Master No

by Lexi Blake

  She had to deal with the fact that she’d gotten exactly what she’d wanted. She’d gotten an amazing Dom to spend a few weeks with and some of the most relaxing days she’d ever had. She would remember the vacation forever.

  Why did she want more?

  “So are y’all really going to the Caymans?” Phoebe asked. “My brother is not exactly the islands type.”

  There it was—an insatiable curiosity about the man. He didn’t talk a whole lot about himself, and Erin seemed to know him more as a coworker than a friend. This was why she was restless. She knew she wanted more than Ten seemed willing to give her. She prided herself on being a smart girl, but she was in a load of gorgeous-man quicksand, and it muddled her brain. Every time she tried to distance, he would walk in the room and she would reach out again. She’d thought about leaving early and without him, but she knew she wouldn’t. She would take every single second she had with him. “Why? Ten seems like a man who likes to relax. There’s nothing as relaxing as lying on the beach.”

  “Unless someone’s mortaring the beach, and then it kind of sucks. You know, sand is hard to run in,” Erin explained with a perfectly straight face.

  She was going to be fun on the island.

  Phoebe ignored the war talk. “Ten likes to relax, though he doesn’t do it much. I’m talking about the fact that my brother doesn’t really like to take his shirt off much.”

  “Why?” The question came out as a disbelieving huff. “If I had a body like that I would never wear a shirt.”

  “He’s pretty hot,” Erin admitted. “Not as hot as Theo. I get paid to say that.”

  Sure she did. “I’m just saying having seen the man fully naked, he should have zero insecurities.”

  Phoebe shuddered. “Okay, wow, I guess I didn’t think through this particular part of the bonding experience. Despite the whole no blood between us thing, he’s really my brother. And I was talking about the scars. When he was a preening teenager, he used to go shirtless whenever he could. I swear every appropriate female in the area got a glimpse of Ten’s physique. A whole lot of inappropriate ones, too. I’m not even going to tell you what I caught him doing with my Mandarin tutor. I was too young to see that.”

  Faith could see him being a horny teenaged boy. “The scars aren’t that bad. He doesn’t talk about them though. I got him to tell me one story, but he shut down about the rest of them.”

  Phoebe nodded after taking a drink of the frosty margarita in front of her. “There’s a reason for that. I think in your world it’s called trauma. We call it an occupational hazard. He got caught by the bad guys once and most of the scars are from that experience.”

  “He was tortured?” She’d suspected it, but couldn’t stand the thought of that man being vulnerable and hurt. He was so big and strong, and the idea of someone taking it from him…well, she knew what it meant to feel helpless.

  “I heard it was bad,” Erin said quietly. “He’s a strong guy, but I think it’s the strong ones who take it the worst. I always knew I could be hurt, you know. It wouldn’t be a shock to my system.”

  Phoebe’s eyes hooded. “Ten knew he could be hurt. I don’t know the whole of it, but his childhood pretty much sucked ass.”

  “Which is why he got strong,” Erin replied, her eyes grim. “He got stronger than everyone around him, and more powerful, and it still didn’t work. I was never stronger. No matter how much I worked out or how good I got at my job. Welcome to being female in the military.”

  Something about the cocky grin on Erin’s face made Faith wonder if she was really talking about the military—or her family. She’d caught some behaviors that made her wonder about Erin’s home life as a child.

  Phoebe shook her head as though shaking off bad thoughts. “Anyway, Ten doesn’t like to show off the scars.”

  “I’ve seen them. They don’t make him any less beautiful,” Faith said quietly.

  “Which is precisely why I like you,” Phoebe replied. “You make him relax in a way I haven’t seen in forever. I know he can be difficult.”

  “He’s not. He’s damn near perfect. He’s treated me like a princess.” She wasn’t going to have Ten’s sister think he wasn’t a great guy.

  “All right. I’ll put it a different way,” Phoebe began. “He can be an emotionally closed off bastard when he wants to be.”

