DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  “Of course not.”

  I stepped out of the way and let her into the bathroom, unable to stop myself from watching her move as she made a beeline for the toilet. She kicked at the door and I stepped back just in time to keep it from hitting me square in the face.

  She was back out a moment later, searching through the suitcase belonging to Mrs. Randolf. When she returned the next time she was dressed in jeans and a simple blue blouse that was tucked in like we were back in the 1970s and that was the only decent way to walk outside.

  I grabbed the back of the blouse as she tried to walk past me and pulled it free of her pants. “Looks better that way.”

  She looked down at herself. “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “Then wear a T-shirt.”

  “This woman apparently didn’t wear T-shirts. There aren’t any beside the oversized ones she clearly wore to bed.”

  “Then wear it like that.”

  She groaned, but she didn’t argue with me.

  We gathered up someone else’s things and headed downstairs, following the happy chatter of the other couples who were gathered on the sidewalk beside the parking lot. A large charter bus pulled up just as we reached them, a tall dark man taking our suitcases and tossing them into the compartment under the bus with all the others. No one took a second look at us. They didn’t seem to realize we weren’t who we said we were.

  I followed Amelia onto the bus, falling into a seat beside her. I watched the other couples boarding, noticing the way they interacted with one another and the way they touched. They ranged in age from their mid-twenties to their late forties, most of them still at that stage when touching wasn’t disagreeable. In fact, there was a lot of handholding, a lot of whispered interactions. And the rings most of them wore were classic styles, suggesting they were fairly new.

  These were newlyweds.

  “Did we stumble onto a group honeymoon or something?” I whispered to Amelia.

  “Something like that. I found a brochure in Mrs. Randolf’s bag that said this was a tour for couples married less than two years.”

  “We’re supposed to act like them,” I said, gesturing to a couple who were kissing in the middle of the aisle, blocking those behind them from getting seats on the bus.

  Amelia blushed, but she shrugged. “If it keeps our cover.”

  I slid my hand through hers, realizing as I did that neither of us wore anything that looked like a wedding ring, let alone an engagement ring. We’d have to remedy that at our first chance.

  The bus moved out, headed into New Orleans. That didn’t seem like distance enough to me, but I supposed being in the middle of this large group would help. There were at least forty people on this bus.

  “So, I’m Jayne,” the woman who was part of the couple across from us said. “And this is Sam.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Amelia said, leaning across my body to shake her hand. “Amelia and Rowan Randolf.”

  “Rowan? That’s a unique name.”

  “It’s pretty common in my native Ireland,” I said.

  “Irish?” The woman smiled brightly. “How fascinating! You are a lucky woman.”

  “Don’t I know it?” Amelia laughed.

  “How long have you been married? We’ve been together forever, but we only made it official six months ago.”

  “Same here,” I announced, glancing at Amelia as I spoke. “We met in college. Amelia came to Dublin University looking for an education and ended up coming home with more than she bargained for.”

  “That’s so romantic,” Jayne cooed even as her husband slid his arm around her waist. “I always imagined what it would be like to go to a foreign country and meet some hot guy. But then I met this lug in high school …”

  “You love this lug,” Sam said against the side of her head, making her roll back into him.

  “Of course I do. But having some hot affair with an exotic guy would have been nice, too.”

  He groaned, nuzzling tighter against her and she laughed, making it obvious that she didn’t mind being with him. And then Jayne was watching us again, expectation clear in her eyes.

  “What was it like, those first few dates?”

  Amelia shrugged, resting her chin on my shoulder as she looked around me to make eye contact with Jayne. Her hand slid over my chest, under the hoodie I still wore, suggesting intimacy that was subtler than Sam’s touch on Jayne.

  “We went to a pub with his buddies for our first date. I thought it meant he didn’t want to go out with me, that he’d only asked because my roommate was dating his best mate. But then he pulled me out onto the narrow dance floor and we started to dance and … let’s just say I knew there was something happening there.

  “And then he took me home to meet his mother just three weeks into the relationship. I was so nervous—I thought the whole thing was insane! I wanted to meet her, but what would she think of this little American girl chasing around after her son? She was so nice … but it was the most frightened I think I’d ever been.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Jayne’s eyes were bright, like she was imagining what that weekend had been like. I didn’t anticipate Amelia’s next move, the little kiss she pressed to my jaw. I turned into her, my hand automatically coming up to cup the side of her face. Our eyes met and for a second I almost bought the fantasy she was creating.

  “We’ve been together seven years. Before him, I couldn’t imagine spending more than a few months with one guy, you know? I knew someday, but never imagined it would happen so early in my life.”

  “Me, either,” Jayne said. “Isn’t it funny the places life takes you that you never really expected?”

  I had to agree with that.

  The conversation changed after that, Jayne and Amelia comparing wedding parties. Apparently we had four groomsmen men, but five bridesmaids because Amelia just couldn’t tell her cousin Molly no. Jayne was right there with her, complaining that her mother’s insistence that a distant cousin no one knew, let alone liked, be part of the wedding party had thrown off all the symbiosis.

