MARCUS (Dragon Security Book 4) Read online

  My hands were shaking when I got into the car. I felt like I’d just gotten caught in the middle of something that was beyond my understanding. I didn’t grow up with parents, so I had no experience with parents fighting. I grew up with just my grandma. And the two of us rarely fought.

  It took me a minute before I could start the car. I pulled out of the driveway slowly, not wanting to give them the wrong impression any more than they wanted to do the same with me. When I turned out into the street, there were a couple of cars parked there, people with cameras glued to their faces, trying to get candid shots of the star athlete turned businessman and his model wife. They were pretty disappointed that it was only me, some nobody they probably thought was the maid or something.

  I was three blocks away before I realized that one of them had followed me down the hill.

  I merged onto the highway, trying to get lost in the heavy, rush-hour traffic. But the car stuck with me, three or four cars back. I’d never been followed before, but ever since I came out of that lawyer’s office, it was like everyone wanted to know who I was and why I was meeting with Blake and his lawyer. I wondered what the headlines would be. Blake meets with mistress and attorney? Blake divorces Annie for frumpy nurse?

  I could already see it. Wouldn’t they all be shocked when I started showing up in familiar places, my belly swollen with Blake’s baby?

  It was a surreal thought, really. I was going to have a baby. I knew I wanted to have children someday, but it had never crossed my mind that my first child would belong to someone else. I’d have to hand it over the moment it was born. Could I do that? I thought I could when I first jumped at the opportunity, but now I was wondering if I really could.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe I should back out before things got too serious.

  But then I thought about the gratefulness in Blake’s eyes, and I couldn’t bear the idea of seeing disappointment there.

  I was doing a good thing. They wanted a child so badly; I couldn’t take that away from them.

  I called my friend Lettie just as I headed off the highway, merging onto the side streets near my apartment.

  “You want to meet for dinner? I could use a little friendly companionship.”

  “No problem.”

  “You weren’t busy, were you?”

  “Only trying to meet Mr. Right.”

  I smiled. That meant she was at a bar. This should be an interesting night.

  We met at the local Chili’s, nachos and fajitas sizzling on the pan. I sipped the cold beer the waitress set in front of me, sighing as the cold liquid flowed down my throat.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to be drinking.”

  “Next week when I start the hormone treatments. Not now.”

  She studied my face. “I can’t believe you’re willing to put your life on hold for nine months for some people you hardly know.”

  “Put what on hold? It’s not like I’ve had a decent date in more than six months.”

  “What about Peter Mitchell?”

  “Peter was a self-absorbed asshole who didn’t want to talk about anything other than himself.”

  “What about Jack?”

  “Jack Nichols? He was more interested in a good time than a relationship.”

  Lettie lifted her drink even as she wagged a finger at me. “You know what your problem is? You’re too picky.”

  I shook my head. “No. I just want a guy who wants me. Not some self-centered prick who’d just as soon stare in the mirror than in my eyes, or some guy who looks at me long enough to get into my bed.”

  She laughed, her eyes moving around the room. “In the meantime, you should have some fun. What about that one?” She pointed to a waiter coming into the room with his hands loaded with heavy trays of food.

  “Too young.”

  She studied him. “College age. Not too bad. We’re not that far out of school.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  She groaned, but she kept looking. “What about that one?” She gestured toward a middle- aged man sitting alone in a booth. He was good looking, a little white at his temples that made him look distinguished. But as I was looking, a woman came and joined him.

  “Too married.”

  Lettie looked around for a longer moment, her eyes flitting over this face and that. Finally, she gestured with a little nod of her head. “What about him?”

  He was sitting at the bar, an untouched drink in front of him. He was a little hunched over, half turned toward us, half turned toward the television over the bar that was showing an old Dallas Cowboys game. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a black t-shirt that was tucked in. His hair was a dark blond, the kind of hair that looked like brown butter in a frying pan. His jaw was wide, flared out a little at the corners, his nose straight as an arrow. He had intense blue eyes, the color of cobalt, which seemed to look through me when our eyes met.

  He looked as though he’d just left the military, the way he was tucked in and his hair was clearly growing out a buzz cut. The tattoo peeking out from under his shirtsleeve seemed to back that up, the bottom edge of the Marine emblem clearly visible against his deeply tanned skin.

  “Hot!” Lettie mumbled.

  “Yeah, but he looks like trouble.”

  “You get that just from the way he’s sitting there?”

  I shook my head, turning back to my own drink. “I’ve seen a lot of broken people in my time, Lettie. He looks like one.”

  “What are you talking about? He’s fucking gorgeous!”

  “Shh!” I glanced at him and for a second, our yes met again. Then he turned away, lifting his drink to his full lips. “He probably heard you.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I don’t know why I go out with you. You’re always embarrassing me.”

  “I do it on purpose. Don’t you know?”

  I stuck my finger in my drink and flicked it at her, splashing her cheek. She laughed, lifting a napkin to wipe it away.

  “Okay. But tell me why you think he’s broken.”

