Rook Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  He understood then. She was asking him to keep his hands off of her. To keep his hands safely where she could see them. He flattened his palms against the doorjamb and spread his fingers, practically feeling her gaze on them.

  And then he felt her forehead between his shoulder blades, her hot breath through his t-shirt.

  He looked down when her thin, strong arms banded around his waist and she grabbed her own wrists against his middle.

  She pulled herself in and gave him a quick, hard hug, pressing the line of her body along his.

  It was an electric jolt. So potent that Atlas wasn’t even sure he liked it. His desire for her was as bright as a suck on a lemon. And it echoed just like that as well.

  When she stepped back from him, he could feel her imprinted on his back, as if she were still there. His heart thumped hard and he felt strangely dizzy for a moment.

  He wanted to turn around, lay her down and taste her. Taste her mouth, between her legs, her breasts, her navel. He wanted to find her soft places, her bony places. He wanted to flatten her ears against her head with his kiss. He wanted to scrape his beard across her middle and see if it turned her pink.

  But when he turned, she was all the way across the kitchen again, at her barstool, staring at him with wide, freaked-out eyes.

  He sighed. What he wanted in this scenario was the least important part of any of this. The only thing that mattered was Bex. And her safety.

  He let out another breath. “Okay. I need to go on a run. You’ll be here when I get back?”

  She nodded.

  He turned and left the room, convinced she could hear his heartbeat.

  ***

  Rebecca’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Not when she cleared up the remains of their breakfast. Not when she folded up the afghans they’d used last night. Not when she rushed herself through a shower or when she dragged on her fresh clothes.

  There were way too many emotions in her system to identify just one. For months, the only thing she’d had to do was just clam up. Not tell anyone anything.

  Well, she’d shot that to hell. She was telling Atlas stuff all over the place and she apparently couldn’t stop.

  It was like he knew some secret password to get her to open up.

  She’d sworn to never talk about her past. She’d sworn to live on her own, no matter the cost. She’d sworn she’d never touch another man. Only bad could come of it.

  And then Atlas came traipsing along and suddenly she was shacked up, spilling her guts out, and hugging him in the kitchen.

  She sat on the edge of her bed and clamped her fingers behind her knees so she wouldn’t have to watch them tremble.

  That’s what really got her. That damn hug.

  It had scared the bejeezus out of her. Because that had not been like any hug she’d ever had before in her life. In her experience, hugging a man was sharp and uncomfortable. They always bent her back too far or pressed their erections into her. But Atlas had held perfectly still, his hands on the wall and let her hug him. His body hadn’t been sharp. He’d been hard, but not sharp. That man was miles of warm muscle. Kind of monstrous, but in a good way. It had been like hugging the Beast from that Disney movie.

  The whole time, she hadn’t been able to stop picturing what he’d looked like with no shirt on. Walking into the kitchen and seeing him shirtless had been a shock to the system. He was all colorful tattoos and dipping lines of muscle. His body had moved beneath his skin like currents under the ocean.

  She hadn’t been sure whether to scream or moan. So she’d just acted like a little loser, shielding her eyes from his perfection and panicking.

  God, she so didn’t want Atlas to be hot. Him being hot screwed up everything. Him being hot and sweet? This was the apocalypse.

  She heard the front door slam and jumped.

  “It’s me,” he called.

  She relaxed but didn’t call back to him.

  He appeared in her doorway a moment later, his wrists hanging off the doorjamb on either side of his head. He was always doing that, she noticed, filling a doorway to the limit. It was intimidating and endearing at the same time, two things that she hadn’t thought could go hand in hand until she’d met Atlas.

  “Fine. No cops,” he said, as if he were finishing an argument they’d never stopped having. He was panting with the exertion of his run.

  Her eyes ran the length of him. He was in an electric blue tank top with two lobsters on the front and the same purple running shorts he’d worn that morning. His skin was shiny with sweat. The shirt was darkened where it stuck to his body and so was his hair.

