Rook Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “What?” she asked. The question had caught her off guard and besides, watching Moreau Davy strip had robbed her of the ability to understand the English language.

  “I’d like to just fall in bed, but if you want, I’ll shower first.”

  “Oh.” She blinked. Bed as in this bed? The one she was currently laying in? “No. That’s fine. It’s your bed anyways.”

  He crossed the room, stopping to pull out his contacts and tossing them in a waste basket. He shoved into the covers, plumping up pillows and rolling to face her. “You were sleeping in your contacts.”

  “Yeah,” she mumbled, still a little shook that Moreau Davy had stripped and gotten into bed with her after a long day at work, like this was all completely normal.

  “You should take them out, baby. I don’t want your eyes to get dry.” His eyes were closing and he was shifting even closer to her. She wore a tank top and joggers under the covers, but she could feel his breath on her shoulder. She did as he said and took out her contacts, then jolted a little when she felt his toes against hers.

  “Easy,” he mumbled against the skin of her shoulder, his eyes lazily falling closed.

  “Moreau,” she said after a minute.

  “Hmm?”

  “Why the hell are you sleeping in my bed?”

  He laughed and perked up a bit, pulling himself back from the edge of sleep. “I’m not sleeping, I’m actually talking. And this is my bed, anyways.”

  “Jesus,” she groaned. “Can either one of us ever truly answer a freaking question?”

  “Can either of us ever truly ask what we mean?” he countered.

  “Fine.” She sliced one hand through the air like she was severing some cosmic tie to an old habit. “You’re right. No more questions. No more dancing around.” She leveled him with a narrowed eye. “And no falling asleep. Because I’m about to say some stuff and this kind of thing doesn’t happen every day.”

  “Savannah,” he interrupted her, stroking a hand gently over her hip, his lips still at her shoulder. “Shhh. Not now, baby. You’re still recovering. We’ll figure everything—”

  “Oh, will you can it, Davy? I’m recovering from a flesh wound, for the record, and yes, we’re going to talk about this right now. No more waiting. No more confusion and no more crossed wires.”

  She turned to him as well as she could without jolting her injury and took a deep breath. Their faces were just a few inches apart from one another. She liked this view of him. He was painfully handsome, but up this close, he also just looked… human. Not quite so famous. He was intimate and personal and hers.

  “I’m in, Davy.” She let out a breath and took another. “I’m in for this. And I have been since the night that you got your splint off. When Wilkes called you to tell you about Rogers. I… I hated watching you walk away on your own, off to get bad news or scary news or whatever the hell that news was going to be. I realized that I really, really wanted to go with you. And not as your personal security. As your… your person. I wanted to be the person who sat there with you. Who made sure you took the news all right. Who helped you figure out what happened next. I don’t just want to be the girl you call when you’ve got an itch that needs scratching. I don’t just want to come see you when I’m horny. I want—”

  She cut off for a moment when Moreau pushed his face forward so that they were forehead to forehead, their noses lined up along one another.

  She forced herself to keep going. “But even then, even when I knew what I wanted, I was still freaked, Moreau. Because my life is a freaking mess. I owe money to bookies. God. I can’t believe I even have to say those words aloud, but it’s true. I’m paying off my father’s debts and I’m paying for his stay in a center for addicts. It’s like an old folks home, but it’s also a kind of rehab. He has a gambling addiction and the only way to keep him from jacking up the bill was basically to get him committed to this place.”

  “Savannah.”

  “No, let me finish. So, I thought, for a long time, that there would never be any point in getting close to somebody because my life was just too screwed up. I mean, come on. I can’t even afford an apartment on my own. Who the hell could I date when I’d have to bring them back to the bunker? But then you come along and the bunker is your home too. How random and crazy is that? That two people who couldn’t be more different both think of the bunker as home. It made me want you even more. But I still couldn’t do that to you, Davy. I couldn’t bring all my debts and the people I owe money to, I couldn’t bring them to your doorstep. How shitty would that be? I’d never forgive myself if I did that to you! So, I was stuck. Wanting you and not letting myself have you. Until Rook gave me this opportunity. Because I had to pose as your girlfriend for the night, he was willing to take on the responsibility of making sure these asshole bookies didn’t start extorting you simply because you were my boyfriend and… yeah.”

