Adored: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella (1001 Dark Nights)

by Lexi Blake

  Laurel understood the type. “He was always swinging for the fences because getting on base wasn’t enough, right?”

  Dixon nodded. “Exactly. That seemed to work during his twenties, but he got involved with drugs at some point and it went downhill. He became paranoid. He worked less, but was angrier about the failures. Then two years ago he started working on a way to store solar power.”

  “The Bentley Industries project.” Laurel immediately pulled up the file. As solar energy became an actual option for individual homes, the issue of storage had become a problem. Engineers had been trying to find a way to store up energy for longer periods of time so the houses with the capability could be more self-reliant rather than having to switch back to the electricity grid. So sunny summer days could be saved to power winter days. Bentley Industries had recently filed for a patent on a system that would allow for solar storage of up to a month and had confidence they could refine the process to go much longer.

  Mitchell Bradford was their attorney and stood to gain a percentage of the profits. He’d also been the spokesman for the company when they’d done the talk show rounds.

  “Yes,” Patrick agreed. “I don’t even think Harvey was close to anything, but he’s decided this was his last shot. He’s back on drugs and he believes that Mitch somehow stole his idea. I tried to go to the police, but they said there was no proof and when they talked to Harvey, he was in one of his lucid stages. He can be very convincing when he’s like that. I’ve been his partner for twenty years and I’ve never seen him so angry.”

  “What makes you think this isn’t just talk, Mr. Dixon?” Mitch asked. If it bugged him that someone wanted him dead, he didn’t show it. His gorgeous face was as passive as it was when he talked about the weather.

  But once it had been animated and fierce. She couldn’t forget the possessive look that had lit those dark eyes as he’d lowered his lips to hers and devoured her like a starving man.

  She shook her head because every time she thought about their one and only kiss, the room seemed to heat up. It had been months, but she could still feel the way his hands had tightened on her body as though he would never let her go.

  He had, of course, and now he was quite good at evading her web of seduction. Or maybe she wasn’t any good at the seduction part.

  “It’s a feeling,” Patrick was saying. “I know that something is off with him. I truly believe he’s going to make an attempt on your life. You have to be careful. I don’t think I’ll be able to stop him.”

  The poor man was shaking. Laurel leaned over and put a hand on his. “It’s all right. We’ll look into it. Thank you so much for telling us about the threat. I can’t imagine what it cost you to come in this afternoon.”

  “He’s my brother.” Patrick sniffled slightly and that sent Laurel running for a tissue. Naturally Mitch didn’t have any. He tried to pawn off anyone who looked like they would get even vaguely emotional on her, so she excused herself. She kept a box in her office.

  That was when she saw the man in the lobby. A hoodie was pulled down over his face. He stood in the hallway outside their doors. The building housed several businesses. This particular floor was shared by their office, a dentist, and an accounting agency.

  He was probably looking for the dentist. He was dressed too casually for business.

  She grabbed the tissues off Sharon’s desk and was about to turn when the man suddenly shifted toward her.

  The hoodie covered his eyes, but she wasn’t really looking at him anymore. Nope. She was standing stock-still at the sight of what was in his hands.

  A gun.

  She managed to scream right before he pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Two

  “Derek, I want this asshole found. Do you understand?” Three hours later, Mitch could still feel his heart pounding.

  Harvey Dixon had taken a shot at Laurel. He’d shot at her through the ceiling to floor glass windows the real estate agent who had sold him on this building had sworn gave the place a professional feel.

  They gave the place a clear line of sight to shoot into it. He was done with that shit. Steel-enforced walls. He would have them put in as soon as possible. Surely Big Tag knew some crazy doomsday preppers who could outfit his office with everything one would need to keep out people who shot at his paralegal.

  “He understands, Mitch. You’ve yelled at him for an hour,” Laurel said with a sigh.

