by Lexi Blake
“Yeah. I think she’s going to stay.” He stared out over the city. “It’s good, though we’ve got a bunch of legal stuff to deal with. Apparently dying brings up lots of stuff you need a lawyer for.”
“It should be simple. If he didn’t have a will, you would be his next of kin. You can sign everything over to her.”
He turned, a surprised look on his face. “That’s what I’m doing. Everyone outside my group thinks I’m crazy to do that.”
“From what I’ve been told he loved her. He would want you to take care of her and you’re the kind of man who would do it. I don’t think it’s crazy at all. It’s admirable.”
“He hadn’t paid off the house. Erin can afford it but I put everything I had into it so it’s easier for her. I’m pretty much back where I was before I joined the Navy. No savings.”
She would have next to nothing without her brother. Was he trying to explain that he wasn’t a great catch on the financial side? Because she couldn’t care less about that. She’d learned so long ago that money didn’t make a man. She reached out and put a hand on his arm. “You don’t need much, I’m sure. I know I don’t. I like a nice pair of shoes every now and then, but money isn’t everything, Case. Sometimes knowing you’ve done the right thing is worth all the money in the world.”
“I’m just trying to explain that while this club is beautiful and my brothers have made something of themselves, I’m kind of a work in progress.” He reached out, his hand cupping her cheek, thumb tracing the line of her jaw. “I’m not worth a lot and I understand that sometimes women want more than I can give them. I like you, Mia.”
She smiled because he was saying all the right things. Had he been burned before? Was that why he was being so forthright? “I like you too, Case. I’m not looking for a man to take care of me. Not financially anyway. I’m very independent. At least I try to be.”
“I’m making things awkward.” He didn’t move away though. He simply kept stroking her. “I want to kiss you but I also want to be honest. I don’t have a lot to give right now.”
“Then maybe you should find someone who doesn’t need to take from you. Why don’t you kiss me and we’ll go from there?” She wanted so badly to take some of his pain, to give him some peace.
“I knew from the minute I saw you something good might happen to me.” He stared down at her. “Is that silly? You walked out of the locker room and you smiled at me that first day of the training class and I thought maybe I could have one good thing.”
Sometimes one good thing was all a person needed to survive. She felt herself tearing up, the moment turning into something important. “I could use something good, too.”
He lowered his lips down to hers and she leaned into him. When he kissed her, she felt like melting in his arms. He was gentle, those sensual lips soft on her own. His hands held her face, framing it as he explored her mouth. He was so slow. So patient.
“Touch me, Mia.” He whispered the words on her lips. “Put your hands on me.”
The words were said in a soft tone, but she couldn’t mistake them for anything but a command. That soft place she’d found inside herself at Sanctum responded with glee. She let her hands find his chest and move down to his lean waist. So much warm skin, so masculine. Touching him made her feel alive.
She relaxed against him, letting his heat flow into her. Their bodies nestled together like they’d been made to fit. His hands moved down so he could wrap them around her.
All that mattered was being with him. Nothing in her life had ever felt as right as kissing Case Taggart in the moonlight.
When she thought he would deepen the kiss, he broke it off with a shake of his head.
Disappointment sparked through her and all her insecurities rose to the surface. “Is something wrong?”
He groaned softly and put his forehead to hers. “Nope. It’s all way too right, darlin’. I don’t want to start this the wrong way. And I have to have you downstairs in fifteen minutes. I’m too emotional right now. I’m sorry.”
He missed his brother. They had fifteen minutes. If he thought she would pout or complain that he wasn’t going to get more physical, he was in for a surprise.
“Come here, Sir.” She’d called him Case all night, but something had changed between them. She took his hand and led him back to the big, comfy-looking couch. “Why don’t you sit for a few minutes?”
He sat down, but he stared at her suspiciously. “Mia, I told you this isn’t a good time.”
