Rook Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  Naomi pressed her toes into Sequence’s side. “And your real name?”

  “It’s dorky.” To his own astonishment, he felt a blush rise on his cheeks.

  “Are you blushing!?” Naomi laughed with utter delight and leaned forward onto her hands. She tugged at his arm. “You have to tell me now. I can’t believe you’re blushing.”

  “You can’t call me by this name. You have to call me Sequence still.” He cracked one eye and peered at her. “Or Seek.”

  “Deal. Tell me.” She clasped her hands together and tucked them under her chin like a little kid saying prayers.

  Sequence couldn’t help but smile at her ridiculously hopeful expression.

  “Ezekiel.”

  “I love it,” she said immediately.

  He chuckled again, figuring she probably would have loved any name he’d shared with her, simply because he was sharing it.

  “All right. Enough with my sordid past.” Sequence gently shoved Naomi back so that her feet were in his lap again. He set the box of photos away, where he didn’t have to look at it anymore. He dug his fingers into the arch of her foot and shifted when she immediately let out a moan of pleasure.

  “You sure know how to distract a girl,” she said breathlessly.

  “You haven’t seen anything yet,” he told her, without much thought.

  Naomi froze though, her eyes riveted on the side of his face. “I’ve seen a lot,” she said quietly.

  Sequence, unsure of exactly what it was they were referring to and unwilling to take this to a pervy place if she didn’t take it there first, just put his thumbs into her foot and kept rubbing.

  When he looked up to her, her eyes were burning into him. “Actually,” she said, just as quietly as before. “I’ve seen exactly how you distract a girl.”

  Oh, so she wanted to talk about this? About their time together? Sequence wasn’t about to pass up on the opportunity, considering there was something about that hookup that had been bothering him for a long time. Only he’d had absolutely no way to bring it up.

  “Yeah. I think I probably owe you an apology about that.”

  He wasn’t looking directly at her, so he missed the light that went out behind her eyes. It was like he’d blown out the candle on her cupcake.

  “You want to apologize for sleeping with me?”

  He hadn’t seen her light go out, but he certainly heard her tone of voice. Realizing that he’d stumbled onto some delicate territory, Sequence took a deep breath and then switched to her other foot, hoping to keep her as relaxed as he possibly could for this conversation.

  “I want to apologize for rushing things the way I did,” he eventually said. “I regret it.”

  “You regret it.” The words came out as barely a whisper. She pulled her feet from his lap and just like before, her knees were under her chin again. Sequence would have gladly punched himself in the nuts.

  “No! Shit. This is coming out wrong. I don’t regret sleeping with you.”

  “You… just regret the kind of sex we had?” She buried her eyes on her knees, hugging herself tight. “Great. This is just great. Just when I thought I couldn’t get any more loser-ish, I find out that you regret what was easily the best sex of my life.”

  “No, I—the best sex of your life?” He suddenly felt like a helium balloon was expanding in his chest.

  She peeked up from her knees. “So?” she said, almost defiantly. “Apparently I’m not as worldly as you are, because I thought that sex was very good.”

  Sequence found himself speechless, somehow this conversation had totally gone off the rails again. How did she do that? She was so good at completely stripping him of things he’d intended to say. Seconds ticked past and she buried her face again. He needed to say something. Even if he said it wrong, it was better than leaving her hanging out in the cold like this. “Good? Fancy, that made all other sex bow down. It was beyond good for me. Unbelievable. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”

  She peeked up at him again, her face hidden except for her eyes, her hair falling out of her ponytail. “But you just said you regretted it.”

  “No,” he corrected. “I said that I regret rushing it.” Needing badly to have some sort of connection to her, he reached out and grabbed her by the ankles. For a moment, she kept her crimped-up shape, and then she allowed him to stretch her legs out and take over the foot massage again. “I wish I’d taken my time with you.”

  Naomi cleared her throat and shifted slightly. “Oh?”

