Live, Love, Spy

New Recruits, Book 2, Masters and Mercenaries, Book 28

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About the book

Life can often be awkward when you’re a child genius. For Louisa Ward, that came in the form of meeting her one true love at the age of 12. TJ Taggart was perfect. But being a year younger and a full grade ahead of him in school always made things weird. Working in the CIA has turned her into a strong and capable woman. Until TJ walks into a room. Fifteen years later, she still gets butterflies every time she sees the gorgeous soldier, but she’s tired of waiting and ready to find love, even if it can’t be with him.

TJ Taggart always knew he wanted to be a soldier. But joining the Army would require a sacrifice. Since meeting Louisa, TJ knew she was the one for him, but they had different paths in life. Lou was meant to change the world at some prestigious research job or maybe teach at an Ivy League school. There would be a chance to sweep her off her feet when his time in this dangerous life was done, and their happily ever after could begin.

Before he can make it home on his latest leave, TJ is kidnapped by an unknown adversary. As he waits to die, all he can think of is the time he wasted and how badly he wants to be with Lou. He’s more than a little surprised when his sweet, quiet girl shows up leading a CIA special ops squad to bust him out. Back in Dallas, it’s time to claim the woman of his dreams. He has a plan to win her over, until the adversary who almost killed him returns to finish the job.

Excerpt

Chapter One

Lou stared at the man across from her. “I’m going to be honest. When we matched on the app, I didn’t think it was actually you.”

The man across from her smiled, and she had to admit he looked good. He’d been a cute boy in high school, but he was obviously a man now, his lanky form having filled in with muscle. And the beard on his face suited him, too. “Well, I knew damn well it was you, and I was excited. It’s been a long time, Louisa. You look amazing.”

Dennis Sims wore a dress shirt and slacks despite the fact they’d only agreed to meet for a coffee. It was obvious he’d taken care with his appearance.

The last time TJ had been in town he’d spent the entire time sitting in her living room in sweats and a Cowboys T-shirt playing video games with her. He’d needed a haircut but hadn’t been willing to get it until the day before he reported back, so he’d looked a bit scruffy.

She’d still thought he was sexy as hell, but she was done mooning over that man. They seemed to have moved into a long-term married couple phase without any of the sex that should have come before it. He came into town on leave and spent all his time with her. He didn’t even bother to drop his stuff at his parents’ place. He showed up and took over the guest room. He worked around her house, fixing things up, and they watched TV together and he hugged her like he didn’t want to let her go and then marched back on with his life. Years. She’d spent years like this, and she was done.

She remembered the last time she’d seen TJ. They’d been in a conference room in Sydney, Australia. His team had clashed with hers, and they’d had some serious tension between them. She’d been stupid and had read his cues wrong and embarrassed herself again by trying to kiss him.

Baby, this is still not a good idea. Nothing’s changed.

But she wanted it to, and if she didn’t try her life never would. She would watch her friends all find love, and she would end up alone with five cats. And probably a couple of dogs and goats. So when he’d tried to get her alone to talk about their tension, she’d told him no.

Don’t think this is over, LouLou. Not even close.

But it was. It had to be.

Watching Tasha Taggart fall in love had given her the push she needed.

Hence the dating app. She’d been on three dates and then matched with Dennis, and curiosity had gotten the better of her. Not that she was going to do anything with the dude who’d dumped her for prom, but she was curious. She was viewing this as a good test date.

Surely at some point she’d meet someone she wanted to have sex with.

Or she could find a Dom at The Hideout.

“What are you doing these days?” Dennis asked. “I was surprised you were still here in Dallas. When I’ve thought about you over the years, I have to admit I saw you in New York or LA. London, maybe. You got your doctorate, right?”

She’d finished her doctorate in mathematics at the age of twenty-two and become one of the youngest professors in the history of the University of Texas Austin. Then Kala Taggart had walked into her office and offered her a spot on the team.

The CIA team her best friend had been trying to land forever. The last two years of her life had been about the Agency.

Not that she was going to tell Dennis that. Her life was highly classified. “No, that was fine for college, but I always wanted to be close to my family. My parents are here, and my little brother. He’s twelve, and I don’t want to be some picture on my parents’ wall to him. So I’m working at this think tank run by the guy who built 4L.”

