After the Night Read Online Free Page A

skin, the same high cheekbones and exotic green eyes. Her face wasn’t perfectly proportioned like Renee’s; her face was thinner, her jaw more square, her mouth as wide but not as full. Renee was voluptuous; Faith was both taller and leaner, her body more delicately made. Her breasts had finally grown, firm and pert, but Jodie, at the same age, had been wearing a bra cup two sizes bigger.
    Because she looked like Renee, people seemed to expect Faith to act like her, too, acd then never looked beyond their own expectations. She was tarred with the same brush that had painted the rest of the family.
    "But I’ll get out someday, Scottie," she said softly. "See if I don’t."
    He didn’t react to the words, just kept patting the screen.
    As always, when she needed to cheer herself, she thought of Gray. Her painful feelings for him hadn’t lessened in the three years since she had seen him making love to Lindsey Partain, but rather had intensified as she had matured. The awestruck joy with which she had watched him at eleven had grown and changed, as she had grown and changed. When she dreamed of him now, physical feelings mingled sharply with the romantic ones, and with her upbringing the details were far sharper and more explicit than other fourteen-year-old girls could have been expected to know.
    Her dreams weren’t colored just by her own surroundings; that day at the summerhouse when she had seen Gray with Lindsey Partain – Lindsey Mouton now – had given her a great deal of knowledge about his body. She hadn’t actually seen his genitals, because at first his back had been turned to her, and then when he had gotten on top, their legs had blocked her view. It didn’t much matter, though, because she knew what one looked like. Not only had she taken care of Scottie all of his life, but Pa and Russ and Nicky, when they were drunk, were just as likely as not to pull it out of their pants and take a pee off the front step as they were to use the toilet.
    But Faith knew enough details about Gray’s body to heat her dreams. She knew how muscled those long legs were, and that black hair grew on them. She knew that his buttocks were small and round and tight, and that he had adorable twin dimples just above them. She knew that his shoulders were broad and powerful, that his back was long, with the groove of his spine deeply indented between the thick layers of muscle. There had been a light dusting of black hair on his wide chest.
    She knew that he made love in French, his deep voice soft and dark and crooning.
    She had followed his career at LSU with secret pride. He had just been graduated with a double major in finance and business administration, with an eye toward taking over the Rouillard holdings someday. As good as he had been at football, he hadn’t wanted a career in the pros, and instead had come home to begin helping Guy. She would be able to catch glimpses of him year round now, rather than just during the summer and holidays.
    Unfortunately, Monica was home for good, too, and was as spiteful as ever. Everyone else was merely contemptuous; Monica actively hated anyone with the name of Devlin. Faith couldn’t blame her, though, and sometimes even sympathized with her. No one had ever said that Guy Rouillard wasn’t a good father; he loved both of his children, and they loved him. How did Monica feel, hearing people talk about Guy’s long-standing arrangement with Renee, knowing that he was openly unfaithful to her mother?
    When she was younger, Faith had daydreamed that Guy was her father too; Amos was nowhere in the picture. Guy was tall and dark and exciting, his lean face so much like Gray’s that, no matter what, she couldn’t hate him. He had always been kind to her, to all Renee’s kids, but he had sometimes gone out of his way to speak to Faith and had once or twice bought her a small treat. It was probably because she looked like Renee, Faith thought. If Guy had been her father, then Gray would