Perfectly Toxic (Sterling Shore 9)

“Which one of you assholes did that?” Wren growls, and Maverick points to Dale, who points to Dane, who points to Kode… Ah fuck. Everyone is pointing at each other, and I have no idea why.

“What the hell?” I ask as Dale grabs Wren’s phone. His eyes widen, and then he bursts out laughing.

“Whoever did it has impeccable timing,” Dale says, wiping his eyes as he laughs so hard it brings tears.

Wren grabs his phone back, apparently trying to text someone, typing furiously like he can’t hurry fast enough.

“What the hell?” I snap, grabbing his phone away before he can finish his typing marathon.

Maverick leans over my shoulder, clicks on a text box from Bella, and before I know it, I’m ready to kill everyone who saw this picture.

It’s Bella… lying on her back… and she’s wearing the tiny little lace nightie I bought her a while back. The dresser mirror she used allowed her to get her entire, tanned, fucking incredibly sexy body in the pic.

Wren jerks the phone out of my hand before I crush it, and he curses while trying to text again.

“I have to tell Allie that Bella’s pic came to me.”

“Why the hell would you do that?” I bark, trying to grab his phone again. “Obviously she didn’t send it to you on purpose, and Allie will be pissed at Bella for no damn reason.”

He dodges me, and I stand up, ready to give chase if he tries to dodge me again.

He manages to sidestep me just in time, and I tackle him to the floor. “I fucking have to, or it’ll look like I was keeping something from her.”

We wrestle around, and fight over his phone like it’s a gun in an action film, both of us missing it by fingertips and pulling the other back before they can reach it first.

Just as I grab it, he snatches it away and presses send, delivering the message to Allie. The guys are still dying with unleashed laughter while looking on, and I’m cursing while grabbing his phone back and deleting the picture. Fucking hell. Now Allie is going to be pissed at Bella, because no way do girls listen to reason when it comes to shit like this.

“Who has impeccable timing?” I snap, just realizing I never understood any of that.

Maverick doubles over and drops to his knees as he bursts out laughing, and Dale struggles to regain composure.

“These assholes put an app on Bella’s phone that causes her messages to sometimes go to… someone else in her contacts,” Kode explains with a shrug.

“They love fucking with Bella,” Corbin says, walking back in to see everyone has turned into nothing but howls of laughter since he went outside with Jax Marshall to start grilling the burgers we were going to have.

He arches an eyebrow. “What’d I miss?”

“We’re

crashing girls’ night, Ethan is wrapped around Bella’s asshole-poking finger, and Allie is going to be pissed because Bella sent Wren a naughty picture,” Maverick supplies. “Obviously someone played with that app again.”

“What fucking app?” I demand.

“This one,” Corbin says, laughing as he thrusts his phone in front of me.

Undercover Friend is the app name, and I’m confused.

“It’s not like we can decide who the messages go to. It picks a name at random, based on who she’s texted most recently,” Corbin goes on.

Jax Marshall walks in with a plate of burgers, and he pauses as he takes in the scene. Everyone is already laughing again by this point.

“What’d I miss?” Jax asks.

Chapter 43

BELLA

I look at my phone, and I pull up the text box for Ethan as I quickly finish putting my clothes back on. Why hasn’t he sent a text back? He begged for that damn picture, and I don’t get anything in return?