Love the Way You Spy

Book 1: Masters and Mercenaries: New Recruits

by Lexi Blake

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

Tasha Taggart isn’t a spy. That’s her sisters’ job. Tasha’s support role is all about keeping them alive, playing referee when they fight amongst themselves, and soothing the toughest boss in the world. Working for the CIA isn’t as glamorous as she imagined, and she’s more than a little lonely. So when she meets a charming man in a bar the night before they start their latest op, she decides to give in to temptation. The night was perfect until she discovers she’s just slept with the target of their new investigation. Her sisters will never let her hear the end of this. Even worse, she has to explain the situation to her overprotective father, who also happens to be their boss.

Dare Nash knew exactly how his week in Sydney was going to go—attending boring conferences to represent his family’s business interests and eating hotel food alone. Until he falls under the spell of a stunning and mysterious American woman. Something in Tasha’s eyes raises his body temperature every time she looks at him. She’s captivating, and he’s committed to spending every minute he can with her on this trip, even if her two friends seem awfully intense. He doesn’t trust easily, but it’s not long before he can imagine spending the rest of his life with her.

When Dare discovers Tash isn’t who she seems, the dream turns into a nightmare. She isn’t the only one who deceived him, and now he’s in the crosshairs of adversaries way out of his league. He can’t trust her, but it might take Tasha and her family to save his life and uncover the truth.

 

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Release date: September 19, 2023

Publisher: DLZ Entertainment, LLC

Print pages: 417

Sample

Chapter One

 

Tasha Taggart looked over the rowdy bar and wondered for the one hundred and thirtieth time what the hell she was doing. She wasn’t this girl. She wasn’t the girl who stepped into a bar looking to pick up a guy because she needed affirmation.

She wasn’t a girl at all. She was a woman, and she wasn’t looking for affirmation. She was a whole-ass grown woman who ran a CIA team. And that CIA team included her twin siblings who were smart and also terrifying to handle and no one had even died yet. Well, no one who wasn’t supposed to.

She was about to start a mission where she would subsist on takeout and hide in the shadows of whatever safe house the Agency was willing to put her up in, so she deserved some sex. She deserved a night out before she went back to the shadows. Tomorrow the op would start in earnest, and she would spend all her time staring at a computer screen and trying to keep everyone alive. Yes. That was why she was standing here in a slightly disreputable bar in Sydney wondering if her boobs looked good.

“Just so you know, your boobs look great,” a cheery voice said.

She looked at one of her wingmen for the night. Louisa Ward hadn’t taken the same ridiculous care with her appearance that Tasha had. Lou wore jeans and a T-shirt that proclaimed Never Trust an Atom…They Make Up Everything. Her hair was in the same messy bun she always wore, and she hadn’t bothered with her contacts. Her brown eyes were framed by overly large glasses that looked like they could have been worn by Sir Elton John himself.

Such an adorable dweeb and so deeply important to the whole freaking world, though no one really knew it. Lou had left a life of academia to join the team, and she’d already changed the way the Agency worked by adapting tech to fit their needs.

“Of course her boobs look great. Who do you think dressed her? You should have let me dress you, too.”

Sometimes she wished Lou wasn’t so great at tech. The glasses Lou wore were a part of the high-tech communications tool she’d helped create. It allowed the sister who was not there to just keep commenting anyway. Kenzie was stuck at base, so she’d made sure she could keep up via Lou’s glasses and the microphone that would allow them all to hear her. She touched the earpiece her sister had insisted that she wear. “Hey. I thought this was for emergencies only.”

Kenzie’s voice came back over the line. “This is an emergency. I am bored and Coop and Tris are watching something called rugby, and I thought it would be more interesting than it is because I read a thing where sometimes the players shove a finger up the opposing player’s butt to throw them off a little, but you can’t see that. And if it’s happening, then these dudes are seriously excellent at handling butt stuff because their faces do not change. They are like the most experienced subs at The Hideout on butt-stuff night.”

