Rook Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “That’s exactly what I said!” she replied, laughing.

  He finally looked up at her and the breath left him all at once again. She sat on her haunches, her palms on the bed and her head cocked to one side. Her grin took up her entire face. Her colors glittered in the lamplight and the early morning sun. She was a sparkling, smiling jewel and something within Sequence couldn’t help but just internally bow down before her. He felt like a peasant in the presence of a princess.

  He took his eyes back before he lost his damn mind and scrabbled around for his phone. He carefully lined up the shot and took a photo of the sonogram. When he looked up again, Naomi’s eyes glittered with what he hoped weren’t tears of sadness or regret.

  He shoved the sonogram into her hands. “Here.”

  He held up his phone and waited for her to smile.

  “You want a picture of me with the sonogram?” She seemed completely bemused.

  “Yeah.”

  “But… I just woke up. I’m a mess.”

  “You’re cute.” He held up the phone again but she still just looked at him like he was an alien. “Smile, Fancy.”

  “Why do you want this picture?”

  He huffed in frustration. She sure wasn’t letting him fly under the radar. “Because I just found out that I’m gonna have a family and I want a picture of the family.”

  Naomi burst into tears. And not stoic ones. Big messy tears. He took the sonogram out of her hands before she got it all wet and stood in front of her. He was at complete loose ends. Should he touch her? Should he leave? Get her tissues? He’d literally never been this close to a sobbing woman before.

  And then, just like last night when she’d let him help her up off the ground, Naomi made everything so much easier than he deserved. She simply opened her arms to him, silently asking for a hug. Sequence obliterated the distance between them.

  He dove toward her and held her firmly against her chest. His eyes squeezed shut when she pushed her wet face into the crook of his neck. He didn’t stroke her or say anything. He just leaned over the bed and held her tight against him.

  After a few minutes, Naomi’s tears subsided and she relaxed backwards. He didn’t want to let her go, but he did.

  She slid around him and went to the bathroom. A few moments later, she came back out, blowing her nose in a tissue. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and he did the same. They sat shoulder to shoulder, almost companionably.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry.” It was probably grossly inadequate, but it was the only thing he could think to say.

  “I know,” she said in a hoarse voice. “It was a good cry. I’m just relieved. And scared. At the same time.”

  “About what?”

  “I… never even considered that you’d think of you and me and the baby as a family.”

  “Oh.” That had seemed obvious to Sequence. Was it not? Had he made an assumption that he shouldn’t have? He thought about it from her perspective for a minute. Considering the fact that she’d figured he’d completely abandon her again, throwing the word family around was probably pretty jarring. “We don’t have to label it, if you don’t want.”

  She didn’t respond for a minute while she wiped her eyes. Then, she picked up the sonogram. “Take the picture now, if you want.”

  He tilted away from her and pointed the phone at her.

  “No!” she laughed and snuggled into his side. “Take the picture of all three of us.”

  Now, he was the one completely bemused. But he followed her directions. Sequence put his arm around her and looked up at the camera. And took the first ever photo of their family.

  ***

  Naomi scratched her head as she looked around her bedroom. It looked like a Mommy’s R Us had puked its guts all over here.

  There was a huge, blue body pillow on her bed, a ton of lightly scented candles lined up on the window sill, there was a small machine on her bedside table, two towering stacks of books beside the bed, a new sofa under the window, another little machine on the desk… the list went on.

  She’d only been in the TV room for two hours!

  A throat cleared behind her and Naomi turned to see Rook standing in the doorway, an amused expression on his face. “I take it you told Sequence.”

  “This is all from him?”

  Rook nodded. “I saw him dragging bags in a couple hours ago, but I wasn’t sure what it was for.”

  “What’s that?” Naomi asked, and Rook bent down to look at the machine by her bed.

  “Looks like a noise machine. People use it to reduce stress.” He pressed a button and the sound of the ocean filled the room.

