Rook Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  Apparently Atlas knew exactly what he wanted to do. He started laughing, covering his face with his hands and grinning. He lifted his fists into the air and rolled his wrists. “It was hot to get tied up. But I gotta say, feels good to be free. Makes me wanna dance.” An idea lit his eyes, a secret smile on his lips. “Makes me wanna dance for you.”

  Fully naked, he hopped out of bed and over to a sound system that she’d never noticed before. He beeped a few buttons and then music was coming out of the speakers.

  “You already danced for me tonight,” she told him.

  “When?”

  “With Brookie.”

  “Oh.” Understanding dawned. “Ohhhhhh. You saw me dance with the baby, thought it was cute and that’s why you jumped my bones like it was your last day on earth.”

  “That might have had something to do with it.” It had had everything to do with it. Never before had a visual impacted her so intensely. Bex had been seized with the instant and intense desire to make a baby with him. She was on birth control, so, not an option. But still. She’d looked at Atlas dancing like a fool in order to make a baby laugh and she’d realized that she wanted him. In all ways.

  Her desire for him was so strong that she felt she might be able to override her fears, just for a little while.

  “Let’s see if my dance moves can’t make you horny again, shall we?” Butt naked, a silly grin on his face, Atlas did his best Justin Bieber impression.

  Bex laughed and groaned. “No dancing. Eating.”

  She lifted up onto her knees and held her arms out to him. “Feed me.”

  Something softened in his eyes and he immediately strode to her. She was overcome with the intuition that she could, at any time or any place, lift her arms to Atlas and he would come to her.

  She looped her arms around his neck and surprised him with her legs around his waist. “Feed me,” she commanded.

  He kissed her all the way to the kitchen and then laughed when she hissed at the cold counter under her ass.

  “This is so unsanitary,” she frowned.

  He grabbed a dishtowel, lifted her with one arm and set her back on it. Then he picked up a carton of left over dumplings from the fridge and settled himself back between her legs, her breasts pressed against his back and her arms around his neck. He took a dumpling for himself and passed one back.

  They ate in companionable silence for a moment and she allowed herself to replay the events of the last hour in glorious slow motion. She was grateful that he was facing away from her and part of her wondered if he’d planned that. He seemed to understand her needs better than she did at times.

  “Were you a horse whisperer in another life or something?”

  He laughed and handed another dumpling back to her. “Not to my knowledge, baby. Why?”

  “Because no one has ever calmed me down like that before. I really thought I was on a one-way train to a freak-out.”

  “I was just soft and sweet with you, is all.”

  They went quiet until he spoke again.

  “I love you, Bex.”

  She froze and he tipped his head back to rest on her shoulder, looking up at her.

  “Oh my god,” she mumbled, tears in her eyes and her mouth full of dumpling.

  He bolted upright and twisted around, glory and joy on his face. “You talked to me with food in your mouth. Baby! You showed me your see-food. Oh my god!” He took her by the chin. “Do it again!”

  She swallowed pointedly. “No, you freak.”

  “It just means that you’re comfortable with me now. It means that you aren’t trying to hide in plain sight anymore!” He took her chin and kissed her hard.

  She smiled but her eyes went abruptly sad. “This isn’t over. You know that, right?”

  He took the opportunity to slide his palms around her back and hold her. “You mean that one night of sex with me hasn’t magically cured you of every fear and issue with your past? You’ve gotta be kidding me! I want a refund!”

  Bex laughed and rolled her eyes. “I’m serious, Atlas. What just happened was amazing. Incredible. The most— the best— the—”

  “Go on.” He fluttered his eyelashes and made her laugh again.

  “What just happened was a perfect miracle. But there’s no telling what happens next. What’ll we do in two weeks when you try to spoon me in the night and I sock you?”

  “We’ll deal with it when we get there. Together.” His face was suddenly much more serious than she’d ever seen it before. “And Bex, in the meantime, I really hope you’ll consider therapy. I know that there is stigma against it, but seriously, it’s saved my life over the last few years.”

  “You go to therapy, huh?”

  “Not regularly anymore. But for a few years, yeah. Honestly, I don’t know if I would have been able to pursue you this way if not for the therapy. All those sessions, they helped me realize who I am and what I’m worth. I want you to have the same experience.”

  She dropped her eyes to her hands. “I’m not against it, really. I just… Atlas, I could barely afford to buy myself Band-aids if I’d chopped a finger off. The idea of paying for therapy is just something I’m gonna have to wrap my head around.”

  “Well, you’ll have a lot more money now that you’re working for May. And soon, you’ll have your identity back, so we’ll be able to get you insurance. And if you’re not eligible for some kind of plan, then we’ll get you on the Rook Securities plan, all right?”

  She gulped, her eyes misting. “You really think I’ll be safe? I’ll be able to be out in the world as me? No hiding?”

  “Baby, we’re going to protect you so good you could walk down the street naked and nobody would even be able to snap a picture.”

  She laughed again, this time in a watery way. “I’ll be sad to have to retire my fake ID. I liked being Bex Bone.”

