Page 58 of The Sweetest Revenge

My back arched off the bed, spine curving, my lips parting with a gasp that seemed to echo in the darkness. Every nerve ending sparked and tingled as the feeling brought me to the edge of ecstasy, my toes curling against the cool cotton sheets.

I pictured his weight pressing me firmly into the mattress. The pressure against my chest. The heat of his skin. His breath against my neck. And then—his cock slipping inside, filling me completely.

That was all it took.

A bolt of pleasure ripped through me as my entire body tensed, and I let the orgasm take hold of me, holding my breathing hostage until I cried out his name in a violent exhale of air.

My body went limp against the mattress, the momentary bliss already giving way to a complicated knot of emotions. My cheeks burned not just from what I'd done but from the realization that I'd surrendered completely to the fantasy of him and how loud I'd been doing it. The pleasure had been undeniable, but now shame crept in. Since he wasn't busting down my door, I assumed he wasn't home or hadn't heard me anyway.

I rolled to my side as exhaustion washed over me, my limbs heavy, my mind finally quieting. Sleep approached like a merciful friend, and I surrendered to it gratefully.

CHAPTER28

ARIELLA

Click. Click. Click. Each photo from the party blurred into the next as I hunched in a dark corner of the library. Three days of searching, and still no sign of Kacie in any of them. Still no clue as to what really happened that night. The lights hummed overhead, a sound that had become the soundtrack to my obsession.

I pulled my feet into the chair, wrapping my arm around my legs. I hit the enter button over and over, flipping through all the pictures from the party the night Kacie died, but nothing stood out.

It had been three days since Zaiden publicly humiliated me, and I hadn't seen him since I ran out of the party with mascara streaked down my cheeks, more determined than ever to prove I had nothing to do with Kacie's death. I'd spent every day since I left that party flipping through pictures, looking for anything that might explain what actually happened, but so far, nothing.

A shadow fell across my screen. I flinched, expecting another whispered accusation from a passing student, but it was Journey's concerned face peering down at me. Mila hovered behind her, scanning the library like a lookout. "We've been looking everywhere for you," Journey whispered.

I shrank deeper into my seat, feeling the familiar tightness in my throat, the one that came whenever someone pitied me. "You shouldn't be here." The words came out rough, sandpaper-raw. "Being seen with me is?—"

"Social suicide?" Mila cut in. Her bag hit the table with a thud that made me flinch. Not from the noise but from the fierce loyalty behind it. "Yeah, we don't give a fuck, and I can't believe you think we would."

"If you need a few days to recover from whatever the fuck that was the other night," she shrugged, "fine but don't ghost us. We're still your friends."

"Plus, we know there had to be a good reason you did it." They both raised questioning eyebrows. "So if you want to talk about it?—"

"If I didn't do it, he was going to make the videos of all of us with Coach go viral."

"Oh," Journey's eyes went wide. "Not a good time for that, considering he's a town hero right now."

"Yeah," I muttered as my gaze dropped back to the computer, and I hit the enter button again.

"What are you doing?" Journey asked, pulling out a chair and sliding in before setting her laptop on the table in front of her.

"Flipping through those pictures Cody sent me," I shook my head, "but there's nothing. I haven't seen Kacie in any of them."

"Well," Mila smirked. "We've been calling and texting because we think we might have found something."

"What?" I dropped my feet to the ground as my spine stiffened.

"We figured what happened the other night had something to do with this whole revenge thing because of Kacie. So, we decided to go back through everyone's social media posts the night of the party. There were thousands of photos, by the way."

"Okay, but what did you find?"

"This." Journey's laptop screen cast a sickly blue glow across the table.

At first, my tired brain registered only the surface details: another party selfie, another grinning classmate smiling for the camera. Just one more dead end in an endless search.

Then I saw it.

In the shadowy background, half-hidden by a red Solo cup, Kacie's face was frozen. I knew exactly what she was looking at, even before my eyes tracked her sightline across the frame.

Me–

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