Mark Vincent has risen from senior special agent to Director of Interior Affairs in the WBIS. Lately, life has been sweet for him -- in addition to his promotion, he's found a partner in Quinton Mann, who can almost match his ability in the intelligence field, in spite of the fact Quinn's CIA. Mark has also found a condo in Alexandria with the help of Portia Mann, Quinn's mother, and it's closer to Quinn's town house than Mark's present apartment. Sweetest of all, Mark plans to take Quinn to his island in the Caribbean for the holidays.<br><br>Quinn's glad he has the holiday with Mark to look forward to -- something is going on at Langley, and he feels he's being kept out of the loop. To make matters even worse, useless missions and sleepless nights filled with nightmares are leaving him exhausted. But then his mother's life if threatened, and Quinn discovers the accident that resulted in her hospitalization was no accident. The obsessively self-absorbed Senator Wexler is involved, and while Quinn considers himself a civilized man, now he's out for blood.<br><br>Up until this point, Mark has stayed out of Quinn's CIA business. But hurting Quinn and those he loves isn't a smart move, and Mark has every intention of seeing Wexler pays. Quinn demands to come along, and while Mark isn't happy, he finally agrees, and they set out together to deal with the senator. There's just one catch: this will be the first time Quinn sees Mark at his deadly best, and Mark isn't sure how his lover will react.

Forever

I smacked the back of his head, and he gave me a stunned look. “You’re a fucking idiot is what you are, Mann.” I kept my voice down, even though the odds of disturbing his mother were slim. “Do you know how much I envy you having a mother like Portia? Smart, classy, a real lady…. And she fucking loves you.”


“Of course she loves me. I never doubted that. But look at me. I didn’t fall apart because she’s in that goddamned hospital bed. I fell apart because of a stupid, fucking coat.”


“Her coat was a catalyst, that’s all.” I gave him a shove. “Knowing what it’s meant to her all these years, seeing how it had to be cut off her, it made you realize how close you’d come to losing her. Look, Quinn, I’m not a headshrinker. All I know is you’d have to be the coldest son of a bitch in the world not to have some kind of reaction to the last few days.”


Chapter 67