The Dom Who Loved Me (Masters and Mercenaries #1)(101)

“Do you want to explain this?” He shoved the least seductive image in Dex’s face.

“That’s Hannah. What the hell?” Dex grabbed the picture.

“What’s going on?” Slade asked, his voice rising in alarm over the phone. “What do you mean by ‘that’s Hannah?’”

Dex stared at Gavin, his face taking on that same blank expression he’d had for the first two years after Gavin and Slade had found him in a foster home. Dex had been the child their father hadn’t planned on or wanted. It had been pure chance that Gavin and Slade even discovered that Dex existed. “You think I would do this?”

His half brother’s indignant tone registered in Gavin’s head, but rage rode him hard. “Do you know what Hannah could do to you if she found out about this? She could call in the cops, and I would let her. And your sick ploy won’t work. You might be able to pull Slade into your perversions, but don’t think you can do the same with me.”

“Goddamn it, Gavin. Why would you say that?” Slade slammed a door, and Gavin knew that his brother was on his way.

Dex practically radiated fury. He was a huge bull of a man, and Gavin thought they were about to have the throw down he’d always suspected was coming. Dex loomed over Gavin, his fists clenched and ready, but then he shut down. Dex’s shoulders relaxed, and his face became a mask of bland politeness. “Listen up, Gavin. The only reason I am not walking out the door right this second is that I want Hannah safe. After I figure out who’s stalking her and make sure he can’t do it again, I’m leaving. You won’t have to deal with this perverse bastard ever again. But next time your rich-boy conscience takes over, don’t you dare come looking for me.”

Gavin looked at the pictures again and realized he’d made several terrible errors. He’d been so concerned about the photos that he hadn’t taken time to really look at the envelope. It hadn’t been addressed to him, but to Hannah herself. There was no stamp on the front. Some bastard had walked right into her office, stood at her desk, and made sure she would receive his “gift”.

Dex flipped over one of the photographs and slapped it on Gavin’s desk with a resounding thud.

You’re mine.

The menacing words had been written in blood-red marker, the color a stark contrast to the white of the photo paper.

“This is not some prank I cooked up to trick you into joining us. You’re really accusing me of becoming a stalker and trying to terrify the woman I love? And yes, I love Hannah. I won’t not say it because you’re too much of a * to handle it. I’m going to figure out what’s going on, and when I leave, I intend to take her with me. And you, big brother, can go to hell for all I care.” Dex turned on his boots and strode out the door.

Gavin tried to stop the queasy feeling in his stomach as everything Dex had said sank in.

“What the hell did you do, Gavin?” Slade asked, his voice barely audible over the sounds of traffic.

Gavin bit back the urge to put his head in his hands. He’d utterly mishandled everything. But that was the story of his whole f*cking life. “Get your ass up here now, Slade.”

He hung up the phone and couldn’t help but stare at the pictures in front of him. Hannah was in her bedroom, and the pictures were obviously taken from a distance. They had a grainy quality. In most, Hannah was reading or watching television in her tiny bedroom. She wore a nightgown in two of the pictures, but the majority featured her in a lacy bra and barely-there panties. So f*cking gorgeous. She hid that body under nearly shapeless clothes and always kept her hair in a ponytail. In the pictures, her rich honey hair flowed down her shoulders in loose curls.

He loved the one where she leaned back on the bed, the phone in her hand and a smile on her face, like she was laughing. Her green eyes were bright, and that smile could light up the whole f*cking world. The clock by her bed read ten o’clock. Gavin remembered calling Hannah at just around that time a few nights before. He’d lost an important phone number. She’d teased him about his organizational skills.

This was how she looked when she talked to him? Half-dressed, plump lips welcoming? Fuck, he’d explode next time he had to call her at home.

Gavin flipped the photo over.

Don’t let those perverted brothers touch you. You’re mine.

Gavin shoved the photo aside and surged to his feet. Hannah was in danger, and he’d been getting a hard-on looking at evidence. What kind of man was he?

You know, that voice said. You know exactly what kind of man you are, *.

He was a man who had just shoved his half brother aside in one of the cruelest ways possible. He shoved everyone away. Now, he was going to lose everything if he didn’t get his shit straight.

Not this time. By damned, he was going to make things right.

Gavin paced as he waited for Slade, a plan already forming.





Hannah Craig stopped and stared as Dex Townsend walked out of Gavin’s office and into the grand reception area she liked to consider her turf. Walked? Dex never walked. He strode. He swaggered. And now he charged out of the office like an angry bull.

She inched back into the hallway to observe him. She’d discovered that all of her men tended to put on a front when they realized she was in the room.

Her men. It was all she could do not to laugh at herself, but that was the way she thought of the James Gang—Gavin, Slade, and Dex. In her fantasies, they were her men, though she would never, ever tell them. But she’d fallen madly in love with them, and all three were way out of her league.