  “Because he’s clearly just out of the military. He’s growing his hair out but it’s at that awkward stage. And he’s in a bar in the middle of a family restaurant all by himself. He clearly has no family or friends he cares to hang out with. And there’s no girl. A guy that hot? They always have a girl hanging around somewhere nearby.”

  “Maybe he’s just waiting to find the right woman.”

  “Or maybe he’s just gotten back from Afghanistan and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.”

  Lettie shook her head. “I think you’re just looking for excuses to avoid a relationship.”

  “I can’t have a relationship right now. I’m about to be inseminated with a couple’s baby. A relationship would just complicate that.”

  “That’s just an excuse, too.”

  I changed the subject and we ended up talking about her last two boyfriends. Not a big change in subject, but at least the focus moved from me. The guy at the bar was gone when we got up. I ducked into the bathroom, and then followed Lettie out to our cars. She hugged me, and then ducked into her little Prius, leaving me with my gas-guzzling Ford. I was about to get in when the back window suddenly imploded.

  I spun around just in time to see a car—the same car that’d been following me earlier—speed through the parking lot, the muzzle of a pistol sticking out of the driver’s side window. I managed to throw myself into the car just as he fired again, the window beside me exploding into a shower of glass.

  Pain flashed through my thigh and there was blood on the front of my skirt.

  Chapter 3

  Megan

  I pushed my ass back against Dante, wiggling it slightly. He groaned, tugging me closer to him, his mouth sliding over my shoulder.

  “You feel like silk, taste like sugar.”

  “You’re tasting my lotion.”

  “No, I’m tasting you.”

  He nuzzled closer, wrapping his arms ar
ound me, his fingers wandering down the length of my belly. I moaned as his fingers brushed my clit.

  “We can’t keep doing this.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “Because you work for me.”

  He nibbled my throat. “So?”

  “It’s not ethical.”

  “So?”

  “What if someone found out? They’d all think I was showing you favoritism.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “And if it ended, would you accuse me of sexual harassment?”

  “Do I look like that kind of guy?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know you that well.”

  He slid past my clit, spreading my lips with just the width of his long finger. I closed my eyes, moving my hips back against him as he pressed forward against me, his cock sliding between my thighs. I groaned, reaching down to push his hand tighter against me, grinding my clit against the base of his hand. He kissed my jaw, his lips sliding slowly up to the bottom edge of my ear.

  “I want you.” He nibbled at my earlobe a little. “I know you want me. Nothing else really matters.”

  “Why do you want me?”

  He made a sound that was something between a chuckle and a moan. “Have you ever looked in a mirror? You’re a fucking sexy woman.”

  “I don’t love you. You know that, right? This won’t ever become more than this.”

  His movements stopped, his hand stilling between my legs. I felt tension in his body, but then he relaxed, molding his body around mine again.

  “Maybe this is all I want.”

  “Is it? Can you be satisfied with just this?”

  He was quiet for a long minute. “I know about Luke,” he said, his voice doing something funny when he said the name of my former fiancé. “I’d have to have my head in the sand to not know about him. I know you still love him, and that you still hope he’ll return. I get that.”

  “Yeah?”

  I suddenly felt sick to my stomach, this man, this new lover, giving voice to Luke’s name. It didn’t seem right that he would know it, let alone speak it. But he was right. Everyone at Dragon knew about Luke and how he left me the morning of our wedding. They also knew about Peter, who helped me begin my business, the brother who died in a car accident nearly two years ago. They knew these things because most of them helped me investigate the accident. They tried to help me prove it was murder due to the terrorist cell Peter tripped over while following a lead on someone who was selling some software Peter had developed at our family company, Bradford Telecommunications, without a license.

  We’d recently discovered more on Peter’s investigation. Dominic, another of my assets, had a friend in the CIA who was murdered just a couple of weeks ago. She had done research on the same terrorist cell and she uncovered the identities of several prominent people involved with the terrorists. There was more, but a computer virus corrupted the files before we could review them. It was frustrating. These things seemed to happen a lot while we were investigating this case.

  “I get you, Megan,” Dante said against my ear. “I’m here as long as you need me. And I’ll be gone the moment you ask.”

  I rolled into him, ran my hand up the length of his bare chest. There were tattoos on his chest, odd tattoos, in the same place Luke once had a very prominent tattoo that was a quote from Dante’s Inferno, something that we shared a passion for. It said, ‘Remember tonight…for it is the beginning of always.’ He whispered it to me one night as we walked along the water’s edge in Galveston, after promising that I was the only woman he’d ever want.

  He’d been gone two years now. Dante was here, warm and whole and alive. And I needed that.

  I pressed my lips to his scattering of tattoos, brushing my tongue over the teeny nipple that stuck out just below. He ran his hand over the back of my head, tugging me closer even as I pulled away, moving slowly down the length of his belly. At first he sat up, his hands sliding over my back, encouraging me to stay with him, to touch him in all the places that offered the most pleasure. But then he lay back when he realized what my intentions were.

