35. Ulterior Motives

Chapter 35

Ulterior Motives

MEGAN

H unter places his hand on the small of my back, guiding me toward the exit of the building. My body moves forward on autopilot, and it's difficult to even utter a single word. It's almost as if my brain is frozen.

He opens the car door for me, and when I sit down, he reaches over to buckle me in. The familiar scent of his cologne has my legs tightening, and when he pulls away, his face hovers above mine, meeting my gaze.

My eyes dart toward his lips and then back to his eyes, my heart racing. His proximity to me feels dangerous, especially when I'm in such a vulnerable state. That one moment between us makes it difficult for me to breathe, and there's a knowing look in his eyes as he straightens up and closes the door on my side.

I meet Parker's eyes in the rearview mirror, and he asks carefully, "Is everything okay, Megan?"

I press my lips together and shake my head. Fortunately, he doesn't pursue the topic when Hunter takes a seat beside me, anger still rolling off of him.

He doesn't say anything, yet I keep waiting for an explosion. Finally, he firmly orders Parker, "Put up the divider and keep driving until I tell you otherwise."

I watch as a dark mirror suddenly springs up from behind the headrests of the front seats, and it locks into the roof. He's never used this before. I didn't even know he had one of these and now I can no longer see or hear Parker.

"What's going on?" I ask warily.

He turns to face me.

"That was your ex-boyfriend back there?"

"What?" I ask, taken aback by his question. "No! He was–He's–We never exactly dated."

His hand darts out and grasps my jaw, his thumb tracing over my lower lip.

"Then what exactly was your relationship with him? Has he touched you? Have you touched him? Did you wrap your pretty little lips around his cock like he alluded?"

My lips tremble, mainly because of his last particular question.

"It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?" He asks, his tone deadly.

The memory of a small bathroom stall hits me like a ton of bricks, and I push Hunter away, suddenly feeling dirty and used.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"It was a dare, all right?" I snap, humiliation flooding over me. "I was new, and he was nice to me. I was the scholarship girl without a single friend. His friends wanted to see how easy it would be for him to screw me, to screw the desperate scholarship kid from the hood. And I fell for it because he was nice to me, and being at the receiving end of kindness is a fucking luxury to me."

My hands are shaking, and I wrap them around my middle, remembering everything from that afternoon down to the cold bathroom floor that hurt my knees to the way he grabbed my head and tried to get off on my mouth. Then, there was the shock and betrayal of seeing myself on video.

Hunter doesn't seem to be phased by my embarrassing revelation, so I continue talking, but I don't look at him as I tell him this part.

"He tried fucking me for weeks, but I would always find a way to subtly refuse. Finally, he persuaded me to give him a blowjob and somehow made it feel like I was the one who initiated it."

I look up at Hunter after my admission.

"Do you know why I don't trust people, especially when they're nice to me? Because every human being on the planet has ulterior motives–everyone. People use you to get what they want, whether it's getting a good laugh, furthering their career, or for money. People like Ricky and his friends like to put people like me in their place, to crush us under their shoes until you're a fine powder."

I can't control the words as they tumble out of my mouth like a tornado, spinning out of control, probably because I've never said them out loud before–even to Naomi.

"I was stupid enough to let him get into my head, and I said yes, but I was nothing but a joke to him. He took me to a nearby bathroom after classes ended. I didn't know that he'd set up a camera there. How would I? People don't usually do that type of thing without another person's consent, right? It felt wrong, like totally wrong, and I did a horrible job. He didn't get off, and I felt like a whore. But this is the worst part. Afterward, I went home and cried in Naomi's arms because I feared I had disappointed him."

Remembering that now makes me want to go back in time and slap myself.

What an idiot I was.

"The next morning, the video was circulating all over the school," I spit out, my hands clenching my jacket. "The visual art program is small, and I was easy to identify on campus since there aren't many students who look like me. When I was accepted into this program, I thought my life would be different, but after the video, people wouldn't look me in the eye when I walked down the hallway. I heard giggles and snickering behind my back. I was completely humiliated."

I can't calm down. I can't stop the tears of frustration I've been feeling for weeks and months from spilling down my cheeks.

Suddenly, I'm being pulled into a firm chest, my face resting against a strong shoulder as I'm dragged into Hunter's lap.

"Stop crying," he orders roughly.

But try as I might, the tears don't stop.

All this anger and injustice that I had been storing inside of me for the past few months, as well as overlooking the years of abuse I'd suffered in my childhood, is all coming out whether I want it to or not.

I'm shaking, and I want to break something or at least hit something. I want to lash out at the world that has only ever been cruel. I want someone to feel an ounce of the agony that I live with. That makes even something as simple as breathing difficult.

"Why didn't you report it?"

"He didn't put a gun to my head," I say into his chest. "It wasn't rape."

"He taped you without your consent and shared it with your peers. There has to be some rule against that at your university."

"I didn't have to report what he did to the administration," I tell him. "The Dean found out. He blamed me for leaking the video and said it went against the moral clause of the school. When he threatened to expel me, I told him that I didn't have any idea that I was being taped and mentioned the names of the other students who were involved.

"Once he heard the names, I could see him closing off any understanding of my situation. Ricky and Ashley have strong ties to the university. Their parents donate to the school and are important people in the community. To add insult to injury, he then said he was going to take away my scholarship for my part in the fiasco, and I realized at that moment that nobody else who'd put me in that position was going to suffer any consequences."

"Then what happened?"

"I didn't back down. I told him that I'd go to the media or the police. The threat shook him for a moment. He called the parents of the kids I said were involved, but they came to an agreement with the university. They would take the video down, nobody would get in trouble, and I'd get to keep my scholarship. Of course, almost everyone in the program saw that video, so they couldn't completely remove it, but the important thing was that I got to keep my scholarship and stay in school."

Hunter's hand tightens in my hair, not painfully so, but as if to remind me how angry he is about this.

"I see."

His tone is dark, and he lightly pulls at my hair so that I look up at him. I don't care if my face looks a mess, and apparently, neither does he.

"But you still talk to this boy?" he asks, confused by what he just witnessed. "Why?"

I sigh and attempt to explain to Hunter what is truly unexplainable.