A_Dom_Is_Forever Read online

  A Dom Is Forever

  Masters and Mercenaries, Book 3

  Lexi Blake

  A Dom Is Forever

  Masters and Mercenaries, Book 3

  Lexi Blake

  Published by DLZ Entertainment LLC

  Copyright 2012 DLZ Entertainment LLC

  Edited by Chloe Vale and Kasi Alexander

  ePub ISBN: 978-1-937608-10-1

  If you have purchased a copy of this eBook, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book. This purchase allows you one legal copy for your own personal reading enjoyment on your personal computer or device. You do not have the rights to resell, distribute, print, or transfer this book, in whole or in part, to anyone, in any format, via methods either currently known or yet to be invented, or upload to a file sharing peer to peer program. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. If you no longer want this book, you may not give your copy to someone else. Delete it from your computer. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Acknowledgements

  This book wouldn’t exist without the enormous support of my friends and family. Chloe Vale worked tirelessly editing and keeping me in check—a job all on its own. This book is as much hers as it is mine so if anyone has complaints, they should probably go to Chloe. Also thanks to the amazing Kasi Alexander for a great edit. The lovely Fiona Archer served as my Brit speak coach. Thanks to Liz Berry for her tireless support. Thanks to Sheri Vidal for letting me know I’m not insane and for her great work with Lexi’s Doms and Dolls, and to Leah Christensen for setting up the group. And a very special shout out to Riane Holt, the pickiest beta reader ever. You made this a much better book than it was before.

  I also want to thank my husband and Shayla Black, the two people who accompanied me as I explored and researched one of the greatest cities in the world—London. This is my love letter to London and its people. And I promise to stand to the right from now on.

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  About Lexi Blake

  Other Books by Lexi Blake

  Excerpt from Their Virgin Concubine by Shayla Black and Lexi Blake

  Prologue

  Dublin, Ireland

  Liam opened his eyes slowly, praying the world was actually coming to some sort of violent end. The ground beneath him didn’t seem quite solid. It was moving, spinning, and along with it went his stomach.

  He groaned. No apocalypse. Just a bloody fucking hangover to end all hangovers. He’d gotten pissed the night before. Little flashes came back. He and Rory in the pub. They weren’t going to have more than a pint. How had everything gotten away from him?

  Liam sat up, his head pounding. Early morning light poured through the small window above him. Early morning or late afternoon? He forced his eyes to focus on the completely foreign room.

  Feminine colors and frills dominated. He’d gotten laid? Fuck. He should remember that. He turned slightly. Yep. He wasn’t alone in bed. Blonde hair. Nice legs, from what he could tell. She seemed to be a stomach sleeper.

  He scrubbed a hand across his face. Maybe he should just sneak out. Where the hell was his brother?

  His tongue felt thick in his mouth. How the fuck much did he drink last night? He hadn’t intended to drink more than his pint and have some roast and potatoes.

  Fog clouded his head. Something was wrong. He wouldn’t have gotten pissed during a mission. Sure the mission was almost over, but he still had to meet with the handler and then on to the really dangerous portion. Not that getting in good with the Russian mafia hadn’t been dangerous, but this arms dealer they were meeting represented the end of the game. They would take down the mysterious arms dealer and hand back the bearer bonds. God only knew where all that mob money would go from there. MI6 most likely. His mother would turn over in her grave. Pure IRA, she was, but he was a man of the new world, and that included working with the bloody Brits. They paid well, and the truth was their fates were somewhat tied together in this new freaking world. Their economies were joined at the hip. The world was a smaller place than when his mother had cursed the Brits.

  He stretched, trying not to wake the woman next to him—the girl he’d apparently fucked without having a single memory of it. He got to his very wobbly feet and stopped, forcing himself to focus on her. He should remember something about her. Anything. A hint of a smile. A flirtatious word.

  Nothing.

  Where was the pack with the bonds? Rory had them last. His head throbbed. They needed those bonds. They were the proof that they came from Leonov. The arms dealer they had been trying to locate would only accept the bonds and no other payment. They were screwed if someone had taken them. The arms dealer would disappear, and he’d peddle his uranium elsewhere.

  Dirty bombs. It’s what that fucker Leonov had been trying to put together for his clients. Leonov was an arms dealer himself, but he was small-time trying to move into the Middle East. He and Rory had spent a year of their lives chasing this guy and finally they had brokered the deal. G2, MI6, and very likely the CIA, had a plan to use the bonds Liam and Rory had taken off the Russian mobster to complete the deal and learn the name of the arms dealer who offered the uranium.

  And that was above his fucking pay grade, as his American friend Ian would say. He just needed to finish the job and get home for some well-deserved R&R. He had six weeks coming to him. Six weeks to rest and eat and fuck and get rat-arsed drunk. Not necessarily in that order.

  He felt like a dirty bomb had gone off in his bloody brain.

