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inexperience, she had not put up with his bullshit. She excited him . . . got under his skin.
    They had often clashed, but their make-up sex was mind-blowing. They’d been together for three months before the Syrian mission derailed whatever burgeoning relationship they could have shared. She refused to see him after Operation Smokescreen, so he turned up at her house. She wouldn’t even let him get past the front door, and instead, she lashed out at him with those damning words: “I can’t be with a cold-blooded killer. I don’t think I could bear for you to touch me, Viktor.”
    She had marked him deeply that day in a way that dictated how he chose his relationships going forward. And so he became a Dom, and only had relationships with women he could control—trained submissives.
    He let go of his last sub a few months ago when Marissa had walked back into his life to lead the South Africa mission. He wasn’t over her, not when he was having sex with someone else and imagining he was fucking Marissa.  
    Damn her. Only Marissa.  
    His body craved only her.  

CHAPTER THREE

    They were hiding something from her. All of them. Jack’s mother was the worst actress. Frances could barely look her in the eye whenever Maia mentioned how Jack had lost so much weight.  
    “He was so worried about you, dear,” she had said. “He could barely eat and sleep.”
    Maia woke up three days earlier from the medically-induced coma. She woke up to a husband who looked like he’d been sent to a concentration camp. His cheeks were sunken; his hair was dull—Jack’s hair was never dull, ever—and his eyes held an underlying torment. Maia could understand why Jack’s eyes would look that way—she almost died, and she lost their baby.  
    Their baby.  
    She knew her miscarriage had hit Jack harder because he had hinted about wanting to start a family. The loss was painful for her as well, but she had felt guilt for that fleeting feeling of relief. She wasn’t ready to be a mother and might never be.
    Trying to escape the conflict within her, Maia refocused her energy to the puzzle of her husband losing close to fifteen pounds. She was being kept in the dark about something, and she intended to find out. Right now.
    Maia contemplated how to broach the subject while she waited for Jack to finish unpacking the food from their favorite dim sum place. And if he told her again that he was too worried about her, she was going to call bullshit. Kid gloves were never for her. Viktor trained her well. Thinking of Viktor got her wondering where he was for he had not shown up in the past three days.  
    Viktor Baran was more than her mentor. She owed him her life. Nineteen years before, Viktor and his black ops team defied CIA orders and intervened after the Russian mob killed her parents in front of her. Russian henchmen were about to rape her when Viktor and his men burst into the house and killed them all. Her memory was as clear as yesterday: the big man who crouched down in front of her, gently coaxing her to come out from under the table. Viktor had removed his head gear, revealing light blond hair, his equally light blue eyes showing none of the malevolence of the men who tried to harm her. At that moment, she trusted him implicitly as she reached out to the man who had saved her. She was sent to an orphanage, but after a few weeks, Viktor came for her. Twelve-year-old Katerina Luski ceased to exist, and she became Maia Pierce.
    “Rice porridge should be perfect for you,” Jack broke into her thoughts as he laid the bowl on the swivel table.  
    “What did you get for yourself?” Maia asked slyly.
    “Rice porridge,” Jack answered. “I kind of like it too.”
    “Rice porridge is for sick people, Jack,” Maia said. “And you need to gain weight.”
    A look of annoyance flashed through Jack’s face. “I’ll gain it back. Going to start on protein shakes tomorrow.”
    “Why not right now?”
    “Maia, what’s up with