Author Note: Thanks for the great response to this story! You all seemed to be on board with their plan, no matter how illegal.
Teasers for guessing the chapter title from John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band went to: Angellovee, SassYNoleS, tawelephant, MissyDy, CinnamonTeaz, EdwardsFirstKiss, dawnhybb, and deepsighs. It's from the 1983 movie Eddie and the Cruisers.
Thanks again to moosals for pre-reading. Stephenie Meyer owns all characters.
Chapter 18 – On the Dark Side
"He took a picture of his dick," I explain to Jake. "It's as ugly as he is." And way smaller than Edward's, I note with glee. I look up at Jake. "I feel like this was way too easy."
"Yeah," he nods, looking like he's thinking hard. "I doubt he'd go to the trouble of making a lot of back-ups, but maybe he emailed them to himself or something easy like that. Does he use the Mail app on there?"
I open the Mail app to James's email. There are two accounts, the first of which seems to be his umsl. edu account. I scroll through his Inbox from the last two weeks and finding nothing, I double check the Sent Items and Trash. Still nothing.
"Nothing on his school account," I report.
"Is there a second email account?"
"I'm getting to that." I open up James's gmail and sure enough, I find that he did email a copy of the most incriminating photo — the one he showed me — to himself.
"He did, good thinking," I smile at Jake before deleting it. I tap to his Sent Items, then delete the version from there before moving to the Trash folder.
"You know you can permanently delete those in one step," he chuckles.
"Shut it, I don't trust that with something this important." After deleting both emails from the Trash, I remember to check his Drafts in case he started an email to the Dean — nothing in there — and then close the app.
"How long do you think the emails will still be on the server?" I ask. "I mean, can he somehow download them again?"
"I think it's usually no more than two weeks, but if his email is synced to his phone, you got them from everywhere. Maybe check the other apps, too — anything with photos. Does he have Instagram?"
I look over the screen, then swipel to see more apps, but I still can't find the icon for Instagram. "No," I answer, "but I'll check everything."
After five minutes, I've found no trace of the photos anywhere else, but I hand the phone to Jake to make another pass, just in case.
"I can't find any more," he states after a few nail-biting minutes.
"Jake… what if he has a hard copy?" I ask, the realization suddenly hitting me.
His brow furrows as he frowns. "I know James is from out of the area and lives on campus. If he printed them, it'd probably be from one of the computer labs. I don't know if he'd chance that. I mean, who prints photos these days? I only print papers that can't be emailed."
"I know what you mean. My mom got me a collage photo frame last Christmas, but it's still sitting empty since I never bother to print photos."
"Maybe we can find out if he's used one of the labs in the last two weeks," Jake suggests.
"How?"
"Emmett is majoring in Information Systems," he smiles.
"Does he work in the lab?"
"No, but he knows the people who do. I'll ask him to check on it, all right? Are we done with the phone?"
"I think so," I nod.
Jake stands up, grabbing a tissue from the box on Emmett's desk, then begins wiping our fingerprints off James's phone. I hope he's just watched too many crime shows on TV to know all of this.
"I'll go slip this back into James's pocket and we can all get the fuck out of here, all right?"
Nodding, I follow him to the door and wait anxiously until he comes back with Alice and Jasper, motioning for me to join them as they head for the back door. Outside, we walk as quickly as we can back toward where we parked Jasper's car near the basketball arena. None of us says a word until we get there.
"We should be in the clear," Jake announces. "I'll see you ladies at home."
Climbing into the back seat of Jasper's pick-up, I remember that my own phone has been on vibrate for over an hour. Turning it on, I see several messages from Edward, ranging from panicked to pissed that I'm not answering him.
Sorry, my phone was on vibrate. I think we're good to go.
Where the hell are you?
On the way home from campus with Alice and her boyfriend.
Come to my place once you get to your car.
K. See you soon.
"Everything all right?" Alice asks, turning around in her seat.
"Apparently I shouldn't send text messages and then ignore my phone."
"Oh," she laughs.
Sitting back in my seat, I try to will my heartrate to return to normal. We got the photos deleted, and Emmett will try to find out if James printed them out. Assuming he didn't, then it'll just be James's word against ours if he dares to go to the Dean without any physical proof of a sexual relationship.
