by Cindy Dees
The music finally ended and Joe’s arm loosened enough for her to slide down his muscular leg to the floor once more. He led her to the bar on the far side of the dance floor, away from both her bodyguards. She wobbled alongside him, hardly able to walk. Oh. My. God. What had just happened to her? She’d never experienced anything remotely like that— in public or private—with any man.
“Good thing I’m already planning to marry you,” he growled as he handed her one of two glasses of ice water he snagged from a bartender. “After a dance like that, I’d feel obligated as a gentleman to marry you.”
Her face heated abruptly. Busted. She’d set out to get his attention and, apparently, she’d succeeded.
“In case I forgot to mention it, you look spectacular tonight,” he murmured to her under the din.
“Thank you,” she answered, strangely shy of the compliment from him. “You look pretty good yourself.”
He reached out to tuck a strand of her hair back from her face. “I got our marriage license today,” he said casually. “There’s a judge standing by day or night to hear our vows.”
Wow. He had a judge on call? How did he pull that off in this town? She thought her father owned all the judges in St. George. In all of Gavarone, for that matter.
He continued, interrupting her speculation. “So whenever you’re ready, we can get married.”
She blinked. The words were a bizarre and wonderful fantasy coming out of this gorgeous man’s mouth. He was the kind of guy she might like hearing those words from for real. “Uh, when did you have in mind?” she asked.
His answer was brisk. “The sooner the better. I don’t like you being in that house all alone with your father. The faster I can get in there to protect you, the better.”
“I’m hardly alone in the house,” she replied. “My father has a half-dozen full-time house servants, and wads of his…employees hang around all the time.”
“His armed, dangerous and not-too-bright henchmen, you mean?”
She laughed at the description. “Exactly.”
“Like I said, the sooner the better,” he ground out. His jaw rippled as he stared down into his glass of water.
Warmth bubbled up inside her. Joe sounded genuinely worried about her. That was so sweet. If only the idea of walking into her father’s office and saying, “Guess what, Daddy? I got married today” didn’t scare her half to death, she’d be feeling a lot better about this whole scheme.
“What’s got you frowning, princess?” Joe murmured. “You look worried.”
She sighed. “I was just thinking about how my father will react to all this.”
Joe shrugged. “He’ll be pissed off and suspicious as hell. But I’m telling you, I think he’ll secretly be relieved. We just have to watch our step. One slipup is all it’ll take.”
Yeah, to land them both in her bed with slit throats.
She put her hand on his forearm, which rested on the bar beside her. She leaned forward, speaking urgently. “That’s what worries me, Joe. You have no idea how violent my father is.”
His dark eyes blazed, pinning her against the bar. “Yes, I do. I know exactly how violent Eduardo Ferrare is.”
His sudden intensity startled her. Usually Joe was so calm and unruffled. Where had all that abrupt anger come from? A frisson of doubt raced through her. There was more going on here than Joe simply wanting to rescue her. If he was, in fact, with Charlie Squad, then there was some serious bad blood between him and her father. Eduardo had killed a member of Charlie Squad years ago and they’d never forgiven him for it.
What was Joe’s hidden agenda? Did he mean to physically hurt her father in some way? Kill him, even? Did she dare go ahead with this whole eloping thing and put Eduardo at risk? He might be a criminal, but he was her father, after all. The only parent she’d ever known. She didn’t want to see him die just so she could live her own life in peace.
She sighed. How could she not go ahead with the plan? No matter what risk Joe posed to her or her father, she had to pay the price and jump at the chance he had offered her. She’d act as his cover inside her father’s house while he accomplished his secret goal and, in turn, he’d help her accomplish hers— to escape. She wanted out. And he… What did he want?
Her intuition again screamed that it involved hurting her father in some way. But could she live with setting him up to be harmed? Was her freedom worth that guilt?
As her thoughts whirled, Joe’s arm slid around her waist once more. “Can I interest you in another dance?”
Like he had to ask that twice! Her lips curved into a smile. “Let’s go, Mr. Astaire.”
Joe grinned. “After you, Ginger.”
She felt him watching her hips as she sashayed toward the floor in front of him. Finally. At last, the guy was showing normal male interest in her!
As Joe steered her back out onto the dance floor, Cari noticed people all over the room staring at them. Including her bodyguards. Abject relief flooded over her, to the point that she actually felt tears burn at the back of her eyes. Was she really that worried about Joe’s safety?
She blinked away the weepy sensation that didn’t go at all with her devil-may-care, little-rich-girl act. Her mask firmly in place once more, she looked around the club to gauge the crowd’s reaction to the hot vignette playing out between her and Joe. Ah, all the world’s a stage. At least, in her world it was.
Gavarone’s superrich social set was actually quite small. Inbred, she snorted derisively. Everybody knew everyone else. So when a new face—especially one as spectacularly handsome as Joe’s—showed up on the scene and staked out a woman as notorious as her for himself, it got noticed in a big way.
And then, of course, there were Freddie and Neddie. Hopefully, as long as Joe’s attention stayed firmly glued to her, he’d be safe from the loving attention of their fists. She seriously didn’t want to find out what her father’s orders to the thugs were if Joe happened to show interest in some other woman after showing such intense and public interest in her.
