Dominance Never Dies (Masters and Mercenaries Book 11) (7 page)

The great thing about the way he was holding her was how very easy he made it to bring her knee up and send his balls back into his body cavity.

She heard him hiss and then she was free. “Tell your girlfriend she’s got a real jewel on her hands. And thanks, Case. I think I just got over you. I’ve carried this stupid torch around from the moment I met you. It’s good to see those true colors shining through. If I come up with anything, I’ll let Ian know. Good-bye, Case.”

He’d taken a knee, one hand cupping the balls she’d so recently injured. “Mia, stop. We need to fucking talk.”

But she’d said everything she needed to say.

With tears in her eyes, she left his apartment, his building, and his life.

She would find Theo, but she was done with Case.

* * * *

Dear god, he might never have children. Not that he wanted them. Maybe he did. He let out a groan as the pain washed over him.

Did she have a damn bionic knee?

How the hell had he managed to maintain an erection? Shouldn’t his dick have shriveled up and maybe died after what she’d just done to him? But no, the damn thing was still hard as hell and likely pointing her way. His dick was a divining rod when it came to that blonde bitch goddess.

Fuck, but she was mean, and he was ten kinds of perverted because that did something for him.

He needed to get up off the ground and go after her. He needed to apologize because he’d been a dick.

He needed to go after her because she was right. They had to work together. If she knew someone who could take him to Theo, they definitely needed to work together.

Months had passed and he wasn’t any closer to getting his brother back. Theo was out there and every day was hell for him.

He should have known it would be Mia who brought him what he needed. Mia, who had lied to him. Mia, who invaded his every dream. Mia, who looked at him with those kick-me-in-the-gut eyes.

He managed to grab his phone and keys and forced himself to walk out. He had to catch her.

“Whoa, Case, was that who I think it was?” a familiar voice asked. “You ready to head out?”

Michael. He was standing outside Hutch’s door with a six-pack of beer in his hand. Hutch lived two doors down and he was going to ride over to Erin’s with him and Sean. Apparently Michael was going with them.

His partner was right on time to witness his horror.

Mia. Fucking gorgeous, lying, way too good for him Mia. Now he could call her Mia of the Sharpened Knee. “Can you stop her?”

Michael’s eyes widened. “I could and then I would likely get ye old restraining order in the mail. I try to avoid those. She had some crazy eyes on her. I thought you two had decided to play nice.”

There was nothing at all nice about anything that had ever happened between the two of them. Except that first night and that had been her way of manipulating him. Hadn’t it?

She would already be out on the street by now. Likely she’d had a car waiting.

What had been her plan? She’d obviously wanted him to go to Colombia with her. He’d had a vision of being alone with her in a foreign country. He would have to protect her because she could be so very reckless. Hell, she’d tried to go after a serial killer on her own. He couldn’t leave her alone, so they would have to share a room.

He could let nature take its course and finally find out how it felt to sink himself into Mia Lawless.

He groaned because she might have done some nerve damage to that very part of his body he wanted to sink into her.

“Dude? I don’t think you should do that out in the open.” Hutch had opened the door and was staring at him. He was a lanky kid in his mid-twenties. Case had worked with him during his CIA black ops days. Hutch was a hacker of the highest order, but apparently he couldn’t tell the difference between self-preservation and masturbation.

“Maybe we should go inside for a minute.” Michael moved them inside Hutch’s place. “Apparently Mia took exception to something Case did.”

A look of horror crossed Hutch’s face. “Dude, did she actually bust your balls?”

Case gritted his teeth and forced himself to move. He’d taken bullets before and still completed his mission. It was kind of his specialty. He took a licking and kept right on ticking. The fact that his balls were flattened against his pelvic bone wasn’t going to stop him. “Did she say anything to you?”

“She walked by like a woman on a mission,” Michael explained. “If she even recognized me, she didn’t acknowledge it.”

He wondered if Hutch had a bag of frozen peas lying around somewhere. There wouldn’t be any at his place. Definitely not, since he usually ate out or at one of his brother’s houses, but now it seemed like an oversight. When a man was involved with a crazy chick like Mia, said man needed to keep something cool to rest his balls against at all times.

