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.”
I laughed. “Way to be humble.”
She shrugged, pulling away from me to stand up. “I do what I can. I’ll get Hayden for you.”
“Don’t let him bother you, kid. He’s just a flirt.”
“I know.”
But I knew she had a thing for him. I wanted to intervene, to tell Hayden to be a little nicer to her, but the last time I encouraged a man to ask her out, she panicked and ended up ruining the whole thing. So I kept my mouth shut and hoped the two of them would get over themselves and get things going in the right direction.
She left, and I settled back behind my desk, the lab report spread out in front of me. Rat poison. The woman had put enough rat poison in the peanut butter filling to kill a horse. Two horses, maybe. It was a lot of poison. This woman clearly wanted that poor little girl dead.
What kind of person poisons a ten-year-old kid?
“You wanted me, boss?”
Hayden had this charming way of making people feel like they were the sole focus of his attention. Even though I knew h
e’d flirted with every girl in the building, even though I knew he and Sam had something special building between them, for a second he caught me off guard and made my heart twitter a little in the center of my chest.
“We need to go to Quinn Smith’s house and ruin her day.”
He straightened. “Yeah? What’s going on?”
“We know who her stalker is.”
***
Cole was sitting in his car in front of Quinn’s house when we pulled up. It was Saturday, so he wasn’t on duty today. But I thought it would be best if he was there when I told Quinn what was going on.
“It’s the neighbor?”
I nodded. “I’ve called the local prosecutor. He’s sending over a couple of investigators with a warrant to search the woman’s house.”
“Not the cops?”
“Don’t want to alert her with a lot of fanfare.”
Cole looked up at the house. “What about Olivia?”
“We’ll let Quinn make the call, but I think it might be a good idea if we get her out of here for a few hours. That’s why I called you. You have a rapport with her.”
The three of us—me, Cole, and Hayden—walked up to the front of the house. Vincent yanked the door open, an impressive sight as he dominated the entire doorway.
“What’s going on?”
I held up the report in its file folder. I could see understanding come into his eyes. He glanced over his shoulder, and we could hear laughter coming from the back of the house. I sensed his hesitation. I glanced at Cole, but he wouldn’t meet my eye.
Something was going on here.
Vincent stepped back and let us into the house.
“Olivia! Cole’s here to see you!”
He shot Cole a grateful glance, just as Olivia came running down the long hallway from the back of the house. Quinn followed at a slower pace, a warm, if weary, smile on her face.
“What’s going on?”
“I came to hang out with my friend here,” Cole said, lifting Olivia into his arms. “You want to take me upstairs so we can play with your dolls, kiddo?”
“Sure!”
Olivia didn’t even seem to notice Hayden or me, but Quinn was eyeing us both. Her eyes narrowed as she studied first our faces and then the file folder in my hand.
“Why don’t we go to the kitchen,” Vincent suggested, leading the way like he owned the place. I noticed him slide his hand into Quinn’s as we passed, and that made me wonder what was going on here. Was my asset getting a little too close to his target?
We settled around the small kitchen table and Quinn poured everyone a cup of vanilla coffee. Hayden seemed to enjoy his, taking big gulps of the hot liquid as he walked around the room, checking out the décor, the windows, and the French doors my security team had put in last week. He looked casual, but I recognized the calculated glances, the tension in his shoulders, and the alertness to his eyes. He was checking the place for vulnerabilities.
“We got the lab results on the piece of chocolate cake Vincent sent to the lab,” I began, opening the file folder. “There was a lot of arsenic in the peanut butter filling in the center of the cake.”
Quinn immediately shook her head. “That’s not possible.”
“Only in the filling?” Vincent asked.
I nodded. “Is that significant?”
He glanced at Quinn, but she was still shaking her head as she leaned back, her hand pressed to her mouth.
“Quinn’s allergic to peanuts. This neighbor, Beth, she knew that.”
“There was trace amounts in the cake itself, but not enough to kill anyone.” I studied Quinn. “She didn’t want to hurt you.”
“But she wanted to kill my child.”
Quinn stood and began pacing the room, her hands buried in the front pockets of her shorts. I couldn’t blame her, really. I think I would have been just as incensed if I were her.
“Now we know who it is though,” Vincent said, his tone carefully measured. “That means we can take her down.”
“I invited this woman into my life. I let her pick my kid up at school and spend hours alone with her here in this house. I told her things about myself; I trusted her. I don’t trust easily.”
