DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  “Conservative enough?”

  “Perfect.”

  I stepped forward, trying to pull away from him.

  “I think I’ll pick my own clothes, if you don’t mind.”

  “Why? Did I offend you?”

  He seemed almost genuinely confused. I didn’t answer him, more intent on gathering my clothes. He wrapped his arms around my waist as I bent over and pulled me up against him, his mouth skimming my ear.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m not Sam,” I said, regretting the words the instant they fell from my lips.

  Hayden stiffened, but he didn’t let me go. I did see fire burn in his eyes, anger that was darker than anything I’d seen there before. But he didn’t let me go.

  “I know who you are, Waverly. I wasn’t comparing you to Sam.”

  “You were.”

  “I was thinking about the way other men would look at you if you wore that dress out in public. Do you really think I want other men drooling over your curves?”

  “What do you care? You’re done with me when you don’t need me anymore.”

  “I’ve made you believe that. I get it. I’ve worked really hard to make sure you got the message loud and clear.” He brushed his lips against the curve of my jaw. “But you think I can just turn this off as quickly as it was turned on? You think I can walk away from you without a second thought when I no longer need your help on this investigation?”

  “You don’t want me. You want my body. You want release when it’s convenient for you, and to hell with what I need.”

  He was quiet for a moment, his breathing growing a little heavier with the anger that continued to snap in his eyes. And then his hand slid down to the hem of the dress and he began to tug it up, sliding his hand along the inside of my thigh as though we hadn’t exchanged a single angry word.

  “What are you—”

  “If your body is all I want, then you’ve been allowing me access to it for months. Why stop now?”

  I couldn’t come up with a good rebuke because his hand reached my clit just then, rubbing roughly against it, pulling it clear of its little hood and teasing it with a cruelty that I couldn’t fight. I leaned back, gasping as pleasure burst thought my lower belly and radiated all through me.

  He kissed my throat, biting me like I was the most delicious morsel he’d ever tasted. I reached back and buried my fingers against the back of his skull, tugging him closer to me as I moved my hips, both encouraging his touch against my clit and offering a little tease to his hard cock where it was pressed against my ass.

  “I want you,” he groaned against my ear. “I hate that I want you. I hate that the idea of you with anyone else makes me want to put my fist through the fucking wall! I hate that you have this power over me that no one else has ever had.”

  What could I say to that?

  I felt him reach between our bodies and release his cock from its denim prison, even as his finger continued to do cruel things to my clit. And then he was inside of me, thrusting so roughly that pain equaled the pleasure that rushed through me as he filled me.

  “Do you need help in there?” the clerk called from somewhere very close outside the curtain.

  I made a funny sound, imagining the woman walking in and finding us in such a compromising position. But Hayden was always in control.

  “No, we’re fine,” he called in a normal, if slightly breathless, voice.

  “Let me know if you need anything. We have those dresses in several other sizes.”

  “We’re fine,” he repeated.

  He didn’t wait to hear her walk away. He slapped his hand against the mirror to give himself some support and began to move inside of me, his finger still creating its magic against my clit. I don’t know how he stayed on his feet, didn’t know how I stayed on mine.

  I wanted to scream, wanted to make him stop and make him continue all at the same time, wanted the orgasm I could feel just seconds away to stay put for as long as possible. I wanted to cum, but I wanted to hold onto this moment.

  He swelled inside of me as he continued to thrust, moving so quickly that his skin made a slapping noise against mine. He cried out—an unusual thing for Hayden—burying his mouth against my shoulder to muffle the sound. And then his hand came around my mouth to muffle my own cries.

  We fell against the cold mirror, clinging to each other and using the wall to hold us up. It was a long moment before he carefully pulled away.

  He looked into my eyes, visibly torn in two, before muttering, “I think I’ll go see what else they have,” and slipping through the curtain before I could say anything.

  I fell to the floor, my knees too weak to hold me up any longer. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry or laugh, so I didn’t do either. I just sat there, my body slowly recovering, my heart taking its time reaching a proper rhythm.

  And then the stolen cellphone buzzed. There was a response to my inquiry.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing as I read the posting.

  ***

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  We were in the food court, two bags on the chair beside me. Hayden was sipping another coffee—black as coal—and I was licking the melting ice cream on the top of my waffle cone.

  “Anything,” he said. “I just can’t guarantee I’ll answer.”

  I looked down at the ice cream, studying the teeny groove my tongue had left behind. I didn’t know how to ask this. And I didn’t know how he would take it. The latter was what worried me the most. I knew how attached he was to Sam and knew what he was capable when driven to an edge. I wasn’t prepared to deal with that just now.

  “Waverly?”

  I looked up and sighed. “I know Sam was pretty good with computers.”

  “She was. She was our tech person before we expanded Dragon and brought you in.”

  “I know.”

  I ran my sweaty hand over the thigh of my jeans. I remembered Megan talking to me about Sam once right after I started working at Dragon and Hayden made his distaste for me known. I knew then that I had huge shoes to fill, but I hadn’t really understood how impossible it would be to fill them until now.

