Naomi answered the door wearing no pants, a silk blouse, and her baby on one hip.
“Oh! Oh, Bex. Hi! I thought for sure you’d be the delivery man.”
“You usually greet the delivery man with no pants on?”
Naomi gave her a confused look and then dropped her eyes to her bare legs. “Oh, jeez. I’m telling you. Being a mom can really make your brain go in two different directions. Brookie puked on my pants and I took them off and then she started crying and then you knocked on the door and now, here I am, answering the door with no pants on like a freaking lunatic.”
“This is a bad time, I’m guessing?”
“For you? No way! Come on in.”
A little bemused by the greeting she’d just received, Rebecca followed Naomi into the house and noted that it looked a little more disheveled than the last time she’d seen it.
“You mind?” Naomi asked as she dumped Brooke into Rebecca’s arms. “I’ll just change real quick.”
Rebecca caught Brooke and then woman and baby eyed one another for a good minute. Brooke, seeming to have made up her mind, started babbling and playing with the collar of Rebecca’s shirt. Rebecca hefted her higher on her hip. The baby was heavier than she looked.
“Okay, kid. Where should we start?” Rebecca surveyed the room and decided that toys were first things first. With the baby on one hip, she started chucking toys into the baskets that lined the wall. Next, she put the pillows on the sofas and then she started carrying the dishes into the kitchen. That, at least, was nice and orderly. She’d noticed before that Sequence kept a very clean kitchen. She’d just finished loading the dishwasher when Naomi re-emerged in yoga pants and a bright sweater.
“Oh, Bex! You don’t have to do that!”
“Actually, I was kind of hoping that we could talk for a minute? And I do better if I have something to do with my hands?”
“In that case, please feel free to continue doing my dishes. I’ll take my kid off your hands though.”
Rebecca handed the baby over and automatically felt as if a fifty pound weight had been lifted off her hip. That couldn’t be right, though. Babies couldn’t weigh fifty pounds, could they?
“What was it you wanted to talk about?” Naomi asked while making faces at Brooke.
“I don’t think you’re gonna be surprised.” Rebecca grabbed Windex and paper towels from under the sink and went back to the living room.
Naomi plunked onto the couch with the baby and smiled. “Atlas.”
“Bingo.”
“Shoot away. I love talking about my brother-in-law.”
Rebecca started dusting the shelves, her back to Naomi. “Well. He’s really kind. And gentle. And silly. And funny. And sweet.” Each new attribute she listed was accompanied by a swipe of the paper towel. She felt, in a way, that she was grinding her feelings for him into her work.
Rebecca fell silent and after a moment, Naomi cut in. “Bex, why don’t you tell me something I don’t know about Atlas. Like how you feel about him?”
Rebecca turned, pressed her back to the bookshelf and kind of sagged down. “I’m totally and completely screwed up over him.”
“I knew it!” Naomi shrieked, throwing her hands in the air in triumph. Brooke, balanced on her lap, did the exact same motion, tossing her little chubby fists in the air. The women both laughed.
“How did you know?” Rebecca asked quietly. She’d never really talked about this kind of thing before. She hoped she was doing it right.
“Mmm, it’s just the way you are around one another. You’re so in tune with each other. Like you’re two parts of one thing. Besides, what woman could keep her wits about her when a man like Atlas Bone has his eye on her?”
“You think he has his eye on me?” Rebecca bit her lip. She’d had her own suspicions, but it was another matter entirely to have it independently confirmed.
“Are you joking, Bex? The man would crawl for you. It couldn’t be more obvious.”
Bex looked up in time to see Brooke give her the exact same look that Naomi was giving her. Serious and humorous and come on, all wrapped up into one. Rebecca couldn’t help but laugh.
“The thing is… I’m not exactly a relationship kind of person.” Understatement of the millennium. “And we live together. So, it could be really bad.”
