“What happened while I was…away?”
“Away,” he scoffed. “Try fighting for your life. I should’ve been there for you. With you.”
She stepped closer to him and placed her hand over his heart. “But I saddled you with my baggage, making you promise things I shouldn’t have. And from what I’ve heard you’ve done a hell of a clean-up job.”
He turned away and stalked to the window.
“I’m here for you. I’m not going away. No matter what comes out of your mouth. You’re stuck with me, Baine. Like it or not.” But her words didn’t move him. “Look at me, damn it.” Her voice rose. “What happened?”
He gripped the sink and pinched it between his palms. His forearms bulged. Veins rose like ripcords across his heavy muscles. Baine hung his head between his shoulders and his teeth bared as a growl of anguish tore through his chest.
Sloan went to him and cloaked his back with her body. Heat and rage radiated off him in waves so powerful she wondered if he’d break the counter. Still she hung on, willing him to expel his demons. To give voice to the pain and lessen its power over him.
After what seemed like an eternity he freed the counter and stood, but she didn’t let him go. Sloan hugged him until her weak muscles shook. His hands wrapped around hers and she braced her heart for a cool dismissal that didn’t come.
“To get what I wanted I became the monster I’ve always hated and feared. I hated it because it hurt people. I feared it, not because it hurt me, but because it was in me. In my blood.”
His head shook and one hand left hers to scrub over his face, but he didn’t pull away. He drew in a deep breath and continued, “We never talked about birth control…”
Out of left field, because she’d never thought about having children, a smile spread Sloan’s lips at the possibility of one day being pregnant with Baine’s child.
Only to be wiped away.
“…because I had a vasectomy shortly after I found out about my father’s legacy. I never wanted to give a child my tainted blood. My ruined name.”
She couldn’t think about children when the man she wanted to share them with hurt so deeply. “Oh, Baine. You are not your father. You are not a monster.”
He stepped from her grasp and turned to face her. “I tortured people to get names that weren’t in the book.”
“You collected information to stop an illegal ring of gun smugglers, drug dealers, murderers, and rapists.”
Baine took her face in his hands and bent so their gazes were level. “I used a little girl to get information out of her father when he didn’t crack after I’d beat him to hell and back, cut off three of his fingers, pulled six teeth, and cut off his blasted ear.”
His gaze searched her face, but her expression didn’t falter. She’d heard and seen plenty worse than that. Heck, she’d done some of each on various missions. Sometimes the greater good outweighed the welfare of the scum of the earth.
“Did you hurt the girl to get your information?”
“No. But—"
“Did she see her father battered and bloody?”
His jaw worked for a minute before he answered. “No.”
“Was she afraid of you?”
“No. How the hell did you know all that? Law called you, didn’t he?”
She smiled. “I know what’s in here.” Under her hand and the solid breadth of his chest, Baine’s heart knocked frantically against her touch. His lids shut. The skin at the corners of his eyes wrinkled with the fierceness of his denial. A denial of the truth in her words. “Besides, Yannick Bakou was elected by his people last month. Only a month after he’d come out of hiding without a scratch. You did that. You made the world think he was dead to trick your father when it would have been a hell of a lot easier and safer for you to have put a bullet in Bakou’s head.”
When his features refused to lighten, she continued. “Did you torture people to line your own pockets?”
He clamped his lips together in defiance, but she waited for his gaze to return. When it did, she needled him with her amber stare until finally he spoke. “No.”
“Did you enjoy hurting those people? The murderers? The rapists?”
“No.”
“Are you your father?”
“No.”
“Are you a monster?”
The hard lines of his face softened and he lowered his head. His lips attacked her mouth in firm strokes. Sloan’s nerves washed from her body on a wave of love and arousal. They would get through this. Together.
Her tongue invaded his mouth and she kissed him with matched fervor. Her need became a pant of desire, but she pulled back, needing him to answer her last question. Baine pulled a ragged breath into his chest then her against it. He pillowed her cheek against his frame.
“Answer the question, Baine.”
“Only if you answer one for me.”
She comforted him with steady brushes of her hand over his back. “Fine, but mine first.”
Her head bobbed with his breath. “No, I’m not a monster.”
She crushed him in an embrace. “You don’t believe it yet, but you will in time. Two weeks and three days, to be precise.”