They didn’t actually have one of those. Tash was fairly certain that every night was butt-stuff night at the club a couple of members of the team had formed. It had started in the unattached garage at the rambling house Cooper shared with two of his best friends, and they’d recently pooled enough money to buy a building they were renovating. She loved The Hideout.

“Is she talking about the rugby rumors again?” Kala leaned in, whispering in Tasha’s ear…or rather her earpiece. “You are such a perv. I can’t believe I’m considered the wild one.”

Kala and Kenzie were her sisters. They were fourteen months younger. Perfect twins. If one looked at them, they wouldn’t be able to tell the two apart. Right up until their mouths opened, and then it was righteously clear who was who.

Kenzie was sunshine and puppies and yes, a smidge of sexual perversion—who could blame her—while Kala spoke mostly sarcasm and genuinely enjoyed knife fights. Seriously. Tash had seen her start a couple because the op was taking too long. There was not an ounce of patience in Kala’s bones.

It wasn’t easy being their handler. It was as easy as breathing to be their sister.

Sometimes. Now was not one of them.

“You know I didn’t want any of you to come with me. I’m just getting a drink before we start the op,” she said quietly.

Kala’s brow rose, and for a second she looked so much like their dad it hurt. “Sure you are. That’s why you let Kenz pick your look-at-my-boobs top.”

God, she was so glad her father was hours and hours away sitting on a beach in Loa Mali, probably perving on their mom because that was what he did when he wasn’t running his highly successful security company or working for the CIA.

Lou frowned Kala’s way. “You know why she’s wearing it. She’s had a rough time, and she needs to get back on the horse. It’s been months. This is the perfect scenario. Whoever she meets tonight she will have zero chance of seeing again because we’re about to go into the not-so-fun dungeon for the rest of the op.”

Lou would be sitting right beside her in the safe house listening to whichever twin wasn’t out in the field moaning about how bored she was.

“Kala, don’t be such a bitch. You know how hard the last couple of months have been on Tash,” Kenzie complained into her ear despite the fact that Kala wouldn’t be able to hear any of what she was saying. “She has the right to walk into a skanky bar and find a dude to ride for a couple of hours before she ditches him heinously and moves on to the next. Tash is transitioning into her slutty phase, and I am here for it.”

Put like that, this whole thing sounded like a horrible idea. Not that there would be a next for quite a long time. Lou was right about that. “I want to get a drink and have a night of fun before the op begins. That’s all. If I find a nice man to spend the night with, so be it. I’m away from the hotel. I’ve got wingmen to make sure if I happen to pick a serial killer, at least you’ll know who killed me, and hopefully the boys don’t figure it out because the last thing I need is Cooper McKay riding in like my big brother.”

The team included her two sisters as the main operatives, Lou working tech, and their childhood friends, Cooper, who could fly or drive pretty much anything, and their computer whiz Tristan, who dealt with all things communications. Zachary Reed handled the military side of their ops. Tristan would laugh and tell her to get laid and have fun. Cooper would give her a lecture on situational awareness and probably talk to her about the fact that she was having an emotional reaction to what had happened to her. Zach knew where they were, and he was totally fine with the idea of a fun night out before a long mission.

It wasn’t so surprising she’d had some emotions connected to finding her fiancé fucking a gorgeous MSS agent. He’d claimed he was doing it all for the op he’d been on, and that was likely true. Her father had rules involving what he called Honey Pot Ops. Flirting was fine, but he wasn’t going to allow any operative under his command to fuck for information. He claimed it was because he knew how it felt, but she wondered if he would have the same convictions if he wasn’t in charge of his daughters and a group of men and women who’d called him Uncle Ian all their lives.

Her fiancé’s handler had no such rules. He’d promised her it meant nothing and she should understand because she was Agency, too.

It meant something to her.

And it meant something to the MSS agent who had damn near killed both her and Chet Whittington because she’d rapidly figured out what was happening. Tash had blown an op, and she was pretty sure it was only her dad who’d managed to keep her from being fired.