“You work for Drew Lawless?” Dennis looked impressed.

Which was exactly what her cover was supposed to do. When she’d joined the team, they’d all needed covers, with the exception of Cooper McKay and Tristan Dean-Miles. They had the military to cover for them. Lou, Kenzie, Kala, and Tash had never belonged to the armed forces. But they did belong to McKay-Taggart. Kenzie and Kala and Tash all worked for their dad’s firm in various roles. Lou needed something more. There wasn’t a position for doctorate in mathematics and expert in mechanical and computer engineering at a security firm. It was a cover that worked on short ops—like the one they’d recently run in Sydney—but anyone who knew her would question it.

No one was shocked to discover she was the head of technology, research, and development at one of the edgiest think tanks in the country. Especially given her family connections to the man who ran it.

It came with a good salary—way better than the Agency—and a spectacular lab where she created tech to help her “sisters” save the world. All in all, not a bad gig.

“I do, though he’s not around a lot. I’ve only met him a couple of times. His wife and kids seem nice.” Andrew Lawless was connected to the Taggarts by marriage. His sister had married Case Taggart a long time before, and the billionaire hadn’t minded stepping in to help out Ian Taggart’s Agency team. Especially since he got first dibs on a lot of Lou’s work. “His main focus is 4L. He kind of lets us do what we want.”

Dennis’s head shook as though he’d known it all along. “Wow. I knew you would go places. You were so smart.”

Not smart enough to go to prom with though. Still, he was feeding her ego. She knew she shouldn’t take the compliments seriously, but it felt good to have a man looking at her like he wanted to date her. “How about you?”

“I’m in banking. I work in investments,” he replied. “I work for a billionaire, too, but mine is some old dude on a board somewhere. Not as cool a job as yours.” He seemed to get serious, taking a sip of the Americano he’d ordered. “I’m glad you said yes, Lou. There’s something I’ve wanted to say to you for a long time.”

Even though she hadn’t thought about him in forever, the rejection still hurt. “Is it about prom?”

He nodded slowly, as though he wanted to think about every word he was about to say. “I was a jerk in high school, and I would like to apologize to you.”

She nodded. “You’re forgiven. It was a long time ago.”

His head shook, and a look of deep regret came over his face. “You don’t know what you’re forgiving me for. That shouldn’t surprise me. You were always such a sweet girl. You never could see… That doesn’t matter. Louisa, I made a stupid bet about you back in high school, and I regret it. I regretted it right after I did it. It was locker-room talk, and I wouldn’t have gone through with it. I kind of asked you out on a bet, and then I realized how much I liked you. I need you to understand that I am not that dumbass kid anymore, and I would kick my own kid’s ass if he ever did anything like this. Not that I have any kids. I’m single and child free at this point. But I wouldn’t want my kid to ever act that way.”

“A bet?” She frowned his way. “Tell me you didn’t bet you could get me to sleep with you on prom night. Because that would be cliché and gross.”

He winced. “Like I said, I wasn’t going through with it.”

She had to laugh. “Okay, well, I’m glad that you didn’t because then I would have let Kala murder you.”

“Oh, she threatened it, but then she had some crap on me that I didn’t want anyone else to know and between her and that fuc…TJ, it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to explain anything to you.”

“What did she do?” She wasn’t angry. Curious. It was a day for curiosity. She understood exactly what Kala had been doing. She’d seen something that would have hurt her best friend, and she took care of it. Sometimes she thought Kala would have done well on her mother’s side of the family. The one that ran a syndicate in Moscow.

“She blackmailed me. Which on the surface is bad enough, but then I found out the reason she had shit to blackmail me with…”

Lou could finish that sentence. “She baited you and then used it against you. It’s classic Kala. And I’m kind of glad I didn’t know people were betting on my virginity then. Today I can roll my eyes and not care, but I think it would have hurt then. I would have felt everyone laughing at me.”

“No one laughed at you, Lou.”

