Rook Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  He laughed. “Well, all those things are true and I still say you were an excellent wife. You don’t get to compliment me and then be mean to yourself in this conversation. You were playing with as much of a handicap as I was. We were kids who didn’t know how to communicate with one another. You were good to me, May. There was more to our marriage than the fighting when it came time for me to leave.”

  “Sometimes I forget that,” she admitted softly. “All the good times.”

  “There were plenty of those.”

  “Yet somehow never enough.”

  He nodded. “I’ll never forget that trip to South Carolina.”

  She grinned and rolled her eyes. “Of course that would be the good time you mention.”

  “And why not?”

  “I’m just saying that we had a lot of wholesome good times as well, but you bring up the vacation where we happened to screw like rabbits four times a day.”

  He laughed. “It was a very good vacation.”

  “That it was.”

  “I wanted to get you pregnant again,” he admitted.

  The smile fell from her lips and she leaned back to get a really good look at his face. Somehow, when they’d been laughing, she’d ended up with her legs over his lap. “Really.”

  “Yeah.” He clamped a hand over her knees to keep her legs from slipping off of him.

  “That’s why you were pawing at me every chance you got?”

  He smirked. “No. I mean, the real reason is that you are so ungodly beautiful and you were mine and I hadn’t seen you in six months. And you were doing that thing with your hair. The braid on the side. And, I don’t know. I wanted you badly. And I also wanted another kid. But I didn’t know how to talk to you about it.”

  “So you just attempted to knock me up?”

  He shrugged sheepishly.

  “I had an IUD at the time, so it was pretty futile.”

  He looked away and grunted. “God, we had such failure to communicate that I didn’t even know if you were on birth control or not. How sad is that?”

  “We were twenty-one and idiots.”

  He grunted again, this time in agreement. “So… if you had an IUD, you must not have wanted another kid?”

  She went quiet for a while and Rook wondered if they’d finally pushed the boundaries of this conversation. They’d had an incredible breakthrough in communication, but it had to be true that at some point, they were going to hit a wall, need a break.

  But she sighed and flopped back on the bed, her legs still across his lap and him leaning slightly over her. “I desperately wanted another kid, Javi. For Ricky, for me, for you. But… not for us, if that makes any sense.” Her eyes traced patterns on the ceiling. “Somehow, I knew that raising another baby while you were deployed would break me. I knew we couldn’t survive it. It felt like I had to choose between a baby and our marriage.”

  “And you chose our marriage.” It was a revelation for him. Besides the day she’d actually married him, he hadn’t seen a ton of ways that May had chosen them. He’d always felt as if he’d gotten very lucky in trapping her. But here was irrefutable evidence that she’d chosen their marriage. That she’d actually wanted it to work.

  She nodded.

  He cleared his throat, his heart thumping in his chest. He couldn’t believe he was about to ask what he was about to ask. “Do you… still want another kid?”

  “I love being a mother.”

  There was a long pause and Rook wondered if he’d pushed the conversation too far. Was this too personal? Were ex-husbands allowed to be privy to this sort of information about their former wives?

  “I…” May continued eventually, her words were a tumbled jumble. Usually so sharp and controlled, even when she let her temper run away with her, she was suddenly seeming lost in her own words, her own desire. “Yes. I would love to have another baby. I’ve always wanted another. Or two more. Or three even. But it’s not right for us. You know? I mean, it would be too much craziness to throw at Ricky. A new baby. Single mom. And then you’d be there, in and out. I think it would be too confusing. Besides, she’s off to college in just a few years. I want to be able to focus on her. And—”

  “May,” Rook said, shifting so that he was facing her. He planted a fist on either side of her hips and leaned over her. He could hardly believe his ears. She was just barely making sense. And he wasn’t sure he was hearing her right. But it sounded suspiciously like… “Are you saying that you don’t want to have another baby because it would mess up our family? What we already have going? Are you choosing us again? Even though…”

  He trailed off, figuring he didn’t need to remind her that they were divorced.

  She somehow managed to look caught and imperious all at once. She sat up on her elbows, bringing their faces closer as he loomed over her. She pulled a face at him. “Are you really telling me that me having a baby wouldn’t supremely fuck up everything we’ve worked to achieve in our divorce? You’d just be fine with coming over and seeing me pregnant with another man’s baby? You’d be fine watching me nurse another man’s baby? Raise another man’s—”

  He clapped a hand over May’s mouth. “Stop saying that.” He shook his head in confusion. He was befuddled by her words, by her softness, by her proximity. He felt as if he’d stumbled into the twilight zone. Somehow, they’d ended telling each other the truth while she lay beneath him on a bed. He straddled her legs and was over top of her on all fours. She was a warm river running underneath him. He could feel the curling heat rising off of her, beckoning to him.

  If they’d been messing around or joking and had ended up in this position, he wouldn’t have been able to stop from kissing her. But as it was, understanding what she was really saying took precedence over every single other thing in the world right then.

