Читать книгу Loving You Easy - Roni Loren, Roni Loren - Страница 9

Cora waved as Grace drove off and left her standing in her driveway. The neighborhood was quiet at this hour, and the porch light on Cora’s duplex had burned out again, so it was just her and the moonlight. The silence was like a balm to her nerves after the loud party and the pop music Grace had been blasting in the car during the hour-long ride from the winery back into Dallas. She wished she could sit out here and absorb it for a while, but that would be a little crazy at midnight.

Cora dug in her purse for her keys and headed up the walk. Dmitry had told her that he’d be up late and had a small window of time to play tonight, so she didn’t want to miss that chance. After what she’d witnessed at the party, her body was still on a hair trigger, and she could use a little bit of his brand of relaxation. Anything to distract her from the forbidden images that kept replaying in her head. Images of the man from the hallway sending the other woman away and inviting Cora into that darkened corner with him. Of his hands and those tattooed arms holding her in place. Of Dmitry joining them and doing all those things he’d said in his texts. Reality and fantasy merging and putting her on her knees, captive for the both of them.

God. She shook her head. She really had gotten herself wound up tonight. Her fantasies were venturing into crazy town. She needed an orgasm, a shower, and some sleep. Stat.

She jogged up the sagging front steps of the house, careful not to make too much noise. Faint blue-gray TV light flashed behind her neighbors’ curtains, so Josh and Carlos were probably still up, but she didn’t want to risk bothering them.

She made it to her door with only the squeak of a floorboard. But once she got there, the keyhole was nearly impossible to see in the dark. She stabbed around with the key a few times. It was like trying to thread a needle with her eyes closed. “Goddamn piece of shit. Come on—”

But she didn’t get the rest out. One second her lips were poised for another curse, and the next a hand was clamped over them.

The shock of it jolted through her like lightning, making everything freeze in some suspended state of disbelief. In that blink of inaction, her attacker’s other arm wrapped around her, trapping her back against him.

Her brain finally kicked in at that. Cora screamed behind the hand, and she swung her leg out, banging her foot against her door in a futile attempt to make noise. All her childhood nightmares flooded her. Boogeymen. Kidnappers. Killers.

“You’re just causing more trouble for yourself,” the deep voice said behind her as he dragged her backward and out of reach of the door. “Calm down.”

Cora screamed again, but the sound was muffled and useless. She tried to force the panic down, tried to focus. But it was like a giant swirling ball of fear knotting around her thoughts. All she could think about was the Taser her mother had given her. The damn thing was in her purse, but she couldn’t move her arms to get to it.

His grip tightened. “I told you we needed to talk. But you didn’t answer me tonight. What was I supposed to do? You tease me and then ignore me? It’s not nice to ignore a master, Lenore. I told you I would punish you. Now I can do it in person.”

Lenore? The name screamed through her head like a siren wail.

Oh, shit. Shit! This was someone from the game. Dmitry? No. She hadn’t teased and ignored him. BigMan. It had to be. He was the only person she’d ignored tonight.

Her mind raced, things crashing together inside her head. This couldn’t be happening. The site was anonymous. She didn’t tell anyone her real information. She was so careful.

But she couldn’t think about any of that now. She needed to free herself, and her writhing and screaming wasn’t working. Based on the thick arm wrapped around her, he hadn’t been lying with his screen name. She tried to think of some of the self-defense moves her mother had taught her. There were ways to get free of someone bigger than you, but she couldn’t think, couldn’t remember. And with his hand over her mouth, she couldn’t even talk her way out of it.

So she did the only thing she thought might work.

She let the fight go out of her body and sagged like a sack of stones in his arms. He was here for Lenore. She was supposed to be submissive. She prayed he would buy it.

“That’s it,” he said, his words gentling. “I know you like these kinds of games, but we can’t be so loud, babe. That could get us in trouble. Your neighbors won’t get it.”

She nodded enthusiastically behind his hand. Yes. I’m totally on board with you, psycho asshole.

“Do you think you can be a good girl?”

Instead of screaming again like she wanted to, she whimpered. The sound was pathetic and pitiful. It made bile rise in the back of her throat. But she could feel some of the tension in his body give way. It was working.

“Shh, girl, it’s okay. I know you’re sorry. I’m going to show you how to make it up to me. I know what you need.” He pressed his hips into her, letting her feel his erection. “And I can’t wait.”

She closed her eyes, willing herself not to lose it completely or vomit behind his hand. Her entire body trembled from the effort of trying to appear calm.

“I’m going to move my hand now,” he said against her ear. “You know we’re just playing now. You don’t have to be scared. You don’t need to scream. We’re just going to have a fun night for real this time. I’m going to give you what you want.”

She nodded her promise. But the second he moved his hand away from her mouth, she screamed like she was on fire.

“Shit!” His hand instantly clamped back down, but it’d been enough. Within a few seconds, her neighbor’s door flew open and Josh came charging out in his boxers, blond hair wild. Carlos was right behind him, mostly dressed and carrying a baseball bat.