“Oh, they did.” It hadn’t been easy always being years younger than the people in her class. Maybe that was why she’d been so drawn to TJ. He’d looked at her, talked to her, included her in things. Made her feel special. “I assure you there were girls who laughed at how awkward I was and boys who thought it was fun to fuck with me. Until Kala explained what she would do to them if they didn’t leave me alone.”

“No,” he corrected, “that was TJ. She might have talked to the girls, but I assure you it was TJ who threatened to beat the shit out of anyone who looked at you sideways. Sometimes I think I took that bet just to have a reason to go after you. I could say I was standing up to a bully.”

She stared at him.

“Yeah, now that sounds dumb,” he admitted, “but you know things look different from the outside. It always felt like TJ was protecting you from everyone when most of us only wanted to know you. Maybe not when we were freshmen, but by the time we were seniors, everyone was kind of in awe of you. And terrified of the twins. I know Kenzie seemed sweet, but she could throw down when she wanted to.”

She still could. It was funny how everyone underestimated Kenz. It was something she used to perfection in their job.

“I’m kind of glad I never have to see them again,” Dennis continued. “Do you know whatever happened to them?”

“Yes, they work for their dad,” Lou replied. And run dangerous missions on the regular. They were part of Lou’s team. Her family.

But more and more she was realizing the friendships she had weren’t enough. She wanted what her mom had with her dad. What Uncle Ian and Aunt Charlotte had. What Tasha and Dare had so recently found.

“I heard he was a psycho, too, so I’m not surprised.”

And she wasn’t going to find anything special here. “Well, Dennis, it was good to see you. I should get back to the office.”

He winced. “You’re still friends with them.”

“The best of,” she replied.

“I’m sorry. I suppose it still stings,” he said, “and before you point out what I did would have stung like hell if you’d known, I’m truly sorry, and I don’t want you to go. I won’t say anything else. I’m sure they’ve changed since high school. We all have.”

Adulthood had refined Kala’s personality. And she had access to way more weapons now.

“Hey, how is your dad?” he asked. “I remember how cool he was.”

Dennis had met her father a handful of times and they’d gotten along, but then Boomer Ward got along with everyone. Still, she had to admit Kala did piss a lot of people off. If she refused to talk to anyone her bestie had bulldozed at some point, life would be a very quiet place.

The real question was why TJ had threatened him. She understood Kala, but she remembered how TJ had acted that day. Which made her wonder. “He’s good. He’s volunteering with a bunch of animal rescues, and I’m pretty sure he’s why my brother wants to be a vet. When did this thing go down with Kala? The one where she blackmailed you. You don’t have to tell me what it was. I’m sure she caught you cheating on an exam.”

Kala liked having intel on people she viewed as potential enemies, and that was the majority of the population. The thing was she never used that to her own betterment. Only her friends. Sometimes Lou wondered if Kala buried herself in her sisters and friends so she didn’t have to look in the mirror and acknowledge Cooper McKay was the love of her life.

“That morning before first period.”

Then it had to have been before she’d run into TJ and made that dumb joke about him not calling her sweetheart. He’d known, and he’d let her walk into it.

And then he’d gallantly offered to take her instead.

Kala had probably strongarmed him into that.

She hated this feeling. “That tracks. I kind of still wish I didn’t know.”

“That I was an asshole? Sometimes I wish they’d told you because I think I could live with being the guy who made you angry. It’s been really hard being the guy who broke your heart. I didn’t go with anyone. I skipped because I didn’t want to walk into that hotel ballroom and see you with TJ.”

“I didn’t go with him.”

“No, you stayed home with Kala. They kept you to themselves. I would bet they still do. I meet with an old group of friends for drinks once a month. We’ve talked about you a lot. You could come next time. You’ll see there were a lot of people who looked up to you.”

But she’d had everyone she’d needed back then. Did she have them now? It was such an odd feeling to know what she wanted was right there but never be able to reach out for it, to take it for herself. She had to admit that if TJ was her actual boyfriend, she wouldn’t need anyone outside of her circle, but here she was. She had friends who felt like family, and not one of them could give her the love she knew she needed. So it was time to expand. “That could be fun.”

His smile kicked up. Yeah, there was a reason she’d said yes to him all those years before, and it hadn’t all been about the fact that someone, anyone, asked her out. When he wasn’t a high school boy jerk, he was quite charming. “So you are not with TJ? Like with with him. I don’t care if you’re his friend. I can handle that now. But I don’t want to step on his toes either.”