  Derek Brighton, a lieutenant with the Dallas Police Department, merely shook his head. “He can yell all he likes. He’s had a scare.”

  “I was the one who nearly got shot and no one even offered me a lollipop.” Laurel looked sulky at the thought.

  The EMT had offered her more than a lollipop, Mitch was sure. The kid couldn’t have been much past twenty-five and he’d flirted like mad with Laurel before declaring her perfectly fine.

  “And I want another EMT. She needs to go to the hospital.” That was what people who got shot did. She’d almost been shot. Maybe the kid had spent so much time flirting with her that he’d missed a gunshot wound. It could happen. Adrenaline could make a person ignore pain.

  He wanted to run his hands over her himself. It had been his first instinct. He’d needed to feel her skin under his palm, to make sure she was warm and alive. He’d pulled her up, but before he could get her in his arms, she’d stepped back, keeping a professional distance between them.

  “I think I might send you to the hospital, buddy. You look like you might have a heart attack. Why don’t you sit down, Mitch?” Derek was a friend from Sanctum. He’d shown up with the first responders, having recognized the address. “You’re going to wear a hole in the carpet.”

  “I don’t want to sit.” He still might have a damn heart attack. Since that moment he’d heard the glass cracking and realized what that sound had really been, his heart had kicked into overdrive. He’d run out into reception only to find Laurel on the ground. It had taken him a moment to realize she wasn’t hurt. Before she’d turned over and reached a hand up, he’d thought she was dead.

  Hollow. The world for a moment had been so utterly hollow.

  “All right, well, I think we have what we need. I hate to tell you this, but it wasn’t Harvey Dixon. I just got a report that he’s in a rehab facility and has been for the last two weeks. I informed his brother and he’s already on his way over. Turns out he hadn’t talked to him lately. He found some stuff Harvey had written in a journal a couple of months back. Besides, we’ve got this guy on camera. He’s a good twenty years younger than Harvey Dixon. The dentist next door says he’s had some trouble with break-ins. Kids come looking for drugs. He claims to have complained to the landlord but apparently the landlord is a difficult asshole. His words, not mine.”

  Mitch sighed. He was the freaking landlord. “Trust me. I’ll have a new security system complete with those eye scan things. No one’s getting in here again.”

  “That could be bad for business,” Laurel said with a sigh.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t care about business anymore.” Except he better because until his new ventures started coming in, he had one ex-wife who would haul him in front of a California judge if he missed her alimony check.

  Derek held out a hand. “I’ll get this kid. He was probably high. I already have some officers canvassing the area to see if he’s local. I’ll check with the other buildings. I saw some security cameras up and down the street. We might be able to get a better view of him. You want me to give Big Tag a call?”

  Big Tag had recently had a set of twins. Another reason to never get a woman pregnant. Sometimes they gave birth to litters. “Nah. If Harvey Dixon is actually locked up in rehab, I suppose we’re all right. Can someone inform me if he checks himself out?”

  “I’ve already asked the facility to let me know. He’s there on court-ordered rehab, so he can’t leave unless he wants to spend his time in prison instead. I’ll monitor the situation and let you know what I find out. I’ll also check
phone records and see if he’s called anyone, but Dixon was fairly certain he was after you, so I don’t see why he would take a shot at Laurel.” Derek gave Laurel a smile. “I’m thrilled you weren’t horribly murdered. If you’re still up for it, Karina and I will be at your place at eight on Friday, okay?”

  Laurel paled. “Oh, actually I’m not going to be able to go, but thanks. Please tell Karina hello for me.”

  Derek’s eyes narrowed. “You all right?”

  Laurel nodded. “Yes, something came up. I can’t go on Friday.”

  “Okay, but if you change your mind or you want to go on Saturday, we’ll be there. With Will and Bridget at that conference of hers, you call me if you need a ride.” Derek nodded and strode out.

  Everyone had known about Laurel’s foray into submission with the exception of him.

