Desert Angel (Family Justice Book 2) (15 page)

“And whose fault would that be?”

“Oh, shut . . .”

He yanked her hard when he heard the words
shut up
about to come out of her mouth, and she tumbled on top of him. With the sheet trapped between them now, her ass was beautifully bare so he pulled his hand back and brought it down with a wicked smack.

“Will you never learn, woman?” he
tsked.

She gave him a naughty leer and then propped herself up on his chest.

“So, about these points. The scoreboard is sorta stacked against me, don’t you think? I’m not sure my poor bum can handle so much spanking.”

Alex chuckled and kneaded her ass for emphasis. “Oh, this oughta be rich.”

She ran her finger down his chest and toyed with a nipple. Witch. She was asking for trouble.

“I was thinking maybe we could work some of those points off another way.”

“Is that so?”

“Mmm hmm . . .”

“What did you have in mind?” This was fun! He hadn’t considered their playful game had other possibilities. Hot damn!

“Well, short of calling you daddy, master, or sir—because you know that shit’s not ever going to happen—I believe the choice is yours.”

He laughed. They both knew she’d call him
Your Highness
if he asked her to.

His overactive, over-sexed, mind hit on the perfect solution. Something they’d both enjoy.

“Okay,” he told her as he grabbed a good handful of her ass. “Here it is. I’ll take back ten points if next Friday, you let me kidnap you from our bed, take you out into the desert, and fuck you without mercy.”

She squirmed on top of him and he smiled. Her desires were so easy to read sometimes. “Oh wait, darlin’—there’s more.”

He rolled them until Alex had the advantage, wedged perfectly between her spread legs with the sheet pushed aside.

“When
I’m
satisfied and finished coming inside you, I’ll dress you and then will personally deliver you to Ben.”

She arched a surprised eyebrow at him. Bah! As though Ben would somehow be involved in their fuckery. Shaking his head at her foolishness, he gave her a wry grin. “Who will then drive you and Angie into Sedona for a long weekend at L’Auberge.”

She smiled. No, actually she beamed at him.

“And just to be clear, you’ll be making that drive and checking into the hotel with our cum in your panties.”

“Deal,” she groaned, her eyes smoky with desire after his wicked description.

There wasn’t anything left to do except shift his hips and slide into Meghan’s welcoming heat.

“Thanks, Unc. I’ll tell Meghan you say hi. She’d want to get in on the conversation, but she’s in the shower,” Alex said with a grin, cell phone pressed to his ear. “Let me know right away what you find out. And Calder?” he drawled. “About Stephanie—don’t fuck this up, dude. I agree that going to Atlanta is the thing to do. If she’s yours, man . . . go get her.”

Alex’s attention was drawn away when he heard Meghan moving around in the dressing room. He was curious to see what kind of mood she was in. It had turned out to be an emotional day, and he knew she was particularly fragile now that she’d shared her fears with him. He hoped she’d be happy with his solution to their unusual predicament. What he’d come up with was definitely unconventional, but fuck, so was their entire relationship.

“Uh, listen Calder. I gotta go. Stay in touch,” he absently muttered, ending the call and tossing the phone aside.

Not able to wait for her to make an entrance, Alex strode into their dressing room and stopped short when he saw her. How the fuck had his sorry ass been fortunate enough to find this magnificent woman and make her his? When he saw her like this—subdued, relaxed, and completely natural—he couldn’t believe how damn lucky he was.

“You look ravishing,” he murmured—his eyes devouring every detail. The white silk of her robe. Her sexy auburn curls piled atop her head and the delicate tendrils that escaped and lay against her lovely neck. Her face, fresh from the shower, was flushed from the heat and looked like something he wanted to lick.

She watched his reflection in the mirror, a shy quirky smile on her lips.

“Do you remember when you took me to L’Auberge?” she asked softly. Her eyes were shining as he watched her reflection.

Of course, he remembered. Their stay there in a private cottage had been magical. He smiled warmly. “We spent so much time by the fireplace that you smelled of wood smoke and cashmere. Very sexy, actually.”

Alex moved closer and stood directly behind her, his hands first on her shoulders, then one encircling her neck as they stared at each other in the mirror. She relaxed in his grip and leaned into him.

“Were you trying to tell me something with this weekend getaway?”

He smiled and softly caressed her neck. “Perhaps. It’s a warm memory for me—our time there was very special. You were,” he explained, “so happy. Relaxed. You’ve been anxious lately, and I thought it would do you good to have some girl time.”

“Girl time?” she smirked.

“You know what I mean,” he chided her gently with a quick squeeze of her neck. “It’s not like we’re set up for mani-pedis way out here.”

“True.”

He could see her thinking about their memorable L’Auberge interlude and could practically pinpoint the second she bought into the indulgence of a spa weekend with Angie. Women! So predictable sometimes.

“And while you’re there getting pampered, I give you permission to let go and just have fun with the wedding. Get silly. Indulge every whim, no matter how absurd.”

She rolled her eyes and mocked him with a grunt. “You give permission, huh?”