Because she was fucking mean.

And she’d found Theo.

God, she’d found Theo and he’d treated her like a piece of ass. She made him absolutely nuts. He never treated women like that, but then he’d never had one twist his guts up only to find out she had a fiancé.

They might have broken up at this point, but she’d been engaged when they met, engaged when he’d kissed her the first time. She’d been engaged to a Harvard-educated lawyer who worked for her brother. Case had seen their engagement picture. It had run in the Austin society pages. He was all shiny and polished, in what was likely a thousand-dollar suit and expensive loafers, and Case had been wearing the same pair of shitkickers since he’d gone into the Navy. He’d probably paid forty bucks for them and he’d wear them until he couldn’t patch them up anymore.

Still, he shouldn’t have behaved the way he did. He wasn’t that guy and he wasn’t about to let her turn him into that guy.

“She is on a mission.” He managed to keep himself standing by leaning against the arcade machine Hutch had in his living room. The entire apartment was a geek’s paradise. “She just left after kicking me in the balls, though I have to admit I likely deserved it. I need to stop her.”

Because there was no way her sweet ass wasn’t on a plane to Colombia tonight. She could say anything she liked. He knew her. He knew what she was capable of. If she’d walked out, it was so she could go on the incredibly dangerous mission herself.

Luckily, he had his ways of stopping her.

“Do you want me to see if I can catch her?” Hutch asked. “Though if she’s in a ball-busting mood, I kind of want to stay out of it. She’s got that look, you know.”

Yeah, he knew it well. Crazy eyes. Crazy, gorgeous, a man could get lost in them eyes. “No, she’s gone. I think I need you to do something else for me. I need you to find out what plane she’s about to be on and delay the fucker. She’s headed to Cartagena. While you’re at it, I’m going to need you to find a man in Colombia named Tony.”

Hutch stared at him. “Seriously? Nothing more than Tony? Because I’m betting there’s more than a few.”

He needed to think strategically. It wasn’t his strong suit. He preferred to kick ass. It was what he was good at. “Mia said he’s ex-Agency.”

Of course, sometimes Mia stretched the truth. What if she wasn’t in this case? What if there really was a mentally disturbed ex-operative out there who happened upon his brother’s whereabouts, and the only person he would chat with about it was Mia Lawless Danvers?

It was a long shot, but then so was finding his brother.

“Okay.” Hutch reached into a glass container he kept on the bar and pulled out a Red Vine. It was his candy of choice when hacking, but then Case was pretty sure the kid was made of sugar. “That narrows things down. I’ll be right back. Do you know what airport she’s using? Airline? I’d prefer not to shut them all down. Tends to get the feds on my ass.”

What airline would Mia fly? He could guess that one. The last time Ian had flown out to meet with her brother, Drew Lawless had sent the private jet. “She won’t fly commercial. Look for a 4L Software executive jet. She’ll be using that.”

“Dallas Executive,” Michael said. “It’s the airport my father would use.”

His father was the head of Malone Oil and a billionaire, so Michael would likely know.

“A real 4L jet. I bet it’s tricked out, man. I bet he’s got the best fucking Wi-Fi in the sky. Is he beautiful? Does he glow and shit?” Hutch sighed a little.

Case bit back the need to vomit. Drew Lawless was the youngest billionaire in America and he’d earned it the new-fashioned way. He’d created a tech empire and now all the geeks worshipped at his feet. “He’s a dude. He definitely doesn’t glow.”

He was actually quite intelligent and he’d definitely not wanted his sister to be anywhere near Case.

Hutch was having none of it. “He’s a software god. I bet he glows. I’ll stop his sister from going to South America. Should I send the cops in after her for the brutal assault on your junk, man?”

“Just delay her.” He wasn’t sure what to do. He only knew he needed more time to make the decision.

Hutch strode out of the living room back toward his office.

Case opened Hutch’s freezer. How much ice cream could one man eat? It was all in pint tubs. Couldn’t the dude have a couple of popsicles or something? Case couldn’t shove a pint of Chunky Monkey down his jeans.