  “Besides her work with Dragon, did she ever do any kind of work?” I looked up, seeing the curious glint in his eyes. “Was she ever into hacking?”

  Hayden surprised me by laughing. “No. Sam was very aware of the moral code. She never would have done anything that was even remotely illegal.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  I shrugged, but I knew I was going to have to tell him. This was a clue we couldn’t overlook.

  “Not even in college. Not even while she was rebelling from her mother, or whatever?”

  “She didn’t go to college. She was in the Marines until they figured out she had lupus. And then she worked at some dead-end job until Megan came home and started Dragon.” He sipped from his coffee cup. “I don’t think Sam would have done anything rebellious. The worse thing she ever did was sneak out of her house in the middle of the night to go out with Megan once or twice. But, from what I understand, she felt so guilty for that that she had no fun.”

  Sounded like my kind of girl. My complete opposite, anyway. We probably would have hated each other.

  I licked at my ice cream cone, my thoughts spinning. If I told him, he would think I was making it up to make Sam look bad. But if I didn’t and it proved to be important—

  The stolen cellphone rang, making me jump. I reached into my pocket and glanced at the screen before handing it over to Hayden. He didn’t even look at it. He tossed it into a nearby trash can and helped me to my feet.

  “Time to finish our little shopping spree.”

  He seemed to forget about my questions as we walked to a nearby jeans store. He sifted through the stacks, searching for a couple of pair in his size. We bought four pairs of jeans and a stack of T-shirts each to go with the underwear and socks we’d already purchased afte
r leaving the little boutique.

  We walked hand in hand through the crowd for a while after our purchases were made, stopping from time to time to admire the new cellphones or small toys on display in the windows. I paused to look at a round crib set up in the middle of a maternity store, picking up a teeny teddy bear that was nestled against an equally teeny pillow.

  “Have you ever thought about having kids?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I’ve always sort of thought I’d be a pretty shitty father, but Sam convinced me that I wouldn’t be. For a while … haven’t thought about it since, though.”

  “I guess choosing to be a confirmed bachelor kind of rules it out.”

  “Do you want kids?”

  “Someday. I think I’d be an okay mother.”

  He took my hand and tugged me away from the crib, leading the way to the narrow jewelry stand in the center of the mall corridor.

  “What about jewelry? Do you like jewelry?”

  “I do, actually.”

  We both leaned close to admire the gold, silver, and diamond jewelry. I found myself drawn to the rings while he stood near the necklaces. There was one ring that caught my attention particularly, a gold band that sported three or four tiny bits of sapphire. It was gorgeous in its simplicity, a ring that I could see used as an engagement ring. Beautiful.

  “Is that your birthstone?” Hayden asked, surprising me because I hadn’t realized he’d come up behind me.

  “I don’t know. I don’t really pay attention to that sort of thing.”

  “It’s nice.”

  I nodded, pulling away before I was stupid enough to allow myself to think he might actually consider buying something like that for me someday.

  “We need another phone,” he said, rushing to catch up to me.

  Once again, I didn’t have a chance to add anything before he took off, stepping into a busy store where a group of parents were chasing their children, trying to keep them from stealing candy from the low-sitting bins. Once again, I didn’t see the moment when he did it, but I knew he’d been successful because he came walking back toward me with a cat-that-ate-the- bird smile.

  “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “The SEALs. You have no idea how something like that can come in handy in a war zone.”

  I didn’t want to know, so I didn’t ask. Instead, I followed as he pulled me into a little alcove off of the main corridor that led to mall offices. He dialed a number and pressed the phone to his ear, muttering a code word he’d never mentioned before: basilisk.

  It was an emergency code, one that all the operatives at Dragon were given when they came to work there, one that would alert their handlers that there was imminent danger. It had been part of my job to keep track of all the code words, the emergency ones along with the common ones assigned to each unique case. I hadn’t realized that Hayden had one, too.

  He hung up and leaned back against the wall. A moment later, the phone rang again.

  “Hey, Megan,” he said smoothly, like this was an ordinary day and that was an ordinary call. “Want to do a little shopping?”

  He hung up again, apparently without getting a clear answer. Then he took my hand and led the way to the far end of the mall to one of those huge chain restaurants that seemed to be in every mall all across America. We were led to a table and ordered soda, then Hayden sat back to wait.

  “How will she know where to find us?”

  “She’ll know.”

  And, sure enough, she did.

  I was beginning to wonder if I had more to compete with than just Sam’s memory.

  Chapter 16

  Megan

  Vincent set a file in front of me.

  “This is the original investigation into the murders of Hayden’s parents. We apparently requested a copy back when we did the background check on him before he came here to work, and it’s been in the archives ever since.” He touched a page to which it had been opened. “Read that.”

