They made love again, ignoring Torres’ calls and surrendering only to each other. While Rora was so boneless that she was sure she’d never move again, Strike inhaled and vaulted off the bed, striding out into the living room in his full naked glory.

There was no one out there to see him, but she rolled to the edge of the bed to admire the view for as long as she could. When he came back into the bedroom, he didn’t get on the vacant side of the bed. He put Opal on the nightstand and with his phone in his fist, he pushed her to the other side of the bed and then got on beside her.

“What are you doing?” Rora asked, tracing a fingertip up the front of his naked thigh.

“Shh,” he said, wrapping his hand around her finger to hold it still while taking the phone to his ear. He listened for a few seconds before he spoke. “You secure?” His brow was set hard and it was funny to see how he switched from Strike to Exile mode so fast. “I’ve got work for you… You still First over there, Thane? Maybe I should be talking to your daddy or the woman who keeps your balls in her purse?” Rora rolled onto her back, but Strike didn’t give her back her finger. “Yeah, she told me, just ‘cause you’re not fucking her doesn’t mean she doesn’t own your ass… Yeah… That’s right, man. Simple as…”

Strike looked down at her, loosening his grip. Rora tipped her head back assuming he was going to tell her something, but he was admiring her chest instead. She guessed if Strike was talking to Thane that the woman they were referring to was Shula.

Rolling over to her chest again, she didn’t bother with his thigh and instead ran her finger up the length of his dick then opened her hand beneath it to stroke his balls. If he could rib Thane about his need to keep Shula happy, Rora was going to remind him of just how close she was to his most sensitive parts.

He caught her hand in a fist and held it on top of his dick that was enjoying her attention. Smiling at the reaction, she wriggled closer and kissed his thigh.

“Hold on,” Strike said into the phone, but only lowered the mouthpiece an inch to address her. “Go find out what our hostage wanted, Ro. Don’t uncuff him.”

Her smile became a grin. But she pulled herself onto her knees and climbed over him to straddle his thighs. “You just don’t want me playing with your balls while you’re playing the big man,” she whispered and leaned in to kiss him.

As she carried on off the bed, he smacked her ass hard. “Play with my balls anytime you like, baby,” he said without shame. “I just don’t like hearing Thane’s voice in my ear while you’re giving me a hard-on.” She grabbed his tee-shirt from the floor and tugged it on over her head. As she pulled her hair from the back of the neck, a look of pride grew on his face. “Yeah, man, that’s her… love is the easiest part of being with her, it’s the rest I’m calling about.”

Rora blew her love a kiss as she crept from the room. Closing the door on that private conversation, she stretched her aching muscles before going to Torres’ door and pushing it open, but she didn’t go inside, she just propped herself on the doorframe.

He was cuffed to the frame of the heavy bed by both wrists, but he wasn’t sitting on it, he was standing next to it, choosing to stand up. She recalled the bed he’d cuffed her to once, and thought it was some kind of justice that he found himself in this position now.

“What do you want?” she asked, annoyed at him for interrupting her cozy time with Strike.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are my basic human rights interrupting your sex life?”

Her grin was automatic. “Yes, actually,” she said. “And if I were you, I’d expect Exile and I to be prioritizing said sex life for the foreseeable future.”

Acting like the loved-up girlfriend complemented their plan. Torres would believe she’d been oblivious to Exile’s apparent plan to screw her over if she played it innocent now. And it was easy to do because she was a woman enjoying her man.

What came next would rely on Strike’s ability to sell his indifference to her, and it would help if he could claim to have used her for sex before dumping her… that was kind of his MO.

“What happened to your plan to save that woman from the Jewel?”

“I care less about plans when I have my man all to myself,” she said. “And maybe we sent Junker off to deal with that problem.”

He shook his head. “Something happened there, but we cleared out way too fast for it to have been an anticipated issue.”

Leaning forward, Rora clutched the door handle. “Well, since your vast NSA training has taught you everything, I guess you don’t need me to stand here all night—”

“No, wait,” he said when she took a backwards step. “I’m hungry… and I want to use the restroom.”

“The latter I can’t help you with, but I’ll order a pizza or something.”

She started to swing the door shut again, but he called out. “You can’t just leave me here. I’m not going to run anywhere, I just need—”

“Exile makes the rules around here,” she said, narrowing her eyes on him. “And if he says no, then it’s a no… I couldn’t care less about you running. Where would you go? You came to us. You running actually does me a favor… then no one will be around to interrupt my sex life. But, unfortunately for you, Exile doesn’t trust you not to feel me up again.”

Her next smile was tight, but she reversed from the room and closed the door.

