Dominance Never Dies (Masters and Mercenaries #11)(48)

“You know as well as I do no one ever completely quits the Agency. Where are you, Case?”

There was the protective older brother. The head of the family. The supreme ruler of all things Taggart. “I’m in Cartagena. Mia’s chasing down some lead. I’m chasing her. I’ve got Michael and Hutch with me. We’re cool.”

He wasn’t about to mention Ezra Fain because of the Guy factor. Ian didn’t like Ezra’s boss and his instincts would go on high alert if he heard Ferland had sent his own man in.

“That’s a lot of backup for a spontaneous op.”

The door opened and there she was. Holy f*ck, yeah. His dick worked. It worked just fine and his brain didn’t work at all. His brain should remember that this was the woman who’d nearly broken his man parts, but no. His brain f*cking wanted her, too.

“Ian, I’m going to have to call you back.”

“Condom. Don’t forget the condom. She’s naked, isn’t she? I can hear it in your dumbass voice. Use that condom. I can’t handle another kid right now. My life is full of poop and crying Taggart babies. Do you know how…”

Case shut the phone off because he had better things to do than listen to his brother complain about baby poop. He wasn’t going to make a baby. He was, however, going to finally get inside her.

Something had been bugging her earlier, something had made her put up a temporary wall between them, but it seemed insignificant now. She’d said he could tear her apart and there had been something about how very easy it had been for him to walk away from her.

They should talk about that. He should explain to her that it hadn’t been easy. It had been hard. He’d had to force himself not to call and when he’d been at the 4L building with Ian, he’d had to stop himself from hunting her down.

Her eyes went wide. “Oh, Case. You’re here. I…I didn’t think you would still be awake.” A charming laugh came out of her mouth and one hand went up to touch her chest as though she was trying to hide those breasts from him. “I was just coming out to grab the bottle of water I left behind.”

Yes, there was his sneaky, gorgeous, manipulative Mia. If he’d thought he liked the sweet girl who’d comforted him that day so long ago, he didn’t even know what to call what he felt for the aggressive goddess she was now. He craved her. She rocked his world in a way that other girls couldn’t.

In a way no woman ever had.

So he let go of all the things he knew he should do. He didn’t want to talk to Mia. He wanted to play with her. He wanted to play hard.

“Is that right?” Case heard his voice going deep. Maybe it was simply natural to slip into his Dom role the minute she walked in a room. It would be a fight because she wouldn’t allow him to top her outside the bedroom. She was far too wild for that. He’d snagged a couple of bottles of water from the plane and shoved them in his duffel. Hutch would find a few cases for them before dinner, but this would do for now. He reached in and grabbed one, wanting to play along. He didn’t want a seriously good manipulation to go to waste.

“You mean this one?”

She managed to blush so prettily. She’d let her hair down and the blonde tresses caressed the tops of her breasts. The gown she wore was white and clung to her every curve. “Yes. I’m sorry to bother you. I always take a bottle to bed with me.”

Oh, that bottle of water wasn’t the only thing she was taking to bed with her today. No. He held it out and watched as she moved toward him. She bit her bottom lip as though trying to look like a soft little fawn worried about taking something from the hand of the big bad wolf.

He handed it over. “There you go, princess.”

He winked her way and then picked up his duffel and moved to the one dresser. He placed the duffel on it and grabbed the small bag he kept of adapter plugs. He would need to keep his cell charged.

“Thank you,” she said in a small voice. “I guess I should say good-night.”

He could practically hear her frustration. Maybe it made him a bastard, but it brought a little smile to his face. One he absolutely wouldn’t show to Mia because she was known to hurt a man. “Good-night. I hope you sleep well.”

Besides, his girl didn’t give up.

He felt a hand on his back as Mia moved in. “I can see you’re going to be a hard sell, Taggart.”

“Maybe I don’t want you to think I’m easy.” He glanced up. There was a mirror and he watched as her hand snaked around his waist and rested possessively over his belt buckle. He could barely see the top of her head over his shoulder.

“Those were my best seductive moves,” she admitted. “Again, I was kind of counting on letting the girls work their magic on you, but I can see I’m going to have to up my game with you, Sir. The trouble is I don’t know what you want. We’ve never played together before. I suppose if we were still on the airplane, I would have made up some excuse to sit with you and talk to you and flirt with you. But we’re not there and honestly, I don’t think I want to manipulate you. So how about I tell you that I want to play with you, Case. I want you to top me in the bedroom but don’t ever think that it’s an act of indulgence on my part. Submitting to you isn’t about hoping that you’ll hold me afterward or praying you might come to care for me. I’ll handle that on my own. Playing with you means I want you so badly I haven’t been able to look at another man since I saw you. I want to play with you because my body comes alive the minute you walk in a room and I can’t imagine what it’s going to do when you finally spread my legs and push that big cock of yours inside.”