  I was relieved when we arrived in New Orleans a few minutes later.

  Amelia buried her hand in mine as we stood on the sidewalk, the tour leader speaking with the manager of the restaurant where we were due to have brunch. Another couple walked over, introducing themselves. There was Jack and Sara, Bob and Delila, Carl and Joan … too many to keep track of. Amelia stayed close against my side, one hand tucked in mine and the other wrapped around my bicep. It was nice, really, feeling the closeness of her body pressed against mine.

  I found myself wondering, however, what these people would think if they knew I’d woken up yesterday covered in someone else’s blood.

  “Rowan,” Jayne called as the group began to head into the restaurant. “You and Amelia come sit at our table!”

  I glanced down at Amelia. She smiled, gesturing for me to lead the way.

  The whole day was fucking surreal! One day I was being shot at and this incredible woman was confronting an automatic rifle in order to save my ass, and the next day we were walking through an impressive aquarium with other couples who thought we’d been married nearly a year and were looking forward to trying for our first child.

  I didn’t even realize Amelia wanted children until her face lit up when Jayne started talking cribs and car seats. And when Sam made a comment about fathers changing dirty diapers, she leaned close to me, her eyes wide and bright, and said, “Rowan will be a perfect father. He’s never shied away from taking care of me in times of trouble.”

  “Yes, well, holding your wife’s head over the toilet when she drank too much and changing a diaper full of bright green shit is two very different things,” Sam said, flicking his eyebrows in this odd way he had.

  “What would you know about it?” Jayne asked, slapping him on the shoulder. “You’ve never done either.”

  Everyone laughed, but I found myself lost in Amelia’s eyes. I didn’t think I’d ever se
en a woman that content in herself. For a second I honestly believed it was the truth, rather than an act perpetrated to keep us out of harm’s way.

  “That was fun,” Amelia said a while later as we walked into the hotel room we’d been assigned by the tour guide.

  “It was.”

  She sat on the side of the bed and sighed, slipping off her tennis shoes and rubbing her feet. “I don’t think I’ve been on my feet that much in one day since basic training, though.”

  “You don’t normally tour aquariums?”

  “Not on a daily basis, no.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  I pulled up a chair and lifted her foot into my lap, peeling the sock away to rub the day’s exhaustion away. She leaned back and sighed, resting her arms over her eyes.

  “What branch of the service were you in?”

  She grunted. “You already know the answer to that.”

  “Then I was right? You were in the navy?”

  “I was. Four years. Then I got out and applied to work at Dragon about six months later, six months of living on my sister’s couch, watching her live the same life we always promised each other we would avoid like the plague.”

  “A life just like your mother’s.”

  “Exactly.”

  I knew the feeling. That was my motivation, too.

  She peeked at me from under her arms. “Do you feel validated that you were right about me? That you saw right through me and knew that my daddy was an asshole and my mother was weak? That I crush on Hayden because he’s safe?”

  “It was just a guess, Amelia.”

  “A good guess.”

  “Perhaps I saw all that about you because it was familiar to me.”

  She sat up, curiosity like a beacon in her eyes. “You had a shitty dad?”

  “I had an absentee dad. He was a married executive who had no time for my mother when she told him she was pregnant.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yeah. She tried to make up for it by being both the loving, supportive mother and the disciplinarian, but she often struggled with the latter and was too heavy with the former.”

  “What about extended family? Did you have grandparents? Aunts and uncles?”

  “No. She was an only child and her father died when I was four. It was just her and me and the bakery her father left to her that she imagined I’d take over when I was older. She was disappointed when I decided to go to school in Dublin.”

  “I bet she’s proud, though.”

  “She’s proud. She just doesn’t understand.”

  My mother had never imagined that I would go further than Dublin. In fact, she had imagined that we would grow old together, that I would marry some girl from the village and we would build a house next to hers, run the bakery , and watch my children grow side by side. She felt abandoned when that didn’t happen.

  Maybe someday …

  Amelia touched my jaw with the tips of her fingers, making me look up into her kind eyes.

  “She just misses you, you know.”

  “I think I’ll make a trip back home if I survive this.”

  “Or if you’re deported.”

  I groaned. “If they deport me for murder? I’ll be deposited into some dark dungeon somewhere and won’t be allowed to see her even if I wanted her to see me that way.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Besides, I have too much work to finish before I can allow that to happen.”

  “Is the work really that important?”

  “It’s everything.”

  I stood up, allowing myself to think of things I hadn’t allowed to even cross the radar until now. If I couldn’t finish the code I was working on … people would literally die.

  “I need a computer.”

  Amelia laughed. “Of course. I’ll get right on that.”

  “I’m serious. I need to access my files at work. I need to see if anyone has attempted to get into them.”

  “Why?”

  “That would tell me who’s behind this.”

  I turned and watched her thoughts dance across her face. She was easy to read. I wondered if that was ever a problem in her chosen field of work.

  “We’re supposed to meet Jayne and Sam in twenty minutes. But … maybe we could find a tech store somewhere near here.”

  “Great.”

