Queen of Hearts: (Family Stone #6 Shelley) (Family Stone Romantic Suspense) (7 page)

Her flesh heated and her eyes closed on a moan as more images from last night strobed through her. His beard scraping her inner thigh, the iron strength of his biceps as he held her against the wall, the rippled ridges of his abs as he’d pushed inside her.

Sheesh, she was turning herself on just from the memories.

What in the world was happening to her? She considered herself to be slightly asexual. She’d never really needed sex. It was pleasant. A nice release. Clearly something she could live without since it had been a really, really long time.

But last night, he’d awakened something within her.

Like Sleeping Beauty to Prince Charming she’d come alive at his intimate kisses. Shelley snorted. Of course, he was no prince.

He was rough-edged and blunt. So far from her former lovers that the difference was…exciting, thrilling, arousing. The sex had been raw and erotic.

All she could think about was doing it again. With him.

The shower shut off just as someone knocked at the door. Too early to be room service. She wouldn’t open it but she could at least go check to see who was there.

She stared out the peephole and her heart sank. With a deep sigh, and only the slightest hesitation, Shelley opened the door. She really didn’t want to do this.

“Come on in.”

The door swung shut with a solid thunk. Shelley felt more awkward in the borrowed sweats and t-shirt in the heavy silence.

Ric came bounding into the main living area of the hotel room, stark naked, hair dripping wet, and gun in his hand. All those images she had imagined in her head didn’t do justice to his absolutely ripped body.

“Shelley, what the hell?” Ric snarled. “I told you not to open the door.”

“Mom?” Jess’s eyes were wide before she shoved her palm over her eyes.

They stood there in an awkward triangle. Wonderful.

“Ric meet my daughter, Jessica.” She dropped down on to the sectional sofa in the living room and threw her arm over her face. “Maybe we should call Colin and Connor and get them over here to see you naked too.”

God, the mortification. Was this her payback for failing to mention when they were hot and heavy in the restaurant or banging against the wall that technically she was a mother of four grown adults?

Mary, Mother of— Wasn’t she allowed to one thing, one thing, for herself?

“Be right back.” Without another word, Ric headed back into the bathroom, presumably to dry off. Shelley was still leaning on the sofa cushions.

“Really mom?” Jess plopped onto the sofa next to her. “I can’t decide whether to high five you, because he’s hot, or give you a hard time because, Jeez, you’re my mother.”

She wanted to laugh it off or make some sage comment because she’d been the one dispensing advice for so many years. But the truth was she was tired. And disappointed. And embarrassed.

Wasn’t she allowed to have a sex life?

She wanted to play it off. Laugh, make a joke, be light-hearted and pretend like this wasn’t one of the most embarrassing moments of her life, because that is what mothers do. Except she wasn’t just a mother. “I’m a woman in the prime of my life.” She cursed the fact that her voice broke.

“I know that,” Jess’s said softly. “It’s just a little disconcerting to see what kind of prime you’re getting.”

Jess giggled.

The sound was so similar to the way she had laughed when she was a little girl that it brought a melancholy smile to Shelley’s lips. She’d done a damn fine job of raising her kids. She was proud of that, of them.

“I’m lonely, Jess,” she confessed. “You’re all grown up and have your own lives now. I just wanted one night….” She trailed off.

“Oh, mama.” Jess lay her head on Shelley’s shoulder and curved her arm around her waist. “I can imagine.”

“Don’t imagine too much,” Shelley said dryly. “It would scar you for life.”

“I love you,” her daughter whispered against her shoulder.

“Love you too, punkin’.” But she wanted more. Was that wrong?

Six

Ric was on his way to talk to security at the hotel. The only reason he’d left Shelley with her daughter was because Jess knew how to fire a gun.

Ric strode down the hallway toward the hotel’s security offices. His mind on the break in, but his body itching to get back to Shelley.

Yeah, he knew her daughter had been a sniper and was proficient with firearms, and still, he didn’t like Shelley out of his sight.

This low level of panic that streamed through him was unsettling. They had just met.

It was supposed to be a one night hook up, no strings, just some hopefully awesome sex and then
adios
.

