“If you want me to.”
“Okay.”
She kissed my cheek and tightened her arms around my neck. I carried her to the bed, laying her back down. Quinn came over, leaning down next to me, and kissed Olivia’s cheek before pulling the covers up to her chin.
“Go to sleep, Angel.”
“Good night, Mommy. Good night, Vincent.”
Quinn leaned against the door after we stepped into the hallway, her eyes sliding closed.
“I can’t believe she knows.”
“She doesn’t know details.”
“But she knows enough. She knows I make movies. One day she’ll put two and two together, and she’ll know that her mother had sex for a living.”
I rested my hands on her shoulders. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Quinn. You did it for her. Someday she’ll understand that.”
She nodded, a big sigh slipping from between her lips. “I should get some sleep. We’re filming again in the morning.” She looked up, guilt darkening her eyes. “My last starring role. Another fetish thing with a couple of actors I’ve worked with in the past. And then, after this…production only.”
I knew she was watching for a reaction, that she wanted to know how I felt about her starring in another of those fetish videos after what happened between us last night. I was careful with my reaction, careful that the truth of my feelings didn’t show in my expression.
I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to see her touching another man. But I didn’t have the right to put those restrictions on her. She wasn’t mine.
“Good night, Quinn,” I said softly.
I pressed my lips to her forehead, then turned her and sent her across the landing to her bedroom door. I turned on my heel and shut myself behind the door of her office, leaning against the door in an attempt to catch my breath.
I had no right to put restrictions on anyone. I’d had my great love. Now…Quinn was beautiful and intelligent and strong, but she was her own woman. She didn’t need a man like me in her life.
I began to undress, needing to concentrate on something else. I caught sight of myself in the mirror, of the tattoos that were scattered across my chest. Syd’s name and the date of her death were written above my heart. I remembered the pain of having that done. I remembered how I sat there, thinking I deserved every bit of the pain. The broken ribs and the concussion hadn’t been enough. I deserved so much more.
There were other tattoos. A couple of drunken-on-leave tattoos scattered over my chest—a Chinese symbol, a heart with Syd’s initials in the center, a small dragon—along with the Marine’s emblem on my arm, but that one over my heart was the first and the hardest. I had it done a month after her funeral.
I ran my fingers over it now, like I’d run my fingers over her name on the headstone her parents bought to mark her grave. A part of me still couldn’t believe she was really gone, that she wouldn’t call my phone and tell me it was all a cruel joke.
I shook my head, trying to shake that thought away, but my thoughts were already moving on. I found myself wondering what Quinn had thought last night when she read that name. I wondered if she understood the significance of it—though I was pretty sure she wouldn’t—or if she was jealous that I was branded by another woman. Was it all so temporary to Quinn that she didn’t care? Or was there enough hope inside of her that she allowed herself to wonder?
I didn’t know. She never mentioned it last night. And tonight, she didn’t seem to want me.
But then, as that thought floated through my head, there came a soft knock on the door.
“I can’t,” she said, gesturing at her closed bedroom door. “Knowing that guy was in there…”
I stepped back, gestured for her to come inside her office.
She was wearing these high-cut shorts that left very little to the imagination, the sexy “v” that delineated her ass cheeks and down, lower, separating her thighs, made thoughts slip through my head that were unprofessional. I was here to protect her, but all I wanted to do was roll with her under the sheets until neither of us could move.
And then she turned, watching my face as she lifted her shirt up over her head.
I crossed to her in fewer strides than it took for her to move across the room, grabbed her hips, and pushed her roughly against the wall. I stole her lips and invaded her mouth, taking her with all the need that suddenly burst inside my chest. I tugged at those shorts, yanking the button loose and tearing at the zipper until it slid down of its own accord. I slipped a hand down inside her panties, found that thick, rounded clit, and made her rotate her hips against my hand. She wrapped her arms around my neck, lifting herself up the length of my body so that I had all the space I needed to do what I wanted. And I wanted everything.
I ripped her shorts away, tearing her panties from her body. Then I lifted her up, her legs immediately coming around my waist. She reached down, pulling at my zipper, freeing my cock from the confines of my pants. Her hand moved slowly down the length of me, her thumb brushing the sensitive glans at the head of my cock. And then she pulled me to her, teasing her own cunt, teasing me until I thought I might cry out against her mouth.
I was inside of her—and it was just as perfect as it’d been the night before. So fucking tight! She writhed against me, grinding her clit against the base of my cock. And we rocked, moving hard against each other, her body doing things I’d never experienced. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to taste those perfect lips, but I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t do anything but pound myself against her, feel her body take me in and hold me so tight inside of her. I lost myself in the movement, in the feel of her, in everything about it.
I reached the edge sooner than I intended. Normally a silent lover, these sounds started to escape my lips. Quinn pressed her hand to my mouth, amusement dancing with pleasure in her eyes. She moved her hips, and I was gone. I closed my eyes and lost all control, pinning her to the wall like a tack through a paper poster. She cried out a moment later, her entire body tensing around mine. I could feel the quivers deep in her belly; I could feel her orgasm race through her. And that—the idea that I could make her climax so easily—made mine that much more intense.