  I read it, cringing a little as images of what the words described filled my thoughts. Hayden’s parents hadn’t just been murdered. They’d been tortured. His mother was raped more than once, his father’s genitals mutilated. There were cuts all over their bodies, most inflicted with what the coroner believed was a broken wine glass. The father’s tongue was severed partially, his fingers cut to different degrees. The mother’s genitals were also mutilated, her breasts suffering so many cuts that the coroner couldn’t count them because they overlapped too much. It was as if whoever had done this was enjoying the pain he was inflicting.

  It was disgusting.

  “Why am I reading this?”

  Vincent set another file in front of me. “Do you see a difference?”

  I read through the second page he pointed out to me, then the third he set in front of me. Once again, the father’s torture was inhumane, his body broken in so many ways before his throat was finally slashed that it was a miracle he remained conscious at the end. But the wife …

  “These women weren’t tortured the same way.”

  “They weren’t. The rapes happened, but my guess would be that was more about forcing the husband to watch than it was to hurt the woman. It was humiliation.” Vincent’s eyes glowed as he looked down at me. “Whoever is doing this, it’s more about the men than the women.”

  “Why?”

  He tilted his head slightly. “Do you think this could be someone Hayden wronged? A romantic conquest that went bad?”

  It was a possibility. I knew Hayden had broken a lot of hearts before Sam. There were a few after Sam, too, women he used to try to forget her that ultimately ended up broken hearted. But that was long ago. Hayden hadn’t been with anyone—that I was aware of—for a few years until he started up with Waverly.

  “I think it’s unlikely. But we shouldn’t rule it out.”

  Vincent picked up the files he’d brought me. “There was something else about these other murders that bothered me, too.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It might be nothing,” he said, clearly unsure in his conclusion. “But each of the murder scenes the copycat created? The Bibles that the Gideons put in hotel rooms were all missing.”

  “Do they still do that?”

  “As far as I know. I don’t think the detectives would have made note of it if they didn’t.”

  That information created a tingle of suspicion in the back of my mind, but before I could focus on it and figure out why it seemed suspicious, one of the girls from downstairs burst into the room.

  “We just got a call from someone using Hayden’s emergency code word.”

  “Hayden has an emergency code word?” Vincent asked.

  “Everyone does.”

  I snatched the piece of paper out of the girl’s hand and immediately dialed the number they’d traced the call to. Hayden’s voice, warm and full of amusement, filled my ear.

  “Hey, Megan. Want to do some shopping?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  He disconnected immediately, just as aware as I was of the danger of someone eavesdropping on the call. Vincent was watching me curiously when I looked up.

  “He wants to meet at the Galleria.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  I didn’t argue, aware of how futile it would be. Besides, Luke wouldn’t be happy to learn I’d done something like this alone. He liked to point out that I had much more to lose now than I did when we first opened Dragon. And he was right, as much as I hated to admit it.

  It was a bit of a drive. I found myself filled with anxiety, my thoughts moving from one thing to the next, going over everything we knew so far, which wasn’t much. I wish I had more to tell Hayden and wished we could bring him home now. But we couldn’t.

  He was sitting in a booth in a chain restaurant where he and I often used to meet for late afternoon lunches after Sam died. It was a loud, crowded place that allowed for a strange sort of intimacy. I had cried on his shoulder here a lot and he had r
efused to do the same, but every once in a while that façade would break and he would whisper his nightmares in my ear.

  He stood up as we approached, smiling widely like we were old friends meeting up after a long absence. He hugged me, a relieved sigh blowing the hair from my forehead.

  “Vincent,” he said, shaking Vincent’s hand.

  I nodded to Waverly as I slid into the booth beside Hayden. Vincent took a seat across from me, also nodding to Waverly, a warm smile breaking the tension on his face for a second.

  “What happened?”

  “You’re going to have to have the glass in that sliding door in the living room repaired,” Hayden said, picking up his soda and taking a noisy drink. “Someone put a hole in it and broke into the house.”

  “Did you see who?”

  Hayden gestured toward Waverly. “The gentleman who visited her house the other night, and three others I’d never seen before.”

  “Three others? That means we’re dealing with at least five people.”

  “Could be more. Or less. I don’t think the mastermind was there, from what we heard them saying to each other.”

  “All men?”

  He nodded. “They apparently put some sort of tracker on Waverly’s phone the night of the break in.”

  I glanced at Waverly, but she was staring down at her hands where they were pressed against the tabletop. She seemed upset, but I couldn’t tell if it was the situation in general, or something Hayden had done. I suspected the latter, but hoped it was the former.

  “Waverly was able to learn that three people have ordered the original police reports from New York—me, Dragon, and the alias Waverly found before, the one connected to the house in San Diego, Gina Collins.”

  “We’ve done as much as we could with that name,” Vincent said. “It’s a dead end.”

  Waverly nodded. “I couldn’t find anything on it, either.”

  I studied her face for a second before reaching over to touch her hands.

  “I know this is a difficult situation …”

  “I’m okay,” she said, forcing a smile.

  I nodded, removing my hand.