by Lexi Blake
She held her tongue even when she wanted so badly to speak, to argue with him. He wasn’t dreaming of killing her. He was playing out a scenario in his head he was trained to. It wasn’t his fantasy. It was his nightmare. If he thought he could scare her away, he would soon find out she was made of way sterner stuff.
His hand found her head again, but this time he stroked her softly, almost absently. “I want you, but I don’t know that I’ll love you like he did. I don’t know that I’m capable of looking at the world the way he did. What happens if I have that dream tonight and I wrap my hands around your throat?”
A direct question. She could answer that. “I put my knee in your balls and hope I don’t take away our chance for more kids, Master. But you’ve slept beside me and it was only annoying. You went back to sleep when I yelled at you so I think we’ll be okay. It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“And if I can’t give you more than a good time in bed? It’s what you were looking for before you met me. What if that’s it for us? Are you willing to risk that?”
She would risk anything for him. “Yes, Master.”
“I don’t know how we had sex before, but I know what I need now.”
She felt herself tense because they might finally be getting to the heart of the matter. “I’m ready to give you whatever you need.”
His face was slightly cruel as he looked down at her. “And if I need you to take care of me? Even after how I treated you tonight?”
She could tell him so many stories about what a bitch she’d been to him. “I think I can handle it.”
“I’m not quite that much of a bastard yet, but it’s a close thing. The only thing that’s going to save you tonight is how tired I am.”
Because he’d been on planes for two days and he’d likely gotten little sleep. He needed rest and he’d gotten emotional turmoil. She wished she could spare him that. “Then you should sleep, Theo.”
“You haven’t gotten what you need yet.”
She went up on her knees, touching his face suddenly. “I only need you here with me.”
He stared at her. “Anyone else touches me like that and I flinch.” His eyes trailed away from hers. “Erin, what if I can’t stand to have sex with you any way but with you tied up and submissive?”
“Then I’ll get used to being bound. I need you to understand one thing, Theo. I love and adore you and that means we’re going to make it through this because we’ll find our way together. It means we have to hold on tight and not let her break us.”
“And if I’m already broken?”
“Then I put you back together. You might not be exactly the same as before, but you’ll still be beautiful to me. You’ll still be the center of my world.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
It was the easiest thing in the world now. “It wasn’t in the beginning. I made it hard. I think now it’s your turn to pay me back.”
He stood up, holding a hand out. All the sexual tension in him had fled and what was left looked like utter exhaustion. Despair. But he helped her stand and his hands went to her waist, hauling her close. “I don’t deserve it, but let me sleep with you. Kick my ass if I do anything wrong in the middle of the night and know deep inside you’re the last person I would ever mean to hurt. Let me stay with you.”
If she said a word, she would burst into tears, so she let her hands drift up and began to unbutton his shirt. Without talk between them, she worked the clothes off him. After she’d folded his shirt, she ran her hands over his chest, slowly so she wouldn’t startle him.
He caught her hand and brought it to his heart. “Don’t be tentative. I know I have problems with people touching me now. It’s because she would come in and touch me and it made me sick. It made me sick because only one person owns this body and I don’t think it’s me. It’s you and it’s always been you, hasn’t it?”
She leaned forward and kissed his chest. “We belong together, Theo. I’ll take you any way I can get you because you were made for me. I won’t ever turn you away or make you feel like you’re less than the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“I thought that was TJ.”
Then he misunderstood. “TJ only exists because you loved me. I’m the woman I am because you loved me. Let me love you, Theo. Let me help you be the man I know you can be.”
His jaw tightened. “I don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t think I can ever be that man again. Even if I remembered.”
She couldn’t lose him now. “Come to bed with me. It’s late. Can’t you brood tomorrow, babe?”
His lips curled up. “I can try.”
She got him undressed and slid into bed next to him, his skin warming hers as his arms wound around her.
For the first time since he died she felt safe. Her men were here, close to her heart where she could fight for them.
“Tell me a story.” Theo soothed a hand over her head. “Not a story. Not really. Tell me how I caught you. Tell me how I finally took down the mighty Erin Argent, and don’t leave out details. I want to know how I used to make love to you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “All that matters is now.”
“Not to me. Tell me. I want to know our story. It’s mine, too. Give it to me, please.”
It was a request she couldn’t refuse.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Liberia, Africa
Two years earlier
The heat was going to kill her. She was absolutely sure of it and she was a woman who’d spent time in the desert while she was in the Army. Of course, her version of the Army hadn’t included Theo Taggart with his shirt off.
Please don’t actually be drooling. Please. Maintain some semblance of dignity.
She watched as he kicked the soccer ball to a kid who couldn’t be more than nine. He’d lost his father to the Ebola outbreak ravaging the country, but Theo had managed to make him smile again. His mother was one of the few recovering at Faith McDonald’s small clinic.
The clinic was tiny, but damn the doc was a force of nature.
Erin leaned back, fighting the emotions that threatened to take over. She’d started this trip as a mission, but Africa had changed her. Faith had changed her.
