ROOK (Billionaire Buck Boys Book 6), page 22
Tonight called for that because she thinks I screwed another woman hours before I was going to fuck her.
I scrub a hand over my jaw and repeat her name. “Carrie.”
“Rook.” My name comes out of her in splintered shards.
I hear the broken emotion in it, and it splits my heart in two.
I don’t give two fucks if Dalton Allard is standing less than a foot from her. I need her to know now that I would never hurt her. I need to take that pain from her.
“Milo was in the hotel suite,” I say. “Not me. I would never do that to you. I love you, Carrie.”
She stumbles forward in the sand to get to me, so I rush at her to scoop my arms around her waist. I tug her up and against me, her feet dangling in the air.
“It was Milo?” she asks quietly. “Not you?”
I place her back down but don’t let go of her. Staring into her eyes, I nod. “It was him.”
Her gaze searches my face. “Your watch was there.”
“No.” I hold up my wrist to show her the watch I’ve been wearing since Declan got it for me. “Milo took that one over a year ago because it had an inscription. It was a gift.”
“From Chesca,” she says, her gaze dropping to my watch. “I read the inscription before I left The Beaumont.”
I give her credit for not destroying the watch before she left. Either way, that watch didn’t stand a chance tonight.
Her hands grab hold of the lapels of my jacket. “I thought you wanted someone else.”
“No.” I press my lips to the center of her forehead. “Christ, no. I think I’ve been in love with you since I saw you in Abigail’s office months ago.”
“Really?” she asks, her brilliant green eyes clouding with tears. “Since then?”
“I felt so connected to you,” I confess. “I wanted to chase you, but with Abby working for me and…”
“Abby works for you?” Dalton decides to butt in. “Abigail Duvall works for you?”
“Abigail Wells,” Carrie corrects him. “She married Rook’s best friend months ago.”
Wrapping my arms tighter around her, I glance at Allard. “I need someone to explain what I walked in on.”
Carrie nods. “I need to say something first. Al, would you give us a minute?”
“Of course.” He nods softly at her. “I’ll be on the bench by the entrance to the park.”
With that, he walks away, taking all the answers I need about what I saw with him.
When he’s disappeared into the darkness, Carrie sets her gaze on me. “Rook.”
I wipe her falling tears with the pad of my thumb. “It’s okay, beautiful. I’m here. Whatever you need to say, I want to hear it.”
Her bottom lip trembles slightly. “I love you.”
“You love me?” I ask to be clear.
“With all of my heart.” She sobs lightly. “I was so lost earlier. It didn’t make sense. I know what I heard, but my heart kept telling me it didn’t make sense.”
I cup her face in my hands and look directly into her eyes. “Your heart knows my heart. I love you, Carrie. I have never loved anyone the way I love you, and I will always love you.”
She tilts her chin up slightly. “This all happened so fast.”
I shake my head. “Our hearts have been searching for each other forever. I feel that. I know you do, too.”
“I do.” She nods.
I tug her closer so she can her head on my chest. “I’m so sorry that you’ve been alone tonight. I tried everything I could to find you.”
“Abby told you I’d be here,” she whispers.
“She did.”
“My dad used to bring me here.” She pulls back to look up at me. “It’s where I met Al… Dalton, I mean. He was my best friend for a long time. He was like a brother to me.”
Stunned by that admission, I stroke her cheek with my fingertip. “He’s a potential client of mine.”
She lets out a laugh. “Seriously?”
“Yes.” I nod. “He’s playing hardball. I’ve been trying to get him on board for some time.”
“He’s a good man.” Her voice wavers. “We lost touch a long time ago, but he is such a good man, Rook.”
I’ve never heard him described that way in anything I’ve read about him, but I know she’s speaking the truth because this woman isn’t capable of lying to me, just as I’m not capable of lying to her.
“I’m glad I didn’t drive my fist through his face when I saw him holding your hand.”
She tosses her head back in laughter. “You wouldn’t have done that.”
I like that she believes that, but I was close to heaving him off that swing.
“I need to talk to him before you take me home,” she says. “Do you want me to put in a good word for you?”
Chuckling, I press a kiss to her lips. “I can handle him.”
“I know you can.” She kisses me back. “You’re Rook Thorsen. You can handle anything.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Carrie
I watch as the man I love shakes hands with the man I once confided my deepest secrets to.
My sister knows most of those secrets now, including the first time I took a sip of beer with Dalton by my side, and when we stole a comic book from the corner store. Dalton’s grandma marched us back there to make amends to the store’s owner by sweeping the sidewalk in front of his store after school for a month.
There is still one of my secrets that Dalton has always held onto.
As I hear him agree to a contract that appoints Rook as his legal representative in New York State, I know what I have to do.
I have to tell Rook before the night is over what happened to me when I was eighteen. The events of that night pushed me so far into a cocoon of self-preservation that I remained a virgin until just a few weeks ago.
