Dominance Never Dies (Masters and Mercenaries Book 11) (6 page)

Like a flipping Greek sex god.

He gave her his big old gorgeous jerk smirk and put a hand on his hip as though he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Darlin’, I just got off the phone with my girlfriend. She’s good at getting me revved up, so to speak.”

That was a kick to the gut. It had been months since she’d last seen him. He’d gotten a girlfriend? A sub? Had he taken a sub? Kori hadn’t mentioned a sub, but then she likely wouldn’t talk about Sanctum since Mia hadn’t been there in months. She wasn’t sure she would even be welcome. No one had told her her membership had been canceled, but she wouldn’t be surprised.

Was she pretty? Thin? Mia wasn’t thin. It almost never bothered her. She wasn’t that girl who worried about her weight, but Case made her vulnerable. If he had a girlfriend, then he was dumb because she was so obviously the one for him. If he couldn’t see it, then she wasn’t going to beg. She would do what she came to do and then he could get back to his tiny, thin sub who likely never ever disobeyed him or lied to him for perfectly good reasons. “I didn’t come here to talk about your love life. I came here because we need to work together.”

A single brow rose over his blue eyes. “So you decided to break in?”

Yeah, now that seemed like a stupid thing to do. What had she been thinking? Of course he hadn’t been sitting around for months waiting for her. He likely hadn’t thought about her at all. “I didn’t know when you would be back. And I kind of thought it would prove to you that I can be a good partner. I have skills, too. I thought if I was waiting here for you when you got back from whatever you were doing, maybe you would take me seriously for once.”

“Oh, I take you seriously. You seriously annoy me and now you can leave.”

She stood her ground. “I’m not going until you’ve listened to me. Drew told me to stay out of this and I have for the most part, but I never stopped looking. I never stopped trying to find him.”

Case went still as she pulled a folder out of her massive bag. “Who?”

She heard it in his voice. It was a little hopeful question. He’d been hoping and praying since that moment he’d found out his brother was dead. She knew it because it’s what she would have done. She loved her brothers. They were obnoxious and way too interested in her business, and if one of them died she would be devastated. If she thought for a second one of her brothers was out there and being horribly tortured, she would move heaven and earth.

Case had known that pain for almost a year. It didn’t matter that he had a freaking girlfriend and might never be able to love her. None of that mattered. He was a man who needed to save his brother and she was going to help him.

“Theo.” Mia handed him the grainy printout Tony had sent. “I found Theo and we’re going to get him back together.”

Case stared down at the photo. She’d memorized the damn thing. It showed two men, both holding AK-47s. One still had a mask over his face, but the other had slid it up so his features could be seen. She’d known immediately who he was. Case and Theo were fraternal twins, but they looked enough alike that they could be mistaken for each other. Case had a tighter jawline, his eyes slightly wider than his younger brother’s. He was the tiniest bit bigger, maybe a half an inch and ten pounds of muscle.

She’d studied Case, mooned over him like a teenaged girl, so she knew damn well what he looked like. The man in the photograph was Theo Taggart. She’d known it before the facial recognition software had confirmed it.

“Where?” Case’s voice sounded harsh and deep.

Tortured, as though he was being hurt along with his brother.

“It’s from a bank heist in Colombia.” She hated telling him that, but she couldn’t hold out on him. It was far too important.

More important than her heart.

“Where in Colombia?” His eyes narrowed, staring at her. That gorgeous jawline of his had gone tight.

“Cartagena. I have a friend there. I’d put out the word to my network that we were looking for him and Tony came through with that. He makes a careful study of everything that goes on around him, including certain police frequencies he shouldn’t be involved in.”

Case nodded and turned, stalking toward the back of the apartment. “Excellent. I’ll need his number and an address. Write them down for me.”

There was the arrogant bastard. She started to follow him. “It’s not going to work that way. I have to take you there. Tony is difficult to say the…oh. My god.”

