Sleight Mistake (Stone Investigations Book 2) Read online

  They’d had dinner in front of a movie last night and gone to bed early. Since her return from Wallace’s lair she’d had several issues at night, nightmares and restlessness, as well as an increase in her sleep talking.

  Last night after a bout of lovemaking, she’d settled to sleep in Ryder’s arms. When she’d awoken in the dark, he was gone. But he was here now, sliding that hand on her lap up her skirt.

  ‘You ate?’ Ryder asked her with a squeeze.

  ‘I ate,’ Sorcha said. ‘Can we help you with something?’

  ‘Actually, I have to go,’ Lacie said, lifting Ryder’s hand to read his watch.

  ‘You do?’ Sorcha asked. ‘You better not be running off to get laid.’

  ‘We’ve been here for two hours, Sorch, and I’ll be over at eight,’ Lacie said.

  ‘Make it seven, and come to my place.’

  ‘Will you give me a ride?’ Lacie asked Ryder.

  ‘I’ll leave you the truck before and drive you home after,’ Ryder said. ‘We’re working security at the party.’

  ‘What?’ Sorcha screeched.

  ‘We’ve done Reynolds’ events for years,’ Ryder said. ‘They haven’t been impressed with the other contractors they’ve used while SW’s been on hiatus. Your father called me this morning. I didn’t want him to beg, and he was offering big bucks—five times what we usually charge.’

  ‘You’re extorting my father?’ Sorcha asked.

  ‘I’m not taking the money,’ Ryder said. ‘I told the story to demonstrate how desperate he was.’

  ‘Sounds like my dad alright,’ Sorcha said, tidying up her place setting. ‘Always wanting the best of the best.’

  With an amused smile, Ryder waited a beat. ‘Why Sorcha, are you paying me a compliment?’

  Sorcha didn’t look too sure about that. Her friend and her boyfriend clashed, but their conflict was suppressed for her benefit and Lacie was grateful for that. Though it did lead to frequent displays of passive aggression.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ Sorcha asked Lacie. ‘How are you going to get to my house now?’

  ‘I’ll drive us,’ Lacie said.

  ‘In that monster of a truck?’ Sorcha stuttered.

  ‘I’ve got other vehicles,’ Ryder said. ‘You’re welcome to any of them. Lace has full security access.’

  ‘Really?’ Sorcha glowed and her eyes began to dance. ‘You’ve got a Spyder convertible.’

  ‘Yeah, it was a gift from a client,’ Ryder said.

  ‘No,’ Lacie said, digging her nails into Ryder’s neck.

  ‘Dusty has a thing for the truck,’ Ryder explained.

  ‘You know how I feel about loyalty. We’ve made some memories in that truck,’ Lacie murmured, flicking his earlobe with her tongue.

  ‘We have,’ he said. After he squeezed her thigh, his fingers extended, tracing his knuckle over her panties—the man was a covert pro.

  ‘Stop making gooey eyes,’ Sorcha tsked.

  ‘You’re engaged,’ Ryder said. ‘Gooey eyes come with the territory, don’t they?’

  Lacie raced in before her hormonal friend either cried or stabbed someone, though she was sure Ryder could deflect her if it came to it. ‘I should get going,’ Lacie said.

  ‘You’ll do that thing?’ Sorcha pleaded when Lacie bent to pick her bag from the floor, squeezing Ryder’s hand between her thighs.

  ‘I said—‘

  ‘Today,’ Sorcha said.

  Lacie looked at Ryder’s watch again. ‘I’ll try, but it’s already after three, and—‘

  ‘Please,’ Sorcha said, placing a hand on her swollen abdomen.

  ‘Ok,’ Lacie said. Sorcha beamed. ‘Do you need us to drop you somewhere?’

  ‘No. I’ve got a nail appointment next door in ten minutes.’

  Lacie nodded, locking her fingers between Ryder’s while they stood together. ‘I’ll see you—‘

  ‘I do need a chocolate muffin,’ Sorcha said.

  Ryder sighed but he released Lacie’s hand and went to the counter to purchase the muffin without further complaint.

  ‘Shep might say no,’ Lacie said, keeping her eyes on Ryder to ensure he didn’t come back while they were talking. ‘You broke his heart the first time you dumped him.’

