by Lexi Blake
Praise for Lexi Blake and Masters and Mercenaries...
“I can always trust Lexi Blake's Dominants to leave me breathless...and in love. If you want sensual, exciting BDSM wrapped in an awesome love story, then look for a Lexi Blake book.”
~Cherise Sinclair USA Today Bestselling author
“Lexi Blake's MASTERS AND MERCENARIES series is beautifully written and deliciously hot. She's got a real way with both action and sex. I also love the way Blake writes her gorgeous Dom heroes--they make me want to do bad, bad things. Her heroines are intelligent and gutsy ladies whose taste for submission definitely does not make them dish rags. Can't wait for the next book!”
~Angela Knight, New York Times Bestselling author
“A Dom is Forever is action packed, both in the bedroom and out. Expect agents, spies, guns, killing and lots of kink as Liam goes after the mysterious Mr. Black and finds his past and his future… The action and espionage keep this story moving along quickly while the sex and kink provides a totally different type of interest. Everything is very well balanced and flows together wonderfully.”
~A Night Owl “Top Pick”, Terri, Night Owl Erotica
“A Dom Is Forever is everything that is good in erotic romance. The story was fast-paced and suspenseful, the characters were flawed but made me root for them every step of the way, and the hotness factor was off the charts mostly due to a bad boy Dom with a penchant for dirty talk.”
~Rho, The Romance Reviews
“A good read that kept me on my toes, guessing until the big reveal, and thinking survival skills should be a must for all men.”
~Chris, Night Owl Reviews
“I can’t get enough of the Masters and Mercenaries Series! Love and Let Die is Lexi Blake at her best! She writes erotic romantic suspense like no other, and I am always extremely excited when she has something new for us! Intense, heart pounding, and erotically fulfilling, I could not put this book down.”
~ Shayna Renee, Shayna Renee's Spicy Reads
“Certain authors and series are on my auto-buy list. Lexi Blake and her Masters & Mercenaries series is at the top of that list... this book offered everything I love about a Masters & Mercenaries book – alpha men, hot sex and sweet loving… As long as Ms. Blake continues to offer such high quality books, I’ll be right there, ready to read.”
~ Robin, Sizzling Hot Books
“I have absolutely fallen in love with this series. Spies, espionage, and intrigue all packaged up in a hot dominant male package. All the men at McKay-Taggart are smoking hot and the women are amazingly strong sexy submissives.”
~Kelley, Smut Book Junkie Book Reviews
At Your Service
Masters and Mercenaries~Topped Book 4
Lexi Blake
At Your Service
Masters and Mercenaries~Topped Book 4
Published by DLZ Entertainment LLC
Copyright 2017 DLZ Entertainment LLC
Edited by Chloe Vale
ISBN: 978-1-937608-64-4
McKay-Taggart logo design by Charity Hendry
Lyrics from “Don’t Call Me Darlin’” copyright Corinne Michaels, to appear in Say You Won’t Let Go.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or establishments is solely coincidental.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the usual suspects: Kim Guidroz, Liz Berry, Kori Smith, Sara Buell, Riane Holt, Stormy Pate, Danielle Sanchez, Jillian Stein, Richard Blake, and Dylan Blake.
Special thanks to Corinne Michaels and Larissa Ione for letting me spend time with your characters as we build toward our crossover event! Meshing worlds is easy and amazing when you work with authors as talented as the two of you!
Sign up for Lexi Blake’s newsletter
and be entered to win a $25 gift certificate
to the bookseller of your choice.
Join us for news, fun, and exclusive content
including free short stories.
There's a new contest every month!
Click here to subscribe.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Author’s Note
An excerpt from Master Bits & Mercenary Bites~Girls Night by Lexi Blake
Nobody Does It Better, Masters and Mercenaries 15 by Lexi Blake
An excerpt from Chasing Taz by Khloe Wren
About Lexi Blake
Other Books by Lexi Blake
Prologue
Javier winked at the gorgeous blonde as he fumbled with the keys to his apartment. Normally he didn’t bring women back here. It was way easier to go to their place and sneak out after the sex was done, thus sparing them both an awkward morning, but Kristy was different.
At least he thought she might be.
They’d been seeing each other for a month. He’d met her at a private play party. She’d been there with a couple of friends, but she’d seemed drawn straight to him after the first hour. She’d shyly asked if they could play, and they’d been partners from then on. After a few raucous sessions, they’d decided to take their relationship into the vanilla world and see where they could go.
He’d taken her out with some friends tonight. If things went well, he might ask if he could bring her with him to Sanctum. Of course, she’d have to go through a bunch of checks and interviews because Sanctum was a private BDSM club. It would be good to have a sub at his side.
“Oh, Sir,” she said, rubbing her body against his as though she couldn’t even wait until they were inside. “I’m going to rock your world tonight.”