“What the fuck?” Josh’s eyes went wide as he took in the scene.

Cora yelled behind the guy’s hand.

“Oh, hell no.” Carlos charged forward, rage in his eyes and the bat looming in his hand. “You better get your fucking hands off her, asshole.”

Her captor dragged her back a step. “Whoa, man, chill out. It’s not what it looks like.” The voice behind her had changed completely—from deep and menacing to dude-bro speak. “We’re just playing a game. She’s in on it. Tell him, Lenore.”

The hand moved away from her mouth and words burst out of her in a rush. “Get the hell off me, you crazy fuck!”

“Lenore?” The guy’s voice turned confused.

“Her name’s not Lenore,” Josh said, stepping up behind Carlos and looking ready to throw down. “And if you don’t get your hands off her, my boyfriend’s going to show you how good his batting average is.”

“Damn straight,” Carlos said. “Your big-ass head will be an easy target.”

“Jesus. Calm the hell down.” The man released Cora at that and she nearly fell on her face as she bolted away from him in those godforsaken heels. She ran to the spot behind Carlos and then spun to face BigMan. The guy was a big dude. Beefy and barrel-chested and thick around the middle. But his face was young—a college-boy face. And he seemed . . . bewildered. He lifted his palms to them. “Look, bro. I think this is just a big misunderstanding. I wasn’t here to cause trouble. She wanted this. She’s got a safe word.”

“Call the cops, Josh,” Carlos barked.

But Cora reached out and put a hand on Josh’s arm. “Wait.”

Josh gave her a what-the-fuck look. “Hon, we have to—”

Cora didn’t have time to explain about how complicated it could get with her mom the police captain knowing or one of her mom’s officers interviewing some guy Cora had met in a kinky video game. “Just . . .”

“Wait, you’re not Lenore.”

The blurted statement from BigMan drew all of their attention.

The guy stepped closer, his eyes evaluating her face, her hair, her body in the light coming from Josh and Carlos’s open doorway. “And if you are, you’re a goddamned liar.”

Carlos waved the bat. “Back off, man.”

The guy halted his step but shook his head. “Jesus Christ, I’ve got the wrong girl. You’re . . .” His gaze traced over her again and he winced. “Yeah, there’s no way you’re her.”

The words were like a bucket of ice water. She didn’t want anything to do with this nutjob, but the dismissiveness of his words cut deep. She could hear his opinion as loud as a bullhorn: How could someone like her possibly have anything to do with the sexy, beautiful Lenore?

Cora straightened her spine, gathering every ounce of will she had to look righteous and unaffected. “I don’t know who the hell you are or who you’re looking for, but if you’re not off my porch in the next thirty seconds, I’m—”

But it was too late. The sirens blared from down the street. Another neighbor must’ve called.

BigMan jumped the railing and bolted.

—

A few hours later, Cora had been interviewed by two cops she knew, which meant her mother would find out—yay—and she’d drank too much of Josh’s gourmet coffee, which had left her jittery. She hadn’t given the police the full story. She’d stuck with the lie that she had no idea who the guy was and that it was apparently some case of mistaken identity.

Carlos had given her a raised brow. He’d probably grill her on another day, but she wasn’t going to admit to anything more than that on record. And she appreciated that after the cops left, he and Josh had hung around with her for a while to make sure she was okay and hadn’t pushed for more information.

But now she was alone and should probably go to bed, but there was no way she could sleep. Instead she wrapped herself up in her grandmother’s afghan and sat in front of the dual computer monitors in her makeshift office space in her bedroom. She pulled up the Hayven game. She’d missed the window of time to chat with Dmitry by many hours, but that wasn’t why she was signing in now. Hell, she may never chat with anyone in the game again after what had happened tonight. If someone like BigMan could get her information, she wasn’t safe from anyone. She hadn’t gathered a lot from BigMan in the few times they’d chatted, but she’d figured out quickly that he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. How the hell had someone like him gotten her personal information?

Time to find out.

She opened up the log-in box and used her password manager to enter the long, complicated string of numbers and characters. Then, she clicked the checkbox for stealth mode. She didn’t need anyone knowing Lenore was online right now. The game queued up. Her inbox was stuffed with unread messages. Dmitry had sent her an invitation to play privately but, of course, she’d been too busy being attacked to answer. She minimized the mailbox to get into the main part of the game. The interior of the house she’d built for herself in Hayven came into view, a cute little cottage in the woods. The game was first-person style, so she was looking out from the perspective of Lenore, who was currently lying in bed.

But Cora wasn’t there to be Lenore right now. She was on a mission. She opened chat mode and went into her list of people she’d interacted with before. Their screen names were there along with an icon letting her know who was actively online and who wasn’t. BigMan wasn’t online. Neither was Dmitry.

