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Except when I had a break in class later that day. I usually would’ve headed to the library to hang out with my mom to kill time, but I faltered instead. Because I realized it was Waverly I was most anxious to see.

Fuck. I needed more time away from her to get this out of my system before I faced her again.

Or texted her again.

Because bantering with her the day before while I’d been in class had been like a straight shot of adrenaline to my core.

I’d been tempted to head straight to the library after my lecture too. I even made it halfway there before I realized how much she truly had me under her control.

If I wasn’t careful, she’d have me married off with half a dozen kids before I even knew what hit me.

And so I stayed away that day and the next.

By Friday, I was miserable.

At lunch, I hit the buffet at the student union and found a table to sit at by myself, until this annoying asshole decided to join me, ruining my perfect plans to brood miserably.

“Hey, you going to eat that?” Foster asked, sitting across from me and instantly reaching for something on my tray.

I had no idea what he was even going for, but I threw up a hand, blocking him and scowling. “Motherfucker. Yes , I’m going to eat that.”

“Damn.” Whistling out a dismayed breath, he pulled his hand back and settled for grabbing a grape from his own tray. “What’s wrong with you today?” he asked, popping the fruit into his mouth.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Hudson answered, joining us and making it two annoying assholes ruining my lunch. Ivey stole a grape from Foster’s tray before Foster could stop him. “Duggie needs to get laid.”

Union laughed and turned back to me. “Seriously,” he added, falling sober. “What’s wrong, man?”

“No.” I shook a finger toward Hudson, realizing he was onto something there. “Ivey’s right. I’m having sex withdrawals. Dude! That’s all this is.”

Well, that made me feel better. It wasn’t Waverly and her monogamous, marriage-minded draw that was getting to me. I just hadn’t had sex in too long.

Whew. I suddenly felt so much better.

“Called it.” Hudson lifted a hand to accept his victory as he turned his attention to his own meal.

“I need a hot, wet pussy to wrap around my cock until I forget what a sucky world this is, full of sucky people,” I claimed.

“Don’t we all,” Hudson echoed as he picked up his hamburger and took a bite, only to close his eyes and groan. “Damn,” he told us with a full mouth. “Now this is a fucking burger. Remind me to look up the cook after this and pick his brain for tips.”

Foster and I took our attention away from Ivey, knowing he’d be lost in his food for the foreseeable future, and I shoved my tray aside, no longer interested in eating, so I could drop my head face-down onto the table. “I need a pussy bad, y’all.”

“Aww, come on, Duggie,” Ivey encouraged, nudging my arm. “It can’t be that bad. What’s the issue here? Can you not perform anymore or what?”

“ What ?” I looked up to send him a horrified shudder. “Of course, I can perform. Fuck you, man. That is not the problem.”

Hudson nodded, totally unfazed by my outrage. “Okay,” he murmured thoughtfully. “So you just can’t find a willing partner, anymore? I see now. All the women on campus have finally wised up to the fact that you’re a total douche nozzle.”

“Dude.” I scoffed. “You’re a…douche nozzle.

” Then I groaned at myself because I hadn’t been able to think up a worthy comeback.

“God.” Defeated, I plopped my elbows on the table and slapped a hand to my forehead.

“What is happening to me? My sex-deprived brain can’t even come up with a decent insult to zing back at you.

I need pussy—soon—or I’m going to cease to be… me.”

“Just how long has it been?” Foster asked.

I paused to think it through, only to panic because I didn’t automatically know the answer. That was bad. That was very, very bad. When I realized I hadn’t done anything with a woman since…Waverly, I swallowed in dread.

Fuck, this was worse than bad. This was doom.

She and I hadn’t had actual sex that night, but the blowjob she’d given me had been better than any vagina-to-penis intercourse I’d ever experienced, so I went ahead and counted it as sex-sex since we’d both come, and I answered with, “Two weeks.”

“Two weeks ?” Foster blinked at me as if I were insane. “Dude, before Raina, I went nine months without it, and I wasn’t as bad off as you are now.”

“Yeah, but think about it since you’ve been with her and are used to getting it on the reg,” I countered, lifting my eyebrows meaningfully. “ Now tell me how long two weeks would feel for you?”

Foster grimaced and pulled back away from the idea. “Shit,” he gulped, not a fan. “That would suck.”

“Exactly,” I muttered. “I need some fucking sex. Today.”

“What about her?” Hudson said, wiping his face with a napkin before he nodded his chin across the room toward a chick at another table. “She’s got a nice rack.”

I glanced over, only to cast Hudson a disgusted glower because the woman was hot as hell, and yet she did nothing for me.

Her breasts were actually too big for the mood I was in.

I was craving the smaller ones with the big, responsive nipples that stabbed my tongue when I sucked them into my mouth and tasted like ripe, juicy berries.

And seriously, how was it right that I knew what Waverly’s nipples tasted like, yet I’d still never actually seen them? It killed me that I had no idea what color they were. A bright, gleaming rose? A tempered, chocolatey brown? I did not like this mystery. I needed to know .

Realizing both Ivey and Union were waiting for me to answer, I snorted at the girl Hudson had just suggested I hit up. “No thanks,” I grumbled.

“Wait, really?” Foster blinked at me in concern. “Are you feeling okay, Keene?”

Stretching his arm across the table, he reached for my forehead to check for a fever, but I ducked my face aside and scowled at him. “I’m fucking fine.”

“Clearly,” Hudson answered dryly before he nudged Foster’s elbows. “You know what his problem is, don’t you?”

“What’s that?” Foster asked.

“He got a taste for the blind box experience, and now, all he wants is his mystery girl again.”

“Hey, fuck you,” I muttered, glaring him down. “I’m not hooking up with her again.”