  Shit. Were they going to have this talk? Was she even ready to have this talk? “We’re just getting to know each other. He doesn’t have to open up about everything. He says all the right things actually. I’m enjoying my time with him.”

  “But?” Phoebe was like a dog with a bone.

  “But nothing. It’s going well.”

  “It’s probably really hard for Ten to be open to anyone.” Erin sat back, a blank look on her face that didn’t fool Faith for a moment. “Sometimes what it takes is a whole lot of patience to get through to a guy like Ten. Not that I would want to. I’m really better at punching things than being patient.”

  Phoebe’s lips curled up slightly. “Lucky for you Theo’s patient.”

  “He is not. He’s a manipulative bastard who uses every given opportunity to force me closer to him even when I don’t want to be.” She sipped on her margarita before begrudgingly continuing. “Didn’t want to be. Guys are bad news. You think you can have a little taste and it’ll be okay. You’ll be able to walk away all whole and shit. A Venus flytrap. That’s what Theo is. I’m this fly and I’m flying and happy to be single and then he baited his trap with a pretty smile and really nice abs, and now I’m stuck and he’s closing his man jaws on me and I can’t get out because it’s nice in there, you know.”

  Phoebe was staring Erin’s way, her jaw slightly open. “That is the most words I’ve ever heard you say.”

  Erin’s eyes rolled. “It’s not my fault I’m not good at this shit. I never planned to be part of some icky couple thing. He bought us matching coffee mugs. They say Theo and Erin on them. I’m not kidding. I kind of want to break them, but then he would get the feels and…I don’t get guys.”

  “You’ve never been in love before.” Poor Erin. She was so confused and scared and Theo wasn’t about to let her get away.

  “I never wanted to be.”

  “But then you kind of miss the point of life, don’t you?” Faith asked. How did she make her friend understand? “One day when I was working in Ghana, this man was walking up the road. It was obvious he was from one of the outlying villages. He was dressed in traditional wear and he was carrying something. I rushed out to help him and I found out he was carrying his wife. He’d carried her over thirty miles wearing no shoes. I have no idea how he was walking. His feet were so torn up and infected. She had a terrible case of pneumonia.” She could still remember the elderly woman and the way she’d clutched her husband’s hand even as she’d died. “I couldn’t save her. But he wasn’t mad. He cried and held her and he told me he had to try because she was precious. He stayed with us while his feet healed. I put him on suicide watch but he laughed at me. He told me why would he die when he could still walk where they walked. He told me he had so many good memories and he could live on those.”

  “That sounds awful,” Erin said with a frown. “That’s a really good reason to not do the marriage thing.”

  She didn’t understand. “No. That wasn’t what I thought. I thought he was so lucky. He was feeling that pain because he’d loved someone with his whole heart. The rest of his life he would know that he’d done what he was supposed to do. He’d loved. He’d been loved. Wouldn’t it be empty if we didn’t feel the loss? It would mean we’d never felt the love.”

  Phoebe reached for her hand and there were tears in her eyes. “At some point my brother is going to fuck up and I’m going to beg and plead with you in advance to give him a chance that you don’t think he deserves. He’s had it so rough, but he smiles around you in a way I haven’t seen in years.”

  She’d stepped into it, but the look on Phoebe’s face nearly cau
sed her to cry, too. “I don’t think it’s quite as serious as you think it is. I think he’s having fun.”

  “He’s not,” Phoebe insisted. “He’s in deep with you but he doesn’t know how to express that. He’s utterly lost. No one taught him how to love. No one really taught him what it means to be loved. He can’t trust it and I’m worried if you walk away from him, he might never find someone like you again.”

  Erin stood abruptly. “I’m going to hit the head. I’ll be back.”

  Faith got the feeling she’d said something wrong to Erin. And to Phoebe. “I don’t think he feels that way about me. He wants me. He likes me. I don’t think he’s in love with me. We haven’t known each other long enough.”