But she thought it was. She’d seen how the subs soothed their Doms. She dropped to her knees and put her head in his lap, turned away from that part of him she really was interested in. It was just she was more interested in easing his pain tonight. In building something with him.
“What was Theo like, Sir?”
He was quiet for a moment and then his hand found her hair and he stroked her. She could feel him relax.
“He was a little insane,” he said with a shaky laugh. “I miss him.”
He started to talk and Mia listened.
* * * *
Case stepped into the locker room, hoping he didn’t have a goofy grin on his face.
He passed by one of the mirrors and realized his hope was dashed. He looked like a dumbass teenaged kid who’d just kissed his first girl.
Damn, but he kind of didn’t care. Mia was hot and sweet and so gorgeous his dick hurt.
The real trouble was something else kind of reacted to her, too. Like everything else. His whole soul kind of softened the minute she walked in the room the first time.
God, he wanted to talk to his brother about Mia. Theo would know what to do. Ian would talk to him, but only after he gagged a couple of times first. He could go to Sean. Sean would give him sage advice and shit, but it had always been Theo who knew what to say to him.
Mia had known what to do. He’d thought for a second that she was going to offer him sex. When she’d dropped to her knees in front of him, his cock had jumped in his pants, but the rest of him had been so disappointed because he’d wanted more from her. Then she’d laid her head on his lap and asked about his brother and for fifteen minutes he’d found some peace.
“Dude, that girl is hot,” a masculine voice said.
He turned and saw Michael Malone standing next to him. He hadn’t seen much of Michael all night. He’d been off with Bear and Boomer and a couple of the pretty new subs, but it was obvious they’d been watching him.
Or rather Mia. They’d watched Mia in her corset and leather boy shorts. Yeah, that bugged him. It wouldn’t if she was his, but their relationship was brand spanking new—as in he hadn’t even spanked her yet, much less put a collar around her throat.
Did he want that? He needed time with her. She was the most luscious thing he’d ever seen. And yet that wasn’t what had made him want to throw her over his shoulder and carry her off. It was her smile and how the world seemed a little lighter when she walked into a room. It was how easily she made friends. Kori and Sarah seemed to adore her and he knew it wasn’t easy getting into that tight-knit group. He hadn’t wanted to return her to them. He’d wanted to sit there with her, talking about his brother and stroking her hair. He could have sat there with her until dawn.
“She’s more than a piece of ass.”
Michael immediately backed off. “Whoa, sorry, man. I didn’t realize you were serious about her.”
Was he? Damn it. These were the kinds of things he would talk about with Theo. He wouldn’t even have to call him because Theo would be standing beside him. Theo would have been telling him how to deal with someone like Mia. Someone sweet and soft and kind.
Theo would have been standing there telling him that Mia was nothing at all like Courtney. Mia wouldn’t care that he didn’t have any damn money. He’d stood there like an idiot explaining he’d spent everything he had to make life easier on Erin because Theo was gone and it was all his responsibility now. So much fucking responsibility because his brother was dea
d and Theo’s girl was pregnant and that left Case to make things right.
He couldn’t go into any relationship without the woman understanding he had to take care of his brother’s almost wife and kid, though he hadn’t mentioned the pregnancy. That was a surprise for another time. Until Erin actually acknowledged her condition, he wasn’t mentioning it to anyone outside the family. Mia hadn’t blinked. She’d told him he was doing the right thing and why the hell would he even question it.
Mia might be the one. The silly, stupid, romantic movie one.
One good fucking thing in his life.
“I don’t know if I’m serious about her yet.” He definitely needed time. Time to get used to the fact that he was kind of serious about this woman. Way more serious than he’d been in forever.
He needed to know more about her. The couple of times they’d talked, she’d managed to turn everything around to him. It had been such a change from his usual girl that he was kind of in a fog when she was around. She seemed so interested in who he was as an actual person.
“So you’re cool if I ask her out?” Michael asked.
He felt his whole body swell in response. Like a caveman who’d been challenged.
Michael grinned at him in the mirror. “Message received.”
