Pleasure crashes through me.
My pussy spasms, soaking his cock as I come.
He follows right after, groaning as hot cum floods me in thick pulses.
We stay locked together, breathing hard. "Round two at my place after dark," he says against my neck.
I nod, already hungry for more.
He tells me about the forum on the drive to the compound.
"Krypton and I took it down." He says it casually, one hand on the wheel, the other on my thigh. "The posts about your address, the tagged photos, the thread connecting Bell to Halstead. All of it. Gone."
I stare at him. "How?"
"Krypton knows people who run the hosting platform. I wrote a DMCA takedown request using your identity as the basis—the photos were taken without consent, the personal information was posted without authorization. Between the legal angle and Krypton's contact, the whole thread was removed this morning."
The weight I've been carrying since the forum post appeared lifts off my shoulders so fast I feel dizzy.
"It's gone?" My voice comes out smaller than I mean it to.
He squeezes my thigh. "It's gone. If someone reposts, we'll take it down again. Krypton set up an alert system. Any time your name or address appears online, we'll know within the hour."
I press my palm over his hand on my thigh and hold on.
All of it is gone. The photograph of my apartment building. The caption calling me a subject. The trail of breadcrumbs leading strangers to my door.
"Thank you." I say it to his knuckles. "Both of you."
He turns his hand over and laces his fingers through mine. "You don't thank your family for protecting you. That's what family does."
* * *
When we get back to the clubhouse, it’s loud.
Not bar-loud. Home-loud.
The sound of a kitchen being used by too many people, pots clanking, voices overlapping, someone's music playing from a phone propped against a spice rack.
Ellie is running the kitchen with the authority of a four-star general.
Tildie is beside her, chopping onions.
Leah is making cornbread from a recipe she swears came from her grandmother but that Aunt Ellie claims she taught the grandmother in the first place.
The argument about the cornbread recipe has been going for twenty minutes and shows no sign of resolution.
Vanna is at the table feeding Waylon applesauce.
The baby has more of it on his face than in his mouth, and Bloodhound is watching from the doorway with an expression so soft it doesn't match a single other thing about him.
Coin is setting the long table in the common room.
Plates, silverware, napkins folded into triangles because Wrenleigh taught him and he's been doing it ever since.
My mother is standing in the doorway of the clubhouse kitchen, holding a casserole dish she insisted on bringing, wearing an expression I've never seen on her face before.
She's not afraid. She's not assessing. She's not calculating exit routes or testing locks or counting steps to the nearest door. She's watching.