I dove into school and then my job with every ounce of the energy I possessed.
I thought it would be enough until I could meet up with a random guy on my thirtieth birthday and leave the virgin label in my past.
The drive to handle intimacy that way wasn’t necessarily based on my need to know what sex was like, but it was more about not wanting my virginity to be a constant reminder of the first time I was supposed to have sex at that graduation party when I was just eighteen.
“I’ll have Posey send the contract to your office in Boston,” Rook tells Dalton.
Dalton shakes his head. “Forward it to the Allard Industries office based in midtown. I’m going to hang around Manhattan.”
“To spend time with Carrie?” Rook asks, but there’s no jealousy in his tone.
Al nods. “I also have family in the city. I haven’t connected with them in some time, and we have unfinished business.”
We’ve never discussed his mom’s death or the stepsiblings that came into his life before his dad died, but I’m here to listen if he ever needs that.
I’m not sure what the future holds for our friendship, but I’ll always be grateful for the moment we had in the playground tonight under a crescent moon.
“I’m going to take off.” He gestures to a Range Rover parked near the curb under a streetlight. “It was good seeing you again, Gilbert.”
I smile at the nickname that he’s always called me. “You too, Al.”
A smile ghosts his mouth at the sound of his.
He’s the one who told me to call him that. I never wavered, even after his grandma corrected me and told me to call him Dalton.
“Love looks good on you,” he tells me. “Really, really good.”
I nestle closer into Rook’s side. His arm is draped around me, tugging me next to him.
“I look forward to doing business with you, Thorsen.” He glances at Rook. “I want Abigail to be my point person going forward.”
Rook nods . “Understood.”
With that, he turns and walks away, leaving me with the man I love.
“Abby and Declan are home from their honeymoon,” Rooks tells me.
“What?” I laugh. “Since when?”
“Since tonight.” He laughs, too. “They looked wiped, but we need to tell them I found you so they can get some sleep.”
“They know you were looking for me?” I ask, even though it makes perfect sense why Rook showed up here. Abby must have told him to come.
“They know I love you,” he whispers.
Joy blooms in my heart. That emotion seeps over my expression. “Wow.”
“They’re happy for us.” He kisses me softly. “Not as happy as I am, but they’re happy.”
“Good.”
“Come home with me, Carrie,” he suggests. “Kirby is with her mom. It’ll just be the two of us.”
I need that. I need him all to myself tonight.
“Yes,” I say with no hesitation. “I want that. I need to tell you something.”
His gaze searches my face, stopping to look deep into my eyes. “Whatever it is, I want to hear it.”
I’m grateful because this man deserves my truth, every part of it.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Rook
Seeing Carrie in my home is evoking a multitude of feelings within me.
She belongs here. I see it now as I watch her crawl beneath the covers of my bed and settle in with her back against the headboard.
We showered after we got here.
I called for a rideshare, and as the driver journeyed through Queens and into Manhattan, Carrie explained more about her connection to Allard and their shared loss.
In everything I’ve read about his father’s death, there was never a mention of the two people who were on the plane with him that night.
David Allard’s death overshadowed both because of his vast wealth.
Yet, a man who had a small daughter and a wife at home died that night, too, along with a pilot, leaving a void that could never be filled.
She tugs on the front of the T-shirt I gave her.
It has the name of my law firm stamped across the front of it. That was Posey’s idea, and after the initial order of twenty had been filled, I shut it down.
I took all of them home with me.
Posey has used a few for painting shirts, and Kirby has one hanging in her closet for when she’s older, but the rest are in a drawer in my bedroom.
I directed Carrie there to find a shirt, and that’s the one she grabbed.
It’s never looked better.
“Come sit next to me, Rook.” She taps the spot on the bed where I normally sleep.
“I’m on my way.” I tug the waistband of my boxer briefs up a quarter of an inch.
I want to be pushing them down so I can slide into her, but she needs something else before we fuck. She needs me to listen and to hear every word she says.
She reiterated that as soon as we arrived, telling me that although she wanted to drop to her knees in the shower and take my cock in her mouth, she needed a few minutes to explain something vitally important.
I crawl into the bed and sit just as she is, with my back resting against the headboard.
Her hand falls into my lap.
I take it between my hands and draw it up to my lips to kiss it. “I’m here, beautiful.”
“Can I sit in your lap?”
I drop her hand and spread my arms wide. “Be my guest.”
With a small laugh, she kicks the covers off and lands in my lap quickly. Her hands fall to my shoulders as her gaze catches mine. “I like this.”
I fucking love it. I adjust her weight so she can feel my cock resting against her core.
“You probably wonder why I was a virgin for so long.”
I know she expects honesty from me, so I give her that. “I did in the beginning.”
“Not now?” she asks, pushing her eyeglasses up the bridge of her nose.
“You were waiting for me,” I say softly, meaning every word.
“I was,” she agrees. “I know that now, but I thought I would have sex when I was eighteen.”