  ‘I did not! Hearts were nothing to do with it. That was only sex. We both knew that.’

  ‘Maybe. But we all went through a lot together, and you dumped him again—‘

  ‘We thought Bruce was dead,’ Sorcha said, but lowered her chin when Ryder approached.

  Ever vigilant, Lacie knew that Ryder spotted the abrupt end to their words, but he didn’t mention it. Both of them said goodbye to Sorcha, though Sorcha was more interested in beseeching Lacie with her desperate, innocent glances.

  She would do Sorcha’s bidding, because she always did. Lacie didn’t mind dealing with Sorcha’s messes because it allowed her a distraction from any mess in her own life. At the moment, she had it sort of together, but Jamie Wallace had taught her how quickly things could change.

  She and Ryder left the coffee shop, and he led her to the truck which was further down the block. After helping her into the cab, he rounded the truck to enter on his own side. But he didn’t start the engine to get them moving. He leaned over to kiss her thoroughly and got his hand up her skirt again.

  ‘People can see through these windows you know,’ Lacie said when he pushed her skirt all the way up and shoved his arm behind her hips, forcing her to the front edge of the seat.

  ‘I thought we could make a memory.’

  ‘On a public street?’ she asked, leaning in to kiss him again. His finger slid under the cotton of her panties and it was inside her before she could breathe out.

  ‘Ryd,’ she gasped, grabbing at his shoulders for stability.

  Slowly he slid his finger out only to join it with a second digit. ‘Mm,’ he hummed.

  Resting his head on her shoulder, he buried his mouth on her neck and sucked as his fingers increased pace.

  ‘What… are you… oh God, Ryder…’

  Lacie grabbed for the door, and her other hand landed on his thigh, grasping for some kind of anchor. When he sucked her neck, she recognised that the sting would leave his mark on her. His fingers almost left her completely but his thumb grazed her clit.

  ‘Do you like that?’ he murmured against her.

  ‘Uh, uh… I…’ Her heart wanted out of her chest, so she tried to measure her panting, to slow it and breathe through the pleasure. But Ryder’s digits delved back into her and his thumb curled around her nub, squeezing her hard.

  ‘Talk to me, Baby,’ he said, lowering his head further.

  But she’d lost all perception of the situation, his teeth grabbed her nipple through her blouse and she shouted his name, then whispered it on an exhale. The fireworks in her gut bubbled to her aching breasts. The permanent clench of her inner muscles locked his fingers in place, but that didn’t prevent his thumb from massaging her off the cliff again.

  ‘Yes, Baby,’ he whispered. ‘Good, more?’

  Her eyes remained closed. Breathing became harder, and clenching again, she pulsed around the fingers he used to torment her with. Pushing them deeper, he curled around to push the cushion of her G-spot, while spiking her clit.

  ‘Baby?’

  Wriggling further down in her seat, Lacie rode his hand, rocking her hips against his digits. ‘You like that,’ he exhaled.

  Dragging his teeth on her shoulder, Ryder made her blouse flutter down her arm. Her fingers twisted into his hair to direct his mouth upward as hers descended. Leading the kiss with her tongue, Ryder gratefully received her initiation, accepting her battling intrusion with his own.

  He slipped a digit into her again. Her arousal forced her to push back, while rubbing herself on the pleasurable pressure he offered. ‘Good,’ he said on her mouth. He nipped her lip, then pushed her head aside to suck her earlobe.

  Sliding her hand up his thigh, Lacie pressed her palm to his solid l
ength, and at the discovery of his equivalent arousal, her moisture seeped over his digits. Ryder hummed against her again and took her hand from his lap. She tried to resist, but he held her hand away from his groin by pressing her hand over her own knee.

  Just as she was sure he’d brought her to the brink again, his fingers slid out, causing her to yelp. Blinking stars from her eyes, Lacie looked at the shops and the greenery of the plaza where a smattering of people went about their business.

  The truck started up, and Ryder pulled into the flow of traffic. Shaking off the mist, he carried on like nothing had happened.

  ‘What was that for?’ she said, when she was ready to attempt speech.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘That.’