  “Whoa. And this?” She wandered to the desk and picked up the other contraption. “Oh! An essential oils diffuser. I’ve always wanted one of these.”

  “You’ll probably want to pick out some mild scents. May became very sensitive to smells when she was pregnant.”

  Naomi went to her knees by the stacks of books and laughed out loud at what he’d picked. There were several books on pregnancy and child rearing that she thought were very sweet. And then there was a whole stack of romance novels. How did he know that she liked those?

  “Wow,” she said again. “I really wasn’t expecting this to be his reaction.”

  “Truth?” Rook said, leaning against the door again. “Neither did I.”

  Naomi and Rook laughed together. But the smile on Rook’s face faded.

  “Naomi, I apologize for what happened yesterday. I let your need for privacy at your appointment get in the way of your security and I should have known better. I should have taken more precautions.”

  She rocked back onto her heels and slowly stood. “I understand, Rook. If we ever have to do something like that again, I won’t push to get my way. I’ll follow your instincts.”

  Rook was quiet for a long minute. “I take that to mean that you’ll continue to work with us. Even after what happened.”

  “Rook! Ha. Don’t make me laugh. Of course I’m staying with you. Do you honestly think there’s any place safer on Earth for me than right here? With you and Sequence?”

  Some of the tension left his shoulders. They talked about all of her new pregnancy things for a little while and Rook found a few ways to work May in to the conversation, which was something that Naomi noticed he did a lot. As if he couldn’t go more than a few minutes without mentioning her.

  It was something people did when they were first falling in love with someone. Not when they were divorced from them. Naomi couldn’t help but wonder what it was that had broken up Rook and his wife when he obviously loved her so much.

  After Rook left the room, she sat on the edge of her bed, one hand on her belly. If anything, her thoughts about Rook reinforced her decision to keep Sequence in the friend zone from here on out. If Rook and May couldn’t make it work with all that love then what chance did she have with Sequence? She flopped back on the bed.

  “Ow.” He head came into contact with something small and pointy. She hadn’t seen it before but there was a small wrapped box on one of her pillows, about half the size of a shoe box. Yet another present.

  Either Sequence was Santa Claus in disguise or he’d freaked out in a prenatal store and panic-shopped.

  Curious, she slipped the ribbon off of the gift and unwrapped it. Lifting the top off, tears instantly filled her eyes, obscuring her view of the five perfect prisms he’d bought for her. Now she could hang them in her window the way she did in her living room at home. She’d have rainbows here.

  How had he known that she’d been missing her rainbows?

  Impossibly touched, Naomi suddenly felt that she needed to see him right away. This was the kind of gesture that demanded immediate and irrefutable gratitude. Half the fun of giving a gift was seeing how much the other person loved it and she didn’t want to deprive Sequence of that.

  Glancing at the clock, she knew he’d be getting lunch ready in the kitchen and she basically danced her way down the
re. Sure enough, there he was, dicing something and sliding it into a sauce pan.

  Naomi stood for a moment, just inside the kitchen, and watched him before he had a chance to notice her. He always wore an apron when he cooked, which she thought was adorable, especially offset by the tattoos that lined his hands and peeked out of the collar of his shirt. And he was extremely calm and self possessed as he moved about the kitchen. He never listened to music or podcasts when he cooked. His muscles bunched and gathered as he sliced bread and laid out rounds of tomatoes on a plate. He looked natural and skilled and totally out of place all at once. Whoever’s ovaries could withstand seeing a muscle-bound Adonis like Sequence cooking in a kitchen, well, it wasn’t Naomi.

  Especially when she saw that he had a cookbook on the counter with a receipt as a bookmark. The title running down the spine was The Pregnant Cookbook.

  He’d bought a special book to learn how to cook for her? Well, God.

  It was with that and thoughts of rainbowed prisms in her mind that she crossed the kitchen and ducked under Sequence’s arm, pressing her face into his chest and wrapping her arms around him hard. He froze for a moment and then his arms came around her, warm and solid.

