Rook Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “It wouldn’t be safe for me to return here, considering the number of enemies David and I made. Which is why I haven’t returned,” Elena explained slowly, giving him a meaningful glance.

  Bastien stared for a long time, before he eventually leaned back in his chair, lit a cigarette, and laughed. Cedric wished he wouldn’t smoke while they were eating.

  “And have you seen any elephants yet, ghost woman?”

  “No luck yet.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow, then. Ah, look. The dust, it lets up a bit.” He nodded out toward the window.

  Cedric didn’t look out the window, he continued to study the man. He’d seemed genuinely surprised to encounter Elena. Which implied that he hadn’t tracked them there. And though Cedric didn’t trust the man as far as he could throw him, he also hadn’t sensed any sort of malice or ill will toward Elena. Some hurt feelings perhaps, but nothing more insidious than that. Still, nothing would bring Cedric’s guard down at a moment like this.

  “Good thing. We’ll have clear weather to get to the reserve then,” Elena told Cedric. Though her words didn’t make any sense. Cedric didn’t know what the reserve was and he was certain they had no plans to go there.

  “You are headed to the reserve?” Bastien asked, blowing a long stream of smoke toward the ceiling where it hung in a muzzy cloud.

  “This afternoon,” Elena said, nodding her head and licking the rest of the sauce off her spoon. “We’ll stay a few more days before we head further into the desert.”

  Now Cedric knew she was lying. The day after tomorrow they were on a plane back to Paris.

  Bastien’s face didn’t change one whit at this information, but Cedric got the impression that his thoughts were suddenly churning, his plans rearranging, like a duck’s feet underneath the smooth surface of a pond.

  “Perhaps fate will put us together once more,” Bastien responded cooly, as if he didn’t care one way or the other.

  Sure. Fate…or a swift alteration to his itinerary. Cedric barely kept himself from raising his eyebrows at the man.

  “I must run, mon amour.” Bastien rose and leaned across the table to kiss Elena on either cheek. He whispered something in her ear that had her rolling her eyes. But her face pulled into a benign smile when he leaned back. He shook hands with Cedric and was gone out the front entrance.

  Cedric immediately bustled Elena toward the back of the cafe. Ignoring the worker’s shouts from the counter, he pushed them through the small, hot kitchen and into an alley out back.

  “Cedric!” Elena exclaimed, surprised by his sudden pushiness and speed.

  “Bastien Agard,” Cedric spoke into his watch. “Employee at the French counterpart of the IWCF and known acquaintance of client from…” He turned to Elena as they jogged down the alley. “What years did you know him.”

  “Uh. I met him five years ago and have seen him about once a year since then. Ced, what the hell is this about?”

  Cedric repeated her information into his watch and pulled her up short as they reached the end of the alley. He peered out of the alley, one hand on the butt of his gun and bustled her immediately into a tiny, rusted cab. He gave the cab driver the address of a different hotel than the one they were staying at.

  All the running, ducking, and subterfuge suddenly made sense to Elena all at once. She felt like she’d just had freezing cold water dumped over her head. “You think Bastien might be trying to kill me?”

  Cedric clapped a hand over her mouth, eyed the cab driver and pushed her head down under the window level, so that her temple rested on his thigh.

  They spoke no more as they pulled up to the hotel that wasn’t theirs. Cedric paid the driver and marched into the hotel. He walked them straight through and then out the back door, ducking into another alley and then another.

  They crossed all the way through the neighborhood in that same manner, their heads down and avoiding the people who were smoking and chatting behind their shops, kids tossing balls against the crumbling walls.

  They entered the Olympus through a side entrance and Cedric went immediately to the counter, switching their room once again, as he had on two different nights as well.

  They took their bags from behind the counter, where they’d left them, and went upstairs. Cedric cased the room and checked their bags. It was half an hour later when Elena was finally stepping into their room, sagging against the wall.

  “You sure know how to show a girl a good time, Ced.”

