Quaranteam
Chapter 41
The next morning, Andy woke to a nearly empty bed, only Aisling curled up beside him, and when he glanced down at his watch, he realized why. It was nearly noon, which meant basically everyone who was keeping regular hours had been up for a while now, but he and Ash tended to be more night owl leaning, so they woke up later and went to bed later.
Ash was somewhere between awake and asleep when Andy stretched out in the empty bed, and as he moved to sit up, she extended her body as much as she could, like a cat waking up from a long nap in a sunbeam. “We overslept again, didn’t we?” she asked him.
“I prefer to think of it as sleeping exactly the right amount.”
“What’s on your agenda for the day?”
“I’m going to head over to the Watkins house and see if I can talk Nathan into bringing that woman Phil needs assigned into his house,” he sighed. “So hopefully Niko hasn’t left the house.”
“She said yesterday she was going to be around the house basically for the next week or so, making sure everyone gets settled in.”
“I think most people are capable of that on their own,” Andy said.
“Sure, but until Lexi is up and running, Niko feels like your personal security is her highest priority.”
“What’s she going to do if someone does show up? I mean, I love Niko to death, but—”
“But nothing, love,” Ash giggled. “She’s got several guns concealed in places around the house, should she need them.”
“Why didn’t she tell me this?”
“Because you’d worry, Andy,” Ash said, running her hand across her bare back. “You always worry. About everything. Why add more onto the pile?”
“Because I deserve to know,” he replied. “I ought to know what’s in my house that could kill me.”
“See? You’re already starting to worry.” Ash hopped out of bed, completely naked, heading towards the bathroom. “You coming?”
After a nice long shower in his truly decadent bathroom, he and Ash got dressed and headed down to grab lunch. The horde of his partners had clearly already been through, because the dishwasher was running and Jenny had set out a couple of sandwiches for him and Ash.
“Knew we weren’t going to be up in time for the group lunch, huh?” Andy said, sliding to sit down at the table in the kitchen.
“You were both up rather late last night, sir,” Jenny said, sliding a bottle of Coke across to him. “Nobody wanted to wake you, so everyone’s just going about their day.”
“I mean, if someone needed me, all they had to do was wake me up.”
“Of course, sir, but you’ve been doing an excellent job of staying ahead of everyone’s schedule for the past week that we all agreed you probably needed a bit of rest and recovery.”
“Jesus,” Andy laughed, “was I really that tired?”
“Let’s put it this way, sir,” Jenny said with a soft smile. “Do you remember filling Lauren’s needs early this morning?”
His eyes widened a little bit. “I slept through that?”
“That you did, sir.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his iPhone. This seemed like a good chance to try out the app that Whitney had been coding in her spare time. She’d told him that she would be continually updating it, but had installed a test version on his phone that would connect to the tablet’s app. His version would just be a reflection of that for the time being, and he couldn’t update it, but he could at least check everyone’s status without having to go over to that one specific iPad.
Sure enough, it had been updated this morning with Lauren having apparently gotten a load from him sometime early this morning, and he realized he’d just slept entirely through it. He felt a little embarrassed by it, but Ash just started giggling, which put him slightly off.
“Oh relax, babe,” she said to him, as he started to dig into his lunch. “You were having something of an erotic dream, an’ Lauren thought it would just take a little nudge to get you over the finish line, so she sucked a little and was able to do it without rousing you from the dream.”
“And she’s not mad?”
Ash giggled furiously for half a second. “That you gave her what she wanted? Not in the least, love. She was trying not to wake you up, so for her, this was mission success.”
“Well, if that’s what she wanted,” he said, shaking his head a little. The “do by” dates on the scheduling app were color coded—green, yellow, orange and red, with red being “if it doesn’t happen today, she’s probably going to just take it from you” level of severity. He’d actually been very active over the last week, and so almost all the girls were in the green, with just a couple in the yellow and one lonely person in the orange. Niko. “Do you know where Niko is, Jenny?”
“She went back to sit watch outside of Lexi’s room, Master Rook,” Jenny said to him. “She said if you needed her, you could find her there. She said there was something... unusual about Lexi’s imprinting process.” Jenny’s eyes looked at him with a touch of nervousness. “Should I be... worried, sir?”
“On the contrary, Jenny, I think you’ll probably be delighted when she wakes up. In fact, you should keep your schedule open today, so that when she wakes up, you have the chance to both orient her here in the house and to catch up with her. I think having her oldest friend around will help a lot, don’t you?”
