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
You Only Love Twice
Masters and Mercenaries, Book 8
Lexi Blake
You Only Love Twice
Masters and Mercenaries, Book 8
Lexi Blake
Published by DLZ Entertainment LLC
Copyright 2015 DLZ Entertainment LLC
Edited by Chloe Vale
eBook ISBN: 978-1-937608-36-1
McKay-Taggart logo design by Charity Hendry
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.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to my team of editors, beta and proofreaders, and designers. Chloe, Stormy, Riane, Rich, Liz, and Charity, I couldn’t do it without you. Thanks to Top Griz who left the marines only to find himself surrounded by romance authors with a million questions. Thank you for the knowledge and patience. And thanks to his wife Kennedy Layne for sharing his wisdom with the rest of us.
Special thanks to my street team for always supporting me and helping me find the encouragement I need. Love you ladies!
This book is dedicated to anyone who has loved and lost and found the strength to love again.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Author’s Note
Adored: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella by Lexi Blake, Coming May 12, 2015
Master No by Lexi Blake, Coming August 4, 2015
Their Virgin Mistress by Shayla Black and Lexi Blake, Coming April 14. 2015
Scandal Never Sleeps by Shayla Black and Lexi Blake, Coming July 7, 2015
Thieves by Lexi Blake
About Lexi Blake
Other Books by Lexi Blake
PROLOGUE
Fairfax County, VA
Phoebe looked up at the house with no designs on actually living there. Yeah, she wasn’t an idiot. This place was way too nice for a group home. It was a two story with big columns. Colonial. She’d read that in some book. She liked books. Books didn’t lie to her for the most part. They didn’t say one thing when the social worker was around and then smack her face the minute they were alone, so all in all she preferred books to the real world.
Also libraries were pretty fucking awesome because they didn’t give a shit that you didn’t have the money as long as you managed to turn the books back in on time. Phoebe always turned her books in on time.
A book from a library was the one thing she wouldn’t steal.
Everything else was fair game and once she was inside, she would look around to see what her sticky fingers might be able to grab. After all, her eighteenth birthday was only three years away. A girl had to plan for that grand moment when she went from foster care to homelessness.
“Could you try to smile?” Alicia wasn’t bad as social workers went. She was a lovely woman with caramel-colored skin who seemed to actually get that it sucked to be Phoebe.
“Could you try to not sell me to some weirdo pervert who’ll make me do sex tapes and lick his big toes?” Yeah, just because Alicia wasn’t so bad didn’t mean Phoebe wouldn’t give her shit.
Perfectly brown eyes rolled and Alicia frowned as she parked the very boring sedan she’d probably paid a whole two years worth of shitastic salary for. “I’m serious, Phoebe. Franklin Grant isn’t the usual foster dad. He’s very wealthy and very private, and over the years he’s taken in exactly two kids and he adopted them both. You’re the third he’s shown an interest in.”
“Why?” That information sent every spidey sense she had tingling because she knew damn well that too good to be true usually meant she got her ass kicked in some way.
Alicia’s jaw firmed. “He has to talk to you about it. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure exactly what he does for a living but I know he works for the government and he has a security le
vel that means I can’t even read his records. Usually this is a very long process, but if he decides to take you, you’ll be adopted within the next six weeks and you’ll have a family, Phoebe. He’s promised to pay for your education and set up a trust fund for you if you agree to his terms.”
Her gut dropped. What the hell were his terms? Who used a word like “terms” when it came to adopting a kid? Alicia talked like she had a choice, but Phoebe knew better. She hadn’t had a single choice since the day her mom had overdosed on heroin and her dad had chosen to not take her in. Her father. He’d had a new family and the new wife didn’t want Phoebe around her kids. It hadn’t been a big shock. She hadn’t seen her father in years but she’d still stood in his doorway praying he would let her in. She’d been seven years old and she’d seen her half siblings from the doorway before their mom had scooted them away like Phoebe was something dangerous.
