Opening her eyes, her jaw fell, and she breathed out a sound of shocked relief. Strike had been telling the truth! She was still authorized. Glancing up, she couldn’t see the bathroom door from here, but she could still hear the shower.
Typing fast, she found herself looking at more programs than she could comprehend. What did they all do? What would happen if she… One in particular caught her eye, it was serendipitous, but it gave her an idea. If that was what she thought it was… Oh, if there was one program she had to learn, it was that one… and she was a quick study.
“What do you say, honey?” she whispered to the computer. “What do you say we have some fun with Daddy?”
Ease of use wasn’t something she’d have ascribed to Strike, but the simplicity was incredible. Maybe it was her determination that helped her figure it out, she’d guess that all his programs weren’t like this one, or maybe it was just that she was starting to learn his mind.
She was so caught up in playing with the settings that she almost didn’t hear the shower going off. She’d just closed the computer when Junker came into view.
When he saw her with it, he frowned. “Any luck?”
Rora shook her head. “I was just curious,” she said and wiggled her fingers. “I still have all my extremities.”
“If you’ve seen what it can do, I don’t blame you for not touching it.” She hadn’t said that, but he had, so she’d leave him with his assumptions. “How was your walk? You want a drink?”
Shaking her head, she gathered up Opal and hugged the laptop to her chest. “I think I’ll… get an early night.”
He nodded. “Good plan, I’m going to stay up a while, see if we get any movement on the cameras. Your turn in the bed tonight.”
Movement from the amorous couple? Yeah, she didn’t need the reminder. “Ok.”
She got ready for bed, taking her switchblade and Opal with her. She couldn’t put Opal back in the last hiding place with Junker still up and around. So Rora chose to slip the laptop under her pillow.
Tucking her fist beneath the pillow too, she held her thumb over the button that would open the blade in the event she needed it, and let her eyes close.
ELEVEN
Rora didn’t hear any movement. There were no voices or sounds. She didn’t even remember feeling her pillow move. All she remembered was the clench of panic.
Still lying in bed with her eyes closed, instinct made her catch the wrist of the hand that had just slid under her pillow. At the same time, her other hand shot out from beneath the pillow. Her thumb released the blade of her knife and she thrust its length against the throat of whoever the hell had invaded her space.
In such a deep daze, she had to blink and tell herself that this wasn’t a nightmare, this was reality.
“Fuck,” Strike breathed out, his eyes alight with arousal. “Do your worst, Kero.”
“Damnit,” she said, relaxing her hand but pushing his shoulder.
Rora still had the blade in her fist and with her heavy body in the transition from sleep to awake, she had to take some time to breathe.
Strike forgot about his intrusion to pick up her hand and expose his gullet. “Do it,” he growled.
And the weird thing was, for half a second, she was tempted by the heat in his eyes to actually cut him. Pushing the blade forward, she could feel his breathing growing shallower.
The first bud of blood at the tip of her blade made her gasp. “Strike,” she said, opening her hand to let the blade fall first onto the bed and then probably to the floor.
Panic at the sight of his blood made her push a hand to his forehead to force his head away so she could lunge forward to press her mouth to the wound.
“Blood play,” he said, smoothing a hand down her hip and over her ass. “Naughty, I love it. Drink your fill, baby.”
She hadn’t meant it to seem like she was drinking his blood, she meant to kiss the wound better, to apologize for her moment of weakness. But before she could vocalize that apology, she spotted lower legs flat on the floor behind Strike. The sight of those feet made her forget about whatever was happening between them.
Shoving Strike away, Rora clambered off the bed and dashed over to Junker who was lying flat out on the floor by the door.
“What the hell did you do to him?” she asked but didn’t know what to do with her fury when she noticed the blood on the front of Strike’s shirt. “Oh my God.” Leaving Junker, she dashed back to Strike and pushed him down to sit on the floor against the bed. “What happened?”
