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

“Boeuf bourguignon. Mother got this recipe when she and I spent a summer in France.”


In 1980, when he should have been in Moscow, riding for the U.S. at the Summer Olympics, only the Games had been boycotted that year, and so he’d been in France instead. I was on the fencing team. We could have met….


If the Games hadn’t been boycotted, we would have met….


Instead he’d met that French boy, who was probably a fat drunk by now.


I shook my head. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. We hadn’t met in 1980. It was as simple as that.


I tuned back in to what Quinn was saying about dinner. “…and the longer it cooks, the richer the flavor. All I had to do was wait for your call before I started the potatoes boiling and sautéed the mushrooms.”


“Quinn, I’m sorry. I wanted us to spend more than a few hours together on Christmas Eve.”


Chapter 89