After tonight, she wouldn’t call him Sir again. It was time. He wasn’t a child anymore and he was tired of one-night stands, had been for a while. He wasn’t sure Kristy was the one, but he was willing to give it a go, and that started by inviting her to spend the night with him.
Letting her know where he lived. Had he really thought that? Maybe he was as bad as everyone said he was.
He slid the key in the door just as he caught sight of the new girl walking down the hall.
What was her name again? Julie? Juliana?
Jules. Chef had introduced her as Jules. She was the new hostess and she’d rented the apartment across from his. She was carrying an armful of groceries. Normally he would have helped her with that, but he had a horny blonde to deal with. A horny blonde whose hand was currently trying to run down his slacks.
She could be awfully aggressive when she wanted something. He tried to gently tug her hand up. This was a coworker and he was trying to rebrand himself as anything but a manwhore. Making out in the hallway was not going to help his reputation.
He managed to nod Jules’s way. “Sorry. Uhm, it’s been a night, you know.”
Jules strode by them. “I don’t think your night’s over, buddy.”
“It’s definitely not,” Kristy whispered far too loudly. “Not over at all.” Kristy stopped, her body stiffening behind him. “Eww, what’s wrong with her arm?”
Shit. He should have cut Kristy off at the fourth round of shots. They’d gon
e out with some of his friends from the club and it had been obvious that his Dom friends hadn’t thought he’d been careful enough. Kristy had been a little loud, a bit too much. Now he agreed with them.
She hadn’t behaved this way in the dungeon. She’d been practically perfect.
Jules turned, holding up her left arm. It had been amputated just below the elbow. He hadn’t seen her without the prosthetic before. “I like to call her stumpy. What? You never seen a stump before? Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it, sister.”
“Hey,” he called out, wanting to apologize.
“Don’t worry about it.” Jules managed to get her door open. “I don’t care what a drunk fool thinks anyway.”
And he’d made a friend. Her door slammed closed.
“She’s weird.” Kristy went back to wrapping herself around him.
“She’s a coworker and you just embarrassed me.” He opened the door and managed to unwind her, turning to look into her eyes. She was gorgeous, with wheat-colored hair and a body made to bang, but he really looked at her this time. She was a lovely woman, but there was a cruel twist to her lips and a hardness in her eyes he hadn’t noticed before. “Do you understand that woman gave a part of her body to ensure that you can go out on a Friday night and drink too much tequila? She lost that arm during her service to our country. I could have done the same, but I was lucky.”
She frowned, her bottom lip out in what he was sure she thought was a sexy pout. “What’s up with you tonight? I thought we were having fun.”
Maybe this wasn’t going to work out the way he thought it was. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”
They might need to talk because if she was that rude to a woman she didn’t know, how the hell was she going to handle his family? He had a brother in a wheelchair. Would she make fun of him, too? No. Optimism. He was going to be optimistic. She was drunk and in the morning, he would talk to her and have her apologize to Jules. There was no reason to ruin the whole night. It would be an object lesson.
But maybe he would keep the collar he’d purchased for her in his pocket. He might need a little more time to make that decision.
She was always sweet as pie around him. It was just the liquor.
Life was easier when his hookups happened in broom closets. He never had to see past how hot a chick was.
He closed the door behind him.
Kristy immediately turned and started to play with the buttons on her shirt. “Don’t be mad at me. I can’t stand the thought.”
She was incredibly sexy. Curves in all the right places, and they were all artfully on display.
So why was he thinking about Jules and wishing he could walk to her apartment and apologize again? He didn’t really know the woman, had only worked a few shifts with her, but he’d hated the blank look on her face. Oh, he’d heard her sarcastic words, but they’d covered up what had to have been at least a pain she’d become numb to.
Like his brother.
Kristy stepped in, turning her face up. “I can make it up to you, Sir.”
What the hell was wrong with him? He was alone with a woman who was willing to have sex with him and he found himself thinking more about sleep than an orgasm. “I think it’s late. Maybe we should go to bed and talk some more in the morning.”
He should know more about her than her bra size and which lube she liked.
Her eyes had gone wide. “You want to go to sleep? It’s not that late, Sir. I was rude. I’m sorry. What’s my punishment? I think a spanking and then I should totally take care of you. I can make it all right and then maybe the next time we play, you’ll take me to Sanctum.”
He stopped. “What do you know about Sanctum?”
He’d never mentioned the club to her. It was a private space. He hadn’t intended to mention it to her at all until he had cleared it through the owners.
Her eyes went wide. “Oh, some of the other subs I’m friends with were talking about it. They know that you and Eric and Deena are members there.”
Eric and Deena were some of the friends he’d introduced her to. Eric had been his boss for a long time, teaching him much of what he knew. When Eric had left Top Dallas to be the executive chef at Top Fort Worth, he’d started having some play nights out in his neck of the woods. It wasn’t the same as Sanctum, but he missed Eric and made time to go out to Fort Worth. After Eric met her, he’d told Javier to be cautious about Kristy, but then Eric kind of had it all so it was easy for him.