  He sighed. He should at least wake her up and say good-bye. Hell, maybe she could make him a spot of breakfast. He could use some sausage. Might settle his rolling gut.

  And she could tell him where the fuck Rory was.

  He leaned over and touched her shoulder.

  Cold skin met his touch. So much colder than a simple chill. With dawning horror, he rolled her over. Deep blue lines surrounded her throat, slender tendrils that marked the place where her oxygen had been cut off. She’d been strangled and not by meaty, masculine hands. The bruising was too perfect. Rope, he suspected.

  Then he saw it. A line of rope likely thirty feet in length because that’s how he bought it. Jute. The type he used in Shibari.

  He hadn’t killed that girl. He would never harm a submissive. He wouldn’t play when he was drunk. Panic started to overwhelm him. He picked up the rope. It had to be his. The young woman wouldn’t just have jute lying around. It had to have come from his pack.

  What the hell had happened? Questions started to pound through his head like waves crashing on a rock.

  His phone. It was lying on the floor. He picked it up. He needed Rory. Had they split up in search of a little tail? He wouldn’t put it past his brother. Rory was a wild one, and he could get into trouble faster than anyon
e Liam knew. He pressed the number one. It was fitting. His younger brother was number one in his life. Liam was the one who had talked Rory into following him into the Defence Forces. He’d thought the Army would do his younger brother a bit of good, and he’d been right. When G2 had come calling with a bit of undercover work, Rory had followed him again. Rory was damn good at this job. He was finally turning out to be a man Liam could be proud of.

  The call went straight to voice mail. Fuck.

  “Rory, I need you to call me. God, please wake up, brother. I’m in a mess. I don’t remember what happened but I woke up in bed…” What the hell was he doing? He knew bloody well better than to leave an incriminating message on his brother’s voice mail. He shook his head as he looked for his pants. “Just call me.”

  He dressed as quickly as he could. Boxers, dark wash jeans, socks, boots. He found his shirt rolled up in the corner of the overly frilly dead girl’s room. How the hell old was this girl? It didn’t matter now because she wouldn’t age another second. She would be forever stuck in this pink and white room, a purple collar of damage around her throat.

  His hands shook as he pulled the black T-shirt free. Why was it wet? Had he spilled beer all over it?

  Why couldn’t he remember?

  Blood. It stained his hands as he let the shirt drop. His shirt was soaked in blood.

  He stared at it for a moment. Blood? There wasn’t a drop of blood on the girl.

  He reached for his jacket, zipping it up. He found his bag lying on the dresser, open as though he’d just left it there for a moment. The only thing missing was his rope and a knife. His stomach churned in a way that had nothing to do with the alcohol from the previous night. Where was that knife?

  Who should he call? The police? G2? The Irish Intelligence Agency would love the fact that a soldier had gotten into this ball of shit. He wasn’t an intelligence agent. He was sort of a contractor. He’d been hoping he’d be asked to join up after this.

  No one was going to want to hire him when he ended up in jail. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What had happened? Why couldn’t he remember?

  He dialed Rory’s number again. Wake up, you bastard. I’m in trouble.

  He clutched the phone to his ear, but a sound from another room called to him. Trilling. Familiar.

  Rory’s phone was ringing. Inside the house. The next room. And he still wasn’t answering. Liam’s heart pounded as his mind sought all the reasons his brother wouldn’t answer. It was a bloody short list.

  Liam stepped outside the dead girl’s room and found himself in hell.

  Chapter One

  London, England

  Five years later

  Liam watched the girl with the dark hair walk into the light. Girl? She was a woman in every sense of the word. Avery Charles was twenty-eight years old, but from what he’d pieced together she’d likely lived through enough crap for two lifetimes. So why did she still look so bloody innocent?

  The woman in front of him wasn’t his type. Not even close. She was too soft, too curvy, too much. Too serious, quite frankly. He preferred young women who just wanted a good time. But something about her drew him in. Maybe it was her background or the way her skin practically glowed when she walked into the great rotunda of the British Museum. She did it enough. She was here almost every day, and he’d stalked her, watching her move from room to room, studying each exhibit before her lunch hour was up. She would glide from the dark corners of the museum into the brilliant light of the atrium to purchase a sandwich she would eat before heading back to the Tube and work again.

  And every day she would stop when the light hit her face. She would move from the dark, hushed rooms of the exhibits into the stark brilliance of the white marbled center of the museum. She would tilt her chin up and bask in the light as though taking a moment to soak it in.

  Liam never left the darkness.

  “Is that the mark?” Ian Taggart asked, his voice low.

  He didn’t need to be so silent. The museum hummed with activity, but his boss was a cautious man. Paranoid, but then when everyone really was out to get you, it wasn’t paranoia. It was smart.

  “Yes,” Liam replied, his voice equally low. “Avery Charles. She works for Molina. She became his personal assistant six months ago.”

