You Only Love Twice (Masters and Mercenaries #8)(19)

She didn’t want to go her separate way. That was the whole problem. The idea of even spending a couple more hours with him tempted her beyond belief. Even if he spent the whole time interrogating her.

She let go of trying to play sweet Phoebe Graham and allowed Phoebe Grant to surface for the first time in a long time.

Phoebe Grant was what Jesse would very likely call a brat. She wondered how Jesse would handle Phoebe Grant. “Bite my ass, sweetheart.”

A little thrill went through her spine as his eyes flared, emotion showing for the first time since he’d walked into the room. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He strode to her, his boots sounding even on the carpet. He scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder, her ass high in the air.

Phoebe worried she’d bitten off more than she could chew.



Jesse pushed through the double doors, his whole being surprisingly calm. This was what he needed. He’d been sitting in his office waiting for her to wake up, thinking about how he would handle this interrogation with some modicum of civility.

It was so good to know civility wasn’t going to be required.

It wasn’t so good to realize that the minute she’d opened that bratty mouth, he’d gotten hard as hell and he wanted to f*ck her more than he wanted to figure her out. There was a little voice playing in his head that told him to just get inside her and all those secrets would open for him. All he had to do was thrust inside her tight body and the mysteries of the universe would reveal themselves.

Yeah, he wasn’t going to do that. He was going to do his job and find out who she worked for and then he would walk away from her. He wasn’t going to hold her tenderly or hope she could love him. No. It was time to grow the f*ck up. How was it being through what he’d been through in Iraq hadn’t managed to teach him what this one woman had? He needed to shut down and do his job.

But that didn’t mean parts of his job couldn’t be very pleasurable.

“Uhm, Jesse, don’t you think you should handle this in the conference room? It’s where Ian planned on keeping her.” Adam Miles’s voice was an unwelcome intrusion.

“No.” He knew the old Jesse would have stopped, but this was between him and Phoebe.

“Adam, I can really explain. This is all one huge misunderstanding.” Phoebe tried to bring her head up.

That was an easy move to counter. He brought his hand down on that sweet, sweet ass. Phoebe had the damn prettiest ass he’d ever watched for hours and drooled over, and now he had zero reason to not spank that gorgeous flesh. He heard that sound, that smack as his hand hit her and he felt her shiver. She didn’t scream. Nope. He’d thought if he smacked her good, she would call him a f*cking pervert, but he’d been a dumbass idiot and this Phoebe just moaned a little as the slap went through her.

It wasn’t the type of moan that would cause him to stop spanking a sub at Sanctum.

Motherf*cker. He knew he hadn’t been wrong about her. He’d thought there was a submissive streak buried under her “I’m a good girl so don’t f*ck my sweet *” exterior.

“The only explanation is I’m a dirty little spy and I need to tell my captor everything in order to keep him from slapping my ass silly.” He couldn’t be professional with her. It wouldn’t work. It would only serve to put distance between them and now he could see that distance was what she’d worked for the whole time. She hadn’t let him do more than hold her hand and give her an awkward peck. She’d had him convinced he just wasn’t her type but he could smell her now. Yeah, that wasn’t sweet or gentlemanly, but then that obviously didn’t work for her. “She likes me slapping her ass. Take a deep whiff, Adam, and you’ll be able to tell she’s aroused.”

She gasped and her whole torso came up off his. “Jesse!”

Yeah, she sounded like a pissed off girlfriend, but she wasn’t his girlfriend. She was the woman who had played him and then nearly painted her initials on his chest. And he was the idiot who had stood there and almost begged her to do it.

He cringed at the thought of how stupid he’d been about her. He knew he was ping-ponging, caught between wanting to understand her and wanting to throttle her, but most of all, he wanted to get his hands on her.

He wanted to see just how much she’d lied about.

“You might want to think this thing through, Jesse,” Adam began.

He was just about to tell Adam where he could shove his thought process when Big Tag strode out of his office. A thunderous look clouded his boss’s face, but Jesse was ready to throw down with whoever he needed to. This was his op and his…f*ck, he didn’t even know what to call her, but Phoebe was his.

Ian stopped in front of them. “Take her to your office. Do what you need to do but keep it down. Apparently we’re still having a baby shower and I have to attend or risk having my balls ripped off my body. I like my balls, Murdoch. Keep her quiet. Charlie’s serious about this party thing. When did I f*cking lose control? She’s not even an employee here.”

“No. I’m part owner,” Charlotte said, her voice a sharp instrument. She was a beautiful woman with strawberry blonde hair. She rested her hand on the bump on her belly that seemed to get bigger every day. “Eve and I own half this company, you know. And we have all the boobs so try getting around us. Phoebe, I swear to god if I find out you’ve done one thing to put this company and our people in danger I will take you apart myself. Is that understood? You better hope you can prove you weren’t going to hurt Jesse. He’s one of my men and I will deal with you.”