Once Jasper has parked in a visitor's spot at our apartment complex, I walk straight to my car to head to Edward's. He's already got the front door open before I've put my car in Park.
I can almost feel the anger rolling off of him as I pass by him into the foyer. He closes the door behind me, but I escape into the living room before he has a chance to yell at me.
"You scared me the shit out of me, Bella," he says, sounding like he's trying to control his anger. "You send some cryptic message then go dead silent."
"In hindsight, I should've waited before I said anything," I reply meekly. "I didn't mean to worry you."
Edward stalks toward me, pulling me tightly against him. "If I was into that shit, I would turn you over my knee right now," he growls.
"That might be kinda fun," I admit, which just seems to piss him off more.
"What kind of Scooby Doo caper were you involved in tonight, Isabella?"
I flush, getting kind of hot under the collar from hearing him use my full name. "C-Can we sit down?" I suggest.
He drags me over to the couch, then actually does lay me ass up across his lap. I yelp when he slaps me hard over my jeans. Immediately, he starts rubbing my ass cheek to ease the sting. I can feel my panties dampening.
"Do you like that?" he taunts.
"I like anything you do to me," I reply honestly. "You can punish me however you want."
"Get up," he chuckles, tapping my ass again. I lift my head, kneeling beside him. "Tell me where you were tonight."
"I went to the exhibition basketball game with Alice and her boyfriend, and then later we attended a team after-party… at a frat house."
Edward narrows his eyes. "How does this at all relate to the sticky situation we've found ourselves in?"
"James was at the party," I explain. I peek at Edward's face and he still looks super pissed, so I hurriedly continue. "Jake knows a guy who used to be a good friend, but he now… sells drugs. He sold Jake a Rohypnol pill, and Jake's friend Emmett was able to slip it into James's drink. When he passed out, Jake took his phone and Alice and her boyfriend acted as lookouts. We deleted every copy of the photo we could find. Then Jake wiped off our fingerprints and slipped it back into James's pocket. He'll never know what hit him," I grin.
"You and your friends… got rid of James's proof against us."
"Yep," I nod.
"So… you told them?"
"I did. They can be trusted, Edward, I promise." I reach out and touch his arm lightly. "Jasper and Emmett don't know the whole story though. Jasper wouldn't let Alice do it alone, and Emmett hates James for his own reasons. We didn't necessarily want to involve anyone else, but Jake couldn't really spike James's drink after the way he tossed him out of my party."
"And no one saw you at the frat house?" Edward asks.
"No one saw me, for sure. Jake let us in a back door, and I stayed in Emmett's room the whole time. He did take Alice and Jasper to wherever Emmett had stashed James, but it was probably close by. Jake had us wait until an hour or so into the party, when the guys were already starting to get wasted."
I climb onto Edward's lap, straddling him and resting my hands on his broad shoulders.
"We did it, Edward. I really think we did it. Both Jake and I went over the phone, to make sure we didn't miss anything. I think roofies pretty much wipe your memory, so James likely won't even remember who passed him the last drink. And he won't notice that anything is wrong until he can't find the photo. He'll know someone did something, but he may not even trace it back to tonight. He'll never be able to prove a thing."
"What if he's got a printed copy in his room that he plans to anonymously mail the Dean?" he asks. "I don't think it can be this easy, Bella."
"We're on top of that, too," I assure him. "Emmett is an Information Systems major, so he's gonna try to check on whether or not James has printed anything in the campus computer lab in the last two weeks."
"There are other places to print photos."
"There are," I nod. "The easiest way is probably with a phone app for certain stores, but he didn't have anything like that on his phone. I know there's no absolute guarantee that he doesn't have a printed copy, but we're in a lot better position than we were last night."
"We are," he agrees, letting out a long breath. "I think… we might still need to get a story together, in case he goes to the Dean anyway without the photo, or he doesn't realize he's lost the proof until he gets there. It'll be our word against his then, but we need to have consistent stories."
"Ok," I quickly agree. "I've always heard that the best way to tell a whopper of a lie is to stick as close to the truth as possible."
