Dominance Never Dies (Masters and Mercenaries #11)(5)

“She’s cool.” And hot as hell. When he’d kissed her he’d damn near shoved her up against a wall and taken her right then and there. He could practically feel her legs winding around him. That was the moment he’d known he couldn’t do it. It would have been quick and a little violent, and he wanted to be tender with her. He wanted to be different with her.

Michael opened the locker next to his, shrugging out of his vest. “You need to be more self-aware because if you’re not you’ll lose that girl the minute she hits the dungeon floor. Boomer kind of drooled over her and I’m going to warn you that JT is talking about getting a membership here and she’s exactly his type. He’ll play dirty, too.”

He could play dirty. He could snipe that rich motherf*cker from a mile away. “Tell your brother to stay away from my…”

Fuck. He’d almost called her his sub.

He was saved from that completely embarrassing mistake by his eldest brother’s deep voice. “Case, I need to talk to you.”

He looked back and Ian was staring at him, his face set in serious lines, though it was always kind of set that way these days. Even when he was holding his daughters there was a seriousness that had been absent in the days before Theo died.

It was how Case measured time now. There was BTD and ATD. Before Theo Died and After Theo Died. Mostly the ATD sucked ass and was marked with grim reality.

“Sure.” He pulled out a T-shirt and put it on, shoving his vest in his gym bag. Mia had never seen him shirtless. The vest he wore in Sanctum kind of perfectly covered his scars. What would she think when she saw his ruined back? The bullet wounds on his chest? The nasty scar a knife had left on his upper thigh. “What’s up?”

With his big brother it could be anything. Damn. It could be about work. McKay-Taggart did work around the globe. What would he do if Big Tag wanted to send him and Michael out in the field? They had a couple of cases they were working on in Houston, but that was an easy flight and he could get back home for Sanctum nights.

He didn’t want to leave Mia.

“Let’s go talk in Wade’s office.” He turned and started out of the locker room.

Case’s stomach dropped. If he wasn’t willing to talk in front of Michael, it was serious.

The last time Big Tag had shown up with that grim look in his eyes, it had been to tell him that Theo was dead.

Had something happened to Erin? She hadn’t been willing to admit she was pregnant yet. Could she not accept it? Had she done something to hurt herself?

“You want me to wait, man?” Michael watched as Big Tag left the room.

Case shook his head. He had no idea how long it would take. “Nah, it’s fine. I’ll call you if it’s anything important.”

Case forced himself to move. He wasn’t sure he could take another blow. If something had happened to Erin, he wasn’t sure he could handle it. He would have failed Theo on every level.

He wanted to go see Mia, to kiss her again and forget about reality for a little while. He took back everything he’d thought about going slow. They needed fast. He needed to get her in bed and burn off all the pain. She would accept it, accept him. She would take everything he had to give and return it all with her sweetness.

He opened the door to the manager’s office. Wade Rycroft had taken over management of Sanctum when Ryan Church had made a bazillion dollars on some new tech device he’d created. Ryan and his wife, Jill, still played at Sanctum, but the Dom in residence job had gone to a big cowboy from South Texas.

Wade wasn’t present in his office. Ian was sitting behind the desk. “Shut the door behind you.”

Case closed it. “Just tell me. Fucking get it over with, Ian. What’s happened to Erin?”

Ian’s head shook. “Nothing. Erin’s fine as far as I can tell. She’s apparently in serious denial about the bun cooking in her oven, but other than throwing up every morning and calling it the flu, she’s fine.”

The unspoken message? Erin was as fine as a woman could be when she’d recently lost the love of her life to a bullet.

Case slumped into the chair in front of the desk, letting his bag drop to the floor. Relief poured through him. “Thank god. I thought maybe she’d lost the baby or something.”

“I’m sorry,” Ian said. “She’s fine. Faith is back home for a week before she and Ten head back to Liberia for a few months. They’re having some girl time. God, I hope they give Ten a makeover. He’s got that beard shit going again. Maybe I should send him a glitter bomb, too. Once his beard is all pink and sparkly he’ll have to get rid of it.”

“You didn’t send Guy a mere glitter bomb. You sent the dude exploding glitter dicks. He’s suing you, you know.”

Guy Ferland was an ex-military man himself. He ran a security company that as far as Case could tell didn’t vet their clients as well as McKay-Taggart. He was willing to do a lot of shady shit, and lately he’d run up against Big Tag, who didn’t take well to shady shit. Hence the exploding glitter dicks that might or might not have put out an eye.

A brilliant smile crossed his brother’s face. “Yeah, I can’t wait for that trial. Mitch wants me to just pay the cleanup costs, but he’s not counting on how awesome it’ll be to have some judge have to say the words exploding glitter dicks. That’s going to be worth all the court costs.”