  His eyes warmed and his hands got even more familiar with her. “You can be Bex Bone any time you want. Maybe someday it’ll be legal.”

  Her breath caught hard in her chest as she blinked up at him. “I hope so,” she whispered. “But for a while I think I should be Rebecca Beth again. Try to figure out her life.”

  “Rebecca Beth,” he whispered, his eyes dilating as he tugged her even closer. “It suits you. Two sweet first names instead of some dumb last name.”

  “You didn’t know? I thought for sure you knew by now.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t want to know until you told me.”

  Their lips met again and her legs twined around Atlas’s waist. He found her with his fingers first, tracing her softness, pressing into her heat. She gasped and moaned when his thumb drew a circle around her clit.

  “Now,” she begged him, lifting her hips forward and clawing against his back.

  Atlas tried to slide into her slowly but her heels on his back proved lethal. She practically impaled herself onto him. Her body was already clamping hard around him and she was gasping into his mouth. They rode each other hard and fast and she ground out her orgasm against his pubic bone. He followed moments later, pushing himself as deep as he could, his forehead pressed against hers.

  “Bex,” he said against her lips. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My real name isn’t Atlas.”

  She pulled away from him, her eyes wide, a smile on her lips.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah, this old lady who lived next door and used to babysit us renamed us Sequence and Atlas.”

  “Because you used to hold the whole world on your shoulders?”

  He laughed. “That would have been cooler but no. Sequence was because he used to play all these old number games she had laying around. And Atlas was because I used to play with the old—”

  “Atlas she had laying around.” She grinned and brought her smiling mouth back to his. “What’s your real name, then?”

  He cleared his throat. “Adam.”

  Her he
art clamped down on the new piece of information. She loved it. “Adam,” she whispered against his lips. Like it was a word in a secret language that only the two of them knew.

  “Adam and Rebecca,” he whispered back.

  “They sound so normal.”

  “They are,” he replied, and then lifted her off the counter by her ass. “And they’re about to go get freaky again.”

  ***

  One Month Later

  Rebecca had chewed her lipstick off again. She could see the ravaged, pale landscape of her lips in the milky reflection thrown at her from the car window. Her stomach flipped hard as they passed into the city limits of Atlantic City.

  A hand found its way to her shoulder and Rebecca turned to smile at Geo. She wished it would be Atlas’s hand on her shoulder, but he had proven to be extremely professional while he was on duty as her bodyguard.

  But his eyes were on her, as he sat strapped into the jump seat across from her. Next to him, Cedric looked out the window, watching the landscape pass them by. Rook sat in the front seat of the SUV and Sequence drove.

  Rebecca didn’t know if it reassured her or freaked her out that they all found it necessary to be there with her.

  She’d gotten to know all the members of Rook Security quite well over the last month, and especially the last two weeks, when they’d all been living under one roof. The roof of the Rook Securities bunker.

  After mountains of paperwork, false alarms, and Rook calling in favor after favor, Rebecca finally had her meeting with the Atlantic City detective who was working the Mather and Ball murder cases.

  She’d had many conversations with him on the phone over the last two weeks. And now, she was going in to make her full statement, about both murders, on the record.

  It was a closed door hearing. It would last hours.

  And when it was all over, she would officially be on the record as a snitch against James Roderick Jr.

  As they started to wind through the city streets of Atlantic City, emotions got the best of Rebecca, and for a moment, she buried her face in her hands.

  It had taken a great many conversations before Rook had been able to convince her that she’d be safer if she followed through with this plan than if she just kept hiding.

  He was firmly of the idea that Rook Securities could protect Rebecca Beth. But not Bex Bone. Bex Bone was a liability to Atlas. Bex Bone could never have healthcare, or get married, or leave the country.

  Rebecca Beth had a future, he told her. Rebecca Beth was worth fighting for. Rebecca Beth wasn’t going to be wiped from the face of the earth out of fear of one thug who deserved to be in jail.

  It was for all of those reasons that she’d first talked to the detective. Who’d promptly informed her that she was no longer viewed as a person of interest in either murder case. He’d wanted her to fill in some of the blanks on the timeline of the events of her last few years, but he’d really had a very comprehensive idea of what all had gone down in Rebecca’s life.

  He’d guessed that she’d been living with Jeff Mather since she was minor. That he’d paid for everything in her life in exchange for keeping her close to him. That over the years he’d grown more possessive and more violent. That he’d both hated and loved that she was a stripper. He was obsessed with how good she was at it but punished her when he saw how much pleasure other men got from watching her.

  The detective guessed that she’d been approached by Mark Ball and he’d given her a way out. He’d steal her away from Mather and protect her from him if he ever came around again. She’d told the detective about the day she’d found out that Mather was dead. That she’d sold herself into servitude in exchange for the death of someone.

  She told the detective just how much she’d hated herself after she’d realized what happened. How many months it had taken her to convince herself that she was better than this. It was then that she started to concentrate on paying her debt. If she could just get out from under Mark Ball's thumb. If she could get away from him, she could start over. But that was seeming more and more impossible.