  His chest worked in and out as he stared at her with those green eyes and Rebecca had a terrible thought work its way through her. A criminal thought. She was wondering what he looked like right after he had sex. If he’d be this sweaty, this out of breath. Not every man was. Some men managed to look crisp and put together post-coitus. But she knew, in her heart, that Atlas wouldn’t. No. Atlas would look an absolute mess. He’d be sweaty and wrecked and fried. Because Atlas would give sex 500 percent effort. Just like he gave everything. He’d lose himself in it. He’d give every molecule of energy that he had. And when it was over, he’d look like he’d just run a damn marathon.

  She clamped her knees down over her hands and just stared at him. She didn’t trust herself to say anything. Any words she had would give herself away, like flashing him a view of her internal chessboard. She couldn’t risk it.

  “No cops,” he said again. “But what about a security team? My security team. Would you let us take on your case?”

  She blinked. “Atlas, you know I can’t afford that.”

  “Don’t insult me.” He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and wiped the sweat off his face, giving her a glimpse of his thick middle, the ridges of his muscles and the dampened happy trail leading under his shorts. “I wouldn’t take your money. I don’t want to take anything from you.”

  “Well, you’d be the first.” The words were out of her mouth before she could think twice, and she meant them in so many ways. Atlas would be the first man to be close to her and not try to take everything, sure. But he’d also be the first man who’d tried to keep her truly safe. Who offered her food and shelter and expected nothing in return. Who didn’t touch without asking. She clamped harder on her hands.

  Something fell in Atlas’s face and he gripped the doorjamb and leaned back, balancing his weight for a second. “It kills me to know how bad you’ve been treated, Bex.”

  She shrugged. “That’s life.”

  “Let us help you. Let Rook Securities protect you.”

  She couldn’t let anyone get further involved in this. As it was, she was pretty sure that Atlas could get in trouble for housing her. Him not knowing who she truly was was the only thing that was protecting him. How could she possibly let that go? How could she possibly put this gentle, kind man in harm’s way?

  “At least come and talk to Rook. You don’t have to tell him anything you don’t want to. Just let him talk to you. Please.”

  His please was her achilles heel. She wondered if he had any idea what it did to her.

  She tipped her head up and looked at him, really looked at him. His beauty just about burned her retinas out. “Can I think about it?”

  “Yeah. You think about it all you want, Sunshine.” He looked at her for another minute and then checked his watch. “I gotta jet for work. But you’re gonna take the car again, right?”

  Rebecca inwardly winced. She’d agreed to drive his silly car to all of her jobs, but she hadn’t been. She’d been taking the subway just like normal and hoping he wouldn’t notice that the miles weren’t increasing on the dashboard. She had a license, but she’d left it behind in Atlantic City that night. And the last thing she needed was to get pulled over and IDed.

  “Yeah.”

  “All right, then. I’ll see you for dinner, okay?”

  She nodded and then the doorway was clear, open and free of Atl
as.

  If she were a stronger person, she told herself, she’d walk straight out that open door and untangle herself from this mess. Her leaving was the only thing that could keep Atlas from being dragged down into her lifetime of mistakes.

  But she sat on that bed until she heard him leave for work. She felt like she’d been leaving her whole life, flitting from one situation to the next, but the one time she really needed to do it, the one time it was the most important, she couldn’t make herself do it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The weekend rolled around and apparently Bex was still thinking. Atlas was doing everything he could to give her space on the matter, but he was close to going out of his skin. He was running twice a day, doing jigsaw puzzles in the living room, he completely inventoried all the gear they kept in storage at the bunker, you name it.

  “You need to get laid,” Geo told him on Saturday morning. She was the team member on duty that day, so she was spending her Saturday cooped up in the bunker. Atlas was technically off duty, but he was holed up in the bunker’s basement, reorganizing all the old workout equipment they kept down there.

