“Me too,” I answered. Even more so now. If they ever let him out of that fancy cage he was in and I saw him again, I had no idea what I’d do.
Her fingertips traced light circles over my chest, and just the brush of her skin over mine made the back of my neck tingle.
“I’m not good at pretty words.” I admitted.
Her fingers paused.
“I’m not good at saying what I feel, and I don’t know a thing about romance.”
“I don’t need romance, Braeden.”
All girls wanted romance.
But even if she didn’t, Ivy deserved it. The fact that she was even lying here in this bed with me right now was a freaking miracle. I’d never treated any girl so horribly in my life.
Wasn’t that a sobering thought?
The one woman I wanted above all others was the one I treated the worst. That needed to change. Immediately.
“I want you, Ivy.” I cupped her jaw.
“You have me, B. I’m right here.”
“Not just for tonight.”
“Missy still doesn’t know about this.” She gestured between us. “With everything that happened with the BuzzBoss, I’ve been hiding out.”
I nodded. “Why don’t we talk to her together?” I was afraid after what I said to Missy the last time we were alone she would still be angry. I didn’t want her taking out that anger on Ivy.
Ivy shook her head. “I think I should do it alone. Friend to friend. I don’t want her to think we’re ganging up on her.”
“If you need me, you’ll call?” I rubbed my thumb over her lower lip. It was happening again. Desire pooled in my stomach and my cock stirred between us.
“Yes.” She promised.
“This talking stuff is hard work.” The corner of my mouth kicked up when she giggled.
I really meant it when I confessed I didn’t know what to say to her.
“You know,” she began, her fingers tiptoeing up my chest. “This is the first time ever we’ve had all night together.”
“All naked. All the time.” I wagged my eyebrows.
She laughed. “Maybe we could talk some more later.” The suggestion in her tone was not to be missed. By my brain or my already stiff cock.
“I might be up for that.”
She wrapped her hand around my shaft. “Yeah, I noticed.” She leaned up to kiss me, but I pulled back.
“One more thing?” I asked.
“You sure you aren’t a girl? Seems like talking is coming pretty easily.”
“You watch your mouth, woman,” I warned.
“Okay, what?”
“What were you and Trent talking about tonight?”
“You saw?” Her delicately shaped brow arched.
“Oh, I saw.”
“You jealous?”
“Nah. I’m secure with how you feel about me.” I scoffed.
“Or maybe you just feel that way right now because I’m stroking your big cock.”
“Ooh, talk dirty to me, baby.”
Her giggle was throaty and sexy as hell. When she tried to kiss me again, I held strong. She made a sound of frustration. “We cancelled our date. He knows I want you.”
“He does, does he?” Pride fluffed up my chest.
Her blond head nodded. “Apparently, he notices the way I look at you.”
“And which way is that?”
Beneath the sheets, her stroking was turning bolder and this conversation was getting much less important.
“Like I want to be naked with you. All night. All the time.”
There was no more talking after that. Well, okay there was a little. Like when I made her cry out my name.
Over and over again.
I might not be good at talking, but I knew how to move between the sheets.
When we were finished, she fell asleep in my arms. The soft sound of her breathing and the feel of her body draped along mine were satisfying in ways I never thought it would be.
When my phone went off somewhere on the floor beside us, I almost ignored it. But then I thought it might be Romeo, just checking in. Maybe someone had found the pile of garbage I left in the woods, and he was worried.
If I didn’t answer, he’d be over here beating on the door at five a.m. because Rimmel was upset. I managed to fish my phone out of my jeans without disturbing Ivy, and the second my back hit the mattress, she automatically gravitated toward me.
Once I had her tucked in close, I lit up the screen and glanced at it.
My blood ran ice cold.
What. The. Fuck. Was. This.
The selfie I took of Ivy and me that night on spring break was now public knowledge on the school Buzzfeed. That photo was gone, lost with my shattered phone. How the hell did the BuzzBoss get ahold of it?
I held myself still even though I wanted to pace the room. Why was the Boss doing this? What did they have to gain? Popularity? Notoriety?
An ass-kicking?
I didn’t care that everyone saw me like this. Everyone knew I liked a good time. But dammit, this was going to crush Ivy. Not only would it continue to feed the ridiculous rumor that she was a slut, but now everyone would know we’d been together.
Including Missy.
And honestly? I was tired of people staring at my girl.
This was the kind of shit that gave drunk, lowlife perverts the inspiration to take what they couldn’t get for free.
This was a dangerous game.
That night at Romeo’s, I promised Ivy I’d keep her safe.
She stirred in her sleep. Dropping the phone on the mattress, I rubbed the curve of her hip until her breathing returned even and deep.
I lay there a long time, thinking.
I came to a conclusion.
Maybe the reason I was having so much trouble saying to Ivy what I really wanted to say was because this wasn’t over. Because we still had a lot to work through before we could truly be together.