Theo was threatening to turn her into an entirely differently human being.
A little girl named Teta leaned against her, hooking her arms through Erin’s and cuddling close.
Weird. So fucking weird, but her arm came out to cradle the five-year-old girl.
Africa was making her soft. She’d gotten close to the children, especially this one. The tiny orphan girl had clung to her since the day she’d made it to the compound, her sick mother hauling her miles to come for treatment only to succumb to Ebola twenty-four hours later.
“Mister Theo is so nice and he plays well.” Teta was smiling as she looked out at the field.
Mister Theo was a son of a bitch who played a long, manipulative game that she wasn’t going to win. The athletic shorts he was wearing rode low on his hips, showing off the ridiculously sculpted notches there.
“Mister Theo is very nice and Ms. Erin is a lucky woman,” a familiar voice said as she sank to the ground next to Erin.
Faith McDonald was the target. She and Theo had been tasked with getting close to the doctor in order to gain an invitation to her father’s island getaway home where Big Tag was certain all the secrets were kept. They’d been in Liberia playing a happy D/s couple for six weeks and they would be here for the rest of the summer, making the target comfortable enough with them to allow them to set her up with a Dom. Tennessee Smith. The former CIA agent would find all the intel they needed once he was in Faith McDonald’s bed.
If she didn’t watch it, Erin was going to end up in Theo’s bed.
In a biblical sense.
She was already there in a literal way. For forty-three days she’d slept in the same way-too-small for both of them bed they’d been offered. Every single freaking night she went to bed cling
ing to the side and every morning she woke up with her face pressed to his chest, a leg slung over that hot bod of his. Sometimes she hiked it up high enough that she woke to the feel of that massive Taggart cock of his saying good morning, and it took everything she had not to hop on top of him and ride that monster to paradise.
She looked over at Faith and gave her a smile. It wasn’t like she could explain how sexual frustration was causing her to be even more violent than normal. Some asshole had tried to bully his way into the clinic today. Very likely he was looking for pain meds. Erin had ensured the fucker needed them. Of course he wasn’t likely to get them in the local jail. If he came back, Erin had plans to break both his legs.
It still wouldn’t make her any less hungry for that man. Theo Taggart was going to be the death of her.
Or the utter and complete rebirth of Erin Argent.
She’d started to think that it would be one or the other.
“I would like to marry Mister Theo,” another girl said.
There were ten of them sitting on the edge of the field wearing the shorts and shirts Faith’s clinic provided to them. There were also knee-length skirts that allowed the girls to attend the privately funded school not two blocks away. Faith made sure every child who stayed at her clinic was able to keep up his or her studies.
“I think you’ll have to talk to Ms. Erin about that,” Faith said with a bright smile.
The sun was beginning to set and Theo pulled the children playing around him, getting to one knee and likely promising more fun tomorrow. They all put their hands in, Theo included, and made a happy roar as they disbanded. There were no losers in Mister Theo’s games. These children had seen far too much loss to count points or call out winners.
So much loss it sometimes weighed down her soul and only one thing could spark her back to life.
Theo had become necessary in a way no other person had done, and that scared the hell out of Erin.
Still, she remembered she had a role to play. She gave the girl a grin. “I’m afraid you’ll have to find your own Taggart. That one is mine. The good news is he has a twin brother.”
The girls all started giggling as Theo made his way over. They dispersed quickly, whispering about him behind their hands like schoolgirls. They were schoolgirls thanks to Faith McDonald.
The job had started as just another op but had become so much more. Faith had turned her back on her privileged existence in order to fight the good fight. She was a naïve, overly sentimental do-gooder, the type that made Erin roll her eyes and threaten to vomit because they didn’t understand the way the world worked.
Here in Africa, Faith was changing the way it worked.
“Why do they run away like that? Is it the fact that most of the time I’ve got a P90 strapped to my chest?” Theo frowned as the gaggle of girls made their way back to the dorms Faith had set up for them. Some were orphans, others clinic patients waiting on their families, but all seemed happy to have a place to stay, food in their bellies, and doctors around during the worst outbreak of Ebola the world had ever seen.
Yet even among the death and horror, Theo was able to smile, able to bring his unique optimism into her world.
“I don’t think that’s fear, Theo,” Faith replied. “They want to marry you.”
He actually blushed. Damn but he was cute when he was embarrassed. He tossed his shirt back over his head, but it didn’t mean anything. She still knew how muscular that chest was. Every single morning she was treated to the sight of Theo Taggart in his surprisingly tight boxer shorts slamming down a set of a hundred push-ups followed by that gorgeous body hefting himself up and down the pull-up bar. She was fairly certain he didn’t work out mostly naked at home. No. That was totally for her benefit because the bastard was smart enough to know that she craved his hot bod.
He was also disciplined enough to not give it to her.
“Well, I hope you informed them I’m taken,” he said as primly as a six-foot-three-inch hunk of a sex god could be.