“TJ and I have never been together that way. He’s in the Army, and I only see him from time to time.” She would see him less now that they were in a fight. He hadn’t called in weeks. He’d probably found a girlfriend. Well, that wasn’t the word she should use. He’d found a sub to top for a while. He tended to go silent for weeks at a time and then she’d hear a rumor he’d been playing. He never acknowledged it to her, never mentioned it and never brought one home, but she knew. When he was at The Hideout he always took dungeon monitor duties and watched anyone she played with closely. He could be a dick about it.

But she knew there were nights at a place called The Club.

There was only the tiniest ounce of her that kind of wanted to see what TJ would think of her dating Dennis. But only a little. It was time to end this somewhat toxic cycle in her life. “But I should tell you I don’t know anything could work out between us. I would like to see some of the people from high school, but…”

“You want to go as friends,” he finished for her.

“I wouldn’t say we’re friends,” she corrected.

“Not yet.” He sat back and looked her over. “I meant what I said, Lou. I liked you then. I like you now. I agree to all your terms. Come with me, and we’ll see what can happen when TJ Taggart doesn’t come between us.”

“Lou, I need to talk to you.”

She turned, surprised because she knew that voice. Zach Reed was standing right there in the middle of the coffee shop. Zach shouldn’t be here at all. He should be at CIA headquarters. Zach was the team’s military liaison, and when they weren’t working, he went back to DC where he coordinated with other teams as well. So why was he here? “Zach? How the hell did you…”

“It’s work,” he said with a grim twist of his lips.

Of course. She grabbed her bag and shot Dennis an apologetic look. “Sorry. Work calls. Something must have broken down. But I will join you at the drinks reunion thing.”

“That would be great. I’ll text you, and maybe next time we can have lunch,” he offered. “It was good to see you.”

“We should hurry, Lou,” Zach said. “It’s about the LT Project. It’s in trouble.”

A shiver went down her spine. It was an old joke between their parents and TJ. They still sometimes called him the littlest Tag, though he certainly wasn’t. That was how they often referred to him when they spoke in code. He was LT. TJ hated it, which was probably why the twins loved it.

TJ was in trouble?

What if he hadn’t found a woman and gone dark for a few weeks? What if something had gone wrong on a mission?

What if someone was after him?

She ran out, following Zach and completely forgetting about Dennis.

It looked like things weren’t over between her and TJ. Not yet.

* * * *

Somewhere in Germany

In his dreams, things went differently. It was weird. TJ knew he was dreaming, knew his body was hanging by chains waiting for the next brutal assault, but in his head he was in a completely different place. A place where the pain couldn’t touch him.

With her.

He walked into one of the smaller rooms at The Station, the BDSM club in Sydney where his unit had collided with Lou’s. Somewhere in the club there was a pissed-off Canadian operative, and he rather thought Tash had some serious explaining to do to the dark-haired dude she seemed to have some connection with, but none of that mattered.

Lou was here, and she’d thrown herself in his arms when he’d called for her, and all was right with the world.

She turned, looking up from her laptop and smiling. “Hey, is everyone still alive? It looked like it was getting pretty heated down there.”

That was what happened when the left hand didn’t know what the right one was up to, but that was the Agency for you. He would rather be working for Lou’s team, but he was still a grunt for the most part.

He moved in and hugged her, unable to keep his hands off her. He shouldn’t have been able to see her for another couple of months, but here she was. He fucking hated that she worked for the Agency, but at least she was safely behind a computer. She wasn’t a field operative, at the whims of bosses who wouldn’t care if she lived or died as long as the mission got completed. She was the brains of the team, and they wouldn’t let her do anything dangerous.

The minute she was in his arms it was like the world slowed down and made more sense.

She settled her head against his chest. “It’s all fucked up. I don’t know what Tash is going to do. She’s in love with him.”

With her target? That wasn’t a smart thing, but then he’d been in love with a woman he couldn’t have for a long time. “Something tells me my aunt and uncle are already working their magic. Are you okay? Did we scare you?”