  “You’re the sweetest man in the entire universe,” she informed him. She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek and then stayed on her toes to push her forehead into his neck and keep on hugging him.

  “Shit,” an accented voice said from behind Naomi and she turned her head to see every occupant of the bunker staring at them from the kitchen table. In her total occupation with Sequence’s presence, she hadn’t even noticed them. It was Moreau who’d spoken, a good-natured scowl on his face. “Once again, muscles beat me to the girl.”

  Moreau was fit and strong, but yeah, Sequence was way more jacked than he was.

  But Naomi frowned at the statement, it implied that she and Sequence were involved. Which they weren’t. Not romantically at least. She blinked at the range of facial expressions that looked back at her. They ranged from shocked to curious to satisfied.

  “What the hell was that?” Atlas asked, halfway rising from his seat at the table.

  His expression was a mixture of shocked and curious.

  Naomi knew Sequence well enough to know that he wasn’t going to be the one to answer his brother. “Oh. I was just thanking Sequence for some things that he’d bought—”

  “No.” Atlas cut her off and rose up all the way. “Not the hug or whatever. I mean, what the hell was that?” He pointed an incredibly bossy finger at Naomi’s midsection.

  Naomi was turned halfway, still in the circle of Sequence’s arms. From behind, she imagined that she’d look just like she always did. But as she followed the path of Atlas’s finger, she also realized that she was wearing a tank top and a bra with nothing over top of it. Usually, she’d throw on a bunchy sweater to hide the bump. But she’d been in such a rush to get to Sequence that she’d forgotten. Meaning she’d flounced through the kitchen with that bump on total blast.

  Whoops.

  Color rushed to Naomi’s face as she grappled for words. Crap. She was all confused. Was the baby still a secret? Did Sequence need more time before they told people? Should she have let him find a way to privately tell his brother? She felt hot and cold at once.

  A warm hand stroked its way down her back and Sequence took a loud, crunchy bite of an apple right above her head. “We’re having a baby,” he told the room, point-blank.

  It was as if the room was frozen in time for a moment or two before it exploded into noise and movement. Rook just smiled pleasantly from one end of the table. Swift looked dumbstruck, Moreau looked strangely impressed, Geo may have had a few tears she had to roughly shove off her cheeks. But Atlas took the cake.

  “What? WHAT? Holy Mother Mary, God in heaven. Somebody take me to church!” He threw his hands in the air and instead of walking around the kitchen table, climbed right over top of it, boots and all. He was shocked and elated. Had tears in his eyes as he made his way to Naomi, tugging her out of Sequence’s arms and into his own. He pushed her back to arm’s length and lightly shook her by the shoulders. “Uncle Atlas!” he whisper-screamed in her face. “Uncle Atlas!”

  Naomi squeaked when Atlas took her by the cheeks and planted a whopping big kiss right on her mouth. And then she squeaked again when Atlas did the exact same thing to Sequence.

  “Bro!” Sequence scoffed as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Jesus.”

  “Uncle Atlas,” Atlas said again, totally overjoyed and bemused. “Knock me over with a feather.”

  Instead of doing that, Sequence shoved a tray of food into his brother’s hands and directed him back to the table.

  “You should get off your feet,” he whispered to Naomi as the group at the table loudly hashed over this latest bit of extremely juicy gossip. “And I made you something special to eat.”

  Naomi grinned, raised her eyebrows up and took a seat at the table. She answered some of their nosy questions, grinned at others, and gaped at the beautiful little plate of food that Sequence set out for her.

  There was a small biscuit with what looked like almond butter and honey, a little dish of red lentils, two slices of tomato, a hard-boiled egg, and half a banana. He put seltzer and chamomile tea in front of her.

  It was the most color she’d had on her plate in months. “Just do as much as you can manage. Every little bit helps,” he whispered in her ear.

  Moved beyond words, Naomi did just that.

