“Your clothes are soaked through with sweat. I can’t imagine that’s comfortable.”
Then, to his amazement, she leaned forward and stripped his T-shirt off of him. Then she scrambled to the floor and leaned over to strip off his sweats and underwear. She crawled back over him and lowered her body over top of his, laying her naked body stem to stern along his.
“There. That’s better,” she murmured, nuzzling her nose into the hollow above his collar bone.
“Much,” he agreed in a husky voice that he hoped belied just how shocked he was at her actions. He’d expected her to kick him out but instead she’d stripped him naked and started snuggling him. That was quite the opposite.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had sex with all your clothes on before,” she mused, drawing a picture on his bicep with her pointer finger.
He attempted to wrack his memory, found his brain was still jelly, and gave up. “I think you’re right.”
“I liked it. It was like you were crazy for me. Like you couldn’t wait another second.”
He cleared his throat. “I was. I couldn’t.”
She fell quiet but still played her fingers over him and he let his eyes drift closed in complete contentment. He was skin to skin with the only woman he’d ever loved and his body still hummed with the best orgasm of his God-given life.
When a little bit of his strength returned, he gently took the hair tie out of her hair and started stroking a hand through the silken mass. “I didn’t pull your hair too hard, did I? At the end?”
He could feel her smile against his pec. “I liked it. It felt good. It hurt, but felt good.”
He turned that over in his mind. He had a hundred questions but knew better than to ask them. He wasn’t going to do anything to ruin this languid, satisfied mood between them. And asking about other lovers she’d had was sure to ruin his mood and hers. He kept his mouth shut and continued stroking her hair until his thoughts of anyone but May simply died out.
“Do you remember the last time we had sex?” she asked after a while.
“Um. Yes. It ended about four minutes ago.”
She laughed. “No. I mean the time before that. The last time we had sex before the divorce.”
He was silent and she could tell that all mirth was gone from the moment, sadness had crept in. “Of course.”
“You wanted to make love to me slowly,” she reminded him.
“And you wanted to send me to the ICU.”
She laughed then, relieved to hear even that slight joke from him. “I did not! I was just feeling particularly… rambunctious.”
He scoffed. “May, I have the scar to prove that you were out for blood.”
She stilled. “What? You do not.”
He anchored her with one arm and rolled them to the side, into the circle of the lamplight. She came up off of him and he laid there for her, perfectly comfortable in his gorgeous nakedness. The scent of his heated, damp skin swamped her and she almost braced for the onslaught of memories. But to her surprise, the memories didn’t come. No, only a sense of safety and security rode in on his scent, falling over her like a warm comforter. She was in the safest place on Earth right now, cuddled up to a gigantic, naked man.
“See?”
He was pointing to a place high on his back, where his neck met his shoulder. She peered through the dim light and winced when she saw a light scar, half-circle in shape. “Is that from my teeth?”
He nodded, a little smile on his face. “About ten seconds after you gave me that little souvenir, you yanked my wedding ring off my hand and never gave it back.”
She winced again. “God, what a psycho I was.”
“No, baby,” he told her, tracing a hand from her ear, down her side, all the way to her thigh. “Not a psycho. Just sad. Just truly, truly sad.”
She pursed her lips. “You were sad too!”
He was quiet for a minute, his eyes calmly holding hers. “I was more than sad, May. I was utterly wrecked.”
“I wrecked you.”
He shook his head. “We wrecked us. There’s no blame to pass around. No point in that. What happened, happened. All we can do is try to make sense of it, make our peace, and keep moving forward.”
“When did you get all zen and wise?”
“About eight minutes ago. When you made me come so hard I met my future children.”
She knew he was just joking, it was a funny turn of phrase. But the thought of his future children stilled her. That’s how this whole sexcapade had started. Discussing the idea of future children.
She propped her head up on one hand and gave him a business-like stare.
“Here we go,” Rook groaned, rolling onto his back and apparently interpreting her look to mean exactly what it meant.
“Were you serious?” she asked. “When you told me you’d have another baby with me?”
He cleared his throat and she was charmed to see two patches of pink appear on his tan cheeks. “Yeah.”
“Are you insane?”
He rolled up onto his side and mirrored her pose. “No. I’m not insane. I just… thought I’d put that out there.”
“To get me into bed?”
He rolled his eyes at her. “Yeah, because that sounds so much like me and something I’d do.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “So, what? You think the two of us could just have another kid together and everything would be hunky-dory?”
“Well, considering that literally nothing between us has ever been categorized as hunky-dory, no, I didn’t think that.” He sighed deeply, in what seemed to be resignation. “But I meant what I said before, May. I know you don’t want to hear it. But I want to get back together. And I want to have another kid. If there is a way to do both, then I’m over the fucking moon. If there’s a way to only get one of those things? Then, I guess I’d make my peace with losing the other.”
Her brain stalled with that information. She looked back and forth between his two secretly blue eyes. “Hold on. You’re saying that you’d get back together but sacrifice having another kid?” she asked skeptically.