“Yes sir,” Jenny said with a smile. “But weren’t you planning on leaving the house for a while today? Shouldn’t you take Lexi with you for security?”
“Lexi’s going to need a few more days to acclimate before she’s ready to take over security detail, so I’ll just take Niko with me, since she’s apparently been keeping a small arsenal concealed around the house without me even knowing about it.”
“I knew about it,” Nicolette said with a grin, sashaying into the room. “But then again, maids have always been the house keeper of secrets, dating back generations.”
“And because you helped her conceal the weapons in places I wasn’t going to stumble into.”
“Oh, you make it sound so tawdry, Master,” Nicolette said with a wink. “If it makes you feel better, you could bend me over your lap and paddle my ass until it’s the same shade of red as Mistress Ash’s hair.”
“Oh no,” Andy said, waving a hand, “you would enjoy that far too much for that to be any form of punishment.”
Nicolette clicked her tongue with a shrug. “My loss then, I suppose.”
“I’m going to take this to my office and get to work, babe,” Ash said to him, kissing his cheek, as she picked up the plate with her sandwich on it. “I’ll see you tonight at dinner, and remember, Nathaniel Watkins may seem like a good guy, but he’s still not entirely trustworthy, okay?”
“Got it,” he said, stopping her from walking away, pulling her back so he could give her an actual kiss, lips to lips rather than on his cheek. “Love you.”
“Love you more,” she said, heading off down the hallway, leaving him in the kitchen with Nicolette and Jenny.
Just as he was finishing his sandwich, his phone squawked at him. He’d set his phone text message sound to be a sound clip from Monty Python & The Holy Grail, so whenever someone texted him, he’d hear the sound of an arrow shooting into someone followed by “Message for you sir!” He picked up the phone and saw it was from Niko. “Come to Lexi’s room, ASAP.”
“Nicolette, can you clean this up for me?” he said, gesturing to the plate.
“But sir,” Jenny said, “I can—”
“No, I need you to come with me, Jenny. I think your friend Lexi’s woken up.”
“Oh. Oh! Yes sir, of course sir!”
“Don’t worry, boss, I got it,” Nicolette said.
Andy rose to his feet and started to move down the hallway towards the stairs before he realized Jenny was walking a couple of paces behind him. He stopped, put his hands on his hips and turned to look back at her. “Really?”
“Should... should I not? Sir?”
“Walk behind me?” he said with a scowl. “I catch you doing it again, and I’ll paddle your ass, and I know for a fact you wouldn’t enjoy it like Nicolette would. This is your friend we’re going to see, Jenny. There’s no reason to be nervous.”
“No one will tell me why Lexi’s imprinting is different than normal, sir.”
He gestured for her to move along with him, and when she was finally in step next to him, they started up the stairs. “You’re going to see in just a minute or so, and it’s not a bad thing, Jenny, I promise, okay? Trust me. Have I given you any reason not to trust me?”
“No sir.”
“Good, then c’mon.”
Once on the second story, they headed down the hallway to Lexi’s room, and the chair Niko had placed outside was empty, which Andy assumed meant she was inside. He knocked on the door, and Niko’s voice answered. “C’mon in, Andy.”
Andy and Jenny moved into the room, seeing that Niko was sitting on the edge of the bed, and Lexi was wrapped up in a sheet, talking quietly with the other woman.
“Hey Lexi, how are you feeling?” Andy said.
“It’s... It’s a little overwhelming, Andy,” Lexi said. “Nobody said this shit was gonna happen.”
“What shit?” Jenny said, concern in her voice.
“Jenny?” Lexi said, turning to look over her shoulder at them. “Hey, easy. I’m fine, okay?”
“What does that mean Lex?” Jenny said, looking like she was about to cry. “What shit happened?”
Lexi sighed, standing up from the bed, still wrapped in the sheet before she turned to walk over towards them, and then finally let the sheet fall to the floor.
There she stood in all her naked glory, having not put on a stitch of clothing since she woke up, obviously, but as beautiful as she was, that wasn’t what Jenny was staring at. “Where... where did your scars go?” she said, reaching forward, although Lexi was quick to extend a hand out to prevent Jenny from touching her.
“Careful,” she cautioned. “It’s all... incredibly sensitive right now. Niko was just telling me what happened.”