“It’ll get better in about ten minutes,” Michael assured him with an amused expression on his face. “The flaring pain, that is. The ache will be with you for a while.”

“Had your balls busted much?”

“I grew up on a ranch. You haven’t felt pain until a horse you’re shoeing manages to kick you there.” Michael handed him a beer.

Hell, it was cold at least. He put it on his aching crotch.

He didn’t even have beer at his apartment right now. He’d counted on Theo to buy food and shit for so long that he was just empty. While Theo had been in Africa, his sisters-in-law had made sure he had groceries. They’d tried since Theo died, but he’d held them off. It was pathetic to have Grace and Charlotte have to take care of him.

So he’d moved through his days drinking protein shakes and eating takeout and keeping his place like he’d kept his bunk in the Navy. He was only messy when he was happy. When he was miserable he tended to keep his place perfect and pristine, as though he had to control something.

Welcome to his world. Everything was neatly in its place and meant absolutely fucking nothing.

Mia’s apartment had warmth and light and she loved to bake. She looked cute with all that blonde hair piled high on her head and an apron around her curves.

He’d definitely thought about ordering her to cook for him wearing nothing but that silly apron of hers. Her nipples would peek out and he would be able to see that luscious ass. They could make a game out of it. When she was bad, he could spank her with a spatula, and when she was good, he would sit her in his lap and feed her, his hands moving over her, caressing her.

Fuck that hurt. She’d found a way to make his damn erections unbearable.

“I actually meant for you to drink that.” Michael had popped the top on his beer.

He still would. He wasn’t picky.

His cell trilled and he looked down. Shit. Sean. He was picking up Case and Hutch to head over to Erin’s and help her settle in with TJ. Someone would be spending the night with them for a week or so until Erin found her groove.

He picked up the line. He had to come up with a way to get out of going over there tonight. “Hey, brother.”

“Grace and I are downstairs. You guys ready? Tell Hutch if I find him slipping Carys pixie sticks again, I’ll murder him and force him to pay my daughter’s dental bills. Doesn’t he have a skateboard or something? Because he could hang on to the rear bumper.”

Case didn’t have time to negotiate a truce right now. “Something’s come up. I’m going to be a little late so I’ll bring Hutch with me.”

Sean was quiet for a second and then his voice was deeper, going serious. “Anything I can help with?”

He should tell his brother. He should tell Sean and Ian and get Li up here.

If she was right and this dude would run if they didn’t play this Mia’s way, was he willing to risk it? His eyes drifted over to the folder she’d left that contained the first glimpse of his brother he’d had in months.

What would Theo want him to do?

Protect Erin and his son first and foremost. Protect them from harm, from hurt and loss. Erin couldn’t lose Theo twice. If they couldn’t get him back, it was better for her to think he’d died in her arms, that he’d been dead all this time. She needed peace in her life right now, needed to bond with her son.

If she knew Theo was alive, Case wasn’t sure what she would do. The trouble was if no Taggarts showed up at her place tonight, she would know something was happening.

And then there was the fact that Ian would take over. Ian would make all the decisions and Case would be expected to fall in line.

Ian would make decisions about Mia and that didn’t sit well with Case.

“It’s Mia. She showed up and we…well, let’s just say it ended with her getting a little violent. I need to talk to her.”

Sean chuckled over the line. “I always liked that girl. Get out to Erin’s if you can. If you can’t, just text me to let us know you’ve got something else to do. You know I always thought you two could be good for each other. Whatever you did, it might be helpful to beg.”

He wasn’t sure begging would work. He wasn’t sure he wanted it to work because he knew anything he got from Mia would be short term. A woman like Mia didn’t get serious about a man like him. “Bye, Sean.”

Michael was staring at him, his eyes narrowed. “You just lied to your brother.”

Maybe he’d worked with Michael for too long. “I did not. Mia was here. I’m trying to find her so I can talk to her.”

“Not buying it. Oh, I get that Mia was here and you had a fight, but you wouldn’t be delaying her plane and potentially getting Hutch thrown back in jail over a lover’s spat.”

“We aren’t lovers.” And that was a major part of the problem. The chemistry between them was so palpable. There was always heat between them and he was getting fucking tired of not indulging it.