  I grabbed the room key and started for the door. But she wasn’t done.

  “After you tell me what you know about those people who shot up the front of my house.”

  That was the one thing I’d been hoping to avoid answering.

  Chapter 7

  Amelia

  Rowan kissed the back of my neck, his hot breath a tickle that made my tummy tighten under the simple skirt I’d found hidden among Mrs. Randolf’s blouses. His breath smelled of garlic and whiskey, no worse than mine. Jayne had insisted on bruschetta and the whiskey … well, the whiskey was just a pleasure none of us could turn down.

  We were at a table in the crowded bar of our hotel, flirting our way through hors d’oeuvres, acting like the newlyweds we were supposed to be. Never mind the fact that we’d just gotten back from an electronics store where we’d purchased—with a stolen credit card—a laptop and a disposable cellphone in order to keep tabs on the murder investigation we were running from.

  Jayne reached across the table, pouring more whiskey into my glass. I smiled, but Rowan lifted the glass and downed the liquid before I had a chance to taste it.

  “Let’s dance,” he breathed against my ear.

  “Excuse us,” I said to Jayne as he pulled me out of my chair, dragging me out to the dance floor as the room spun a little. I looked back at Jayne and for an instant I imagined she was my sister and I was seventeen again, accompanying her and her future husband on a double date. I imagined I was carefree again, allowed to be young and sensual, to be a budding adult again. But then she was Jayne again and a stranger’s hand was on the small of my back, playing a role I’d created for him.

  He pulled me around to face him and I snuggled up close, loving the feel of his arms around me. He’d become so familiar in just the few hours we’d been pretending to be a couple, his hands like a second skin on my hip and shoulders. And now they were on my back, sliding up under the thin blouse I was wearing, smoothing across my skin in places where I hadn’t been touched by anyone or anything but my bath towel in nearly four years.

  “Look at you two,” Jayne said, as Sam brought her out to the dance floor. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say the two of you were so new that you were still in that stage where touch is everything.” She sighed. “How I envy you!”

  I turned my head to smile at her and Rowan slid his mouth against my jaw, the slight growth of his beard scratching against my tender skin. I turned back into him, my hands sliding over his skull, drawing him closer. He sighed just as his mouth settled against mine, stealing a kiss that wasn’t his to take. I gave to him freely, telling myself I was just playing a part. But my body knew better, my muscles tightening, my knees weakening.

  Our tongues danced as Rowan’s fingers slid under the waist of my skirt. I moved closer to him, my hands sliding slowly down the center of his back. He had a lovely, firm ass that fit perfectly in the palm of my hand. I imagined how good it would look without the impediment of clothing, how smooth his skin would be.

  I slid closer to him, pressing my body as tight against his as I could manage on a public dance floor. He was the one with the tucked in shirt tonight, the one who was so inconveniently covered. In that moment I wanted to undress him, wanted to feel the eroticism of his skin against mine. The need only grew as he broke our kiss to slip his lips up along my jaw to the corner below my ear.

  “We should get out of here,” he whispered seductively.

  The idea of being alone with him was a delicious one. But then reality slowly moved in as he pulled back, the touch of steel in his eyes reminding me of the real reason we were here. He made a little gesture with his
head that reminded me that we had unfinished business waiting for us up in our room.

  He took my hand and spun me away from him before catching me again tight against his chest. I leaned back into him, biting my lip as I forced myself out of my head.

  “You’re not leaving so early, are you?” Jayne asked as we passed her and Sam.

  “Yeah. Sorry, not sorry,” I said with a little wink.

  She laughed even as she turned into her husband, her hand sliding up the length of his chest like she had something similar in mind for the rest of her evening.

  I hoped hers went better than mine.

  Rowan held my hand until we were on the elevator, then he promptly let go. I almost felt as though someone had poured cold water over my head.

  “You still haven’t talked to me,” I reminded him.

  “I’m not sure where to start.”

  “The beginning is always good.”

  He didn’t say anything. And then the doors opened and another couple from the tour was waiting to board. Rowan slid his arm around my waist as he led the way around them, nodding politely to the others. My body instantly responded to his touch, my tummy doing that thing again, that tightening that screamed for touch in places I’d neglected for far too long.

  I didn’t want to be this attracted to Rowan. I didn’t want to be this attracted to anyone, especially a client. What would Hayden think if he could see me now?

  But then the elevator doors closed and we were alone. Rowan let me go.

  He opened the hotel room door and immediately began tearing the packaging on the computer, pulling it free and setting it up on the desk there by the door. I watched for a moment, but it was clearly going to take a few minutes.

  “I should go call Dragon.”

  He barely looked up at me. “Okay.”

  It was like nothing had happened downstairs.

  I grabbed the burner phone we’d also bought and stepped out into the hallway.

  “This is Gorgon,” I said when the call was answered. “I need instruction.”

  “One moment, please.”

  I stood at the end of the hall and stared out the window, watching as people milled around on the patio outside the bar. They were all young professionals, good looking people without a care in the world. I watched them, wondering what it would be like to be one of them.