Rook Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “You make it sound like a bad thing, Bex. You make me sound like a fucking pervert for loving you. I’m not a bad man!” He stood up and paced all the way to the far wall of the kitchen, avoiding the glass on the floor and slamming his back against the wall like he was gluing himself there. “Do I want you? All of you? Goddamn right I do. But not so that I can destroy you. I don’t want to take you to my creepy masculinity lab and pick you apart piece by piece. I’m not waiting for the chance to strike. I’m waiting for you to be comfortable stepping closer to me. Because I won’t take what’s not given. I’m never going to take what you don’t want to give me, okay? I don’t want to wreck you, Bex. I want to cherish you.”

  He slid down the wall and scrubbed his hands over his face.

  Rebecca had had a few of these particular moments in her life. In her head, she called them mountain moments. Where she felt as if she was standing at the top of a mountain and there was no air left in her lungs. And everything depended on which way she collapsed. Which side of the mountain she tumbled down.

  The first mountain moment had been right after her mother had died. After avoiding Child Protective Services for the entire summer, she’d stood outside her high school, wanting so badly to go in and be a normal kid. But she’d known that if she did, she’d get picked up and plugged into the system. She’d be in a foster home by sundown. That day she didn’t go down that side of the mountain. Nope, that day, she hid in her friend’s basement and found herself running until she was eighteen.

  Her second mountain moment had been the day that Jeff Mather had first seen her strip. He’d wanted her. So badly. It was the first time anyone had ever looked at her like he might die if he didn’t get close to her. She didn’t know yet that men felt that way about women for lots of reasons. And usually, it didn’t mean love. She’d been scared and unsure and she’d closed her eyes and fell off the mountaintop right into his arms. And then she was trapped. For years.

  She’d had a few other moments just like that. Where everything was confusing, where she couldn’t summit the mountain another second. Where she was going to die without air. Where she knew she couldn’t thread the needle for another second. She had to pick one side of the mountain or the other. And let herself tumble.

  Stay with Atlas or go. Stay with Atlas or go. Stay or go. Stay. Go.

  It was as simple as that.

  She knew in her heart, looking at this gorgeous man gripping at his hair like a lifeline, his chest barreling up and down, that she couldn’t stay here if she knew she was going to leave. She couldn’t have both anymore. She couldn’t do that to Atlas. She either had to stay or to go. Mountaintop.

  Rebecca, shaking, set the last glass down. She didn’t want to smash anything anymore. She wanted to turn off all the lights and sleep. She wanted to reverse time so that she could have met Atlas when she was a teenager and not damaged yet.

  She wanted, so badly, to only want him and not fear him.

  His words banged around in her head almost painfully. Cherish. Love. Closer. Waiting. Love. Love. Love.

  “I’m bleeding,” she whispered, looking down at where some glass had ricocheted off her shins.

  She didn’t look up when she heard him stand. Or when she heard him cross the room to her.

  “Come on,” he said, gesturing for her to follow him.

  She did. She followed him down the hall and into his bedroom. She followed him into his bathroom and boosted herself up onto the counter. She knew what he was about to do. And she held perfectly still for it.

  Atlas wetted a washcloth and pulled out a first aid kit before he knelt down in front of her. Carefully, he pulled off her shoes and socks. Using absolutely minimal touching, he started to clean her wounds.

  “These aren’t bad,” he reassured her, covering her with a few band aids.

  When he was done, he washed his hands at the sink and their shoulders brushed. She stayed on the counter, her eyes on the floor.

  “What if I can’t?” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “What if I try to be closer to you and I can’t?”

  She could feel his eyes on the side of her face. “All I’m asking is for you to try.”

  She was so slumped, her chin was almost on her chest. “It’s not going to be fun for you, Atlas. I’m not good at getting touched. I don’t like it.”

  He was quiet for a long time. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I don’t like it when men touch me. At all.”

  “I’m not men, Bex. I’m just me. Just Atlas.”

  “I know,” she whispered. Her words were more breath than voice. “But what if we try and I can’t do it? And even though it’s you, I still hate it?”

  He shifted back so that he was leaning against the far wall and Rebecca was starting to understand that he did that in order to keep from reaching for her.

  “I’m confused at what we’re talking about here.”

  “Atlas, you’re saying that you want to have a relationship with me, right?”

  She looked up in time to see a handful of emotions skittering across his face. Sincerity, fear, nerves, elation all had their turn before he nodded his head.

  She figured that there was no reason to hold back now. She had to make this clear for him. If she left anything out, she risked hurting him even more. He had to know what he was asking for. He had to understand what he was trying so hard to get them into.

  “Well, you’re asking to have a relationship with a woman who can’t stand to be touched. I hate it. I hate cuddling. I hate holding hands. I hate, hate, hate sex. How could you ever possibly be happy with me? We’d be doomed from the start!”

  “Bex…” He had a surprisingly humored expression on his face.