  Sequence nodded, his eyes on her purple toenail polish. “I wanted you so badly that I rushed through everything. I was desperate for you. But now I wish I’d savored you. I wish I’d gotten to know every little part of you.” His eyes flicked up to hers as he went from a foot massage to a calf massage. “I wish I’d tasted you everywhere.”

  Naomi gasped, her lips parting and her eyes going heavy lidded. He doubted that she even knew that she’d done it, but her legs parted, as if she were opening herself to him. “Everywhere?”

  “Everywhere,” he affirmed, his voice low. His thumbs worked her upper calf as his long fingers spread out against the insides of her knees, up against her inner thighs. “I fucked you like a horny teenager, Fancy. That’s how desperate I was for you. But I should have taken my time.”

  She made a sound in the back of her throat and her legs came another inch or two open. He glanced at the apex of her spandex shorts and wished that they were any color but black. He so badly wanted to see her wetness.

  “I should have touched you for hours,” he told her in a gruff voice. “I should have made you come fifty times before I took mine.”

  His hands came up another inch and Naomi slapped her palms down over his fingers. “Please,” she whispered.

  Sequence searched her expression for clues. Was she begging for him to stop or to keep going?

  “Naomi,” he said quietly, needing to make sure he understood.

  “Please, Sequence. I can’t get worked up like this. Pregnancy has made me very sensitive to this kind of thing.”

  “Is that your way of telling me you’re horny?” he asked, a small smile on his face.

  Naomi covered her face with her hands. He watched her blush extend up to her hairline and out to her ears. “Impossibly horny. And this conversation isn’t helping.”

  He chuckled, charmed as hell that she admitted as much to him. His thumbs drew circles on the back of her knee and she moaned and squirmed. “I could help you with that, Fancy.”

  Her hands slid down so that just her eyes peeked out. “Help me with what?”

  Instead of answering, he moved his hands up another few inches on her smooth legs. The cocoa butter junk she was slathering on every night made her skin like satin. Warm, sweet smelling satin. His pants were impossibly tight. She must have felt his hardness against her foot considering her feet were still in his lap.

  She was panting through her open mouth, her chest heaving up and down. Her eyes dropped to his hands on her inner thighs, his fingers an inch underneath the tight fabric of her spandex shorts. She opened her legs wide and spoke at the same time. “We can’t have sex.”

  Sequence looked down at her legs spread wide for him and the complicated look on her face. She was somewhere between turned on and confused.

  “All right,” Sequence acquiesced, not pushing any further.

  “God.” Naomi crashed her head back onto the armrest of the couch. “God, I hate this. I’m so turned on. All the time. I feel like I’m going to explode. And you’re so freaking hot and you smell so good and I know for a fact that you’re good at this. And you’re right here. Looking at me with your handsome face but, god, sleeping with you might wreck me. I don’t think I could handle it. Everything I went through after you left me. I can’t. I won’t. But—”

  “Shhh,” he told her and planted his mouth against one of her knees. The touch of his lips hushed her and for that, Sequence was grateful. He’d never felt like a bigger assh
ole than he did right then. He didn’t want to hear that sex with him had wrecked her. He hated how much he’d hurt her. If he could go back in time, he would re-do so many things where she was concerned. But he couldn’t. All he could do was make her feel good now. If she would let him. “We won’t have sex.”

  Sequence lifted his eyes and breathed pointedly in through his nose and then out through his mouth. He did it again and this time she matched her breathing to his, calming her down.

  “We won’t have sex, Naomi. But let me help you. Please, baby. Let me make you feel good. I want to take care of you, Naomi.” He drew a line up her inner thigh with his nose and nudged at the fabric of her shorts. “Can I do what I wish I had four months ago? Can I take my time with you and make you feel good?”

  Her legs opened even further but there was still worry on her face. “What if… it makes me sad again?”

  God, this woman just slayed him. “Then I’ll do everything I can to make you happy again. I won’t leave you after this. I’ll be right here. And if you never want me to do this again, I won’t. But let’s try, baby. Let me try and make you feel good.”