It had been Alicia who held her hand and walked her away. Alicia had driven her to the first of a seemingly endless line of foster homes. She couldn’t even remember some of their faces and others she would never forget. But Alicia had been the constant. She knew other kids got shuffled through social workers as fast as they did homes, but Alicia had always been there. She counted on Alicia.
Though she tried not to cry ever, the hated tears were suddenly in her eyes. “Are you selling me?”
She’d heard it could happen. Especially when no one in the world cared about what happened to a girl. Foster care kids ran all the time. No one gave a damn to find them.
Alicia turned to her, her jaw dropping open. “What? Phoebe, no. Honey, this man is interested in you because of your IQ scores. I have some suspicion he works for the NSA or the CIA. Do you understand? I think you’re being recruited. If that scares you we can turn the car around and nothing and no one will make me bring you here again.”
Phoebe looked out the window. It was a sunny day and the big colonial house stood out against the brilliant blue sky. In the distance, she could see a pasture with a couple of horses. The whole setting was peaceful and so foreign to a girl who’d grown up in some of DC’s worst slums. What would it be like to wake up to green grass and trees?
She was scheduled to enter a group home in six weeks and after she aged out she would be on her own. There would be no education for her. There would be a fast food restaurant job if she was lucky enough to find a place to live. There would be years and years of trying to get by. There would likely come a time when she was desperate enough to try a little of what her mother had in order to get a moment’s respite from how shitty life was. She would be in and out of prison until she finally took too much and found the place where all junkies went.
Wasn’t anything worth trying if it meant a shot at getting out of this life?
“You said his name was Franklin?” Like the turtle. When she’d been younger, she’d read the Franklin books. Even when her mother had been alive, she’d hidden in books. She’d taught herself to read at the age of four, and one of the moms in the tenement they’d lived in had been a kindergarten teacher and lent Phoebe books. Franklin. Arthur. The Berenstain Bears. It was stupid, but the fact that this man’s name was comforting helped to calm her.
“Yes. Franklin Grant. His family has been in Virginia for two hundred years, but he’s the last of his line. I don’t know why, but he never married.” She looked at Phoebe. “Do you want to stay or go?”
Phoebe got out of the car and slammed the door behind her. Everything she owned in the world was in her satchel. Three T-shirts, four pairs of socks, a complete days of the week underwear set, though technically she was wearing Sunday on a Monday since she didn’t get to do laundry very often, two pairs of threadbare jeans, a tube of lip balm she’d stolen from a pharmacy, and twelve dollars and fifty-two cents she kept in a plastic Hello Kitty wallet she’d gotten one year at Christmas. Everything else had been lost or stolen.
The door to the big house opened and two boys stepped out.
Alicia’s door shut and she was suddenly beside Phoebe. “It’s your call. If you want to leave, I’ll take you back.”
But she wouldn’t take her in. She’d known that dream was done long ago. Alicia had three kids of her own. There was no room for Phoebe there. There seemed to be no place for her anywhere, but that house in front of her had a whole lot of rooms.
“I’ll meet him. Who are they?” She was watching as the two young men walked toward her.
“That must be Grant’s sons. He adopted them both. The word is they both tested incredibly high on their IQ tests and had some extra skills. I think one of them was a shooting champion. The other had a history as a hacker. I know everyone was surprised a boy with an arrest record managed to get adopted.”
She’d avoided being arrested. Mostly. The one time she’d gotten caught, she helped the cops with a worse crime that had been committed in the same area. Detective Bates had happily expunged her record when she’d given him a serial rapist on a silver platter. Sometimes cops couldn’t see patterns to save their lives. Phoebe saw them. She’d stood in his office and looked up at the wall of data he’d accumulated on the man and all the lines were there. He’d simply had them in the wrong places. She’d fixed it and now the man was serving seventy-five years and she had a friend to call when she got caught shoplifting.