Joe’s fingers trailed up her arm, and then he looked at her with sharp concern. “You okay?”
“Why do you ask?” she replied.
“You have goose bumps. You can’t possibly be cold in this gaudy sweat pit.”
She grinned at the description of the posh club. She’d always thought the place’s neon decor was a little garish, too. “It’s nothing,” she assured him.
He gave her a speculative look. And then dropped her jaw with his next words. “Let’s get married tonight.”
“Tonight?” she squeaked.
“Sure. Why not?”
Her mind went completely blank. Fear crowded forward in her head until it all but choked her. It was one thing to toy around with her father, but the reality of it was another thing entirely. Was she truly prepared to go through with Joe’s scheme? To face down her father’s wrath? To make the break for real?
It hit her like a sledgehammer that she’d known all along on some level that the plan with Tony wouldn’t work. Somehow, she’d known her father would find out and foil it. She hadn’t anticipated how violently he’d do it, but she’d known subliminally that Eduardo would stop her.
Joe, on the other hand…
This guy might actually be able to deliver on his promises. He could get her out once and for all. For the first time ever, she truly faced the prospect of making the break with her father.
But as violent and cruel a man as he was, he was still the man who’d raised her. She frowned.
Joe swore quietly beside her. She looked up, surprised. “What?” she asked.
“I know that look. It’s cold feet if I ever saw it. Don’t lose your nerve on me now, princess. We’re in too deep to back out.”
“No, we’re not,” she argued. “You can just walk away and you’ll be safe. My father will never know a thing.”
“Oh, yeah?” Joe growled. He turned her around, his hands encircling her waist, and nodded toward the front
door.
Cari looked in the direction he indicated. And gulped. Freddie and Neddie had their heads together and were staring straight at her and Joe. Both men’s faces were thunderous. As she looked on, Freddie pulled out a cell phone and pressed it to his ear.
Oh, God.
He said quietly, “That last dance of ours crossed the line. We have no choice but to go forward now.”
“Joe, get out of here right now. They’re calling my father. If you’re lucky, they’ll just put you in the hospital for a few weeks, but if you’re not…”
Joe chuckled.
She stopped midsentence. And stared at him in shock.
“You’re laughing about this?” she demanded incredulously. “They’re telling my father right now that we’ve been pawing all over each other in public. He’s going to tell them to kick your teeth into last month. This is serious!”
Joe smiled down at her gently. “Thanks for worrying about me, sweetheart, but those two jerks couldn’t lay a hand on me if they tried. I’d put them flat on their backs in ten, maybe twenty, seconds.”
Cari rolled her eyes. “Don’t you go all macho on me, Joe Smith. Those guys are both street fighters.”
He laid a finger on her lips, stopping any further protests from her. “Trust me. They don’t pose a threat.”
She frowned.
His grin widened. “Wanna really give them something to stew over?”
Her eyebrows raised in question, but that was all the response she had time for before he leaned down swiftly and captured her mouth with his.
Wow. Heat and man surrounded her completely, invading the darkest corners of her mouth and her mind. His lips and tongue were warm and wet, biting and licking and sucking like she was the best ice-cream cone he’d ever tasted, all sweet and drippy and melting, and he was determined to capture every last drop of her.
Her knees went wobbly without warning and she leaned into him, suddenly hot all over. She devoured him right back, and Lord, if her insides didn’t actually start to quiver with desire. She needed him like water in the desert. She hadn’t even known it, but her soul had been dried up, shriveled and parched until he breathed life back into her. She all but inhaled him, right there on the spot. Her leg started to creep up, to wrap around him, to press her core against the hard bulge at her belly. But then a sound that was more a groan than a chuckle came from his throat. No. No, no, no! She had to have more of him right now! All of him!
Gently, his fingers wrapped around the back of her knee, disentangling it from around his thigh. His thumb gave a single caress to the sensitive skin behind the joint, sending white heat shooting up her thigh and straight to her core. Her breath hitched and his gaze snapped to hers, his black eyes blazing.
Oh, yes. They definitely had a spark between them. More like chain lightning.
He lifted his mouth away from hers. Cleared his throat.
She clung to his shoulders, not because she was needy and trying to seduce him but because her legs were so weak she wasn’t sure they’d bear her weight.
“Uh, well then,” he mumbled, “I think that pretty much seals the deal.”
“How’s that?” she managed to mumble back through the buzz of lust filling her ears.
“When Frick and Frack report to your old man that I just examined your tonsils with my tongue, and in public, I’m betting daddy dearest will stick a shotgun in my face and make me marry you if I don’t beat him to the punch.”
And abruptly, she became aware of several hundred people staring at her as avidly as if she’d just grown horns and a third eye. Why was her skin crawling all of a sudden at the idea of all those gazes locked on her and Joe? She’d made a spectacle of herself plenty of times. She’d even laid hot kisses on guys in public before, back when Eduardo didn’t watch her every move, back before Julia disappeared. But tonight, the party-girl mask just wouldn’t stay on. It kept slipping away, leaving her raw emotions unprotected, her heart on display. Her heart. Not an act. Not the public image that everyone always saw. But her. Carina. For real.
