Sanctum (Masters and Mercenaries #4.5)(19)

“I don’t know. Wayward seems to imply a mistake. She’s too cute to be a mistake.” He reached out and touched Emily’s head. If this was the only way he could help Jillian, then so be it.

He was deeply surprised to find his arms full of two Paxon women. Ashley wrapped her free arm around him and started crying. Emily was cuddled between them, her slobbery hand pulling at Ryan’s suit coat, but it didn’t matter.

He found himself patting Ashley on the back when the doctor walked in.

“Ashley, he’s here.” He was actually quite pleased to not be standing there alone. Somehow being there with Ashley, someone who loved Jillian, made him feel stronger.

“How is she?” Ashley asked.

The doctor smiled. “She’s lucky. The bullet didn’t hit anything of importance. She’ll be up and about the day after tomorrow, but I don’t want her to work for at least four weeks to give her time to completely heal. I need someone to talk to admitting though. Apparently her insurance hasn’t kicked in yet. They’ll want to send her home as soon as possible, and I think she could use a couple of nights here.”

Her insurance didn’t kick in for another couple of weeks. The last thing she needed was another round of medical bills.

“I’ll take care of it.” It was the only thing he could do now.



“Are you, like, alive and shit?”

Jill opened the door to the largest man she’d ever seen, and his bulk had nothing to with fat. Ian Taggart was all muscle. What the hell was the big boss doing here? “Unless you know something I don’t, I’m still kicking.”

And almost ready to come back to work. Was this something about work? She’d been out of the hospital for over a month, and she was looking forward to going back to work. Was he about to tell her she didn’t have a job waiting for her? How the hell would she pay back Ryan?

She stepped back and allowed Taggart to come in. He overwhelmed the small but nicely appointed apartment she’d found herself in once she’d gotten out of the hospital. It was two bedrooms and in a nice part of town. Since she’d been living here, there hadn’t been a single murder-suicide or random shooting in the whole building.

And Ryan hadn’t come to visit her after the first day either. That was probably her fault since she’d told him to go away. She still wasn’t sure what she was doing. All she knew was she would return to work in three days, and she had to figure out what she wanted to say to him.

But first she had to deal with the big guy. He looked out of place in her very feminine apartment, like a lion that had wandered into a drawing room and needed to figure out just how many tea-drinking ladies he was going to eat. “How can I help you, Mr. Taggart?”

He dropped his big body onto her dainty white leather couch. It had come with the apartment, or so her sister had told her. “You can f*ck my Dom in Residence.”

“What?” Jill sort of sputtered the question.

“Sorry,” Taggart said, not sounding sorry at all. “My friends tell me I don’t deal well with social situations. Supposedly I’m too blunt, but I find that just stating the problem helps get to the heart of it. So, are you going to f*ck my Dom in Residence or not?”

She felt her whole face go up in flames as she took the seat opposite him. “Uhm, I’m sorry, but that is none of your business.”

“Oh, I just wish it was. You see, I don’t like getting involved in this crap. I don’t have a relationship. Why do I have to get involved in other people’s relationships? But you guys always find a way to drag me in.”

She was deeply confused. She’d really only talked to Taggart on a couple of occasions and it was usually to get him a drink. “We guys?”

“Yeah, my friends. Ryan has become someone I like. See, this is why I don’t like many people. People are f*cking maintenance. I don’t need more maintenance. I need peace and quiet and routine. Routine is good, but you’re currently f*cking up my routine because Ryan is planning on leaving Sanctum tomorrow so I have to find another Dom in Residence. Do you know how hard that is?”

“No.” He couldn’t leave. She knew she was utterly perverse, but the thought of not seeing him again made her ache. “No.”

“You don’t know how hard it is because you’ve never tried to hire one. Once I weed out the freaks, and there are a f*ckload of freaks, let me tell you, I have to start in with the interviews. Have you seen the geriatric guy with knives on FetLife? Yeah. He applied the last time I was looking. I get a bunch of idiots who call themselves Master Blaze and Master Storm. The last guy peed himself when he had a gun put in his face. If you’re going to call yourself Storm, at least hold on to your f*cking bladder.”

“Why is Ryan leaving?” It was a stupid question. She knew why Ryan was leaving. She’d pushed him away. She’d done so just as surely as he’d pushed her away. She’d been aching and scared when she’d woken up, and all she’d wanted in the whole world was to have his arms around her. She’d opened her eyes and seen him standing there, waiting to comfort her.

And she’d told him to leave because she couldn’t trust him.

Taggart’s blue eyes rolled. “He told me it would be easier on you if he left before you came back. I asked him why. He told me it was none of my f*cking business, which seems to be a theme with the two of you, and he handed me his resignation. It didn’t take me long to figure out the whole sordid mess. Let me see if I can simplify this. You signed a contract with him. When he could no longer fulfill his side of the contract, he made arrangements for you to get what you needed.”