Ian pressed the com button on the phone. “Adam, could you join us?”

There was a slight pause, and he could have sworn he heard the fucker giggle and Serena telling him to stop. Poor Serena. She was going to have two kids soon. “Yes, of course, boss. I’ll be right down.”

“So Charlotte’s on lockdown?” Alex asked, his eyes sliding Ian’s way. There was a slight grin on his face.

“What’s lockdown?” Jesse asked.

“She’s not allowed to speak without permission,” Simon explained.

“We can do that?”

“If only it worked that way.” Simon stared out the window.

What was that grin of Alex’s about? He tried not to think about it. “Yes. I thought it best to put her in high protocol. That way I don’t have to listen to her. It’s the one good thing about having to take her into Sanctum tonight.”

“The only thing?” Again there was that smirk on Alex’s face that made Ian feel like the butt of a joke.

Ian turned to his best friend. “Do you have something you want to say?”

“Nope. Just that you might want to call off the surveillance on your office. Do the subs at Sanctum know about your newfound ‘cuddle every one of them’ rule?” A long laugh came out of Alex’s mouth.

Motherfucker. He’d practically made a porn film. And he knew exactly who would keep a copy. “Adam!”

Adam walked in with Jake, and they gave each other a look. It was the same look naughty five-year-olds slid each other’s way when they’d done something stupid and couldn’t help but laugh about it.

Fuck. He’d forgotten about the 540. Goddamn it. It was the kind of thing he never forgot. He’d even watched her for a while from Adam’s computer, but the minute he’d gotten into the same room with her, he’d forgotten everything except the fact that he was her temporary Master. “You will turn those cameras off now.”

Jake stepped in front of Adam as though he could protect his ass if Ian decided to cave his skull in. “Now, Ian, you told us to keep watch on her. Unfortunately we got to watch a whole lot more of her than we expected.”

“My private life is not Adam’s porno.”

“Hey, Ian, don’t blame him,” Jake said. “He was actually working on something else. I was keeping watch. I called him over. Alex, too.” Jake actually flushed a little. “And Serena might have been in the office.”

Oh, this was all her fault. Charlie had turned his entire life upside down and he’d gone from being the respected head of the team to porn star. Thank god he hadn’t fucked her. Because he’d really wanted to. He’d wanted to clear off his desk and spread her legs and force his cock deep. He’d wanted to make her moan and scream.

“Serena cried. She said it was really beautiful,” Adam explained.

“Did she take notes?” He was not going to end up in one of Serena’s pussy-ass Dom romances where the sub manipulates the hell out of the Dom.

“I believe she was too busy taking mental pictures,” Jake said. “She wants Charlotte to know that she really admires her breasts. Serena actually has a deep appreciation for the human form, whether it’s male or female.”

Jesse frowned. “Wait, are you guys saying Charlotte got like twelve kinds of nekkid and I missed it?”

Three different hands came out, slapping him upside the head.

“Damn it.” Jesse shook his head. “I don’t see what the big deal is. You guys see each other nekkid all the time.”

“I’m putting you in elocution lessons,” Simon said, seemingly unfazed by everything except his charge’s redneck speak. “Why did I get left with the backwoods version of My Fair Lady? It’s because I’m British, isn’t it?”

It was time to move past his porno. “Adam, give Simon everything you have on Chelsea Dennis. Now tell me what the plan is.”

“I’ve left a trail for the Russian to follow. I couldn’t make it too obvious or he might get suspicious,” Adam explained. “I used Charlotte’s credit card to book a room in a motel in Waco. I hired Karina to drive down in Charlotte’s car in a blonde wig. She leaves in an hour. She’s going to be passing several traffic cameras, and I told her to blow through at least one red light.”

Karina Mills was a Fort Worth-based PI they worked with from time to time. She was also a submissive at Sanctum. She was tough and thorough and tended to charge out the ass. Another thing to lay at Charlie’s doorstep. “So she’s checking in as Charlie and waiting for Zhukov?”

“Nah, I thought you would prefer one of us to actually do the takedown. Li is with her. Jake and I are on Avery duty. Li and Karina are going to settle in at the motel. We went over procedure. They’re going to keep the shades closed so he can’t take them out from a distance. I checked out the surroundings. There aren’t a lot of sniper positions. It’s a busy motel. He’s going to have to get up close and personal if he doesn’t want a bunch of heat on him.”