  ***

  One week turned into two and Naomi found herself settling into a new and totally welcome pattern of daily life. Every day, Sequence made to order beautiful meals for her. They did yoga once a day together, modified, of course. When she returned to her room at night, she often entered to find that there were candles lit, a light scent emanating from the diffuser, and rainy flutes coming from the noise machine.

  Naomi also noticed that her pregnancy books each disappeared for a few days, and when she found them again in her room, they were dog eared and obviously read. That, more than anything, relaxed her.

  She hadn’t realized the tremendous mental weight of preparing for a baby all on her own. There was always something to keep in mind, to research, to learn. But now, she had someone who was doing a lot of that for her. She found herself taking a little bit of a mental vacation. She focused on relaxing. She watched movies. She read those romance novels.

  All of them.

  That was another new part of Naomi’s life. She’d always considered herself a sensual person. And she’d always really liked sex. But between the paperbacks that Sequence had brought home and the kindle app on her phone, Naomi was reading an insane amount of erotica.

  So much that she wondered if it was going to influence the baby. At this rate, the kid was going to born with a rose in its teeth and a smoking jacket on.

  But she couldn’t help it. She was crazy horny. Which, apparently, was something that happened to pregnant women. Especially after the morning sickness subsided, which hers mostly had. Much to Sequence’s delight, she was now eating like a Viking at all hours of the day.

  Considering it was the only appetite she had the power to quench, she ate with extreme gusto.

  At night, she’d slip her hand into her panties and try to quench her other appetite. It was a difficult mental dance because she refused to outright fantasize about Sequence, but unfortunately, whenever she got near the fireworks, her lizard brain took over and he was all she could think about as she went over the edge.

  Which maybe wouldn’t have been so bad if she didn’t have to be in such close proximity to him at all times. But she did.

  She was incredibly horny and pretty much constantly in arm’s length of the best smelling, most handsome, muscliest hunk of all time.

  She couldn’t avoid him because they were attempting to forge ahead with their new cordial relationship. She wanted to encourage their friendship to grow. Which meant seeing him. And not humping h
im.

  It was two weeks after she’d told him about the baby when Sequence ducked his head into the TV room to see what she was doing. She was reading on her phone, not watching TV, but she often found herself in this room after dinner. She liked it and it was good for her to not spend her whole day in her bedroom. Besides, ever since Moreau had found out she was pregnant, he’d been giving her a lot more space, so she didn’t have to hide in her room for solace either.

  “Hey.”

  Naomi jumped when she realized that Sequence was there in the room with her.

  She was just getting to the extremely juicy part of her romance novel so she blushed nine ways to Sunday and blacked the screen.

  “Can I sit with you?” he asked, holding up one of the pregnancy books that Naomi had yet to pick up.

  “Of course.” She moved to sit up but he caught her feet and put them on his lap instead of making her squinch herself up to one side of the couch.

  “No worries,” he told her, his eyes already on his book.

  Blushing even harder now, Naomi went back to her phone. She felt weird about reading porn while she was sitting in the same room as someone else, but her hormones were out of control and she really was at the very best part of the whole book.

  She clicked into a different book and gave it the ol’ college try for about three minutes before she gave up and clicked back into the sexy book.

  “What are you reading?” Sequence asked her, studying her face.

  Naomi jumped again. “Nothing!” she insisted and then realized just how guilty that made her sound. “Um. A book about aliens.”

  Which was true. But it was mostly about a very hot alien who’d abducted a female earthling and made desperate, passionate love to her all over the solar system.

  “Huh,” he said, his eyes still on her face. Obviously there was something she was having trouble wiping out of her expression. “Are you feeling all right? You’re flushed. And you’re fidgeting.”

  “I’m fine. Totally fine,” she squeaked. Naomi immediately clicked back into the boring book, determined to cool down.

  She could still feel Sequence’s eyes on her and she tried to ignore him. His masculine presence beckoned to her from the other side of the couch. She wanted to barrel roll right into him. Suffocate herself against his neck. She didn’t need romance or tenderness. All she wanted was to push her panties to the side and get her hair tugged.