Case started for his locker. “You’re an ass.”
Michael followed after him. With the exception of Theo, Michael was his closest friend. Michael had been on the CIA black ops team with him. Ten’s Men, as they’d called themselves. Now they were Tag’s. “Maybe, but you’re completely delusional if you think you’re not crazy about that chick.”
“She’s cool.” And hot as hell. When he’d kissed her he’d damn near shoved her up against a wall and taken her right then and there. He could practically feel her legs winding around him. That was the moment he’d known he couldn’t do it. It would have been quick and a little violent, and he wanted to be tender with her. He wanted to be different with her.
Michael opened the locker next to his, shrugging out of his vest. “You need to be more self-aware because if you’re not you’ll lose that girl the minute she hits the dungeon floor. Boomer kind of drooled over her and I’m going to warn you that JT is talking about getting a membership here and she’s exactly his type. He’ll play dirty, too.”
He could play dirty. He could snipe that rich motherfucker from a mile away. “Tell your brother to stay away from my…”
Fuck. He’d almost called her his sub.
He was saved from that completely embarrassing mistake by his eldest brother’s deep voice. “Case, I need to talk to you.”
He looked back and Ian was staring at him, his face set in serious lines, though it was always kind of set that way these days. Even when he was holding his daughters there was a seriousness that had been absent in the days before Theo died.
It was how Case measured time now. There was BTD and ATD. Before Theo Died and After Theo Died. Mostly the ATD sucked ass and was marked with grim reality.
“Sure.” He pulled out a T-shirt and put it on, shoving his vest in his gym bag. Mia had never seen him shirtless. The vest he wore in Sanctum kind of perfectly covered his scars. What would she think when she saw his ruined back? The bullet wounds on his chest? The nasty scar a knife had left on his upper thigh. “What’s up?”
With his big brother it could be anything. Damn. It could be about work. McKay-Taggart did work around the globe. What would he do if Big Tag wanted to send him and Michael out in the field? They had a couple of cases they were working on in Houston, but that was an easy flight and he could get back home for Sanctum nights.
He didn’t want to leave Mia.
“Let’s go talk in Wade’s office.” He turned and started out of the locker room.
Case’s stomach dropped. If he wasn’t willing to talk in front of Michael, it was serious.
The last time Big Tag had shown up with that grim look in his eyes, it had been to tell him that Theo was dead.
Had something happened to Erin? She hadn’t been willing to admit she was pregnant yet. Could she not accept it? Had she done something to hurt herself?
“You want me to wait, man?” Michael watched as Big Tag left the room.
Case shook his head. He had no idea how long it would take. “Nah, it’s fine. I’ll call you if it’s anything important.”
Case forced himself to move. He wasn’t sure he could take another blow. If something had happened to Erin, he wasn’t sure he could handle it. He would have failed Theo on every level.
He wanted to go see Mia, to kiss her again and forget about reality for a little while. He took back everything he’d thought about going slow. They needed fast. He needed to get her in bed and burn off all the pain. She would accept it, accept him. She would take everything he had to give and return it all with her sweetness.
He opened the door to the manager’s office. Wade Rycroft had taken over management of Sanctum when Ryan Church had made a bazillion dollars on some new tech device he’d created. Ryan and his wife, Jill, still played at Sanctum, but the Dom in residence job had gone to a big cowboy from South Texas.
Wade wasn’t present in his office. Ian was sitting behind the desk. “Shut the door behind you.”
Case closed it. “Just tell me. Fucking get it over with, Ian. What’s happened to Erin?”
Ian’s head shook. “Nothing. Erin’s fine as far as I can tell. She’s apparently in serious denial about the bun cooking in her oven, but other than throwing up every morning and calling it the flu, she’s fine.”
The unspoken message? Erin was as fine as a woman could be when she’d recently lost the love of her life to a bullet.
Case slumped into the chair in front of the desk, letting his bag drop to the floor. Relief poured through him. “Thank god. I thought maybe she’d lost the baby or something.”