My knees grew weak as the adrenaline of the moment began to subside. I carried her to the couch, careful not to trip over my jeans, which were still wrapped around my ankles. We fell at an awkward angle, but she managed to maneuver herself so that she was tucked just right into my arms. I kicked off my jeans and pulled her closer, running my hands over her bare ass as she peppered my chest with tiny kisses.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a time. “I just couldn’t bear the idea of being in there alone.”
“I’m not complaining.”
She laughed softly against my chest. “I don’t suppose you are.”
“Your body feels so good…I could sit here like this all night.”
“Yeah? Even if I did this?”
She wiggled her hips a little, pressing herself down hard against the base of my cock. I groaned, tugging her up a little.
“Give me twenty minutes, then do that again.”
She laughed again, her lips pressed to my skin so that I could feel every puff of her exhalations. I ran my hands over her back, tugging at the clasps on her bra. In my hurry, I hadn’t bothered to remove it. But now…her breasts fit so perfectly in my hands. I couldn’t believe I’d never seen the joy of being with a full-breasted woman. I’d always been drawn to women with just a wine glass full, but this…now I got some of the comments my companions in the military had made over the years.
She started to nibble at my throat, and then she found my mouth, sliding her lips over mine until I couldn’t wait. I grabbed her bottom lip with my teeth, drawing it into my mouth, running my tongue over the tender flesh.
“Maybe I won’t need the full twenty minutes,” I whispered against her mouth.
She pulled back just enough so that she could see my face. “I’ve never done anything like th
is before,” she said. “Never been with someone I chose myself, never lingered afterward, never felt truly wanted.”
“That’s a shame.” I pushed her hair away from her face and pressed my forehead to hers. “Every woman should be cherished.”
She kissed me, her lips lingering against mine. But then her fingers moved to my chest, to trace the name permanently affixed there.
“Who was she?”
I know I tensed a little. She sat up, her hand moving from Sydney’s name to the side of my face.
“We all have darkness in our pasts. I assume she’s yours, the reason why you distance yourself from people.”
“Do I do that?”
“Yeah, you do. You barely said two words to me when we first met.”
“I thought I was getting better about that.”
I took hold of her ass again, tugging her tight against my hips, burying my partially erect cock deeper inside of her. She closed her eyes and sighed, rotating her head on her neck like she could hardly stand the pleasure. I pressed my face between her breasts, taking a deep breath of the sweet scent of her skin.
“You feel so good,” she whispered.
“There’s no words for how good you feel.”
She focused on me again, her hand moving with such affection over my face that I almost wanted to push her away, to disappear behind the walls Sydney always said I loved to build around myself.
“Did you love her?”
I groaned. “Why does it matter?”
“I want to know about you. You know all there is to know about me.”
She was right, but I hadn’t talked about Syd to anyone in a long time. Girls had asked—it seemed like a requirement, that discussion about tattoos every time you’re with someone new—but I always found a way to reflect their curiosity. Only Cole, outside of the people who were there when it happened, knew the truth. But even he didn’t know everything.
“If it’s an intrusion—”
“No, Quinn. I just…it’s not something I like talking about.”
“Okay.”
But I could see the hurt in her eyes. I could feel her drawing away even though her body didn’t move. I pressed my face against her chest again, taking a deep breath. Then I lifted her; I needed her not to be so intimately tangled with my body during this discussion. I set her on the cushion beside me so that we were still close, but not so close that it felt more intimate than our nudity made it.
“We met in high school,” I said after a minute. “She went to a private school up the road from my public school and we had some mutual friends. We used to have these parties every weekend at the beach, and she came to one.”
I hesitated, the memory of that first meeting bursting through my mind. Seeing her standing by the bonfire, wearing jeans and a sweater to a beach party on a September evening—she stood out among the bikinis and shorts. But she stood out for more than just that. She was probably the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.
“I was a sophomore—just beginning my sophomore year—but I thought I was so grown up. I walked up to her, all full of charm, and she laughed at everything I had to say. But then we found ourselves alone, walking along the shore, and she managed to get me to be a little more serious. And that was that. We were together every weekend after that.”
“A high school romance.”
“Yeah. It started out that way, but we were together a long time. All through high school and into college. Just under six years.”
“That’s a long time.”
I nodded, remembering the way Sydney looked when she came walking through security that last time at the airport. She looked so sophisticated, a woman of the world, while I was standing there in the coveralls I wore to work in my father’s mechanic’s shop, grease under my fingernails. But she was so happy to see me, running across the corridor to jump into my arms. That was a feeling like no other, the feeling that I was the only person in the world who mattered to her.
“We talked about getting married. She had our lives all planned out. She was going to become a lawyer, then we would get married, have three kids—two girls and a boy. Then we’d grow old together, the whole sitting-on-the-porch-in-our-rocking-chairs fairy tale.”
“Then what happened?”
I sat forward a little, running my hands over my head as that night unrolled through my mind, a memory that would never let me rest, that always visited me in my sleep.