  Hot sex. That’s what this was. And that meant doing things that turned me on.

  I ran my hand over his balls, tugging at the thick skin over them. He groaned, his hips moving as I slipped my hand back up and grasped the thick shaft of his cock. I stroked him for a minute, my head resting on his belly, just watching my own hand slide over the most intimate part of this man I was sharing my bed with for only the second time. He brushed his fingers through my hair, tugging it back so that he could see the side of my face. And then I leaned forward, kissing the top of his shaft, making him moan softly as his fingers tugged at my hair.

  He didn’t make any noise when I took him into my mouth, doing what Luke had taught me to do all the way back in high school. Luke wouldn’t make any sound either, not until he was close, until he couldn’t hold it back any longer. Dante was the same. He was a completely silent lover until the end, until he was unable to hold on to his control.

  I ran my fingers over his balls as I took him into my mouth, swallowing as much of his shaft as I could take. He held my head, encouraging me to take more and more, his hips moving slightly against me, against the mattress. His belly tightened, his legs moving to support his hips. He was struggling with being in such a vulnerable position, trying to hold on even as I drove him close to the edge. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he yanked at my shoulder, pulling me back against the mattress, shoving himself deep inside of me in one, quick thrust. I cried out, unable to do anything but take him and enjoy the shivers of pleasure that rushed through me. We rocked together for a long few minutes, clinging to each other as if we would drown otherwise.

  Just as my orgasm began to rush through me, my cellphone began to ring. I bit down on Dante’s shoulder, trying not to scream. He wrapped his arms around me, tugging me impossibly close to him. He cried out, his voice muffled by the pillow under my head. He cried out again and again, his body tense, his muscles hard as rock under my hands. And then, slowly, he began to relax.

  My phone rang again, the special ringtone that indicated it was a call from the office.

  “I have to answer that,” I mumbled.

  “Now?”

  He clearly didn’t want to move, but he did, untangling himself from me as he rolled onto his side. I felt his absence instantly, my body aching all over. It took a lot of willpower to turn away from him and pick up that damn phone.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s been a shooting,” Sam said, never one to beat around the bush. “Marcus’ target.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t have details. But it wasn’t Marcus who called it in. It was Blake Zimmerman. And he’s pissed.”

  “Is the target okay?”

  “She’s at the hospital. I’m not sure what her injury is.”

  “Alright. I’ll head over to the hospital.”

  I stumbled away from the bed and started searching for clothing. The suit I was wearing earlier was a jumbled mess on the floor, wrinkled beyond wear. I grabbed a pair of jeans from my dresser, searching around for my bra.

  “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “No.” I glanced at Dante, the sight of his gloriously naked body distracting me for a second. “If we keep showing up places in the middle of the night, people will start putting two and two together.”

  “Would it be so bad for people to know?”

  “Yes.”

  I tugged on my jeans and grabbed a light sweater. I could feel his eyes on me and it took everything I had to ignore him. Stepping into shoes, I grabbed my wallet and keys off the dresser.

  “If you go, lock the door behind you.”

  “If I stay?”

  I shook my head. “Stay out of my stuff.”

  I was gone before he could answer.

  The hospital was crowded. It was a Friday night in a large city, drunks and parties gone wrong and teens overdosing
, enough to keep any emergency room busy.

  I found Blake Zimmerman pacing outside an exam room, his hands buried deep in his front jeans pockets. He was a startlingly good-looking man, tall and built powerfully, his athleticism a power that seemed to just flow off of him. It was almost frightening, especially when his gaze fell on me and I could feel his anger in just the slight squint of his eyes.

  “What the hell?” he demanded. “Where was your man?”

  “I don’t know. I’m going to find him and ask.”

  “Ask? I’m paying you to protect her!”

  “But you asked us to stay back, to not let her know we were there. My asset cannot protect her as well that way.”

  “I don’t want to scare her.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sure this was pretty scary.”

  He shook his head, turning his back on me. He ran his hands over the top of his shaved head. I moved closer to him, touched his arm.

  “What happened?”

  He shook his head again. “She was having dinner with a friend. She went into the parking lot to get into her car and someone fired two shots at her.”

  “Was she hit?”

  He glanced toward the closed exam room door. “Just a graze on her thigh. They’re sewing her up now.”

  “Okay.” I stepped back. “I’m going to go talk to my asset. I’d really like for you to change your mind about the way we’re handling this. If I could—”

  “No. I don’t want her to know.”

  “But, Blake, she clearly knows that someone’s after her.”

  “She doesn’t need to know that all this is connected. I…I don’t want to do anything to interrupt this process.”

  “I understand.”

  “This baby is extremely important to my wife and me. I can’t put that at risk.”

  “Okay.”

  I walked off, thinking the guy was an idiot. But I couldn’t force him into something he didn’t want.

  Marcus was in the waiting room, sitting at the back of the room where he could see everything, pretending to read a magazine. If I hadn’t known his face, I might have thought he was just another patient waiting to see a doctor.