I shouldn’t want the enemy. I shouldn’t tremble at the thought of his hungry mouth on mine, of his tongue tasting me in ways too intimate to think about without blushing, of his thick, hard length demanding my submission.
I cry because what I said was true. Because he could have traded me for something cliché like a necklace or taken what he wanted without my permission. But he didn’t. He made me want it, and that’s so much worse than if he’d taken it by force. He showed me that he valued me, and that’s worse than if he treated me like a cheap whore, another Darling Doll he could fuck and throw away. He may not want to admit it, but he respects me.
I sit up, clutching the soaked pillow to my chest.
Devlin Darling respects me. And the dangerous part, the part that can destroy him, is that I don’t think he realizes it yet.
That’s it.
That’s my advantage.
I have to strike before he knows, before he realizes his own feelings for me.
twenty
Crystal
Day 5. How can you make someone pay when you have nothing they want?
We’re sitting in the cafeteria at lunch the next day when I blurt out the question that’s been frustrating me all morning as I mulled it over. “How do you get a guy to fall in love with you?”
“Anal,” Duke says, stuffing a bite of sandwich in his mouth. My brothers all crack up, but I stare them down.
“Threesome,” Baron says. “Nothing highlights the love between two people like adding a third person. It’s the secret ingredient in all happy couples.”
He and Duke high-five.
There are moments like these, where everything is so normal I forget that my twin isn’t by my side. And then guilt twists around my heart like a strangling vine, choking off the joy before it ever really starts.
Dolly looks at me with big, sad eyes that say she knows exactly what I’m talking about even if my brothers are in too much denial to take my words seriously.
“If we knew that, don’t you think we’d all have boyfriends?” Dixie asks, her longing gaze traveling to the Darlings’ table, which is filled with their Dolls and their posse. Not a Darling boy in sight. It makes me jumpy, like they might appear from under our table and tell me they know what I’m scheming.
“Sing him ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’ and bake him a cake,” King says. “Oh, and be Marilyn Monroe.”
“I’m not talking about your freaky fantasies,” I say. “I’m serious.”
“Oh, it’s not a fantasy,” Duke says, adjusting himself under the table and hanging an arm around the back of Dolly’s chair. “Anal is the answer.”
“Then how come you’re not in love?” I challenge.
“I will be when Dolly spreads that sweet ass and lets the anaconda in.”
Dolly elbows him in the ribs, and he doubles over laughing, pulling her close as she shoves at him and giggles.
“I just threw up in my mouth,” I say. “But thanks for the advice.”
“Wait,” King says, his eyes narrowing. “Why are you asking this?”
He looks so much like Royal when he wears that expression that my heart snaps in two. The twins fall silent, staring at me with open mouths.
“You’re not…” King breaks off and shakes his head, his fists clenching on the table. “You can’t mean what I think you mean.”
“Look,” I say. “Royal has been gone for five days. I can’t just sit around and wait for the cops to do their jobs. They’re not going to find him, okay?”
I stop, my throat too thick to speak, an ache gripping it like the savage fist of fate.
“We’ll find him,” King says. “Our family will find him. And you’re not going to do anything stupid to make it worse.” He wraps an arm around me and squeezes hard enough to make me catch my breath. He doesn’t want me to fall apart in front of people, even when they’re not looking. He held me together last year through the worst of it, telling me to be tough at school, not to let anyone knock me down from the pedestal they built for me. Royal was the one who held me when I cried, and Royal’s no longer here.