“Right,” Naomi said with a nod. “I see what you mean. But I guess you won’t know until you try? I don’t know. I’m such an optimist about these things that I’m probably not the right person to ask. I’d get someone else’s opinion to balance mine out. Someone who’d have a different take than me. Maybe… Geo?”
“Geo,” Rebecca said at the exact same time.
The women laughed again. There certainly was no one on earth who felt more differently than Naomi on most matters.
“No,” Rebecca said with a shake of her head. “I don’t want to tell anyone else. I’m not going to act on it. There’s no reason to.”
“Except, of course, love and marriage and babies in the baby carriage.”
“No,” Rebecca said again, even more firmly this time. “That’s really not in the cards for me. Like I said, there’s no reason to start something I can’t finish, you know?”
Naomi fell quiet and Rebecca could only help but fill in the unspoken question. Why bring it up if she was just going to turn away?
“I think… I think I just needed to tell someone. Because I’m not going to tell him. I just—he makes me feel so many things. So many big things. That I’ve never really felt before. And I just felt like I had to tell someone before all those feelings made me do something stupid. I felt like I had to take the extra air out of the tires, you know?”
When Rebecca looked up from the shelves she’d just continued to dust, Naomi was staring at her with such sadness in her eyes. “I’m never going to turn you away if you need a sounding board, Bex. But I wish you’d give this as much thought as you can. Because Atlas is a winner. Those boys, they got the short end of the stick on a lot of life. But they’re both so long in the heart department. Seriously. You’re never going to meet someone who loves harder than Sequence and Atlas. And with Atlas in particular? He might be silly. But he’s the most loyal person I’ve ever met in my life. Once you’re in with him, you can’t shake him. He’s on you like those fish thingies that cling to those certain kinds of sharks. And from what I can tell, you’re in with him, Bex. You’re majorly in with him.”
***
Rebecca stayed and helped get the house in order for another hour, and she was grateful when the conversation turned to lighter topics.
But the whole time, in the back of her mind, Atlas was present. He was like the sound of the ocean on the beach. You could have a conversation or listen to music, but always in the background is the sound of the ocean.
Always in the background were thoughts of Atlas.
Part of her wished that she could tell Naomi the whole truth. There were a few major reasons that this thing with Atlas didn’t have the legs to make it. For starters, Rebecca was a literal fugitive. Wanted for questioning. Next in line was the fact that she was almost positive there was a murderer searching for her. And last but certainly not least, she absolutely hated being touched.
A real catch, right?
Not-so much-o.
She’d hoped that telling someone about her feelings for Atlas would help alleviate them a little bit. But, as she crossed the hall back to Atlas’s apartment, she worried that it might have just given those feelings more room to grow. She’d been trying to let them out into the wild, where they’d run away and leave her alone, but instead, she’d just fed and watered them. She worried those feelings were staying for good.
It was the fact that he’d told her the truth about watching her dance that had really done it. If there was another man on earth who would have come clean, she hadn’t met him. Not only did he tell the truth about knowing her secret, he also didn’t stay to watch her whole dance. That’s the part that really got her
. Maybe it was the lifetime of working in a strip club, but she didn’t think that men were physically capable of looking away from a pole dance.
She’d thought she could probably keep a cap on her feelings until she’d found herself invited into his bed. With a freaking pillow barrier.
Like they were at a sleepover.
She’d slept lightly, waiting for the moment when he’d breach the barrier, when his hands would snake all over her. When payment would come due.
That moment hadn’t come. He’d kept his hands to himself. Even when he’d woken up to find her staring at him. Even when it was her own hand in his hair. Even when she’d worn his sweatpants to make him breakfast. At the time, she hadn’t thought of that little move as a test. But maybe it was?
Maybe she was testing Atlas’s resolve to give her space? Every man had a breaking point. And the sooner she found Atlas’s the sooner she could get rid of this pesky crush on him.
