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I shoot my free arm out but she propels herself backward before I can grab hold.

She giggles while my lower teeth grind against my top teeth.

“You have to swim to me.”

Now she’s farther away, making it impossible to reach her. I could extend the arm holding the edge, but she’d see me coming and probably back up even more.

“I don’t want to kiss you anyway.”

I turn back to the wall, ready to be done with this, with her, with—

The sound of the water splashing has me staying put. What’s she up to now?

Small waves lap around my shoulders, then I feel Kota’s breath on the back of my ear.

The water may be cold, but the blood rushing to my cock is not.

“Yes, you do.”

We’re both breathing heavy and I know without looking the chills breaking out all over my body match the ones on hers.

“Kota,” I warn with a head tilt. She moves into my periphery, and she’s already backing up, anticipating my next move. I could grab her so easily right now and she’d have nowhere to go. I’d have nothing to hold us up with though and probably drown us both.

“Khaos,” she says from a few feet behind me, instead of the mere inches she just was.

With a groan, I drop my forehead to the lip.

I should’ve caught her when I had the chance. I’ve faced drowning before. It wasn’t so bad…because I had her.

If I wasn’t so busy shoving my tongue down Kota’s throat last time I was in this pool, I could’ve paid attention to how she got us from the bottom of it to the top and maybe try whatever the hell she did. It’s a combination of arms and legs, I know that. What I don’t know is what combination.

“I don’t want to kiss you,” I repeat, rotating my head back and forth on the cement. “I want to put my mouth on every goddamn inch of your body so the next time your boyfriend kisses any part of you, all he’ll taste is me.”

It’s a while before she responds, and it’s with a bold as all hell, “You have to swim to me first.”

She knows it’s never gonna fucking happen because I can’t fucking swim. Is she trying to embarrass me? Is that it? I’m sitting here clinging to the side of her pool like a child and she’s daring me to let go. It doesn’t matter how bad I want to, I fucking can’t. My body won’t let me.

“What if I sink?”

“I’ll meet you at the bottom,” she replies softly.

Girls like Kota don’t belong at the bottom. They belong on a throne, far away from me.

Kota’s too innocent, too naïve, too perfect, and I won’t be the reason for her downfall.

“Yeah? You’re already riding the fucking Titanic of relationships and you’re over here offering to kiss your stepbrother? For what? Just to see me do a few laps? You keep gawking at me all the time, Sis, you’re gonna see me do a lot more than that.”

“I was just trying to teach you how to swim, but if that’s how you feel…”

I snort out a laugh. How I feel.

“Teach yourself, Silver. You’re the one that’s gonna need to know how when you don’t have Guy to rely on anymore.”

Finally, I lift myself out of the pool and leave Kota with nothing but the very thing she was looking for to begin with—silence.

The cemetery is so dark, yet I can see everything in stark clarity, like the scenery is highlighted by a low-hanging moon…even though there isn’t one in the sky.

There should be a moon here…somewhere…