And right now I just wanted to distract myself. To think about something other than the insane person who killed a cat and wrote a threatening note on my bedroom wall. What was a better way to forget the world than sex?
I touched his jaw, ran the tops of my fingers along his jaw. He let his lips fall apart ever so slightly, opening to me in a way that invited more. And then his hand slid further up my thigh, and mine moved to his chest, tangling itself in the soft material of his shirt. When his tongue slipped over my bottom lip, I knew I had him. I knew he was mine.
I climbed into his lap, my hair falling like a waterfall over his shoulders, blocking the show from anyone who might happen to walk by the partially open curtains. His hands moved over my hips, and he tugged me closer, as he slipped his hands under the bottom hem of my shirt. It was nice, the heat of his hands on my skin. And his tongue…it was doing things inside my mouth that I’d never felt before. Kissing was not a big thing in porn movies. I’d made out on film maybe twice in my career. This was a first for me. I could certainly see why it was such a popular thing to do.
I ran my hands over his face, memorizing the angles, loving the way his bone and muscles worked together as he deepened his kiss. And then I touched his throat and slipped my fingers along the collar of his shirt. He was so warm, so full of life. Movement and flexing muscles everywhere. And when he pulled my hips forward, I almost couldn’t catch my breath when our hips rocked together and I could feel his arousal right there, just waiting for me to notice.
He was…damn, he was hot! The way he kissed, the way he moved, the feel of his palms smoothing their way up my back…I’d never felt half the things that were happening inside my body in that moment. I didn’t want it to stop.
He lifted me up and carried me across the room. For a minute, I thought he was taking me to his bed. But then he lay me down beside Olivia.
“You should get some sleep,” he said, even in whisper, his voice deeper than before.
He brushed his hand over my face, his thumb pausing against my bottom lip.
“Goodnight, Quinn.”
Then he was gone, slipping out the door and disappearing into the night. I lay there for a long time before my heartbeat slowed and the tightness in my lower belly finally began to relax. But I could still taste him on my lips as I drifted off to sleep, my daughter pressed up against the length of my body.
Chapter 8
Vincent
I didn’t think I would sleep. I stood by the window for a while, listening to Quinn shift on the bed she was sharing with Olivia, my thoughts stuck on that moment she first kissed me. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been kissed since Syd. I wasn’t a monk all these years. There’d been that girl at Camp Pendleton who liked to sit and make out for hours, pushing my hands away from her jeans whenever they got too close. And there was that girl in Seattle when we were on leave and we drove up there to find some friend of Paulie’s. And the girl in Chicago a couple of months ago. So it wasn’t like it had been a long time or anything. But there was something different about Quinn’s touch that made my body remember things I didn’t think it would ever think of again.
But when I finally lay down, sleep came over me in a way it hadn’t done in a very long time. I slept long and hard, no nightmares that were memories in disguise. It was the best sleep I’d had in a long time. I might have slept even longer, but I forgot to take my phone out of my pocket and the vibration woke me.
Megan Bradford.
I glanced at Quinn and Olivia. They were still curled up together, still sound asleep.
I slipped out the door, the card key in my back pocket.
“Vulture.”
“Hey, Vincent. What room are you in?”
“212.”
“I’m in the parking lot. I’m coming up.”
I disconnected and leaned over the railing, spotting her the moment she slipped out of the SUV that looked so much like the one I was driving. It was, actually, the same year and model as mine. Company issue.
She looked tired, her shoulders overburdened, her light eyes lost in dark shadows.
“We had to call the police. The house was a mess, and we couldn’t just ignore possible evidence,” she explained as she joined me outside the hotel room door. “They were there most of the night, dusting for fingerprints and complaining about the lack of cooperation on our part because we wouldn’t produce Ms. Smith.”
“Did they find anything useful?”
Megan shook her head, her dark blond hair floating around her shoulders. “Not a damn thing. But I’ve got Hayden and Dante doing the legwork for the investigators. Hopefully they’ll come up with something.”
I glanced at the window, surprised to see Quinn’s face there. She had a crease on side of her face from Olivia’s arm and her hair was a rat’s nest. She’d never looked quite so beautiful.
“I think it would be best if you take them to my beach house out on Galveston,” Megan said, holding out a set of keys. “There’s an address on the key tag. Just put it into the GPS. It’s pretty easy to find.”
“For how long?”
“Just until we can get the house cleaned up and the security system put in. Till tomorrow afternoon, probably.”
“Okay.”
Megan studied my face for a long second. “Everything okay? You getting along with them?”
“Everything’s fine.”
She glanced at the window, lifting her hand. Olivia was standing there now, watching us through wide, green eyes that were so much like her mother’s.
“Cute kid,” Megan said.
She looked at me a second longer, then sort of waved her hand in a dismissal movement. “I’ll call you in the morning, let you know where we stand then.”
She disappeared down the stairs, the weight on her shoulders seeming even heavier than it’d been before. Cole had told me about her fiancé leaving her at the altar. I couldn’t imagine a man doing that to a woman like her. She was strong. Independent. But she was also beautiful and kind and generous. She and Quinn had a lot in common.