  “Sometimes it doesn’t take long when the right person comes around. Sometimes it’s fate,” Phoebe said. “I was married to Ten’s brother, Jamie. Ten calls me his sister, but I was really his sister-in-law. Jamie died on assignment in the Middle East. Jamie was the only person in the world who really got Ten.”

  “And he died.” This was the brother Taggart had talked about. Ten hadn’t said a thing about him.

  Phoebe nodded. “Ten doesn’t trust any of this. You think he’s merely having fun, but Ten doesn’t have fun. Even when you go back to your clinic, maybe you could still talk to him. He might tell you it isn’t necessary, but he’ll miss you. He’ll never say it, but you’ll be one more person he lost. Think about it.”

  Faith’s cell trilled as Jesse Murdoch came over to talk to his wife. Faith looked down. It was her dad. Because she needed that right now.

  “I’ve got to take this, but I will think about what you said.” She stood and started for the front of the restaurant. The conversation with Erin and Phoebe had made her restless.

  She wanted him. More than she would like to admit. Thinking about the old man in Ghana made her long for something she wasn’t sure she would get, and it was obvious she’d upset Erin. She was tempted to tell Erin to pull up her big girl panties and deal with the fact that an amazing man was in love with her, but no one ever really knew what was going on under another person’s surface. She had no real idea of what pain was bubbling up in Erin.

  Damn, she shouldn’t have had two margaritas.

  “Hello,” she said after dragging her finger across the screen. Now she had to deal with her dad and she was already emotional.

  “Hey there, baby girl. How are you doing?” Her father’s voice boomed over the cell.

  Sometimes it wasn’t easy having a larger than life father. “I’m good, Dad. How’s DC?”

  “I’m in London for a conference this week. Paris the week after that for some meetings, and then I’m coming to see my girls.”

  She had to smile. Her father had always had a busy schedule. The truth was after her mother had been killed, she’d been raised by nannies and her older sister. Her father felt like a kindly distant relative most of the time. “I’m looking forward to seeing you.”

  “Good. Because you can tell me who the hell this man is you’re bringing with you. Where did you meet him? Because it damn sure wasn’t in Africa. He’s been in the States for years. According to the report I got on him he hasn’t been outside the country since he left the service. And he’s not a doctor. He doesn’t even have a damn degree, Faith.”

  Snobs. She sighed. “I met him through mutual friends, Dad. He’s a good guy. I thought you would be thrilled I was dating someone who served in the military. A good Southern boy.”

  “I don’t like his background,” her father said, stubbornness clear in his voice. “He’s looking for money like all the rest. What happened with that nice Roger fella?”

  “He dumped me for a more convenient woman.” She walked out of the lobby, in front of the restaurant. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to entertain everyone with. The air was hot, the sun right overhead. Definitely shouldn’t have had those margaritas. She was ready for a nap. A nice nap cuddled up against her guy. “He’s a good guy. I like him. If you don’t approve, I can stay here in Dallas.”

  “Now don’t get all bent out of shape. You know no man’s good enough for my baby girl.”

  “I’m sure you put him through a variety of intrusive background checks. Is there anything you want to tell me?” She’d expected this call, though later in the process.

  “He was arrested for drunk and disorderly in New Orleans.”

  Sanctum had sent her its own report on Master T back before she’d accepted him. “Yes and he was twenty-two at the time and on leave. Drunk and disorderly is practically a souvenir from New Orleans.”

  Her father’s voice went low, his sympathetic “man of the people” voice. “He was raised in foster care, honey. Men like that have serious psychological issues.”

  This was her father’s world. Everything was stated in absolutes. In her father’s world, every person raised in foster care was obviously damaged—until he needed them to not be in order to move his current campaign forward. She had news for her dad. Everyone was damaged in one way or another. “I like him a lot. You’re not going to convince me to dump him. If you don’t want him around you, I understand.”

  Her father sighed. “I suppose he actually looks good on paper. Former decorated soldier. Raised himself up by his bootstraps. I could probably work with that. I need you to keep a lid on the weird lifestyle stuff, though. I suspect he’s one of your…I can’t remember what you call them.”

