Queen of Hearts: (Family Stone #6 Shelley) (Family Stone Romantic Suspense) (5 page)

He could hear Shelley rustling behind him. All he wanted right now was to get rid of Jack and get back to setting more records. He grinned.

“I’ve been texting and calling for the last hour,” Jack snarled.

“Perhaps there’s a good reason why I didn’t answer,” he said mildly. A little surprised since Jack Stone wasn’t really prone to outbursts of emotion. He was a cool calculating SOB most of the time.

“Sorry to disturb your love fest.” Jack pushed the door open with an irritated shove. Since Ric wasn’t expecting it, his body gave instantly as Jack burst into the living room. “I have a big problem. My mom is—“

Jack stopped dead and whirled around. “In your bed? What the fuck, BP?”

“Jack?!” Shelley was clutching the sheet to her chin. She’d drawn her knees to her chest and her eyes were wild as she stared at his friend. But what in the fresh hell was Jack talking about? No way was Shelley old enough to be his mom.

“Shelley.” Jack’s face was set in a murderous frown as he advanced on Ric. “What is going on here?”

“What?” Ric felt like he’d walked into an alternate universe. His lover from last night couldn’t possibly be Jack’s stepmother. Could she?

“Well, if you don’t know then I guess I need to have the birds and the bees talk with you before you and Bliss get married.” Shelley sniped at Jack.

Ric laughed huskily.

Then he frowned when he noted that she had her hand over her eyes and she’d tucked into a ball, making herself a smaller target. Since Jack had burst in here, she hadn’t looked at Ric once.

“Jesus, Shelley.” Jack looked at such a loss that Ric wanted to smile but instead he planned to hustle Jack out of here pronto.

“As you can see, she isn’t missing. Why don’t you give us some privacy?” Ric spread his legs in an uncompromising stance, but his authority was diminished a little by the fact that he was still naked and clutching his pants in front of his dick.

“Jesus, Ric. Put some damn clothes on.” Jack said, “We aren’t done yet.”

Shelley’s forehead thunked on her knees. “You’re my stepson, not my father.” She tried again to lighten the atmosphere but Jack was having none of that.

“So, um, you’re Jack’s….” Ric gulped. He’d had sex with his friend’s stepmother. It sounded dirty, no matter how he looked at it. His gaze snagged on the delicate arch of her collarbone and the hickey on her shoulder and grinned. “You cougar.”

Shelley stifled a laugh. He was pretty sure she was smiling beneath her bowed head. “You aren’t helping.”

Jack muscled his way to stand in between Shelley and Ric. “Put some clothes on. We need to talk.”

“I think you’ve embarrassed Shelley enough for this morning.” Ric was suddenly done with Jack’s blustering. He knew what kind of man his friend was and he wasn’t a saint. Ric and Shelley hadn’t done anything wrong, and they were both consenting adults.

Before he could point out that fact—

“And you,” Jack turned on Shelley. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

Shelley lifted her head and stared steadily at Jack. “You really want me to respond to that?”

“Oh for God’s sake.” Jack rubbed his palms over his face. “My eyeballs are seared and I may be scarred for life. But I need to talk to you and it can’t wait.”

“Are all the kids okay?” The panic in Shelley’s voice pricked Ric’s conscience and that’s when he decided to accommodate Jack.

“Sorry, Shel, yes. Everyone is okay.” Jack said, “But I need to talk to you. Now.”

Ric caught his friend’s urgency and unfisted his pants. He pulled them on one leg at a time. The rasp of the zipper was loud in the silent, tense air. Ric grabbed a pair of sweatpants and a white t-shirt from his old Navy duffel. On his way back to the king sized bed he tried unobtrusively to kick the condom package under the overhang before his friend saw the obvious physical evidence of last night’s sex fest.

Based on the rigidity of Jack’s body, he’d failed.

He handed the concealing clothes to Shelley. “We’ll wait in the sitting area while you….” He gestured to the clothes.

He and Jack stepped down from the bedroom area into the expansive living room of the suite and Ric strode over to the massive floor to ceiling windows.

All the Palazzo rooms were suites. He’d upgraded a bit, but the nine hundred plus square feet of space still wasn’t enough to make this situation comfortable.

Shelley scooted into the bathroom. He stared at her reflection in the windowed glass, assuming his friend had the decency to not look.