  It was the detective who guessed what she’d witnessed that night in the club. But it was Rebecca who gave him the details. The blunt sound of the stabbing. How long he’d lived, laying on his back. The look in Roderick’s eyes as he’d looked up to see someone had witnessed his crime.

  And then the months and months of running. The starving. The nothing. The no one. One step up from dead.

  She told him everything.

  And then she’d promptly gotten locked up in the bunker.

  Rook trusted the detective, but they all knew that Roderick had people in Atlantic City. There was no telling if the police department was a safe place for information on informants to be lying around. If her name was suddenly connected to the private testimony regarding that murder case, well, they might know she was in Brooklyn.

  Unwilling to risk her safety, and knowing that the hearing was scheduled for two weeks out, Rook and the team had moved her in to the bunker.

  Rebecca had been flabbergasted at the place. How big it was, and how many safety amenities they offered. She was also flabbergasted that it meant that the entire team stayed there with her 24/7. Even Sequence and Cedric, who had partners on the outside, didn’t leave the bunker. They were there, keeping an eye on her, protecting her.

  Rebecca could never have fathomed this kind of support. Since her mother had died, she’d barely had a single person on her team. Now she had all of Rook Securities backing her up.

  And she had Atlas.

  Which was something she kept bright and blasting in her mind as they pulled up into the parking lot of the courthouse: Atlas over the last month.

  Images of him raced through her mind.

  Atlas in bed next to her, sleeping hard with one arm tossed over her hip. Atlas scrambling eggs for her with no shirt on. Atlas sweaty and hugging her against him just to make her squirm and complain. Atlas joining her in the shower. Atlas’s mouth on her breasts, his beard scraping her stomach. Atlas kneeling before her, tossing one of her legs over his shoulder. Atlas absently playing with her hair as he laughed at something on the television. Atlas calling to her from the other room. Atlas pumping into her fast and hard, the bed shaking, his face a mask of pleasure and pain. Atlas telling her he loved her, his mouth against her lips. Atlas grinning when she told him that she loved him.

  Him. Him. Him.

  These were the images that she wanted in her heart when she was about to do the thing that scared her most in her entire life. When she was about to walk into a courthouse and sing like a canary. When she was taking the first steps toward getting her life back.

  She’d have her memories of him in her heart and she’d have the reality of him right beside her.

  Atlas as a bodyguard was formidable and reassuring. His large body shadowed her every step she took, his eyes scanned for danger. He was armed and trained and professional.

  Sequence turned the car off and the Rook Securities team was a blur of action. Cedric and Geo slid out of the car, Rook and Sequence double checked equipment up front. Atlas was about to slide out as well, but Rebecca leaned forward and placed her hand over his.

  It was something that she’d always love, how a simple touch of her hand could still a man of his size. He savored her touch, she knew this. Maybe because she’d been so hesitant to be affectionate for so long, but now, even the brush of her finger against Atlas was enough to have him stopping stock still for her.

  “You all right?” he asked in a low voice.

  “I’m doing this because of you.”

  Sequence and Rook glanced at one another in the front seat, but Rebecca didn’t care that they were there to overhear. She didn’t care anymore. It was true and it didn’t matter who knew it.

  “I told you all those reasons that Rook gave me to come forward and do this. But none of them matter if I don’t have you, Atlas. You are the reason I want my life back. You are giving me something to
fight for. You’re my reason for wanting to live. Not just survive, but really live. This is for you.”

  Atlas held her eyes even as his own got glossy. His hands were like vices over hers. He cleared his throat a few times.

  “Bex, when you know, you know. And you’re it for me. You’re my whole life, okay? I can’t have a life without you having a life. So let’s do each other a favor and get this mess cleared up, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Even though he was technically on duty, Rebecca couldn’t resist giving him one hard kiss. She got more beard than lips and Atlas chased her forward to press the same kind of kiss against her lips.

  “Ready, kids?” Rook asked, his eyes on them in the rearview.

  “I’m ready,” Rebecca said, accepting the quaver in her voice for what it was.

  Geo swung open the door and the group marched into the courthouse.

  ***

  Seven hours later, Rebecca walked out of a room she hoped she’d never see again. She’d been interviewed and re-interviewed. She’d told every single aspect of her story in utterly exhausting detail.

  The room had been surprisingly comfortable. She’d been expecting to sit in one of those rooms you saw on television. With a metal table, a folding chair and a bare lightbulb. A lone glass of water sitting in front of her.

  But no. This room had been like an office and as members of her personal security, Atlas and Rook had been able to sit with her. Her Rook-appointed lawyer had been there as well. A kindly older woman name Bev Overshire that Rebecca had gotten very familiar with over the last month.

  Rebecca had told two different detectives her whole story back to front, answering questions the whole time. They’d brushed out every single detail of her last seven years with fine-toothed combs.

  It had hurt. God, it had hurt to rehash every gory detail.

  But part of her was grateful that this was the way that Atlas was finding out. She wanted him to know what had happened to her. What she’d been through. But if it were left up to her, years would go by and she’d still be locked up like a clam. This way, Atlas knew the whole story and she didn’t have to convince herself to tell him, piece by painful piece.