Niko smiled warmly from her perch on the bed. “So about one in ten people who are imprinted go through some level of cellular regeneration. It can range from small to severe, and nobody on the base seems to know what causes it or how much it’s going to revert. In Lexi’s case, it looks like the entire accident scar got healed up, so Nicolette’s going to have a hell of a time cleaning up her bed. There’s an entire layer of skin here, and as gross as that is, it’s what she’s been doing for the last couple of days. Her body’s been repairing itself. I knew there was a chance of it happening, but I didn’t want to mention it in case it didn’t happen. No point in getting your hopes up, right?”
Lexi’s hand smoothed over her own torso, shivering a little at her own fingertips. “That’s... it’s so goddamn tender.”
“They’re entirely new nerves, Lexi, so you’ll have to be very careful for the next week or so as you get used to having all that feeling back. You’re going to be hypersensitive until your body readjusts to all the nerve endings working again,” Niko said. “As much as it sucks, I would recommend you definitely not engage in any funtime with Andy for at least a week. By then, your body should be able to handle the sensations.”
Lexi moved over to her dresser and opened it, taking out a sports bra and a pair of panties, pulling them on, wincing a little bit as she tugged the bra into place.
“Does that hurt?” Jenny asked with concern.
“It’s... it’s more like a sunburn more than anything,” Lexi said. “It’s weird. It’s very hard to describe.” She grabbed a pair of pants and a very loose t-shirt, slipping into them.
“So, this is going to sound strange,” Niko said, “but how much do you remember about the accident that scarred you, Lexi?”
Lexi’s brow furrowed a little bit. “That’s strange too. I remember it in vivid detail still, but now it feels... it feels almost like something I saw, rather than something I experienced? Like I saw it happen to someone else up close, but... it doesn’t feel as personal. Is that unusual?”
Niko shook her head with a smile, standing up off the bed. “Not really. If the serum decides to go on a healing streak, it also tends to sort of disassociate any memories tied to the injury, like it’s trying to heal the mind as well. You’re probably going to find that a lot of old stress triggers you used to have aren’t there any more, because there’s nothing to flashback to.”
“Wait.” Lexi turned to look at Niko, her eyes widening a lot. “Are you telling me my PTSD is... it’s just gone?”
“Not entirely, but mostly, yeah.”
Lexi threw her arms around Niko in a giant hug, burying her face in Niko’s neck, and Andy could hear her tearing up a little. “You know the guy who created this serum, right?”
“I know some of the people who worked on it, yeah.”
“You tell them thank you, from me. Tell them they’re doing God’s work, and that they should know that this is nothing short of a miracle, what they’ve brought me back from.” Lexi pulled back and lifted one of her hands up to wipe the tears from her eyes with a smile. “For the first time in years, I feel like me again.”
“Hey, you just help me keep him safe, and we’ll call it even, okay?” Niko said with a grin.
Lexi’s head turned to look at Andy, as she pulled away from Niko and rushed over to him, wrapping her arms around him, pulling him down into a kiss as warm as summer sunlight over the Pacific Ocean. After a little bit, she slipped back, looking up at him. “I am going to protect you with every fiber of my being, Andy, and if that means I take a bullet for you, I will do it a thousand times over, and I will do it gladly.”
“Hey now, I’m just—” he said, before she shut him up with another kiss, her hand stroking along the back of his shaved head.
“You’re just the most important man in my goddamn life, Rook,” she whispered to him. “Now and for always. God gave me a mission, and that mission is to keep your naive, overly trusting ass safe, so it’s not just my mission, it’s my fucking way of life from now on, you hear me?”
Words Ash had said to him not so long ago still rung in his ear, so he responded the only way he knew he should. “Thank you, Alexis.”
“No no,” Lexi said, shaking her head with a wide smile, “thank you, Andrew Goddamn Rook.” She giggled a little. “And I’m sure Enrique thanks you too,” she said, tilting her head towards the beefcake poster that still hung on the wall.
‘Assuming he’s still alive,’ Andy thought to himself, but didn’t say aloud.
“So I know you brought me on to be your bodyguard, but—”
“You’re taking a week to get acclimated and adjusted, Lexi,” he said. “I want you and Jenny to get caught up, have a day of it, and she can answer any questions you have about the house, me, New Eden or anything else. After a couple of days of R&R, you and Niko can talk it over, work out how you two want to split time as my bodyguards, although Niko’s certainly going to have to start winding that down once she gets further along.”
“Further along?” Lexi asked.
Niko smiled and patted her stomach.
“Oh shit! Congratulations! I didn’t even know! How far along are you?”
