VINCENT (Dragon Security Book 2)

by Glenna Sinclair

  “And I’m just the little porn star who’s become a distraction.”

  Cole shook his head. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Cole. I get it. You don’t want your friend to get himself into some sort of trouble. But that won’t happen here.”

  “Quinn—”

  “This is temporary. When it’s over, it’s over. Okay?”

  I didn’t wait for his answer. I brushed past him and went upstairs to find my daughter.

  Temporary.

  ***

  Olivia didn’t want me to put her to bed anymore. She liked the way Vincent read the voices in her books. I got a brief goodnight before she curled up against the side of Vincent’s body, ready to hear whatever it was he’d chosen to enlighten her with tonight. A week and he already had her curled around his little finger.

  I went into my bedroom, ignoring the bed that had always been the centerpiece of this room. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when this was all said and done. Finding the stalker and putting him in jail wasn’t going to be enough to take away the stain of his invasion in my life. I’d already called my real estate agent and inquired about finding a comparable house and then putting this one on the market. She’d been discouraging, insisting that I’d never find a house quite like this one, but I wasn’t sure I could stay here when it was all said and done.

  I was a strong woman. But even a strong woman needed to feel safe in her own home.

  It’d been a long week! I needed a minute to collect myself, time to process it all.

  I ducked into the bathroom and turned on the taps, running hot water into the deep whirlpool tub that was part of the reason I loved this house so much. I underdressed and searched for the novel I’d been trying to read for more than three months. Every time I sat down to read, sleep snuck up on me. That’s how stressful and exciting and busy the last three months had been. But none of it compared to this week.

  Susie called me this morning. She’d sort of taken a management role in getting the studio back up to par. She and Coleman hired some workers to clean up the mess the stalker had made, carting out tons of trash and scrubbing the walls to rid them of the spray painted profanity. Then, with my consent, she ordered new furniture, new costumes, new bedding. Everything we’d need to get back to work. And now, so close to that happening, a sheriff’s deputy showed up at our door with a notice to shut us down, claiming my permit was no longer good.

  I’d been here before, back when someone else was in charge of production. It was a hassle to find a new location, get new permits, and set up production all over again. I was beginning to wonder if it were worth it. I had enough savings to keep me in the chips for more than a year at our current expenses. But every time I thought about telling all the production staff, the actors, the makeup people, and the cameramen that I’d changed my mind, that I didn’t want to continue, I got this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. These people had families to feed, children to clothe. I know what would have happened to me early in my career if the producers had walked away. I didn’t want to do that to someone counting on me to help them feed their family.

  Not to mention the contract that we had that required one more movie in order to fulfill it.

  Too many obligations to just walk away. But too much of a hassle to fulfill those obligations.

  For right now, we were shut down. And I had the weekend to decide what my next move should be.

  I crawled into the bathtub, turning on the jets. I closed my eyes, a sigh slipping from between my lips as the bubbles tore at the tension that had come to live in my shoulders and back. But with my eyes closed, all I could see was the look on Cole’s face when he was telling me to back off of Vincent. And in my head, all I heard was his disapproval of me.

  People had disapproved of me all my life. I was never well behaved enough for my dad. I was never pretty enough for my mom. I was never cooperative enough for my teachers. I was never willing enough to do the down and dirty stuff for the producers I worked for. And when people put two and two together, when they figured out what I did for a living, their disapproval and disgust was impossible to hide. That was the main thing that motivated me to move to the fetish videos, to seek out anonymity. But it was still there. I’d seen it on the faces of the cops Monday morning, on the faces of my neighbors standing out in the parking lot of the studio.

  I hadn’t expected it from Cole. And that made it hurt more.

  I wasn’t above being hurt, either. Not that I would ever let him see it.

  “How about some wine?”

  I opened my eyes to find Vincent standing in the doorway, a bottle of wine in one hand, two glasses in the other.

  “Never thought of you as a wine kind of guy.”

  “I’ll partake in just about anything once.”

  He sat on the edge of the tub and poured the wine, a blood red merlot that I knew from experience was an earthy, almost bitter wine that played games with the taste buds. There were elements of vanilla and cinnamon in it, but also a sort of woody taste, like it’d drawn something from the oak barrels it was aged in. It was one of my favorites.

  “Little sips,” I warned him, as he lifted a glass to his lips. Of course, he didn’t listen and he took a significant gulp. I saw the moment the bitterness touched his tongue, and I nearly laughed.

  “Scotch is much better than this,” he said, sitting it back down.

  “Wine should be savored, not gulped.”

  “Yeah? You take a wine tasting course or something?”

  “No. My stepfather was an amateur sommelier. He used to sit my mom and me down for lessons on wine tasting.”

  Something odd crossed Vincent’s expression. It was a cross of anger and revulsion that I found both shameful and pleasing. I didn’t want him to look at me that way, but I liked that he was angry at what my stepfather had done. At least he didn’t blame me for it, like most people did. Like my mom did.