He was naked. He’d tossed off that towel and his backside was the single most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. It was sculpted and muscular and just freaking perfect but his back… What the hell had happened to his back? He had a deep scar that ran across the skin of his back from just under his left shoulder blade down to just above those gorgeous cheeks.

It wasn’t the only scar. There was a circular one on his thigh and some others.

So much pain.

“You know it’s usually considered polite to knock before entering a gentleman’s bedroom,” he said, his voice deep. He didn’t hurry up though. Nope. He simply reached for his boxers and slowly put them on like a reverse-strip-tease, you-can’t-touch-this show.

“Like you’re a gentleman,” she said with a huff.

He stepped into his jeans and turned, those big hands of his working the fly. “Did you get an eyeful? I suppose I should be happy you didn’t faint at the sight of all those ugly scars. I suppose those college boys you mess around with don’t have ugly scars.”

She rolled her eyes and started to mouth off to him and then stopped. Surely the man knew how freaking gorgeous he was. He had to know, right? “The scars aren’t ugly, Case. I think you need them. You would be too pretty without them. And I’m very sorry for staring at your backside. It’s obvious you put in the glute work.”

He frowned as though he’d expected something totally different out of her. “You were staring at my ass?”

Maybe this hadn’t been the right way to go. She felt her skin flush. “It’s a nice backside. I’m a woman. I looked. And what college boys? You have a distorted view of my dating life. I’m not exactly hitting the frat parties. You do know I’m twenty-six, right?”

“How do I know anything about you? You lied about everything.”

And they were right back to the core of their issues. She’d told one teeny, tiny lie while in search of a greater truth. It wasn’t even like she’d gotten away with it. No, the hacker gods of McKay-Taggart had found her out very quickly and used her because they’d suspected Drew was working for some super-secret evil organization. “I would suspect by now you’ve gone through my every record, Case. And it wasn’t like I was lying without a purpose. You know why I did it.”

Because she’d lost her best friend and no one would believe her. No one would talk to her about the investigation. They’d called it a random murder, but she’d known it was far from random.

He shook his head and moved to his closet, grabbing one of what seemed to be an endless supply of black T-shirts that molded perfectly to his chest.

She’d seen the man in leathers, a vest covering his torso. The line the vest left uncovered hadn’t told the tale. All she’d seen was perfect skin, but without the shirt or vest, his chest was another network of scars.

She wanted to touch them, to trace them under her fingertips and then kiss each one.

Of course, his girlfriend would probably object.

Stop it. Get down to business. Stop thinking with your girl parts because they obviously have terrible taste in men since they seem to only want stubborn, assholey cowboys who have about as much forgiveness in their hearts as a dried up well.

“I know that you should have been honest,” he said as he pulled on his boots. He sat on the edge of his bed, working to get the beat-up boots on his feet.

“Yes, just like you.”

His blue eyes narrowed, staring her down. “I was trying to make sure you weren’t working for the people who murdered my brother.”

“And I was trying to do the same damn thing for my friend. When I started this, I thought Jared murdered my friend and Kai and your family were covering for him.” It was what she truly couldn’t understand. They’d both done the same thing for roughly the same reasons, but he wouldn’t even look at her much less get back to that moment when he’d kissed her.

God, that had felt so real. It killed her that he’d been playing a game.

“Supposition, and ridiculous supposition at that. We’ll have to agree to disagree, Mia. Could you forward me all the material you have?”

He hadn’t changed at all in the months they’d been apart. He still wasn’t willing to listen to her or give her a chance to change his mind. “This is all the material I have.”

He held a hand out. “All right. I thank you for this. I need to get to Ian’s.”

She held the folder out for him. It wasn’t like she didn’t have a copy. “Did you hear a word I said?”

Going to his eldest brother was the last thing she thought they should do. Ian Taggart would take over and he wouldn’t care that the situation was delicate.

“Heard and understood. You’re not going to Colombia. Go back to Austin. If you really want me to, I’ll update you when I can.” He started back to the living room.