She never, ever, showed her true self to anyone. Not to her father. Not to rooms full of cynical, voyeuristic jet-setters, and certainly not to Joe. He was practically a stranger, for God’s sake! She barely knew him at all. And what she did know of him didn’t inspire a girl to think of happily ever after, kids and rocking chairs.
She vaguely realized that she was still bent half-backward over his arm, his strength supporting most of her weight. His body, hard and hot, pressed into her, branding itself on her memory, marking her as his.
And then with a quick bunching of his muscles, she was upright once more, whirling off into a kaleidoscope of light and color. Music throbbed in time with the pulsing desire between her thighs. Her breasts ached for his hard chest against hers once more.
With a snap of his strong wrist, he spun her away from him and pulled her back again. And then his other hand landed in the middle of her back, anchoring her sinfully against him.
She sighed in delight as he swayed back and forth. She might die right here, on the spot, from wanting this man so bad she could hardly stand it. She still tasted their kiss in her mouth and savored the spicy, clean flavor of him. It made a girl want more of him. Much, much more.
For all of her wild ways, she really had very little experience at seducing men. They had always come on to her, the rich, spoiled brat they were sure would spread her legs for the right man with the cash or the cool to earn the privilege. God, she was jaded. How had she gotten that way at twenty-four? She felt a hundred years old.
For a change, she went with her instincts and went on the offensive with Joe. She wanted more of what they’d just done. A lot more. She ran her fingers up the back of his powerful neck into his silky hair and undulated her body against his.
Her feminine intuition was right on target. Joe half growled, half laughed and pulled her even closer. He maneuvered her into the thick of the crowd of dancers, out of sight of her bodyguards. His mouth descended, capturing hers again. He kissed her with his entire body this time, surrounding her in his strength and grace as they danced, locked together in a sizzling embrace.
She was so dizzy she could hardly stand by the time the song ended. Another tune cranked up and the people around them gyrated as Joe tore his mouth away from hers and stared down at her. He looked as thunderstruck as she felt.
In the din, she barely heard him say, “We definitely have to get married right now.”
He sounded like he was talking about a whole lot more than their plan to escape her father. Her heart stuttered in shock. Was he really as attracted to her as she was to him? The thought sent her head reeling even worse than it already was.
“C’mon,” Joe shouted over the music.
She followed along as he tugged her hand. He led her quickly off the dance floor and toward the back exit of the club.
They cleared the dance floor and the direct blast of the speakers. “What are you doing?” she asked him.
“Getting out of here,” he replied as he hustled her toward the door.
“But Neddie…”
“Is still wading across the dance floor with Freddie. C’mon, hurry!” he urged her.
“But the others… They’re in the limo….”
“Exactly. They’re still in the limo. Out front.”
“How do you know that?” she demanded. “They could be in the alley out back right now.”
“Only one way to find out. C’mon!”
The wildness he’d set loose in her still prowled in her veins, hungry. Insistent. She wanted this man. No matter what the cost. No matter what the consequences.
This was really dumb. Dangerous at best, suicidal at worst. But damned if she hadn’t let him lead her off the dance floor quickly, and was making haste beside him for the exit.
They burst out into the muggy warmth of the night. The sultry air stoked the lust zinging across her skin.
“This way,” he murmured.
&nb
sp; She broke into a run beside him as he raced toward a side street. They ducked around the corner, out of sight of the club. She didn’t have any illusions about being safe, though. Freddie and Neddie were bulldogs who’d never let go of their bone.
But when Joe yanked open the door of a dark Cadillac with tinted windows parked at the curb and urged her inside, that did surprise her. The vehicle’s driver pulled away quickly. She looked out the tinted glass of the back window in time to see Freddie careen into sight, huffing. But then their car turned a corner and her bodyguard disappeared from view.
She turned around to face front. Joe lounged casually beside her. He lifted an armrest and pulled a soft drink out of a concealed mini-cooler. “Thirsty?” he asked.
Joe had this escape planned before he came inside the club! Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had this car waiting for them. She ignored the soda, outraged. “You knew all along you were going to pull me out of there tonight, didn’t you?”
He frowned. “I wasn’t sure. I had a car waiting, just in case. An opportunity presented itself, so I seized it. Your father’s men are too careful to give us many chances to get away from them.” He peered at her in the dim interior. “Are you angry at me, Carina? I thought this was what you wanted.”
Joe’s hand captured hers gently, stilling it against his chest. She was arrested by the slow, steady thud of his heart under her palm. Not the heartbeat of a frightened man.
He said soothingly, “This plan isn’t only about getting you away from your father. It’s also about getting him to let you live your own life once and for all.”
Cari’s outrage subsided. “Where are we going?”
Joe looked her directly in the eye. His dark gaze was warm and compassionate. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, “and so damned young.”
Young? She hadn’t felt young in a long time. Living with her father aged a soul. Joe’s smooth voice caressed her, raising the fine hair on her forearms. She tingled all over. And then his next words registered.
“We’ve got an appointment with a judge, princess. We’re getting married, remember?”