  She had her bottom lip between her teeth again but she let it go and took a deep breath. Slowly, slowly, she nodded.

  Sequence wanted to dive into her body and never resurface, but he figured he didn’t need to learn this lesson twice. It was infinitely better to ease himself in and let both of them revel in the experience.

  So, instead of ripping off her shorts and fucking her with his tongue, Sequence leaned forward and pressed his nose between her legs.

  He grunted hard and forced his hands to loosen on her thighs. She smelled so perfect. So human, so smooth, so familiar and new. She was on her back and he was sprawled toward her, on his side, his feet still planted on the floor. He scented her again, attempting to imprint her straight into his brain.

  Only when she started to squirm did he open his mouth against her. There were the shorts and her underwear in between his tongue and her flesh but she tightened like she’d been struck by lightning all the same.

  Sequence gave her a lazy open mouthed kiss between her legs that skewed one into the next. When he felt her hand close over his hair and her hips lift off the couch, he felt as if it was probably time to move things forward. He sat up and slid her shorts down her legs, tossing them away. She sat in lacy turquoise underwear that made Sequence drag a hand over his eyes and groan.

  He had a touch of sympathy for the man he’d been four months ago. For the man who’d had to fuck her with her underwear on. She looked damn good in panties. Like, Victoria’s Secret model good. Except forty billion times better because she was looking at him with sapphire eyes and ruby hair and reaching for him and his baby was in her belly.

  Something snapped in Sequence and words he hadn’t known had been dammed up suddenly came rushing forward. “God, woman, you’re it for me. I’ve never ever wanted someone like this.”

  He hooked his thumbs into her underwear and slid them down her legs, tossing them aside. Because as much as he’d just been admiring them, fuck anything that hid her from him. Because he’d never seen a more beautiful example of womanhood in his entire life. He spread her legs even wider and just stared for a moment, raking his stubble back and forth against her inner thigh.

  “Naomi, you’re it for me,” he told her again. “I even knew it back then.”

  “What?” she asked, starting to scramble up. But he planted a wide hand on her chest and held her back on the couch. Knowing that he needed to say what he was going to say, and that he didn’t have it in him to turn it into a question-and-answer session, Sequence decided to start distracting her. He leaned forward and kissed her between her legs. Almost chastely. He refused to rush this.

  Naomi moaned, gripped his hair and arched off the couch. He smiled against her. His sensitive girl. He loved that.

  He let his tongue swirl through her, learning her taste. Letting the warm softness soothe and arouse him. Her body opened for him, quivering and wet. It was the best kiss of Sequence’s life. He had to tell her. Lifting back just a touch, he spoke with his lips still against her, her thighs tightening over his shoulders. “I’ve never in my life stayed inside a woman after I came, Naomi. But I did with you. Do you remember? I stayed inside and got you off again. Because I couldn’t leave you. I wanted to stay with you. I knew that I would make myself leave, but I wanted to stay so badly with you. You were different. I knew it.”

  He started to suckle, holding her thighs apart and pushing her knees up toward her stomach. His eyes tracked up her body and saw that her robe had fallen open, her baby bump peeking out. And that’s what well and truly destroyed him. The perfect roundness of her body, their child. Silvery stretch marks caught the lamplight and he felt an incredible swelling of affection and awe for her. For everything she was giving him. So selflessly. She was making him a family. This gorgeous jewel of a woman with her relentless smile and rainbows in every room was dragging him out of the dark. Whether he wanted to go or not. And for the first time in his life, Sequence wanted to go. He wanted out of the dark.

  He wanted Naomi. And he needed to show her exactly how much.

  He stopped teasing her and buried his face between her legs. His eyes fell closed as he sucked her into his mouth, slicking his tongue over every sweet inch of her. He spoke without words, communicated something ancient and terrifying and real. He gripped her hard and made love to her with his mouth.