  “May, what you’re saying isn’t computing for me. We’re divorced. If you wanted to have someone else’s baby, I would have to stand by and watch. That’s the nature of divorce. I would do my best not to let my insane jealousy and rage destroy the peace we’ve worked so hard for. And I certainly wouldn’t let it affect my relationship with our daughter. But you have to know that, don’t you? That I wouldn’t destroy your happiness out of selfishness?” He searched her eyes. “Yes. You do know it. I can see it. So… if you know that I wouldn’t stop you, then what is stopping you? If you want it so bad then why haven’t you gone out and gotten it?”

  He searched her eyes again, his hand still clamped over her mouth. He knew that he was thinking out loud more than he was truly communicating with her. But when he mined her vulnerable expression and found the truth, it jolted through him like electricity. It hurt. His heart banged like footsteps as he slid the hand he had on her mouth around to cradle the back of her neck. He sat back on his heels and brought her up with him. She was silent and searching his expression as he banded his free arm around her back.

  “It’s you, May,” he whispered reverently. “You’re what’s stopping you in this scenario. Not the idea that it would destroy the peace of our divorce. You’re the one who doesn’t want to have another man’s baby.”

  She ripped her head to one side, avoiding his eyes for the first time in this conversation. She breathed hard, her cheeks going an intriguing shade of pink. He carefully took her chin in one hand and, extremely aware that he was playing with fire, brought her around to face him again.

  “When you think about having another baby… you want it to be mine, don’t you?”

  Rage exploded in her eyes and tears of fury spilled out, tracing down her cheeks and over his hand. She shoved him backwards violently. He let it happen, falling backward on the bed, letting space rush in between them. Space was good right now. He knew this version of her. This was the May that would burn down the world, even if she knew how much she’d regret it in the morning. There was absolutely no controlling this May. But he felt no fear at all. He felt only the pulsing electric wonder that had overtaken him the moment this discove
ry hit his bloodstream.

  “You… you haven’t tried to move on, have you?” he asked quietly. She scrambled off the bed and whirled on him. Her fingers flexing at her sides. She’d only slapped him once before and he absently acknowledged the fact that he was pushing her far enough that it might happen again. But he couldn’t stop himself. “You divorced me, but you haven’t been able to do something that might truly end things. That might drive me away from you for good. You’re still choosing us, aren’t you, baby?”

  “Fuck you,” she whispered.

  And it suddenly occurred to him that he might be telling her something she hadn’t realized yet. This might be a bombshell for both of them. He knew that reaching out for her right then would be deadly. She might scratch them both to death. Nothing to find the next day but ribbons of two former lovers.

  Instead he pivoted and dropped his legs over the edge of her bed. He leaned back on his hands and watched her. Her chest rose and fell viciously. Her hands in fists at her sides.

  “I would do it, you know.” He spoke quietly and cautiously. They were already so far off the cliff with one another, what was a few more moments of brutal, excruciating honesty? “I’d give you another baby in a heartbeat.”

  “Fuck you,” she whispered again.

  “I’m serious, May. I want another kid too. I already admitted that I’ve been wanting another kid since I was twenty-one years old. All you’d have to do is ask and I’d be on my knees for you. I’d do everything I could to get you pregnant again.”

  She laughed and it damn near sent chills down his spine. She sounded cruel and exhausted and furious. “You know that getting pregnant was never the problem, Rook. It was the baby part that almost killed me. I’m sure you’d be thrilled to have another kid you could visit every other weekend, meanwhile I’d be the single mom again.”

  “Careful, May,” he said so sharply that she flinched. They both knew that she’d just crossed a major line. “I know I’m pushing you, and I know that when I push you, you push back. But please don’t insult me for following our custody agreement. Not when you know for a fact that I’d do anything to be with Ricky full time. Anything. If we had another kid—”

  “We’re not having another kid, Rook. Jesus.” She threw her hands in the air. “Were you not present for the epic conversation we just had? The one where we laid out every reason why didn’t work out the first time around?”

  He laughed. “May, I’m pretty sure that conversation just cleared the way for us to work out this time around.” He scraped hands over his face. “We just proved that we’re capable of communicating. And it’s pretty freaking obvious that neither of us is over the other.”

  “We’re divorced,” she hissed, her hands on her hips and her dark eyes sparking with venom and pain and something that looked an awful lot like desire.

  In for a penny. In for a pound. He rose up, thrust his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants and said the scariest sentence he’d ever say in his entire life. “I want to get back together.”

  She stumbled backward from him, shock jolting her body. “You’re insane.”

  He might have stopped, he might have cut his losses, if not for the fact that he read a flash of excitement in her eyes. Desire. Intrigue. Maybe she just wanted him to lay himself out flat so that she could thoroughly stomp him down. Or maybe she truly wanted to hear how much he wanted her. Maybe she needed to hear it. It was a risk to tell this much of the truth, but he was going to take it.

  “I want to get back together,” he repeated firmly.

  “Never,” she immediately spat back at him. But her body apparently disagreed because she took a step closer to him.

  “I want to get back together. I want to talk with you and get to know you again. I want to work problems out with you and care for you. I want to help you with your business and have you help me with mine. I want to send our daughter to college together. I want to kiss you and sleep next to you at night. I want to destroy myself loving you. I want to lose myself in your body. I want to kiss you and lick you. I’ve never wanted anyone else, May. I’m so tired of denying myself. Of pretending I don’t want you endlessly. I want you. I want to get back together.”

