Another door opened, a tray of food was brought in, and then before it could close another man entered.
Rora’s heart stopped. “Benjamin,” she said his name in a rush of breath.
Benjamin was so startled by her that she supposed he hadn’t known she was here. “Morning Sun,” he said, stunned. “No… it can’t be.” He took one step toward her, another, and then she was running to him and they were in each other’s arms. “My Aurora… my beautiful Aurora.” Gasping for her, he crouched, pushing her hair from her face to smile into her eyes though there were tears in his. She felt wet heat streaking her own cheeks too, but didn’t care that she was weeping. This was the climax of the most intense journey she’d ever been on. “Is it really you?”
“Yes! Oh, yes, it’s me,” she said.
“Oh, Aurora,” he said, so overwhelmed that he almost seemed in awe. “You actually came. You came here for me?”
“Yes,” she sobbed and they hugged for a moment.
Benjamin pulled back and held her face again. “Did you find him?”
“I… Yes,” she said, taking Benjamin’s hand from her face and keeping it in hers. Rora turned to the table. “He’s here.”
Strike wasn’t looking at them; he tossed something into the air, caught it in his mouth, then went back to typing. From the smudges on his plate, she guessed he’d already eaten. No one else had even sat down yet and he was finished. The food had been on the table, and she knew what he was like when it came to eating fast.
“Oh my God,” Benjamin said. “You actually found him. I’ve heard of him, heard the stories, but… he’s really here. I never expected to meet him in the flesh.”
“Touch me or introduce me and this stirring reunion will be short-lived,” Strike muttered, and kept typing.
So excited, Benjamin might not have heard Strike properly, or he just couldn’t restrain himself to play it cool despite Strike’s sour mood. “He’s working, what is he working on?” he asked.
“He’s not a zoo exhibit,” Rora said, guiding Benjamin toward the table.
“A monkey in his natural habitat,” Bella said, seating herself at the table. “Benjamin, you sit there next to Exile… Aurora, you come and sit by me.”
Rora didn’t really want to let go of Benjamin now that they were finally in the same room and she had him in her sights. She didn’t want dinner either. It was late in the day, she’d noticed the sun sinking in the sky, but they needed to get out of here. Except if Strike was at the table, showing no signs of going anywhere, she guessed they were waiting until morning to fly out.
Letting her hand fall out of his, Rora offered Benjamin a smile, but glanced at Strike who was still working away. The large table put quite a barrier between the women and the men. With Strike so close to Benjamin, her friend was vulnerable… But wasn’t Strike her friend too? Not according to him.
Bella was putting food on a plate when Rora went around to sit down. Her hostess put the plate between them and cut a piece of meat, which she then offered to Rora’s lips. Was her hostess going to feed her?
Fearful of offending anyone, and confused by the bizarre setup, Rora opened her mouth and accepted the morsel. Bella beamed and cut another, taking it for herself this time. “You have a beautiful mouth,” Bella said, giving Rora another mouthful. “Mm, that lip, so plump and juicy… looks delicious.”
“Uh… thank you.”
“What are you working on?” Benjamin asked Strike.
With Bella feeding her, Rora had leave to just watch the men, observing Benjamin’s shimmering excitement contrast with Strike’s complete indifference. Strike was slouched away from the table at an angle, his ankle propped up on his knee. Benjamin was the opposite, seated straight and properly at the table as he served food onto his plate.
“Read your code,” Strike said, and she wasn’t surprised that he’d ignored Benjamin’s direct question. “Tweaked it.”
“I’m honored.”
“You’re going to struggle with the kick,” Strike mumbled. “Do you have a patch? What I read this afternoon won’t do it.”
“It’s in beta. I have to run more tests—”
“Increases your chance of discovery… I wrote the inverse. A couple of them.”
Benjamin stopped and sank back in his chair to gape at the typing man beside him. “You… My code’s unlikely to withstand yours,” he said. “And I don’t need it to. No offense to the world at large, but I’m not likely to deal with an adversary as skilled as you because, well, let’s face it, there isn’t one.”