Instead he found himself worrying about what was really happening here. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop while he’d been in the bathroom getting dressed, but he had excellent hearing and he’d caught Shelley’s forlorn confession when she’d blurted out to her daughter that she was lonely.

Her admission had affected him deep in his gut, because she’d nailed his problem exactly.

That restless, uneasy antsiness that had plagued him over the past year finally had a name. Loneliness.

Maybe it was because in the past he’d spent most of his days with his team, or embroiled in planning and executing ops, but since he’d left the Navy and started his own business, his life had been a series of short term dating partners juggled between jobs.

For the first time in a long time, since his divorce at age twenty, he was interested in pursuing a relationship.

Shelley Stone came with a lot of strings, most specifically four. Three of whom were taller than him and outweighed him by several pounds. But he’d grown up scrapping and scrounging to defend himself and he was pretty sure he could take them in a fight. Individually.

If they ganged up on him, he was a goner.

Even so, he had the strange and overpowering urge to fight for her if they didn’t approve. He couldn’t believe he was thinking like that.

Focus on the damned problem, Enrique.

Jack had found both listening devices and cameras in Shelley’s room. Fairly high tech equipment too. Ric was meeting Jack downstairs in the security offices so they could review the camera footage from Shelley’s floor.

Once he was buzzed in to the casino’s highly secure offices, Ric beelined for the monitor in the corner where Jack sat with a uniformed security professional.

“What have you got?” Ric hoped they had something to go on.

Jack handed him a stack of photos. “Check out the pictures of her room again. When I went back and looked objectively, something kept niggling at me.”

Ric flipped through the pictures. Her clothes were strewn over the floor, looked like they’d maybe been slashed. The cosmetics in the bathroom had been opened and dumped in the sink. Her shoes had been ripped. Ric paused on a particularly pair of sexy red heels and wished they hadn’t been destroyed.

His mind arrowed back to last night. Shelley in nothing but her bra and those black patent leather pumps, her legs curled around his ass and her heels digging into him. He’d bet he had bruises on his butt. His lips tilted up.

“Ric,” Jack said sharply.

Oops. Ric wiped the smile off his face and studied the pictures again. His first thought when he’d seen the chaos on Jack’s phone had been a lot of rage but, after analyzing the larger sized pictures, he had different perspective. “It’s a little too….” he struggled for the right word. It was a mess, no question but there was something meticulously ordered about it. “Neat.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought too.”

The security guy pulled up the video recordings from the prior night.

Jack was clearly uncomfortable. “What time did you guys, uh, meet?”

Ric flushed. “At the bar, about nine.” Thankfully, Jack didn’t ask what time they’d gotten to his room. Because the land speed record for hook ups hadn’t been broken but they’d come close. Their attraction had been that intense.

“Start at 8 p.m.” Jack requested the security guard.

They watched the video, scrolling through hours of hotel guests. Several amorous couples; a group of drunk women dressed up for a bachelorette party, the guest of honor wearing a short white veil and a Beauty Contestant banner across her chest that read, “Bride To Be”; one guy with two hookers, one on each arm; and finally at two a.m. a lone man got off the elevator. Before he got to Shelley’s room, Ric knew this guy was the one.

He was wearing a ball cap with no logo, long sleeves with a paunchy stomach, baggie Levi jeans, and generic tennis shoes. The cap was pulled far enough down that only his jaw was visible. And he’d angled his head so that no usable shots were captured by the camera.

“No identifying features, tattoos.”

Ric eyed the way the guy moved. “Stomach could be fake.”

“Yeah. Watch the way he walks. It probably is.” Jack studied the man as he paused at Shelley’s suite. He didn’t look around, no furtive glances or uneasy movements.

“Definitely not an amateur,” Ric said which didn’t make him feel any better. Then he barked out, “Hold and zoom in on his hands.”

Sure enough he was wearing thin latex or vinyl gloves.

“I don’t like this,” Jack said.

They continued to watch, keeping an eye on the time stamp. “Guy was in and out in under ten minutes.”

The man sauntered toward the elevator, no rush, no agitated movements. He displayed no signs of temper at all. At first glance and with the angry words written on her walls, the destruction was an act of rage. However, there was a more calculated intimidation going on here.