“No one is saying a word to the boys,” Kenzie assured her. “Though you should know they told Chet that he can’t come to poker night anymore. They are shutting his ass out. And he’s not allowed at The Hideout. Coop revoked his membership.”

Tash felt her eyes roll. The club Cooper and the twins had founded had never been Chet’s favorite place. “Like I care. We still have to work with him.”

“Not if he dies in the line of duty.” Kala was dressed to kill, and she had a look on her face that let Tash know she wouldn’t mind some wet work tonight.

“Operatives die all the time,” Kenzie assured her.

Tash shook her head and looked to the most reasonable of her group.

Lou simply smiled. “It’s sad when they die. I heard the big boss suggested he get an assignment in Antarctica.”

The big boss was her dad. Ian Taggart. Yup. She was the lucky girl who had been adopted into a whole family of spies. Sometimes they could be scary. She didn’t want to know what thoughts had gone through her mother’s head when she’d told her the wedding was off. Her mom had once been a real-life Russian mob assassin, and she’d probably thought about coming out of retirement. Her dad would have held the sniper rifle for her and gotten her tea and told her how hot she looked when she killed assholes.

Her parents were weird, but damn she wanted that kind of love. She hadn’t found it with Chet.

“I don’t want him dead. I want to move on with my life. It was stupid to think it could work.” She should have known it wouldn’t work when he’d told her his name was Chet. She’d known how much her father loved her when he’d taken that news with a silent nod even as his face had gone red with the desperate need to let his sarcasm flow.

Her dad hadn’t even complained about the twenty-two thousand dollars in deposits he’d lost. Another sign of his love. She’d overheard him gleefully telling her mom he would have paid any amount of money for her to not marry that douchebag.

Kala’s blue eyes widened in that “you’re a dumbass but I still love you” way of hers. She had a lot of those looks, and navigating them was an important part of Tasha’s life. There was you’re a dumbass but I love you. You’re a dumbass and I’m barely tolerating you. You’re a dumbass and I’m a messenger of Darwinism sent to take you out of the gene pool. That one came up way too often.

“Of course it couldn’t work. His name was Chet. I have zero idea how he got into the Agency with that name. Someone’s not doing their job.” Kala was totally their father’s daughter.

“Because Kala is so normal,” Kenzie said in her ear.

Kala got her “my sister is a dumbass and I know what she’s saying even though I refuse to have her in my ear because I wanted to wear my hair up” look. When Lou had tried to give her a comm device, she’d refused. “Tell her Kala is awesome and it stands for something awesome, and she was named after some chick who had nice shoes.”

“And fought for the Earth.” Kenzie could hear Kala perfectly well thanks to Lou’s excellent communication devices.

Family lore had it that Mom had named Kenzie after some chick in a Sci-Fi TV show and Dad had used an acronym for Kick A Little Ass to name Kala.

Tasha believed it.

Sometimes she wondered what they would have named her if she’d been their biological child. But it was only a passing thing. She thought about her bio parents often and hoped they were together wherever souls went after death. It was odd. She’d never once felt the complex longing other adopted kids did. Somewhere deep down she knew they’d loved her. They’d lost her. Somehow they’d made sure she’d gotten to the best place she could.

It was a weird feeling but one she’d never tried to deny. Her parents had loved her. They’d put that love into her soul and then when the universe had taken them, she’d managed to land straight in the arms of the Taggarts.

“Well, this looks like a heap of trouble right here. Welcome, ladies. You’re going to elevate this piece of piss pub,” a deep voice said. “You girls from out of town?”

Tash turned and saw the man behind the bar. He was roughly six foot, with a beard to rival Santa Claus and a grizzled face softened by kind eyes. Even on a night off, she had a cover to keep. “Yes. My sister and I are visiting my cousin.”

Kala nodded his way. “They came all the way from America to spend a couple of weeks in my flat in Revesby. I thought I’d bring them down here to enjoy a few brews. It’s okay. The short one doesn’t drink much.”