“I’m sorry,” Ian said. “She’s fine. Faith is back home for a week before she and Ten head back to Liberia for a few months. They’re having some girl time. God, I hope they give Ten a makeover. He’s got that beard shit going again. Maybe I should send him a glitter bomb, too. Once his beard is all pink and sparkly he’ll have to get rid of it.”
“You didn’t send Guy a mere glitter bomb. You sent the dude exploding glitter dicks. He’s suing you, you know.”
Guy Ferland was an ex-military man himself. He ran a security company that as far as Case could tell didn’t vet their clients as well as McKay-Taggart. He was willing to do a lot of shady shit, and lately he’d run up against Big Tag, who didn’t take well to shady shit. Hence the exploding glitter dicks that might or might not have put out an eye.
A brilliant smile crossed his brother’s face. “Yeah, I can’t wait for that trial. Mitch wants me to just pay the cleanup costs, but he’s not counting on how awesome it’ll be to have some judge have to say the words exploding glitter dicks. That’s going to be worth all the court costs.”
His brother had an odd sense of humor. “So if this isn’t about Erin, what’s going on? Should I call Michael in?”
Ian’s face returned to its former grimness. “No. And I don’t want you talking about this to Michael right now. If we need to, we’ll bring him in later, but what I’m about to tell you is strictly on a need-to-know basis.”
Shit. It had to be about Hope McDonald. He’d known Ian was looking for her. She was the last of the two people they held responsible for Theo’s death. Erin and Nick Markovic had taken out the senator, but his psychotic daughter had gotten away.
Why hadn’t Case been more involved in the hunt for her? Why hadn’t he become obsessed with searching out the woman who’d had a sick fascination with his brother? She was still out there. Likely still working on her memory altering drugs. Ten had a taste of that and he’d said it was beyond torture. Hope McDonald had created a drug and therapy protocol that could rewire the brain over long periods of time. She’d used it on Ten to make his torture seem endless, to trick his mind into giving him pain without
harming his actual body to a great degree.
Why wasn’t he working harder to stop that?
Because he was hollowed out on the inside and Theo had taken all the good and noble parts of them to his grave? Because all Case was good at doing was throwing himself in front of bullets?
Ian had known that. It was precisely why he’d sent Theo into the field as a lead instead of him.
“Have you found her?” Case got down to business. If Ian had found out where Hope was holed up, he would likely send Case in to try to take her out. It was what Case wanted. He was the only one with nothing to lose. Ian and Sean had daughters and wives. They had lives.
If there was a battle to be fought, Case was the cannon fodder of the family.
“I’ve found where she was.” Ian reached down and pulled a folder out of his bag. “She’s been working on a private island off the coast of Argentina. Apparently the pharmaceutical company she worked for had a secret lab there. Not that it’s on the books, but Liam found a couple of people who were willing to talk.”
Liam O’Donnell. He was the sneaky one. When Case had first hired on with Tennessee Smith, he’d made a study of the men of McKay-Taggart. He’d asked Ten his opinion of them. Theo had wanted to run through the daisies with his arms held open wide, some whiny ballad playing in the background as he embraced his long-lost brothers and their hodgepodge family, but Case had been more cautious. He’d wanted to know what Ten thought of them. O’Donnell, he’d explained, was the sneaky one. The others looked like what they were. Adam was the sarcastic hacker, Jake Dean the muscle. Alex and Eve were a team of thinkers, cautious and methodical. Ian was…not even Ten could properly describe Ian Taggart.
But O’Donnell was tricky. He played the part of the charming Irishman. Family man with his lovely, gentle wife and kid. To look at him on the surface, one would likely think he was nothing more than a well-trained soldier. Liam O’Donnell put together puzzles no one else thought to play with at all. He saw patterns almost everyone else missed.
Liam was the heavy thinker of McKay-Taggart. So why was he being wasted on a simple search mission?