I turned, reaching into my pocket for the room key, but Quinn was already there, standing in the open doorway. She stepped—barefoot—onto the cool concrete walkway.
“Why did Megan come all the way out here?”
I touched her arm to draw her further out so that the door closed behind her. I didn’t want Olivia to hear what I had to say.
“They called the police to check out the damage in the house.”
“Did they find anything?”
I shook my head. “Megan has a team setting up a security system in the house, but they don’t want us there while they do it”—I held up the keys Megan gave me—“so we’re going to Galveston for the weekend.”
She didn’t look terribly happy. She moved to the rail, looking down into the parking lot.
“We don’t have any clothes. And Olivia has school on Monday.”
“Megan said we can go back tomorrow.”
“And then what?” She turned to look at me, anger burning in her eyes. “I want this over.”
“I know. It will be. Soon.”
She didn’t respond. She just turned and waited for me to let her back into the room.
***
Olivia was excited to go to Galveston. We stopped at a Walmart and picked up new clothes, a bathing suit, and toiletries for all of us. And enough food to feed an army for a week. Then we drove out to the house, all three of us speechless when we saw the beautiful glass and wood home set back in a cloister of trees just above the beach. The inside was even better than the out. The front doors opened onto a huge living room with a massive fireplace and sliding glass doors that opened onto a deck that wrapped around the entire house. The kitchen was off to the right, a gourmet kitchen with every appliance we’d ever need. On the left was a wide hallway that led to four bedrooms and a master that was big enough to fit my entire apartment inside of it.
Olivia rushed straight out to the beach, laughing w
hen the waves came up and tickled her toes.
“Come put your bathing suit on first!” Quinn called down to her.
Olivia glanced back over her shoulder. “Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, Olivia,” I called. “If you’ll come get your swimsuit, I’ll go out with you.”
“Okay.”
She came running back inside and rushed into the bedroom her mother had chosen for her. I went to the kitchen to unpack the food, putting a package of steaks in a bowl with a quick, simple marinade for dinner. The girls came out of the bedroom, laughing at something. I watched them, unable to keep from admiring the way the simple black, one-piece suit Quinn was wearing fit her body. The woman was incredibly beautiful.
I swung Olivia up onto my shoulders.
“Let’s go tackle those waves, huh?”
She giggled as I bounced her intentionally as I ran out to the beach. “Can you swim?”
“Yep!”
I ran into the water and tossed her into a wave. She came up a second later, laughing so hard I couldn’t believe she could catch her breath. Then I scooped her up again and tossed her deeper. She was laughing again when she came up.
“I’ll show you how to body surf.”
“You can surf without a board?”
“Of course. Your body is the board.”
She giggled, but she watched me and was doing it like a pro after just a few tries.
We swam for quite a while, laughing and teasing each other, splashing each other despite the fact that the waves were hitting us almost constantly. It was late fall. Most of the families who called these beaches home during the summer were gone and the water was slightly cooler than I imagined it was during the summer. After an hour or two, we got out and built a sandcastle on the beach. Olivia called to her mother and begged her to join us over and again, but Quinn lay on a towel near the deck, content to read a book as she sunbathed.
“How do you know so much about building sandcastles?” Olivia asked.
“I grew up on the beach.”
“Here?”
“No. In San Diego.”
“Where’s that?”
“California.”
Olivia patted a rough edge of the castle turret. “Momma promised to take me to California someday. She says it’s bright and sunny there all the time.”
“Not all the time. But close.”
“Did you like it there?”
I sat back and studied the castle for a long second. “When I was little, I did. I was close to my parents and my brother and sisters.”
“But not now?”
I shrugged. “I did something I shouldn’t have, so my friends and family don’t really want me around anymore.”
“What did you do?”
“Olivia,” Quinn said softly, a clear warning in her voice.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek a little.
“Sometimes people do things that they don’t really mean, but then someone gets hurt and you can’t take it back. You know?”
“Like when I called Lizzie a brat?”
I coughed to hide a chuckle. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Lizzie still won’t talk to me. But now Sara’s my friend, so it’s okay.”
“That’s the way it works sometimes, Olivia.”
She nodded. “Your family is mad at you, but now you have Mommy and me.”
I glanced at Quinn. She was watching us, but her face was in shadow so I couldn’t see her expression.
“That’s right.”
“It’s good that we’re your family, too. We’ll always be friends.”
A twinge of sadness moved through me. But I couldn’t tell this little girl that she was being a little too optimistic.
“Sure, Olivia. You’re right about that.”
“I’m right a lot of the time. That’s another reason why Lizzie doesn’t like me. She says I’m too smart for my own good.”
“Well, Lizzie certainly is an opinionated young lady.”
“She is. She wants to be the one who knows everything.”
“There are lots of people like that in the world. But don’t ever let anyone convince you that it’s better to pretend to be dumber than you are. Because it’s not.”
Olivia looked up at me, quite seriously. “Okay. I won’t.”