  She took a long, deep breath.

  “Yeah,” she repeated. “I really thought that when I told you I’d volunteered for the job, you’d understand what I was really offering you. What I want from you. But—”

  “But our wires were crossed.”

  “I guess so. And now, here we are.”

  Her chest was billowing up and down with her breath and with her adrenaline. Her side was starting to ache.

  “Shhh,” Moreau said, his breath buffeting against her mouth and his hand stroking up and down her uninjured side. His palm was traveling a great, sweeping path. Comforting her all the way up and all the way down.

  Slowly, her breathing regulated, but her heart was still galloping like a pack of wild horses.

  “Where do I start with all of that?” He seemed to be asking the universe.

  She opened her mouth to answer, but he pressed a finger over her lips.

  “No,” he told her. “I know where to start.” He removed his finger from her lips and lightly kissed her before he pulled back far enough that they could see one another. “Wait,” he murmured and slid out of bed. He ruffled through a bag in the corner of the room that she hadn’t seen him set down, she could barely make him out in the corner now that her contacts were out. A moment later, the bed depressed under his weight and he was leaning over her.

  She held still while he took the glasses he’d given her from their place on the nightstand and slid them carefully onto her face. She blinked and grinned when she saw that he was wearing her glasses. He was wearing her Clark Kents and she was wearing his designer specs.

  He settled back into place and smiled at her. “Like I was saying, I know just where to start.” He took a deep breath. “Savannah Georgia, I’m very in love with you. And I have been for almost four years.”

  She took a stuttering breath and just gaped at him. No one had said that to her—ever—in her entire life. She’d been told she was loved by friends before. Her father had said that he loved her maybe twice in her life. But no one had ever stared in her eyes and said it, point-blank, like it was an immutable truth that there was no use arguing with.

  “Moreau—”

  “It’s true. I’ve never met another person like you, Geo. And I’ve met quite a lot of people in my life. You are unfalteringly you no matter what the situation. And as a person who has spent his career pretending to be other people, that is impossibly attractive. You’re strong willed and stubborn and habitually unimpressed with me. It’s very good for me. You also love protecting me. And you always have, even before you could admit that I was worth your time. You’ve always been protective of me. At first, I thought it was just because you were part of the Rook Securities team and Rook only hires the best. But now, I know it is because you have a soft spot for me.”

  She made a noise at that, because she rejected the idea that she had soft spots, but also, if she did have a soft spot, it was definitely for Moreau.

  “Here’s another truth, Savannah. When I held you in my arms in the SUV and saw your hand come away from your stomach all covered in blood? I knew th
en, that I would take you any way I could get you for the rest of my life. If you don’t want to be my girlfriend? I—I’ll just live with it. If you want to hook up a few times a year, that’ll just be what it is. If you simply want someone to call on Christmas? That can be me. Anything you want. I’ll give it to you.”

  “Moreau, you know that I don’t want to just hook up.”

  “Wait,” he said one more time. “There’s more I have to say. And it might make you very mad at me. So I want to say it now, before you make me any promises, yes?”

  “Okay,” she said slowly.

  “Before I fully agreed to the plan of having you pose as my girlfriend on the red carpet, well, Rook explained to me about the men whom you owed money. He explained to me that you were not a ‘risk-free commitment’.” Moreau snorted at the memory and rolled his eyes. “As if I needed anyone to explain that to me.”

  “You knew all that when you agreed to the plan?”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “I did. And, here’s the part where you might be mad at me. Rook and I talked about all the ways to keep them from coming after me for money. He had a few ideas. Some of them were very good. But I had a better idea.”

