Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I took Daphne against her will.
She did not consent.
She did not willingly and consensually have sex with me…Ares.
She called out my brother’s name as we fucked. Not mine.
I’ve killed, tortured, lied, and stolen in my lifetime. I’ve never claimed to be a good man. But nothing has ever been worse than what I’ve done to her just now, and what I’m most likely going to do again. Because one thing is for sure…there’s something about this woman that makes me want to sin.
“I’m sorry if things got carried away,” I say, though there is a sick truth I’m struggling with. I loved every damn moment of what just happened. Wrong or not, I took her, and I want to take her again, and again, and again.
But for now, I need to resist. I need to allow the obsession to ease so I can think clearly.
“Don’t apologize. I liked it,” she says as she holds the nightgown against her chest, not getting dressed yet. “I didn’t mean to make you think otherwise when I said ‘demanding’ or whatever.”
I decide to take a risk by bringing up the past, when I know nothing for sure. “I’m aware we’ve been distant. I know we’ve both needed space.” I hope these are words that Apollo would say.
In the corner of my eye, I see her fiddling with her nightgown with a facial expression I can’t read. I’m sure there are a million things running through her head. They sure as hell are running through mine. Deciding to man up and stop being such a fucking coward by not looking at her and not giving her the respect of my full attention, I put out my hand to help her stand. Still clutching her gown to cover her breasts—her delicious and luscious breasts—she takes my hand and allows me to assist her off the floor.
Her big brown eyes meet mine. So wide. So innocent. So full of questions. Questions I don’t have answers for. It isn’t hard to see that Daphne is not the type to just casually have sex. It’s also clear she and my brother were not actively having sex. I know she isn’t that type of girl to simply fuck without a thought, and therefore, what just happened between us is most likely fucking her up as much as it is me.
“We should probably get to bed,” she says softly, being the first to break our stare. “We have a long and hard day tomorrow.”
Releasing the breath I didn’t realize I had been holding, I say, “Yes, sleep sounds good.”
I should hold her, whisper sweet nothings. Give her praise. Isn’t that what good husbands do? I do none of those, however.
Without saying another word, she rushes out of the room, her nightgown still not on, her bare ass still on display, and her dignity leaving in tatters.
I’m an asshole.
I know this much. But was my brother an asshole?
Does she expect a kind man or a jerk?
How do I do this? How do I become my brother without betraying his memory and without breaking his wife?
Chapter
Eight
Apollo
How do you walk into a funeral—your funeral—and act like everything is fine? I’m a dead man, and yet, I’m alive. I’m laying in that coffin, and yet, I’m walking up to it to say goodbye to a body that looks like me.
Who am I saying goodbye to?
The pictures on display everywhere are of Ares—me. But the body laying in the coffin in an expensive Armani suit with his hands crossed at his chest is my brother—Apollo.
Who is he? Who am I?
I’m not sure I even know anymore.
“Father wanted an open casket. It’s fucking twisted, if you ask me,” Athena says as she approaches and stands by my side, looking down at my brother’s dead body in a coffin lined with white satin. “No way would Ares want everyone walking up and towering over him. It’s putting him in a position of weakness. Dead or not, he’d hate this.”
I smirk. My sister knows me so well. How fucking right she is.
I can see a line of makeup at his hairline and grimace. “Is he wearing foundation? Fucking lipstick?”
Athena leans closer to the body to examine. “I suppose they have to. Otherwise he’d be white, or blue, or gray. Something.” She shrugs. “Another thing Ares is going to haunt our asses over.” She tilts her head and scrutinizes some more. “I’ve heard that they sew the eyelids shut so the eyes can’t suddenly pop open and stare back at you. Do you think that’s true?”
I wouldn’t put it past my sister to actually reach down and open Apollo’s eyes to see for herself. “Makes sense,” I say, realizing that my sister and I are sick motherfuckers. Who stands and truly examines the body of their dead brother?
She looks around the room and shakes her head. “He’d hate how many people are here. There are so many fucking people. I doubt Ares even knows all these people coming in to pay their respects. Respect to who? Ares or our father?”