  He stood and moved the wine bottle and his own glass to the counter. Then he sat back down, moving closer to me.

  “You look exhausted.”

  “I am.”

  He ran his hand over my forehead, brushing my hair back from my face. Then the back of his hand slipped slowly down the side of my face, following the curve of my jaw. I took his hand and kissed his palm.

  “I’m sorry about tonight. I just thought if we got out of the house for a little while, it might help you relax a little.”

  “No. It was fun.”

  “Yeah?” His hand slid slowly over my chin, along my throat, his fingertips dipping under the water to follow the curve of my collarbone. “Amber’s really nice. Not quite what I expected.”

  “What did you expect?”

  A mischievous smile touched his lips. “Cole always had an eye for women who were more adventurous, if you know what I mean.”

  “He was a bit of a playboy?”

  “Yeah. Most definitely. He told me once that his sister wouldn’t talk to him for over a year because he slept with her best friend, then dropped her the next day.”

  “Wow! That’s rude!”

  Vincent laughed. “We’ve all done stupid things like that.”

  “Have you?”

  The movement of his hand paused just as his finger was seeking the valley between my full breasts. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”

  “Like what?”

  He shrugged, his eyes glued to his disappearing hand, watching as he slipped his fingers under one breast, his thumb brushing my nipple as he grasped me, lifting the weight of my breast just slightly.

  “I don’t know if I want to tell you. You might look at me differently.”

  There was amusement dancing in his eyes, but there was a serious lilt to his voice.

  “There first time you set eyes on me, I was jacking a guy off with my feet. I don’t think I’ll think badly of you.”

  He cocked his head slightly. “I once spent a week in a hotel room with th
e sister of one of the guys in my squad. When he found out, he put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger just as Cole knocked him away. The damn thing was empty or else I wouldn’t be here right now. Told me his sister was a virgin—which she wasn’t—and that she was engaged to a guy in another division—which she was. He asked to be transferred the next day.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. I’m not a nice guy.”

  “No. You’ve just done things a nice guy wouldn’t do.”

  “Same thing, isn’t it?”

  His thumb was still playing with my nipple, rolling it around until I had to bite my bottom lip to keep the groan that wanted to escape from doing just that.

  “That guy, Raymond? The one I was doing that scene with on the first day you came to the studio? He’s married to a woman I once considered my closest friend. She stopped talking to me because I lied to her about having done movies with him. Turned out I’d been with him before she was and she couldn’t stand that idea.”

  “It was business.”

  “Yeah, well, she didn’t see it that way.” I closed my eyes and ran my fingers through my damp hair. “We’ve all done things we regret.”

  Vincent’s hand abandoned my breast and began to wander down my belly.

  “When does it stop? When do we stop regretting our actions?”

  “When we become the people we’ve always wanted to be.”

  “And how does that happen?”

  I peeked at him from under my ashes. He was watching me, his eyes slightly hooded as his hand wandered further down the length of my body. I reached down and encouraged his hand to move further south, to touch me in the places that ached for him.

  “When we realize who those people are. When we surround ourselves with the people who can help us get there.”

  “How do you know who those people are?”

  I opened my thighs a little wider as his fingers brushed against my shaved cunt, his fingertips looking for the thin, fragile labia that always seemed to be slipping out, waiting for someone to pay attention to it. It was waiting there again, my clit just beginning to slip out of its little hood. He caught it between two fingers, twirling it around as I again bit my lip, not ready to let him see how wonderful that felt.

  “I don’t know,” I sighed. “I thought I was beginning to find those people, but now I’m not entirely sure.”

  The movement of his fingers slowed for an instant.

  “Quinn—”

  I reached up and pressed a finger to his lips. Then I slid my hand down the length of his arm, pressing his hand closer to my cunt. He got the message. His fingers began to move again, rubbing my clit until the water began to undulate on its own, without the help of the jets. And then his fingers slipped inside of me, the water making them warmer. I groaned, reaching for him, wanting more of him. He leaned close, stealing my lips, kissing me with that intensity that I’d begun to anticipate. He kissed as if every time was the last time. As if he wanted to remember every millimeter of my mouth, every bit of the taste of me. And I could only reciprocate, wanting to do exactly the same. I wanted to remember every second of this for those moments later when he was gone and my body ached for his touch.

  I pulled at his shirt and tugged it up over his head, running my wet fingers over his chest, watching the water drip as he buried his face against my throat, biting at the tender flesh along my neck, my shoulder. His fingers, still inside of me, were making promises that my body was begging for him to keep. I moved my hips, the water sloshing around me. I reached over and hit the button that turned off the jets, my toe flipping up the lock on the drain. The water began to swirl away as I tugged at him, encouraging him to join me. I needed him; I needed him inside of me. I wanted to taste him, to feel him. I wanted to see his orgasm burst in his eyes, the pleasure that only I could give him here, tonight.

