Dominance Never Dies (Masters and Mercenaries #11)(25)

So why had Lawless made that play?

He stopped in front of the last door and the question slipped out of his head. Mia was standing in the middle of what looked to be a bedroom. There was a mirror on the wall and she held a dress up, looking at herself in the glass as though considering every angle.

So damn pretty. Why did she have to be so pretty?

“It’s a nice dress. Are we getting fancy for dinner? I have to warn you I only brought a couple of pairs of jeans and some T-shirts. I’ll have to suit up somewhere if I need anything but casual.”

He watched as she flushed. She shook her head and then opened a drawer, putting the dress back in.

Now that he got a better look at it, the material was filmy, with swaths of lace decorating it. Was that lingerie?

“Sorry. I came here to see if something I’d left behind was still here. It was.” She shut the drawer and turned back to him. “I promise everything’s casual. I mean to keep a low profile. The real problem is I didn’t book enough hotel rooms. I’ll have to see if we can find a couple more when we get there.”

“I’m staying with you.” He needed to make that clear right here and now. “You might shove me on a couch, but I was never going to have a separate room.”

Too much could happen if he left her there alone. And way too little could happen if he wasn’t there. Now that he’d made the decision to go with her, it seemed fairly inevitable that chemistry and close proximity would work their magic.

And her brother could bite his ass.

She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Then don’t think about it at all.” He stepped into the small but elegantly appointed bedroom, the rest of the world seeming to fade away. “Let me take care of that part. You know I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

She was silent for a moment, those big blue eyes staring straight through him. “I know you won’t hurt me physically.”

“I don’t want to hurt you at all, Mia. Look, I got angry because you lied to me. I lied to you. In the end we were both doing it for the greater good. Let’s get past that.”

She leaned against the dresser. “I already have. I know why you did it. I actually should thank you. You didn’t take advantage of me. It would have been easy for you to. When I really think about it, you were a gentleman.”

He didn’t want to be a gentleman around her. He wanted more than the polite iciness they’d settled into. “I did kiss you.”

“I kissed you back,” she replied a little wistfully. “I know you won’t believe me, but I meant that kiss. I didn’t walk into Sanctum expecting to find a lover.”

“I would hope not. You were engaged.” It still bothered him. It still made him feel dirty.

“Yes.” Her arms crossed over her chest as though she needed protection. “Is that what the real problem is? You can’t trust me again because I kissed a man while I was engaged to someone else?”

He’d thought through the scenario about a thousand times since he’d opened that folder Ian had given him and learned the truth about her. How far would she have taken it? He’d been so lost that evening. Spending time with her had made him feel good. By the time he’d brought her up to the rooftop, he’d practically forgotten his troubles. And that was when the guilt had set in. That was when he’d known damn well he wasn’t going to sleep with her because his brother was dead and he shouldn’t be thinking about a woman. Then she’d brought him such peace. Sitting with her, talking about Theo with her had felt so right. For the first time since Theo’s death, he’d thought he might be able to deal with it. Then everything had changed.

“Tell me something, Mia. If I’d pushed, would you have slept with me that night?”

She shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t have. Later, maybe, but not that night. I started to trust you specifically because you didn’t push me. You seemed to want more from me than sex and then you didn’t want me physically at all.”

“I wasn’t going to sleep with you when I knew you were lying to me and I was lying to you.” It was the moment he’d known he would always be a soldier and never an operative. He could make hard decisions, but he couldn’t give away that piece of himself.

Her skin flushed the prettiest pink. “Yeah, well, I probably would have. It’s a good thing you saved us from that. And I never said it to you, but I’m glad it wasn’t Jared. I know that would have hurt Kai. I actually came to like Jared. I was happy to be wrong.”

He’d known she would have gone to bed with him. She’d been deeply frustrated by how unphysical he’d been with her. He’d had to turn his head a time or two to keep her from kissing him.

Not touching her had been hell.

“The good news is now everything is out in the open.” It was awkward standing here with her. At one point in time he’d felt so comfortable talking to her. He hadn’t known her then. There hadn’t been a mile-high wall between them. He hadn’t realized how far apart their worlds were back then. He’d thought she was a sweet woman who worked in a dentist office. He’d had something to offer that woman.

What the hell could he give Mia Lawless except a couple of orgasms?

There was one other thing he could give her.