He was getting tired of being the manwhore. He was thirty and he had his dream job. It was time to settle down. Time to be serious, and he could be serious about a banging blonde babe who liked D/s.
And apparently knew about his connections to the most exclusive club in the state.
She looked up at him, giving him big doe eyes that might have worked on him before she’d mentioned Sanctum. “Come here, Sir. I think I should get you out of those clothes.”
There was a hard knock on his door that startled Javi.
It was nearly midnight. Who the hell would be here?
Except any of a dozen women who could have tracked him down.
“Javier?” A female voice yelled through the door. “I know you’re in there. Open up.”
Kristy suddenly didn’t look as sexy as she had the moment before. Or quite as drunk as she’d seemed. Her eyes had narrowed. “Who the hell is that? You have some other sub? Is she the one you take to Sanctum? I’m just some cheap piece of ass on the side.”
Javier moved to the door. He recognized that angry female voice, though it wasn’t usually directed at him. She was the one female he couldn’t hide from. “It’s my sister-in-law.” He opened the door and stopped, his heart suddenly in his throat. “What happened?”
Sonja was standing there, his niece on her hip. Camilla was barely a year old and she clung to her mother, her eyes red rimmed with tears. Camilla was wearing a pair of brightly colored footie pajamas. Sonja looked worse for the wear. His sister-in-law always took care with her appearance. He’d never once seen her with her hair in disarray, mascara smudged. It looked like she’d managed to push his brother’s wheelchair while she carried her child.
“What do you think happened, Javi? What happens every single night since he came home?” Sonja asked, sounding infinitely tired.
Rafe. His older brother. Rafe was in his wheelchair, slumped over as though he’d passed out, and he probably had. He was thinner than Javier had ever remembered seeing him, his hair greasy and unkempt.
Rafe stirred, his head coming up. “Bitch won’t let me sleep.”
Anger welled in Javi, warring with the guilt and shame he felt whenever he looked at his brother. Whenever he realized that it could have been him in that wheelchair having lost both legs in a helicopter crash. All it would have taken was a change of assignment, some bad luck.
There were days when Javier wished like hell it had been him. He didn’t have a wife and child to take care of. No one would have cared if he’d devolved into some pathetic thing.
“I can’t do it anymore.” Sonja backed up, tears streaming down her face. “I took him in because he lost his last apartment and he was going to be homeless. He promised me he would try, but it’s exactly like it was before the divorce. I hide the liquor and he has a buddy bring more over. He won’t go to rehab. I set everything up for him but he cancels it the minute I go to work. He won’t even try. He gets drunk and he scares the baby. I can’t, Javi.”
Javi’s heart twisted. What was she saying? “Sonja, he’s going to get better. He’s got another surgery soon. He’s going to get better.”
“Fuck it,” Rafe slurred. “Not doing the fucking surgery. Don’t need you or her. Don’t need anyone. Get the fuck out, Sonja.”
Camilla started to cry, burying her face in her mother’s neck.
“I have to think of my daughter,” Sonja said, tears rolling down her face.
Javier remembered Sonja on her wedding day five years before. She’d been gloriously
happy with her husband. Sonja had worn a white wedding dress and Rafe had been in his dress whites. Javier had stared at them as they’d danced and wondered if he’d ever find anyone who looked at him the way Sonja looked at Rafael.
How the hell had it all fallen apart?
His sister-in-law turned and walked down the hall toward the elevator, cradling her baby to her chest. Javier watched as Camilla’s head came up, and she looked at her father as her mother swept her away.
And he was left with his brother.
“Do you need help getting him inside?”
He turned and realized the new girl was standing in the hallway. He hadn’t noticed when she’d opened her door and stepped outside.
Rafe. He had to get Rafe inside. The neighbors were opening their doors and watching the scene playing out in the hall with curious eyes. Shit. If he didn’t hurry, someone would call the cops and he would have that headache to deal with.
“I can get him in,” he stuttered as he moved around, getting behind the chair.
“Who is that?” Kristy stared at his brother like he was a bug she needed some man in her life to sweep away so it didn’t disturb her.
“He’s my brother,” he said under his breath, well aware lots of people were listening in. He pushed the chair forward but it didn’t go anywhere. He tried again. What was wrong with the chair? Damn it. He didn’t know how to work it. Rafe wouldn’t let him near the chair. It was a serious point of contention since his brother had come home.
“He can’t stay here,” Kristy insisted. “I thought we were going to have fun. I’m not some nursemaid. He should be in a hospital or something. He looks sick.”
“He’s my brother.” His head was racing. He needed to get inside. Why wasn’t the chair moving?