“That was your initial plan?”
Her gaze wanders over my bare chest. “I liked a boy in high school. I thought he liked me.”
“Dalton?” I ask, instantly regretting it.
I saw the way he looked at her in the park. It was with reverence and respect. Whatever they shared in the past and will share in the future isn’t on the same playing field as what Carrie and I have.
“No!” She laughs, tapping my shoulder. “I told you he’s like a brother to me…was like a brother to me, Rook. I’ve never seen him that way.”
“I know,” I say.
She nods. “Who it was doesn’t matter anymore.”
She’s right. It doesn’t.
I’ve fucked more women than I care to admit, and they aren’t relevant to what I feel for Carrie.
“He asked me if I’d be with him on graduation night.” She closes her eyes briefly. “We hadn’t even kissed or dated or anything, but he was the guy everyone wanted, so when he asked me to do it, I wanted to.”
My heart aches for what I know was a bad experience for her. Whatever happened between her and that guy on that night all those years ago didn’t end the way she thought it would.
“The party was at his parents’ house in Queens.” She shakes her head. “He told me to meet him in his bedroom at ten o’clock.”
I nod.
“He said that there was an attached bathroom, so I could go in there, undress, and then get into his bed.”
Her hands cling tightly to my shoulders as she goes on, “I went up at about ten minutes to ten. I snuck out of the party like he told me to.”
I reach for her waist, and hold it gently. I want her to feel me everywhere as she tells the story. I want her to know that I’m here, and I understand.
“I went into the bathroom and took off my T-shirt and jeans.” She glances down at her legs. “I was wearing cotton panties and a pink bra. I used some of the money I earned at my part-time job for that. I took the train into the city to buy them after school one day.”
This was an event for her. She gave it careful thought and took steps to make it special for herself and the guy she was supposed to screw.
She hesitates, so I kiss her softly. “What happened?”
She rests her forehead against mine and sighs. “I heard the bedroom door close, so I knew he was in the room. I waited for two minutes like he told me to. He said he needed that much time to undress. Then I opened the door.”
She breaks. A sob shakes her body as she falls forward into me.
I hold her against me. This guy fucking hurt her. I will hunt the bastard down and rip him to shreds.
She cries for a moment before she finds the strength to sit upright again. With her hands resting against my chest, she looks me in the eyes. “When I left the bathroom, maybe ten or fifteen people were in the bedroom waiting for me. Girls. Boys. The guy I was supposed to…they were all there, pointing and laughing at me. One girl yelled that I was a fool for thinking anyone would want inside my sad panties, and another screamed out that smart girls don’t have the same choices as pretty girls and I’d never get a guy like the one I thought wanted me that night.”
“Jesus.” I tear up instantly. “I’m so sorry.”
“I went back into the bathroom, locked the door, and stayed there for hours,” she whispers. “When I finally walked out, the party was over, and only a few people were there. They were mostly passed out.”
“I wish I would have been there,” I say honestly.
She manages a weak smile. “It was horrible, Rook. I couldn’t think about sex for a long time after that, and then college and my career took over my life.”
“I understand,” I whisper.
Her hand lands on my cheek. “I know you do. You showed me how beautiful sex can be.”
I had no idea how much was riding on her first time. I made it the best I could, and I’m grateful for that.
“I never saw any of those people again,” she confesses. “I left them all in my past.”
“Good.” I nod. “That’s where they deserve to be.”
“Abby doesn’t know about that night.” She tilts her head. “Dalton does.”
I can’t be angry that she confided in him, although I’m surprised, given what she told me about how their friendship waned after the deaths of their dads.
“I went to the playground on my way home from the party.” She smiles. “Dalton was there on the swing. He had a fight with his girlfriend at the time. He told me about that. I told him about what happened to me.”
“You helped each other through a rough night.”
“Confessing to someone was what I needed to do to start moving on from it,” she says. “It took time and two years of therapy, but I’ve moved on.”
“You’re unbelievably strong.” My voice cracks. “You’re the strongest woman I know.”
“I’m also the happiest now.” She kisses me softly. “You’ve made me so happy.”
She’s done the same for me, and this is just the beginning for us.
“Will you make love to me before we fall asleep?” she asks with a whimper.
“Now?” I slide my hand down her waist to her bare thighs.
Her hands drop to the hem of the T-shirt, and she yanks it over her head in a single swift movement.
I stare at her breasts before my gaze trails back to her beautiful face. “I love you, Carrie.”
“I love you, Rook,” she whispers before giving me with a lush, deep kiss.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Carrie
I glance at Rook. “We need to get there.”
He points at his phone. “I’m just sending Dalton a text. After it’s sent, I’m off the clock for the night.”
I look at my watch as he types out the text to my friend and his client. I met up with Dalton for a quick cup of coffee last week. The main subject of conversation was his move back to Manhattan and the fact that my sister is part of the legal team representing him. We’ll get together again when we can both carve some time out for it.