“She’s obviously obsessed with you,” I said, watching Vincent’s face as he watched Quinn. He clearly wanted to go to her, to talk her down. But he was hesitating, and that told me more than I wanted to know. He was involved with her, maybe even sleeping with her. That was not good.
“Why? And what about all the notes? The destruction of my studio? How did she even know who I was? And why would she attack my studio? Why send those pictures of Olivia? Why break in here?”
“The escalation was probably because she saw Vincent here and she thought you had a boyfriend.”
Vincent shook his head. “She introduced me as her cousin.”
My eyebrows rose.
“I didn’t want Olivia to know,” Quinn explained. “But we ended up having to tell her anyway when Cole started showing up.”
“She must have seen through the lie,” Hayden suggested. “People like that, they’re very suspicious of the people in the lives of their obsession. She probably would have assumed you were lying even if you weren’t.”
He came back into the room and set his coffee mug on the counter. “Is that her house next door?” he asked, jamming a thumb over his shoulder.
Quinn glanced at the windows on the far side of the living room. “Yeah.”
“Her upstairs windows look right down into this room. And probably the rooms right above this one.”
Quinn nodded. “She told me she could look into my living room from her bedroom when we moved in. But it’s never been an issue.”
“Are you sure?”
A soft chuckle that held no humor slipped from her lips. “Right now, I’m not even sure I know my own name.”
The doorbell rang. Quinn stiffened.
“It’s probably the prosecutor’s people,” Hayden announced. “I’ll let them in.”
“Prosecutor?”
“We called the prosecutor instead of the police. I figured we would get more cooperation that way. And we wouldn’t tip off Ms. Harrington with a bunch of police cars in front of the house.”
Quinn nodded, reaching up to press her fingers under her ponytail not unlike the way I did when I was stressed.
She was pretty in a delicate, innocent sort of way. When she told me what she did for a living on our first meeting, I was shocked. She didn’t look like a porn star—not that I knew what the average porn star looked like. She was a natural blond, her hair much lighter than mine, with green eyes that were intensely green, intensely emotional. She carried her emotions in her eyes in the same way Luke told me I did in my shoulders. And she was seriously pissed right now.
That was good. Anger would get her much further than fear.
Hayden came back in the room with three gentlemen in suits. One of them handed me the warrant he carried for the house next door.
“Okay, Quinn,” I said, standing up. “Go upstairs with your daughter and Cole. We’re going to go serve this warrant and see if we can’t end this nightmare for you today.”
She met my gaze, then inclined her head.
“Thank you, Megan.”
I rubbed her arm lightly. “I promised you when you first came to see me that we’d end this for you. That’s what we’re going to do.”
She nodded, her eyes moving to Vincent. He’d stood, too, his arms crossed over his massive chest, his face an unreadable mask. But his eyes didn’t move from her face.
Trouble. I was going to have do something about this. But not now. Now we had an obsessive stalker to put in jail.
Chapter 16
Vincent
I pulled my weapon and followed Hayden out to the alley behind Quinn’s house, watching as he checked over the fence of the neighbor’s yard for any sign of life.
“She’s nice to look at.”
“Who?”
“Quinn.”
I had to be careful to control my expression. The last thing I needed right now was for Megan to find out I was involved with my first client. She’d probably fire me if she found out. Fire me and send me packing out of Houston.
“Is it true that she’s a porn star?” Hayden asked, as he tested the handle on the neighbor’s gate. “I heard a rumor around the office. Everyone envies you, getting to hang out on the set of a porn movie, day in and day out.”
“It’s not as fun as you’d think. It’s actually kind of boring. Lots of down time.”
“Yeah? What about the actual filming? I mean, they don’t stop in the middle of that, do they?”
“No. But they call out direction the whole time. It’s sort of distracting.”
Hayden chuckled. “Yeah. But it must have been quite an experience.”
“Not really.”
I must have let some of the anger that was building in my chest slip out because he shot me a quick look, but then he pulled open the gate and moved out of the way.
“Clear the side yard.”
We moved quietly and carefully through the backyard. There was junk piled up—old rotting furniture and twisted pieces of metal I couldn’t quite identify. I stepped around it, working my way up to the back of the house. Beth’s house wasn’t quite as nice as Quinn’s. It hadn’t been remodeled in years, and the paint was peeling off the wooden boards on this side of the house. The back door was closed, the windows all down. There was no sign of life back here.
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