Excitement was already bubbling within her before she got back to the other bedroom. But when she opened the door and took in the sight of Strike sitting up in bed, wearing his jeans, with Opal propped on his knees, her breath caught in her throat.

She must have loitered there longer than she realized because he looked over Opal’s lid at her. “What’s wrong?”

But there was nothing wrong, only happiness existed in her now. “I forgot how much it turned me on to see the two of you together… It’s like the old days.”

When his fingers returned to their work, flying over Opal’s keys, Rora tiptoed over to the bed and climbed on, managing to steal a kiss from him even though his eyes never left the screen and his fingers never slowed.

“Everything’s set,” Strike said. “Thane’s sending two guys down with orders not to leave your side and to follow your every command.” She slid onto her back. “But this is temporary… they’re not yours. This isn’t like Bella’s posse.”

“Good,” she said, stroking the seam of his jeans. “I don’t want to know which of them has the bigger cock.” His fingers stopped, but she didn’t look up. “I think if you ever tried to build me my own posse, I’d get nervous. You only gave Bella hers so you could walk away from her. I don’t want you to walk away from me.”

“Don’t ask me to rape a teenager and we’ll be good,” he muttered, returning to his work.

Rora was so shocked that she sat up slowly, gaping at him. “Is that what she did? She asked you to…”

“The girl was legal and all,” he said, his focus on Opal. “But she was terrified. There was no way I was going to do it. Anyone who had the slightest clue about me would know that. But Bella got mad… as she does.”

“Baby, I’m sorry,” she said and leaned in to kiss his shoulder. “I can’t believe she did that to you.”

“That wasn’t the only thing she did.” Strike stopped typing to touch his knuckles to her jaw. “I don’t have to tell you that she’s dangerous… but I shouldn’t have to remind you that you’re nothing like her either.”

“Hey!” Torres shouted.

His tenderness fled in a flash to be replaced with a scowl. “What the fuck did that bastard want?”

“Food and the bathroom,” she said. “I told him I’d order pizza… but the second was up to you.”

“I have to talk to him anyway,” he muttered and tapped a few keys before putting Opal aside.

“Talk to him? About what?” she asked, watching him slide off the bed and head for the door.

“About why he came to us and what’s really going on.”

“We were the only people he knew in town and he needed someone to patch him up,” she said and leaned against the headboard. “That’s what I assumed.”

“It’s time to find out for sure. He’s an asset or a liability. Until I know which, I can’t decide what to do with him. Thane won’t like the NSA in his business. So either we stash Torres, or he’s coming with me.”

Cutting him loose didn’t seem to be an option, but Rora wasn’t going to bring it up again. Strike would reach his own conclusions and when it came to law enforcement, and especially this particular agent, her love’s experience far outweighed her own.

“But you have to talk to him first,” she said and slid down onto her side when he opened their bedroom door. “You just remember what I told him. If you get a desk job, you won’t be getting laid.” She enjoyed teasing him. “I won’t leave you, but your sex life will be greatly affected.”

“Understood, Kero,” he said and left the room.

Lying in their sheets, languishing in their mingled scents, fantasizing about her man, Rora didn’t know how long she’d been there when she heard the first sound of distress. Sitting slowly, she heard what could only be flesh on flesh, and not in a sexy way, in a much more violent way.

Clambering off the bed, she looked left and right, seeking out a weapon and recalled that her knife was in her jacket pocket. But her jacket was in the car and she didn’t have the key, Strike did. Not only that, she wasn’t dressed and didn’t have time to—

“Kero!”

Strike’s voice was unmistakable. She didn’t loiter, she ran straight out of the bedroom to find her lover standing in Torres’ bedroom doorway, his hand wrapped around his knuckles. “Baby,” she said, rushing to him to pull his hand up to her mouth to cover it in kisses.

Strike eased her into the room. Torres was still cuffed to the bed, but not standing by it anymore, he was slouched down, against the wall, with blood trickling from his mouth.

“This bastard’s got something to say to you before I kill him,” Strike said.

Rubbing his knuckles on her cheek, she kissed them again. “If he hurt you, I want you to kill him slow,” she murmured, tracing her lips back and forth on his fingers.

Torres spat blood and then scoffed. “Exile, are you asking your woman’s permission?”

The mocking in his voice wasn’t appreciated by either of them. Strike whipped around to stalk toward him. “You’d be dead if it wasn’t for us,” Rora said before Strike got to him.

Lunging down, Strike grabbed Torres and pulled him back to his feet. “You’re still breathing because of her,” Strike snarled. “I know you’re full of shit. I know you… Don’t you forget who you’re fucking with.”