His thumb turned her chin up to meet his gaze. One bushy brow rose in question.
“I’m cleared in two weeks and we have one more mission left to wrap up the disaster that was our childhood.” He shook his head. The man had to have a headache he did it so much. “It’s done. The mission is set. We’re going to finish this thing. Then you’ll see you’re no monster because we’ll lay the last of the real ones to rest together.”
“I love you,” he said.
“And I you, Baine McCord.” She stood on tiptoes, stretching out her body, and kissed him on the forehead. Her lips trailed down his cheek, across his stubble, to his ear. “Now the only question is, how are we going to fill the two hours until go time?”
“Not the only question,” he growled. Baine set her at arm’s length from him and gave her a hard stare, searching her face. He took a deep breath then dropped before her onto one knee.
“Sia Kolat. Sloan Harris. The love I don’t deserve. Will you marry me?”
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BOOKS by Megan Mitcham
BASE BRANCH NOVELS
ENEMY MINE
JUSTICE MINE
STRANGER MINE
WARRIOR MINE - JANUARY 2015
DANGER MINE - JULY 2015
* * *
BUREAU SERIES
FOR ALL TO SEE - APRIL 2015
PAINTED WALLS - OCTOBER 2015
* * *
ANTHOLOGIES
SEX OBJECTS: EROTIC ROMANCE FOR WOMEN - 2015
COWBOY HEAT: WESTERN ROMANCE FOR WOMEN
HIGH OCTANE HEROES: EROTIC ROMANCE FOR WOMEN
WILD AT HEART VOLUME II
JUSTICE MINE
A BASE BRANCH NOVEL
For justice. For country. For love.
After witnessing her friend’s sexual assault, seven-year senior Magdalena Wells escapes an attack with a few bruises and a thousand questions. As a journalist in practice, if not in pay, Mags vows to utilize the skills she mastered in the Democratic Republic of Congo and answer every single one, just as soon as she gets the hell out of town.
Law Pierce’s aim is rest and relaxation after two years undercover in South Africa on an extended Base Branch mission, but restlessness puts him in trouble’s path. As a servant of justice, Law will do everything in his power to keep trouble safe. The fact that trouble’s petite stature and luscious curves stir his every primal instinct is a massive inconvenience he struggles to igno
re.
Together Magdalena and Law uncover a web of corruption and dirty lies that could set their country’s top official ablaze, if the inferno doesn’t consume them first.
STRANGER MINE
A BASE BRANCH NOVEL
One takes control. One finds balance in letting go.
Base Branch operative Ryan Noble is accustomed to taking orders whether from his commander or his overbearing mother. His best friend urged him to take control of his life, but the only thing worse than an angry woman is a teary one. He has no desire to upset his mother’s fragile emotions. Losing his sister was hard enough; his mom couldn’t bear losing another child. Even if it is to the other side of D.C. It's a damn good thing she doesn't know what he does for a living.
On a routine mission to destroy a cargo-free human-trafficking facility and exterminate its operators, Ryan blows his extraction to rescue a woman he finds chained inside.
Piper Vega is caught between metal and a hard place. She needs information and it has taken far too long to cull it from her leads—also known as her captors. She finally has the facts she needs to complete her task, but it’ll take a miracle to set her free and see it achieved. Santo Padre knows she never expected her good favor to come in the form of a man.
Ryan takes the reins of life in his sturdy grip while Piper discovers balance in loosening hers. Through intense battles of will, both find the unexpected.
About the Author
Megan Mitcham was born and raised among the live oaks and shrimp boats of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where her enormous family still calls home. She attended college at the University of Southern Mississippi where she received a bachelor's degree in curriculum, instruction, and special education. For several years Megan worked as a teacher in Mississippi. She married and moved to South Carolina and began working for an international non-profit organization as an instructor and co-director.
In 2009 Megan fell in love with books. Until then, books had been a source for research or the topic of tests. But one day she read Mercy by Julie Garwood. And oh, Mercy, she was hooked!
Megan lives in Southern Arkansas where she pens heart pounding romantic thriller novels and window-steaming erotic romance. For information on releases and giveaways subscribe at meganmitcham.com!
@MeganMitchamAuthor
@MeganMMMitcham
www.meganmitcham.com
Enemy Mine (The Base Branch Series Book 1) Page 21