  “Nah,” Atlas said, though he thought she was probably right. The problem was, he really only knew how to get laid by a stranger. Someone he met in a bar and took a brief, momentary shine to. On the rare occasion one night turned into several, he’d find himself antsy and nervous and call the whole thing off within a few weeks. But that’s not what he wanted to have happen. And a stranger was not who he wanted to get laid by. He wanted to get laid by the lithe, secretive, strange little pixie who’d taken up residence in his guest bedroom. But he was giving her space right now, hoping she’d make a good decision regarding her personal safety. He didn’t think adding his dick into the equation was probably gonna help matters.

  Atlas turned to Geo, knocking the dust off his hands and frowned. He’d been distracted since he met Bex, but if he wasn’t mistaken, Geo was looking a little worse for the wear.

  She was physically striking. Geo had the kind of raw, genetic beauty that didn’t need any manner of enhancements. Not makeup, not a good haircut, not flattering clothes. Geo was gorgeous at any time of day, in any lighting. Atlas had long since gotten used to it. But now, looking at his friend, he could see that she didn’t look particularly rested or particularly happy. “Maybe you’re the one who needs to get laid.”

  “Nah,” she threw back at him. “I just need more hours.”

  Atlas frowned. For a while now, she’d been stockpiling as many hours at work as she could get and it was starting to worry him. Rook paid them well, there was no reason that Geo should be so hard up for cash. And if she really was, Atlas wished she’d just ask him for a loan instead of working herself into an early grave. But Geo had more pride than almost anyone he’d ever met and he knew that pigs would fly in ballerina costumes before Geo asked a friend for money. “Are you off tonight?”

  “Yeah. Rook’s making me take the rest of the weekend after I’m done at two.”

  “Let’s call a book club meeting.”

  Geo groaned. She was widely known to only attend their book club meetings for the food. She’d been strong-armed into the group by May, Rook’s ex-wife, who could strong-arm anyone into anything. And make them think it was their idea the whole time. May had freaky superpowers. “No. We just had one last week.”

  “That was four weeks ago! And I finished the new book, like, the next day. I wanna talk about it.”

  Geo narrowed her eyes at Atlas. She could scent an ulterior motive from a mile away. “You never wanna talk about the books. You just like to drink the wine and gossip.”

  “So, maybe I’m in the mood to drink wine and gossip. C’mon. Apparently neither of us is gonna try to get laid tonight so let’s do a book club!”

  “Ugh. Fine. You organize it and I’ll show up.”

  “Boom.” Atlas held his hand up for a high five but Geo ignored it. She turned to walk away but then jumped back around and gave him a whopping good high five. They both laughed and Atlas pulled out his phone.

  ***

  “Bex!” Atlas shouted the second he was through his front door.

  No answer.

  Of course.

  “Bex! Where are you! We gotta talk!”

  He heard a thump behind her closed bedroom door and went over to lean his forehead against it, the way he always did when talking to her through it.

  “You in there?”

  “Yeah.” She sounded nervous, a little breathless. He heard another thump.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah!” There was another thump and she swore under her breath.

  “Okay. Well, whenever you’re done doing… whatever you’re doing, come out because we have a lot of work to do. We’re having company tonight.”

  “What!?” The door flung open, away from where he’d been leaning on it. Atlas stumbled forward and found himself unexpectedly tangled up in a very warm, very naked, very wet Bex.

  “Ah!” he screamed, attempting to simultaneously not perv on her and burn the memory of this in his brain for all eternity. It was a very difficult note to strike. “Why are you naked!?”

  “I’m not naked!”

  He was getting déjà vu of her accusing him of being naked when he wasn’t.

  She wiggled away from him and clutched the damp towel up a little higher on her chest. “I just got out of the shower when you got home and I was trying to change fast enough to come out and talk to you. I didn’t expect you to come tumbling through the door.”

  “Bex, I always come tumbling through the door.”

  She paused and the look of horror on her face thawed into just a tiny bit of humor. She was obviously replaying an internal video compilation of all the times she’d opened her door to have Atlas stumbling through. It certainly wasn’t a rare occasion. “That’s true.”