Every word that came out of Kala’s mouth was pure middle-class Aussie. One of the things her sisters were excellent at was mimicking accents.

They’d spent months preparing for this op, and it had included them all learning the local dialect.

Some people thought guns and self-defense were the most important subjects an operative could possibly master. Tasha knew the truth.

It was languages. She spoke three herself fluently. Russian had been her native tongue, and then she’d learned English. Mandarin had been more of a stretch, though it hadn’t hurt having a whole group of people she lived with immersed in it, too.

“I’m the quiet type,” Lou admitted with a grin.

Kala slapped a hand on the bar, but it was a friendly gesture. “We’ll have two pints and a middy.”

The bartender nodded as he pulled down a pint glass. “It’s quiet tonight. I’ll bring these out to you. There’s some nice seats by the windows if you like.”

They thanked the man and then Kala walked through like she already owned the place. It was a tactic that worked time and time again for her. Sometimes she wished she had half of her sister’s confidence.

Tash followed along, noting the pub was about half full at this time of the evening. It wasn’t late. The sun had barely set. She was certain before too long the place would get louder. She counted five guys at a table in front of the big screen which seemed to be playing the aforementioned rugby match. There were two couples sitting in a booth playing cards, and another who sat staring at each other sullenly.

“You getting all of this, Lou?” Kala asked, sticking to the accent.

“Is there anyone interesting?” Kenzie asked in her ear.

“I’m getting everything,” Lou promised as they approached the table Kala had selected. It was close to an exit, and she would be able to see everything from her seat.

Kala took the chair that had her back to the wall and Lou took the one closest to the window, leaving Tasha staring at the exit. “Oh, he could be interesting if he wasn’t such a douchebag. I can tell from here. That guy thinks he’s god’s gift to women.”

That got Tasha’s head turning. She glanced over and…holy hotness. He was god’s gift to women.

She wasn’t sure how tall he was, but suspected he would be about six six. He had golden-colored hair and ridiculously blue eyes and a jaw carved from granite. Sensual lips tugged up as his companion said something, and then his eyes caught hers and she looked away as fast as she could.

Oh, Kenz had talked about her getting back on the horse, but that one was a thoroughbred.

“Lou, send me something,” Kenzie begged. “I want to see.”

Those glasses of Lou’s weren’t merely a salute to Sir Elton. They were smart glasses she and Tristan had been working on for years. Those suckers connected to their personal systems and allowed Lou to access an enormous amount of data. Including facial recognition and the handy photo function the FR used. It made it easy for Lou to glance around the bar and send Kenzie what she longed for.

“He’s gorgeous,” Kenzie breathed.

He was. He was almost too beautiful to look at. The man didn’t belong in this slightly seedy pub in a working-class Sydney neighborhood. He should be in Milan making one of those commercials that made no sense but seemed to sell perfume.

“He’s a manwhore,” Kala said quietly. “I assure you that one is a player.”

“That’s exactly what you need,” Kenzie replied. “Oh, Tash, you should put on the glasses and seduce him.”

Such a perv. “I am not doing that. Lou needs those so she can tell me if I’m about to hit on a criminal. Or a married guy.”

It was handy to have a wingman who could background check a guy right there on the spot.

“His name is Brian Peters,” Lou said quietly, turning her head away from the seriously gorgeous man’s table. “His friend’s name is Darren Nash, if anyone’s interested.”

She’d barely looked at Darren, but it was good to know who was with the hottie she intended to spend the evening with. Well, if he was single and ready to mingle that was. And if she was his type. And if she found a way to actually do this.

She’d faced down foreign operatives and been taken hostage for a full forty-eight hours before. Luckily it was by people who were terrified of her father and his Russian mob connections, so they’d mostly let her watch Love Is Blind and fed her French fries, but it had been a trial nonetheless. She’d done a lot of scary things, but walking over there was another thing altogether.