She just wished he weren’t quite so… handsome wasn’t the right word. His brother was handsome. Sequence was more serious, more lined, more neat in his appearance. But Atlas was so goofy with that big ole grin and too-long hair. Even after his trim. It gave his face such a friendly attractiveness.
It was disarming. And Rebecca highly preferred to be armed.
She pushed in through the front door and saw Atlas’s work shoes in the shoe basket. “Hello?”
“In here,” he called from the living room.
Rebecca steeled herself for seeing him. He was going to be attractive. She was going to have a swoop of feeling when she laid eyes on him. She was going to get dizzy and a little silly. The end. No big deal.
But she frowned when she saw him sitting in the armchair, his elbows on his knees, a big yellow envelope in his hands. He didn’t look like himself. If not for the laugh lines at his eyes and mouth, he might have been his serious twin. She’d never seen him so sad. Or so somber.
“Are you all right?” She lowered herself to the couch.
“No. I’m not.” He scraped a hand over his face, tugging at his beard. When his eyes hit hers again, it was almost like he beamed words straight into her brain. Like they didn’t even have to talk for her to suddenly understand what the hell he was so upset about.
“You know. You know about me. About my record.” Her voice was hollow and defeated. When she’d pictured this moment, she’d thought that she would be scrambling away. Grabbing her essentials and hitting the road as fast she could. But now that it had come, she only felt tired. And slow. And so freaking sad. She slumped forward and rested her forehead on the heel of her hand. She couldn’t even look at him.
“I know some things. But not all.”
She slowly stood. “I’ll just get my things together and then I’m gone. I’m so sorry, Atlas. I’m so sorry I put you in this mess.”
“Bex—”
“I’ll never be able to thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me. But someday I’ll repay you. I swear. I’ll find a way.”
“Bex—”
“I wish things had been different. I wish I’d met you under different circumstance. I wish—”
“Bex!” He leaned across the coffee table and shoved the envelope into her hands. “Open that.”
Bex, with shaking hands, opened the envelope. She peeked inside, expecting paper, but there was just one small rectangle in the corner of the large envelope. She dug her hand in and came up with a plastic card.
She turned the card over and lost all the breath in her chest.
It was a New York state ID. With her picture. And Atlas’s address. And the name Bex Bone at the top.
“Bex Bone,” she murmured.
“I know,” he half laughed in chagrin. “It totally sounds made up. But I couldn’t think of anything else to tell the guy.”
“What guy?”
“The fake ID guy.”
“The fake ID guy,” she repeated dimly. Barely understanding.
She turned on her heel and walked briskly out of the room. Once in her bedroom, she closed the door and leaned her back against it. She took a deep breath and looked down at the card again. The envelope fell to the floor as she yanked her door open and strode back into the living room.
Atlas was still sitting in the same defeated pose, sadness in every line of his face.
“Is this for me to use when I’m on the run?” she asked quietly, holding up the ID.
“What? No! No-no-no.” Atlas rose up, jammed his hands in his pockets and then abruptly sat back down. “Bex, that is for you. To keep with you. For the next few weeks while we get this mess sorted out.”
His words seemed to hit her in a random order, echoing as they did. We. Keep. Sorted out. We. We. We.
“What do you mean?” she asked quietly, needing this to be crystal clear.
“Sequence pulled up your rap sheet. And that’s the extent of what I know. But I want to talk to a lawyer. I know a few of them. I’ll go in as your proxy if you want. We’ll figure out the best way to get this all solved, Bex. And in the meantime I can still keep you safe. I just wanted you to have that ID so that while we’re getting this sorted out, you have something to show a cop if you were to get pulled over or something like that.”
Rebecca looked back down at the card in her hand. Seeing it with completely new eyes. He wasn’t getting rid of her. He was trying to keep her. He’d gone out and gotten her this card as a means to keep her just a little bit safer in case the shit hit the fan.
She stared at the picture of herself. It was the same photo as the one on her Jersey ID. How he’d gotten his hands on it, she had no idea.