“Just a couple of months in,” Niko said. “Maybe a little more.”
“Having a pregnant bodyguard’s no good,” Lexi scolded.
“Why the fuck do you think I was so glad you showed up?” Niko laughed.
“Yeah, okay, I guess you’re right there.”
“So you best do your goddamn job, you hear me?”
“Yes ma’am,” Lexi said, offering Niko a little salute.
“Anyway, why don’t we let the two of you spend some time reconnecting and we can talk again later, okay?” Andy said.
“You got it, Rook,” Lexi said to him. “But in a week’s time, you owe me a nice dinner and some dancing.”
“I’ve got two left feet, Lex,” he said with an embarrassed chuckle.
“That’s okay,” she said, moving over to grab Jenny’s hand with her own before moving to scoot past them, slapping him on the ass as she did. “The kind of dancing I’m talking about we can do lying down. Adios!”
She and Jenny darted down the hallway giggling like they were freshmen in college all over again, as Niko moved to stand alongside him. “Looks like that choice worked out pretty well for all parties involved,” she said, sliding her arm around his waist.
“Let’s hope so, because I’m going to be putting my life in her hands regularly.”
“Not just yours, but all of ours,” Niko said. “That’s why I vetted her myself as well after you’d chosen her.”
“Oh yeah?” he said. “And what else do I need to know?”
“There’s nothing to be concerned about, but maybe one thing you should know,” Niko admitted as the two of them walked out of Lexi’s room. “She got hit with that molotov cocktail when she was helping to evacuate some women and children from a village one of the cartels was rolling into. She’d been told to flee to higher ground, but she refused to leave until she’d gotten everybody out. The company took a harsh view on someone who went off script, but she was a good enough agent that they were willing to let her keep going, until the scars proved to be too recognizable and they had to retire her from active duty.” Niko squeezed his hip. “She’s one of the good ones, Andy. When she said she’ll protect your life with her own, she wasn’t kidding, so be sure to respect that. I know you will, though.”
“Speaking of respecting the need for protection, I need to head over to the Watkins house today to talk to Nathaniel for a bit, and I know you stressed I shouldn’t go anywhere without protection so—”
“So you’re letting me know we’re going out for a bit today, got it,” Niko said, and Andy could already see the wheels spinning in her head. “You ate lunch already?”
“I did,” he said. “How about you?”
“Affirmative,” she said, and the change in tone was something he noticed, as if she was putting on her business hat for a time. “Let me go and get a sidearm and I’ll meet you in the garage, okay?”
“Okay, see you down there.”
Niko headed off in one direction and he headed off in the other, starting to walk down the hallway, although as he approached the stairwell, he could hear moaning coming from behind the door closest to the stairs.
Sarah and Emily’s studio.
The door was closed, but he opened it just a little to peek his head in and found the two of them naked and sixty-nining one another in the center of the room, Sarah’s body beneath Emily’s, her face pushed up against Emily’s pussy. Emily was clearly trying to do the same at least some of the time, but Sarah seemed to know exactly how to push every one of Emily’s buttons, as she squirmed and writhed atop the much taller woman, her hand balling into a fist to hit against the floor, as if trying to clear her head for a moment. Andy grinned a little, and pulled the door quietly shut once more.
The two women had been a couple before either of them had met him, so he was glad to see they were still enjoying the pleasure of each other’s company without him around; he simply hoped they had the good sense not to turn the cameras in their studio on while they were doing it. A lesser man might have felt jealous, but Andy actually felt relieved, as it meant their relationship hadn’t been damaged by their injection into his family.
‘Oh Christ,’ he thought to himself. ‘I was supposed to take care of Taylor, Hannah and Asha last night. I better go talk to them.’
He took his phone out and texted Niko, “Gonna be 5-10. Have to do one thing first.”
“Roger,” she shot back.
“No, Andy,” he typed in amusement, “but I’ll tell Roger you said hi.”
She shot back the eyerolling emoji at him, as he turned and headed back down the hallway to the room that Hannah and Asha had converted into a mock dorm room until college campuses opened back up again. He knocked on the door, and heard Hannah say, “Come on in!” from inside.
Andy opened the door and sighed, standing in the doorway. Both of the girls were at their desks, each of them with a stack of textbooks, Hannah studying Spanish while Asha looked like she was doing her economics homework.
“Hey Daddy, what’s up?”
“I just wanted to apologize,” he said with a sigh. “I know we’d agreed that I’d take care of you two with Taylor yesterday but...”