“There was another of those parties. It was the beginning of summer, and everyone was home from college or whatever they were doing during the winter. There was too much booze—a keg and bottles of whiskey and bourbon making the rounds. Sydney drank more than I’d ever seen her do before. When I told her it was time to cut it out, that we should go home, she got angry with me. We argued, and she told me that she’d cheated on me, that there’d been this guy and she was lonely…” I twisted my head to look at Quinn. “Her parents think that’s why things happened like they did.”
“What happened?”
“She took my keys and got behind the wheel. I tried to stop her, but she refused to get out of the car. So I got into the passenger seat to try to talk her down, to convince her to pull over. She started to cry, telling me it didn’t mean anything, that she regretted it the moment it was over. I tried to tell her that I didn’t care, that she came home to me and that was all that mattered. But then we’re driving down this road with all these curves and she’s going a little too fast. She’s about to miss this one curve, not pulling the wheel over far enough. I reached over, instinctively, and grabbed the wheel, trying to correct the truck’s trajectory. But I pulled too hard, or she turned the wheel at the same time…I don’t know how it happened, but we plowed into a tree.”
Quinn was quiet, her knees pulled up to her chest to hide her nudity. She touched my arm, but recoiled when I stiffened.
“She didn’t have her seatbelt on. She slammed into the windshield. Massive brain damage. She was in a coma for a week, but then her parents had her taken off life support. They wouldn’t allow me near her.”
“I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “The cops ruled it an accident, but her father was good friends with the prosecutors, and they brought charges. The judge gave me a choice: prison or the military. Her parents were incensed. It was an unusual option for a judge to offer to a defendant as old as I was, but it was all to the judge’s discretion. Sydney’s mother told me that she hoped I was killed in combat. It was the only thing that got her out of bed in the mornings.”
“That’s terrible!”
“They blackballed my father’s garage and made it impossible for him to make a living. He had to close it and move the family to Los Angeles to work in his brother’s bodega. My younger sister got in trouble almost as soon as they arrived, spent time in juvie. My older sister taught school at the local elementary school. So many parents complained, they had to let her go. She ended up moving to Los Angeles, too, forced to make a new start. My friends all disappeared. I wanted to go to jail. I wanted to serve my time, but my parents had already been humiliated enough. So it was the military.”
I sighed, running my hands over my skull again. “They blame me. They say that I was jealous, that she wanted to break up with me, so I turned the wheel intentionally in an attempt to kill us both. But I had my seatbelt on. I only broke a few ribs and had a slight concussion from hitting my head on the dashboard. They say it was because I was drunk. But my blood alcohol level was two times less than Syd’s.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“But wasn’t it?”
Quinn moved closer to me, raising up on her knees and rubbing at my shoulders.
“You tried to stop her. You tried to keep her from running off the other side of the road. That’s why they call these things an accident. Blaming you is like blaming me for what my stepfather did to me.”
“There is no comparison,” I said, twisting to pull her against my chest. She came, willingly, curling up in my l
ap.
“You’re a good man, Vincent. One second of your life shouldn’t define it.”
I pressed my face against her throat, her words reverberating through my head. I wasn’t sure she was right, but I wasn’t sure she was wrong. All I knew was that I’d carried this burden for so long, I didn’t know who I was without it. But I was willing to learn.
I kissed her, roughly, wanting to possess every inch of her all at once. She responded, wrapping herself around me, kissing me back in a way that no one—not even Sydney—had ever done.
The past was the past. I was ready to move on.
Chapter 11
Megan
Dante leaned forward in his chair, his hands clasped in front of him. It was a gesture Luke used to do, one that drove me nuts because it was a father-giving-a-lecture sort of gesture and he wasn’t my father.
“We checked out everyone on the list you gave us. A few of them have been arrested for various things, mostly drugs. One for lewd behavior. Another for drunk driving. But none of them have ever been accused of stalking. And most of them don’t seem to show an inordinate amount of interest in our target.”
“What about the actor Vincent told us about? The one she fired from her movie?”
“Dicky Hump?” Dante snickered a little. “He’s been in rehab since that day. And he’ll probably be in rehab when we find the guy doing this.”
“Vincent told me that she had some trouble with the people who held her contract back in Austin. Anything there?”
Dante glanced at Hayden where he was leaning against the door, his ankles crossed.
“There’s no love there. But our target’s a smart girl. She got them to sign some paper that keeps them from revealing her true identity for fifty years. If anyone could prove that they were behind something like this, they would have to sign over every asset they ever thought of owning to her. Neither one of them is that stupid.”
“What about support staff? Production people she worked with in Austin?”
“It’s a tight-knit community. Everyone I talked to was pretty shocked that anyone put two and two together and got Quinn Smith. They know how careful she was about her identity—refusing to show her face on camera, careful to always hide any identifying marks on her body, never going to any of these meet-and-greet conventions that a lot of porn stars like to attend these days. None of them can imagine how her real identity got out. And, as far as any them being our possible stalker, they all have an alibi for Friday morning. They were all working on this new movie for our target’s former bosses.”
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