He took a deep breath and let his eyes wander away as he considered her question. “Yes.”
“Or, alternatively, you’d stay separated from me, but you’d co-parent another kid with me? If I didn’t want to get back together?”
He considered that question too and then nodded his head. “Yes.”
May groaned and fell to her back. “What is wrong with you?”
“What?” he demanded, levering himself halfway over her body so that she took a lot of his weight and his nose was half a breath from hers.
“I don’t understand you.”
“I’m not that complicated, May. Actually, I’m really simple. Bottom line, I’m still in lo— umph!”
She clapped hand over his lips so hard she actually forced air back into his mouth. “Don’t say it. I can’t handle it. I’ve received so much information tonight I might just burst. No more, okay?”
He eyed her for a second and nodded. She dropped her hand.
They were silent for a minute. She laid there, trying to just enjoy the weight of a man she loved. But her pesky brain got in the way. “I just really can’t believe that you’d jump back into the muck with me after everything that happened. And not just the regular muck, but the, like, separated/co-parenting muck. That’s some serious muck.”
He said nothing while she waited. Finally, she poked his cheek, huffing impatiently. “Are you ignoring me?” she asked.
“I thought you were on information overload,” he responded drily.
She sucked her teeth. “You’re right. Let’s not talk.”
He laughed and turned his head to kiss along her collarbone. “If we’re not talking, then how should we fill the time?”
Her eyebrows raised. “Oh? You think you’re up for a twofer, old man?”
He scoffed in fake insult. “Please, May. Lots of things have changed. But not everything.”
>
He rolled them over and proved his point.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Rook did everything he could not to provoke the universe the next day. Whenever he caught himself whistling, he stopped immediately. He crossed his fingers when he left a voicemail for Wilkes, asking for an update on May’s case. He even skipped over a few cracks in the hallway.
Because he was just that happy. And he wasn’t foolish enough to think it would last.
He’d woken up in the arms of the woman he’d loved for half his life. And better than that, when he’d realized it was dawn and he’d better get going lest their daughter catch him there, May had actually groaned and held him closer.
“I have to go, baby,” he’d whispered.
“Mmm,” she’d groaned again. “Five more minutes.”
And then she’d snuggled back into his chest. He’d given her those five minutes and they were some of the most peaceful of his life. He’d shut off all questions, all doubts, all of the outside world, and only focused in on May. The weight of her, the scent of her. The reality of her in his arms.
But then, Brooklyn woke up outside the bunker and it was time to move on. He had a million things to do for her case that day and though Rook wanted nothing more than to tell his daughter that he and May were getting back together, catching her divorced parents in bed was not the way he wanted her to find out. He figured that would screw up even the most well adjusted kid.
So, he’d kissed May one more time, tucked her in, and slipped out the way he’d come in.
And now he was waiting for life to knock him on his ass again. Because in his experience, that was just the way the world worked.
He hadn’t seen May yet that day. She was apparently doing some accounting work for her business in her bedroom. After Rook did some work of his own, he ran some field hockey drills with Ricky in the atrium and made lunch in the kitchen. He was just fixing a sandwich for Ricky to bring up to May when his cell rang.
It was Wilkes. Rook didn’t have the kind of stellar intuition that May had, but he knew enough for his stomach to swoop. Somehow, in his gut, he knew that this phone call was the other shoe he’d been waiting to drop.
And drop it did, just not in the way that he’d anticipated.
“Rook,” Wilkes said in an electric voice the second he answered, “we got him. Picked Cyril Gibson up at a homeless shelter in Queens. He confessed to the crime an hour ago.”
“What?” There was a dull ringing in Rook’s ears.
“Your family is safe, my dude. Gibson was working on his own. He’s confessed. He’s in rough shape, so he’s going to be under armed guard at the VA for a while, but he’ll be in custody, Rook.”
“They’re safe,” he repeated dimly. Immediate, swamping relief almost submerged him. His heart beat loosely and grandly in his chest. He hadn’t realized, until that very moment, just how much he’d been worried about the welfare of Ricky and May. He hadn’t known how heavy it had weighed on him, this worry for the people he loved the most in the world. But suddenly, that worry was lifted off of him and he felt as if he could float to the top of the Empire State Building.
“They’re safe,” Wilkes confirmed one more time. “And so are you, because Rook? This guy is seriously whacked.”
“I want to see him.”
“What?”
“I want to meet with him.”
There was a long pause. “Rook, I really don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s… not pretty.”
“I don’t care. At one point, he was my friend. My brother in arms. I want to see him.”
There was another pause. “Well. Actually, he’s been asking for you. I just never thought you’d want to speak with him. But. Yeah. All right. If you can come by the precinct this afternoon, before we get him moved to the VA, then you’ll be able to talk with him. After that, I can’t control whether or not the hospital let’s you see him.”
Rook looked at the clock. “I’ll be there in two hours.”
“You got it.”
“Wilkes?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For everything you did to keep my family safe. I’ll never forget it.”