Meaning the assassin would be forced to break into the room. He would very likely try to make it look like an everyday, normal break in. He would steal some cash, maybe rape the girl. He would discover very rapidly that Liam O’Donnell didn’t appreciate his person being violated.

“Liam knows I want this guy alive, right?” He wanted to know exactly who had hired him and how far Nelson’s ties to the Denisovitch syndicate went.

“Alive, but fucked up, right? Because Liam apparently really wants to fuck this dude up. He claims he’s gone too long without a good fight,” Adam explained.

As long as the fucker was capable of talking, Ian didn’t care. “Tell Li to take out his frustrations on the guy, but I want him able to answer a few questions. It’s a good plan. You’re still hired. Go and set it in motion and then go and erase that fucking tape.”

“You know there’s not really a tape per se.” Adam seemed to get the gist of the nasty look Ian sent him. “I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you guys come with me?”

The four men walked out, all of them smiling behind their hands.

“Hey, Jesse’s right, you know,” Alex said quietly. “There wasn’t anything on that feed that you haven’t done at Sanctum a hundred times.”

Oh, but there was. He didn’t cuddle the subs afterward no matter what he told Charlie. Every encounter was negotiated, and the most aftercare he would give was praise for a job well done, some ointment on abrasions if he left them, and the occasional massage. Sometimes he would offer orgasms if he wanted the sub sexually.

But he didn’t cuddle with them afterward and he didn’t sleep beside them. He would never admit it. Not ever. He wouldn’t admit that he could fool himself during sex. He could close his eyes and pretend the sub under him was Charlie, but the minute he held them, the illusion was gone and he was hollow and empty again.

They didn’t smell like her, like lemons and sugar. They weren’t as soft as his wife. Their skin didn’t seem to sink into his. When his partners talked, they didn’t have her sweet sarcasm.

They hadn’t lied to him. They hadn’t betrayed him.

Fuck.

“I need you and Eve to come out to the house and stay with us. If this plan works, Li will bring the asshole out to my place for the interrogation.” That might solve one of his problems. Maybe if he knew Alex and Eve were there he would keep his hands off the girl.

Maybe.

Alex studied him for a moment. “All right. That should work out just fine. We’re having the house we bought renovated. It was supposed to be ready when we got back from Hawaii. We were going to stay in a hotel, but your place might be so much more fun. Might I ask why? You could handle an interrogation yourself.”

Well, he sure as fuck wasn’t going to tell Alex he needed help keeping his hands off Charlie. Alex seemed to be morphing into Oprah, and Ian was certain all sorts of mushy advice would follow. “I want Eve to work up a full evaluation on Charlotte and her sister. She can do it better if she’s watching them outside an interview.”

“Are you sure you want to treat her like a suspect? This might be the time to try to get to know her again.” Yep. Oprah was in the house.

“The only way I want to get to know that woman again is whether or not she’s telling me the truth.”

“That’s not what it looked like on that tape, man.”

“I am attracted to her,” he allowed.

“You’re attracted to a lot of women. You don’t cuddle them and rub your cheek against their hair. You don’t look peaceful when you’re close to them.”

He sent his best friend a hard stare. “Have you been reading Serena’s books? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Alex held his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. You’re not ready to talk about this. Eve told me to take it slow, and I’m pushing you.”

He had to get a few things clear. “I’m attracted to Charlotte, but I’m not going to let her play me the way she did last time. Maybe she’s here for all the right reasons, but she’s too late. I won’t let her in again. I might fuck her because it’s almost inevitable, but as soon as this plays out, I will dump her ass and I won’t look back. You guys seem to be waiting for me to have some grand revelation. Well, let me tell you something, Alex. I already had it. I had it when I realized she was willing to use me, to let my team suffer the consequences so she could solve her own problems.”

“She was trying to save her sister.”

“I would have saved her sister,” Ian nearly roared back, the betrayal so close to his surface. He forced his rage down. God, he didn’t want to do this, but no one seemed willing to let him be. “She was my sub and she trusted that fucker Nelson over me. We’re done.”

“I hadn’t thought about it like that, Ian,” Alex said, his eyes grave.