  She was his primary target for the moment. It had been easy to gather data on Molina. He was a public figure. Within minutes of confirming that Thomas Molina, philanthropist, was somehow involved with the rogue CIA agent his firm had been tracking for months, he’d had a full dossier on the man. Molina was considered a bit odd. He’d been injured as a teenager in a riding accident. He’d had several spinal surgeries and had been left with legs that never functioned properly again. He disappeared for many years, living a life of seclusion after his parents had passed away.

  He was now in sole control of a huge multi-national company, but preferred to spend his time on a charity operation called United One Fund.

  It had been easy to find Molina. His personal assistant had taken more digging.

  “Do we know if she has any ties to Black?” Somehow Ian managed to make the question sound like a threat. “Sorry. Nelson. We should call the devil by his real name. Does she have any ties to Eli Nelson?”

  That was the big question of the day. What was seemingly sweet Avery Charles, who had never had so much as a parking ticket, doing working for a man who did indeed have ties to Eli Nelson, rogue CIA agent? “I doubt it. If I had to place a bet, I would bank money on the fact that she’s just the personal assistant of one of the world’s leading philanthropists. She’s got a do-gooder vibe I can feel from here. It makes me a little nauseous.”

  It made him a little horny, but there was no way he was telling Ian that. And no way to explain it because she just wasn’t his type. No way. No how. Well, she wasn’t his type now. He’d given up on soft, voluptuous women for a reason. They fucked with a man’s mental capacities. Nope. She wasn’t his type now. It was just that he hadn’t gotten laid in a while. That was the only explanation.

  “Alex is looking into Molina. He’s running financials on those charities of his.” Ian frowned as he looked around. “I don’t like it.”

  Ian Taggart didn’t like charities? There was a surprise since the man was practically a charity in and of himself. Liam knew he was alive today based on the man’s sense of charity. “From the press surrounding him, he’s practically a saint.”

  Ian smiled, though on him it was more a predatory baring of teeth. “I don’t believe in saints. Sinners. Now, I can believe that.” He sighed as he looked back in the atrium. Avery was ordering a sandwich and a cup of coffee. “Have Adam and Jake moved in?”

  Ian’s eyes shifted around the big room, constantly seeking a threat.

  They weren’t carrying. He felt a little naked without a gun. It was too dangerous in such a public place, and they weren’t exactly here in a formal capacity. That was his fault. Everyone on the team had tried to talk him out of coming back to Europe, but it had been years. He’d changed. Perhaps it was past time to face his demons and honor his brother’s memory.

  After he’d taken down Eli Nelson.

  “They moved into her building last week. We were oh so lucky that her neighbor decided to leave town for a while and was forced to sublet the place.” Liam kept his eyes on Avery as she paid seven pounds fifty. She smiled at the bloke in front of her. How did the woman smile like that, bright and open after everything that had happened to her? She smiled as though she’d come through that crucible and could still have a full heart in her body.

  Of course, it could all be an act.

  “I think you’ll find Adam and Jake are paying enough to well compensate the lady,” Ian explained. His body went on alert, shoulders squaring. “Who the fuck is that? I thought you said she didn’t have a boyfriend.”

  Liam felt his eyes narrow as Avery greeted the tall blond man. He was obviously British. It was all there in the cool cut of his suit and the deeply pretentious way
the bugger air kissed her cheeks. He had to bend over because Avery was short. She was short and curvy, and the Brit bastard was looking down her shirt.

  “I haven’t seen him before,” Liam said. A solid week of following her around and he hadn’t once seen her even look at a man who wasn’t carved of marble and brought back to London from some far-off place during the days of British Imperialism. The only man he’d seen her with was her boss. She would wheel him around St. James’s Park twice a week, settling a blanket around his unsteady legs before making the jaunt. Molina could walk with the aid of a cane, but the millionaire used a wheelchair on those walks of theirs.

  Ian was already taking pictures with his phone. It had been adapted for Ian’s own use. High resolution, super focus. Any picture Ian took was immediately forwarded to headquarters for a little turn through Adam’s facial recognition software. They would have the bugger’s name and life story within minutes.

  Why the hell did he want to kick the blond bloke’s ass? Days of watching Avery Charles and going over and over her tragic story had made him protective. She’d been through a lot. And the young Liam, the Liam he’d been before he’d lost his brother, would have been all over her.

  Still, it was a bad idea to get protective of a woman who just might be involved in international terrorism.

  She sat down at one of the long tables, blond bastard following her. He curled his tall body into the seat across from her as she began talking animatedly. He reached out, cradling her hand in his, but she almost immediately pulled away, grabbing her coffee mug.

  No sex there. No intimacy. She was awkward, unsure about his physical affection.

  “He’s not the boyfriend.” Ian almost certainly saw what he saw. Ian was a master at reading body language. Likely because he was an actual Master. And that was why Liam wanted Ian to see her in person.