Rook hung up and stared at his cell phone for a long minute. The relief he’d initially felt, it was still in there, but it was mixed up with other feelings. Dread and determination at the thought of speaking with Gibson again. And also… there was a shameful disappointment running through his veins. Never in a million years would he want May and Ricky in danger. But having them here, living in the bunker, had felt so right. It had been just a few short days and already he was used to living under one roof with them again.
Not to mention the fact that whatever it was that he and May had started up again last night was extremely fragile. He was almost positive that his sexing privileges were going to be revoked the second that she was back to the real world and her normal life.
It had been such a brief taste of a life he’d never thought he’d be able to have again. Brief but potent.
He slipped the phone in his pocket and picked up the sandwich he’d been making for May. He had to tell her the news. Let her know that it was safe to return home.
He sighed. Brief but potent. He’d never been more sure of one thing. The life he’d had these last few days was the only life he wanted to be living.
***
May wasn’t quite sure why she was so stunned. Cops caught bad guys. It was part of what they were trained and paid to do. But still, she sat at her desk with her reading glasses on, staring at Rook where he stood, and she was truly surprised.
“They caught him,” she repeated blankly.
“Yes. Brought him in and he already confessed. You and Ricky are safe.”
“We’re safe.”
“Completely.”
There was a strange galloping in her gut, a panic that she couldn’t explain. She involuntarily looked at her bare left ring finger.
Untethered, she realized. That was what she was feeling. She suddenly felt completely untethered. From her old life, from her new life. From Rook. Something had been happening between them, but it was painfully clear that it could only exist in a world where she and Ricky were in danger. That was the only dynamic where she and Rook fit together with such ease.
In the back of her mind, she’d known that, even as it was happening. She’d known that this truce, this perfection of the last few days was temporary. Something to be savored and then farewelled. But she didn’t think it would be quite this brief.
Tears sprang to her eyes and she pressed her fingers into her eye sockets under her reading glasses. It was ridiculous to cry over this. She and her daughter were safe again. What more could she really want? It was ridiculous to have wanted more time in the bunker. The bunker was cold and impersonal and terrible. And staying there was inevitably tied up in her and Ricky being in mortal peril. It was ridiculous to be sad to see it go.
“Don’t cry, baby,” Rook said, suddenly much closer than he’d been a moment before. Two strong, calloused hands stroked over her shoulders and she found herself hugged in close to his body as he crouched in front of her. “It’s all over,” he soothed her. “You don’t have to be scared anymore.”
It’s all over. She froze in his grip. His words could mean so many things. He thought she was crying thinking about Gibson. He didn’t realize she was crying because whatever this thing was between them, it was over. Again. Things with Rook were over again.
Tears anew streamed down her face as she jammed her forehead into his shoulder. He smelled so good. So familiar. Clean, but with an underscent of man and sweat and everything good and safe in her world.
She was such an idiot. How in God’s name could she have opened up this door with him again? Leaving him the first time had damn near killed her. And now she’d completely set herself up to be wrecked again. Wrecked by the man who held her so tight, whispered sweet things in her ear. Made love like a maniac. She was such an idiot.
Thi
s thing only works with Rook when you need him, she reminded herself. It never works when you’re independent. You can’t be independent and with Rook at the same time. It doesn’t work.
It was the mental slap she needed. She thought about the business she’d built. Her life with Ricky. And then she forced herself to think about all the nights she’d been alone while she’d been married to Rook. The swamping loneliness. The waiting for her life to begin. She’d never wait for that again. Even if it meant that she couldn’t have Rook.
She pushed back from his arms. “Sorry,” she cleared her throat and brushed at her eyes again. “That was silly. Just tears of relief, I guess.”
“You’re entitled.” He still crouched in front of her, but his eyes were wary as he watched her, waiting for her next reaction.
She swiveled away from him on the desk chair and blew her nose on a tissue. When she turned back, she was composed and calm. Nothing about her appearance would indicate the pain she felt on the inside.
“These are cute,” Rook said, reaching up and plucking her reading glasses off her face. “When did you get them?”
She frowned. She didn’t need him thinking she was cute. That just made everything harder. “About two years ago. I think I actually wrecked my eyes in business school but I was too stubborn to get glasses for a long time.”
He chuckled. “Sounds about right.” He slipped the glasses on. “These are my prescription, I think.”
“You wear reading glasses?” she was surprised. She’d never seen him in a pair.
“Yeah. All that time I have to look at screens, I think.” He handed the glasses back and his eyes were wary again. “If you want to get packed up, Atlas said he’d come and drive you back to the house.”
“You’re not going to take us?” The words popped out of May’s mouth in complete astonishment but she wished she could stuff them back in. She didn’t want it to sound like she wanted Rook to bring them home.
Something softened in his eyes. “I want to. But they’re gonna bring Gibson to the VA this afternoon. If I want to talk with him, I need to do it while he’s still at the precinct.”
Something corresponding softened inside May. “Oh. That makes sense. I know it still must be such a mindfuck to realize that Cyril was the person who did this. It is for me and I barely knew the guy.”
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