  She realized that he wasn’t taking this seriously at all. “Atlas, what happens when we decide to get all soft and sweet with each other? We catch feelings and get messy and then, well would you look at that, Bex still doesn’t want to touch you. You know what you’re gonna do? You’re gonna dump me and move on and it’ll be too fucking awkward to keep living together. And then I’m out on my ass! You think I’d possibly risk that?”

  She’d never seen Atlas angry before. She was certain of it because she’d have remembered that expression. His face was suddenly all hard lines and fire. He strode out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. From where she was sitting, she watched him pick up a pillow from the bed, hold it over his face and scream into it. Then he set it back on the bed and came back, filling up the doorway like he always did.

  “For the love of God, Bex, what do you think of me? You think I’d kick you out over some stilted sex?”

  “No, I—”

  “You think the only way I’ll take you is if you’re easily packaged and no trouble at all? I want your fucking trouble. I want the hard stuff!” He strode away and then back again. “But that’s not even the issue right now. The issue is you thinking that the only reason I’m kind to you is because I want to get you into bed. That is so far from the truth it’s laughable. Actually, laughable implies that this is funny. And it is so the opposite of funny. It’s so far from the truth it’s cryable. How’s that? You thinking that makes me want to fucking cry. Look, you’re special and all. The most special. But me taking care of you and giving you a place to stay and being nice to you? That’s because—newsflash—I’m a good person!”

  He was still pacing around, his hands in his hair and his elbows knocking into the walls, the doorframe. She’d never seen him so worked up.

  “Here’s a fact, Bex. When I first convinced you to live here? I wasn’t attracted to you. I wanted nothing more than to make sure you were okay. You were just my cleaning lady with a black eye and, even then, I was giving up my nights and weekends, my guest room, as much food as I could get you to eat. Even then, I wanted you to stay here, no strings. You could have been a man, you could have been sixty-five years old, you could have been half woman-half panda bear and I’d still have d
one all this shit for you. Why? Say it with me now: Because Atlas Bone is not the devil. I’m a good person, Bex. A good person who happens to want you so bad I can’t sleep at night.”

  The bathroom echoed with his panted breaths.

  “You weren’t attracted to me when I moved in?” Of all the things he had just said, that was the one that clanging around in her head. That was the one thing that was giving her just a glimmer of hope.

  He grimaced and leaned back out of the doorframe, balancing his weight. “I’m sorry, but no. You were so skinny and scared and all bruised up and that hair…”

  They both laughed for a second, but it wasn’t enough to cut the tension.

  A long minute passed. Too long, she could tell. But still, he was waiting there, waiting for her to respond to all of this. “You’re saying that even if we gave this thing a try and we failed… you still wouldn’t kick me out?”

  “I am never, ever going to kick you out. Never.” He paced away from her. “I can feel you over there, thinking that I’m naively hyperbolizing. But I’m not. There is nothing you could do that would make me kick you out.”

  “Atlas—”

  “I’m being serious, Bex. You could intentionally overflow the bathtub fifty times in a row. Not gonna kick you out.”

  She snorted.

  “You could start listening to death metal on high volume at four am. Not gonna kick you out.”

  She snorted again. “You’re talking about me being a bad roommate. I’m talking about things being awkward between the two of us on a personal level. Those are the things that are gonna make this whole thing come crashing down!”

  “Fine. Fine, you want personal awkwardness examples? How do I make this clear to you? Bex, I could walk in on you doing some other dude on our couch and I still wouldn’t kick you out.”

  She leaned back from him, her heart racing. “I—”

  “You could cheat on me, dump me, fuck me over in every imaginable way and I wouldn’t kick you out.”

  “What?” How could that possibly be true? But, she could see from that familiar, earnest look on his face that it was absolutely true.

  “I’m not saying that things would be perfect, that I’m a saint or could forgive you anything. I don’t know. I’d probably work on getting you set up in another place immediately. But what I am saying is… let me just say what we’re really talking about here.” He took a deep breath. “There is nothing that could happen between the two of us that will make you homeless again.”

  She stared at him and knew it was too late for her. The decision was already made. She was tumbling down the mountaintop. Getting away from Atlas now would mean fighting gravity. It would mean scaling that entire mountain again. And all for what? To lose him permanently? It would be a crime against nature. She couldn’t do it.

  “I will never let you be homeless again,” he whispered vehemently, his chest filling up with air and collapsing as he let it all back out. “Never. If we don’t see each other for twenty years and then I find out you’re homeless one day? I’m coming to get you. To pick you up. I would never be so selfish as to let hurt feelings get in the way of your personal safety. Never.”

  Rebecca covered her face in her hands. “Mountain moment,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  When she dropped her hands to her knees, they were wet with her tears.

  “Bex—”

  “I’m staying.” She pushed off the counter and walked to him on wobbly, fawn-like legs. Like a baby giraffe squinting across the sunny world for the very first time. “Don’t say anything else, Atlas. I’ll explode if you do. I’m staying, okay? I’m here.”

  He met her halfway across the bathroom, his hands coming up to wrap around her, but he seemed to think better of it and let them fall to his own waist. She took handfuls of his shirt to steady herself and jammed her forehead into his sternum.