“What the hell, BP?”

Ric crossed his arms over his bare chest and turned around to look his friend in the eye. “How was I supposed to know Shelley was your stepmom?”

He didn’t want to mention that they hadn’t exchanged a lot of personal details. But he also needed to defend himself from Jack’s conclusions. “You neglected to mention that she’s gorgeous and she’s hot.”

“Please stop. I’m going to start bleeding from my ears.”

Ric couldn’t help but tease Jack a little more. “Did you know—”

“Ric,” Shelley said sharply. “Stop.”

His lips quirked. He had no grace to be embarrassed. “Come on, babe. You’ve got to admit, it’s a little funny.”

Jack turned on the only mother he remembered. “And you.”

“There’s no Ric on the guest list.” Shelley raised her eyebrow. “How was I supposed to know he was your friend?”

“Enrique Santana.” Ric extended his hand as if they were just being introduced. “It’s a pleasure,” he practically purred.

“Cut it out.” Shelley flushed and batted his hand away. “Jack, why are you in such a tizzy?”

Suddenly Jack’s former animosity fell away. “We couldn’t find you and you weren’t answering your phone.”

There was a solemnness to his face that had Ric sobering up but he couldn’t help but defend her. “She’s hardly a teenager.”

Although she looked like one, swimming in his grey sweats and swallowed up by the large white t-shirt. He couldn’t help the primitive satisfaction that he got from seeing her in his clothes with her hair rumpled and her neck reddened from their festivities.

“I told Jess that I’d see her this morning,” Shelley replied. “We’re not supposed to meet until ten.”

“Yeah, but when Jess went to check on you this morning, your door was open.”

Shelley frowned. “That’s not right. I locked up before I went down to the restaurant.”

“That’s not all.” Jack suddenly looked really reluctant. “Your room had been ransacked. Clothes thrown all over. Your cosmetics were dumped all over the bathroom. Basically your stuff is destroyed.”

“What?”

Ric stepped closer to Shelley, his protective urge instinctive.

Jack stared out the window, avoiding his stepmother’s regard. “I may have downplayed your threat level.”

Ric noticed the shadows underneath his pal’s eyes. Something more was going on here than an outraged son. “What threat level?”

“Um, Jack, maybe we should move this discussion to your room.” Shelley started backing away from the window, from them. “I’m sure Ric has things to do.”

“Not until he answers.” A primal urge to protect and defend roared through him. No one messed with his woman.

Wait, his woman? What the hell? One night of spectacular sex aside, he didn’t have a woman.

“Really Ric.” Oh, the awkwardness here was off the charts. “Thanks for a…lovely evening.”

Lovely. Ric wanted to beat his fists on his chest and howl. Lovely didn’t come close to describing their explosive encounter.

“We’ll get out of your hair.”

“No, actually. This is good,” Jack said.

“Good?” Shelley had stopped backing away.

Shelley looked like she wanted to bolt again. This time for a different reason. With an inexplicable resolve, he didn’t want her to leave.

“What threat level?” Ric asked again.

Jack was glancing between them in pure assessment.

“I’m, ah, fairly well off.” Shelley waved away her fortune.

Ric wondered how she’d gotten it. As far as he knew she’d never married Jack’s father. Maybe she was independently wealthy.

“When my dad decided to bail on us when I was fourteen, I made some stipulations. Shelley got the house, a small percentage of the business, and full legal adoption of all of us. Dad’s only provision was she had to take the Stone name. I think he thought if people believed they were married, women would quit assuming they were going to be the next Mrs. Stone.”

Shelley’s whole face softened. “Such a fierce protector.” Her smile was a little melancholy. “Always looking out for everyone. He was…my champion.”

Ric couldn’t believe the stab of jealousy that pricked his heart. He didn’t want Jack to be her champion, Ric wanted to be the one who put that sweet smile on her lips and that soft look in her eyes.

It was as if her magic pussy had cast some weird emotional spell over him. That random thought had him wanting to take a step back, and usher them out of his room so he could clear his head and go back to enjoying Vegas, all the perks of Vegas, and his friend’s wedding.

“Turns out Shelley is a hell of an investor.” Jack smiled proudly. Then he bluntly cut to the heart of the problem. “She’s loaded.”