“I’m on his socials,” Kenzie said in her ear. “Damn, Tash, he’s stunning. I kind of wish I was there to fight you for him.”

She glanced back over and there he was. The man practically had a halo, like the light in the room was drawn to him. He said something to the Darren guy. He wasn’t bad either. He was a bit smaller than Brian’s Greek god status, but it was obvious the man worked out. She was sure she would have paid more attention to him if he hadn’t been sitting next to Brian. “I’d win. All I would have to do is threaten to let Kala stay in the field for a couple of days and you’d let me have him.”

The twins shared their cover. They’d been doing it since the conception of the team. As far as she knew, no one outside the Agency was aware Ms. Magenta was actually two people.

“I might be willing to give up a couple of work days for that one,” Kenzie admitted.

Whichever twin was stuck at the safe house always complained. Always.

“You know, he’s not all that,” Tasha said, rethinking her position on the gorgeous guy. Her sister was far more important. There was something about the wistful tone in Kenzie’s voice that made her want to back off.

“Don’t you dare,” Kenzie replied. “It’s been a while for me, and Dad won’t let me take out my sexual aggression on the enemy. Who thought this was a good idea? Why couldn’t we have gotten a handler who didn’t care what we did as long as the job got done?”

She wasn’t about to point out that their enemies rarely looked like this Brian guy, and Kenzie would be hella upset if this handler who wasn’t her dad told her to sleep with some stinky politician.

“He’s not married,” Lou continued. “He works with a banking group that funds a lot of medical research. He was born in Dayton, Ohio. Very exciting. He’s been working in Toronto the last couple of months.”

“I bet he plays a lot of sports.” Kala sat back, utterly uninterested.

“He plays a lot of sports,” Kenzie said in her ear. “According to his socials, he’s active in his local amateur basketball league and…oh, he’s a big brother. Not like family wise. It looks like he’s an only child. He sponsors a kid in his hometown.”

Kenzie sounded half in love with the guy.

“You girls should stay away from the blokes watching the telly. That big group of them?” The bartender set down two twenty ounces for Kala and Tash, and a ten in front of Lou as he gestured to the rugby fans around the big screen. “Those boys are known for getting in trouble.”

“What do you know about the two in the back?” Kala asked, pulling the beer close. “The cute fella and the male-model looking arse.”

The bartender chuckled and gave Kala a big smile. “You remind me of my daughter. Smart as a whip. They’ve been in here a couple of times. I’m pretty sure they’re tourists. I think they’re staying somewhere close. Honestly, they both seem like pretty nice fellas, though I like the Canadian better. The American’s a little brash for my tastes, though he does attract the ladies. But from what I’ve seen they don’t start fights.”

“Have they picked up anyone?” Kala seemed deeply determined to embarrass the hell out of her.

The bartender shook his head. “Nah. They come in and have a couple of pints and leave. Not that the ladies haven’t tried to pick them up. I thought they might be…well, together, but then I heard them talking about the dark-haired one’s divorce, and it was obvious they were discussing a lady.” His lips curled up. “Well, well. Looks like they were just waiting for the right ones. You girls yell out if they give you any trouble.”

He stepped away and that was when Tasha realized she wasn’t going to have to make the decision whether or not to hit on the hottie.

He was right here. Right next to her, and his friend was beside him. Tash looked up, ready to smile his way.

“Hey there, gorgeous. Can I buy you a drink?” Brian Peters said, his voice deep.

And he was looking at her sister.

Not her. Kala. He was hitting on Kala.

Tash took a drink. It was going to be a long night.

* * * *

Dare Nash couldn’t take his eyes off the brunette. Oh, he could absolutely appreciate the stunning gorgeousness of the woman with vibrant pink hair and a classically lovely face, but it had been the brunette’s warmth that drew him in. The shorter, curvy girl was sexy, but not the way the brunette was.

“Hey there, gorgeous. Can I buy you a drink?” Brian asked in a deeper voice than he’d heard his friend use.

