Unconditional (Masters and Mercenaries #5.5)(18)

The next sound she heard was the door closing behind him.

She giggled a little, trying to catch her breath.

Yep, she liked Sanctum even better from the other side.



Keith’s hands were still shaking as he made his way to the locker room.

What the hell had just happened? Fuck. He could still taste her on his tongue. His dick was so hard he could barely breathe, and he was seriously thinking about asking someone else to walk her to her car so he didn’t have to see her again.

He could find another club. Hell, he could just start his own. Or he could move. His business could be run from just about anywhere.

He stopped. This was stupid. He wasn’t going to run away. He wasn’t going to have someone else take care of his responsibilities.

She was just a girl and he’d given her an experience. It was what Doms did.

They usually didn’t run away from the sub though.

He took a deep breath and strode into the locker room. She’d been so f*cking sweet. He liked everything about her. He liked how funny she was. He liked her smart mouth. He definitely liked how she’d tasted on his tongue.

“Don’t you change that f*cking TV. Get near my remote again and I’ll kill you, Adam.” Ian Taggart was standing in the middle of what the guys of Sanctum called “The Dom Cave,” a big shiny remote in his hand.

The locker room here was nothing like the clubs he’d been in before. Even the most affluent of those clubs had fairly simple changing rooms with bathrooms and showers, but Sanctum had a massive LCD TV and lounge chairs.

“Dude, that game ended two hours ago,” Adam said, staring at his boss.

“I’ve got it DVR’d so it’s like I stopped time. Either grab a beer and watch it with me or get your ass out of here. You are not changing this TV to some f*cking home and garden show.” The big Dom shook his head in distaste. “I didn’t even know we got that channel. Bad remote. Bad.”

Sanctum was different. He was starting to realize that. Sanctum was more like a family. Fuck, it had been a really long time since he’d had one of those.

He wondered what the women’s locker room was like. He wondered if Ashley was being taken care of.

“Hey, how’d it go?” Derek Brighton asked as he walked into the room. He shrugged out of his vest and shoved it into his locker.

Taggart continued to argue with his friend over what was suitable male television viewing. Keith opened his locker. “It was a good first night.”

“Excellent. I was worried for a minute there. She seems a little closed off.”

His first instinct was to walk away. Leave it at that. He had too many friends already. Except he didn’t actually have any past Ryan, and Ryan knew so very little about him. He used to have friends. He used to be open. Five years of being utterly frozen was starting to wear on him. “She has some very closed-minded views of sexuality.”

Derek nodded. “Yeah, I heard some of her story. Jill talks about their hometown sometimes. Apparently their mom was pretty uptight after their dad left.”

Her mother had died a while back. Keith had known a little of the family history, but not enough. “Yeah, if I had known how bad it was, I never would have put Jill on a bus back there.”

Derek’s eyes went a little wide. “That was you?”

“Nice. Gossip. Football can wait.” Taggart was sitting in his recliner, which apparently had a 360 degree rotation. “Besides, I’m waiting for Knight to finish making himself pretty or some shit.”

“He’s taking a shower,” Adam said, rolling his eyes. His hand started inching toward the remote.

“So you were the one who took over Jill’s contract when Ryan decided to lose his f*cking mind?” Taggart asked.

“Shouldn’t gossip be beneath you?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to go into his life story with Taggart.

Taggart shook his head. “Fuck no. I used to be Agency. You know what being a CIA operative means? It means you better listen to gossip because that’s where all the intel is. I once took down an entire terrorist organization by just putting the rumor out there that dude number one was messing around with his lieutenant’s daughter. Yeah, that got bloody. It was beautiful.”

“Seriously, if you don’t start talking, he’ll bring out the slide show,” Adam said. He shuddered a little. “Someone really should check him for the sign of the beast. I’m sure it’s somewhere on his body.”

Keith frowned, but decided if there had ever been a man who had slide shows from his days as a CIA assassin, it would be Ian Taggart. “Ryan had his reasons. He’d just lost everything. He loved Jill, but they weren’t exactly great communicators.”

And he’d learned from them. His contract with Ashley was very specific. Everything had been laid out, including the fact that he very likely wouldn’t see her outside the club.

He wouldn’t have dinner with her or meet up with her for lunch. He wouldn’t invite her over to his condo or spend the night at her place. He wouldn’t see how she looked in the morning after he’d spent the entire night inside her.

“So they were twenty-four seven?” Derek asked.

Oh, that was asked with the curiosity of a man who had thought about it. “Yes, they were. You’ll note they aren’t now.” This he felt perfectly comfortable talking about. “Twenty-four seven is hard on both partners.”