  “Doms, Dad. Yes, he’s a Dom.”

  “See, in my days a Dom was an amusing fat guy who backed up Burt Reynolds in movies. Now, your sister tells me you had some trouble with Kronberg’s vaccines. I’m meeting with some executives in a few days. Do I need to talk to them?”

  She should have known her sister would go straight to their dad. Typical. “I haven’t gotten the reports back. I sent a sample to the lab. I’m expecting the results in the next few days. It’s probably nothing and I’m not planning on holding a press conference and denouncing anyone.”

  “Good because Hope is working on a very important project, and I would hate to have her funding cut because her sister sent the company stock into free fall. I can count on you. Right, honey? You’ll let us handle it in-house if something’s wrong?”

  “In-house” meant sweeping everything under the rug. It made her suspicious. “Dad, is there something going on here?”

  A pause came over the line, and she could practically see the expression that would be on her father’s face. He would be trying to deal with her, trying to figure out the best way out of the situation he found himself in.

  “I’m simply trying to watch out for both of you. What do you suspect is wrong with the vaccines, Faith?”

  “I have no idea. It could be any number of things. I could have gotten a bad batch. The batch could have been switched out for a placebo.” The mob was known to do it. They typically took the original batch at a transportation site and switched it for something else. God only knew what she’d been putting in her patients. She was starting a new protocol. No one got a vaccine until she’d tested part of the batch. Every damn dose was precious, and now she would have to use a few to make sure she wasn’t giving her patients a shot of saline. Or worse.

  They’d been confused, their memories odd and sense of time off. Saline wouldn’t do that to a person.

  “But Kronberg was trying to do a good thing,” her father insisted.

  And Kronberg obviously had a decent lobby. “Of course, Dad. I’m not accusing anyone. I just want to know what happened. I’m not calling a press conference and throwing my sister under the bus. You know I keep a low profile.”

  “I do. And you know I’d love to have you at my side when I announce I’m running for president. Have you thought about the ramifications for you and your work?”

  Only a bajillion times. “Oh, yeah. It’s going to make my life hell. If you win, I get Secret Service guys, don’t I?”

  “Pessimist. I was talking about more pleasant aspects, Faith. How do the
words surgeon general sound to you?”

  Like hell. The surgeon general was a figurehead. “How does the word nepotism sound to the press?”

  “That’s the beauty of the presidency,” her father insisted. “Nowhere to go from there. I can do what I like, help who I like, and it doesn’t matter. Now, you think on that for a while and I’ll see you in a few weeks. I’ve told my assistants to clear my schedule. No working while I’m with my baby girls. Though you should expect I’ll want to get to know this Ted Graham person.”

  She didn’t correct him. Ten didn’t go by his real name anyway. She hadn’t heard a single person call him Tim. If she told her father he preferred Ten, she would likely get an earful about how the name Tennessee would alienate voters not from the south. She would let her dad call him whatever he liked. “I’m sure you will. Love you, Dad.”

  She hung up with the strange certainty that Ten could handle her dad. He might not like her father, but he would be able to deal with him. Of course, Roger had dealt with her father by being a preening sycophant anytime he walked in, but Ten wouldn’t do that. No way. Ten wouldn’t care what her father could do for him. It was nice. All her life she’d had to worry about people getting close to her so they could be near her father and his influence. She didn’t have to worry about that with Ten and Theo and Erin.

  Erin wouldn’t go anywhere near politicians to save her life.

  She felt something bump her hard. She whirled around, barely managing to stay on her feet. A figure in a black hood jogged away, and that was when she realized she’d dropped her phone.

  “Jerk.” She sighed. Manners were lost on people these days. She glanced around, searching for her phone. Nothing. There was nothing on the concrete except a few cigarette butts, a gum wrapper, and someone’s receipt for lunch.

  Damn it. He’d stolen her phone. She needed her phone. She started to take off after him.

  “Hey! What are you doing out here?” Erin strode out with a frown on her face.