by K. T. Tomb
She held on to him as if her life depended on it, when he started to move inside her. Aurora felt as if he were moving her entire world with every thrust of his hips. She met his every plunge with the rocking of her thighs, and the feeling of intense unity between them soon made Will throw back his head in ecstasy as he filled her with his seed. His body was cosmically charged and so was hers. The energy between them was intense. Even as they reveled in each others embrace, Will began to move inside her again. He never faded after his brush with rapture, but only took a moment to regain his breath and lavish kisses along Aurora’s neckline.
It was Aurora’s turn to surprise him as she swung her leg around, turned him over and sat squarely on top of him. She gathered the sheets around her waist and positioned herself on his engorged member. Slowly, she moved her hips back and forth, rocking with the rhythm of passion and abandon. They were one, moved as one and soon their breathing was ragged and urgent, but she was determined for their encounter to last, so she slowed the pace, her movements become more deliberate and sensual. Their eyes were locked on each other, both of them drinking the other in and fully immersed in their lovemaking.
Suddenly, the door opened and a voice called out, “Will, are you still asleep?”
When Robin Thorn came through the doorway and into the room, he cried out, “Oh, my living God. What are you doing here?”
“Mr. Thorn,” Aurora stuttered as she grabbed for the bed sheets to cover herself.
“Robin? What the hell are you doing here?” Will shouted. “Don’t you know how to knock?”
Robin backed out of the room, shaking his head as if he could somehow erase the scene he had just witnessed from his mind. Will hopped out of the bed, hurriedly dragged on a pair of pajama pants and went after him. As if to form a stronger defense, Aurora threw on a robe and belted it closed as she followed Will to the first floor sitting room. He stood on the last step, watching his brother pace from one side of the fireplace to the other.
“I thought you understood what I told you the other day. We are not the same kind of people. Our sort don’t mix and when we try to, it’s never successful. I’m just trying to be a good brother and a good friend. I’m just trying to shield you both from getting hurt.”
“Robin, Aurora did nothing wrong. I asked her to come here. I want to be with her. I don’t care if we work together. This is our private business; it has nothing to do with anyone or anything else.”
“She is not right for you, Will. Have you forgotten how she paraded herself in front of our father for all those years and then threw herself at Zach the first chance that she got? This will not end nicely. She is too different from us and, to be quite frank, you deserve a lot better than her.”
At that remark, Will stepped down into the living room and stood squarely in front of his brother.
“There is no way I’m giving her up. You separated me from someone I loved and cared for once before and I’m not going to let that happen again. I love her and I’m not letting that go this time.”
“You’re going to regret this, Will, mark my words. This little fling won’t last very long, even if I have to see to it myself. If you go through with this, you’ll never be able to show your face in civilized society again; you won’t fit in anymore.”
“I want you to leave, right now. Get out of my house and leave that key on the table while you’re at it.”
“But Will, please listen to me.”
“I said, get out!”
Just then Aurora stepped down onto the landing. She couldn’t believe what was unfolding right in front of her eyes.
“As for you, Miss Aldridge. You will rue the day you defied my instructions to leave my brothers alone. You have always been such a willful, know-it-all bitch. I will make you pay for this. Dearly.”
Just then Will came up behind Aurora and put both his hands on her shoulders.
“I told you to get out,” he repeated and watched satisfactorily as Robin turned on his heel, went through the front door of the townhouse and slammed it behind him.
Before another word could be said, he picked Aurora up in his arms and carried her silently back up the stairs to the bedroom. He gently placed her against the pillows and let the auburn tresses fall over them surrounding her face like a halo. He ran his fingers through the loose curls, spreading them across the white pillows. She sighed at his touch; how could she stay angry or upset? He grabbed her around the hips, pulling her closer to him and undid the robe she wore, pushing it open and over her shoulders. He ran his hands up over her thighs, then slid them down over her buttocks and was satisfied when he found no evidence of underwear. She felt the heat of his breath as he dipped his head and traced his tongue gently along her neck from her shoulder to her earlobe and kissed her there. She did not object when his tongue continued down along the arch of her throat deep into the valley between her breasts.
He lay down beside her and looked into her strange, hazel brown eyes and kissed her lustily on her full lips, trailing kisses back down to her breasts, cupping each in his tender hands and teasing the nipples until they were hard and eager for his attention. His mouth surrounded a nipple and Aurora gasped as his tongue flicked over it. She plunged both her hands into his hair and ran her fingers over his scalp. He groaned with pleasure, sucking tenderly at one breast after the other. She rolled on top of him and straddled him sitting over his loins prohibitively. He groaned again and opened his eyes to look at her.
“I love you, Aurora. You know it’s the truth, right?” he asked.
She smiled softly.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear those words, Will,” she replied, pulling his head again toward her exposed breasts.