  He’d untangled himself from her and stepped back into the doorway. But the hard force of her body against his, the smooth line of her under his palms, the warm, wet hair against his chin and neck, all of it was imprinted onto him, like a bruise, he could still feel her on him even when they were three feet away.

  And, now that he was three feet away, he had trouble figuring out where to look. If life were a movie, he would have paused it and let his eyes fall all over her. From her toenails up her bare legs, to where the towel gathered over her hips, the shadow of her waist, to the surprisingly shadowed line between her breasts, and up over the damp expanse of her chest to that perfect, pixie-like face. But, of course, life wasn’t a movie and she would move out in a second if she caught Atlas ogling her.

  Using inner strength that he felt should have qualified him for the Olympics, Atlas kept his eyes on her eyes. “We’ve got the book club coming over in an hour and we have to get the place ready.”

  “An hour?” She looked defeatedly over Atlas’s shoulder out toward the rest of the apartment.

  Over the past week, they’d let it get charmingly disheveled. Despite her status as the best cleaning lady in the game, Bex apparently wasn’t a naturally tidy person. Which thrilled Atlas to no end. He figured that it was solid evidence that she was getting comfortable in the house with him. At the beginning, she’d been scrupulously clean, even making her bed for another guest after every time she slept in it. New sheets and all. But over the last week, her things had started to be strewn around the living room. Half-drank glasses of water sat coaster-less on the side tables. Open books were on the floor next to the couch. Last night’s dinner still hadn’t been completely cleaned up.

  “But it takes me two and a half to clean your place normally, we’ll never get it done in time!”

  “Come on, we’ll both be cleaning, so it’ll go faster, and we’re just tidying, not cleaning. We’ll sweep a little dust under the rug, fluff the pillows and call it done. ‘kay?”

  She frowned. “We don’t even have any groceries. We can’t host a group of ladies over here.”

  He laug
hed. “This book club is not a group of ladies, you’ll see. They can be right trashy whenever they wanna be.” He paused and considered. “Except, sometimes Naomi brings Brookie the Cookie. And Cookie is definitely a lady.”

  That got another thawed smile out of Bex, but she still looked nervous and unsure. Atlas wondered if she’d had many friends in her former life. Or if she’d ever had a place where she could invite people over.

  “Get dressed, Bex, and then come help me tidy up. If they come over while we’re still cleaning, then I guess the secret will be out that we’re normal people who sometimes let the house get messy.”

  He desperately wanted to brush the wet hair off her forehead but also didn’t wanna get karate chopped in the nuts. Bex and touching weren’t exactly on the same page with one another.

  So instead, he knocked his knuckles against the doorframe in what he hoped was a casual way and then slammed the shit out of his elbow as he turned to leave.

  “Mother—” he bent over and rubbed the hell out of his funny bone, feeling like a complete nerd.

  “Ouch,” Bex said from behind him. “Here, stand up.”

  He turned.

  “Stick your tongue out,” she told him. “And touch your nose with your finger.”

  He followed directions.

  “Now stand on one foot. And cross your eyes.”

  He did all of those things before losing his balance and stumbling to the side.

  “What’s all that for?” he asked her.

  “It’s the cure for funny bone pain. See? It’s gone, isn’t it?”

  He looked down at the offending arm. It was still tingling, but she was right, the pain was gone. “How’d you do that?”

  “I’m magic,” she told him. “And I used to work in a daycare. That trick works like a charm on preschoolers.”

  She closed the door in his face and Atlas stared at it. “Did you just call me a child?” he called through the door.

  “Don’t worry about it!” she called back, and he smiled as he listened to her laugh.

  ***

  Rebecca had never hosted a party before. But Atlas obviously had. He’d come home with, like, fifty different kinds of drinks, alcoholic and otherwise. He’d also ordered takeout from three different places, to suit everyone’s likes.