Hannah grinned at him, bounding across the room to throw her arms around his neck, her curvy body pressing firmly against his. “You got busy, Daddy,” she teased. “Shit happens. It’s been a crazy fucking week, between 60 Minutes, Fi, Mo, Xander coming by, then Jade, Lexi and Maya, not to mention your heart-to-heart with Piper, and Whitney seeing if she could bring the bastard out of you.” She kissed at his neck while giving his ass a squeeze with both hands, and he could feel those thick nipples of hers pressing firm against his chest through her t-shirt. “I know that I was on the 20th, so if we’d gotten past that without you taking care of us, we’d have said something, but we wanted to be understanding and patient.”
“Speak for yourself, Biggo,” Asha said with a grin.
“Oh, she’s just teasing, Daddy,” Hannah said. “You can take care of us tonight after Taylor gets back from work. One day’s delay isn’t gonna cause anyone to lose their shit.” The Asian teenager rolled her eyes with a giggle. “Taylor completely understands that sometimes time frames get muddled.”
“She should’ve mentioned our appointment last night at dinner, to remind me,” Andy sighed, feeling a little like he’d let them down.
“Hey hey hey, Mister Daddy Man,” she said, looking up at him with those brown eyes. “If it had been a big deal, she would’ve, but we knew Whitney was worried that you and her weren’t settled right yet, so we let her cut in line. I mean, they asked us about it.”
Andy turned his head to one side. “And why didn’t anyone tell me about this little shift swap?”
“Because where’s the fun in that, Daddy?” Hannah said, licking her lips with a wink. “Anyway, it gave us more time to work out our plan for what we wanted to do for our first foursome.”
“First?” Andy asked, but Hannah just grinned back at him. “You three have some devious plan cooked up, don’t you?”
Hannah kissed at his collarbone and gave his cock a squeeze through his jeans. “Now don’t you go spoiling our fun, Daddy. We’ll see you tonight, after dinner, m’kay?”
“Don’t make me regret agreeing to this,” he said, as the curvy cheerleader pulled away from him and scooted back over to her desk.
“Don’t worry, Daddy,” Hannah said to him as he moved over to Asha, leaning down to give her a kiss, one that she held onto longer than he expected her to. “We’ll make sure your balls are drained dry before we send you off to bed.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he laughed, heading back out of the room, walking down the stairs before heading over to the garage.
Andy headed down to the garage and found Niko leaning against the car, a grin on her face. “Where’d you stop?”
“Over to let Hannah and Asha know how badly I felt about forgetting about our appointment with them yesterday, and to tell Taylor as well.”
“Yeah, they swapped with Whitney for last night. We all heard about it.”
“Everybody heard about it... but me?”
“They didn’t tell you?” Niko said, a sly smile on her face. “Huh. Wonder how they could’ve possibly forgotten about it.”
“I swear, you’re all going to be the death of me,” he said, heading over towards the driver’s side of the car before noticing Niko staring at him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked him.
“To drive?”
“Nah,” she laughed. “You don’t do that any more.”
Andy’s brow furrowed. “Excuse me?”
“I mean, you can do it around the yard a bit if you want,” Niko said, “but any time you’re leaving this property from now on, either I’m driving or Lexi is.”
“Is this—”
“Necessary? Yes, it absolutely is, hon,” she sighed. “I wish it wasn’t, but for the immediate future, you’re gonna be driven around by professionals. Now get in.”
Andy sighed in return, shaking his head, walking around the car before getting in the front passenger’s side seat. “I’m not happy about it.”
“I gathered that,” she said, climbing into the Tesla’s driver’s seat. “Hopefully it won’t be forever.”
During the drive across New Eden, Andy tried not to think too much about how much his life was going to be changing, and Niko made it a point to try and keep him talking. They discussed what the new security protocols were going to be and how he needed to be more aware of them moving forward, something that still wasn’t sitting well with him, no matter how important he agreed it was.
“I know, babe, but pouting about it isn’t going to help,” she said to him, as the vehicle pulled up to the gate at the Watkins estate. She turned on the vehicle’s exterior cameras, checking behind them and to the sides before she rolled the window down and pushed the button. A few seconds later, a voice emerged from the speaker, one neither of them was familiar with. “Yes?”
“Hi, I’m Niko Redwolf, here with Andy Rook, to see Nathaniel Watkins?”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No, we don’t... but if you tell him it’s Andy Rook, he’ll probably make an exception,” Niko said, amusement in her voice.
