Page 152 of Wicked Little Darling

“Nah, I’m not telling you. You have no idea how angry I was when I found you last night, Reese. No idea. And I don’t get mad.”

I didn’t have a clue. I kind of wished I did, though, because if it was anything like the look he was giving me now, I’d jump his bones.

“Who the fuck was it, Dakota? If someone put their dirty, disgusting hands on you, I want to know who it was. No one ever gets to hurt you, okay? Not anymore.”

Dakota laughed as he stared down at me, the sound vibrating deliciously through my entire body. “Fuck, don’t do that, it just turns me on when you get pissed off and protective of me. Or did you forget that too?”

“Stop fucking around and tell me who put their fucking hands on you,” I growled.

He glanced down at my hands, his smile growing. “You’re gonna rip my shirt again, and that also turns me on. You’re just getting me riled up every which way this morning, darling.”

“Goddammit, Dakota, just tell me who it was!”

He gently pressed me back into the bed and kissed the corner of my mouth. “No, I don’t want you to get arrested for murder. With that temper, expulsion is the least of your worries, I think. Did you know that your accent gets thicker the angrier you get? It’s fucking hot.”

I heaved an enormous frustrated sigh and let go of his shirt. “You’re so annoying. And don’t change the subject.”

“Damn, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.” He brushed his nose against mine. “But just so you know, it was Everett who spread that lie. Well, actually, it was Everett and Jared who spread the lie. No one ever broke the guy’s arm in the first place, he just wore a fake cast for a month. Everett probably blackmailed Jared into lying for him because everyone is afraid of Everett way more than me, so the whole world thinks I actually broke his fucking arm. Just Everett doing what he does best—trying to destroy my life because he can’t stand me.”

What the fuck…

I thought I’d been angry before, but that information, combined with the horribly resigned expression on Dakota’s face and the flat tone of his voice, brought my blood to a boiling point.

I knew Everett was a slimy, conniving piece of shit, but the lengths he was willing to go to were disturbing and appalling. And the fact that Dakota’s parents didn’t care and believed their sociopath of a son over his victim was disgusting.

I wanted to bury them all. I wanted to expose Everett for the manipulative fraud he was and give him what he deserved.

I really wanted to hurt him, but Dakota had asked me not to resort to violence anymore.

If I could find another way to hurt him…

Yeah. He valued his reputation above all else, as did the dean.

Was this why the dean had asked me to keep an eye on Dakota? Because of a fucking lie his son had propagated since last year?

And on top of that, Everett had severely maimed and disfigured Dakota when they were teenagers—then convinced everyone it had been Dakota who’d done it to himself, which earned him a year-long stay in a behavioral health facility.

The treatment he’d faced from his own family unearthed a volatile rage that made me want to destroy them all.

But I wasn’t any better than them. I’d played into their machinations, agreed to be the dean’s eyes and ears. And while at the time it had felt like I had no choice in the matter, the truth was there was always a choice. I could have walked away, could have abandoned my studies, abandoned my promise to my mom, but instead I’d chosen to abandon my morals for the sake of a promise to a woman who’d been gone for a long time now.

Dakota was still here, still able to be hurt.Wasstill being hurt—and I was one of the perpetrators of that pain.

I had to end this. I had to make it right. And I would. I vowed to take down everyone who’d hurt him, starting with Everett.

And then…I would leave.

My stomach growled, making the weirdest sound, and I flushed. Dakota just laughed and spread his palm over my belly beneath the hoodie.

“Good timing, I’m hungry too. Starving, actually. Wanna get something to eat? I can go get it or we can go together.”

I wanted to go with him for once. He didn’t need to be my food courier all the time, no matter how much I liked that he wanted to feed me. Truthfully, I didn’t want to let him out of my sight for a single second.

“I want to go with you,” I said, watching the gorgeous smile that spread across his face.

I did that. I’d made him smile like that. Atme.

I pushed at his chest. “You have to get off me.”