DRAGON SECURITY: The Complete 6 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  “He put her in the home six months before he disappeared,” I added.

  Dominic nodded. “Sam thought he was still around.”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “Where?” Hayden asked.

  I shook my head, even as the memory of Honeysuckle Nursing Home’s number appearing on Dante’s phone crossed my mind.

  What were the chances that the two men in my life would have chosen the same nursing home for their loved ones?

  What were the chances that I’d been sleeping with my fiancé for weeks and didn’t know it? Wouldn’t I know Luke’s body? Wouldn’t my heart know his touch?

  I was beginning to wonder if I knew anything at all.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said suddenly, standing as the room seemed to close in around me. “You guys stay here and go over the rest of Emily’s notes. Then meet me back at the office when you’re done.”

  “Megan.”

  Hayden followed me and grabbed my arm halfway through the living room. I turned and looked up at him. I saw the pain clearly in his eyes. It must have been horrifying being in this condo again. My memories of Sam stretched back more than a decade. His were new. Fresh. It must have been incredibly hard.

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  I snorted, my eyes swimming with unshed tears. “I don’t think any of us will ever be okay again. We’ll just have to find a different way of getting on.”

  He touched the side of my face as he pulled me into him. “You’re not alone, Megan.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t go running off trying to solve all this on your own. If anything happened to you…”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He nodded after he stared into my eyes for a long moment.

  “I made a promise. I won’t break it.”

  I inclined my head slightly. He’d mentioned his promise to Sam to me before. He promised her that he would take care of me, and that he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. But Hayden was barely holding on. We were both falling apart, but we were falling into each other so that it wasn’t so obvious.

  I kissed his cheek lightly, and then pulled away, leaving that place before the memories could drown me.

  I got into my car and drove away, rushing to the highway before I could change my mind.

  Dante and I had been sleeping together for weeks, but he’d always come to my house. I’d never been to his. I wasn’t even sure where his home was until I looked up the address a little more than an hour ago in his employee records. He had a small house in a questionable part of town, not far from where Luke and his mother lived when we were kids. My father saw their house one Saturday when he went to pick up Mrs. Murphy—she was the family housekeeper/cook/babysitter when I was a kid—to help Momma at a party, and he immediately insisted they move into the apartment over our garage. Mrs. Murphy was proud, though. She refused to move.

  I needed to talk to Dante. All these comparisons to Luke—it was starting to drive me a little nutty. Sam had been convinced, but I couldn’t make myself believe that Luke would be here, right under my nose, and not tell me. Why not tell me? Who was I going to tell? I would never do anything to compromise his safety. He knew that. If he was really Luke, he would have said something to me by now.

  Sam was wrong. As much as I loved her, and as much as her evidence pointed in the right direction, she was wrong. There was no other truth there.

  I parked on the street a few houses down, not sure if Dante was home or if he was at the office. I hadn’t bothered to monitor where he’d gone when he left my office.

  The house appeared deserted. I walked boldly up to the front door and pulled the set of lock picks from my purse that Luke once gave me as a gift. It was meant to be a joke when I first opened Dragon, but they’d come in handy more often than I ever imagined they would.

  I glanced over my shoulder, thinking I probably looked guilty just by doing that. Then I carefully worked the picks until first the deadbolt and then the thumb lock in the doorknob opened. I let myself in, immediately surrounded by Dante’s smell. It was warm and masculine and it reminded me of Luke. Everything about Dante reminded me of Luke. It was because I missed Luke. I missed everything about what we were and what we were supposed to be. I was still in love with Luke and with the life we were planning. Dante was just a substitute.

  I knew this. Yet…

  It was a small house. The living room into which the front door opened was about as big as the smallest bedroom in my house. There was a couch, a television, and very little else. The kitchen was to the left, a narrow galley kitchen that was all appliances and little counter space. It was immaculate, not a crumb out of place. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom at the back of the house. He had a scattering of toiletries in the bathroom, cheap cologne and a couple of disposable razors. There was a familiar brand of shampoo in the shower, but it was common enough that it didn’t necessarily mean anything that both Luke and Dante chose to use it.

  The master bedroom was as sparsely decorated as the living room. There was a queen-size bed that was unmade, and the single blanket and sheet were falling off the side. The closet door was broken, stuck in a partially open position. I could see jeans and shirts hanging behind it, familiar brands and styles. The low dresser held underwear that was also familiar, but only because I’d seen it on his tight ass every time he came to my house.

  There was nothing to find here.

  I started to go, but the closed door to the spare bedroom caught my attention. Why was it closed? All the other doors in the house were open.

  I walked down the narrow hall and stared at the wood door as though I could look through it and see what was beyond. For some reason, my heart was suddenly in my throat.

  I was being stupid. There wouldn’t be anything beyond this door. Maybe there were a few boxes from Dante’s life in New York. A cop’s uniform hanging in the closet from his former career, or maybe a few receipts from the nursing home where he paid for a former friend to be cared for after a shooting. Nothing more.

  When I opened the door, there were remnants from a former life. But it wasn’t the New York City cop’s life that I expected. It was Luke’s.