“Wait there.”
Niko looked over at Andy and grinned. “You know if he doesn’t open this gate, I could probably just drive right through it?”
“Let’s give him a couple of minutes, huh?”
A minute or so later, the gate buzzed and began to open.
“Think they heard me?” she asked him as she rolled the window back up.
“The world may never know.”
The car drove up the driveway and pulled to the front of the house where Andy was surprised to see Benny standing on the steps, a sheepish look on his face.
“Benny?” Niko said. “Shit, I may have to use my gun after all.”
“Let’s give him a chance. C’mon.”
They got out of the car and moved over towards the stairs. “Hello, Mr. Rook,” Benny said, looking down at his feet. “I... I wanted to apologize for the way I was acting before. I’ve... I’ve been having some issues with my father, and, well, that turned into me trying to take them out on you.”
Andy arched an eyebrow. “You do know that all this started because you were being ridiculously inconsiderate to Hannah, don’t you?”
Benny nodded. “Yessir, I see that now. I’d like to say I came to that conclusion on my own, but, well, Deborah’s been talking to me a lot and I realize I haven’t been the best person, so, I just wanted you to know I’m very sorry for how I was acting, and that I’m going to strive to do better. And the next time I see Hannah, I’ll apologize to her as well. Anyway, my dad’s waiting for you in his study, so I’ll take you there, if that’s alright.”
The boy’s sudden about face had Andy a little suspicious, but he never wanted to be accused of not giving someone a second chance, so he shrugged. “Sure, Benny, that’ll be fine.”
The young man didn’t say another word to them as he led them into the building. The Watkins mansion was at least three or four times the size of the Rook house, something Andy wasn’t sure if he found impressive or tacky and overblown. Maybe both, he thought to himself.
He hoped that he wouldn’t run into Erin, and thankfully, the walk to the study was direct and they didn’t seem to bump into any member of the Watkins household on the way. The house was decorated with expensive artwork all over the walls, but nothing seemed to feel particularly like it fit in, as if everything was bought because it was expensive, not because it fit in. More than anything, it reminded Andy of how Benny was dressed the last time Andy had seen him, although now the young man seemed to be sticking to just one fashion designer, which was a start towards progress.
“Ah Andrew,” Nathaniel said as they walked into the room. “Whatever do I owe the pleasure to?”
Nathaniel was behind the desk in a very nice study, and this room, unlike the hallways, had an almost laser-like precision in the style involved, which was to say it was all very neo-modern, sharp lines and angles, mostly black and white contrasting tones with only the occasional splash of color. This was clearly the room Nathaniel had decorated himself.
There were two additional desks in the room, one against either wall, a beautiful woman sitting behind each of them, a very pale blonde at one and a very dark skinned African-American brunette at the other.
“Hey Nate, I appreciate you taking the time to see me,” he said. “Remember how you said you owed me a favor still? Well, I think I’m here to ask if I can collect on that.”
“Of course, Andrew,” he said, gesturing to the two chairs in front of his desk. “Will you and Miss Redwolf take a seat? You can tell me all about it.”
They moved to take a chair as Niko smiled a little. “You know my last name?”
“My dear, I know every member of the entire Rook household,” Nathaniel said with a smile. “My Eliza would have my hide if I didn’t make it a point to learn as much as I could about my new friends.”
“You need anything else, Dad?” Benny asked.
“Thank you, Benjamin. That’ll be all.”
“Sorry again, Mr. Rook,” Benny said, giving a little bow. “I’ll do better. Promise.” He backed up to the door, slipped out and pulled the doors closed behind him.
“Hannah wasn’t kidding,” Nathaniel said to them. “Deb really did seem to know how to knock some sense into the boy. She’s ten times the father I’ve ever been.”
“Aren’t you going to introduce us to the members of your family here, Nate?” Andy asked.
Nathaniel smiled, spreading his hands out. “Where are my manners? This is Bridgette,” he said, gesturing to the blonde, “and this is Rosalyn,” he said, gesturing to the brunette. “Ladies, this is Andrew Rook and his partner 2nd Lieutenant Niko Redwolf.”
“Charmed,” Rosalyn said.
“Very nice to meet you two,” Bridgette agreed, “but you’ll have to excuse us. The market closes in less than an hour, so we are a little busy.”
“Carry on like we aren’t even here,” Rosalyn said.
“So what’s this favor you need from me, Andrew?” Watkins said to them. “You need me to find a home for another woman for you?”