“Well, I was scared Kala was going to kill someone. I think she took down two of your men, and Coop got a couple, too. Tristan was up with me, helping me get the lights back on and trying to figure a way out.”

No, Tristan had stayed to protect her, and that was exactly what he should have done. “It’s all okay now. Uncle Ian will take over, and Chet can suck a dick, for all I care.”

“Isn’t he your boss right now?”

“Nope, that’s that asshole Mike. Chet is nothing more than an Agency hack, and he’ll loathe the fact that my uncle will insist on me sitting in on the meeting we’re about to have. But I don’t care. It means I get to be near you. I missed you.”

“Missed you, too.” Her head tilted up, those big brown eyes kicking him right in the gut. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and it kind of turned his stomach to think he’d ever been with anyone but her.

He’d never been with her. He couldn’t trust himself not to fuck it all up.

He stared at her for a long moment, the air between them heating with unnamed emotion, and that was when she went up on her toes and her lips almost met his.

This. This was the part he didn’t want.

Fuck it all. It was his dream, and when he woke up he would have to deal with the fact that a mercenary thought he was good target practice for his cattle prod.

In the dream, he met her lips halfway. In the dream, he didn’t let his fear rule him. In the dream, he became everything she needed.

Her loving Master.

Having to watch her with his friends nearly killed him, even when he knew there wasn’t anything sexual about it. That wasn’t the way it would be between them. He wasn’t going to spank her and tie her up and leave her aftercare to Kala Taggart. Fuck, no.

He was going to spank that sweet ass, tie her up, and fuck her until neither one of them could see straight. He would keep her in a privacy room until the club closed, and then he would bring her out and they would have the whole place to themselves. Eventually he would let her run around in her own sweet skin, everyone’s eyes on her so she knew how gorgeous she was, but it would take him a while. He was possessive when it came to Lou.

In the dream he didn’t step back and shake his head. He didn’t say, “Baby, this is still not a good idea. Nothing’s changed.”

He kissed her, his hands cupping her cheeks and sliding into her hair so he could twist it and deepen the kiss, moving his tongue inside her mouth. Hers reached out, tentative at first, and then dancing against his own. He could feel his cock swell, lengthen, getting ready for that moment when he finally, finally found some fucking relief.

Pain made him shudder, and in the dream he dropped his hands, losing Lou. She looked at him, tears in her eyes.

The way she had that night.

“Who is The Jester?”

He didn’t want this. He wanted Lou. He tried so hard to hold on to the dream, but pain flared again, this time to his back.

“Sergeant Taggart, I have to insist. Who is the arms dealer known as The Jester?” a heavily accented voice asked.

TJ groaned as he forced his eyes open. They’d mostly beaten his torso, so he still had full range of vision. Woohoo. That meant he could see the tall, lean man who was torturing him.

What he couldn’t see was the man asking the questions. He managed to stay out of sight. He was a dark, deep voice constantly asking one thing.

Who is The Jester?

This was the part where if he was in a movie, he would start in with name, rank, and serial number.

Instead, he did what he was now trained to do by the Agency. Which was talk and play as dumb as he possibly could. “Jester? Like in medieval times?”

It wasn’t hard since he knew very little. All he knew was that twenty-four hours ago he’d been hanging with some friends in a bar in a town outside of the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, waiting to catch a ride back to the States. He’d spent weeks debriefing after the clusterfuck situation in Australia had left his team without a CO. One minute he’d been drinking a beer and the next he’d woken up god only knew where and this fucker was treating him like a punching bag.

He’d been roofied, and his cousins would never let him hear the end of it.

“The Jester is a new player in my world, and I would like an introduction,” the German who he couldn’t see explained. “But you know that very well.”

Oh, they were under several misconceptions. “I know absolutely nothing. I am dumb as dirt when it comes to this.”

And he’d been dumb as dirt when it came to Lou. God, now he could see it so clearly. He should have kissed her that day.

Being close to death brought life into sharp focus, and his meant nothing without Louisa Ward.

“I don’t think so, Sergeant Taggart.”