  He slowly extracted himself from me, standing to shed his jeans. His eyes never lost mine, even as he struggled with his shoes, struggling to get them to release him and his jeans. But then he was naked, standing in front of me in all his glory. I couldn’t help but allow my eyes to move slowly over the length of him, to study the perfection of his heavy muscles, the bulge of his pecs and his six-pack, the power that was so obvious in his thighs. And that cock, standing up to greet me, thick and heavy, pulsing with the need that went as deep as the blood rushing through his veins. It’d never excited me much, the way the men in the movies I made early in my career showed off their bodies, their hard cocks. But there was something incredibly erotic about Vincent that just the sight of him threatened to push me over an edge.

  I sat up and watched him climb into the shallow water that remained in the tub. The moment he was prone, I moved between his legs, sliding my hands up his thighs. Then I took his cock between my hands, both hands, and stroked him slowly. He leaned back, his eyes closed as he faced the ceiling, a low groan slipping from between his lips.

  I watched him, loving the way his chest heaved with each breath he managed to take in. Then I kissed his inner thigh, making him jump a little.

  “Quinn, you don’t have to…”

  “I want to.”

  I took him into my mouth and heard that little groan turn into a growl. He held his hands close to my head for a long time before he finally buried his fingers in my hair, urging me to take him deeper, to swallow as much of him as I could take. He was making beautiful sounds, his hips beginning to move ever so slightly. And when I pulled back, running my tongue over his sensitive glans, his excitement poured from that beautiful cock, insisting on more. Asking for everything.

  And I was happy to give it.

  I sat up, climbing on top of him, guiding him inside of me. His hands immediately came around me, pulling my hips down hard against his, then sliding upward, touching me with a gentleness that was belied by his obvious need. He wrapped himself around me, bending his knees so that I could lean back just slightly, moving at the perfect angle to bring us both the most pleasure. And then he buried his face against my breasts, his tongue seeking out my nipples, his teeth applying just the right amount of pleasure to create jolts of both pain and pleasure that ran up and down the length of my spine.

  I told myself we were fucking. We were doing things I’d done in front of cameras too many times to count. But this…it felt different. It felt like this was more than the physical pleasure of two bodies coming together. This was more than just the mingling of body parts. This was two people working in tandem, two people who cared more about the other than themselves. This wasn’t just about reaching orgasm, but taking each other to an emotional height, too. This was two broken people finding salvation in each other, finding the thing needed for repair.

  I hated that I felt that way. I knew it would only mean heartbreak sometime down the road. But when I looked into Vincent’s eyes as he held my hips, as he pressed his thumbs to my clit, as he stared into my eyes watching for the telltale signs of my orgasm, I knew this was more. And I knew he felt it, too.

  The wave came, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him close to me, afraid of the moment he would want to pull away. He wrapped his arms around my waist, tugged me hard against his hips, and thrust himself as deep inside of me as he could physically go. He cried out, his mouth pressed to the top of my head. Tears came to my eyes as I felt his pleasure vibrate through me. I wanted to be in that moment for the rest of my life, but the knowledge that this was only going to last a minute longer killed something inside of me.

  It was that damn word again.

  Temporary.

  Chapter 15

  Megan

  “Lab report just came in,” Sam said, setting a file folder in the center of my desk. “You should probably look at it.”

  “This Vincent’s case?”

  “Yeah.”

  I leaned back in my chair, wishing this was the report Dante had promised me he’d have in a matter of days. But that was a little more than a week ago and there was nothing yet. I was
beginning to wonder if he’d been blowing smoke up my ass.

  “Is Hayden around?”

  Sam rolled her eyes. “He’s out there flirting with the girls on monitor duty. Like always.”

  I nodded as I pressed my fingers in my hair, trying to catch my thoughts.

  “What’s the matter?” Sam asked. She knew me so well, she knew whenever there was something on my mind.

  “What do we know about Dante?”

  “Just what we found on the background check when he applied. Why?”

  “Do you think you could do a more thorough search on him? Maybe see if there are a few skeletons that the researchers didn’t find?”

  “Sure. Looking for anything in particular?”

  “I don’t know. He just…there’s something about him, you know?”

  Sam nodded, though she didn’t say anything. Made me wonder if it was all in my head.

  “And send Hayden in. If this says what I think it will, I’m going to need him.”

  “No problem.”

  I opened the folder and began to scan the lab report on the piece of cake Vincent sent over for a toxicology report. But then I realized Sam hadn’t left. She was standing at the door, her head hung low, her hand on the frame as if she was using it to hold herself up. And her face had lost all color.

  I got up and rushed to her, sliding my hand against her back.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  “Yeah. Just a little dizzy.”

  I pulled her back and made her sit down. “Do you want some water?”

  “I’m fine. I just need a minute.”

  “Does this happen a lot?”

  “No. This is like the second time.”

  “You should call your doctor, Sam. That’s not normal.”

  “I’m just tired.” She smiled weakly at me. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping.”

  I squatted down in front of her and took her hands. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Just one of those things.”

  I nodded. “You can’t get sick on me, Sam. I couldn’t do any of this without you.”

  She smiled, a sweet smile this time. “I know.”