  Pictures of us were pinned to the wall: pictures of his senior prom, of my senior prom, my high school graduation, me in my Marine uniform, and pictures of me on the beach in Galveston. There were pictures of my brothers, my parents, and of his mother—pictures that didn’t belong here.

  There were photo albums and high school yearbooks, along with some of the many scrapbooks his mother had created over the years. There was a teddy bear I'd given him when I was fifteen and he was seventeen, and it had seemed like the best gift I could give to the love of my life. There was a little jar of sand from Galveston. There were seashells and souvenirs from the places all over the world where he’d been stationed when he was in the Navy. There were things that I knew as well as I knew my own face in the mirror.

  Seeing these things here hit me like a sucker punch to the stomach.

  I doubled over, not sure how much more my heart could take. My knees started to buckle and I fell to the floor, pain bursting through my legs that was nowhere near as painful as that which burst through my heart.

  No, no, no! I don’t understand!

  Tears began to well in my eyes, but it was as if I’d already cried too much. They wouldn’t fall and offer relief. It was like snow falling in the desert. It was gone before it even touched the ground.

  I don’t know how long I sat there as my stomach cramped as I struggled to breathe. I was so lost in my own hurt, my own grief, that I didn’t hear him come in. But his hands were on me, pulling me to my feet with a touch on my upper arms.

  “Megan,” he whispered softly against my ear.

  I turned, my hands moving over the still unfamiliar angles of his jaw and chin. I missed the narrowness of his face. It was Luke, the man I’d known all my life. It was the face of the only man I loved or would ever l
ove.

  He was Dante. But he was Luke.

  How could I have ever have doubted that those eyes belonged to my Luke?

  I kissed him, my arms sliding around his neck, pulling him as close to me as I could. My Luke. He’d always been my Luke.

  He picked me up and carried me back to that sparse bedroom, his hands slipping under the tight confines of my pencil skirt, his hands searching for things that belonged only to him. I pulled at his shirt, yanking it over his head, my fingers running down the length of his back. How could I have not recognized these muscles, or known each and every bump in his spine? How could I not know the shape of his thighs and the power in his arms?

  How could I have not known his kiss?

  What a perfect codename I’d chosen for him, not even realizing the truth. Or maybe I had known, maybe deep down it was my way of admitting it to—or hiding it from—myself. Ouzel—the water bird known for its deceptive ways.

  He kissed me roughly, his hands moving over my face, pressing my hair back away from my face. His hands were moving over me, memorizing me as I’d done with him so many times in the past. But my memory didn’t hold up. Would his?

  He unbuttoned the front of my blouse and tugged it open, his eyes following the motion of his hand as he slowly slipped it over the curve of my breast. He watched as his hand pressed itself to the center of my chest, feeling the hard beat of my heart. He touched me so gently that his touch might not have been there, but it was, hot and steady as his fingers moved down the center of my belly. He watched, almost as though he were detached from his own body and the movement of his own hands. But then his eyes came up to me as he forced his hand under the waistband of my skirt, his fingers searching out the center of me, the place that screamed for his touch—that needed his touch.

  I closed my eyes as the memories washed over me. The first time he kissed me. The first time he touched my breasts—he was so startled that I let him that he jerked his hand away and laughed. The first time we saw each other, lying in the middle of the afternoon on his bed. The first time his touch showed me just how much pleasure waited for me.

  All my firsts were with this man. He was everything to me.

  I rolled into him, catching him off balance as I pushed him back against the mattress. I climbed on top of him, saddling him like he was a sexy, erotic horse made just to please me. I ran my hands down his chest, my gaze lingering on those tattoos that I now know were designed to cover up the letters of a line from Dante’s Inferno that Luke had etched there when we were about to part for the first time.

  Remember tonight…for it is the beginning of always.

  Instead of those words, there was now a set of angel wings, a skull and crossbones, and a tree that was partially alive, partially dying. I ran my fingers around them, picturing where the letters would be.

  “It can be fixed,” he said softly, lifting my hand to kiss my palm.

  I shook my head. “This…it’s appropriate.”

  My eyes lifted slowly to his face. It was strange looking at that face, knowing what used to be there, what should be there.

  “How did I ever allow myself to believe it wasn’t you?”

  I leaned close to him and kissed his full lips, nibbling at the bottom one, the one that always seemed to be a little swollen. He groaned as I drew it between my teeth, and then again as I did that thing that always seemed to drive him out of his mind—my tongue playing a lovely game across that tender flesh. Then I kissed that misshapen chin and the soft flesh of his throat. My hands moved far ahead of the rest of me, tugging at the heavy button holding the heavy denim of his jeans together.

  I drew him out, played with him between my hands even as I continued to kiss his throat, his lips. He groaned, moving his hips in an attempt to encourage me to give him what he really wanted. I knew what he wanted. I’d always known.

  Tired of the game, he sat up and pulled me hard into his lap. He yanked up my skirt and tore my panties away, his eyes—those perfect, dark eyes—focused on nothing more than my own eyes. I smiled softly as I pulled him against my pussy. I pressed him against me, but refused to allow him to enter.