Grabbing for his shirt, she tried to pull it up to look for a wound, but when he touched her chin to marry their eyes, he shrugged. “It’s not my blood.”
Ok, so she didn’t have to be worried about him being mortally wounded, but that didn’t quell her worry, though it was suspicion, not concern, that came out in her voice.
“That’s not what I asked, Flame… What happened?”
“Flame?” the croaking voice came from behind her, from Junker, and though pained, the voice was aware.
Flipping around, she crawled away from Strike and scrambled over to Junker who was trying to sit. “Don’t sit up,” she said, pushing his shoulders to put him back on the floor. “Just stay still a minute.”
“He came here,” Junker grumbled, his eyes closed, and he settled onto his back again. “Exile. He just walked right in.”
“He does that,” she said, stroking his hair from his forehead. “Just lie still.”
“He’ll want the computer, he’ll want—”
“Motherfucker!” Strike’s voice made her whip around again and she saw him on the floor with Opal propped against his pulled-up knees. His glare snapped up to her. “What the fuck did you do?”
Junker rolled over and leaped to his feet, grabbing for Rora to put her behind him. “Stay away from her! Take the computer! Go! I won’t let you hurt her!”
“Junker,” she said, smoothing a hand down his arm.
Her friend thought he was making a heroic show, but her ex just ignored it. “You fucked with my machine, Ro,” Strike declared, fuming at her without ever even acknowledging that Junker had spoken. “What the hell—”
“That’s right, I did,” she said, without hiding her triumph. Slinking around Junker, she started toward Strike who inhaled and shot to his feet, leaving Opal on the floor. But as he was about to talk, she held up a finger. “Ah!”
“What the fuck, Ro? Don’t you dare think about—”
She clamped a hand over his mouth and tried her best to match his growling expression before curling her fingers around the back of his neck to pull him down so she could whisper in his ear. “I was handed something tonight. I don’t know what it is. Will you shout at me after checking it out?”
Drawing back, she waited for his single nod before leaving him to retrieve the token from her inside jacket pocket. “What’s going on?” Junker asked. “You’re not afraid of him?”
She put a finger to her lips to indicate her friend should be quiet and diverted to get Junker’s kit of mini tools from the box by the dresser. Rora took both to Strike who sat on the edge of the bed and used one of the tools to pop open the device on the nightstand. She turned on the lamp where he was working and stood there by his side, watching him examine the piece.
“Does it have an active tracker?” she asked, resting a hand on his shoulder.
“You can tell everyone else to shut up, but you’re allowed to talk?” Strike muttered.
She bumped his shoulder with her hip. “Does it?”
He picked something out and flicked it onto the nightstand. Bending down, he retrieved her knife from the floor and raised it high to then stab the tip of the blade into the piece he’d pinged out, embedding the knife upright in the wood of the nightstand.
“Not anymore,” he said and scooped the rest of the pieces into his palm.
He got up, walked away from her into the bathroom and a few seconds later the toilet flushed. Strike came back, taking of
f his jacket as he crossed the room. “Where’d you get it?”
“That friend of yours I bit,” she said, watching as he took off his tee-shirt. His interest was just a glimmer before he went to the dresser to pull out one of Junker’s tee-shirts. “We had an interesting conversation today.”
“I’ll bet. You don’t mind, do you?” Strike said, but barely bothered to glance at Junker let alone wait for a response about the tee-shirt. “Did you roll on me, Kero?”
“Yep,” she said, sitting down on the bed and pulling up her knees to her chest. “Told him everything… He’s going to descend on us with his helicopter any second.”
Strike went to the fridge and opened it to poke inside. He pulled out a beer and popped the cap to tip the liquid down his throat. “I’ve missed your sense of humor, Ro.”
“I wonder if he has a helicopter,” she said, turning her eyes up. “That would be hot. Helicopters are hot.”
He took the bottle from his lips just long enough to ask, “Hotter than a motorcycle?”