***
Thorn House,
Stone Mountain, Georgia
Robin slammed the car door heavily and walked up the pathway to the front door. Liz held it open for him and greeted him cheerfully. He grunted in response and stormed into the library.
“Dad, you will not believe what I caught your son doing this morning... or rather WHO I caught him doing this morning in the townhouse in Fontainbleau.”
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?” John Thorn demanded.
“I walked in on him and Aurora Aldridge in bed.” When he didn’t get the reaction that he was seeking from his father, he proceeded to elaborate. “Fucking. They were fucking, Dad. I told you something was going on between them. She was just too good. All these years, she’s just been plotting which one of us she was going to line up in her sights.”
“Its none of your business, Robin. Will is a grown man; he can do as he pleases and sleep with anyone he chooses to.”
“But, Dad...”
“No buts, Robin. Keep your nose out of it and your claws out of Aurora’s hide. If it’s as serious as you’re making it out to be, Will’s not going to take kindly to you interfering in his private life. Furthermore, I won’t stand for you talking about Precious like that either. I want you to remember that when your mom and I started working together we were in love, but we weren’t married. Do you think they would be the first couple to fall in love on the job? Do you think because they hold positions of prestige and responsibility at Thorn, that they would let their private lives interfere with their work? Clearly, you don’t know the same Will and Aurora that I do.”
“But he doesn’t understand that he will shame us all. It will be the biggest scandal to erupt in southern society since Pocahontas. We’ve got to put a stop to this right away.”
“I’ve told you my stance on the matter. I’ve told you to drop it. If you won’t listen to me, then do what you feel like, but I will not have any part in it. I love my son, enough to know when he has a chance at happiness and to allow him to pursue it. That girl’s been nothing but a Godsend to me since the day she walked in that office. And before you insinuate that she was trying to seduce me all along as well, let me tell you this, son. If I was a different kind of man, I would have off
ered that girl anything she wanted if she would be with me. Hell, the thought crossed my mind several times over the years. I never made an advance on her, though, and that was because I knew that she would never allow herself to accept what I was offering. She’s too good; her morals are indubitable, her values are esteemed. When I realized it, I never had the thought again, but that was when I started calling her Precious. It’s what I had called your sister for the two hours that I sat in that hospital and rocked her as I watched her life fade away. Aurora’s like the daughter I never got to have.”
John turned away from Robin and walked out of the library, slamming the door behind him as if to punctuate his statement. For a moment, he stood there, stunned. He couldn’t believe his own father had turned his coat against everything they stood for and wouldn’t help him put an end to the nonsense that Will was up to. In that instance, he decided that the best thing to do was to just let the proverbial cat out of the bag and sit back and see how well Aurora Aldridge would be able to stand up for herself in the onslaught of filth he would dig up about her past. But there was no way he could be implicated as the person who let out Aurora’s secrets. That would cause too much scrutiny and excessive bad blood, even if he was right in the end. His brother would still hate him for it. Maybe while he was at it he could enlighten Aurora about some of his brother’s past indiscretions as well. Robin took his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Colton Reader’s number.
***
Atlanta, Georgia
Aurora parked around the corner from the mailbox company and walked around the block before approaching the building.
Inside the foyer, she took the small envelope from her pocket, looked at the address and number written on it again and began to search for the mailbox. The task was simple as the boxes were arranged in numerical order along the walls of the room and spread further back into the space around two corners, leading off the foyer area. She wasn’t surprised to find that the box she was looking for was at the far end of the row around one of the corners, that it was at chest height and had to be accessed with one’s back turned to the entire corridor and subsequently, any other users. It offered complete privacy of use; no one could tell what she was doing there.
With a deep breath, she put the key in the lock and turned it. The mechanism moved smoothly and she could hear when the lock sprung open. Inside, were several white bill envelopes placed to one side, but on the other side, neatly pushed up against one side was a large brown envelope that seemed positively full. She pulled everything from the box and closed it. Back in the safety of the Audi, Aurora scanned through the mail. It was all bills, as she had suspected. Putting them aside, she opened the brown envelope and pulled the contents from it carefully. The shock of what she saw was such that her mouth fell wide open. Inside the envelope were stacks of photographs of a lot of the very same men that she had come to know well at Thorn Industries. In every photograph, the men were caught in extremely compromising positions with what looked to be like high priced prostitutes or possibly escorts. They were clearly not posed. Some of the men were engaged in intercourse with the women, others in bondage scenarios and other types of similar role play.
The magnitude of the evidence that Aurora was now running through her fingers was enormous and a heavy feeling of dread came over her. It was clear and apparent that someone was trying to tell her about what was really going on at her beloved company. She picked up her cell phone from the seat beside her and dialed Rebecca’s number.
“Hey there! Where the hell are you? I’ve been calling you for hours. Please don’t tell me you went to check out that P.O. box?”