I was tired of waiting. Wanting. Life was happening now. And I wanted all the time with her I could get.
So all the shit in our way?
I was gonna take it down.
First on my list? Stopping the selfie parade the Buzz
Boss was so fond of posting. Why? Because the best way to deal with a problem with many branches was to go for the root.
If the Boss stopped dragging Ivy through the mud, the students on campus would, too. They’d forget, move on, and she could go outside without threat of ridicule or rape.
But who was the BuzzBoss? No one seemed to know.
It was time to find out.
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
Ivy
I went to bed in Braeden’s arms.
I woke up alone.
I was beginning to think our relationship—or lack thereof—was a vampire.
It only came out at night.
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
Braeden
I’ve heard the most dangerous people are those who have nothing to lose.
But where I’m sitting?
The most dangerous person is a man who thought he had nothing and then found everything.
I wouldn’t go back to nothing ever again. I’d protect what was mine until my very last breath.
And Ivy was mine.
Figuring out who the BuzzBoss was should have been harder. But just like a woman, a pissed-off man does better research than the FBI.
Lucky for me, I didn’t need research this time.
The Boss made a mistake. One that many people wouldn’t catch, but this was personal. As I lay there in the dark with Ivy so close against me, I had some time to think. I could see now why no one caught on before. The genius of the Boss was the notifications kept on coming. There was always something to talk about, something new to read.
No one had time to really stop and think about it because they were too busy talking about it.
Shut up and listen.
That’s what I finally did.
My oh my… what I heard.
Once I knew, I couldn’t just lay here. I had to act, to put an end to all this fuckery.
It was explosive, and part of me hoped the hell I was wrong.
I knew I wasn’t.
And honestly, the betrayal would be worse for some others than me. The friendship I thought I knew was gone… All that remained was shock.
The sun was just beginning to rise when I slipped out from under Ivy. I snuck to the communal bathroom down the hall and hoped no one saw. I had to piss like a racehorse and sneaking around with a full bladder wasn’t my idea of a good time.
While I was in there, I noticed how much cleaner girls were than guys.
They always told us, but I never believed it was true. Even now that I knew the truth, I still would never admit it.
Ivy was still sleeping peacefully when I walked back in. I watched her for a while because she was so goddamn beautiful. I wondered what was going to happen when I blew the lid off the truth. I prayed it didn’t ruin what was finally starting to feel real between us.
She was still wearing my shirt, and I wasn’t about to take it off her. My bare-chested trip to the bathroom was one thing, but busting a badie was another thing entirely.
I needed me some cotton.
I spied my old Wolves shirt lying on Rimmel’s bed, where I tossed it last night. I didn’t think I’d wear it again, but unless I planned on strapping on a bra and tank top, I figured this would be my best option.
Besides, she wanted it to smell like me.
Who could blame her? I was like a big piece of man candy.
I made sure my phone was on silent, locked the door from the inside, and crept away.
I decided a little recon—just to be sure I was right—was a must, so once I made my way to where I thought I’d find some damning evidence, I waited around for a bit, trying to concoct a plan.
But I didn’t need one.
A short time later, the suspect left, leaving all their secrets ripe for the picking. I walked down the hall like I belonged here and knocked on the door.
Several minutes later, someone with raging bedhead answered. I turned up my charm and smiled sheepishly. “I was sorta in here last night… right before you got home. I left something here.” I pushed a hand through my hair and tousled it around. Bitches loved messy hair.
The door opened a little wider.
“You mind if I come in and grab it? I’ll be out of that sexy hair of yours in a few.”
I was invited inside.
I shut the door softly behind me and looked at the rumpled bed. “My bad, you were sleeping.”
“I think I’m still drunk.”
“Well, go pass out again. I swear I’ll be quiet when I let myself out.”
“You’re lucky you’re so hot.”
See, before Ivy, I would have taken that as invitation and immediately tried to tap that ass.
But my random ass-tapping days were over. Now I tapped one ass exclusively.
Thank goodness for alcohol, because my accomplice started snoring—and drooling—the second she hit the pillow.
I spied a laptop on a paper-ridden desk and pulled out the chair to have a seat. The damn computer was locked with a password.
I rotated my head as I thought.
On the fourth try I got in.
DRAMA QUEEN.
Go figure.
At first glance, it was just a regular computer with regular files. I had to dig around, but then I hit pay dirt.
Seems the Boss hadn’t signed out of their email account. And computers had this habit of saving passwords.
Oh my, BuzzBoss, what full folders you have.
I started with an email near the top of the inbox. It was a letter from the dean, stripping away all access to the school Buzzfeed effective as soon as the school web system rebooted. There was also a threat to find out who this student was and have them expelled.
I had to hand it to the Boss if they were able to keep their identity from the campus staff.
Guess that explained the late-night notification that the Boss was being removed. But they had another system already in place. Seems they knew getting the boot was inevitable because the new account and the new texting system was all set up. It even appeared they were in the process of developing their own app.
