Dominance Never Dies (Masters and Mercenaries #11)(9)

He wouldn’t touch her. Not again. He would come up with any reason not to get his hands on her.

Because he wasn’t sure if he did get his hands on her that he would ever be able to let go.

“I’m not telling Erin, Case.”

That was one decision Case agreed with. “We can’t tell her until we’re a hundred percent sure.”

She couldn’t lose her love twice. He had to make sure Erin and Theo had a happy ending.

It didn’t look like he was going to get his own, but then he should have always known that.

He opened the folder and began to prepare for his mission.





CHAPTER ONE





Dallas, TX

After a whole bunch of stuff happened in From Sanctum With Love…



Mia Danvers stood outside the building that housed her target and shivered a little. Not because of the cold but because of what she was about to do.

Moth to a flame.

Or rather very stupid woman to a freaking gorgeous, two-hundred-pounds-of-muscle cowboy commando.

Why him? Why did it have to be Case Taggart? He was so far from the men she normally dated as to be ridiculous. She liked smooth men, polished and a little on the metro side.

Men who didn’t make her heart pound just by walking in a room. Men who didn’t make her insane.

Her cell phone trilled and she practically jumped at the chance to not walk into that building. She glanced down at the call. Her brother Brandon. Her sweet brother, the one she was closest in age to.

The one who could turn violent so quickly. The one she worried she would lose one day.

“Hey, Bran. What’s up?” She was supposed to be in Austin. This trip to Dallas and then on to South America was completely unscheduled and very secretive, and she was hoping to keep it that way. Oh, her oldest brother would figure out something was up eventually, but she’d given the pilot of one of the smaller corporate jets her best sob story and a bottle of expensive Scotch. Surely Drew wouldn’t miss one little tiny luxury jet. 4L Software had several.

“Why are you going to Colombia?”

Damn it. Did they have a locator chip on her? Or maybe they had a psychic on hand to always guess where she would get into trouble next. She wouldn’t put it past them. “What? Why would I go to New York? I don’t have any friends at Columbia University.”

A deep chuckle came over the line. “Oh, baby sis, you know how I love your plotting and I so enjoy watching you make Drew crazy, but I also love you. And keeping you alive is important to me. So I’m going to ask again and be more precise in my language. Why is there a corporate jet headed for Cartagena, Colombia? You know, it’s that place in South America. Supposed to be lovely. Also the site of many corporate kidnappings, which is why we have to have insurance for anyone who heads down there. Are you chasing a story?”

She was chasing a ghost and she needed Bran to keep his mouth shut or big brother would be chasing her. “It’s sensitive, Bran, and I need you to not tell Drew about it.”

“All right.” Her brother sounded calm and collected, but then he almost always did. Bran appeared to be the most laid back of her brothers. With his charming manner, it was an easy mistake—right up to the moment he went berserk. Never on her. Never on any woman. Bran loved women of all shapes and sizes and ages. He was the man most likely to drop whatever he was doing to make sure an old lady crossed the road safely, but when it came to other men he could get nasty. Especially if he thought one was mistreating a female. Naturally he chose to hang out in strip clubs where he could get his rage on regularly.

She often wondered if Bran’s volcanic anger went back to that moment when they’d been children on the run. To that one moment in their shared childhood when they’d been so brutally separated. She didn’t remember as much about the time their parents had been killed as her brothers, but that one memory was stamped on her brain.

Please, Bran. Please, don’t leave me.

“I’ll keep my mouth shut with Drew as long as you stop back here and pick me up,” he conceded. “I have no idea what you’re up to. I’ll let you do what you need to do, but you have to have backup.”

“I’m getting it right now. I’m meeting with Taggart in a couple of minutes.” He just didn’t know they were meeting. According to her source, Case wasn’t home. She was going to do a little breaking and entering to prove to that infuriating man that she was more than some crazy rich bitch.

The trouble was she was fairly certain he didn’t mind two of the three descriptive words in that sentence. She could remember him vividly grinning at her and calling her a crazy bitch. He’d given her the hottest, sexiest smile and he’d almost kissed her.

It was the rich part that seemed to bug him. It didn’t matter that it was her brother who was insanely wealthy. All that mattered was he apparently thought she was spoiled and entitled, and all because she might have lied to him the slightest little bit. It had been a teeny tiny lie that had nearly gotten his friend’s brother incarcerated for several murders he hadn’t actually committed, but she’d meant well.

“You’ve got a bodyguard?” Bran seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “That’s good. That’s exactly why we’ve been in talks with McKay-Taggart, but you do understand Drew’s trying to keep that under wraps, right? He and the big, scary Taggart are working on something. I’m not sure what.”