Family Stone Holiday Box Set: (including Stone Cold Heart, Carved in Stone, and Heart of Stone) (Family Stone Romantic Suspense)

by Lisa Hughey

  LeRoy laughed heartily at some comment that Colin had made. With the high-powered lens she observed the slight tightening round Colin’s eyes. He was wondering when the hell he could leave. The signal for him to take off was after Keisha delivered the poison.

  With deliberation, she counted her heartbeats, waiting, waiting, for the moment when she could squeeze the trigger and end his life. Jess knew if she killed LeRoy with her sniper rifle the country would be thrown into disarray.

  The immediate chaos would throw the already disintegrating social situation into total anarchy. The military would be trying to keep peace rather than distributing the goods and the desperately needed supplies to the citizens.

  Jess thought of the young children she’d handed seed packets to this morning. Their gaunt filthy faces as they looked to the packet, one very small pouch between them and total starvation. The grief and shadows in the faces of the people she’d helped today. Their gratitude submerged under the sheer weight of staying alive and staying healthy.

  Her chest tightened, restricted by doubt. How could she pull resources away from the very needy?

  She looked through the scope again. LeRoy smiled, his teeth white and polished in a shiny clean face. The polar opposite of the dirty, bedraggled people she’d served earlier this afternoon. If she killed him now, the immediate threat would be eliminated but the long term effects to the population would still be there and even more uncertain.

  She hadn’t asked the right questions earlier when she’d spoken to Colin. She should have asked more about LeRoy’s successor. Sure he was a religious leader. But was he a zealot? Did he serve everyone or give special preference to certain religions?

  Right now D’Aramitz was the probably the best choice. But who would they chose to take over for him?

  Jess didn’t know the answers but she did know that the people had no hope with LeRoy in power. A flicker of movement caught Jess’s eye as Keisha walked around toward the main street and suddenly she realized there was another way.

  And she knew what she had to do. “Two, meet three at the zero site.”

  She had told both Colin and Keisha where she planned to set up. She was two streets over from the mansion. Keisha acknowledged Jess’s order with a nod of her head. Jess had the means to carry out the mission as they’d originally planned, only the execution would be slightly different.

  She stared at the mansion, calculating how she could get the poison to LeRoy’s bath. Jess was only supposed to provide protection for both Colin and Keisha and in the event that that their plan failed she was supposed to shoot LeRoy and then get back to the tent compound ASAP.

  But now that Keisha had bombed, Jess could get the poison in.

  “Three will fill in for two.”

  Colin smiled faintly as if amused at his companion’s joke. Then he turned his head so that it seemed almost as if he was staring straight at her. His light gray eyes glittered with heightened intensity and annoyance as he shook his head slightly.

  “I am a party girl.” Jess tried to get her meaning across without actually explaining. They hadn’t come up with code for ‘Keisha couldn’t get in and now I’m going to take her place’.

  The plan was crazy. She was crazy. Adrenaline coursed through her. The natural high a familiar and welcome fizz in her bloodstream. Dammit. She’d missed this. The edge. The excitement. Even the element of danger felt like coming home.

  What the hell did that say about her?

  With calm deliberation, Jess began disassembling her sniper rifle. Her hands trembled as she placed the weapon’s pieces in the specially fitted backpack and then calmly pulled out the LBD she hadn’t worn since the night she’d hooked up with Colin.

  Night was almost completely upon the city. She needed to get going.

  She managed to shimmy out of her relief worker clothes and into the little dress. Then she swiped blusher on her cheeks and a layer of shiny gloss on her mouth. The little thong flats would have to do since she didn’t have any heels.

  Her backpack lay next to her. For a moment, Jess wondered at her instincts. Now the reason she’d felt compelled to shove a black knit jersey dress that took minimal space—the same dress she’d worn the night she’d hooked up with Colin six months ago—and the small bag of cosmetics in her backpack, just in case, seemed like serendipity. When she’d been in the FBI it had been standard operating procedure to be ready to change her appearance with a few quick moves and the habit had stuck.

