Chapter 5
Sloane
A week in, my bedroom looks like a law office, albeit not a very good one.
It’s a far cry from the polished, glass-and-steel kind I used to work in, but it’s functional and efficient.
It’s become my workspace, not quite a sanctuary or a comfort, but it’s a control point where I hide myself away most days, avoiding one person in particular.
I’m not sure what it is about Rook, that sets me off. Maybe because we have similar temperaments we regularly clash. Though despite my annoyance, I can’t ignore the fact that I also find him attractive.
Maybe that’s part of the problem…
Rook reluctantly allowed me to replace the dresser with a large desk I claimed from a storage room downstairs.
Boone dragged it up the stairs one day, placing it under the window, and silently slipped away while I was out with Jessy.
I know it was him, even if he hasn’t told me, he’s continually found ways to offer his silent support.
My laptop sits open in the center of the desk, glowing and casting a cold blue sheen across the stacks of files.
Flanking it are legal pads, filled with my tight, precise handwriting, and color-coded tabs.
On the shelving unit, my folders are arranged in strict, deliberate order.
A printer hums softly on a side table Boone ‘found’ for me sometime in the last forty-eight hours.
There’s even a second monitor now, that I didn’t ask for.
Like everything Boone sorts for me, it just appeared, without ceremony or expectation.
I lean back in my chair, rubbing my temple as another document loads, my eyes track the column of numbers and information that makes sense in a way nothing else does to me right now.
The Wi-Fi flickers for half a second—just enough to make the screen lag, the numbers freeze for half a second before snapping back into place.
My jaw tightens. “Don’t you dare,” I mutter.
As if responding to my threat, the connection stabilizes.
I breathe a sigh of relief and glance at the clock, it’s 2:14 PM.
Jessy is downstairs somewhere, probably in the garage again.
One upside to staying here is that there seems to be no shortage of willing babysitters, though I am careful to vet everyone she meets, and check that she’s never left alone with just one person.
I’ve been in touch with her teachers and explained the situation.
Luckily, she’s of an age where school is more about socialization than learning so she’s not missing too much, and her teachers were understanding.
We’re going to do homeschooling for a few weeks.
Any concerns I had about how Jessy would adapt to living here evaporated by the end of the first week.
I should be unsettled by how easily she adapted to this place.
Instead, I’m… relieved, because for the first time in weeks, she isn’t scared.
She’s safe, safer than she has been in weeks and that’s what matters.
I look back at the screen, deciding to go check on her soon, but first, I want to finish this piece I’m working on. Work is what has been keeping me anchored, stopping me from feeling adrift. I understand work, unlike everything else in my life right now.
The Wi-Fi cuts out entirely. The screen goes blank of movement, frozen mid-load, the spinning wheel halting like it’s given up entirely.
“No,” I hiss, grabbing either side of my laptop as if I can shake it into working.
I try to refresh the screen. Nothing. I check the connection, and it’s disconnected completely.
I take in a sharp, controlled breath, filling my lungs, trying to stay calm as I slowly breathe out.
The irritation is still there. I grab my phone, and there are no signal issues, so the Wi-Fi issue is internal.
My frustration spikes sharper now. I need this, the work, the structure; I need to feel like myself.
I push back from the desk, the chair scraping softly against the wooden floor, and stand.
Cruz is out. Boone is in the garage. Which leaves only one person who can help me, Rook, of course, the Wi-Fi would cut out when only he’s around to fix it, and make me beg for him to do so, no doubt.
I hesitate just long enough to recognize that I’m hesitating.
Then I step into the hallway, teeth gritted with determination, already preparing for another confrontation.
The door to his room is halfway down the hall, and it’s closed.
I walk toward it, bracing myself. The past week has been marked by controlled hostility.
Rook and I orbit and avoid each other deliberately.
We speak in short, sharp sentences when necessary, conversations that are reduced to clipped exchanges, glances that linger a fraction too long before being cut off, tension that never quite resolves, it just shifts, sharpens, coils tighter beneath the surface.
He wants me contained, quiet, and safe, a good little prisoner.
I want my autonomy, my work, my life. I know it was my choice to be here, but I’d rather be anywhere else, and he knows it.
Neither of us is willing to give an inch, which means every interaction feels like a negotiation neither of us intends to lose.
I firmly knock once. When there’s no answer, I knock again, sharper this time, my frustration seeping into every action.
The door swings open, and for a second, I forget what I was about to say, because Rook is standing there wearing nothing but a towel.
Water still beading on his skin, and running down his chest in slow lines, catching the light as it moves down the planes of his chest, across muscles that look less like they were built in a gym and more like he earned them over years of work and weight.
His hair is damp, pushed back from his face, and the faint scent of soap and something clean, and unmistakably male drifts into the hallway.
My brain stalls, stuttering like the engine of a bike failing to kickstart. The sight of Rook half-naked is deeply unhelpful and distracting.
“You need something?” he asks, acting as if this is totally normal and he isn’t standing there with only a towel that sits low on his hips covering the very sizeable bulge.
My eyes snap back to his face, and I try to ignore how I am suddenly very aware of how broad his shoulders are. Focus.
“The Wi-Fi is down,” I say, somehow miraculously without showing a trace of the inner turmoil my long-dormant libido is causing me.
He leans one arm against the doorframe, casual, unbothered, entirely too comfortable. “Is that right?” A flicker of amusement curls his mouth.
