DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  I shuttered as the memories slid through my mind, poured myself a stiff drink and tried to wipe it all away. Sometimes I just needed a taste of oblivion.

  I don’t know how long I sat there alone. I know the bottle was empty when I lifted it again to pour more into my glass. I got up and stumbled a little as I headed toward the door, intent on finding my way to Megan’s office. She hid the good stuff in a cabinet in her office, the stuff she served to the late night clients who were used to that kind of thing. But before I could get the elevator to open its stubborn doors, Waverly wandered out of her office.

  “Hayden! I thought you were at the party.”

  “Was. Now I’m here.”

  She tilted her head slightly, her eyes moving slowly over my face. “Are you drunk?”

  “What was your first clue?” I held up the empty bottle of booze. “It’s Saturday. I’m allowed.”

  She nodded. “You are.”

  I leaned against the wall, watching as she walked down the hall toward the copy room. She was opening a file folder, probably information on some case that an operative was waiting impatiently to receive. She was wearing a skirt, even today, that floated like a cloud around her thighs as she moved. She had great legs. Long and slender, the kind of legs that fashion models kill themselves to have. She might have been a model herself if she’d ever had that sort of aspiration. She had great hips and a lovely ass.

  “Why are you here?” I called to her.

  She turned, regarding me from down the hall. “I had work to do.”

  “No, not today. At all.”

  She frowned. “Because Megan offered me a great job.”

  “You could have worked anywhere else. Why did you have to come here?”

  “I like it here.”

  “You can’t replace her, you know.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  “Who?”

  The confused look on her face bothered me both because I knew I was being cruel and because that damn guilt was nagging at me again. I wanted this woman. And I shouldn’t. My heart would always belong to another. So should my body.

  “Sam. Sam’s not replaceable.”

  Waverly frowned. “Hayden, you’re drunk and you’re not making a lot of sense.”

  “I’m making perfect sense. I don’t want you here. I don’t want to be reminded every time I look in your office that you’re here and she’s not.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She turned away and disappeared into the copy room. I should have just gotten on the elevator—if the damn thing would open!—and left the whole thing alone. But I didn’t. I marched down that hallway and burst into the copy room.

  “You can’t just dismiss someone like that!”

  She didn’t even look up. “You’re drunk. I make it a policy not to deal with people when they’re incapacitated.”

  “Why not? Afraid of what you might be tempted to do?”

  “Afraid of what you might do.”

  “Me?” I scoffed. “I wouldn’t hurt a fucking fly.”

  Raised conservatively, Sam never cursed. I didn’t curse around her, out of respect. Cursing in front of Waverly was utterly disrespectful, even though in a security firm populated by former military personnel it was pretty much expected.

  “Then you can go see to your business and I can deal with mine.”

  “I don’t want you here.”

  She looked at me then, confusion in her eyes. And hurt, dammit. Hurt that I’d put there. “Why not?”

  “You’re not her.”

  “I’m sorry for that,” she said, turning back to her business, “but that can’t be helped.”

  “And you’re fucking beautiful. You make it difficult for me to concentrate.”

  I thought I saw her smile, but her face was turned away so I wasn’t quite sure if she had.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “You could have any woman you want. Why would someone like me bother you?”

  I was quiet for a moment. Sam had said something very similar once. I couldn’t answer her then, and I couldn’t answer Waverly now. I didn’t know what drew me to these women. I just knew that I was bothered by seeing her in the office that should have been Sam’s. And the fact that she wouldn’t look at me really bothered me.

  I crossed to her and grabbed her arm, forcing her to turn toward me.

  Cursing at a woman … now manhandling her. What am I becoming? I died when Sam died. The man left behind … this is all that remains.

  Waverly’s lips softly parted, her head tilted, and it took my breath away. There’d been few women since Sam, one-night stands that hadn’t really meant much. None that made my lungs freeze in my chest and my heart skip a beat.

  “Hayden,” she said softly, my name making her thick bottom lip do this thing, this little quiver that just made the whole thing so much more complicated.

  “Don’t.”

  I let her go, turning on my heel. I wasn’t more than a foot or two away when she grabbed my arm and slid around my body to stand too close in front of me. She smelled like fresh linen, like clothes that had just come out of the dryer. And that spark in her eyes made my balls tighten, my throat constrict, my belly become rock hard.

  “Don’t do this.” It was a warning more to myself than to her.

  She didn’t listen. She pressed her body up against mine, her hand slipping over my chest.

  What was I supposed to do?

  I kissed her. It was all I had to do to lose all ability to control myself, to remember that this was an employee in the firm of which I was an executive. I kissed her as if I was a single man in the bathroom of some crowded bar, kissing the pretty girl he’d been flirting with all night. I kissed her like the hero always kissed the heroine in some action flick while they were on the run from some danger.

  Only my heroine didn’t escape the danger. I didn’t save her. I’m no hero.