Life was all about making use of the materials around. She’d learned that long ago, too.
“Hi.” Both boys were dressed in slacks and button downs, but the one who greeted her had pitch-black hair and the prettiest eyes she’d ever seen. He was slightly taller than his brother, who she barely looked at because her eyes couldn’t seem to move off him.
“Hi.” Yeah, that sounded stupid and breathy and girlie.
“Are you Phoebe?” Dreamy Eyes asked.
She managed to nod. What the hell was wrong with her?
“Well, I’m James. It’s nice to meet you. Dad’s been talking about you a lot. Why don’t you come up and meet him? He’s in his office. If you decide to stay, I will warn you, he’s made meatloaf for dinner. About once a week he gets it into his head that he can cook. He can’t. It’s awful, but we order pizza and then tomorrow Maria is back. Maria can actually cook.”
James. Oh, James. He made her heart pound. He made her breath threaten to stop.
“I am here, too, you know.” The second boy rolled his green eyes and chuckled.
She was being a bitch. She turned to the other boy. He was cute, too, but he didn’t make her drool the way James did. “Hi.” She thrust out her hand. Dumbass. Only adults did that. There was nothing to do but power through. “I’m Phoebe.”
He gave her a grin and shook her hand. He really was cute, with golden brown hair and a ready smile. “I’m Tennessee, but you can call me Ten. Come on now. Stop making love eyes at Jamie here and let’s get a move on.”
“I’m not.” She felt her whole body flush with embarrassment.
Ten shook his head. “God, I hope you are because he’s staring at you, too.”
James sent his brother a warning look. “Am not.”
“Are too.”
“I will end you, Ten,” he said under his breath.
Ten laughed. “You’ll try. Let’s go, lovebirds. Don’t keep Pops waiting. He’s actually a really great man. I think you’re going to like him.”
Ten turned and started up the bricked walkway.
James was blushing as he looked back at her. “Don’t pay him any mind. He’s kind of an asshole.” James flushed further as he nodded to Alicia. “Sorry. He’s my brother.”
Alicia smiled. “So I’ve heard. I think I’ll go in and say hello to Mr. Grant.”
She started toward the door.
James suddenly seemed to find his feet endlessly interesting. “I could show you around if you like. Dad sent us out here to talk to you. I’m supposed to show you the house and then you can talk to him.”
“Why?” She needed to know. “Why does he want to talk to me? I don’t buy it.
I’ve seen it all and this doesn’t add up.”
James’s eyes met hers. “You’re smart, Phoebe, and you could be something more. You could help your country. That’s what we do. Dad finds kids who need homes and something to believe in and he gives us both. He took me in when I was eight and we found Ten when he was thirteen when he came to live with us. In a couple of years I’m going to college, but after that I’m joining my dad. You could be with us if you want to.”
“In what?”
James’ s shoulders went back, his pride evident. “The Agency. I’m going to be a spy and you could be, too.”
A spy. Yeah. That sounded cool.
Cooler than anything else she was going to do. When James turned and walked toward the house, she followed. It was all she could do to not take his hand.
* * * *
13 years later
“Hey, Phoebe.” Ten walked into the room, his presence almost a nuisance.
God, she hated that, but she felt that way. She didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to see anyone. She wanted them all to go away so she could fade. She wanted to do nothing more than lie down and utterly fade away. Maybe if she didn’t eat, didn’t drink anything, she could see him again.
She didn’t reply to Ten, simply stared at the wall.
“Everyone’s leaving. I thought you might want to come out and say good-bye.”
She hadn’t wanted them to come over anyway, so she figured the hoard of visiting vultures could find their way out on their own. They had been Jamie’s co-workers, people who knew their dad, but she hated them. She hated everyone.
“Don’t do this to me.”
She ignored him.
“Goddamn it, Phoebe. Don’t you dare fucking do this to him.”