“Wait, what’s this?” Hudson leaned toward me with interest. “You’ve changed your tune from the last time I heard about your night of mistaken identities. What happened? Did you figure out who she was or something?”

“Dude.” Foster sent him a dismayed glance. “Where have you been? He’s known who she was since at least Monday or Tuesday.”

Last Wednesday, I silently corrected him. I’d known for exactly nine days now. But who was counting?

“Seriously?” Hudson looked put out for being behind on the gossip. “And you know who she is?” he asked Foster.

“Hell, I knew who she was before Dugger did. Raina told me,” he added, only to squint at Hudson. “Did Faith not tell you?”

“No.” Scandalized, Hudson pulled out his phone and began to text his girl. “Why the fuck would she not tell me?”

“Hold up,” I scowled at the football star. “You knew before I did, and you didn’t think to clue me in?”

Jesus, Union was no better than Ohrley.

“Dude,” Foster answered apologetically and lifted both hands. “I couldn’t tell you. Raina tricked me and forced me into secrecy before she agreed to tell me what her juicy gossip was even about. If I’d broken my word to her, she would’ve cut me off for way longer than two weeks.”

I winced with him and decided, “Okay, I guess that’s a legitimate enough reason to stay silent.”

“And it explains why Faith decided not to tell me at all,” Hudson reasoned with a knowing nod.

“She’d have nothing to threaten me with if I’d broken my word and told you because she’s physically incapable of withholding sex from me.

” With a wink in my direction, he bragged, “Girl can’t keep her hands off me. ”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes, while Foster glanced past my shoulder, and straightened in surprise. “Well, speak of the devil,” he murmured with a growing smile. “There’s the cure to your sex drought right there.”

Not at all knowing what he was talking about, I twisted around in my seat only to spot his cousin Xander strolling into the entrance of the student union with her new bestie at her side.

“Motherfucker,” I hissed, twisting back to face the guys and slinking lower in my seat in a really lame attempt to hide from them. “What the hell is she doing here?”

She never came to the student union. This was my safe space. Why would she invade my safe space like that?

Now my skin was prickling with awareness, and I already had a semi going. I wanted to spring out of my chair, march right over to her, and toss her over my shoulder to carry her off to the first quiet, private-enough space we came across so we could fuck the rest of the afternoon away.

“Hang on. I’m confused,” Hudson announced, glancing from me to Foster and over toward the girls. “You’re not saying…?” His eyes flared. “Holy shit. Xander’ s your mystery girl?”

“ What ?” I cried, giving him a look of extreme offense. “No!”

Foster threw back his head and laughed. “Is he still breathing?” he asked. “Then, no, he didn’t lay a hand on my cousin.” Leaning toward Hudson, he pointed. “Look to the left of Xander.”

Hudson glanced over at the girls again. From the trajectory of his gaze, I could tell they had already moved toward the buffet and were getting their food.

Squinting in confusion, he shook his head. “Who the fuck is that?”

My mouth sagged in shock. “Really?”

Foster merely grinned. “You seriously don’t recognize her?” When Hudson shook his head, Foster shrugged. “I mean, Xander’s been playing Barbie on her and dressing her up in different clothes and such lately, but she doesn’t look that different, does she?”

Narrowing his eyes with more concentration, Hudson looked some more before recognition finally flared. “Is that…?” He paused to shake his head before glancing at me. “Is that Library Girl ?”

I seethed, glaring at him without saying a word, and he laughed. “Holy shit.” Slapping the side of Foster’s arm with the back of his hand, he claimed, “Did I call that or what?” He looked at Union for an answer and frowned. “Damn. I thought you were Faith for a second. Never mind.”

As Foster rolled his eyes and sighed, Hudson veered his attention back toward the girls. “But seriously, when did Library Girl get so hot?”

I snickered and plucked cockily at the front of my shirt. “I’m calling it the after-Keene glow.” Only to point at Ivey and narrow my eyes threateningly. “And stop fucking looking at her like that, asshole.”

Hudson only chuckled at my jealousy, but it was Foster who really pulled the rug out from under me when he lifted his brows and announced, “Looks like Hud wasn’t the only one to notice her new glow.”

“Huh?” I spun around to see what the hell he was talking about, only to spot some douchebag hovering around Waverly, where she was standing in the pay line behind Xander.

He wasn’t just standing close either; he was fucking talking to her.

“Who the fuck is that?!” I exploded, whirling back to Foster and Hudson in outrage. “Is he flirting with her?”

Because it looked as if the dead asshole was fucking flirting with her.

“Yeah.” Hudson nodded and glanced at Foster, who started nodding along with him. “Yeah, I’d say he’s definitely flirting with her.”

“Son of a bitch,” I growled, shoving out of my chair before I even knew what I was doing. “Over my dead body.”

From the moment I’d learned Waverly was my mystery girl, I’d been experiencing a lot of tight, reined-in pressure, very similar to the agony of having to take a massive leak yet knowing you had to hold it until you found a bathroom.

This feeling for her had been adamantly corralled into the inner depths of my chest, where I’d been determined for it to never see the light of day. But a person could only hold shit in for so long. And watching that asshole sniffing around her made all my beloved denial burst wide apart.

It came spraying out of me in such a hearty flood that the relief of letting out all that pent-up misery actually felt good .

I no longer cared about how determined I’d been to keep it inside in the first place. It no longer mattered why I’d even held it in for so long. It was out now, and there was no putting it back.

Light switch flipped. Whoever I’d been before was now gone. And a new Keene emerged.

One who had to unalive a motherfucker for daring to talk to my woman.

Gaze latched on the idiot standing way too close to Waverly, I stalked toward him with murder in my veins.