“If we were traveling cross country again? Yes… and better for my ass.”
He shrugged and trashed the beer bottle before taking out another. “Then I’ll get us a helicopter.”
“You cannot fly a helicopter,” she said. “Can you?”
Strike turned to stroll over to the living room to examine their setup. “What you running here?” he asked, taking a mouthful of beer.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Junker said. Rora had almost forgotten he was there, he’d been quiet, but he looked so stunned and confused that she guessed he’d been processing. “What the hell is going on? Isn’t he the bad guy? The enemy? And you’re letting him drink beer?”
“Shit, you are a square,” Strike muttered and turned around to face her. “Hey, I almost forgot, what did you do to my girl?”
“We made friends,” Rora said, bending down to pick Opal up from the floor. “Turns out your women have a thing for me too.”
She put the computer in the middle of the bed, and then lay down beside Opal, smoothing a gentle hand over the keyboard.
“Whoa!” both guys said together and then glared at each other.
“I thought you said no one could touch the computer,” Junker said, storming toward her. “That it would kill anyone who tried.”
She winced in apology. “I said you couldn’t touch her… that if you did, she’d hurt you and might kill you.” Lifting her head, she saw Strike standing on the other side of the couch, frowning at her. “I wasn’t lying about that, was I?”
“No,” Strike said. “Don’t know why you think he’d trust my word though.”
Fair point, appealing to him probably wasn’t wise. Rising to her knees, she focused on Junker. “I really wasn’t lying.”
Junker looked more surprised than angry, but she’d guess this was all a lot for him to take in. “But you can touch her—I mean…” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
Now that she’d started, it felt right to keep telling the truth. “I didn’t know it,” she said. “Not at first.”
“Then how did you figure it out?” Junker asked, his tone becoming less patient and more angry.
Oh, she wasn’t sure if the truth-telling extended that far. Rora couldn’t tell Junker that she’d met with Strike in secret… that she’d had sex with him.
Strike actually saved her from having to lie by speaking up before she had to decide what to say. “Listen, Square, there’s a lot of shit you don’t know ‘bout me and my girls,” Strike said.
Ok, she wasn’t sure that really helped at all, especially not if Junker’s reaction was any measure.
“Your girls?” Junker asked, horror leaping to his face.
Rora gasped and rose higher on her knees. “I am not his girl.” She glared at Strike. “I am not your girl.”
“No, not while you’re fucking with my tech, what did you do?”
It felt good to check Strike. It might be an underhanded move, locking him out of his own machine after he’d been kind enough to allow her access. But he’d hurt her, and he understood the physical, so this gave her vindication.
“She needs a rest,” Rora said, happy to advertise her pride in herself.
“So it’s about spending more time in bed,” Strike said and smirked before taking a drink.
She faltered. “It’s nothing to do with bed, and don’t pretend to be mad. You don’t get mad when I act out, you get turned on.”
“That’s what you were going for?” Strike asked. “You want me turned on and in bed… You’re not subtle, Cupcake.”
He’d done it again, he’d managed to take her triumph and turn it into his own.
“Cupcake,” Junker exhaled. It made her feel horrible to see him so shocked, but at least that distracted her from Strike’s conceit. “Aurora, what… I… what?”
As usual, she’d had no time to figure out what she’d do if she was faced with these two men at the same time. “Look, this is a good thing,” she said, trying to find a way out of this conundrum. “Exile is here, we can talk to him, properly. The Jewel isn’t here and… wait, where’s the Black Jewel?”
“Gone,” Strike said, enjoying more beer.
“Gone where?” she asked. “We didn’t see her go anywhere.”
“What do you know? You were asleep,” Strike said. “And your boy here was too busy drooling over you to be monitoring the feed.”
“I…” Junker gasped. “I wasn’t!”
“Yeah, so how did I get to sneak up on you? Ro’s working for me even when she’s asleep.”