That must be the dude’s seduction voice. Dare was pretty sure he didn’t have one of those. At least he hoped he didn’t.

His seduction “voice” would be to get private with that brunette and order her to take her clothes off, to offer her breasts up to him, to let him take her anyway he wanted.

You’re a monster. You just hide it under a nice-guy surface. No woman wants what you want. You want to treat me like a whore.

His ex-wife’s words slid over his brain. He had to keep telling himself that she’d been looking for a way out of the marriage and she’d found one when she’d gotten him to admit his sexual desires. And then she’d happily taken most of everything and moved in with her coworker.

Still, it was good to remember that there was a reason he’d kept those needs in check for almost thirty years. The brunette looked young and vulnerable, and he would have to be gentle if he managed to get her in bed.

Manage being the operative word here because she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at Brian, and he saw the moment she realized Brian was talking to her friend.

“I have a drink,” the pink-haired woman said with a twist of her lips. It was part smile, part smirk, all challenge.

“Well, then maybe you should buy me one.” Brian seemed ready to take her up on it.

Brian wasn’t catching the same vibes he was. The woman was not interested in him. Not at all. He’d never actually seen a woman look at his friend that way. They usually melted at the sight of him. This one looked like she would rather kick him in the balls than play with them.

It had been so long since anyone had played with his balls. Masturbation was getting boring.

“Would you two like to join us?” The third woman at the table looked greatly amused at the scene that was playing out in front of her. She was cute, and he would bet she was smart. She looked like she belonged in a lab or teaching a class at university.

He was about to turn them down and make a hasty retreat. This situation was not what he’d been expecting when Brian had announced they needed to be more social. He’d been perfectly ready to stare at the brunette most of the night and then go back to his suite. Soon he would move to the conference hotel, and it would be all work for a few weeks. Yep. They should wish these beauties a good night and run as fast as they could.

“Would love to,” Brian said, pulling the fourth chair out and sliding it closer to the object of his desire. Who might also be the person who killed him given her look of disdain.

He hadn’t expected Brian to be a masochist.

In the months he’d worked with him, Brian had been the happiest of all go lucky men. Brian was easy to be friends with. He took everything and everyone as they came and was excellent at making the people around him feel comfortable. Pink Hair didn’t look comfortable. Or rather she did, but in a deeply predatory way that Brian did not seem to be picking up on.

“I’m perfectly willing to let a woman buy me a drink,” Brian was saying.

“Then you should find one who wants to,” Pink Hair replied.

“I think we should probably call it a night.” The brunette started to stand. She wore a pretty yellow top that showed off the curves of what looked like generous breasts and jeans that clung to her hips.

He wished she’d glanced his way, but it looked like he wasn’t catching any breaks this evening. “We’ll go back to our table. I don’t want to interrupt your evening.”

“Not at all,” the one with the glasses said. “We were recently discussing how much fun it would be to meet some new people.”

She was obviously American. Pink Hair sounded like she was straight out of Sydney, but Glasses and the Brunette had flat American accents, the kind that likely meant they’d been raised in large cities where accents rounded out due to the amount of diversity found there.

“I thought we were doing fine on our own,” Pink Hair argued.

Glasses frowned her way, and the two seemed to have a silent argument. Which Glasses won as Pink Hair sighed and nodded his way. “Please join us. It looks like it’s my shout. I’m Kara, by the way.”

Her sister would give her hell about having to buy the drinks, but she proved she knew how to Aussie. A shout was a round, and her sis was paying.

“Brian.” Brian held out a hand, and Dare watched as Kara barely managed to avoid rolling her eyes before she shook it. “Brian Peters.”

He said it in an almost James Bond way. It was good to know his friend could lose his mind over a woman. He’d kind of thought Brian was impervious.

It still felt weird. He looked down at Glasses, who seemed to be the only one enjoying herself. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“I’m Lou.” She grinned up at him, and she was adorable. “This is my sister, Tasha. We’re in town visiting Kara, who happens to be our cousin. It’s our first night here. We thought it would be fun to hang out at a pub and meet the locals.”