Coming from Jack that was pretty impressive because although they never discussed it, Ric knew Jack’s father was the sole owner of Stone Aeronautic Engineering and that he’d developed and patented some part of a plane that every commercial manufacturer and military contractor used. The guy wasn’t just rich, he was mega-rich.

“But how did they find me?” Shelley asked with bewilderment. “I registered under an alias.”

Jack paced the living area of the suite, completely ignoring the opulent luxury. “But no one else in the family did. My wedding isn’t exactly a state secret.”

Shelley snorted. “I was actively involved in the planning. I know exactly how many people know about your wedding.” She teased him.

“Even so.” Jack said softly, “Somehow they figured out your alias. I really don’t like the escalation of this, Shel.”

Ric wondered how serious the threat was. “So what’s the threat?”

“Really, Ric, there’s no need to bother you with this.” She made it sound like it was a trivial issue, like having to ration toilet paper in the latrine. But Ric wasn’t buying it.

When Jack had been banging on the door he’d been panicked. Now that Ric’s head was clearer, he recognized the fear in his friend.

“Shel. BP is in the security business.”

“Why do you keep calling him BP?”

“Bulletproof.” Jack shook his head. “Damndest thing. He never got shot. Ever.”

Shelley made a little ‘oh’ of distress.

He had plenty of other wounds, but in all his years in the Navy he’d never taken a bullet. Of course, that wasn’t relevant right now.

He’d done protection detail on some high level principals. If they needed analysis, he’d make this a working vacation. “I’m happy to help.”

“Great. Then it’s settled.”

“Oh, really, not necessary.” Shelley was backing away again.

Rick shook his head. “What’s settled?”

“You can be Shelley’s protection detail until we figure out where the threat is coming from.”

Ric’s first instinct was to protest.

“Wait, what?” Shelley beat him to it. “No way.”

Perversely, that pissed him off. Wow. “I’m damn good at what I do.” He felt compelled to add in a clear, calm voice.

But something in his face must have given him away because she was suddenly contrite. “This has nothing to do with your skills. I imagine you are hyper-efficient, detail-oriented, and highly effective.”

Suddenly they were both thinking about his skill and attention to detail in the sack. He could see it in the heat of her gaze.

Shelley closed her eyes, and blew out a breath as her head tilted back on her neck. The angle and clean lines reminded him of a moment last night when she’d been on top of him, riding his cock like a cowgirl, with a look of complete ecstasy on her face and sensual abandon in every line of her body.

His cock responded to the memory like Pavlov’s dogs to the damn bell. And he hoped no one was paying attention to his pants otherwise they were going to see the memory response in his morning wood.

“I’m messing this up.” Shelley crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed her bare biceps.

She propped her fists on her hips and focused on the extravagant Las Vegas skyline view from his window. It was unseasonably warm this April. Heat shimmered off the pavement, and waiters scurried around the opulent pool delivering food and fruity drinks to the sunbathing guests.

“Only I could have a one night stand who’s going to follow me around for the next four days,” she muttered.

Suddenly Ric’s stomach dropped as he realized he hadn’t really taken that into account. Spend the next few days basically glued to her side? That wasn’t quite how he’d planned to enjoy his vacation either. Of course, he hadn’t planned to have a one night stand that turned into four days of awkward. But he would do it for Jack. And for Shelley.

“And still no one has told me the threat.”

“It’s pretty nebulous.” Shelley blew out a frustrated breath. “You have what belongs to me. I want it back.”

Ric touched on obvious points of contention.

“Sounds personal. So did you beat out anyone for a promotion? Or close a deal that forced someone out?”

“I…own the farm outright now. We did have a bit of a dust up last February, but the man involved confessed, it was all hushed up. He received a commuted sentence. Frankly, he’s lucky his penalty wasn’t worse. I bought him out and the farm is not for profit anyway. I don’t have anything of his.”

“She’s right on that count.” Jack nodded. So he was clearly aware of the farm situation.

Ric slipped into work mode. “Are you dating anyone who recently broke off with another woman?” He was thinking out loud. Then he realized what he’d just asked. Obviously they just reached another level of awkward.

“No,” Shelley bit out.

He knew it was embarrassing, but really she needed to come clean. “Are you sure? Since this sounds personal. Could they have been dating someone and you didn’t realize it?”

“For that scenario to be considered, I would have to have been dating someone.”