  “Baby—”

  “Not another word, I’m serious. I know that talking is like breathing to you and you understand the world by talking about it. But I feel like I just fell off a mountain and I’m spinning and dizzy and trying like hell to make my peace with all this. So, shhhhhh. I’m staying. With you. With you. The end. Curtains.”

  He waited a long moment and when Bex tipped her head back to look at him, it was to see his lips jammed together in a tense line, his brow furrowed, his hair falling into his forehead. She could practically see the questions fighting their way out of his mouth. He looked like he was going to pass out from the effort of keeping quiet.

  She couldn’t help but laugh and press her tearstained face into his chest again. “Fine,” she told him. “One question. That’s all. You get one question.”

  “All right.” He bounced on his toes. “If it’s just one then I have to think about how to ask this.”

  “Atlas…”

  “Got it. Will you be my girlfriend?”

  Because her face was turned into his shirt and he couldn’t see her expression, Rebecca let herself do whatever came natural. And what came natural was a painful smile, more tears, fear and intensity and confusion all at once. Her face hurt.

  She spoke directly into the barrel of his chest. “You seriously want a girlfriend who might never sleep with you?”

  “I want you. The end. Curtains.”

  She sighed heavily. She’d thought she’d tumbled down the mountain all the way to the steady ground, but now she realized that she had a hell of a lot more tumbling to go. “Okay. I’m in.”

  He bounced on his toes again and this time, when she looked up at him, his face was radiant. There was nothing complicated about his expression at all. It was pure happiness.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  They fell asleep fully clothed that night. They were both completely exhausted from the emotional ocean they’d just crossed and both of them slept like the dead.

  When Rebecca woke the next morning, it was to see Atlas sitting on the edge of the bed, scrubbing one hand over his face as he dragged himself into the world of the living.

  “Are you headed to work?” she asked.

  He jolted at her voice and turned, a small smile on his face. On his knuckles, he dragged himself halfway across the bed and rubbed his forehead across hers. She yawned and smiled and laid still for his amorousness. She was grateful he wasn’t using his hands or trying to kiss her. She still felt raw from the night before.

  “I’m actually taking the day off. But I’m headed in for a few hours just to talk with Rook.”

  “About me,” she filled in the blanks. “Because I’m in danger and you want Rook to protect me.”

  “Because you’re my girlfriend and I’ll do whatever I have to to keep you safe.”

  Rebecca sighed. “You’re pretty much made of strings.”

  “What?” He pushed up onto his elbow and eyed her in confusion.

  “You know the phrase no strings attached? You’re nothing but strings. If I want you, I gotta take the whole dang package, don’t I?”

  He grinned. “Every last string. Even the lint.”

  She smiled too, but she was still worried. She was worried that Rook was going to turn her in to the cops. She was worried that she’d never be able to be normal. She worried because she wanted to touch Atlas so damn badly and had no idea how to do it.

  “When will you be back?”

  “A few hours. Then Naomi invited a bunch of us over for dinner. Wanna go?”

  Rebecca nodded. “I already told her I would.”

  “Are you working today?”

  She nodded, marveling at how domestic this conversation was. At how normal this all was. Having a morning conversation in bed with her boyfriend. How odd.

  “My first class at May’s.”

  “Jesus. What time? Can I come watch? You’re going to blow them away. Seriously, every single woman in that class is going to consider leaving their husbands for you. Working the pole is your superhero talent. And in your fancy new dance clothes? It’s gonna be a bloodbat
h. Seriously. Hummina Hummina. There’s gonna be, like, Cupid’s arrows flying every which way. I’m telling y—”

  Rebecca, smiling and rolling her eyes, placed her hand over Atlas’s mouth. “Shut up now, baby.”

  His eyes grew large and soft, she felt him kiss the palm of her hand. “You called me baby,” he said, all muffled.

  “I’m gonna do it again, so get your seatbelt on: Baby, you can not come to my first ever class. I’m nervous enough without knowing you’re going to be staring at me like the pervert you are.”

  “It’s not perverted to want to watch your girlfriend wiggle around in skin-tights.”

  She shivered and, as they held one another’s eyes, their gazes slowly heated. She pulled her hand back from his face, tingling where she’d been touching him.

  “You don’t want to be late,” she whispered.

  “Yes, I do.” He pushed into her space but didn’t touch her. His eyes bounced back and forth between hers. “I really, really do.”

  “Atlas,” she whispered nervously, her heart starting to sprint in her chest. It was too much. His warmth, the fire in his eyes, his affection for her. She felt like she was going to burn to a crisp.

  “Bex.”

  He was waiting. Waiting for her to make the move.

  She rolled backward out of bed and to her feet. She grabbed one of her elbows and blinked at him. He held still from the bed and watched her, obviously attempting to bank some of the blatant lust in his eyes.

  He was just started to roll away when she spoke, freezing him in place.

  “Wanting you is like trying to grab something out of a bonfire without burning myself.”

  He looked up at her from the edge of the bed, waiting for her to clarify.

  “I know you won’t burn me, Atlas. But the fire will. I don’t know how to get to you without…”