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A strange silence descends, tepid and sticky with truths awaiting escape. Leo pops a couple pills. She doesn't know whether to be annoyed about the Rachel mention or curious about the secrets—I can tell by the way she pretends to scratch her face.
"How did you know that?" she asks quietly.
"Let's call it an educated guess. Put the code in. I want to see."
"Is that what this has all been about?" Her cheeks flush; she looks ready to smack the can out of my hand. "You just wanted the phone? Seriously?"
I roll my eyes.
"I thought you wanted honesty." She's near enough hissing. "So come on out with it."
"You really think that if all I wanted was the damn cell, I wouldn't have just taken it?"
"You need the code," she mutters.
"Oh, come on. I run a fucking news corp. You think my team can't hack a phone?" I pat her on the head, and she scowls, her nose wrinkling. "Question is...what are you hiding on there?"
"Very little, currently. But like you said, you can hack a phone."
"And I was never supposed to know about this one, huh?"
She sighs. "Something like that."
I set the Dr Pepper on her bedside cabinet and lean around to cup her chin. "Sweetheart, I won't be mad."
"You not being mad never seems like a very good indicator of whether or not you're actually mad."
"It's a carefully cultivated facade, and I'm very proud of it."
She bumps her shoulder against mine. "Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face."
That only makes me grin harder. "Put the fucking code in." Then I pout. "Please."
"No," she laughs.
I hold up the old Nokia, my upper lip twitching at the sheer weight of it. "What the hell, anyway? A 3210? Where did you even get this, a fucking museum?"
"It has a lot of sentimental value!"
Impatient, I swipe away her barely touched glass of water and deposit it next to the lamp.
She holds up her hands in mercy. "Okay, okay. Just let me compose myself...sorry. This is all a bit surreal."
"What, because that cell probably contains some kind of plot to murder me, and you're busting a gut laughing over it? Yeah. Very surreal."
"For crying out loud. You're so paranoid." She tugs the old Nokia from me and bashes the code in one stiff button at a time. Then she thrusts it into my lap. "There, knock yourself out."
The thing about old cells is that despite the fact smart phones are far more complex, analogue models are far harder to navigate in comparison because you have to press actual buttons. I keep looking for things which aren't there—a camera, a browser—and I have to squint to read the LCD screen in the dim light.
Leo's right; there isn't a lot on here that I can see. Seven missed calls, all from the past forty eight hours or so, and two text messages.
We need to talk, L xx
Jeez why don't you answer? What I do? xx
They're all from the same unlisted number. Rachel's, I assume.
"This is bullshit," I say flatly. "You've deleted almost everything on here."
"Yep. I delete it most days."
"Why? What's the point if you're not even answering her?" I slip a hand under the covers and run my palm along her thigh until I find the dressing. There, I apply a light pressure; enough to get her attention, but not to harm. Yet. "You met her, what, six years ago? And she's still contacting you?" I don't want to let on that I know about Rachel following Leo. Have to be careful here.
Leo goes very still beneath my threat of a touch. "It's complicated."
"So simplify it. Now."
"Six years. How do you know that?"
"Because I background checked the fuck out of you, Miss OCD. Now answer my question."
"It's a valid condition," she mutters.
I press down on her wound in warning; all her muscles pull tight, and she gasps.
"I bonded with Rachel. We liked the same books and stuff...we just clicked. Confided in each other. Had a lot in common." She presses her thighs together, sandwiching my hand in smooth heat. "When I met her, I hadn't even been over here that long so it was good to have a friend, even if she was a bit older. We kept in touch."
"So I see."
"She doesn't like that I'm working with you." She pauses, scratches her cheek again. "And she's furious that I let you buy me out. Before I...before I met you, I told her I'd take care of things—ow!"
I dig the heel of my hand into the cut. The shivering pain in her yelp goes right to my cock, which is already growing hard against my belly. "That's for doubting me."
"I don't even know what that means," she says miserably.
"Go on with your little story."
"Like I said, all I knew of you was what you'd done to her...she's wrecked that you got away with it. Always has been. I'd have been the world's most rubbish friend if I didn't offer to help her."
"What were you going to do to me, exactly?" I watch her with great care, and though she recoils into the pillows, there's a part of her that likes my scrutiny. Is flattered. She keeps blinking, checking I'm still there. "Why doesn't she just expose me, if she wants revenge so badly?" Revenge is such a cringeworthy word. So soap opera. So 1999.
"I don't know." She shrugs. "I suppose we just hoped we'd get dirt on you, or something. It was all a bit hit-and-miss."
I run my hand away from her wound and rest it over her damp slit. "Was this part of the plan? Me in your bed?"
"No." She clears her throat. "No. Um. And Rachel doesn't know about that."
"Wow. You're a fucking awful friend."
"Gee, thanks."
I flex my fingers against her clit, and we both inhale at the same time; it's the dirtiest kind of confession, that moment when we both know she's swelling for me. Getting wet again. I swear her outer lips are almost sucking my thumb.
"Tell me what you and Rachel had in common," I murmur, dropping until my lips are just an inch over hers. I haven't even wiped her blood off my face—I must be a menacing sight. "She sure as hell didn't have OCD."
Leo's eyes fall closed and she arches up, pushing her pussy into my hand. "We didn't trust people. Anyone, really."
"Oh...?"
"Men lie. People lie, Aeron. They lie and they get away with it, and they don't care who they hurt or screw over. They don't get how epically they fuck things up just with a couple of white lies."
"You're right. People are just shits." I slip a finger inside her, relishing her jumpy little sighs of pleasure and the jolt of heat this sends to my cock. "You do realise that I'm giving your antique of a cell to the nice people at Lore Corp forensics first thing tomorrow? If you're lying to me, they'll recover every single one."
"I'm telling the truth."
"And you decided to fight all these mean, nasty liars with your SilentWitn3sses, huh?"
"Y—yeah—oh God."
I curl my fingers up into her sweet spot, and muffle her cries with a hard, hungry kiss. Our last fuck was swift and brutal; surely she's sore, and yet already her hips work up on to my hand, desperately seeking the pressure she needs to orgasm.
There are far better ways for me to help with that.
"Aeron," she mumbles into my mouth as I climb on top of her. "Aeron, please..."
This time, my kiss is slower, my tongue playing softly with hers. "Please fuck you? You read my mind."
"No, I, I..." As I settle between her legs, she tries to scramble out from under me, which only results in me holding her still. "You're not exactly a small guy. I'm still waiting for the painkillers to kick in."
I chuckle. "Mmm. Are you telling me no?"
"We both know how that ends. I'm just asking you nicely."
I laugh again. "You're cute." Another kiss, my teeth around her bottom lip while I shift around, trying to fit the head of my cock to her open pussy. "I'm going to fuck you."
Every time I find her heat, she jerks away—a game I have no patience for. It's been so long since I've been with someone so willing; I'm not about to start taking no for an answer just because her previous lovers were evidently limp-dicked mathletes.