  His eyes, still beautiful even behind her thick, scratched glasses searched hers. She read the truth in his gaze and his meaning hit her like a dump truck filled with cinderblocks.

  “Davy, you didn’t. You paid them off?”

  “I didn’t pay them off! I… simply paid your father’s debt, with a handsome interest, and had them sign a whole slew of legal documents that basically ensure that they will immediately be arrested if they are ever in our general vicinity again. My lawyers have scared them shitless, I promise.”

  “All that money,” she groaned. “God. It’s gonna take me years to pay you back, Davy.”

  He frowned. “Let’s talk about that later.”

  She glared at him. “You’re going to make it very hard for me to pay you back, aren’t you?”

  He gave her a proud, haughty look. “Savannah, I just gave Joey twelve million dollars for his movie. The money you owed the bookies, that was lunch money for me. Why should I not give that to you?”

  “Wait a second,” she searched his gaze. “You paid that money back when you still thought I didn’t want to be your girlfriend.”

  He nodded. “It wasn’t a down payment, Savannah. I have no desire to purchase your affection for me. I paid that money because I love you, no matter if you love me. And I don’t want you to be indebted to some Jersey City wannabe gangsters who have been upcharging you for your father’s debt. I would have done that for you even if you’d never let me kiss you. Even if you weren’t interested in me in the least.”

  “God.” She rolled back from him and shoved her fingers under her glasses, pressing on her eyes. “You were right. We should have waited to do this.”

  “Why?” He sounded nervous and that made her go even softer for him.

  “Because I got stabbed two days ago and all I want to do is jump your bones right now. But I can’t. Not for at least twelve more days, the doctor said.”

  Moreau laughed, a low, husky laugh filled with relief and joy. “You asked the doctor when you could have sex with me?”

  She shrugged. “I asked her when I could have sex, and because she watches the news, she assumed I was talking about you. I believe her exact words were, ‘girl, I’m gonna get you fixed up so that you can get back on that ASAP. But you have to wait at least two weeks’.”

  Moreau laughed again, shaking his head. “I sure hope I live up to all the hype, Savannah.”

  “Moreau, you know I don’t give a shit about the hype. If you’re terrible in bed, I’ll just whip you into shape, cool?”

  Now he was really laughing, shaking his head and wiping tears of mirth and relief and exhaustion out from under his glasses. “I have no doubts that you will be quite militant if I am not satisfying you.”

  She leaned over and helped him wipe his tears away. She took a good long time tracing her thumbs under his eyes. Then, some of her last walls trembled right down to the ground and she gave herself the gift of allowing herself to trace his perfect nose. She drew a line across his cheeks, scraping his perfect stubble. She skated a fingertip over his lips, down his perfect chin.

  “We just said some very important stuff,” she mused sleepily.

  “Some more important than others,” he said drily, one eyebrow raised.

  “Don’t fish,” she told him sternly, very aware of the deficit that he’d confessed love for her and she hadn’t done the same for him. She wanted to, badly, but she wasn’t quite there yet. She was laid up and in a strange place and had a whole lot to digest.

  He smiled at her and leaned forward to press a kiss to her lips.

  They fell asleep like that; foreheads pressed together, breath between them, hands clasped together.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The next week was the most unusual of Geo’s entire life. She was recovering quickly. Her days were defined by boredom and irritation as she watched Moreau and her team roll out every morning to go shoot Joey’s movie. Her nights were defined by Moreau. She was more than well enough to walk around the house, eat dinner in the kitchen, catch up with the team, but the two of them kept themselves sequestered in his bedroom almost every night.

  And the real kicker? There was zero sex. She was recovering fast, but still needed a little time. No, when they were sequestered in his room, they weren’t sexing, they were–god—whispering sweet nothings to one another. She could barely recognize herself, but there she was, kissing Moreau and breathing his air and telling him everything she liked and wanted and hoped for.

  She hadn’t spent a week not working in almost a decade and she was worried she was going to lose her mind.

