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“Thanks for following my lead, man,” said Rafe, smacking Max on the chest with the back of his hand in an offhand way.
“Gemma gets out of school in not too long.”
“I’ll get my toy and deal with this.”
Watching Rafe move out the door, heading for his bike, she realized that her pleasure at seeing him was only partly related to the way he’d scared the man off. As Max came closer, seeming to realize she still needed comfort, she snuggled against him while they waited for Rafe’s return with both laptops he’d retrieved from their saddlebags.
There was a lot to be said for having men like these around that had nothing to do with protection. It had a lot to do with attraction—she couldn’t deny that something about these guys turned her on. Maybe almost everything.
Chapter 7
Simone didn’t considerherself a weak or passive woman, but when the creep was beating on her door, she’d been frightened. Not so much by him but by the incomprehensible situation, a world that would send someone to her door that way. The idea that there were sites like that came as a surprise. She knew there were porn and escort sites, and camgirls, but this was different.
“He actually thought I wanted him to rape me,” she said. “He believed a woman would advertise for that.” It sounded outrageous even to her.
“Yes. I did know there were sites about rape fantasies, but I’ve never looked for one—not before this.” Max looked nauseated. “It’s disgusting to think about it, and with all the vulnerable girls…” He seemed to be thinking about Danielle.
Rafe grimaced. “I have no idea what the deal is, but look, they do make it seem like women actually put their information on it so that men will come over and fulfill these bizarre rape fantasies.”
She looked, then scowled. “Disgusting. No women I know would do something like that.”
“There are all kinds of people out there, Simone. Maybe most of the women think that no one would act on their fantasy, or maybe the profiles are all bogus in one way or another—either with wrong information or put up there by someone out to get them, like yours was. Why don’t we see what’s online and fix it?”
He sat with his computer on the table. Max’s was open too, but he was too busy with his arm around Simone, providing silent comfort, to do more than look at Rafe as he worked. She did the same, finding it soothing the way his fingers danced over the keyboard.
In a few moments, he’d located her profile. There was a picture of her on the front page that Brad had obviously taken in the bar with his cell phone. It was rather innocuous. Other tabs took him to a gallery of explicit photos—none of them her. “They don’t even look like me,” she said.
“I doubt anyone trolling this site pays much attention to anything beyond the fact that they’re naked women.” He clicked over to a tab entitled “My Fantasy” and read it. “It looks like he ripped something out of an erotic novel and posted it as your fantasy. He also included some videos that he must’ve gotten from a porn site that show ‘you’ being gangbanged.”
“People will think that’s me?”
Max shrugged as he rubbed a hand up and down her arm in a rhythmic fashion. “The people who go to this site might. It has your address, which is how this moron found you. Rafe can fix that, however.”
“What will he do?”
“I’ll change the address to a parking garage in Santa Monica, change your name to that of a porn star, and I’ll replace the fantasy with a chapter from an economics textbook available from a pirate site.” Rafe grinned. “That should dampen the ardor of any viewers fast enough. I’ll also send the link to my friends and ask them to politely inquire of the person who runs the site if he likes having his legs intact. They’ll suggest he might want to verify accounts more thoroughly; if not, go out of business entirely.”
As he sat at the table working at the open computer, Simone pulled away from Max’s embrace, needing to see the world outside. She walked over to the window to stare out over the brown lawn, not seeing, just shaking with anger and disbelief. The man was gone. The lawn was empty, but things were far from right.
Why is this happening to me? How could it happen?
She knew the simple answers to both questions, but that didn’t really explain much. Yes, she’d angered Brad, but it was hard to believe that he’d do this to her when she had never done anything to him. She’d acted nicer to him than Trudy ever had, and he hadn’t bothered her. For some reason he’d felt that she owed it to him to like him.
When she wandered back into the kitchen, Rafe was closing his computer. “All done. I even deleted the old cached pages.”
“Not easy,” said Max.
She nodded, taking their word for it. “Thank you.” She walked to the fridge. “Can I offer you guys a cold beer?”
“You may offer, and I will accept, thankfully,” said Rafe.
“Sounds good.” Max held out a hand to take the can she offered a moment later.
Simone pressed one of the remaining cans to her forehead for a moment as she felt overheated. “I’m so glad Gemma was at school when this happened. It’s terrifying to think that he might have come to the door when she was home alone.”
Realizing she still held hers and Rafe’s beer, she handed him one, and his hand wrapped around hers, holding it. The reassuring touch made her relax a bit. “I understand,” he said as he took the beer. “The world seems a bit out of control.” She glanced out the window and he took her hand again.
“If you’re worried, we can stay here.” Max popped the tab on his beer, but his gaze remained on her.
