, coming in again. “Never.”

He pushed me. “Kill me.”

Stop.

His hands slammed into me again. “I’m going to take her away from you, so kill me.”

You can’t have her. I’ll…

“Kill me, so I’m out of your way!” he bellowed. “If you did it right last time I’d be at the bottom of the fucking ocean, so finish the job, and then you can have her!”

An image of him sinking below the deep, black surface of the sea crawled into my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get rid of it.

He would’ve been gone forever.

“Fucking kill me,” he said, his voice even and suddenly calm.

“No.”

“Kill me. You’re going to have to.”

I shook my head.

He grabbed me by the collar, screaming, “Do it!”

And I grabbed his neck in my hands, ramming him into the wall of the pool house. “I can’t!”

He grunted, breathing hard, and I dropped my forehead to his, unable to swallow the fucking needles in my throat.

“Fuck, I can’t,” I whispered. “Please, stop. Please.”

“I can’t,” he mouthed, and tears streamed down his face. “I can’t.”

I moved my hands to his face, just holding him, and ready to say so much, because I never had to hide anything from him. He never saw weakness when he looked at me. I wanted to tell him things.

I wanted to tell him that I never would’ve hurt him. That I didn’t know what Trevor was doing, and it wasn’t supposed to go down like that, because out of all three of my friends, Will was the one I would always save first. That my pride and anger wouldn’t let me retreat, and that if he had been pulled to the ocean’s bottom, out of my reach, I would’ve followed him.

I would’ve fucking followed him and rotted down there, close to wherever he was, because nothing I would’ve acquired after that—my inheritance or my vengeance on Winter—would’ve been worthwhile without him.

His breath fell on my mouth, and his wet hair behind his head grew warm under my fingers. He needed me. I dug my fingers into his scalp. He had to realize he needed me. No one was going to hold him up like I would.

No one.

I dove in, catching his bottom lip between my teeth and pushing us both through the pool house door.

He stumbled back, snarling and ready to fight me, but I rushed in, sinking my mouth into his and pushing him down onto the couch. I covered his lips with mine, gripping his throat with one hand and holding myself up with the other.

“Fuck you,” he sneered, pulling his mouth away.

I grinned and flicked his lip with my tongue. “Only if you want to.”

Releasing his neck, I yanked his jeans open and slid my hand down inside as he grabbed at my hand, trying to stop me, but I gripped his fucking cock, feeling it was already a little stiff.

“What is she wearing?” I started, stroking him, not giving him time to think. “What is she fucking wearing for you, huh?”

He stopped breathing, closed his eyes, and tipped his head back, letting out a groan. “Damon, stop.”

I hovered my mouth over his, stroking him a little faster as I nudged my knee between his legs, parting them. “What is she wearing?”

He grew full and hard, and I traced my tongue along his bottom lip. “She wants you in her mouth.” I tightened my grip on his cock. “She wants this in her mouth.”

“Yeah.”

And I had him.

“What the fuck is she wearing?” I stroked him again and again, his skin smooth and hot in my hand.

“She sleeps…” He paused, gasping at what I was doing to him.

“Yes?”

His body shook. “She sleeps in these…in these sweet, little panties,” he said, his eyes still closed and imagining the object of his obsession. “There’s the smallest triangle of fabric in the front, just covering her.”

“Red?” I bit his lip again.

But he shook his head. “Blue. And a T-shirt. She sleeps on her stomach, and her hips move in her sleep. God, her ass…”

“Mmmm…” I felt a little cum drip out of him. “She’s grinding that cunt into the bed, huh? Her pussy must be nice and warm.”

“Fuck, it’s hot.” He grabbed the back of my neck, our mouths centimeters away from each other. “Harder.”

“And wet?” I teased him, jerking him faster and harder how he wanted. “Is it wet?”

He nodded, his breathing growing heavier.

“And tight?”

“Yeah.”

“Lick her, Will,” I told him, giving him what that bitch never did. “She loves you in the dark. She lets Will Grayson III, star of the basketball team, come over to her house, climb into her room at night, and come inside her whenever he wants.”

His abs contracted, he got lost in the images in his head, bared his teeth, dug his fingers into the back of my neck, and then…released, spilling into my hand and down his long cock.