I raise an eyebrow. “Yes. Why else would I be here?”
He smiles suggestively as if we both know another thing I could be coming to his room for.
“As you can see, I’m kinda in the middle of something,” he says, gesturing down at his state of undress.
Involuntarily, my eyes flicker down, and I snap them back up again. “So you’ll have to wait five minutes.”
“No.” The word falls out of my mouth before I realize how stupid and unreasonable the demand is. Of course, he needs to get dressed.
His eyes dance with amusement. “You’d rather I stay in just a towel?” His hand reaches for the edge where he’s tucked it in, “Or I could take it off?” he purrs, pushing me for a reaction.
I refuse to give him the satisfaction of showing just how much my traitorous body would rather enjoy it if he whipped off the towel and ravaged me. “Just hurry up, I have work to do.”
Rook doesn’t move. “You’re very demanding. Are you always working, or do you play too?” he asks, the insinuation clear.
I open my mouth to speak, but the words get caught in my throat. I lick my lip, biting the bottom one slightly. A low growl emits from his throat, primal and sexier than it should be. Almost instinctively, he steps closer to me.
“Are you deliberately trying to rile me? As my old lady, all you need to do is say the word…” he trails off, not needing to say what I need to say or what he’d do to me if I asked.
Heat rises between my legs, and I notice that the bulge under the towel has grown a little.
He’s so close, so goddamned sexy and masculine, I lose myself for a minute.
He takes my hesitation for encouragement and moves closer still.
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as he whispers in my ear. “I could take your mind off of work.”
God, my body wants him. There’s a small part of me that considers it, considers going inside that room and letting him fuck my brains out.
I already know it would be great, I can just tell, but then what would happen?
Things would become even more awkward and uncomfortable around here.
We’d have a one-night stand, and then both have to avoid each other even more.
Hell, maybe he’d even feel so guilty that he’d send Jessy and me away, and then what would we do?
I step back, breaking the thin thread of whatever this is between us, feeling the fog slowly lift. “No, thank you,” I say curtly. “Quit messing around, I need to work.”
He still has that tight, wolfish air, but the heavy electricity between us is powering down. “I was being deadly serious, lawyer.”
“Well, thanks, but no thanks, I’m not interested,” I insist, despite my body protesting otherwise.
“I think you know that’s a lie, it’s why you’re hiding in your room, avoiding me, isn’t it?”
“I’m working. Not seeing you is a side benefit.”
His eyes darken slightly. The air between us shifts, pulls apart, and tightens once more. “You’re starting to sound like you enjoy the fight.”
I hold his gaze. “I enjoy winning.”
Something flickers in his expression, not annoyance, but interest—which is worse. “Wi-Fi,” I say again.
He pushes off the doorframe with a quiet sigh.
“Router’s downstairs. Let me put on some pants first.” He turns around and, perhaps deliberately to taunt me, he drops the towel as he reaches the wardrobe, giving me a glimpse of an ass so firm no man has a right to before he disappears behind the open door.
Cheeks flushing. I turn around so quickly I almost lose my balance. I head toward the stairs, forcing myself to walk away, before I can think about going back in there and seeing his naked body in all its glory.
A moment later, he catches up to me. I don’t turn around, but I can feel him behind me, following too close.
My pulse quickens. This is ridiculous. I’ve handled cartel cases and cross-examined hostile witnesses, taken down financial networks worth millions, and somehow, the most destabilizing thing in my life right now is a man in a towel.
He’s not even wearing the damn thing anymore, but the sight is seared into my retinas.
I breathe a sigh of relief when we reach the main floor. The clubhouse is quieter than usual, a few men are at the bar, but most are out.
I glance toward the lounge where Jessy is sitting chatting with two of the club girls. I wasn’t sure about them at first, but on getting to know them I realized they were sweet and just put on a hard-as-nails front.
Rook glances toward the sound. “She’s made herself comfortable.”
“Yes. She’s a very sociable girl, she makes friends easily.”
“I wonder where she got that from,” Rook mutters. I ignore the jab, but it stings a little, even if I haven’t exactly been Miss Congeniality, I still don’t want people to think I’m a total bitch.
Rook walks past me toward a back room where the router is set up. I follow, arms crossed, trying very hard not to think about the fact that he’s still barely dressed in just a pair of gray sweatpants. He crouches in front of the unit, checking connections.
I tap my foot impatiently. “Can you fix it?”
He grunts as he fiddles with something. “Yes.” He glances up at me. “You’re hovering.”
“I’m waiting.”
“You’re hovering,” he says, his voice flat and matter of fact.
“I’m supervising.”
His mouth twitches. “Of course you are.” He reconnects the cable, and the router’s lights flicker back to life. “There,” he says.
“Good.” I can’t bring myself to thank him.
He stands and moves close. He’s always close somehow. Even when he’s across the room, I feel his presence. “You didn’t say thank you,” he observes.
I wrestle with my stubbornness and my need to be polite. As long as it took, Rook did fix it for me, and fast. I meet his eyes. “Thank you.”
The words feel like a concession, even if only a small one, but I see the way his expression shifts in victory and mostly, in recognition, as if he understands exactly what that cost me.
I hesitate, thinking of something to say, some words to tip the balance back in my favor.
“Don’t you have work to do?” he says, with that infuriatingly amused knowing look in his eyes.
I turn and head back upstairs without another word.