  “No,” she whispered. But every single one of his sentiments had lured her another step closer.

  “Let me love you,” he said in that same strong, sure tone that totally belied his Godzilla heart.

  This new set of words seemed to bring her up short. She was standing within reaching distance of him, her eyes bouncing back and forth from his lips to his eyes.

  “May,” he tried one more time. “I want to get back together. Let me fucking love you.”

  “Just for tonight,” she finally whispered.

  He recoiled. “What?”

  “You can love me. But only for tonight,” she repeated firmly. “I’m not getting back together with you, Rook. We got divorced for a reason. You’re horny, I’m horny. Let’s do something about it. But we’re not getting back together.”

  He frowned at her.

  “Take it or leave it,” she prodded. “You can have me tonight or not at all.”

  Her words snapped something inside him. As if she’d been creeping through the woods and accidentally broke a twig under feet. Now he knew where she was. Now he could finally track her in the wilderness of their two broken hearts. And he wasn’t letting her go.

  “Fine,” he agreed, reaching out and banding his arms around her, dragging her closer.

  But her palms landed on his chest, holding her away from him. “Promise me,” she gasped.

  “Promise you what?”

  “That this is just one night.”

  He paused. It went against every fiber of his being, every beat of his heart, to make that promise to her. “Only if you promise me that you won’t hold back from me tonight.”

  “What?”

  “Give me everything tonight, May. Everything. And I’ll leave it at that. I won’t press you for more.” He was looking down at her. His palms were flat against her back and her hands shook against his chest.

  She was weighing her options. He could see just how badly she wanted to say yes. But she was no fool. She knew how hard it was going to be to walk away from him in the morning if they made love the way they used to. With everything they had. With every emotion on the table. Where every single touch meant a hundred million things at once.

  Something hardened in her eyes as he watched. “Deal,” she said.

  He was victorious and beaten at once. She would give him everything one more time. And then he’d have to walk away in the morning. But there was no way he was walking away from her tonight. He’d wanted her for way too long.

  “Deal,” he agreed.

  Then he tangled his hand in her hair, carefully arched her head back and landed his lips on her neck.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  May was hot all over and dizzy. If she didn’t currently have her ex-husband sucking on her neck she might have thought she was ill. She wasn’t ill. Just incredibly, wildly turned on.

  She’d be lying if she said she’d forgotten she could feel this way. Because the truth was that she’d never forgotten. And that was the whole problem.

  She’d never, for the rest of her life, be able to forget that when he scraped those flat, white teeth against her pulse point, her womanhood clamped down onto nothing, hard and uncontrollable. She’d never be able to forget that the heat of his rough hand under the waist of her shirt made her nipples stand tall under her sports bra. She’d never be able to forget that when he spoke muffled words into the curve of her neck, she didn’t need to know what he said, she still felt those words in the cavern of her chest.

  She planted two hands on his chest and pushed him back from her. Her chest heaved with her breath, her eyes were having trouble focusing. She needed a beat, a moment, air.

  “You promised,” he reminded her through gasping breaths. “You said that if we do this you won’t hold back.”


  They were both sitting on the bed, their legs tangled.

  Stay or go.

  Could she really do this? One more night with Rook? One night where they’d finally communicated? Where the bitterness of their past had actually fallen away? The last time they’d had sex had been feral and desperate and right before their divorce papers had gone through.

  Could she really open this door again? It was a door she’d closed, telling herself that it was the only way to save herself, to live the life she really wanted.

  Stay or go.

  May panted, her eyes pinned to his, and that’s when she saw it. He tipped his head back just a touch, just enough for the lamplight to spear under his brow and across his irises. His eyes went from a shadowed black to that ocean blue that destroyed her.

  His secret blues.

  She lunged forward, her soft lips slamming punishingly down on his. He took the intensity of her kiss and softened it before he gave it back to her. His lips were a firm, possessive slide but she could taste his gratitude. He felt lucky to have her on his lap and she could feel it in her bones. It wrecked her.

  She couldn’t help but whimper into his open mouth, the sound of a small animal who senses an earthquake moments before it hits.

  Her fingers trembled as they scrambled after his shirt, grabbing it at the waist and attempting to yank it up his body.

  “Don’t rush me,” he chuckled. “I’m enjoying making out with our clothes on.”

  “I would have thought we did that enough as teenagers to last you a lifetime.”

  “Mmm,” he groaned at the memory, moving his mouth down to that place just under her ear. “That shit still gets me hot when I think about it. Sneaking into your bedroom at night and dry humping for like six hours.”

  He brought his mouth back to hers and swallowed her laughter. “God, how did we have the energy for that? We did it every night for almost a year!”

  “I know how I had the energy. It’s called a perma-boner. And you got sick pleasure from making sure I constantly had one.”

  She laughed again, but it faded away when he rolled onto his back and laid her out over him. This had always been her weakness, being on top of his huge, hot body. All that heat and power beneath her. She straddled him and planted a hand on either side of his head.