  Unfortunately she’d have to take her transmitter off, but she still had her earpiece in. Fortunately Colin couldn’t yell at her since he was otherwise occupied.

  Jess slid quietly down the debris pile and met Keisha at the base of what used to be the courtyard of the church. They quickly exchanged burdens, Keisha took Jess’s backpack and Jess took the poison and taped it to the inside of her thigh.

  Keisha gave her head a gentle pat. “Good luck…and thanks.”

  Jess headed for the back door of the mansion. She knocked on the back door authoritatively. When the cook opened the door, she shoved in, chattering away. “Oh goodness, thanks, I’m so sorry I’m late, can you tell me where I’m supposed go?” she beamed at the rotund cook. She was a large woman with a head full of cornrows and a bemused frown.

  She opened her mouth as if to tell Jess to get out.

  “I know, I know. I’m late. I got stuck at the security checkpoint.” She pointed down at her feet then leaned in and whispered in the cook’s ear. “They took my damn shoes. But luckily I had a friend close by who totally wears my size and I could borrow her shoes and then I practically ran all the way here.”

  The cook still hadn’t said a word.

  “Please, please let me in.” She put her hands together in the prayer position, index fingers to her lips, as she begged. “I need the money.” Jess let a little bit of sob trickle through her voice.

  Finally, the cook pulled her into the kitchen and shut the door behind Jess. She looked Jess up and down and whispered. “Be careful, milady.”

  A shiver ran over Jess’s spine as she realized that the cook knew something was up. And she was letting her in anyway. She grabbed the woman’s hand, and said fervently, “Thank you so much.”

  “Kat-a-rine.” A burly security guard stomped into the kitchen. “What’choo doing?”

  “She’s with the others.”

  But the guard had already caught on to Jess’s purpose and he smiled slyly. “You’re late, missy.”

  “I-I know,” Jess stammered to make it look good but inside she was rolling her eyes. “I had a shoe emergency.”

  She hoped the silly statement would take him off guard. Instead he gave her a lecherous look. “What you gonna do to make it worth my while to let you in?”

  Jess gulped. This situation hadn’t been covered in the GHR employee handbook. Shit. She widened her eyes and glanced at his crotch. “Do I have time? I don’t want President LeRoy to be mad at you. I thought the guests had already arrived,” she said in a breathy voice, reminding the asshole that his boss would be less than happy if she were any later.

  The guard peered over his shoulder. “No time now. After the party.”

  Sure, pal. Jess breathed a mental sigh of relief. One awkward situation down, who knew what?, next.

  “Follow me,” he grumbled.

  “Is there a place where I can freshen up?” she smiled beguilingly at the guard. If she could just get into LeRoy’s bathroom, she could unload the poison in the bath salts and get the heck out.

  “No.” The guard shook his head emphatically. “Guests only.”

  Dammit. That would have been too easy. Guess this would have to be done the hard way. Hopefully she could figure what the hard way was before she was picked up for the night.

  Jess sashayed behind the guard through a massive wide hallway with hand-tied silk Persian rugs and gilded gold-framed portraits of former leaders. Crystal chandeliers hung from high arched ceilings and cast light on a door almost h
idden by fancy moulding work. The guard whispered, “You can sneak in this way and no one will notice.”

  “Thanks,” she smiled sultrily and tried to impart every drop of sensuality into the gesture. “See you later, doll.”

  His teeth were almost blindingly white in his dark face as he shoved her into the room. Jess nearly stumbled, but true to his word, she’d been thrust into the room in a back corner. The other guests were gathered around the buffet table set up at the other end of the large drawing room and no one noticed her less than elegant entrance.

  The entire room reeked with the scent of lilies. Jess wondered where in the hell LeRoy had gotten lilies as a decoration?

  And then she stopped, caught by an intense, severe stare.

  Seven

  He was going to kill her.

  Assuming she made it out of the extremely dangerous situation she’d just willingly put herself into, her life would be forfeit because Colin was going to strangle her.

  And then once he got back to the states for the debrief, Jack was going to kill him.