“Don’t suck my cock,” Strike said. “Never know who you’ll come up against. I like to take the opposing side in an argument, sometimes just for fun.”
Rora stopped chewing and saw that Bella was glaring at Strike. “Are you threatening Benjamin?” Bella asked. “Exile, we are here to have a pleasant meal. Everyone here is friends. Haven’t we all enjoyed each other’s bodies? Pleasured each other? Been a crutch to each other in times of need? Rarely would anyone find such a close-knit group.” She squealed. “Isn’t it invigorating? We’re a happy little horny foursome.”
Rora didn’t know who was more shocked, her or Benjamin. But her friend didn’t seem shocked by Bella, the astonishment written across his face was aimed at her. And when his next glance went to Strike, Rora realized he was shocked by the idea she might have been intimate with the enigmatic criminal.
“Ben—”
“No one gives a damn,” Strike said, interrupting Rora’s apology with a glare, which he switched onto Bella. “I wasn’t threatening him. Testing should be over. If he can code to withstand what I wrote, it will be ready, no testing required.”
Bella and Benjamin went back to their food. Rora made eye contact with Strike who was fixated on her over the top of his laptop. They hadn’t slept together. Except Bella thought they had; Rora had figured that out when she heard Bella’s questions earlier. It made no sense to her why Strike would maintain the fallacy. If he just wanted to be seen as a stud, he could’ve actually slept with her before they got there, it wasn’t like she hadn’t given him the chance to be with her.
“You should see some of what I’ve achieved,” Benjamin said, stealing Rora’s attention for a second.
When it went back to Strike, she found him focused on his computer again.
“You’ve been working,” she said to Benjamin.
For months, she’d worried about what he’d endured. She’d been so thankful to see him that she hadn’t considered his condition. His weight was good, his pallor warm, there were no obvious signs of abuse, and here he was seated at the hostess’ dinner table.
“Yes,” Benjamin said. “I have achieved some quite incredible things. I think you would be surprised to hear about some of the things I’ve done. And now that Mr. Exile is here, I’m excited to see what will come next.”
“Exile,” she said, looking at Strike and then at the grinning Benjamin. Bella put a wine glass into Rora’s hand and urged it up to her lips to make her drink. “I don’t understand.”
Strike blinked his hateful scowl up to her. “No one said you had to.”
“But, I… We didn’t come here to work.”
“You didn’t,” Strike said.
If he wouldn’t be forthcoming, Benjamin might be. “I thought I needed him to help find you. I thought…”
“He did help you,” Benjamin said. “And now he can help me.”
This didn’t feel right. This wasn’t why she was here at all. Luring Strike into the open, bringing him back to his ex-girlfriend… Rora hadn’t considered for a second that it might be some kind of set-up just to get Exile here.
“All of this talk has made me eager for results,” Bella said, pushing Rora’s wine up to her mouth again.
The red wine was good; she’d drunk more than half the glass and would be happy to drink the whole bottle.
Strike didn’t usually choose to look at her for any reason, but he’d been really glaring at her earl
ier and now she understood why if he’d been coerced into doing something he didn’t want to do. She’d thought he could use his physical skills to bust them out; the last thing she’d expected was that he’d have to work for Bella in any way.
Bella took her wine glass and she heard it fill, but Rora was fixated on Strike. What she wouldn’t give to be alone with him, even for a minute. She had to ask questions, but he hated her questioning him at the best of times. He sure wouldn’t want to be questioned in front of other people.
But right now, she’d settle for him looking at her.
Benjamin rising from the table made her turn. “I should get back to work,” Benjamin said, taking an apple from the bowl in the middle of the table.
“Excellent idea,” Bella said. “Off you go.”
Benjamin went to leave. Watching him move away from her made Rora push up from her seat. Bella caught her wrist and pulled her back down. “Benjamin,” Rora said when it was clear that her hostess wasn’t going to let her go.