“Then turn me loose.”

Tossing him down onto the bed, Strike turned his back. “Not a chance,” he said. “Apologize to my girl.” Torres said nothing. “Do it!”

Even she jumped at the volume and venom in Strike’s voice. “Sorry,” Torres said. “Right? Shit! I’m sorry, Kero!”

She didn’t really know what Torres was apologizing for, but it was nice to see her man triumph.

Satisfied, Strike came back to her and threw an arm around her neck to pull her face to his chest. “How’s this, baby? There are no reports of agents going down. The rest of his story checks out, but scratch the surface and there’s not one recorded NSA death for this whole last month.”

“We don’t advertise when our dirty agents murder innocent ones,” Torres snapped.

“Yeah, and I don’t look in the National Archives. There’s nothing goes on in your agency that I can’t touch.”

Rora didn’t doubt that. He’d only had Opal back for a short time, but he’d prioritized verifying Torres’ story, she was impressed.

Snagging his belt buckle, she tipped up her chin. “He lied to us, baby?”

“Yeah, and we don’t like it when people do that,” Strike said, his venom fixated on Torres. “You’re here for information.”

It was something they’d considered, but having confirmation was appalling. Torres had come in bleeding, his wounds were real, putting himself through that showed quite a commitment to his cause.

“I’m not,” Torres argued. “Everything I said was true and I came to you people as a last resort because I didn’t want to bleed out in the street.”

“That’s not what you said a minute ago,” Strike said. “What’d you say that made me hit you in the face?”

Taking a labored breath, Torres sank down to the floor again, his arms pulled over his head as they were still cuffed to the bed frame. “All I said was, I’m trained to gather intel. So since I was here anyway, I didn’t keep my eyes and ears closed. I wanted to learn whatever I could… you’d have done the same thing if you were me, Exile, don’t deny it.”

“He’s spying on you?” she asked.

“Worse than that,” Strike said. “He’s spying on you.”

Rora felt sick. She tried to get a better look at Strike, but he kept her close and so she did the next best thing and looked at Torres. “What the hell?” she asked. “Why would you be spying on—”

“Because of what you said to him at your last meeting,” Strike said. “You told him if you found out I was cooperating with him that we wouldn’t be together anymore.”

She remembered that, she’d just been joking about it with Strike a few minutes ago. Rora hadn’t really thought that Torres would follow up with what he’d said about flipping her. Back then her relationship with Strike had been in flux, and she’d believed that she didn’t have sway with her ex.

As it turned out, she’d been wrong. Somehow Torres had known that before she had because even Rora hadn’t been sure of Strike’s feelings until she chose to forgive him.

“You bastard,” she murmured. “You really thought that you could gather some kind of intel on me that would change my mind? That I would turn on the man I love or convince him to come and work for you?”

Rora took one step, ready to fly for Torres, she wanted to do a hell of a lot more than hit him in the face. But Strike’s arm strengthened to pull her back. “I love it when you’re good and angry, baby,” he murmured, rubbing his face in her hair. “But don’t waste it on him, save it for me. This prick might think he can use us, but what are we going to do about that?”

Twisting her sly smile, she narrowed her eyes on Torres, and slid her arms around Strike. “We’re going to use him instead.”

“That’s it, Cupcake,” he said and kissed the top of her head. “We know he can’t flip you or recruit me, but he does want to get back into his precious club. There’s only one way that can happen, before he can return to work… he has to clear his name.”

Torres hissed in a curse. “There’s no way—”

“You want them to take you back, you need Burke’s confession on tape. I can get you full live audio, video, whatever you want, and I’ll air it on every network in the world if that’s what floats your boat,” Strike said, leaving her side to go to the middle of the room and crouch, bringing his eye level closer to that of the hunched Torres. “But if you want my help to get your justice… you have to help me and my girl get some of our own.”

The men looked at each other for a second and it was clear Torres was intrigued. Strike looked over his shoulder at her and jerked his head to the side, telling her to scram.

“Don’t be long,” she whispered and appreciated his wink before leaving the men alone to come up with their own plan.

Approaching Bella wasn’t going to be easy, but if Strike had a prisoner with him, one he might convince his ex he was willing to trade should the need arise, Bella would be more open to hearing him out. And if they could trust Torres, Rora felt better about her love having someone watching his back while he was there.

Returning to their bedroom, she called for pizza as she’d promised Torres she would and then pulled down the bedcovers to get comfortable. Strike would be in her bed for tonight, but their rediscovered love was going to be put on hold soon, and until then, she didn’t want them to waste any time not enjoying each other.