  His lips curled at one corner, and he rested his hand on her still-exposed thigh. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Ryder,’ she sighed with a smile. Taking his hand in both of hers, she lifted it to her mouth and covered his knuckles with kisses. ‘I love you too.’

  ‘You like orgasms,’ he said. ‘And I wasn’t around to serve any up this morning.’

  ‘Our bed feels odd without you in it,’ she said, receiving a smile. Kissing his hand again, she laid it on her thigh and covered it with her own hand while the other reached to his tee shirt and nabbed his sunglasses. ‘What time do you have to be at work?’

  ‘The boys are over there just now,’ Ryder said. ‘I’ll join them in an hour.’

  ‘Really?’ she asked. ‘You have a free hour?’

  ‘You’re not interested in how I knew you were still at lunch or why I crashed it? We haven’t talked all day.’

  ‘Is everything ok?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘If there was anything wrong you would’ve told me as soon as we were alone.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So I knew there was nothing wrong. And I was happy to see you. I like it when you surprise me. I have nothing to hide, Ryder. You’re not going to catch me in the act of anything untoward.’

  He laughed and squeezed her leg. ‘Not when I’m the one acting with you. If you want to have a tempestuous affair, you just let me know.’

  ‘What did we just do?’ she asked when he pulled up outside her new place.

  Ryder jumped out and came around to lift her out of the truck before he answered her. ‘What we’re about to do again,’ he said. Locking the truck, he took her up the building stairs to unlock the communal door with his own key.

  ‘You know I have a date tonight,’ Lacie said, struggling to keep up as he increased his speed on the stairs.

  ‘Yeah, I met her at lunch, she’s cute. The kid yours?’

  She came up short at his back when he halted to unlock the front door. Once it was open, he swept her feet from under her to take her inside, past the door to her workroom and up the stairs to the loft with the mezzanine bed.

  When he came down on top of her on the bed, she rubbed her hands from his chest to his shoulders. ‘Are you getting this out of the way so that you don’t have to come home with me later?’ she asked, running her hands into his hair.

  ‘I’m coming to bed with you tonight too.’

  ‘I’ll probably crash at the Reynolds’ tonight with Sorcha,’ Lacie said, kissing him and reaching for the hem of his tee shirt.

  ‘Why?’ he frowned.

  ‘It’s what I usually do after a couple of glasses of wine. I don’t like to drink and drive.’

  ‘Mm,’ he grinned. ‘So you’re going to be lubed without a ride home. I have to stay sober.’

  ‘So I get sex now and later?’

  ‘Anytime I get the chance, you get it.’

  ‘I love you, Ryd,’ she said. ‘Promise me that you’ll never let me screw this up.’

  ‘What?’ he asked, brushing her hair from her face. ‘What would make you say something like that?’

  ‘Just… if I do anything wrong, or… insensitive, give me a chance to fix it.’

  ‘Baby, I’ll fix it for you, guaranteed.’

  Speech was forgotten when their mouths merged in prelude to what their bodies were about to mount. No matter how many times they were intimate, it got better every time.

  Chapter Two

  Lacie would have happily spent the rest of the day in bed with Ryder. But he had to work. If she had kicked up enough of a fuss, Ryder would have stayed in bed to pleasure her, but they had to move past their infatuation with each other and find a way to settle into normality. Though having such a man so thoroughly devoted to her was humbling.

  Part of the ethos of the SW men had been Semper Fidelis, just as they had been reared by the military to follow. Jamie Wallace had been Ryder’s business partner. More than that Jamie Wallace was Ryder’s best friend. At least that was what all of them had believed.

  What none of them could have known was the resentment building inside the sociopath that was Jamie Wallace. Where Ryder thought they were part of the same team, Jamie saw Ryder’s success as highlighting his contrasting pathetic failure.

  That resentment had increased throughout the years from when Jamie Wallace and Ryder Stone went to school together, through their time in the military together and beyond. After they departed the forces, Ryder started StoneWall, a security and investigation company. Ryder put Jamie’s name over the door with his own even though Jamie contributed nothing, being all but penniless. Ryder believed that was what best friends did for each other, they were a team who supported each other.