And that was pretty prim since Erin still hadn’t managed to get into his frilly boxers. He’d kissed her senseless, slept by her every night, offered all manner of play, but wouldn’t even let her touch the monster in his pants. He’d been serious about needing some kind of declaration of love or some shit.
He wasn’t getting it. She didn’t do love. No way. No how.
But she was getting desperate. They had at least another four months here in Africa. No way she was going to make it that long without breaking down and begging him to fuck her. Especially since he had zero problems playing the Dom.
“If I catch you touching yourself, you won’t like what happens, baby,” he’d said to her the first night here. “This is a deep cover operation and that means living the part. She could walk in at any time and she will find you in bed with me at night. If Faith shows up at our quarters, she’ll find you at my feet or cuddled up on my lap. You will sleep with me, shower with me, take your every meal with me because for the course of this op you belong to me.”
He’d been utterly true to his words. She slept wrapped around him. At night when she read or they watched movies, he cradled her on his lap, his hands moving over her like she was a kitten he was soothing. Every night before they went to bed, he was the one who washed her body, fingertips worshipping her and forcing her to know herself in a way she hadn’t before.
She didn’t even want to disobey him when it came to masturbation. It wouldn’t be as good as the real thing. It would be a soulless imitation.
“I offered them Case,” she replied, allowing Theo to haul her up. She knew what came next because he did it constantly, but she was still breathless with anticipation.
His hands went to her waist, drawing her close as his lips descended on hers. “I’ll be sure to let him know you’ve arranged a good woman for him.”
Her whole body was awake and alive at the touch of his hands. “She’s twelve.”
His lips curled up in the most sensual smile. “Then she’s at Case’s mental level. Next year, she’ll pass him right by. We should jump on it now.”
His lips brushed hers and she forgot about Case and the op and everything else but the feel of Theo. All too soon he was straightening up and bringing her to his side.
“If you don’t need anything else tonight, Doc, I’ll take my pretty here and get some R&R in,” Theo said, smiling Faith’s way. “Murray and Clancy are on duty and I’m certain they’ve got our protocols down now.”
The first thing they’d done when they’d gotten here was whip the small six-man security team into some semblance of shape. Faith was too nice to try to force some kind of routine on the men she paid to guard her clinic and the compound around it, but Erin didn’t mind playing the ball-busting bitch for her friend. She’d immediately convinced Faith to let her fire two of the lazy guards and bring in some actual specialists.
“No problem, you two.” Faith started toward the clinic again, her break clearly over. She glanced back, a wistful look on her face. “Have fun.”
It was so obvious Faith was lonely. According to the good doc, she hadn’t taken a Dom in months, not since her last one proved so douchey. Of course, they were counting on her loneliness. It was what they would play on to get her to come back to Dallas with them and put her firmly in the clutches of Ten Smith.
“See you in the morning.” She looked forward to having breakfast with Faith every morning before her and Theo’s shift began. Maybe it was because Faith’s version of girl talk included blood and disease and surgical discussions, and she never flinched when Erin described a firefight. Or maybe she’d clicked with the chick. It was a first for her and like the deep connection to Theo, she wasn’t sure she could trust it.
Especially not when the friend in question was actually the target of her op and would one day hate Erin for lying to her. The one real friend she’d made and it would all go to hell over her job.
“Absolutely,” Faith said with a wide smile. “I�
��ll expect all the details.”
Theo frowned but before he could say anything, there was a shout from the girls.
“Doctor, please!”
Faith took off running. Erin did the same once she saw the small child who was on the ground.
Teta.
Another nightmare had begun.
Forty-nine hours later, she found herself being led back to their small quarters by Theo. He’d tried to pick her up and haul her out of the hospital several times, but Erin wouldn’t leave. She’d sat next to Teta’s bedside, her whole body encased in a Hazmat suit as she’d watch the girl lose her battle.
She’d napped briefly in the hospital’s on-call room, but every time she closed her eyes she saw Theo lying on a bed, blood seeping from his clear blue eyes. She’d seen him dying and hadn’t been able to touch him. She’d never been able to touch him the way she’d wanted to because she’d been so scared.
And then she’d seen herself on that bed, but she’d been alone because she’d pushed everyone away. No one had come to sit with her and as she’d died, she’d known no one would remember her at all because she’d never allowed them in.
Not even him.
Teta had died a few hours before and Erin hadn’t cried. Faith was too exhausted. The whole staff was numb. The nurses had carefully prepared the girl’s body for what was to come. There was no burial for Ebola patients.
“Hey, let’s get you in a shower and get you to bed. I’ve already made arrangements for the others to take our place for at least the next two days. You need to rest.”
If she closed her eyes she would see all the death again. She would be alone again. She pushed away from him. “They’ve taken my place for days. I can manage a shift, Taggart. Faith has checked me over every single day. I don’t have a fever. I’ve followed all the safety protocols. I’m not sick so I don’t need you to babysit me.”