She clicked BigMan’s name to open up his profile. It was relatively vague but had more than hers did. He listed his profession as athletic trainer and his age as thirty. Yeah, okay. No way was that guy a day over twenty-two. She scanned down. Located in north Texas. No pets. Favorite sports team—Dallas U Coyotes. There were multiple exclamation points behind the team name.

“Bingo.” The word slipped passed her lips as she opened up another log-in page for Hayven on her second monitor. She typed in BigMan232 and then for the password tried Coyotes.

Guys were notorious for choosing their favorite sports team as a password. She’d seen it way too many times at the police station. But that one didn’t work, so she tried a list of variations: coyotes, DallasCoyotes, DallasU, GoCoyotes, GoBigOrange. The system didn’t seem to have a limit on how many times someone could try a password—a shitty lack of a security—but it served her purposes right now. She typed a few more and started to wonder if she was going down the wrong track when she remembered a T-shirt she’d seen Carlos wearing one day. Fear the Coyote. She typed that in and the screen changed, bringing her into the castle BigMan had fashioned for himself. Of course the dude had built himself a castle.

“Gotcha, motherfucker.”

It was a bizarre feeling to see through his “eyes” in the game, but she didn’t linger. Even though it was virtual, it felt creepy being in his head. She clicked into his account settings. There it was. William Bentley Barrett, twenty-one, Fort Worth address. Everything was there for the taking. If she really wanted to work at it, she could probably grab his credit card number, but she had no interest in that.

She needed to get some idea of how this guy had gotten to her. Maybe he played dumb online and really had some mad tech skills. She closed out Lenore’s page on the other screen and opened up Facebook. She searched for William’s name, found him easily enough, and opened his page. He hadn’t bothered to set up any privacy settings and he used the same password for that account—flag number one that he wasn’t some closet computer genius.

She clicked around to the About section and his timeline. He worked as the front-desk attendant at a local gym. Was a student at Dallas U. Used to play on the football team but got sidelined by an injury. He’d liked a few sports-related pages and local dance clubs. His Instagram feed looked to be nothing but photos of big plates of food and muscle-flexing selfies. He’d chatted with a few girls from his college, but all of it seemed pretty lighthearted. Nothing stood out.

She frowned and tapped her fingers on her desk. Weird. She closed out the page and went back to his Hayven profile. She clicked on his inbox. It wasn’t nearly as full as hers. A few requests to play. A few update emails from the game. But then a subject line caught her eye. Tired of being teased?

She opened the email and sucked in a breath.

Special alert. Lenore Lux wants to take this to the next level and is local to your area! She’s ready to play for real. Click the attachment for her information so you can set up some fun.

The words didn’t make sense to her at first. It was just too goddamned unbelievable, but then angry heat flooded her. With a shaking hand, she opened the attachment and there it was—a screenshot of the information she’d entered when she’d joined the site. Her name was listed as C. L. Benning, the name she used on her credit card. And her address was there plain as day. Luckily, because it was a screenshot, her credit card just showed up as dots in a jpeg, but what the fuck did it matter when someone was literally advertising her home address?

Her eyes skimmed to the bottom. Below all the information was a short list.

Safeword: Watermelon

Wrong.

Likes: Toys, Edge Play, Anal, Bondage, Rape Play

Scene request: I would love to be taken captive by surprise.

Her stomach dropped and her skin went cold.

That wasn’t her list or her request. She’d never filled out that portion. She wouldn’t have. Someone had doctored this and sent it out.

Christ.

BigMan had acted like a psycho, but he’d thought she’d been the one to initiate. He’d thought she’d made a goddamned request. Whoever had done this could’ve gotten her raped.

The back of her throat burned and she was trembling again. What if this note went out to other men? And what if she wasn’t the only one affected? Who the hell would do something so sick?

She scrolled up to see where the email had come from, but it was the admin address from within Hayven, the same one that announcements and updates came from—which was also the same address she was supposed to use to contact customer service to make a complaint.

Fuck. If she sent in a complaint, it’d go straight to whoever had hacked the damn thing in the first place. But someone needed to know what was going on. God only knew how many people had been doxxed and put at risk.

She hit Print on the email for evidence and then signed out of William’s account. She opened up the main site for Hayven and went to their Contact page, knowing she’d probably be led through some winding trail of customer service via some faraway country, but she was surprised to find the site was owned and operated by a company with a Dallas address—Restless Games, Inc.

She’d never heard of them, which was strange since they were local, but maybe it was a start-up. Knowing that the servers that held her private virtual world were housed that close by gave her a dart of anxiety, but if the company was in town that at least gave her hope that she’d actually be able to talk to someone who could get this fixed quickly.

Because this shit needed to get fixed. Now. The fact that a company that was responsible for such intensely private personal information hadn’t caught this yet pissed her off. The email had been sent to William days ago. How could the company not realize their system had been compromised?

She scrolled down. There was an eight-hundred number and the address. She jotted down both. It was just past four A.M. so she wouldn’t get an answer now, but at least she had a plan of attack.

Attack.

She rubbed the chill bumps from her arms.

Time to check the locks one more time.