  “Baby…”

  He groaned against my ear, his fingers twisted in my hair now. I smiled, loving the control I had over him. I moved my hips and pressed against him, making a promise that he knew I would fulfill. Eventually. He kissed me. Roughly. There was need in that kiss that far outweighed everything else between us. And I returned it with just as much need. I wanted him inside of me. I wanted to pull him in and keep him there where he couldn’t leave me again. I needed to hold on to the promises he’d made to me years ago, and I refused to let him renege on them again.

  I pushed him down again, reached behind my body and tugged down the zipper that allowed my skirt to just slip free of my body. Then I released my breasts, slipped the bra from my body and let it fall onto the bed beside us. Luke reached up to touch me, but I slapped his hands away, forcing him to take in everything I was offering him. The same need I’d felt in his kiss was there in his eyes, burning like a fire on a cold winter night. I smiled softly as I took him into my hands, ran my palm along the underside of his shaft, and then drew him close to me, letting his head kiss my lips. He groaned. His eyes half closed as he struggled to stay with me, to watch me.

  When I finally pulled him inside of me, a scream jumped into my throat. I held it back, but I couldn’t hold back the sigh of pleasure that rushed through me.

  We moved together in a rhythm that was born of a knowledge, a shared past, that would never truly disappear. The feel of him inside of me, the comforting stretch of his width, was so familiar, not just from the time we’d spent together while he masqueraded as Dante, but before that. It was almost as if my body was made for his and his was made for mine. When we were together like this, I couldn’t imagine anything better. There could never be anyone else out there for me.

  He watched me for a time, his hands moving over my thighs. But then he grabbed me by the hips and rolled me over onto the mattress beneath him, rising slightly on his hands so that he could deepen his thrusts, so that he could fill me more completely, more intensely, with every movement. I held onto his arms and moaned with every thrust, my eyes closed, the knowledge that this was my Luke making the moment that much more sensual, that much more perfect.

  I came, my lower belly feeling as though it was exploding. I cried out as I wrapped my legs around his waist. And then he exploded, filling me as we rolled together, hanging on to each other as though our lives depended on it.

  It was a few minutes before I returned to myself and became fully conscious of what was happening around me. I dragged my lips along his throat as he held me, wrapped himself around me and pulled me with him as he fell onto his side.

  “I love you, Megan,” he whispered against the top of my head.

  I moved into him and rested my head against his chest. I wasn’t ready to talk just yet. I only wanted to lie in his arms and reveal in the reality that Luke was back. I’d worry about the lies and the secrets later.

  Chapter 4

  Hayden

  I studied the words on the computer screen, and I almost couldn’t believe what I was reading.

  “They were using those people. They were putting all their lives in danger!”

  “They were.”

  Dominic clicked the page and moved to the next one. It was unbelievable. This information…

  “No wonder they killed her. If this got out, a lot of careers would be ruined.”

  Dominic tapped the screen with the tip of his finger. “This is one of the guys Emily and I were involved with in Paris. He was on the periphery, someone the others mentioned several times but never really introduced to us. I thought at the time that he was one of the organizers. But in these notes, Emily thinks he’s CIA.”

  “Karel Layfette?”

  “Yeah. He’s a businessman over there. A man with a lot of influence.”

  I shook my head. “Do you
think he even knows what the CIA was doing to him?”

  “I think he’s a political radical that the CIA was taking advantage of.”

  “Do you think anyone knows just how deep these files go?”

  Dominic sat back and rubbed his eyes. “No. But I think I should probably get my wife out of the state. Maybe even out of the country.”

  “What about Megan?”

  Dominic looked sharply at me. “She’s the first one they’ll come after if they realize that we have these. I’m surprised they didn’t keep coming after Amy and me. I mean, how could they know that we didn’t still have these files and that we weren’t still a danger to them?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and studied his face. “You’re right. How did they know? If they killed Emily because of this file, they had to know that either you or her sister still had the file. Why didn’t they send someone else after you when that guy was dead?” I glanced at the computer monitors and the information that was just there for the taking.

  “A mole.”

  Dominic stood up, grabbing the water bottle he’d stolen from the kitchen. “What do you mean?” he asked before taking a long gulp.

  “I mean someone had to have told them about the virus. Someone had to have let them know that the files were corrupted and it was unlikely that anyone would be able to save them.”

  “Who would tell them that?”

  “The one who did it.”

  I was suddenly excited and more than convinced that I was right. I pushed away from the desk and began to pace into this room that belonged to Sam. I’d spent several nights in this room, coaxing her away from these files and back up to the bed we hadn’t shared nearly long enough.

  “Sam was convinced that someone had put a virus on Peter’s hard drive, aware that she would hook it up to her computer at the office in her attempts to clean it up. She was convinced that the same person was in the office the evening that Megan, Sam, and I were discussing the file, trying to understand the overwhelming amount of information. It was just as she was about to find out why Luke Murphy’s name was on that list of people connected to the terrorist cell when the virus activated.”