  One big happy death circle.

  What. The. Fuck?

  She had gone completely against plan. This wasn’t even plan D, this was plan WTF.

  She had on the dress that she’d worn the night that they’d hooked up and even with slightly dirty feet and very little make up on, she was flat out gorgeous.

  Colin couldn’t take his eyes off her. Neither could half the men in this room. And what the hell did it say about him that he was beyond turned on?

  “Ah, I can tell that you see something you like, mon ami,” LeRoy teased Colin. If he hadn’t been freaked before, he was now in the stratosphere of completely jacked up. Colin didn’t want LeRoy anywhere near Jess.

  Colin stretched his fingers to forcibly keep his hands from clenching into fists. He couldn’t afford to display any kind of weakness. “She is…attractive.” Never show how much you want something.

  This entire plan was a cluster. Keisha had been stopped, Jess had put away her rifle, which he really hadn’t wanted to use her anyway. She’d been right. An outright assassination of LeRoy would throw the country into civil unrest. While a natural death would create some difficulties it was nothing compared to what would happen if LeRoy died violently.

  LeRoy let out a deep belly laugh, his face wreathed in wrinkles of a smile, his shoulders shook with mirth. He looked like a big fat black Santa and his bowl full of jelly. “I think more than just attractive. My madam has outdone herself.” LeRoy slapped him on the shoulder so hard, Colin nearly bent in half. “Avail yourself.”

  Yeah, cause that would be good for you….wouldn’t it you big fat fuck?

  Colin was pretty sure there were cameras in the rooms that the guests and their paid ‘companions’ were encouraged to use.

  But he’d made such a big deal of staring at her that now Colin had to pick Jess up for the night. Of course, better him than someone else.

  Colin prowled toward Jess, staying to the outside edge of the room so he could continue to observe the occupants. He noted how she moved around the room, mingling with the other guests and managing to keep a fairly even distance between them. Finally Colin had had enough. LeRoy was going to remember that Colin had the hots for a girl he didn’t recognize. And hopefully LeRoy would be dead before he could thank the madam for a woman she didn’t send.

  If Jess wasn’t fucking careful she was going to find herself trapped for the night with one of these immoral ‘philanthropists’ who were willing to use a country’s prostitutes even as they proclaimed their philanthropic goal was to aid the poor, disaster-ravaged citizens. It certainly wasn’t his job to police them, but he really hoped that Antoine D’Aramitz truly was a man of the cloth and not a secret pervert.

  Finally, Colin lost patience with her delay tactics. He stalked straight through the crowd. Jess, who was still keeping the periphery in her vision, didn’t realized he’d changed his trajectory. By the time she figured out he was no longer on the edges, it was too late.

  Colin stood in front of her and the man she was currently chatting with.

  “Bonjour,” she said with a sultry smile. Only Colin noticed the nerves beneath her welcoming exterior as she comprehended that he was not happy. Colin nodded to the portly man who was practically salivating at the way her plump breasts spilled out of the low cut top. She’d spread some sort of shimmery powder on the mounds and they glittered in the bright lights of the large room.

  “Sorry, old chap. But I do believe she’s taken.” He curled his fingers around her bare bicep and crowded her body with his. Then he leaned in and whispered in her ear, loud enough for the other man to hear. “I want you.”

  “Monsieur.” She giggled and batted her eyelashes flirtatiously. “How delightfully forward of you.”

  “I’ll make it very worth your while.”

  The other guy, wide-eyed and mouth hanging open, looked like he might object and challenge Colin for the opportunity to spend some alone time with Jess. So before he could even formally throw his hat in the ring, Colin began to herd Jess toward the exit. He curled his arm around her torso, from the outside the embrace should look lover-like, but hopefully Jess realized that the only way to break his hold would require a serious chop to the solar plexus.

  He shouldn’t have worried. Jess twined her arm through his and swung her hips languidly as they sauntered toward the door that lead to the guest rooms. Ostensibly the rooms were ready for freshening up, but in reality they were for illicit sexual liaisons with the women that LeRoy provided.