He moaned, sweat glistening across his neck and chest, and he kept his eyes closed, because he knew once he opened them the spell would be broken. It wasn’t her on top of him. It was me.

After a moment, his breathing had calmed, and he opened his eyes slowly. His shoulders were relaxed, and he was done fighting.

I climbed off him and stood up, yanking a pool towel out of the wardrobe. I finished with it and tossed it down to him.

“That’s all you can do, isn’t it?” he said, cleaning and zipping up. “You can only fuck people or fuck with them. That’s the only way you can connect.”

He threw the towel down, calmer than before but still… still not with me.

“Thinking back now,” he mused solemnly, “I wonder if anything I got from you was real.”

I didn’t know if he was right, and I didn’t care. I maneuvered, he maneuvered, and I moved again, always with my win in sight. I did what I had to.

The trouble was, I didn’t want to annihilate Will, and if I won whatever game we were playing, would I destroy him in the process? Was what he said true? Was it impossible for us to end any other way?

“If you hurt Winter, you’ll deal with me,” he said.

I righted my clothes, swiping the rain off my lapels. But I didn’t respond. He knew I wouldn’t heed his warning. I let him dole it out anyway.

“And Michael,” he added. “And Kai.”

“And Rika and Banks?” I threw in.

“And Alex.” He shot me a sinister little grin, meeting my challenge. “Our army is bigger. You have no one.”

“All I need is me. One person willing to do what none of you will.” I paused and added, “You don’t have the stomach for this, Will. Don’t doubt that I will do whatever I have to keep what’s mine. That little girl belongs to me.”

He hesitated, looking me up and down and then meeting my eyes with resolution. “She doesn’t want to belong to you, Damon.”

I planted my hand on the gray-tiled wall, letting the hot, rainfall shower water cascade down my neck and back.

She doesn’t want to belong to you.

She doesn’t want to belong to you.

Oh, I knew. And I was going to take great pleasure in delivering lots of what she didn’t want.

But every muscle in my body tightened and knotted anyway, unable to let go.

She doesn’t want to belong to you.

I closed my eyes, hearing the words echo in my ears.

“You belong to me,” my mother says. “You belong to me, and I belong to you.

She lays beside me, slipping an arm underneath my head, looking down at me as she holds me close. “We’ll always be each other’s, Damon. Mommy will be yours no matter what. For the rest of your life. I’m yours, baby.”

I nod, but absently, I close my fists, the sheets of her bed bunching in my hands. I sleep with my mom a lot. She likes to keep me close, but I don’t tell anyone. I’ve been to other peoples’ houses—other kids my age—and I know this isn’t how they do things in their homes.

My mother’s silk nightgown caresses my chest, and her black hair tickles my arm. She gazes down at me with a small smile.

“I don’t belong to your father,” she says. “Not the way I belong to you. I was only thirteen when he first saw me. Did he ever tell you that? I was only a couple of years older than you are now.”

She dives in and tickles my neck, and I let out a little laugh before turning my head and pushing her hand away.

“He came to see my ballet troupe perform,” she goes on. “He came a lot, and I would see him watching me from the audience. All the other girls were so jealous, because I got flowers and presents, and I never did before. He called me his little princess, and I would dream he was going to take me home and make me his little girl and take care of me, so I didn’t have to live in that cold theater anymore with so little to eat.”

She looks off for a moment, her smile falling. I know my mother was young when she married my father. I hear people whisper when they find out she has an eleven-year-old son.

“And then one night,” she continues, “a big, black car came to get me. I was told to dress in my prettiest costume, they did my hair and makeup, and I left the theater. I was taken to his house, outside of Moscow, and he asked me to dance for him.” Her face lights up again, and she dives in, whispering as if it’s some secret. “And I did. I twirled and leaped and danced under the chandeliers on the marble floors of the hall, feeling like I was in a dream. He let me eat cake and drink champagne.”

One finger of her hand trails down the center of my torso, and then all of her fingers fan out across my stomach, making the little hairs on my body stand up. That feels good.

“And when I fell asleep,” she says, watching her hand caress me, “I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten to the bed. To his bed.” She stares off, lost in the memory. “I’m not sure when I woke up. Maybe I’d only been asleep for a moment, but when I opened my eyes, he was pulling my costume down… baring my little body…and ripping off my tights and slippers.”