“Yep!” He shot her his best cocky grin. “Trust me. I’ve got this, babe. You are to have nothing but fun from here on out. Got it?”

“What are you up to Major Marquez?”

The adorable look of suspicion reflected in the mirror made him laugh.

“Why, I’m giving you your happily ever after, of course! And, by the way, I have it on good authority that a certain relative of mine, the aging surfer who needs his ass kicked, to be exact, has finally come to his senses. I do believe a trip to Georgia is now on his mind.”

Meghan gasped and a bright, happy smile lit up her face. “You spoke to Calder?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“And?” she grumbled.

“And for the rest, you’ll just have to wait and see,” he teased.

Okay. So Parker had until tomorrow night to come up with some kind of plan. Being thrown together with Angie in a group outing and seeing her out in public was the easy part. It was what he was going to say and coming up with a way to get her alone. So they could talk. Maybe clear the air.

But it wasn’t all that easy to make all the fractured pieces of their story fit neatly together, due to the fact that it wasn’t just him and Angie anymore. Alex was involved. So was Meghan. Both their families had to be considered. It was fucking a lot and the outcome was mostly on him.

He was too old for this shit. It was embarrassing on some level. Here he was, watching forty round up the bend, and for all his success, good looks, and rock ‘n’ roll badass charisma, his personal life was a tired joke.

And why was it a tired joke? Because the fucking truth was that he’d given his heart away a long, long time ago to a scrap of a girl who loved to laugh, never met a taunt or challenge she wouldn’t try to defeat, and looked at him with the most adoring sapphire colored eyes.

He’d wanted Angel, and when he had her, he hadn’t been careful. Hadn’t been honest. It seemed the cruelest irony of them all that she still believed he’d regretted their involvement.

How could he tell her now that he’d loved her every day of her life? How, since she was a teenager, he’d lusted after her in ways that still haunted him? Could he make her believe?

Maybe all he should hope for was a foot in the door. A chance to control the inevitable firestorm that would erupt when Alex figured out what had gone down. His friend getting all bent out of shape about upsetting Meghan was a sign that the shit was already approaching the fan.

Angie’s drunken performance the night she came back only made matters worse. He was pretty damn sure all that bullshit about Ronald McDonald, or whatever the fuck that Spanish asshole’s name was, was meant to piss him off. And it worked. The more she’d taunted about this great love of hers that crashed and burned because of timing, the more he’d wanted to break something.

And
timing
as an explanation for calling off a wedding? Who the fuck was she kidding? Her breakup had nothing to do with timing. He knew her too well—even after years of silence. There was something completely disingenuous about the way she’d talked about her life in Spain and this so-called love of hers.

Them yelling at each other at the foot of the big staircase in the hacienda was not a proud moment, either.
Still not sure how I kept it together,
he thought. At one point when she was hopping up and down on the bottom stairs and snarling two inches away from his face, he’d been sorely tempted to haul her over his knee and blister her ass for acting like such a brat.

Actually, that might still be an option. This was Angelina, after all, and few knew better than him what an indulged princess she’d been as a child. The grown-up version exuded an energy that was electrifying, but her spoiled inner bitch-child was a right royal pain in the ass. As far as Parker was concerned, what the girl needed was a firm hand. Someone to temper the fire. And that someone was him.

“S
O, WHEN DO YOU GUYS
leave?”

Wiping away a glob of hot sauce that had clung to her mouth, Lacey smiled at Victoria with a conspiratorial grin. “Tomorrow afternoon. Sawyer’s all jazzed. Said the last time he flew anyone from Justice into Vegas, well . . . you know the outcome.”

“Oh, I know that outcome well!” Tori trilled with a giggle. “Fuck the souvenirs. Try a baby on board and an arrogant playboy in denial. Now, there are two things that did
not
stay in Vegas.”

Everyone cracked up laughing. They were crowded around a high-top table in the back of the bar, annihilating a platter of buffalo wings while Meghan, who was wandering around at the moment, scoped out the dirty on their supposed karaoke competitors.

Enjoying their comical interplay, Angie nodded in Meghan’s direction. “By the way, you guys have nothing to worry about. Those good ol’ boys at the mic before did a passable harmony, but they lack the tits and ass to bring the crowd to their side!”

Lacey snorted. “T and A. I think we’re better than that.”

Angie agreed. When the girls had told her about the karaoke fever they had going on, she figured it was just a bit of housewifey fun. Boy, was she ever wrong. Earlier, when they were waiting for the men to get their rides sorted out, she’d listened in delighted disbelief as the three women gathered around the grand piano in the Villa’s magnificent open foyer and picked apart a harmony for a song they wanted to perform.

Why . . . Boots, Ass, and Sass needed a record contract! These ladies rocked out with their tits out as Tori so succinctly put it.

Besides the fact that it was completely, awesomely hilarious that the Justice wives got their giggles through sing-along performances in a dusty old honky tonk bar, there was something touching and sweet about their intense camaraderie. A year ago these women didn’t even know each other. Today—they were a family.