  Heat rose from her skin, and her fresh lemon scent and underlying perfume filled his senses. His body responded like she was standing there buck naked. “I am so tempted to put you over my knees and spank you.”

  She laughed huskily and leaned over to whisper in his ear, “I’d like to see you try.”

  “Don’t push me,” he growled.

  Jess played the coquette and tilted her head, blonde and brown streaked hair tumbled sexily over one mostly bare shoulder, and over her breast. Her green eyes glittered with some emotion he couldn’t quite pin down. Indignation? Frustration? “Don’t underestimate me.”

  Colin found one of the rooms for the guests to ‘freshen up’ in. He knocked lightly and when no one answered, he shoved the door open. Before she could lay into him, he curled his arm around her shoulders, and pressed her up against the wall covered in delicate, seashell pink silk wallpaper. He rocked his hips into her body, and reveled at the catch in her breath. Very quietly, he whispered in her ear, “Likely bugged, and/or recorded.”

  Her body stiffened. But as if she immediately realized she had to be on guard, she went liquid.

  Yes, she’d caught his meaning. They were likely going to be taped.

  And they were going to have to perform, at least to some extent. They had to make it look and sound good before they could wander out, get lost, and hopefully get into LeRoy’s bathroom, plant the poison and get out of the mansion before anyone caught them where they shouldn’t be.

  Getting right on board, Jess dragged her foot up his calf, even as her hands headed south and grabbed his butt. The move tilted her hips into his burgeoning erection. The blood in his body rushed to his cock even as he cupped her breasts through the snug, stretchy black fabric.

  Suddenly he was back in that hotel hallway in London.

  She was rubbing her body along his and his brain was short circuiting, sending pulses of lust straight to his dick. They needed to be strategizing, and all he could think about was getting inside her. As if he’d die if they weren’t connected in the most intimate manner possible in the next five seconds.

  Colin scraped his fingers up her bare silky thigh and under her short tight skirt.

  As he encountered mostly naked curves, his eyes rolled back in his head. “Fuck me, do you have anything on beneath this?” he snarled. His brain completely shut down.

  She laughed. “Thong, monsieur.”

  Thank fuck,
she was staying in character because Colin had completely forgotten that they were players in a dangerous game. Where the hell was his head?

  “I’m going to rip it off.” He yanked the lace from her body and plunged two fingers inside her. “I’ll buy you a new one.” He panted.

  Jess laughed nervously. “Not necessary, mais merci.” And then she moaned as he trilled his thumb over her clit and a fierce triumph roared through him.

  She tried frantically to undo his belt, and clawed at his zipper, scrabbling to get his pants down.

  She shoved his underwear to his thighs and squeezed his bare ass. Colin wondered where the cameras were placed and hoped that what they were doing would be mostly hidden by his body. They were going to have to go through with this. If someone were actually listening or watching real time, it would be too suspicious if they didn’t now.

  Fuck. He wanted to take his time. Spend hours, days, exploring her body, finding all those perfect spots and secret places that sent her into the stratosphere. On crisp sheets with an ocean breeze swirling around them and a bucket of chilled champagne sweating by the bedside. Instead, he was about to fuck her up against a wall.

  Colin pulled his fingers from her body and curled his hands underneath her thighs and lifted her up. “Condom in my back pocket.”

  She pulled the condom out and ripped the package open with her teeth. Jess had a huge grin on her face and her eyes were bright with laughter and desire. And fuck, but that turned him on even more. She was having fun. And she didn’t give a damn that there were likely cameras on them.

  “Put it on,” he gutted out. He was so hard right now, they didn’t need the poison, he could club LeRoy to death with his cock.

  The touch of her fingers on his cock as she rolled the condom down sent licks of fire through his blood. Jesus, she affected him. Her body told the same story, the feeling was mutual. His fingers were slick from her wet channel and her nipples stabbed his chest. Her breasts were flushed with arousal. And she probably didn’t even realize that she swayed back and forth in tiny hip rocks against his abs, rubbing against him sensuously.