“Bex,” she whispered, reading the name over and over.
He would never know what this scrap of plastic meant to her. It was her key to the world. With an ID card, she could truly be Bex. It was one more layer of protection that she so desperately needed.
She clutched it to her chest and looked up at him. She couldn’t have even guessed what it was that was on her face at that moment. But surprise crossed Atlas’s face as he watched her. He straightened up suddenly, his nostrils flaring and his eyes falling to her lips.
He looked like he wanted her. And she knew, she knew, that he would never let himself look at her like that unless she was looking at him like that.
Bex lifted a hand to her cheek, as if she could feel the lust on her own face. Was that the way she was looking at him? Was she looking at him like she wanted him?
Did she want him?
The answer rocked through her brain, immediately and resoundingly. Yes. Yes. Yes, she freaking wanted this man who gave so much and didn’t take anything in return. Who wanted to keep her safe at all costs. Who fed her and housed her and made her laugh. Who learned her worst secrets and tried to hold her even tighter than he had before. She wanted him so badly.
Which was why Bex turned on her heel and once again walked directly into her room, closing the door behind her.
She breathed hard. She felt the sharp sting of desire curl in her gut. It was foreign and bizarre. She realized, with a tilt of her whole world, that she’d never actually felt this feeling before. She thought she’d known what it meant to want someone. She’d had boyfriends before and sometimes, in the strip club, a man would be attractive enough to turn her on. But she’d never wanted before.
She held the ID card in her hand, the edges cutting into her skin.
Suddenly she turned and flung her door open again, sprinting back out into the living room.
Atlas was standing again. His head bowed and his hands on his hips, looking deep in thought. His head whipped up when Bex came back into the room.
She took two fast, sharp steps toward him and froze. His nostrils flared. She half expected him to make a joke, a lighthearted comment. She internally begged him to. Wreck this moment. Please. She was terrified and exhilarated and so not in control. She wanted the moment to be shredded so she could get back to her regularly scheduled programming. But for once in his life, Atlas s
tayed quiet. His green eyes were on her face, his chest heaving up and down, the white button down from work unbuttoned at the throat. His hair was twisted off to one side in such an Atlas way that her resolve almost buckled.
She wanted his broad shoulders. She wanted the tattoos on the backs of his hands. She wanted the narrow of his hips, his big, dumb feet.
Bex turned her back to him and walked off the way she’d come. She heard him let out a long, low breath behind her.
And she froze. It reminded her of the way he breathed in his sleep. In his calm sleep where he didn’t touch her and let her sleep on one side of the bed like she didn’t owe him a goddamn thing.
She whipped back around and didn’t let anything stop her this time. Atlas’s eyes rounded, his face broke into a smile, his nostrils flared again as Bex sprinted across the room and launched herself into Atlas’s arms.
Her legs went around his waist, his hands came to her ass, her arms around his neck as she slammed her mouth to his. He immediately softened the kiss, lessened the pressure, up-kicked the slide, drowned her in warmth. His beard scratched at her, but it was softer than she’d thought. He was so much softer than she’d thought.
This was nothing like any kiss she’d ever had in her life. She dimly wondered why he wasn’t jamming his tongue in her mouth. Why she wasn’t flat on her back already. Why he wasn’t tugging at her clothes.
But those thoughts were erased by the flavor of him. Spicy and human. Unaltered by anything synthetic. He kissed at her bottom lip over and over, their chins meeting. His eyes were half-closed, focused down on her mouth as he opened his mouth a little further, the next kiss at her lip turning into just the barest suck as he drew her into him.
There was a helpless sound on the air around them. Had that come from her? Oh, god. It had. She was suddenly terrified that he was going to stop. Her fingers found their way to the collar of his shirt and she gripped him to her. Her legs tightened hard around his waist, she pushed their faces together so hard their teeth clicked.
Rook Security Complete Series Page 65