  Almost angrily, I grabbed Waverly’s arms and moved her around to a table pressed up against the far wall. She fell back a little when her thighs hit the edge, forcing her to brace her hands on the table surface. Her chest was thrust up toward me, her full breasts pressed against my chest.

  I’m sorry, Sam.

  It only took a single finger tucked under the top edge of her blouse to pull the buttons loose, one at a time, exposing those beautiful breasts in their lace bra. I broke our kiss to run my tongue along the edge of her throat, to tug one nipple up between my teeth. She sighed, her fingers running through my hair.

  My mouth found hers again as her fingers began tugging at the front of my slacks. I pressed my hands under her skirt and pulled on her panties, relieved when she lifted her hips and allowed me to pull them free. She was touching me, her hand wrapped around my shaft, tugging and pulling in a way that told me she’d done this a few times before. When I pulled back to remove her panties, I saw a smile on her face that told me even more. This woman knew she was driving me crazy, knew that her touch was pushing me over an edge.

  I was inside of her quicker than I’d intended, filling her with everything I had to give. She wrapped her legs around my waist, tugging me even closer, her fingers digging into my shirt, into the flesh underneath. She was quiet, only our shared breathing filling the room with sound.

  I’d never been with a woman as quiet as she was; I’d never been with a woman as willing to participate as she was. And I’d never been with a woman since Sam whose face I didn’t see when I came. I knew who I would see this time, too, as Waverly’s body moved against me so well that I didn’t have to do anything, and that was a new experience all in itself. I was used to being in control, used to being the dominant partner.

  I kissed her again, lost in the feel of her, loving the way her tongue played with mine. But then she pulled away to press her mouth against my shoulder. I could feel tension building in her body; I felt her movements change. I began to thrust, moving almost roughly against her, banging th
e table against the wall with a constant crash.

  I knew she was coming; I could feel it in the tension of her body, in the way she bit down on my shoulder through the material of my shirt. But still she didn’t make a sound. Instead, she held her breath, her eyes rolling back in her head as she pulled away from me. Pleasure was written all over her gorgeous face.

  I lost it then, joining in her orgasm with one of my own. It burst through me with an intensity that made my knees go weak for an instant. I leaned forward looking into her eyes and froze. I didn’t see Sam. I saw Waverly.

  Assuming the shockwaves rocking through my body were the aftermath of orgasm, Waverly fell back, lying across the table, her legs still wrapped around me, her hands pressed against my shoulders to help support me. When the moment passed, I found her watching me with this glint of curiosity in her eyes.

  She could read me well, but even Waverly couldn’t know what I was thinking. What I was still seeing, as I looked down into her lovely face. Her face. Not Sam’s.

  The betrayal was complete. My throat closed up and I frantically pulled away, untangling myself from her limbs quite unceremoniously.

  I fixed my clothes and started to walk away, but something compelled me to look back. Waverly was watching me from the desk, her eyes sad and dimmed. She knew it could never be her, as much as I knew that her feelings ran deep for me.

  I wanted to tell her I was sorry, but I had no words left.

  “It’s okay,” Waverly said softly. “I get it.”

  Shaking my head, I stumbled from the office.

  I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Waverly. Sam! I mean, Sam. I’m sorry, Sam. God, I am so sorry, for everything.

  Confusion and remorse drove me back to the bottle for the second time that day.

  Chapter 19

  Peter

  I caught up with Heather halfway across the parking lot. She was walking in heels—unfamiliar heels—her ankles turning every other step. Just as I was about to catch up with her she stopped, leaned against a Bentley, and removed the shoes.

  “Won’t you let me explain?”

  She didn’t acknowledge me. She kept walking even though the crushed gravel in the asphalt must have hurt. I had to jog to catch up to her.

  “Please, Heather. Let me explain.”

  “Let you explain?” She turned on me, fire bursting from her eyes so intently that I almost wished I hadn’t followed her out there. “You’ve had weeks to tell me this stuff. You had the last three days! All those pictures around your house. I should have known. But you could have told me!”

  “Why are you so angry about this? It’s not like I share custody of him. He lives with his mom and dad!”

  “Because you lied to me!” She smacked me hard against the chest. “You made me believe that the two of us had a future! That you wanted me and not just this kid. But now I know the truth, don’t I? You lost your little boy, so you’re looking to replace him with my kid!” She shook her head. “If you really think you’re taking my baby away from me, you have another damn thing coming!”

  She tried to pull away, to continue her angry march across the parking lot, but I grabbed her arm just as she tried to go.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you wanted to hire a surrogate. I know that you were just looking for a girl to have your kid.”

  She spit the words out as if they tasted bad on her tongue. I frowned, not sure how she could know that. But I knew it was time that all the truth came out.

  “Give me an hour,” I said softly. “Come back to the house, hear me out. And then if you still want to leave, I’ll pay for your plane ticket.”

  She started to shake her head, but something changed her mind. She studied my face, my eyes, her arms crossed.

  “You’ll let me go?”