He smiled at her. “I’ll see you at breakfast,” he said. “You are a formidable and determined woman, Morning Sun. I didn’t doubt you for a heartbeat.”
His sweet words touched her, but he faded from the room and she didn’t even bother to swipe the tear from her face. Sucking on the center of her lower lip, she tried to quell the fresh tears that threatened to form. She’d just gotten him back and now he was gone again.
Rora had been right about the air around here, there was something sinister in it. This wasn’t a happy place. Appearances might be designed to suggest the opposite, but Benjamin was a prisoner, no doubt about that. A prisoner who’d been forced to use his skills to do goodness knows what for the woman at her side, who was now stroking her arm. And now that Rora had brought Strike here, Bella had it in her power to do even more evil.
The sensation of Bella’s fingernails on her forearm made Rora turn. It didn’t feel nice to be stroked by the woman who was fascinated with her skin. “How do you feel, Arousing Aurora?” Bella purred, leaning in to kiss her shoulder. “Relaxed, duckie?”
Why was she stroking her and kissing her? Bella pushed her hair back and the slight movement made Rora’s head fall, giving the woman access to slide closer and kiss her neck.
It didn’t feel good. She frowned and tried to push her away, but her body was heavy, her mind slow. Rora heard a sigh, but her vision was blurring, her eyes wouldn’t focus. “Bell, what did you do?”
“What?” Bella asked, exuding pure innocence. “I just helped her to relax.”
Something, or someone, was caressing her breasts. Rora tried to open her mouth, but her voice was gone. There was nothing she could do to defend herself. A hot hand slid up the front of her dress and she felt lips on hers.
“You roofied her.” Rora recognized that voice: Strike. He was in the room, but… he was far away, too far away. The scent in her nose was too delicate to be his; he wasn’t the one touching her.
The rasp of a zipper met her ears and Rora tried again to speak. “I’ll share her with you, prince,” Bella purred, and a tongue slid across Rora’s throat. “She’s so sweet, Exile… Come and taste her with me…”
The feminine voice came closer to her ear, a mouth nuzzled her there and then there was a pain just behind, so sharp it made her yelp.
“This one isn’t a toy.”
“Our Aurora doesn’t count against your ridiculous rule,” Bella said, pulling Rora’s dress strap away from her shoulder. “You’ve had her. She’s accepted you. She wants you, prince. Let me watch you take her… I’ll lick your seed from her skin, drink it from her pussy… Tonight, you’ll rule us both.”
That was the last thing Rora remembered hearing before she lost the last thread of grip on her consciousness.
thirteen
“I think she’s waking up.”
Rora heard the voice but couldn’t open her eyes or lift her head. She was lying down on something soft… in a bed, maybe… and there was a hand on her belly, sliding up toward… Gasping, she grabbed the hand that was between her body and the blanket laid over her.
Bella was there, lying beside her, looking down at her. Yes, she was in a bed, a large bed, near the edge. Bella was in it with her and Rora was… not naked.
“Where’s Exile?” Rora croaked.
“Right here, Cupcake.”
Staying on the pillow, her head snapped to the side and she saw the back of his. Ten feet away, he was seated on a couch that faced away from the bed; no doubt he was working on his laptop.
“She’s awake, now can we make love to her?” Bella asked and sat up. The blanket fell from her body, revealing that she was naked. “Let’s shower together! He’s magnificent in the shower, isn’t he?”
Bella grabbed her hand and pulled it out from under the covers, but Rora slid her palm out from between both of Bella’s. “I…”
“She can probably barely stand,” Strike said. “You get your ass in there, Bella. Ro’s going nowhere. I’ve got shit to do today; I don’t have time for your crap.”
Bella grumbled something, tossed the covers away and climbed over her. Rora tensed when Bella brushed their lips together. For Rora’s liking, it took too long for her hostess to get off the bed and stomp across the room into the bathroom.
