Rook Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  His eyes fell on her gloves. “You’re looking very… domestic.”

  She scowled. The beeping on the alarm system intensified. “I was going to clean the kitchen.”

  “It wasn’t clean when you got here? I paid a cleaning crew to come through.”

  She rolled her eyes to the heavens. “Good lord. Of course you did.”

  “Are you going to let me in?”

  She sucked her teeth. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Well, you better decide in the next fifteen seconds or your alarm is going to call the police.”

  She dropped her head back in total irritation and finally flung the door open for him. “Work your magic, Mr. Wizard.”

  He stepped inside and went straight to the alarm system, inputting his fingerprint and stopping the beeping in its tracks. Next, he latched up the door and hung his coat on the hook, kicking off his shoes.

  “Really?” she asked him, hands on her hips.

  “What?”

  “Make yourself at home.”

  “Thought you’d never ask.”

  She scowled at him and started to march away into her living room.

  “Is that pizza I smell?” he asked as he padded after her.

  “You haven’t eaten?”

  He shook his head. She sighed and stalked back into the kitchen. She tossed her rubber gloves onto the counter, scowling the whole time, and grabbed a plate and a beer from the fridge. She came back into the dining room where he sat next to the box of pizza that she and Ricky had eaten out of a few hours before and handed him both items in her hands.

  “Thanks.”

  He served himself a slice and cracked his beer. She took a moment to study him. He looked more than tired. To be honest, he looked a little wrecked. The idea disconcerted her.

  “Why are you here?”

  He looked up at her and she saw it in his face. He didn’t have to say another word. It hit her all like a ton of bricks.

  “Oh.” She put two palms on her cheeks and stared at him. “I’m an idiot. You talked with Gibson this afternoon. And now you’re…” She surveyed him. “Now you’re whatever this is.”

  He laughed at her frank assessment and finished his pizza, pushing the plate back and taking a long drink of beer. “Yeah. I guess you could say that.” He sighed. “Is everything to your liking with the renovation?”

  She dropped her hands and was more than happy to let irritation rush back in. “Yes. It’s beautiful.”

  “And that makes you mad for some reason?”

  “I wouldn’t have minded giving a little input of my own to the contractor.”

  He winced. “I figured you’d keep it the old way just to save a little money. But the kitchen needed some upgrades.”

  She nodded and rose to go get a beer for herself. She surveyed the kitchen again and leaned against the doorjamb on her way out. She eyed Rook who was still sitting at the dining room table, his head lolled back as he studied the ceiling.

  “What made you install that window?”

  His head snapped up and he eyed her warily for a moment. “The stained glass window?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Answer my question and I’ll answer yours.”

  He laughed at her evasive answer. “Having a window box of flowers out the back window wasn’t safe, May. It made it a really easy target for intruders, even if you remembered to lock it every time.”

  She bristled, but he kept going, plowed right on.

  “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want you to have flowers to look at in your kitchen. So, I had my friend make that window.”

  May turned and studied it again. The stained glass design was a little hard to see when it wasn’t lit up by the sun, but upon further inspection she could see that the design looked to be a field of tulips, colorful and bright. Something squeezed in her chest so hard she wasn’t sure if she could ignore it.

  “And tomorrow you can check out the back,” he told her.

  “The back of what?”

  “The house. I had the back stairs fixed and the yard cleared out in case you wanted to put in a garden of your own back there.”

  She blinked at him.

  “But don’t get your hopes up. I haven’t seen it yet so I can’t confirm if it’s worth getting excited over.”

  She blinked some more. “What do you mean you haven’t seen it yet?” Then his words echoed back to her. He’d asked her whether or not the kitchen had been cleaned as if he hadn’t been able to confirm it for himself. “Wait a second. Did you not visit the house after our fight?”

  He somehow managed to scowl and look sheepish all at once. “Maybe you had a point about me being hyper-vigilant. I just went straight to the precinct to see Gibson instead of swinging past the house.”

  “Wow.” She took a long swig of beer and pushed off from the doorway. She moved as if she were going to sit with him in the dining room, but instead veered away and went straight for the living room. She heard him follow after her. She dropped onto the couch and felt him drop beside her. “You listened to me.”

  “You were making sense.”

  “That makes me… happy.” She frowned as she identified the emotion. She would have expected this moment to be layered and complicated. But it really wasn’t. They’d fought, she’d said her piece, and even though he’d left angry, he’d listened to her.

  “I’m glad,” he said softly, sagging back onto the couch. It was then that she truly got a look at his face. She realized what she was seeing. Why this manner of fatigue looked familiar to her. Because he didn’t just looked tired. He looked utterly and completely destroyed. The way he used to look at the end of a day right after the IED blast. As if the world were just a hair’s width away from beating him at his own game.

  It terrified her to see him that way. Because Rook wasn’t supposed to be defeated. Nothing ever brought him down. But she remembered now how he’d been when he’d come home. How depressed. How much physical and emotional pain had swamped him. He’d been as low as she’d ever seen him for almost a year.