  “If it’s what you want.”

  She hesitated a moment longer, but then she slowly nodded. “Okay.”

  It was one of the tensest drives I’d ever taken. I tried to figure out what I would say to her when we got to the house, but I kept coming up blank. I just … I was just glad that she’d agreed to come home with me. It showed that she was still interested in hearing what I had to say.

  She walked stiffly ahead of me as we went into the house, leading the way to the living room. I glanced at the couch, trying not to remember what we’d done there just a few days before. Now was not the time to think about that sort of thing.

  She sat on a straight-backed chair, her body stiff. She wouldn’t look at me; she wouldn’t look at much of anything but her hands clutched in her lap.

  I pulled up a chair and perched on the edge in front of her.

  “I’m not even sure where to start.”

  “The beginning would be good.”

  I inclined my head slightly. She was speaking. That had to be a good sign.

  “The beginning is a little muddled. I guess it started when I got out of college. I was a business major at Stanford and engaged to an art major. But she thought monogamy was more of a theory than a practice. I came home sans fiancée and settled in to work for my father. The plan had always been that I would work my way up the chain of command and take over when he was ready to retire.

  Seven years ago, I had become the head of software development, creating and overseeing the creation of software used on our cell phones and other phone-based technologies. We had developed this new software to use as a sort of operating system on a new phone we planned to release the following year.

  I learned through an outside party that someone in our company was selling the software without a license to a group in Huntsville, who were using it on their own cellphones. Instead of going to the police, I decided to investigate the rumors myself.”

  I dragged my fingers through my hair, remembering how that had gone. Kurt Sanchez had tortured me in high school. When I ran into him at a convention and then he called me up out of the blue, inviting me to lunch, I was suspicious. I had to take his warning with a grain of salt. But he was right. Someone was stealing my creation, and I needed to find out who it was.

  Turned out it wasn’t the seller that was the issue. It was the buyer.

  “I drove to Huntsville multiple times, watching this company that I was told was behind the purchase of the software. I needed to know as much about them as I could in order to figure out what they were using it for. There was this diner between here and there, a small town place that was always quiet, always ideal for sitting alone to think through what I knew.”

  I straightened a little, remembering those nights.

  “Amber worked there. She would come sit with me sometimes and we’d talk about everything from the weather to great literature.” I smiled softly, remembering how excited she was to have someone willing to discuss some of those things with her.

  “She was a lost soul, an intelligent woman who’d been giving the short straw by way of being born to a drunk in a small town. The people there treated her as if she was stupid, but I could see right away that she was intelligent. Thoughtful. It was nice to end the day, sitting there, talking to her.”

  Heather looked up, hurt shining behind the tears in her eyes.

  What could I say to make that hurt go away? There was nothing but the truth.

  “One night, after I knew I was in over my head, I told Luke what I knew and he contacted his former supervisor in the CIA. After he told me that my investigation was putting everyone in danger and he had to disappear for a while to make things right, I was a little stressed. I had a bottle and I was drinking at the diner, drinking way too much. Amber drove me to her house so I wouldn’t kill myself drinking and driving—which is ironic, since I supposedly died in a car accident just a few months later—and one thing led to another.”

  Heather shook her head. “You got drunk and made a baby with a woman who was already in a bad place, struggling to keep her head above water?”

  I tilted my head to the side as I regarded her. “I was going to take car
e of her. When she came to me and told me, I was going to take care of her.”

  She shook her head like she didn’t believe me, but she didn’t say anything.

  “The software I developed was being used to help CIA agents here in the states communicate with a French terrorist cell. They were passing on instructions, using my software to keep their communications secret. That freaked me out a little, especially when Luke told me that this group of CIA agents were rogue, working without sanction of the government. And then he told me that my investigation had put me on their radar.

  “He went to his supervisor and asked him if he could take me out of the equation to protect me from these bad agents. He jumped at the idea, helped Luke arrange the whole thing. He faked a car accident and helped me disappear. It was only supposed to be for a few months. But it became two years. I left instructions for my lawyer to give Amber my trust fund and the life insurance I had taken out on my life. Of course, once I came back from the dead, the life insurance had to be paid back. But she still has my trust.”

  She wouldn’t look at me. And this was the part I had dreaded telling her.

  I ran my hands through my hair.

  “Luke took me to California. I’d broken my wrist in the accident, but he couldn’t take me to a hospital. We went to his supervisor’s apartment. I walked through that door … I had no idea that I wouldn’t cross through it again for two years. I wouldn’t see my family, wouldn’t see my son born. Wouldn’t be there for Amber or Megan or anyone who counted on me. I thought it was all just a game.”

  I sighed. “They set my arm and put me in a guest bedroom. Luke came back every few weeks and checked in on me. But then he underwent facial reconstruction surgery because he was worried about Megan. He’d heard something that made him think she was in danger. He wanted to come back here and be with her and that was the only way his supervisor believed it would be safe.”