Lust

So it wouldn’t be easy. Kane smiled. He was done with easy. Easy was boring.

Difficult? Challenging? Messy and emotional and violent and dirty?

That was more his speed.

That was fun.

It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt-and then, Kaia thought with a grin, that’s when the real fun starts. Now that things with Adam had been set in motion, it was really only a matter of time-which meant it was time to start thinking about what would come next. Adam was, after all, just a diversion. He couldn’t be expected to hold her attention for long.

No, she had her sights set on a much bigger fish.

An older, more sophisticated, British fish.

She glanced up at the front of the classroom where Jack Powell had stretched himself out in his chair. He looked bored out of his mind.

She knew the feeling.

And she decided that it was time to answer both their prayers.

She knew every girl in the room was thinking the same thing, every girl wanted the same thing-she could see it in their hungry eyes, hear it in the way they tittered as he brushed past them on his way to the front of the room. But it didn’t matter what they wanted. Because of all of them, Kaia was the only one who had the nerve to act. These pathetic small-town girls could fantasize about him, long for him, want him all they liked-but that’s all it would ever be. A silly fantasy. As far as Kaia was concerned, fantasizing was a waste of her time-when you saw something you wanted, you took it.

She looked down at the quiz in front of her. Still blank. Subjonctif? She snorted. Give me a break, she thought. As if she hadn’t covered this stuff in tenth grade. This place was so backward.

She grabbed her pen, thought for a moment, and then began to write: large, deliberate letters, the words spanning across the width of the page.

VOULEZ-VOUS COUCHER AVEC MOI?

(En anglais: “Would you like to sleep with me?”)

A little hackneyed, perhaps, a little cliche-but he’d get the message.

Kaia, after all, didn’t believe in being subtle.

She believed in getting the job done.

Chapter 7

Harper picked up the phone on the second ring. Thanks to caller ID, she knew it was him and-irrationally-felt the need to smooth down her hair and do a quick mirror check before saying hello. As if he would be able to somehow hear her beauty through the phone. Ridiculous, she knew. But still-every little bit helped.

“Adam, what’s up?” she greeted him, lying back on her bed and relishing the sound of his musical voice in her ear.

“Great news-I think I may have found a spot for the party. I just need to drive over and check it out.”

It was just what she’d been hoping to hear. She and Miranda had already spent hours burning CDs (no way were either of them risking their personal CD collections on a roomful of drunken teenagers), and Kane had promised them that the drinks, courtesy of his older brother-and a number of mysterious other “connections”-were a done deal. But all the beer and hip-hop in the world wouldn’t be enough to make this party work if they didn’t find somewhere to hold it, and so far every possibility-the golf course, the gravel pit on the edge of town, some kid’s dingy basement-had been a major bust.

Harper knew she should have been somewhat worried, but she had other priorities right now, and one of them-the only one, really-involved getting some quality alone time with Adam. So if he’d found some suitably large, deserted outpost with ample facilities for drinking, dancing, and doing… whatever, it seemed only right that in her capacity as leader of this little party squad, she help him with his final investigations. And whatever else he might need help with, of course.

“Cool,” she said, as nonchalantly as she could. “Do you want me to-”

“Kaia and I are heading over tomorrow afternoon,” he added.

Oh.

She should have known. Since when did Adam go anywhere without Kaia by his side? She shut her eyes tight and tried not to picture the two of them creeping through a deserted building together, hand in hand. She supposed that she should be able to assure herself that Adam was too much of a stand-up guy to ever cheat on his girlfriend-but it was a little late to make that case, given that she’d spent the last couple of months convincing herself that, under the right circumstances and with the right girl (read: Harper), he’d have no trouble doing exactly that.

“So, should we all meet tomorrow night?” Adam continued, after it was clear that Harper wasn’t going to be squealing in enthusiasm any time soon. “Hopefully, we’ll have some good news.”

We. Great.

Harper sighed quietly and sat up in bed, digging her day planner out from beneath a stack of books and papers on her night table. Saturday night was free and clear-plenty of time for sitting around, staring at Adam, or aiming death glares (or at least some finely honed sarcasm) at the girls who kept standing in her way.

“I don’t know,” she hedged. “IVe got this thing… but I guess I can move it.” Not for the first time, Harper gave thanks that video phone technology had never really caught on. Adam always claimed he could tell when she was lying, something about the way she narrowed her eyes or played with her left earlobe. She didn’t really buy it-but still, better safe than sorry

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t want to deprive some lonely guy out there his long-awaited chance to-”

“Shut up,” she said irritably. “First of all, this is more important. Second of all, there is no lonely guy-I don’t do desperate. Third of all,” she added, figuring it couldn’t hurt to appear a little in demand, “he can wait.”

“If you’re sure…”

“Positive,” she assured him, wondering how it was that she’d become the one talking him into this little shindig, given that it was really the last place she wanted to be. “How about eight?” she suggested, trying to muster up some fake enthusiasm.

There was a pause.

“Maybe a little earlier?” he requested. “I have to be out of there by nine-I promised Beth I’d go give her some moral support at the diner. It’s her first night of work.”

“Beths working at the diner?” Harper asked incredulously. “Our diner?” She smirked, imagining the preppie princess decked out in the Nifty Fifties tack costume (pink tank tops and poofy fluorescent green skirts with crinolines underneath), smeared with ketchup and barbecue sauce and smelling like stale pickles. This day was looking up.

“Yeah, her last job wasn’t really paying enough,” Adam confided. “You know, her family…” his voice trailed off, but he didn’t really need to continue. Grace was a small town, and even before Adam and Beth had started dating, Harper had known exactly how that story ended. “Her family…” was packed like sardines into a tiny ranch house in a squalid development one step up from the trailer park. Her parents worked three jobs between the two of them and still struggled to buy new clothes every year for their swiftly growing twin sons. Her family’s one car, a fifteenyear-old station wagon, broke down more days than it ran. Beth’s family, in essence, worked on a simple principle: Ask not what your family can do for you, but what you can do for your family. It seemed that Beth was stepping up to the plate once again-and Harper supposed that she should dig down inside herself and find a little sympathy, or at least a little respect.

On the other hand, there were a lot of things she should do. “Should” didn’t have much of a hold over her these days. “Could” was, after all, so much richer in possibility.

“So I think it’s a great idea!” Harper enthused, as a plan began to form in her mind and a dark smile crept