“Shift to the cameras in the casino,” Ric said. From the time stamp on the floor video, they started watching that elevator on the main floor. But the guy never came out. They knew he had gotten in the elevator going down so they checked each floor’s cameras until they found the tape. He’d gotten out on the third floor then walked toward the shops.

Ric’s uneasy feeling grew. “We need to talk.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah.”

“Can you print the best picture of him we can get?” Ric asked the security guy.

The casino ran the image through their facial recognition software but their database was full of known cheaters and grifters, not work for hire guys like this one.

“Sure.”

“Print several copies,” Ric said.

Jack interjected. “Six.”

Ric raised a brow. “Six?”

“Me, you, Con, Riley, Colin and John.”

“Who’s John?”

“I guess we haven’t caught up in a while,” Jack said ruefully. “I have another brother.”

Seriously? Ric’s mind shifted immediately to Shelley. Like she didn’t have enough stuff to deal with. “Must have been rough on Shelley.”

“Nope. She was the first one to really welcome John into the family.” Jack said proudly, “Shelley is one of the most amazing, resourceful, strong women I know.”

Ric thought about the woman he’d had sex with last night. She was more than that. She was a sensual, charming, funny, fun woman who deserved a hell of a lot better than she’d gotten lately.

What was he thinking? That he’d be the one to give her what she deserved?

Ric shuddered. It was like her pheromones had wrapped around his brain and squeezed out all his common sense.

They were a hook up, he reminded himself sternly.

A hook up he now had to protect.

“I think the cover of you and Shelley dating will work nicely.” Jack interrupted his musings again.

Ric thought of all the things they would do if they were really dating. His cock started to rise as he imagined he and Shelley exploring this white hot attraction further.

“But Ric.” Jack clapped a heavy hand on Ric’s shoulder. “One more thing.”

“What’s that?” Ric asked absently, his mind on all the ways he could ‘cover’ Shelley.

“No more touching, Shelley.” Jack laid down the law.

“What?”

“She’s vulnerable.” Jack countered. “I don’t want her hurt.”

“Shouldn’t that be her decision?” Ric asked evenly.

“Maybe. But I’m asking you, as a friend, to take care of her, not bone her.”

Ric pressed his mouth together. He would try, but he wasn’t making any promises. “I understand your position. But Shelley is a grown ass woman. She can make her own decisions. And if she decides she wants me….” Ric thought back to that three years. She’d been right there with him in his hotel room last night. Jack was thinking about Shelley as a mother not as a woman. “I’m not going to refuse.”

On the other hand, what the hell was he thinking? One day ago he would have said he wasn’t interested in getting involved with anyone, especially someone with lots of strings attached. A relationship with Shelley had strings written all over it. So, yeah, maybe Jack had the right idea.

Not to mention, getting involved with a principal was really a bad idea.

Jack said, “Let me tell you about the notes she’s been getting.”

Ric help up his palm. “What about Shelley?”

Jack raised a dark brow.

“She needs to be in on this discussion.”

“I was trying to protect her.”

“You don’t need to withhold things from her.” Ric pulled out his phone. “Let’s all meet in my suite.”

“Fine. I’m going to call Con in.” Jack studied the picture of Shelley’s intruder. “I don’t want whoever is behind this to know where Shelley is.”

Ric knew Jack would have a better pulse on the situation. “Do you think she’s in physical danger?”

“The evidence of the pro would indicate this is more about scaring her, showing her they could get to her whenever and where ever they want.” Jack studied the pictures. “And so far the threats have all been fairly innocuous.”

A possessive, primitive need to protect her rose in Ric. “They must know enough about her to know you run a security company.”

Jack nodded.

“Yet, they still chose to make a move against her.” Ric contemplated that fact. “That indicates a level of arrogance that makes me uneasy.”

Jack replied, “Maybe they’re under the assumption that I wouldn’t care if something happened to her.”

“Are we sure the threat is really about Shelley?” Ric’s gut clenched with an unnamed emotion. Though they’d just met, he didn’t want anything to happen to her. “Could it be aimed at you?”