I poked around a while longer through the emails of people sending in tips and reports of everything drama on this campus. It was amazing to me how eager people were to rat out one another.
I took pictures of the screens I thought would be good for evidence and then started backing out of a few open tabs. That’s when I saw it.
The folder of pictures. It was labeled #Selfies.
I clicked in. There was a ton of photos. Some were stupid and some were pretty damning. This was the kind of shit people got ruined over.
I scrolled all the way to the last row, only stopping once to make sure my drunk friend was indeed passed out. I almost missed it, but the fact it was different than the rest caught my eye. It was a folder simply labeled Zach.
What I saw inside made me sick.
Flashbacks from the night I interrupted Ivy’s dream, her calling out, “Don’t touch me!” in her sleep, flooded my mind. Those weren’t manifestations of her subconscious. Those weren’t nightmares just trying to ruin her rest.
It was her mind’s way of working through everything it was trying to protect her from.
There were over ten photos. All of them starred Ivy. She was half naked in a lot of them and passed out in even more. They told a story, if lined up properly. A story that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
It started out with one at a party; it looked like the frat he used to be president of. He was taking a selfie of a group of people behind him. Ivy was in that group. She was laughing at something someone was saying.
Zach was in the corner of the pic, much closer than everyone else, and the empty way his eyes looked was disturbing.
Hell, that wasn’t a #selfie. That pic was a #stalkie.
Then there was another pic, this one also featuring Ivy. Zach wasn’t the one taking this pic, though; he was in it. Much closer to Ivy, watching her like a lion watched prey.
The next pic showed Zach pumping beer into a cup while dangling a white pill over the liquid.
Another pic showed Ivy drinking out of a cup that looked just like the one in the pic before, while Zach stood beside her and smiled.
He was good at looking friendly. He was good at pretending he wasn’t rotten to the core.
The rest of the pics were harder and harder to look at. They all showed Ivy in various forms of unflattering positions. Her eyes were glassy in all of them, almost vacant and unaware.
They moved from her being fully clothed to her being fully naked. In a lot of the naked photos, she appeared to be passed out. And judging from the way he was posing her and beside her, I’d say she was.
I pressed a hand over my mouth to keep from yelling. I knew I’d find some dirt on people in the Boss’s archives, but I never thought I’d find proof of assault.
The disbelief, wonder, and confusion in her voice last night when she talked about what she’d done with Zach all made perfect sense.
This wasn’t consensual sex.
Ivy was drugged.
And she was assaulted.
I shoved back in the chair, resting my palms on the desk but bending at the waist. Staring at the floor, I sucked in air. My girl was given the date rape drug. My girl was fucking used by a spineless, sick bastard.
I know I said death was too good for guys like that, but I amend my previous statement. Sometimes death was the only option. Zach needed to die.
He needed to die by my hands.
How was I supposed to tell Ivy what really happened to her? Wouldn’t rape be so much worse to recover from than what she thought was just a bad mistake? Should I tell her or just let her live in peaceful bliss?
This made me sick.
Utterly sick.
I hated men who took advantage of women. Men who thought they had more power than God. Men who had no idea what kind of carnage they left behind and how many pieces they left for their victims to pick up.
Put a lid on it, B, I told myself. This wasn’t the time or place to lose it over this. There would be time for that later. Right now, I had other shit to deal with.
I sat back in the chair and stared at the images, thankful one of the worst ones wasn’t the one that ended up on the BuzzFeed. But then again, there was always next time.
I wanted to delete the entire folder so badly. I wanted nothing more than to pretend it didn’t exist. But it did and I wasn’t about to delete the proof that could keep Zach locked up forever.
So I emailed the folder to myself.
Then I deleted it. I went through every program on that computer to make sure those photos were really gone.
It took longer than I hoped to be in here, but I wasn’t going to leave it to chance.
Still fuming and slightly nauseous over what my girl had been put through, I decided it was time to end this.
I pulled up the program I’d already found.
I typed out a message and hoped the campus system had yet to update.
I hit send.
The notification went through.
I wondered how long I would have to wait for the explosion.
Chapter Forty
Ivy
Not long after I woke alone, I got a text.
I KNOW WHO THE BUZZBOSS IS.
I read it twice and double-checked the name of the sender. Braeden knew who the BuzzBoss was?
WHO?
IT’S BETTER IF YOU COME.
WHERE?
He gave me a place to meet, and I frowned.
NOW? I asked.
First he makes me wake up alone, and then he sends me weird texts. It was far too early for all this.
BLONDIE. GET YOUR ASS HERE!
I stuck out my tongue at the phone but typed out, FINE.
I pulled on a pair of yoga pants and left B’s shirt on. On my way out the door, I pulled my hair up into a bun.
When I arrived at the place, I stood there wondering what the hell all this was about. My stomach twisted a little because this all seemed so weird. I thought about last night, about the way we were together.
#Selfie Page 25