“I do not work for you,” she snapped. “Can we please sit down and talk about this? Junker, you wanted to work something out with the pig-headed idiot, now’s your chance… he’s here.”
Strike scoffed. “He doesn’t want to work out a damn thing… Doesn’t matter anyway, the Jewel knocked me out, took the only useful piece of tech any of us need.”
Her ex could steal her anger faster than anyone else. “She knocked you out or one of her guys did?” Rora asked.
Strike’s well-being rose on her priority list.
“Bitch stuck me with one of her little darts; you know how she likes her drugs… I might have gone too far with her punishment.”
Rora wouldn’t let her nausea show on her face, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel her guts roiling.
Climbing off the bed, she passed Junker to go around the couch to Strike’s side. “You were having sex with her?”
Strike held up his hands in innocence. “Didn’t get as far as sex, didn’t intend to… didn’t let her know that.”
Snatching the beer out of his hand, Rora bent over to slam the bottle onto the table. Strike took advantage of the opportunity she’d inadvertently presented to him and snuck a hand under her camisole to touch the lace edging of her panties on her ass. Rora swatted his hand, catching it and twisting it around to link her fingers between his. But she wasn’t being affectionate, or even familiar, she made him turn and then thrust him down onto the couch.
Kneeling on the couch at his side, facing him, Rora pulled at his eyelids to open them wider. “Why are you drinking beer when you’re under the influence of God knows what?” she asked. “I know what that stuff is like, I’ve been hit by it too. I think it sends you over the edge.”
“I went over the edge years ago,” he said, sliding his hand up between her thighs, but she shoved it away.
“Stop touching me.”
“You’re the one who told me to get used to us touching,” he said. “Guess I got used to it.”
He could try to logic her into it all he liked, but things weren’t the way they used to be and that had been his choice, not hers.
“I meant what I said,” Rora asserted. “I am not yours. Not anymore.”
“Anymore?” Junker asked, coming to stand at the back of the couch, scowling at each of them. “But you were… Oh my God, you said flame… You were calling him Flame, weren’t you? He’s the one…” When
she saw how interest lit Strike’s eyes, she put her hand over them to block him out. “The one you keep calling out for in bed!”
Strike’s lips curled in the most authentic smile she’d ever seen on his face. “Ha! You call my name in bed with this schmuck? I’m insulted. I’m way better than him.”
Rora let her hand fall to his mouth to cover his smirk, but that meant looking at his smug eyes, so she covered those with her other hand and glared up at Junker. “I am not calling out for him.”
“That’s exactly what you do,” Junker said. “Every time you wake up. Every time you have that nightmare you won’t tell me about.”
Strike pulled her hand from his eyes and she read only concern. “What nightmare?”
“I’m not going to talk about it,” she said, hating the shiver of awareness that trickled up her spine when Strike’s lips moved on her palm. “I think we have more important things to talk about. Jewel is in the wind with a seriously game-changing piece of tech… Did you injure her? Is that her blood on your shirt?”
“Some of it,” Strike said. “Couple of her guys tried to get involved. When I was taking them down, she hit me with the dart. She took the device and split.”
Rora pushed her fist into his chest. “Why did you have it on you? Wasn’t that stupid?”
Leaning over her, he took his beer from the table. “No,” he said. “I planned to kill her.”
He maintained eye contact with her as he took a drink. Rora couldn’t believe he’d really planned to kill Bella, not when he was sitting there like he’d just admitted to finishing the milk and not giving a damn about it.
“Do you kill many of your exes?” Junker asked.
That question was relevant to her, but she’d guess everyone was thinking something different. “Only the ones who hurt my Kero.”
Lifting a scolding finger, she kept a stern tone, and snatched his beer away from his lips. “I am not your anything.” He kissed the tip of her finger. Surprise made her wipe the moist spot on his shirt. “You’re manipulating me,” she grumbled. “Stop it.”
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