  Wallace coasted along in the easy life at Ryder’s side for years before he began to dabble in illegal activities, which it turned out were his true calling.

  Lacie hadn’t known any of this, or any of the men, until Sorcha got pregnant by Bruce and she was sent to Sorcha’s ex-beau, Shep. At that time, Lacie had hired Ryder who was in Shep’s office doing a bit of snooping for a case. Lacie had thought he was Shep and Ryder hadn’t corrected her. And so their original adventure had gotten underway. It was an adventure that saw Lacie in captivity for almost six weeks until Ryder tracked her down.

  The memories of that first experience with Ryder and what brought her here originally, played through Lacie’s memory. Walking down the street toward the Sheppard Investigations shop front, she thought about all they had been through, about what Wallace had put them through.

  Booth had been a reluctant member of Wallace’s criminal gang. During the investigation into Bruce’s location, Shep and Sorcha had restarted their affair. Except when Bruce was found alive, Sorcha dumped Shep again to do the right thing and be with the father of her baby.

  Lacie had started her association with Ryder in this office and here she was again, under Sorcha’s direction as she had been before. She pushed through the door into the small outer office with its plastic chairs and industrial grade carpet. A tall blonde with mousy features and a short red skirt stood at the side of the assistant’s desk. The woman snapped the clasp of her purse shut and tucked it under her arm as she turned to face Lacie.

  ‘We’re closed,’ the blonde said.

  ‘Office hours on the door say you’re open until five.’

  The three and the zero that used to follow the five had long since been scraped off the door glass. The glue outline could still be deciphered by an attentive observer.

  Though she didn’t know the exact time, she figured that they had to be closing in on around five PM. Ryder had left her place later than he had intended, meaning she herself had been late getting out the door.

  ‘We’re closing early.’

  The door behind the blonde opened and Lacie leaned to the side to see past the receptionist.

  ‘Well, well, well, Lacie Hart,’ Shep said, falling sideways to prop his shoulder on the doorframe. ‘Didn’t expect to have you on my doorstep, Little Lady.’

  ‘Hi, Shep.’

  Shep was just as Lacie remembered him from his first impression, tall, pale, and somehow lacklustre without Sorcha. When he and Sorcha were together, Shep had a healthy complexion and
carried himself with pride. But from his aura now he wasn’t exactly over being dumped by Sorcha… again.

  ‘Heather, this is Lacie,’ Shep said.

  ‘Hi,’ the blonde said.

  ‘Hello,’ Lacie said. ‘Shep, can I talk to you?’

  Part of being a good PI was having a curious nature, she knew that from what Ryder had told her. He’d also told her that Shep wasn’t exactly in that category; not because of his skillset, but because he was lazy. Except Lacie knew that went out the window when a certain woman was involved, Sorcha. And where there was Lacie…

  Shep stepped back and gestured into his office. So Lacie skirted the receptionist and her desk to enter the office.

  He closed the door and passed Lacie to sit at the desk angled in the corner in front of the closet. With the piles of papers, and a layer of dust on everything, the room was just as she remembered. This was the room she’d met Ryder in.

  ‘What’s up?’ Shep asked. ‘Trouble in paradise?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ she asked, crossing to perch in the guest chair at the desk.

  ‘There are only two possible reasons you could have for coming here. Either you think your boyfriend is messing around on you and you’re here to ask me to catch him in the act…’

  ‘You think you could tail Ryder without him noticing?’

  ‘If it’s not door A, then it’s door B.’ Shep’s eyes travelled south to her chest.

  It was a good thing Lacie had known that Shep was crude and opportunistic when she walked in here or she might have been affronted by his leering. As it was, she smiled at his typical form.

  ‘Who am I lashing out at by sleeping with you?’ she asked. ‘Sorcha or Ryder?’

  ‘I’d go with the boyfriend. I’ve told you before, Little Lady, I’ve got a feeling that facing the wrath of your boyfriend would be worth it. I know what you and the bitch are like, you’d never screw around on each other.’

  ‘So she’s the bitch now?’ Lacie asked, folding her hands over her purse in her lap.

  ‘Tramp doesn’t know what she wants.’

  The pair had a history of conflict. They had never been nice to each other, insults were a part of their foreplay.