  Sharon walked in. His secretary was in her mid-fifties and was much more worried about her grandkids and their myriad of social activities than she was about working, but every time he tried to fire her Laurel intervened. She was his tenth secretary in the last four years and it looked like he needed a new one. “Okay, I called the glass company and they’re sending someone out tonight to fix the glass. He can’t be here until after six and I have to be at Afton’s school play, so someone’s going to have to stay to let them in.”

  The poorly named Afton was actually a boy, but that didn’t matter to Mitch. “I didn’t give you those orders, Sharon, and I don’t want glass.”

  “No, I did and I’ve already approved the amount. We are not turning this office into a steel-reinforced bunker.” For a woman who had recently been shot at, Laurel was surprisingly on top of things.

  He should have known she would plot against him. This was what life with Laurel would be like. Every day was a minor war between the two of them. He wanted steak and potatoes for lunch and she ordered in some kind of salad. He wanted a filing system he understood and she computerized everything. He wanted her to not be shot and she made arrangements for windows and possibly hunting blinds throughout the office. He wouldn’t put it past her. She would do it to challenge his authority. He was putting his foot down. “We’re closing up the windows and that’s that.”

  Sharon smiled and utterly ignored him. “Okay then, Laurel. I’ll see y’all tomorrow. But not too early. I want to go with Denise and the baby to her doctor’s appointment. I’m going to be a grandma again.”

  She walked out and he was left shaking his head. “How many does that make? Are her children rabbits?”

  “Seven,” Laurel shot back. “She has three kids and seven lovely grandchildren. They’re all very sweet.”

  Another reason to step back from Laurel. She wanted babies. He didn’t want babies. The last thing he was going to do with his life was ruin some kid’s. His childhood had been a long series of short-term stays with his mother and her revolving door of boyfriends, and the occasional card from his father. No. He wasn’t going to inflict that on anyone.

  “I don’t want windows. People can shoot at you through windows,” he said. It looked like it would be a long night. He started after Sharon. The woman could move when she wanted to get out of work. She was down the stairs and out of the building before he knew it. “And that woman is fired.”

  Laurel followed him, her heels clacking on the stairs. “You can’t fire her. Why would you even want to? Because she’s not coming in until late? You don’t have a single appointment tomorrow. You should be happy. You’ve scared everyone off.”

  He liked not having appointments. It made his day much nicer to not have to deal with people. “I’m firing her because she took too long for lunch. If she’d been at her desk, she could have handed you the tissue and then you wouldn’t have spooked the crackhead. So she’s fired.” He swiftly locked the door and set the security alarm that was getting a serious upgrade in the morning.

  When he turned, Laurel was standing on the bottom step. They were completely alone in the building he’d bought with pretty much everything he’d had left after the divorce from Joy, aspiring actress and expert at manipulating men. If she’d been half as good at auditions as she’d been in the courtroom, she wouldn’t have needed half his assets and three grand a month in alimony.

  “I should call your brother.” Now that he was alone with her, his heart was still pounding but his dick was pulsing too. He couldn’t forget how still she’d been, how there’d been blood on her arms from the glass cutting her. “I would feel better if he looked you over instead of that hormonal puppy who practically humped your leg instead of properly examining you.”

  “Mitchell, he was gay. We were talking about how much he liked my shoes.”

  He frowned. “Really?”

  “No, not really. He asked me out, but the truth of the matter is it’s none of your business and we’re not calling my brother because he’s with Bridget in Chicago. She’s at book convention being worshipped for the goddess she is. I’m fine. You should head home. I’ll handle the contractor. They’re coming in with pre-cut glass so it shouldn’t take them long at all.”

  “I’m not going anywhere and I’m serious about reinforcing our doors.”

  She turned and sighed. “We won’t get any of the natural light from the skylight if you do that. You’ll turn the entire reception area into a gloomy cave. It will utterly ruin everything the decorator did in the last six months.”