  And then, when things just started looking up for him, she’d asked him for a divorce. She winced.

  There was nothing she could do about that now. Even if she felt guilty, it had felt like a matter of life and death at the time. She couldn’t change it. And she wouldn’t if she could. But that didn’t mean that she had it in her to turn away from him again, not when he was looking this low.

  May leaned over and planted a firm finger on his nose, tilting his head so he had to face her. Next she took her thumb and roughly dragged it over his forehead, loosening the muscles there.

  “You’ll give yourself wrinkles, old man.”

  He smiled faintly and when he chased the heat of her hand with the side of his face, she let him. She let him nuzzle at her wrist, rest his cheek in her palm.

  “Bad day?” she whispered.

  He held her gaze, but his sadness was almost like a film in between them. He was trying his best to see through it, but she couldn’t tell if he was succeeding or not. “Have I ever told you just how grateful I am for you?”

  His words surprised her. “What?”

  “I’m grateful for all of it, May. Every second. Even the hard stuff. But in particular… you saved my life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Right after I got back. When I was torn to shit, and not sleeping, and guilty, and jumping at every small noise. You and Ricky were pretty much the only people I could stand to see. And you brought me back from the edge. You didn’t just nurse me back to health, May. You brought me all the way back.”

  She brought her hand back from his bristly face and messed around with the label on her beer. She feared he was romanticizing her role a little bit. “I did what was right, Javi. I took care of you.”

  “And you talked me into therapy. Which actually saved my life.”

  The way he was looking at her was making her nervous.
She felt like she didn’t have a vessel large enough to contain everything he was trying to give to her right now. She dropped her eyes back to her beer. “I did what any wife would do, Javi.”

  He laughed then, and the sound was harsh. “No, May. Trust me. What you did was special. And my conversation with Cyril only further proved that.”

  “Tell me about it. About him.”

  Rook sighed. “He looked better than I thought he’d look. I think I imagined him to be a shell of himself or something. He looked a little older, but mostly just tired. I think he was coming down off of something.”

  May shivered.

  “You all right?” he asked her.

  “Yeah. I think that part of me was hoping that it was all a mistake. That it couldn’t have been Cyril Gibson who kicked me and fought with me. The arson… I guess I was having trouble believing that sweet, quiet Cyril who lived in our guest bedroom would do that to us.”

  Somehow, their arms ended up around one another and it was unclear who was holding who. Who was comforting who. But she liked that. She figured that’s how it was supposed to be.

  “I felt the same way. It was a slap in the face to see him. To realize that it really was him.”

  “He really confessed?”

  Rook nodded. “But… he was confused and messed up. I don’t know if it was because of drugs or mental illness or just pain. But yeah. His understanding of what happened with the IED was all whacked. And those were his reasons for everything he did here at the house. He was so self-righteous. And it was all for something that was completely untrue.”

  “Untrue?”

  Rook nodded. “He believes that I didn’t suffer. That I got off easy.”

  “Easy?” May demanded. “Does he need to see the scans of your broken bones? Does he not understand what punctured lungs feel like? Is he confused about what it means to have a doctor stuff your organs back inside of you? Does a year of recovery sound like a cakewalk? How about the literal years of therapy you’ve been through? If that’s easy then I don’t know what—”

  He cut her words off with firm lips laid over hers. His fingers laced into her hair and held her still while he pressed kiss after kiss to her lips.

  He pulled back just enough for her to breathe, but not enough to give her any real space. “That’s exactly what you said in my head today.”

  “What?” She tried to make sense of his words, to clear her head, but nothing doing. She was befuddled, thrown off, spinning. The press of his lips had left an imprint against hers. She was embarrassingly disappointed that she hadn’t tasted him just now.

  “In my head while I was talking to Cyril, you were there, reminding me of all that.” A small smile crossed his lips. “At first, I was kind of buying what he was saying. That he’d suffered more than I had. That I deserved anything that happened to me because I hadn’t borne the brunt of the blast from the IED. That I should feel guilty forever. But then, I heard you in my head. And you pretty much said everything you just said. You were fighting on my behalf. And I just… listened to you.”

  Her heart was banging tightly in her chest. She’d felt this way before with Rook. Right before he’d kissed her the first time. Right before he’d asked her to marry him. Right before they’d slept together for the first time.

  She knew enough to know that this was how she felt when she was on the precipice of something big with Rook.

  This was how it felt to stand next to him, looking out over a cliff. This was how it felt to take the hand he was reaching out to her and to jump alongside him.

  His arms were tangled around her, the press of his kiss still echoed on her lips. His eyes were kind and calm and his face so sad. He’d listened to her today. He’d heard her about the hyper-vigilance thing and then he’d held her in his heart during a hard time. He’d let her defend him against himself. He’d let her defend his self-worth.

  And as if that weren’t enough, he’d given her permanent flowers in her kitchen.

  She took in a shuddering breath.

  He was reaching out his hand on the edge of the cliff. Would she take it? Would she take his hand and leap with him again?