"Yeah, we'll probably need to admit that we were both at Dave & Buster's that night…"
"And maybe that we knew each other in Chicago," I add. "That could be found out from our records."
"But I guess… if he said you had two weeks, there's no real rush. Though I wouldn't trust him on that."
"Neither would I," I agree.
Edward's arms sneak around me, rubbing my backside. "Please don't scare me like that again. God, Bella, if something had happened to you…"
"I was safe," I promise him. "Either Jasper or Jake was pretty much always with me."
"Still…"
"You can punish me now," I grin.
I yelp when Edward suddenly stands, holding me against his chest. Once we've reached his bedroom, he tosses me onto his bed — which he never seems to make.
"Take your clothes off," he demands. God, I love it when he's bossy.
As I hurriedly shed my clothes, Edward begins to take his off as well. I lick my lips when his semi-hard dick is revealed. It still looks damn impressive.
"So what's next?" I ask with a grin. "Are you going to spank me again? Or maybe tie me to the bed posts? Or, I know, make me deep throat your monster cock? Or just give me so many orgasms that I lose my mind?"
Edward chuckles, shaking his head. "You have been reading too much fan fiction." He comes to lie on the bed then tugs me down beside him, turning me onto my right side so that my back is against his chest and wrapping his arms around me.
"I don't want you to ever think of anything we do sexually as a punishment, Bella," he says softly. "I want you to enjoy every single second."
"I think I'd kinda enjoy the orgasms one." And probably the others, too.
"I'm not sure I'm capable of that one," he says, circling my left nipple with a single finger. "You really did scare me tonight, baby."
"I didn't mean to!" I swear. "I just… wanted to give you some good news so you'd stop worrying."
He chuckles, sliding his hand down my stomach. "Don't you get it? You're the most important thing to me right now. If James goes to the Dean and I lose my job, it'll definitely suck, but… as long as I still have you in my life, I'll be all right."
I can feel my skin heating up, though I don't know if it's more from his sweet words or his ministrations between my legs.
"I-I don't want to lose you either," I half moan as one long finger pushes inside me.
"We knew there were risks to getting involved before the end of the semester. Just as I knew there were risks to bending you over my desk last year. But I did it anyway, and I'm not sure I could really explain why I'm willing to risk everything for you… why I'm so drawn to you."
"Edward," I whine, "please fuck me now."
"Always so impatient," he chuckles, lifting my left leg.
I moan loudly when he enters me. God, he feels huge from this angle. And… oh! The BDE seems to be rubbing against just the right spot inside me with each slow thrust.
"Is this good?" he whispers, his fingers going back to work on my clit.
"So good… don't stop," I beg.
"I'll never stop, baby… Come here."
When I turn my head, Edward captures my lips with his, kissing me sensually while he fucks me — no, makes love to me — and pleasures me with his fingers. It's literally the best thing I've ever felt in my entire life.
And despite his insistence that he can't make me lose my mind from orgasms, I think I come at least twice before Edward stills inside me. I must be weird, because I love it when he comes inside me; it's like he's marking me as is.
Of course, I hate it once his jizz starts leaking out. Gross.
And so I reluctantly crawl out of his arms and go clean up in the bathroom. I use the toothbrush he got for me and wash my face clean.
When I step back into the bedroom, Edward hands me his t-shirt to put on. "You're staying the night, right?" he asks hesitantly.
"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."
A/N: So does my title fit at all? The second half of the chapter is also a bit dark, with Bella having read too many BDSM fan fics! Though it ended on a sweet note.
Note that I am not a techie, but based on some Googling, it appears that deleting a photo from the Recently Deleted album will usually remove it from your iCloud. My iCloud storage is full, so when I delete a photo, it's really gone.
Moosals and I tried to think of every possibility here. Their main residual worry is just the possibility that James printed the photos. I used a Walgreens app to do that once, but Bella couldn't find anything like that on his phone.
Next update on Monday.
For a teaser: This one should be fun… there are two completely different Top 10 80s hits with the exact same title and another Top 10 song with a nearly identical title. And that's just what I know off the top of my head.