“They’re not locals.” Kara managed to make the words an obvious complaint.

He should introduce himself. It felt like he should. Like it was the polite thing to do. He pulled over a chair and placed it a distance from the table in between Lou and the brunette who was named Tasha. A pretty name for a gorgeous woman. Who wasn’t interested in him.

“My name is Dare Nash, and I’m not a local. I’m in town for work. Brian and I work together,” he explained, though he wasn’t going into the ins and outs of what they did. It was a lot of boring banking stuff, and women tended to get glazed expressions when he detailed how investments moved the medical world. Being the guy who connected doctors to the funds they needed for research wasn’t the sexiest job.

Tasha turned those soulful dark eyes on him, and he actually had to catch his damn breath. “It’s nice to meet you, Dare. That’s an interesting name.”

Yep. Now that she was looking his way, all the thought of leaving kind of flew out of his head. Sure she’d wanted Brian, but maybe she would settle for him, and then he would show her she wasn’t settling at all. He would show her exactly how good he could be.

Gently. Without the nasty dominance he feared he required.

“It’s far more interesting than my actual name. Darren,” he admitted. “I’m afraid I come from a long line of Darrens. My family isn’t creative. We use four names, recycling them over and over. The Nashes are all Johns or Darrens or Edwards or believe it or not, Hugos. Lucky for us we’ve never had more than four boys in a single family, but it can get confusing at family reunions. Apparently the Hugo comes from an ancestor who was a nobleman in England. Let me tell you that name might be fine if you live in medieval England and own all the land you see, but it’s hell in a Toronto primary school. Ask my cousin.”

Her lips had curled up slightly, her eyes brighter than before. “I thought Canadians were always polite.”

Ah, she bought the myths. He could show her how polite he could be. He could politely order her to spread those long legs of hers and take his cock. Which was starting to ache, and he was kind of pissed about that. He wasn’t the type of man who rubbed himself against any woman who came along. He was discriminating. A little picky, to be honest. “Oh, I can assure you Canadian kids are still kids, and they can be assholes when they want to. Tasha is a pretty name. Is it short for Natasha?”

She nodded. “Yes. My parents were interested in Russian literature.”

Lou leaned in, a mischievous look on her face. “She’s lying. They watched a lot of Rocky and Bullwinkle.”

He was at a loss. “I’m sorry. That must be an American thing.”

Tasha chuckled. “Not at all. It’s a super-old thing that almost no one knows about anymore. My sister is a weirdo who watches a lot of old shows about…squirrels and their moose friends.”

He was almost certain she’d been ready to say something else, but she took a drink of her beer and seemed to relax, so he wasn’t about to call her out. Besides, he had some questions of his own. “Where are you from?”

“Dallas,” Lou replied.

“Our mom’s brother married a woman from here in New South Wales, and that is how we came to visit our cousin, Kara,” Tasha finished, and she glanced over at the other end of the table. “Should we do something about that?”

Cousin Kara was staring at Brian like she was going to eat him alive, and not in a good way. Intimidating young woman.

Lou cleared her throat, and Kara suddenly leaned forward and put her chin in hand and managed to look like she was interested in what Brian was saying.

This was an odd group, and yet he couldn’t quite make himself get up.

“So you’re from Canada,” Lou prompted. “Tasha loves Canada.”

Tasha’s nose wrinkled in the most adorable way. “I actually do. I went on a trip as a kid… Well, I was fourteen. My mom had some business there and we went to Toronto and she took us all over the city. We went to the CN Tower and to all the museums.”

“We got lost at Casa Loma and our mom freaked,” Lou reminisced. “But what Tash loved was…”

“…the crêpes,” they both said with smiles.

Oh, he liked the sisters very much. He settled in as they started talking about their travels and realized it was okay if she wasn’t into him. He was going to enjoy talking to her.