“I’m afraid so, and this one has a few weird strings attached to it.”
“How weird?” Nathaniel looked more curious than upset, as if the mystery was intriguing him.
“So she’s already imprinted to someone else, but we may have a way to, well, transfer her from him on to you.”
“Ah yes, the dead man’s switch method,” Nathaniel said with a nod. “I’ve heard about it, naturally, but haven’t had to try it.”
“No, that’s not...” Andy started.
“Wait, how do you know about the dead man’s switch method?” Niko asked.
“My dear, when we were given this miracle serum, I made it a point to make sure I was connected and got the inside line on everything there possibly was to know about it, because the last thing I wanted was something coming back to bite me in the ass because I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Except that that particular information happens to be classified,” Niko said.
“Yes, well, if you help something go into mass production, they tend to be a bit more lenient about those sorts of things,” Nathaniel chuckled. “So if it’s not that, then what is it?”
“Pardon the implication, but,” he said, gesturing to the two women, “how far do you trust these two women?”
“With my very life, Andrew,” Nathaniel said. “Anything you could tell me, you can tell them.”
“So this woman claims to have a way to reassign a woman from one man to another without the man being dead first,” Andy told him. “But she wants to be assigned to someone comfortably wealthy before she’ll give up the research.”
“You’re comfortably wealthy,” Nathaniel grinned. “Why not you?”
“My wealth isn’t known at this point, Nate,” Andy said. “Not like yours is. I could tell her I was rich, but I don’t think she’ll believe me, whereas with you... well, I was thinking maybe you could take her into your family, because I think most people in America know you’re very rich.”
“How do you know this woman’s telling the truth?”
“That’s just it, Nate. She’s volunteering to be the test subject to prove that the approach works.”
“This approach... is it scalable?”
“Not yet,” Niko admitted. “No. But just getting to see it working, and to analyze all that data, it might be enough to let us get some better research. Consider this the Rosetta Stone.”
“Is the woman smart and good looking?”
Andy shrugged. “I don’t have the answer to either of those questions.”
Nathaniel frowned a little. “I’d hoped to close off my family and not add anyone else to it, but I suppose I did promise you that I’d owe you a favor, and if you think this would be beneficial, well, I can’t have anyone saying that Nathaniel Watkins didn’t do his part for the country. When do we get started?”
“On the 21st, the day after tomorrow.”
“Why not sooner?”
“I need to get a complete list of instructions from the person organizing all of this,” Andy said. “I’ll have that tomorrow, and so we can go and get it done the morning of the 21st.”
“I can’t do the morning of that day, but I can do afternoon, if that’ll be alright,” Watkins said, looking at his calendar.
“If that’s what it has to be, then that’s what it has to be,” Andy agreed.
“So how do we do this?”
“We’ll come by here on that day and pick you up, then bring you both back to here.”
“Me and Octavia,” Nathaniel said. “If I didn’t bring at least one member of my security with me, my wife would have my balls. You understand, I hope.”
“I’ve got a member of my security right here,” he said, squeezing Niko’s hand. “So of course I understand.”
Nathaniel nodded. “Excellent. Then I’ll see you in a few days. It sounds like this should be quite the adventure.”
“Let’s hope so,” Andy said, “and hope that the woman in question is telling the truth.”
“If she isn’t,” Nathaniel says, “it’s her own life she’s putting on the line.”
As they were getting into the car, Andy saw Erin watching down from one of the third story windows. Niko leaned over and kissed him, making sure Erin had an eyeful before she pulled back. “That didn’t seem like it went too badly,” she said to him as she clicked the seatbelt closed.
“Whenever things seem like they went well,” Andy grumbled, “that’s usually the sign that shit’s about to break off.”
“Then I think it went horribly,” she said with a laugh, shifting the car into drive.
As they drove across New Eden, heading back to the house, Andy noticed that Niko was constantly looking around them, and refused to have music on, which was the thing that bothered him the most. But she said that until she’d gotten a very good handle on the whole mini town, she couldn’t have music distracting her.
The drive didn’t have any incidents, however, and as soon as they got back to Rook Manor, Niko got past their gate and took a little detour, around to the back of the garage, behind the house, as Andy looked over at Niko with a raised eyebrow.
“Now you can put on your music, hon,” Niko said to him with a smile. “I wanted us to have a little one-on-one time.”
“Anything in particular you wanted to listen to?”
“Put on something without lyrics, something that we can have a nice slow relaxing screw to. Although we should definitely go into the back seat,” she said, opening the door to get out before getting into the back.
