Cherished (Masters and Mercenaries #7.5)(4)

Jake laughed and started teasing Serena about how Adam sometimes used her hair products. Chris’s Dom returned and settled him on his lap.

Happy couples. Yep. They were all around her. Well, couples and trios. She noted Karina Mills walking into the bar holding hands with her fiancé, Derek Brighton.

So much happiness and not a bit of it seemed to be slated for her.

Great, now she was holding a pity party. Lovely.

She looked around. Beautiful men were everywhere. Even the ones who weren’t conventionally attractive had character stamped on their faces. There was no doubt about it. It was a smorgasbord of male beauty.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to pretend to have a boyfriend for a while. Hell, maybe she’d even find someone she liked. Someone who wouldn’t cheat on her and spend her money.

Or she could settle for not humiliating herself.

“Tomorrow. I’ll make a list tonight and ask them tomorrow,” she said more to herself than anyone else.

But her best friend was right there. Serena smiled and put a hand in hers. “I’ll help you. Let’s go get dressed and head back to our place for coffee.”

“And baby watching,” Bridget said quickly. Watching Tristan Miles-Dean had become her favorite pastime. She’d never really thought about babies until her best friend had one, and now she loved to look at the expressions he made while he was sleeping and the way he tried to eat his own foot.

Serena nodded. “And baby watching. We’ll figure out the perfect guy to ask. It’ll be fun.”

Bridget doubted that it would be fun, but at least she wasn’t alone. Chris gave her a wink.

No. She might not have a guy, but somehow she’d found the best friends a girl could ask for.





“You’re pathetic, you know.” A sarcastic voice had Will Daley turning away from his current occupation of eavesdropper.

It didn’t matter. It seemed the relevant conversation was over, so he flipped Mitchell Bradford off and slunk out from behind the sofa he’d been sitting on in time to watch Bridget Slaten saunter off in her heels and a miniskirt that left just the tiniest smidgen to his imagination. Fuck, that girl had the sweetest ass he’d seen in forever.

Unfortunately, it was attached to a banging body and the brattiest mouth he’d ever come across.

“I have to listen in because she won’t talk to me.” Will crossed his arms over his chest as she turned toward the locker room. He kept his voice down because Chris Roberts, his boyfriend and Dom Jeremy Hill, and Jake Dean were still talking.

Mitch shook his head. “I think that’s what we call a signal in our world. You see, we’re supposed to read body language and be able to tell when a sub is happy or distressed.”

Will sighed and wished law school had made Mitch less sarcastic. “She’s not unhappy. She’s afraid of something.”

Bridget Slaten was a complete mystery to him, and he wasn’t exactly sure why, but he felt a desperate need to solve her. He’d first met her when Derek had found him a condo. Will figured Derek owed him since Derek and his fiancée, Karina, were the reason he’d nearly been murdered and humiliated horrifically, so when he decided on a fresh start and Derek offered, he’d taken them up on it.

Not at first. At first he had too much crap to deal with. There were police reports to be filed and explanations given of how a killer had almost gotten away with pinning his crimes on Will. There was Starr, who had used him for months when all she was really doing was getting close so her boyfriend could kill Karina and collect on an insurance policy. He could still see her, her normally placid face screwed up in disgust.

You’re a pervert. The things you made me do. You’re the one who should be going to jail. Not me.

He shook off that particular humiliation. He didn’t like to think about the fact that her trial would be coming up soon.

It had been a motherf*ck of a few months. Hence the need to start over.

And to shake off the past and embrace who he really was. He was a Dom and he needed this kind of play. He wasn’t going to hide it anymore. He’d spent the last several years making sure no one at the hospital knew he liked to visit clubs. He’d gone so far as to live in Dallas and work in Fort Worth so he wouldn’t run into anyone who knew him. He’d told lies about his profession.

He was still the kid who didn’t want anyone to know he lived in a trailer and his mom was a meth head.

No. He didn’t hide now and he wasn’t going to hide his interest in Bridget. His sisters even teased him about her because he tended to trip or miss steps when she walked by.

“What makes you think she’s afraid and not simply uninterested?” Mitch asked. There was no way Will could miss the speculative look in his friend’s eyes. Mitch was a lawyer, a shark of the highest order. He was always assessing, always plotting.

Wishful thinking? “She watches me when she thinks I’m not looking.”

Lila had been the one to inform him of that interesting nugget, though she was known for being ridiculously over positive at times. All three of his sisters tended to take a super-positive, the-world is-still-great view of life, which considering how they’d grown up was a miracle.

Mitch’s big shoulder shrugged. “She could be worried you’re stalking her. Which you are. I’ve found women have excellent prey instincts. They get antsy when the big bad predator keeps licking his chops around her.”