Master No (Masters and Mercenaries, #9)(28)

She stood there for a moment, her hand on the door, her mind on the man in the living room.

You want your Dom to instinctively know what you need, but you don’t want to give him the same courtesy. Had he been right?

Did he want the same courtesy? A woman who gave him something he didn’t have to ask for?

She wasn’t good at this. She was good at treating patients. At connecting dots and coming up with a diagnosis, but sometimes even a diagnosis was more instinct than science. Every field doctor who had ever been forced to take on a patient knew that.

What did her instincts tell her about Ten?

He’d stepped back to tell her the story of his birth. He’d been close to her before, crowding her and pressing in on her space until she couldn’t breathe without acknowledging him. He’d touched her hair, her face. He’d been tender until she’d asked about his name.

Nothing after. He’d expected rejection and she’d unwittingly given it to him.

He couldn’t know she’d still found him attractive, still wanted him. He couldn’t know she was simply afraid.

This was why she’d “hired” a Dom. So she didn’t have to make herself vulnerable. So she didn’t have to give him anything of true value.

So she didn’t have to care.

Damn it. She already cared about Master T. He’d said she hadn’t thanked him for saving her, for taking care of her. She’d given him words, but he wanted something else.

She had the feeling what Master T wanted wasn’t sex, but rather affection, tenderness.

Did she really want to be cold? Did she want all the sweetness to flow to her without giving any back? Now that she thought about it, she could see why Roger had wanted more, but in the end, he hadn’t been the man to draw it out of her.

Master T might be. She already felt far more for him than she wanted to admit.

The smart play would be to go to bed and head back to Houston in the morning.

So why did she turn? Why did her feet begin to move? Not toward her bed, but out to the living room.

She dropped the questions for the night. If she was ever going to find something real, maybe she should stop role-playing, and that began with giving her Dom what he needed.





Ten wanted to punch his fist through the wall. What the f*ck had that been? Did he have a goddamn brain in his head anymore? He was smooth. He knew how to handle a woman like Faith. They were all alike in the end. They wanted as much as they could take from a man without having to give anything back. Spoiled rich girls were all the same. They wanted a man to pay court to them. Faith wanted to pretend it was something different, that she was submitting when the truth was she was being cosseted and coddled without having to give anything back.

What would Old Ten have done?

Hell, girl, of course I’ll be your Dom. Want me to anticipate your every need? I can do that. Want me to spank your pretty ass and give you an orgasm to make you scream, and pretend it was all because I couldn’t keep my hands off you? I’m your man, darlin’.

New Ten had called her out. Something had happened to him since he’d been kicked to the curb by the Agency. He wasn’t as smooth as he used to be. He was more irritable, more restless. He definitely felt a change in himself since he’d spent those weeks getting to know her. New Ten had pointed out that he wasn’t willing to really do any of it. New Ten wanted more.

New Ten was a f*cking idiot who was about to lose his only way onto that island.

He had to sleep on the damn couch to top it all off. He stared down at it. One would think given Theo Taggart’s size that he would buy a large couch. Nope. Ten was going to have to cram his body on it.

Or not. It wasn’t like he slept a lot anyway. He could sit up all night and try to figure out when he’d lost his edge.

“Ten? Master T?”

He turned and she was standing there. Great. He could probably head home now and save himself the crappy night’s sleep since she was going to throw him out. “Yes, Faith?”

“I’ve thought about what you said and you’re right. I am role-playing. It’s a game, a way to relax and get something I need because most of the time I give over to what everyone else needs. I like to pretend that there’s one person in the world who takes care of me. I guess at the end of the day, I’m willing to pay for the privilege.”

“I don’t recall sending you a bill.” New Ten didn’t seem to be able to shut the f*ck up. New Ten didn’t like the idea of Faith McDonald thinking he did this kind of thing for a living.

Her lips curled up in a self-deprecating smile. “Sanctum sure did. That’s not a cheap club. I suppose I was looking at it like you were a package deal. I pay for a membership, they give me a Dom. Please understand, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me, Faith. But you have to know the rules of the game changed the minute that man tried to attack you.”

“Kill me. I think he was going to kill me. At first I wondered if he wanted to kidnap me, but I saw the look in his eyes. He might have ransomed me back to my dad, but he would have sent back a corpse. You saved me.”

That should have been enough to bond them. Weeks he’d worked at getting to know her, to anticipate her needs. He’d played it well in that moment. He’d held her, comforted her. Then he’d blown it and he knew why. He’d blown it because it felt different holding her. Just for a moment, he hadn’t been thinking about anything but the fact that she could have died and he might never have held her.