TJ’s gut twisted. They knew exactly who he was, and he’d been targeted. But he couldn’t figure out why. Yes, he often worked with Agency teams, but he wasn’t a spy himself. He was the Special Forces version of a grunt. Oftentimes he barely knew why they were doing what they were doing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”

There was the sound of a throat clearing, and then pain bloomed over every inch of his skin as his captor lit him up.

He was never again going to make fun of that chick at The Hideout who liked a Dom to tase her pink parts. That woman was tough. She might be a goddamn national treasure when it came to having a high pain threshold. He needed to talk to her about getting on one of the teams because if she’d been here, she would smile and ask for another.

He just wanted to see Lou again.

Although not getting hit with the prod came in a close second.

Something was going on. Something he didn’t understand, and he had to figure out what these assholes wanted because he wasn’t going to die here. Wherever here was.

His shoulders ached, and his hands had long gone numb from holding his whole body weight.

Why would they think he knew some dude on the Internet who called himself The Jester? Or that he would know what “business” his captor was in.

“Sergeant Taggart, I can do this all day.” The guy’s English was good, but his accent was German and thick. “All week, even. No one knows where you are. I’ve used your phone to send some texts to your fellow team members letting them know you’re taking the week off to spend some time with a woman you met at the bar. My team, you see, is good at crafting a fiction when they need to. We sent pictures as well. No one is going to look for you, so you might as well tell us what we want to know.”

“I would if I had any idea what you’re talking about.”

There was the sound of murmuring, and that was the moment TJ realized there were at least three people in the room. The torture fucker, the one who spoke, and apparently someone who didn’t want TJ to hear his voice.

The actual boss.

He twisted his head around, trying to see into the shadows, but the light was so bright.

“All right, perhaps you might…remember…more if I let you know how much we know. The Jester is what we call, in our line of business, an information broker. I assume you know what that is since in addition to your work for the Army, your team often backs up the CIA.”

He knew exactly what an information broker was. His aunts used to be the best in the business. Chelsea and Charlotte Denisovitch had made a name for themselves selling secrets. But they didn’t anymore.

TJ had to consider the fact that he might know more than he thought he knew. His family still had ties to the Denisovitch Syndicate, though he’d never actually met any of them.

“I work on classified missions, but that doesn’t mean I understand the ins and outs of them. They tell me who to shoot and I do it. That’s all I am. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

“Oh, we don’t think so. We happen to know that you met with The Jester a mere month ago, and lying about it won’t help you.” There was the sound of fingers snapping and then his torturer moved briefly into the shadows, coming back with a tablet in his hands. He held the screen up.

It was a grainy picture of two men walking down a European-looking street.

But it was clear from the photo that one of the men was him.

The other man’s face was concealed by the heavy hood of his jacket.

“This is you walking with a man we’ve identified as The Jester. You were in Berlin, meeting him six weeks ago.”

Six weeks ago he had been in Berlin, but this meeting hadn’t happened. “I was in debriefs the entire time I was in Berlin. This is a deep fake.”

“I don’t believe it is. I believe you are protecting your real boss, but that will only buy you pain.”

“I didn’t meet with anyone except my team in Berlin.” And shortly after, the team had been called to Australia to babysit a Canadian operative. The mission that led to his CO getting offed by his cousin.

“All right, Sergeant. It seems you need other motivation. It is unfortunate, but a reality we are prepared for. We will secure it and speak again. Enjoy the accommodations in the meantime,” the voice said. “Klaus, dose the sergeant and secure him in his cell. We’ll decide between his mother or sister. He can watch us use them, and then we’ll see who he values.”

“Please not my mom. My mom… Don’t hurt my mom.” His mother would kill these fuckers if they touched her. She’d been a deadly soldier most of her life, and he would still put her up against most of his teammates to this day. But Devi… His sister wasn’t as well trained. She knew some self-defense, but Devi would get hurt.

“Or perhaps the little mouse you hang out with when you’re home. What was her name?” There was a whisper. “Oh, yes, Louisa. She works for a think tank. She might be an extra prize herself.”

Fuck. Not Lou. He couldn’t be the reason Lou got hurt.

He kicked out, his mind going red at the thought of Lou in these bastards’ hands.

Then he felt the prick of a needle against his bicep, and the world went dark.

Copyright 2024 Lexi Blake