Andy picked up his phone and glanced through his music collection before settling on Mogwai, choosing their ‘Mr. Beast’ album, placing his phone in the little cradle before moving into the backseat. “I feel like you’ve been so busy the last few days,” he told her, as she pulled her shirt up and over her head, a dark blue sports bra on underneath it. She’d kicked off her shoes before he’d gotten into the car again, so he did the same. “I hope that’s okay.”
She grinned at him, trailing a fingertip down his nose before tapping on the end of it. “You are taking care of the sexual needs of twenty women, baby,” Niko said, tugging his shirt up, setting it aside. “That means if you spend ten minutes with each girl each day, that’s over three hours out of your day. We’re not all going to see you every day, and if we were getting pissed off about that, we’d all be angry all the time, so we all agreed that as long as you’re giving us an hour of uninterrupted time each week, we’ll make it work. It’s all about scheduling, and right now, scheduling is the last thing I want to talk about, okay?”
“Whatever you say, honey.” His hands reached down and pulled that sports bra up, as he leaned his head down to press his lips to one of her tan nipples, pursing them together to buzz as he felt her hand squeezing firmly against the back of his neck.
“Even without the chemicals, Andy, I have to say, you’re... you’re really fucking good at that...” she whimpered, her other hand reaching down to rub his cock through his jeans. “But I need to kiss you.” She pulled his head and locked lips with him.
Niko had always felt a little like the girl in school who was too cool for him, so when the two of them made out, he felt especially lucky, even knowing that they were engaged to get married, and that she was carrying their child.
Her hands started unbuttoning his jeans, reaching in to slide her fingers down to grab at his cock, as she started leaning back onto the seat, pulling him down on top of her. “So, is it weird to tell you I’ve never fucked in the backseat of a car before?” she giggled at him in between kisses.
“You never fooled around as a teenager?” he said with a laugh.
“Oh I did, babe, but never in the back of a car,” she said. “In a sleeping bag. In my bed while his folks weren’t home. On a blanket under the stars. In a lake a couple of times. But I just never did it like this.”
“So... wanna?”
“Fuck yes,” she said with a laugh, starting to push her jeans and pants down with a little shimmy, shucking them off quickly before folding them up, putting them behind her head like a pillow. “You don’t even have to take your pants all the way off. Just get them down enough to get inside of me. Get’em off, get’em off, get’em off!”
Andy worked to get his jeans and his boxers down to his knees, but before he could pull them any further, Niko took one of her legs and hooked it around his waist, pulling him on top of her, reaching down to get his cock aligned before groaning as he slid inside of her, her face softening a bit.
“I know you think I’m keeping secrets from you, Andy, but I promise you, baby, I’m only doing what I have to do, okay? Not because I want to, but because I have to. You believe me, right?”
His hand brushed along her cheek tenderly. “Hey. Niko. I trust you, and I love you, okay?”
A single tear dropped from her eyes as she smiled and nodded at him, leaning up to kiss him again. “I love you too, Andy. And I’ll tell you as much as I can as soon as I can. But for now, let’s just be a couple of stupid teenagers fucking in the back of a car before our parents catch us.”
He’d only had sex in the back of a car once himself, and that had been almost twenty years ago, so this was a strange walk down memory lane, but he liked to think his technique had improved, and so he started to thrust, rocking his hips in a steady and rhythmic tempo, as she held close to him.
“That’s it, baby. Fuck me. Oh god yes. Mmmmmphhh.” She moaned and squealed beneath him, but her position didn’t give her much leverage, and so Andy wanted to be sure he was keeping a good pace and hitting all her best spots, and he felt her fingertips starting to squeeze harder, that sign that she was nearing her orgasm. “Come in me, Andy. C’mon. Love me. Love me like I love you. Fuck I love you so fucking much, baby. Do it.”
Niko began to squeal and whimper like a chipmunk, her breaths shaky and just as he was about to cum, she grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him down to lock her lips against his, forcing her tongue right into his mouth, and as soon as he felt her clamp her cunt on his cock, he knew and so did she, and together, they both exploded in an intense orgasm.
A couple of minutes later, Niko started giggling and he looked down at her quizzically.
“We have to clean the seats before we put the car back,” she said.
“I think I can handle that,” he said with a laugh.
“I think I can handle you.”
“I’m pretty sure you just demonstrated that.”
Niko grinned from ear to ear. “Thanks babe.”