  Naomi’s body clamped around his tongue, coming hard. She made a noise that Sequence had been dreaming about since the last time he’d made her make it. Her thighs trembled against his shoulders as he continued to pet her with his mouth. She jumped with sensitive aftershocks, her sounds ragged and breathy.

  When her thighs fell away and she went limp as a rag against him, Sequence lifted his head, a true smile on his face. He searched for her eyes but instead, his gaze caught on their hands. He hadn’t realized it, but at some point, he’d dragged the flat of his palm over her rounded belly, her fingers gripped and tangled with his. It was like her baby bump was their neutral territory. The place where the two of them could meet and mix and love.

  Finally, he looked up at Naomi and his smile widened. She looked wrecked, but in a good way. Her hair had come loose from the tie and spilled everywhere. Her eyes were large and lidded, her mouth open, sweat glistening on her chest.

  “How you feeling, baby?”

  She rolled her head to look at him. “How does it look like I’m feeling?”

  “Satisfied.” He placed a kiss on her thigh. “Relaxed.” Another kiss. “Pretty as hell.”

  “I do actually feel pretty as hell, now that you mention it,” she said, that pearly smile starting to stretch across her face. “You always find a way to make me feel pretty.”

  They were simple words, and they shouldn’t have necessarily made Sequence feel like swinging from the top of the Empire State Building, but they did.

  Naomi stretched her arms above her head and slid back from him. Sequence propped himself up on one elbow and watched her.

  “Mmm.” She stretched again and then started to crawl forward. “Okay. Your turn.”

  His brow furrowed hard and he gripped her by the shoulders. “No, baby. This wasn’t about that. This was about you.”

  “But… I can’t just leave you hanging. It’s bad manners.”

  Sequence laughed and prayed for strength. This woman killed him. “It’s not, Fancy. Trust me. Not in this situation. I wanted to give you that because I wanted to. Not because I thought you’d do the same for me, okay?”

  “Oh.” She bit her lip and leaned back from him, tightening her robe around her body.

  She suddenly looked so unsure, so self conscious, that Sequence propped himself up. “What are you thinking?”

  “Is it… I know that some men… Did doing that turn you off?”

  Sequence laughed again, because the world was a cruel place, and dropped his head back. When w
ords failed him, he reached over to her, took her hand, and placed it over the hardness in his pants.

  “Oh.” Her eyes widened as her fingers momentarily tightened. He carefully removed her hand.

  “Fancy, maybe some men grin and bear it through going down on their woman, but I’m not one of them. I love that shit. I dream about it. I could die a happy man right now.”

  “Don’t die,” Naomi said, nuzzling against his neck and letting her hand trail over the front of his pants again. “Let me help you the way you helped me.”

  He caught her hand. “Naomi, seriously. I don’t want you to regret this. I wanted to help you. And I’ll do that any time of the day for the rest of my life. I don’t expect you to reciprocate right now.”

  “But…”

  “Sweetheart, if you still want to sleep with me tomorrow, then we can talk about it then, okay? You’ve drawn some lines in the sand where I’m concerned and you did it for good reasons.”

  That slowed her down. Her lip was back between her teeth again. Her sapphire eyes searched his and she eventually nodded.

  “Let’s get you set up.” He stood up and walked over to her dresser. Clenching his teeth and trying not to groan out loud, he picked out what he assumed were a comfortable pair of white panties and another pair of stretchy shorts. He handed them over to her.

  Then Sequence turned back the covers on her bed, lit one of the lavender candles next to it and dimmed the lamplight. He grabbed her computer from her desk and opened it up.

  Naomi crawled into bed and he couldn’t help but tuck her in a little bit. He handed over the computer but she frowned at the movie he’d queued up.

  “I don’t need my comfort movie right now,” she told him.

  His brow furrowed.

  “I’m not stressed or sad,” she said. “Just a little confused.”

  He paused at the edge of her bed. He really, really wanted to get into it with her. He really wanted to strip down and hold her close. He wanted her hair in his face and her legs tangled with his. He wanted to fall asleep with his hand over their kid.