“Oh, hell! Rebecca, you will not believe what I’m about to tell you. I think someone just handed us a reminder that the whole mystery of why Zach was framed so many weeks ago has still not been resolved. They’ve also provided us with enough information to blow this thing wide open.”
“What do you mean? Tell me.”
“There is photo evidence of almost everyone we know at Thorn engaging in sexual activities with what looks to me like prostitutes or paid escorts.”
“Oh, my God.”
“That’s so right.”
“Are you thinking that someone is blackmailing them and ended up framing Zach because he wouldn’t pay?”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. I need you to rearrange the data we have.”
“How?”
“I need you to open a spreadsheet, download all the names of men working at all of Thorn’s companies that are middle management and higher, along with their department. I’m also going to need their bank records. I’m betting that if we correlate the dates and the amounts I’ve found associated with each name that we will be able to pinpoint who the blackmailer is.”
“Okay, I’ll have it done in a couple of hours.”
“Great, and Rebecca, make sure to enter the figure in the same color it was recorded in.”
“Why?”
“I think that the black figures are the ransoms that were already paid and that the reds were the transactions in progress or not yet initiated.”
“ Oh, I see; like accountant code for debit and credit?”
“Well, that’s essentially who I’m thinking is behind this: an accountant. But Rebecca, I haven’t told you the worst part yet.”
“What’s that, boss lady?”
“Will’s picture is among them. He’s being blackmailed too.”
Chapter Eleven
As she sat across from Will at the dining table, Aurora couldn’t figure out how to broach the subject of the photographs with Will.
He had gone to extensive lengths of having a private chef and wait staff prepare and serve a fantastic dinner which was only on the third of five courses as she battled with herself. She couldn’t find the guts to bring it up and she didn’t have the heart to spoil the amazing experience he had planned for them. So she decided to bide her time. It took everything she had to keep up her bravado. She sat sideways in the dining room chair and crossed her legs, hiking up the skirts of the sexy black sheath dress she was wearing. The sight of her long legs in sultry black nylon stockings kept a permanent smile on Will Thorn’s face.
She smiled at him seductively and made as much small talk as she could manage, peppering the conversation with little innuendos of their tryst the night before and the possibility of what could be coming his way after dinner. By the time the dessert was being served, he was practically panting in anticipation and she knew she had him right where she wanted him.
After dinner, when the staff had left, she purposely remained seated at the table. Retiring to the living room or upstairs would only encourage Will to think that the evening was taking an intimate turn and that was not what she had planned at the moment; at least, not until she had presented her findings to him and heard what he had to say in his defense. When he returned from letting the chef and his team out the back patio door, Will was surprised to find her still in the dining room and, after refreshing their drinks, he resumed his seat at the table.
“Did you enjoy the meal? You seemed a little distracted.”
“Yes, it was truly amazing, Will. You are trying to spoil me; it’s obvious.”
“Well, it’s been a while since we had a chance to spend some quality time together, I just want to make sure that it’s special.”
“Thank you.”
“Lets go into the living room.”
“Will, there’s something I need to show you first and a couple of questions I want you to answer for me.”
“Is it about Zach’s case?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Well, I had all but forgotten that we still didn’t know who had framed Zach or why yakuza were chasing after Milo for the financial records we found. Then suddenly a couple of days ago, an envelope with a key and the address of a mailbox company turned up on my office desk. I didn’t know what to think of it at first, but then I decided to follow the trail
of breadcrumbs. When I went there this afternoon, I found an envelope full of pictures of several prominent and affluent men from the company.”
Aurora paused so she could take in the expression on Will’s face.
“What type of pictures, Aurora?”
“I think you already know what I’m referring to.”
Aurora got up and walked to his end of the table. She spread the photographs out in front of him and picked out the ones of him, placing them on top of the pile.
“Oh, I see,” he replied, lowering his gaze. “I was hoping that they had been destroyed and hoped even more that you would never find out about that.”
“Really? Are you saying that they’re authentic? Even those of you?”
He didn’t answer her immediately. He only continued to hang his head and look at the table in front of him.
“Will, say something.”
“It isn’t what it seems to be.”
Aurora laughed sarcastically.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that one.”
“No, I’m telling the truth, Aurora. I did not have sex with that woman. There was a party thrown by a huge client at a swanky gentleman’s club that he had just opened in Atlanta about a year ago. It’s not my thing at all but I had to go; he has millions invested with us.”
“What’s this client’s name?” she asked, beginning to calm down. It was frustrating her that her jealousy was what she had allowed to fuel her interrogation. But now that she no longer felt betrayed by him, she could get to the core of the matter at hand.
“Chan Lue-Sang.”
“His name’s on the list as well. Show me his picture.”
Will shuffled through the pile of photos several times, but he couldn’t find Lue-Sang in any of them.