 

Two hours later, he pushed back his chair. Kara and Brian were at the dart board and she hadn’t even stabbed him, so that seemed to be going well. Lou had walked outside because she’d gotten a call she said she couldn’t refuse.

It was getting late, and Tasha had been incredibly gracious with her time despite the fact that she was simply entertaining the guy who was attached to the guy she was interested in. “I should get going. I’ve got a lot to do in the next couple of days. And let Lou know it was lovely talking to her. Both of you. Thank you for the nicest evening I’ve had in a long time.”

He didn’t want to go, but he’d caught Lou yawning behind her hand and stretching a couple of times as though she was ready for bed. Tasha was probably tired too, and honestly, he was feeling melancholy because she was the most intriguing woman he’d met in forever and she wasn’t into him.

Looking at her kind of hurt because now he was absolutely certain he could be into her. She was funny and smart and had an interesting career. She worked with her sister at a security company, and they’d had the most amusing stories about the highs and lows of that world. He’d liked listening to her, liked being around her, and that made him a little sad.

He’d thought he was almost resigned to being alone, and Tasha made him feel it all over again.

“It was good to talk to you, Dare,” she replied and held out her hand. “I hope your business here goes well.”

He’d almost gotten away without touching her. He reached out and sure enough, he felt a spark go through him. Her hand was small and warm in his, and he couldn’t resist covering it with his other hand so she was surrounded by him. “And I hope you enjoy your visit with your cousin.”

He expected her to drag her hand away, but she stayed where she was, her eyes wide as she looked up at him. It was like she was seeing him for the first time. “I don’t know if you’ll be able to get him away from my…cousin. They seem cozy.”

He was the one to let go of her hand. He liked holding it too much. He managed a half smile. “I don’t know. I don’t really think she’s into him.”

“Kara’s hard to read sometimes.” She stood up, and he realized she came to roughly his nose. She wasn’t tiny but she looked that way to him. He knew in a logical way that she wasn’t petite, but in that moment he felt like he could easily pick her up and run away with her.

And that was an excellent reason to walk away now. “And Brian apparently doesn’t understand a good thing when he sees it. Good-bye, Tasha.”

He turned and started to pull his cell out of his pocket. It was obvious Brian was going to keep trying to make time with the pink-haired beauty, but Dare was all tried out for the night. He would text Brian and let him know he would see him back at the hotel. Luckily they weren’t rooming together so he wouldn’t have to worry about Brian actually landing Kara. He wouldn’t have to listen to those two go at it, and that was a good thing because he kind of thought it might get violent. And not from Brian’s end.

Kara might be the kind of woman who didn’t mind playing out a domination fantasy. Though he rather thought she would be the one dominating.

“Dare, wait.” A soft hand found his elbow, causing him to stop.

Tasha. He turned and she was standing there, her head tilted up and eyes on him. “Yes?”

“I don’t want you to leave,” she began and then shook her head as though making a decision. “That’s not exactly right. I don’t want you to leave without me. I want you to take me back to your hotel room and let me get to know you better.”

Fuck. It was the only thing he wanted to do tonight, and he suddenly worried he was on the edge. It had been so long since he’d indulged in sex. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

A brow rose over her eyes, a clear challenge. “Because I was attracted to Brian first?”

He reached out, smoothing back her hair. He barely stopped himself from twining his fingers in the soft stuff and giving her a good tug. “Because what I want from you might be too much. Tasha, you might have wanted Brian, but I knew the minute I laid eyes on you that I wanted you. I wanted you in my bed, under me, over me, doing everything I tell you to do to me. I’m not like most of the men you know.”

Her lips spread in the widest grin. “I think you’re exactly like most of the men I know. Shall I call you Sir or do you have a different kink?”

She winked as she turned and strode boldly out the door, her hips swaying in a way that made his damn mouth water.

Holy shit. For a second, Dare stood there letting her words wash over him. And then his dick was hard as a rock and insistent on following her.

He was letting his dick lead the way.

What could possibly go wrong?

 

 

Copyright 2023 Lexi Blake