  Cedric grimaced as he stripped off his dusty, sweaty clothes. “I’m sorry, baby. But we can’t be too careful.”

  “Bastien is not trying to kill me. Or trying to help anyone kill me. Trust me.”

  Cedric turned, shirtless, his eyes burning into hers. “But you lied to him about our itinerary. You were attempting to throw him off your trail.”

  Elena laughed and dragged a tired, shaking hand over her face. “I told him that in order to send him on a wild goose chase. For when he inevitably tracked me down to try and seduce me.”

  “What?”

  Cedric stood there, in the half-dark, the blinds pulled. His auburn hair stood up from where he’d pulled his shirt off. It was sweaty and dust and messy. He looked confused as he squinted one eye at her, his hands on his hips.

  Suddenly, the absurdity of the situation was way too much for her. Elena burst out laughing, leaning her hips against the rickety dresser. She pulled off her head wrap and tossed it aside.

  “What?” he asked again, though his stance loosened a bit in the face of her wild laughter.

  “I’m just imagining Bastien as an assassin. Yeah. Not a chance. The man can’t even kill bugs when they’re buzzing inside his tent.”

  Cedric’s jaw set, as if he didn’t want to know how Elena knew what the inside of Bastien’s tent was like.

  His mouth opened but closed again when his watch buzzed with an incoming message.

  “Hey dude.” It was Atlas’s voice. “Found your French guy, Bastien Agard.” Atlas said the name in an egregious French accent, akin to the chef in The Little Mermaid. “He’s clear. No known associations to any poaching or smuggling cells. He’s a do-gooder, like the lovely Elena. And besides having the most pretentious Instagram account I’ve ever seen, there’s nothing wrong with him.” The message cut off.

  Cedric sighed and went to sit down on the bed. Elena eyed him, unsure of his mood.

  “What did you mean that he was going to track you down and seduce you?”

  “I said he would try.” She went to sit next to Cedric on the bed, knowing they were getting it dusty and not caring. “That’s Bastien’s M.O. He thinks he’s a total Casanova. And he wants whatever he can’t have.”

  Elena tipped her head onto Cedric’s shoulder and the gesture infinitely warmed him. It wasn’t sexual. It was comfortable and affectionate.

  “We slept together once a few years ago.” Elena played with Cedric’s hand, open across her lap. “He was a selfish lover, and then acted as if I should have been grateful for the time he spent with me. Needless to say, I was not impressed in the least and that really galled him.”

  Cedric looked down at Elena’s sweaty, dark hair, at her crooked part. He could smell the damp heat rising off her skin. What idiot would waste time being selfish when he had the opportunity to worship this woman? Cedric couldn’t help but pity this Bastien asshole.

  “So, you told him a fake itinerary to send him on a wild goose chase?”

  “He never would have left us alone otherwise. Us being so obviously in love was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. He would have done everything to insert himself between us. My first instinct was to tell him that you were my husband, but then I realized that only would have motivated him even more. He would love nothing more than to break up a marriage of mine.”

  “What a dickhead,” Cedric grumbled, but his mind and his gut were still completely tripping over Elena’s words.

  In love.

  Husband.

  Sh
e flung herself backward on the bed in her exhaustion, one arm over her eyes.

  “You’re getting dust on the bed,” Cedric told her with more than a little affection in his tone.

  She peeked one eye at him. “You’re about to have a heart attack over it, aren’t you? I saw you physically restraining yourself from cleaning up that couscous I spilled on the table.”

  He laughed and lunged forward, picking her up off the bed. He kicked off his shoes and yanked off hers, tossing them aside.

  Elena laughed and yelped as he set her on her feet in the bathroom. He screwed open the shower faucet and let it run for a moment. Cedric turned back to Elena and briskly divested her of her flowy green top and the tan pants. He shucked off his own jeans and socks. They stood there in their undergarments and grinned at one another.

  “Husband, huh?” He couldn’t help but ask her as they stepped into the shower together, their underwear soaking through.