She followed hard on his heels. “You’re not leaving me behind. I meant what I said, Case. Tony won’t talk to you.”

“I’m pretty damn good at making people talk, darlin’.”

The way he said
darlin’
made her heart pound, but now she realized he used that deep tone of voice on every female. She wasn’t special.

And it didn’t matter. She was doing this for a little boy who might never know his father. “Not Tony. He’s ex-CIA and if he even gets a hint that someone’s after him, he’ll run and you won’t find him.”

His eyes narrowed. “Or you’re lying to me again in a desperate attempt to get what you want. What is it this time, Mia? Is it another story? Or is this a play for attention? Is big brother ignoring you?”

She stopped, finally getting it through her thick skull that he didn’t want her.

She’d brought him the best lead she could find. From what she could tell, this was the best lead anyone had found on his brother and it didn’t matter. She stared at him for a moment. She was insanely crazy about this man and he couldn’t give her the time of day.

Did she want to be this girl? The one who begged and pleaded and took the scraps?

Without another word, she moved to the door. He didn’t want to have anything to do with her, then she would have to move on. No matter how much it hurt.

She walked toward his door. She could be at the private airfield in twenty minutes and Cartagena roughly six hours later. Seven, depending on when they could take off. She would get to Tony long before the Taggarts could do their damage and she would send them all the information she uncovered.

Then she would move on.

If Case Taggart couldn’t see that she was the right woman for him, she wasn’t about to waste more time on the man.

God, why did her heart ache? Why was it so hard to keep her feet moving?

In her head she did a mental checklist. She had everything she needed. When she got to Colombia, she would hire a car and go to the hotel. She’d already sent the message to Tony. He would send her a time and meet place.

Hopefully she could get it all done before the Taggarts put boots on the ground in South America.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” Case was the one following her now.

She stopped in the middle of his living room, turning on him. The sight of his living space alone should have proven to her they wouldn’t work. It was too neat, Spartan. There was nothing of the man himself in this place. No photos, no little mementos. There was utilitarian furniture, a massive TV, and an Xbox. Mia’s apartment was messy and filled with sentimental crap. He would hate it.

Like he hated her.

“Does it matter?” She was suddenly so tired. She’d dreamed of seeing him again and while she hadn’t expected him to welcome her with open arms, she also hadn’t thought he would show her outright hostility.

“It does if you’re planning on chasing this lead yourself and fucking over what might be my only shot at saving my brother.”

This was the moment she should walk away. The Taggarts could rise or fall on their own. She’d done enough.

If she thought for one second that they could not only find Tony, but also get him to talk, she would walk. The problem was she was the only person who could do this job. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place and it was obviously time to get to work on her own.

This trip had been a fool’s errand and she wouldn’t make the same mistake again. She would move forward. When it came time to turn the investigation over, she would do it, but until then she was on her own.

“Go home, Mia.”

She understood what he meant. He didn’t care where she went as long as she wasn’t bugging him. “Good-bye, Case.”

She started to turn, but he was right there, his big hand on her elbow. He twisted her around and she stumbled slightly, landing against his chest.

“Tell me why you came, Mia. Stop the bullshit.”

She might just be using her pepper spray tonight. “Do you think I faked that photo?”

“No.” His hand was still tight on her arm. “Not even you would do that. But you could have sent it to me. You should have sent it to Ian. But no, you came here to me, to my house, into my bedroom. So tell me why you’re really here. Maybe if you’re honest with me, I’ll give you what you want.”

“You seem to know everything. Why don’t you tell me why I’m here?”

“Because I think those fancy boys you play around with aren’t doing it for you, darlin’. I think you want to see what it’s like to go to bed with a man who gets his hands dirty. Is that what you want? A quick roll? Because I might be willing to do that for you.” His handsome face was so close to her own.

All she would need to do to bring their lips together was go up on her toes.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t willing to degrade herself. Not even for him. The sweet Case she’d known, the one who treated her like she was special, like she made him happy, had been a lie. This was the real Case. The other one had simply been his cover.