“Time for your bath, Olivia,” Quinn called. “It’s getting cold.”
Olivia immediately stood and brushed sand off her backside. “Thanks, Vincent,” she said, leaning down to kiss my cheek lightly. Then she ran up to the house with Quinn.
I went inside and cleaned myself up, thinking about the last time I’d been to the beach. I used to live on the beach. My friends and I spent every Friday and Saturday night there, hanging out, listening to music, and basically being stupid teenagers there. That’s where I met Sydney. She went to a different high school, so our paths had never passed until a friend of a friend invited her to one of our little get-togethers. From the moment I set eyes on her, I knew she was going to play an important role in my life. I just had no idea where that role would take us.
We were at the beach that night. But I wasn’t going to let myself think about that just now.
I grilled the steaks on the gas grill out on the back deck while Quinn and Olivia chopped up vegetables for a salad. Then we settled back and ate a lovely dinner with the scent of the ocean all around us. The stars were incredibly bright, the silence refreshing after months in the city. I didn’t realize how much I missed the beach until tonight.
“Can you read me a bedtime story, Vincent?” Olivia asked, tugging at my hand, as Quinn urged her to go inside the house.
“Of course.”
Quinn shot me a look that was filled with caution. I chose to ignore it, swinging Olivia up into my arms and carrying her into the bedroom.
“What do we want to read?”
“We didn’t bring any of your books,” Quinn said.
“Surely Megan has something here,” I said.
“Who’s Megan?” Olivia wanted to know.
I glanced at Quinn. She cleared her throat, her arms crossed over her chest like she was pissed off.
“A friend.”
“Who’s friend?”
“She’s the sister of a guy I was in the military with.”
It was the truth.
I found a couple of books on a shelf in the closet. We ended up reading Cinderella. Olivia might have been ten, but she still got a kick out of the different voices I made as I read.
She was exhausted, already drifting off to sleep when I came to the end. I slipped out of the room while Quinn said her goodnights, wandering into the kitchen to straighten the mess we’d made over dinner. I found a bottle of scotch hidden in a cabinet. I grabbed it and a couple of glasses, deciding I deserved a little bit of a treat.
It was too cold to sit outside, but not quite cold enough to light a fire. I settled back on the couch, watching the waves in the dim light cast onto the beach. The scotch burned as it went down. I hadn’t had a strong drink since the last time I was at the beach and I swore I wouldn’t again. But this night had been a little surreal.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Quinn said as she came into the room.
I poured her a swallow of the scotch and held the glass out to her. She seemed reluctant to take it, but she finally did, settling on the couch beside me, but careful to leave a good amount of space between us.
“This is a temporary situation,” she continued as though there was no interruption. “I shouldn’t have given the impression that I didn’t understand that.”
“Is that what that was?”
“It was me dealing with the bullshit that has become my life.”
I stared into my glass for a long second, nodding just slightly. “That’s fair enough.”
“I know you’re going to be out of our life in a few days or a so. But she doesn’t.”
“Do you want me to be mean to her? To ignore her requ
ests?”
“No. But I don’t want her to get too attached.”
“Kids get attached. But they’re also fairly resilient. She’ll forget all about me in a few weeks.”
“I don’t know. She’s never had a man in her life before.”
“Never?”
Quinn shook her head. “It’s always been just her and I.”
“That sucks.”
She laughed, clearly caught off guard by my response. And then she nodded as she lifted her glass to her lips, taking a long sip. “It does, actually.”
“I get it,” I said after a minute. “I’ve been on my own for a long time, too. Sometimes it’s easier to avoid other people after you’ve been hurt. But you also have to realize that just because you’re a strong, independent person, that doesn’t mean that you don’t need other people from time to time.”
“Temporarily?”
“If that’s what you want.”
She looked at me, her eyes moving slowly over the length of me. She reminded me of Sydney, the way she seemed to see what I tried to hide behind my walls. Sydney was always looking at me like I wasn’t fooling her no matter how hard I tried to pretend that I was. Maybe that was what drew me to her. There were so many similarities…but so many differences, too.
Sydney was tall, dark. Her hair was like the night sky, so dark that it was almost blue. And her eyes were a golden brown with these teeny flecks of green in them. She was built like a model, but she could out wrestle anybody who was brave enough to dare her. Thin, lithe, with teeny wine-glass-sized breasts that fit perfectly in the palm of my hands. She looked nothing like petite, curvy Quinn. But they had the same spirit, the same determination.
This was my job. I was fucking stupid to consider placing it at risk because it was all I had now. But I hadn’t felt this alive since Sydney died.
That’s why I didn’t push her away when she put down her glass and climbed into my lap, watching me carefully as she positioned herself on top of me as she had the night before. There was caution in the brushing of her lips on mine. But then I wrapped her ponytail around my hand and tugged her closer to me, burying myself inside of her as I captured her lips, her mouth, exploring her with all the energy and the need that had built inside of me from the moment I first set eyes on her.
VINCENT (Dragon Security Book 2) Page 6