  Elena shrugged as she tipped her face up into the water. “Sue me.”

  Cedric maneuvered them in a circle in the small shower stall and reached for the single square of bar soap the hotel provided. He scrubbed it through his large paws and sudsed up his arms and chest as he tried to make sense of Elena’s words. If she’d been anyone else, he would have stayed quiet until he’d thought the entire thing through. But because she was Elena, and would never judge him or make fun of him for his half-articulated thoughts, he spoke aloud.

  “You wanted to tell him that I was your husband? Why?”

  Elena took the bar of soap from him and sudsed herself up. “Because seeing him threw me off and you make me feel safe. And I wanted him to know that I’m yours. And I was mad at him for intruding on our lunch together.”

  Elena straightened up from soaping up her feet and Cedric caught her chin. He held her face in perfect place while he lowered his face to hers. His lips hovered a breath away, the side of his nose pressed against hers. “I can’t believe I’ve only kissed you once,” he whispered.

  “I know,” Elena whispered back, her eyes dilating and her hands clasping his waist. “It seems crazy to feel this much when we’ve never even made love.”

  Cedric twisted them again and stood under the spray for a second. He stepped out of the shower and handed over a towel when she got out. Ten minutes later, they were in their two separate beds, laying on their sides and looking at one another.

  Cedric reached across the gap between their beds to take her hand. He finally vocalized a thought he’d been incubating for a while now. “I can’t separate loving you from protecting you, Elena. So, in that way, I make love to you every day.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The next day, to Cedric’s infinite relief and Elena’s unadulterated joy, they finally saw the elephants.

  The storm had settled during the night, but it had deterred most of the tourists who were usually out in groups. Elena and Cedric drove their jeep out to the desert in a much smaller group than usual.

  It took most of the day to find the elephants, and the sun, though still bright, was lowering in the sky when they spotted them.

  It was Cedric, actually, who saw them first. He stood up in the driver’s seat of the jeep and pointed, unsure at first of what he was seeing.

  They were beautiful and silvery, graceful in their side-to-side sway. Cedric watched them move, almost blue over the red sand, and couldn’t help but feel as if he were watching a long line of half-moons orbit an unseen planet. They were just that beautiful.

  “They’re… in single file,” Cedric said, a surprised laugh in his tone. That’s when Cedric turned toward Elena.

  Elena’s eyes filled as she watched the gorgeous animals. She felt as if she were being greeted by old friends. Ancient friends. She watched them move together as a group, each one leading the next into the future. She watched as little ones toddled along behind their mothers. She watched the dry dust kick up behind them as if they were moving a hundred miles per hour.

  There they were. David’s elephants.

  Jaguars had always been Elena’s favorite animal, but elephants had been David’s. The anti-poaching legislature had been so near and dear to him because of it. He’d spent his life attempting to protect these gorgeous creatures. And then he’d given his life because of it.

  Elena knew better than to ask herself whether or not it was worth it, the loss of David for the protection of these gorgeous animals. Because there was no reason to weigh those things against one another. What was done was done. And now Elena got to stand in this high heat, holding the hand of the man she loved, and watch these majestic creatures do what they’d been put on this planet to do.

  They watched until the sun set behind the elephants, turning their silhouettes black against the red sky.

  Elena knew they had to get back to Bamako before darkness fell all the way. And she wasn’t sad to leave them. The elephants didn’t need her to be there watching. And David’s memory didn’t need that either. She’d come. She’d seen them. She’d said goodbye.

  ***

  They returned to the hotel and Elena immediately took a shower. She emerged from the bathroom in her long sleep shirt, toweling her hair dry.

  She and Cedric had barely said two words to one another on their drive back. The majesty and grace of the elephants must have been as high on his mind as it had been on hers.

  Elena hung up her towel and turned to the dusty clothes she’d shucked off earlier. To her surprise, they were still in a pile on the floor where she’d left them. Not that she expected him to, but usually Cedric would have folded up anything she left in a pile on the floor.