  So, on the eighth day, when Moreau and the team still had at least five more days of shooting, she knew she’d had enough.

  She walked into the kitchen at the ass-crack of dawn, when they were all blearily chugging coffee and getting ready to drive out to the set.

  “I want to go back to New York,” she announced.

  Every pair of eyes, excepting hers, slid to Moreau. Hers stayed on Rook.

  “Um.” For the first time since she’d known him, it appeared that Rook was fresh out of words.

  “Why?” Moreau asked, coming around the counter and lacing his hands around her hips, carefully avoiding her injury. It was the first time he’d ever embraced her in front of the team. Obviously, everyone knew that the two of them had been sleeping in the same bed every night, but still, Geo had to force herself not to stiffen.

  “Because I’m going out of my mind waiting around for you all to come home every night. And I’m well enough to go home. If you’re worried, you can send Leary with me if you want.” She directed that last part toward Moreau. “I need to go see my dad. I’ve barely talked to him since all this shit went down. And it affects him too.”

  “Home?” Rook asked carefully. “You mean the bunker?”

  Geo nodded. “I’d like to go back and stay there, if that’s all right.”

  “You wanna stay at the bunker by yourself? That’s some creepy shit,” Atlas butted in. “Why don’t you stay with Bex? We have a guest room.”

  “So does May,” Rook quickly put in. May had left four days ago, but Geo knew it was true that she’d be invited to stay with May and Ricky in a second if it came to that.

  “Elena wouldn’t mind the company,” Cedric said, clearing his throat.

  Geo ducked her head. “That’s kind of you all. Seriously. But… no. I’m not ashamed of it anymore. The bunker is my home right now. Hopefully not forever. But it’s been a hell of a week and I want to go home and get my life in order. Besides, you all won’t be far behind me, right? Filming ends in five more days?”

  “It’s okay with me,” Rook said and then made a bit of a beeline out of the kitchen, quickly, the rest of the group followed suit. That left just Geo and Moreau.

  He chu
ckled and nuzzled her behind her ear. “You’re bored here, my love?”

  “You know I am. And I’m useless. And if I go home, at least I can swing by and see my friends during the day. And my dad.”

  He pulled back from her, a concerned look on his face. “But you won’t spend too much time visiting, will you? You’ll rest?”

  She sucked her teeth to keep from smiling. “Yes, Davy.”

  He hesitated. “I was really hoping to come see your father with you. Alongside you.”

  “Trust me, you’ll get to see plenty of my asshole father when you get back to New York. It’s best if I see him on my own a time or two before I introduce him to my millionaire boyfriend.”

  “Boyfriend,” he whispered, his glee quite apparent. He pressed his smile against hers, even though she was rolling her eyes at the same time. “All right. I’ll arrange for the jet to take you. Although I’ll miss you terribly until I can come be with you again.”

  “Um…” She hadn’t thought about this part yet. “When are you gonna come back to New York?”

  He looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “Five days. The minute we wrap Joey’s movie.”

  She tried not to sag in relief because she didn’t want to be that girl. “You don’t have to rush back, you know. If you have Hollywood stuff you have to figure out. I know you need to hire a new team still—”

  She quieted when he pressed a finger over her lips. “Geo, you’re nuts if you think I’m not going to hurry to wherever you are. Absolutely nuts. Besides, if I’m hiring a new team, I’m going to need you with me. I need your judgment of character. Apparently I’m no good.”

  She had to agree with him on that. He would not be hiring a new assistant, manager, or agent without her meeting them and running a thorough background check into their lives. Her man had been surrounded by wolves for far too long for her liking.

  Not eight hours later, she was on a private jet home. She smirked at the incongruity of taking a private plane to JFK and then taking the airtrain to the LIRR. Neither Moreau or Rook would be happy that she was taking public transport after a day of travel just double digit days past surgery, but what they knew wouldn’t kill them, and besides, her car was parked at the bunker.