Dominance Never Dies (Masters and Mercenaries Book 11) by Lexi Blake Page A

death, he’d thought he might be able to deal with it. Then everything had changed.
    “Tell me something, Mia. If I’d pushed, would you have slept with me that night?”
    She shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t have. Later, maybe, but not that night. I started to trust you specifically because you didn’t push me. You seemed to want more from me than sex and then you didn’t want me physically at all.”
    “I wasn’t going to sleep with you when I knew you were lying to me and I was lying to you.” It was the moment he’d known he would always be a soldier and never an operative. He could make hard decisions, but he couldn’t give away that piece of himself.
    Her skin flushed the prettiest pink. “Yeah, well, I probably would have. It’s a good thing you saved us from that. And I never said it to you, but I’m glad it wasn’t Jared. I know that would have hurt Kai. I actually came to like Jared. I was happy to be wrong.”
    He’d known she would have gone to bed with him. She’d been deeply frustrated by how unphysical he’d been with her. He’d had to turn his head a time or two to keep her from kissing him.
    Not touching her had been hell.
    “The good news is now everything is out in the open.” It was awkward standing here with her. At one point in time he’d felt so comfortable talking to her. He hadn’t known her then. There hadn’t been a mile-high wall between them. He hadn’t realized how far apart their worlds were back then. He’d thought she was a sweet woman who worked in a dentist office. He’d had something to offer that woman.
    What the hell could he give Mia Lawless except a couple of orgasms?
    There was one other thing he could give her.
    “Are you ever coming back to Sanctum?”
    Her eyes flared briefly at the mention of Sanctum, but then she shut down again. “I wasn’t sure I could.”
    Ah, yes, she was still invested in the lifestyle. “Ian didn’t revoke your membership. I asked him not to. Kori and Sarah made a plea for you, too. Actually, they made him cookies. My brother can be bribed.”
    “Somehow I can’t see Ian Taggart being happy with me in his club. I lied to him, too.”
    “You would be surprised at how reasonable Ian can be when he wants to. You should come back.” Another thought hit him. A nasty one. “Unless you joined a club in Austin.”
    “No, Case. I haven’t been out trolling for strange Doms,” she said with a sigh. “I’ve been working with my brothers. They have their own insane plans, you know.”
    He knew they were investigating a couple of people. Adam and Alex had been working on it. Case had stayed away. He wasn’t sure why the Lawless brothers wanted to take down StratCast Industries or why they seemed to have a hard-on for Patricia Cain, who wrote cookbooks and shit. If they wanted to take down the ice queen, who had a whole network dedicated to her telling the rest of America how shitty their taste was in everything from food to throw pillows, more power to them.
    “Well, you’re welcome to come back. I know Kori and Sarah miss you. Erin’s talked about you, too. She likes any woman who’ll threaten to shoot her. Once she hears how you dealt with my rudeness, she’ll want to be your best friend.” His sister-in-law understood the need for a violent reminder every now and then. “You should see your friends. You know, I never asked you about her. About the friend you lost.”
    It had been the whole reason for her lie and he’d never asked her about it. They’d been far too busy bickering over inconsequential things or ignoring each other.
    “Her name was Carrie. We were roommates in college. She was very excited to be working on her first set.” Mia looked wistful, her eyes misting. “She was my first friend in college. We kind of clung together. She was from a small town and I, well, I had an odd upbringing. We kind of clicked. We roomed together until she moved to Vancouver for the show. I miss her.”
    “I’m sorry,