  That was where he had her. “Yeah, well it won’t matter because I’m filling in the skylight, too.” There was a massive glass structure on the roof that filtered light down through the building. The four-story building had a courtyard style setting in the middle and glass elevators that ran up the back. That glass over his head might be pretty, but now he was thinking of all the ways assassins could break through and enter, and his security system wouldn’t protect anyone at all. “I’m calling Taggart in the morning and having him redo security for the whole building. I’m going to need you to make a couple of those lemon cakes he likes. Even with a discount the big bastard is ridiculously expensive.”

  She turned and her face was in a fierce frown. Her golden brown hair was slightly disheveled. Sex hair. It looked like she had sex hair instead of almost-got-murdered hair. “I am not going to help you do something like that. Do you know how hard I’ve worked to make this a nice place? Do you even care?” Tears shone in her eyes and she shook her head. “You don’t. You couldn’t care less that the office is beautiful now. Nothing I do matters. You know what? You can keep Sanctum. I’ll find my own place and Will is going to have to be all right with it. Hell, maybe I’ll talk to Master T and he’ll train me privately.”

  She pivoted on her heels and started back up the stairs.

  His gut rolled with anger. He was doing everything in order to keep her safe and she was treating him like this? “Laurel! Stop right where you are.”

  She kept moving. “I don’t have to. You’re not my Dom. You’re not my boyfriend.”

  “I’m your boss.”

  “Not anymore. I quit. I’m not staying in a place where I work my ass off but my boss doesn’t care. You don’t want me but you won’t let anyone else have me.”

  They were going to do this here? He started up after her, his blood pressure ticking up every second she didn’t turn around and fight with him. He stepped up the pace because they weren’t done. He knew even as he thought it that it was perverse. He knew he couldn’t have her, knew he should be happy that she was leaving and taking temptation out of his path. But all he could think about was the fact that if she quit, he wouldn’t have her in his life. He wouldn’t be able to watch over her. Not again. She was trouble. A lot of trouble. She didn’t search it out, but it seemed to follow her around.

  He pounded up the stairs, disregarding all the alarms that were going off in his head. It was a mistake to follow her. His palm was itching, his cock threatening to take over. She was pushing all his buttons and she had been all damn day. He hadn’t missed the way she’d called him sir. She knew
exactly what she was doing.

  And the entire idea of her being at Sanctum both disturbed and titillated him. What if they could compartmentalize their relationship? What if they could make it work? If he put her under a contract, he could control how much influence she had on his life.

  “Laurel!”

  She stomped her way back to the office she’d spent six months turning into something warm and inviting. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the work she’d put into it. It was just that now all he would be able to see was her on that floor. He’d only be able to see how many different ways someone could get to her.

  She held a hand up. That wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t only had a single finger sticking up. Yes. She was giving him the finger.

  He had a couple of things to give to her. His blood started to thrum through his system and his good sense was beginning to seem like a far-off thing. Up ahead he could see the way her hips swayed and how perfectly she walked in those four-inch heels. It made him wonder what else she could do.

  She’d almost died. Some asswipe had leveled a gun at her and pulled the trigger and only her quick movements had saved her life. She could be dead. She could be gone, her unique kindness and beauty stopped by a single bullet.

  He should have been questioning himself, but it no longer mattered. She’d pushed him past thought and into action. He hadn’t had the chance to save her before. She’d been on her own in a place that should have been safe for her. But he could take action now.

  She turned at the door and there was a sudden flare of fear in her eyes that sent a thrill through his system. She was finally aware of him. She wasn’t looking at him like some sad sack she could push around, but like the predator he’d always hidden from her.

  He had to give her one more way out. His cock was threatening to pound out of his slacks, but he still had enough willpower and common sense to give her a shot at coming out of this whole. “If you very politely apologize, I’ll walk you to you car and you can leave, Laurel. We can talk about this in the morning like sane adults.”