The sound of the shower made her eyes close. If Bella was in there, she could relax. Her head was spinning, heavy and sore. Putting a hand on her forehead, Rora let her lips move.
“What is that?” Strike said, making her eyes open. “Are you telling me a story?”
“Myself,” she said, lifting her legs to push the covers away from her body. “Little Red Riding Hood. I tell myself stories when I feel like I’m falling off the edge of the earth… Started when I was in the police cells waiting to tell them my story.”
“After they caught your brother,” he said.
She and her brother had been arrested by the cops at the same time because they were both found in the bloodbath and no one was sure of the truth. Those hours in the police station had been some of the worst of her life. After what immediately preceded them.
Even though she’d only been a child, the cops had said they had nowhere else to put her, so while they’d been trying to get their shit together, she’d been left alone in a room staring at bare walls. She’d needed some way to comfort herself and stories were it.
Her stomach clenched when she forced herself to sit up and turn her legs off the edge of the bed. “Last night… did we…”
“No,” he said. “You slept. So far, I’ve resisted committing that particular sin.”
Which made sense if his mother had been raped. Strike probably believed himself capable, but she didn’t believe it. “Bella tried to make a convincing argument. She thinks we’ve had sex… everyone thinks it.”
He offered no explanation for why he let them believe it. Pressing her fists into the mattress, she pushed forward and got her feet into the thick pile of the carpet. She wobbled for a minute, and had to close her eyes against the heaviness in her head, but she took her time about shuffling forward toward the couch. When she could reach it, she used it for balance and its support to help her around.
She slunk onto the couch, using the arm as a backrest against her shoulders, and tucking her dress around her legs when she pulled her knees to her chest.
“Why is Bella… Why did she…”
“She’s attracted to you,” he said, working on his laptop. “She didn’t have a conventional upbringing, she doesn’t know how to express that in any other way.”
“Is that how you got together? Did she drug you?”
“More than once,” he said.
But there hadn’t been anyone there to protect him against her violations. “Thank you,” she said. “For not letting her…”
“Don’t start thinking it means anything,” he said. “I need you sweet until you tell me what I want to know. If you’d been anyone else, I’d have let her do whatever she wanted to you.”
> “She wanted you… She wanted you to be with me.”
He paused for a second but didn’t look at her. “Yeah, well we both know that wouldn’t have happened.”
“No,” she murmured, tucking her chin onto her knees.
“Quite the reunion you had with your Benjamin yesterday,” he said. “Why does he call you Morning Sun?”
“It comes from my name, from light and dawn. He used to work so late that he wouldn’t know it was daylight unless I walked in. Didn’t really matter if it was the morning or not. He said I was his sunrise. His morning sun.”
“Poetic,” he scoffed. “And you still think he doesn’t want to bone you? Fuck, you’re naïve.”
She folded her hands under her chin. “He never bought me a cupcake,” she murmured.
He stopped again. This time his chin did move and they made eye contact. Sometimes it felt like he forgot who she was or forgot who he was. They’d been through a lot together in the last few weeks.
“I didn’t know they wanted you here to work. If I had—”
“What?” he asked. “You’d still have brought me up here, you had to. You can’t fly a plane. I found Benjamin, that’s what you asked me to do. What I do after that is my business.”
“Do you think she planned it this way? Gave out just enough information so that I’d bring you here believing you were my only hope.”
“I was,” he said. “No other guy would’ve brought you this far. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Anything could happen out here and no one’s getting out without her say so. But yeah, I think she planned it this way.”
“So, what’s our plan?” she asked. “How do we get out of here?”
“We don’t,” he said. “You’re leaving tomorrow with Benjamin.”
Surprise made her knees fall to the side. “What? No. What about you?”
“One of her guys is flying out to bring supplies back,” he said. “You’ll be on that plane with him.”
“Strike,” she said, falling forward to grab his arm. “No. I’m not leaving you here.”
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