  Everything that had happened just last night rushed through her head on a high-speed reel. Every passionate moment, every kiss, every heated breath. And perhaps even more importantly, all the words that had directly preceded the sex. It had been perhaps the single most important conversation they’d ever had. And they’d capped it off with really hot sex. At the time, it had seemed like the only thing to do. She’d wanted it as badly as he had. But now, it made the whole thing seem wildly volatile. As if all they had between them was passion. Nothing stable. Nothing calm. They were either fighting or fucking.

  And that wasn’t what May wanted. She wanted an independent, stable life. She didn’t want to destroy herself over Rook. She didn’t want to feel like she was destroying him either. Leaping with him meant tumbling with him. And, as her divorce had so cruelly taught her, it meant hitting rock bottom with him. This time would surely kill her.

  Could she leap knowing all that? What it might do to her? What it might do to Ricky?

  The thought of her daughter made her heart skip a beat and her blood cool in her veins. It was as if the answer had been there all along, sleeping soundly upstairs. It didn’t matter what May wanted or what Rook wanted. The only thing that mattered was what was right. The decent thing to do.

  “I’m so glad that I could help you through that today,” May whispered. Rook’s expression dimmed as the but that she hadn’t said out loud sat between them like a rock. May cleared her throat. “Ricky’s upstairs.”

  Rook stiffened. He knew as well as she did that it wasn’t cool for them to be canoodling downstairs while their daughter could potentially catch them. It would hurt Ricky, perhaps irrevocably, to see her parents doing this so cavalierly.

  He held for a moment, not ceding his ground as his eyes searched hers. But he apparently gathered all the information he needed just from the look on her face. He pulled away and she immediately mourned the loss of his heat. The bang of his heart against her ribs.

  “Right,” he murmured, dragging a hand over his face. “Right.”

  Rook rose up from the couch and checked his pockets in an old and familiar move that pinched her chest. She loved watching him do stuff. Any stuff. He called to her on an instinctual and primal level that she was certain would never fade. But that didn’t mean she could let herself give in to the pull. Not without destroying everything she’d built. Resting her whole life on top of passion for a man she’d already epically failed with once upon a time.

  Rook stood in place for a moment, looking a little shell-shocked. Then he shook his head to clear it. “I’ll be by in the morning to say goodbye to Ricks before she heads to camp.”

  May nodded and rose after him to walk him to the door. He briskly toed his shoes on and then quickly ran her through how to work her new alarm system. It was very easy, requiring a fingerprint and voice activation. That was all. No long codes to memorize. Perfect for her.

  He had one hand on the half open door when he suddenly turned to her, snaked an arm around her waist, yanked her to him, and pressed his mouth to hers. She instinctually opened for him and couldn’t help but moan when their tongues pressed together. His mouth was always so freaking hot. Like there was an internal fire that burned within him.

  He tipped her back enough that she was just weight in his arms, depending on him to hold her upright.

  When he broke the kiss, he stood her back up and pressed his forehead to hers. He breathed hard, his hands on her shoulders.

  “Am I getting this right?” he asked her. “You’re telling me no? You thought about what happened last night and you’re telling me no?”

  She cleared her throat. “I told you last night that that was a one night thing.”

  She didn’t mention the fact that she’d woken up this morning desperately wanting it to continue on. That if things had been differ
ent and they were still in the bunker she might be tearing his clothes off right then. And she definitely didn’t mention that if, maybe, he’d dropped them at the house before going to see Gibson, things might have been different. If he’d put family before duty, just once, things might have been different.

  But he didn’t come check the house without you, a little voice reminded her. He trusted that you could check it out on your own.

  “One night thing,” he repeated. Then he shook his head with a sad little laugh. “You and me could never be a one night thing.”

  That sparked her temper. Just enough to make her feel like she was thinking clearly again. “Regardless, we’re a not-tonight thing.”

  “Not tonight is different than never, May.” Suddenly he looked so freaking tall, looking down at her, breathing hard, smoothing her hair over her shoulders.

  She planted her palms on his chest and pushed him. He didn’t move an inch. “Please be clear with me,” he said in a low voice that just killed her.

  She knew she was being unfair.

  Her head fell forward and took the place of her hands, she rested against his chest.

  “If you’re confused, baby, that’s okay,” he said, his hands coming to rest on her back, warming her. “I can give you time. I can wait.”

  Ice crystals formed in her gut. It was so freaking tempting to ask that of him. Every fiber of her being begged her to ask him for time. Because she was confused. She was hurt and confused and spinning. And maybe tomorrow things would be clearer.

  But she knew that wasn’t true. Things would always be confusing where he was concerned. Nothing would be different tomorrow except she’d be asking a good man to hang on the line for her.

  She couldn’t do that to him. It was far kinder to slice this off cleanly. “I’m not confused,” she lied. “I don’t need time.”

  She stepped back from him but found she couldn’t look him in the eye.

  “I don’t want to get back together, Rook.”

  He nodded, but she only saw it through the corner of her eye, she still couldn’t look directly at him. She hoped he couldn’t see how hard she was fighting to breathe.