  Her eyes scanned over to his things and her brow furrowed when she saw that his bag was still unpacked. She would have put a hundo on him having both of them completely ready for the airport at this point.

  She turned and realized he sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees and his head hanging down. He tossed his phone aside as it made the sound of a message being sent.

  “Cedric?” Elena asked, moving toward him in alarm.

  “Do you have any idea how you looked today?” Cedric asked, looking at the floor still.

  Elena stopped walking. “What?”

  He looked up at her, pinning her in place with midnight eyes that absolutely burned. “No. Of course you had no idea.”

  “What are you talking about, Cedric?” He was so intense and wild, she wasn’t sure he was all right.

  “Elena, watching you watch the elephants… it was like seeing a crescent moon for the first time. Like watching a wild horse run. I saw phosphorescence in the ocean once. It was like that.”

  He wasn’t making any sense. “Ced, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not, Elena. I’m not okay.” He rose up. “I’m so fucked up over you.”

  He laughed and took a step toward her. “This whole time I’ve been telling myself that it was okay to hold myself back from you, because protecting you and loving you were the same thing. And they are. But also, sometimes loving you is just loving you. And I haven’t gotten to do that yet. And I think it might be killing me.”

  “You want to love me?” she asked, her voice hoarse and her heart galloping away into the night.

  “I think I need to,” he whispered, stepping up to her and lowering his forehead against hers. “I’ll never forget the way you looked today.” He slammed his eyes closed for a moment, as if he was trying to seal in the memory.

  When he opened his eyes again, he trailed his palms all the way down her back so that his hands hit the back of her knees. Gently, slowly, he lifted her. Elena wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, their foreheads still pressed together.

  “Cedric,” she whispered.

  “I can’t fight it anymore, Elena. It would be inhuman to keep from loving you. I can’t do it. I have to. I need you.” His words were getting choppier and less intelligible. He was sucking down her air, his exhales blooming over her
mouth. They panted against one another as he held her against him, his arms banding around her. Elena suddenly realized what Cedric’s arms reminded her of. Seat belts. It was like he was her seat belt against the entire world.

  If a danger came for her, Cedric would hold her close and protect her. His arms were the safest place imaginable.

  “I need—” she gasped. “Closer. Please. Closer.”

  She scrambled against him, attempting to eliminate even the millimeters of distance between them.

  “Anything,” he whispered back. “I’ll do anything for you.”

  It was there, in the middle of the hotel room, him standing, her clinging to him, that he finally, finally, let himself get a second taste of Elena.

  Immediately, that first kiss of theirs was blown out of the water as Cedric pressed his lips against hers.

  There’d been passion and heat in that first kiss.

  But this kiss? This kiss was laced, almost painfully, with desire and need and love. Elena’s mouth opened for him and he licked across her bottom lip.

  Her tongue met his and Cedric groaned. He could taste the need on her soft little tongue and Cedric pushed down his regret at having made her wait so long to be satisfied. He wasn’t going to make her wait anymore.

  “I’ll take care of you, baby,” he told her, tearing his mouth to one side and breathing hard. “I’ll make you feel so good. Let me make you feel good.”

  “Yes,” she demanded, before chasing his mouth with hers and fusing them together.

  Cedric had a handful of her hair in one hand and a handful of her ass in the other. He swayed on his feet and realized that they needed to lie down immediately.

  He walked them back and had Elena gasping as he turned halfway around and fell backward onto the bed. She laughed when she ended up sprawled over top of him, one hand on either side of his head.

  She bit her lip as she pressed her heat against his pants. There was just her underwear and her sleep shirt between her body and Cedric’s hands. It was dizzyingly exhilarating.

  Cedric lifted part of the way up and sucked her lip from between her teeth and into his mouth. The scruff of that auburn beard had her groaning. She loved the scrape of him. Elena took his palms in hers and pinned his arms to the bed.