by Cindy Dees
She stepped out into the bedroom. Joe was untangling a jumble of rope and thick wooden dowels. Her fire escape ladder. The same one she’d used to flee her room the night Tony was murdered. She’d been surprised Eduardo hadn’t taken it away from her after she’d gone over the balcony and headed for the ocean. Maybe Gunter had convinced her father that it was better to just give her the ladder because she was wild enough to jump from the balcony without one.
She followed Joe outside to the balcony, where the noise of the ocean would mask their voices.
He moved over next to her and muttered in her ear, his mind apparently firmly on business. “We’ll wait here until the meeting’s started, then climb down and work our way over to the windows. You can point out to me anyone you recognize and I’ll take pictures of the rest.”
She nodded, the misgivings piling up in her gut. It was one thing to try to leave her father. It was another thing altogether to actively help Joe do something awful to him on the way out the door.
By bringing her to this beach house, his private killing ground, Eduardo had already hinted at doing her harm if she didn’t cooperate with him. Rumor among the servants was that her father had ordered Julia killed a number of weeks back. A couple of the whispers had him pulling a gun on Julia himself in some big confrontation between the two of them. And, Lord knew, Julia was a lot more important to her father than she’d ever been. If he’d kill Julia for disobeying him, he’d certainly kill her, too. And she was going to help Joe and expose herself to this additional risk? Why?
Memories of Joe’s hands on her skin, his mouth on hers, his body against hers, of what else she wanted from him skated through her head. It was a lousy reason to spy on her father. But it was a reason, at least. The faster they got done checking out this stupid meeting, the faster they could get back to what they’d been doing before.
She shook her head in disgust. She was smarter than to do something dumb or dangerous in the name of impressing a guy. But here she was, blithely agreeing to this insanity. Apparently, she’d decided sometime during the last twenty-four hours that she was going to ignore the inevitable pain of losing Joe in favor of wallowing in their current mutual infatuation.
At least, she hoped he shared her infatuation. He could just be putting on a big act for the cameras and bugs. Now that she thought about it, the surveillance devices always seemed to be around whenever he laid a hot kiss on her. She frowned. And still she wanted him. How lame was that?
As Joe hooked the ladder onto the side railing, tucked close to the wall of the house in a deep shadow, he said conversationally, “I’m surprised you and your sister didn’t figure out how to sneak out at night when you were kids.”
“We didn’t spend much time here, especially after our mother—”
Joe blinked. “She died here?” he asked quietly.
She nodded. “He does most of his killing here. He likes to toss the bodies to the sharks. No messy evidence, you know.” She thought of Tony and her voice broke on the last sentence.
“You really cared for Tony, didn’t you?” Joe asked quietly. “What a jerk I’ve been. It’s too soon for you to have another relationship and here I’ve been coming on to you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Christ, I’m sorry.”
She stepped near him, capturing his restless hand in hers. “It wasn’t like that. Tony didn’t have those kinds of feelings for me nor I for him.”
“He had enough feelings to risk his life for you!” Joe retorted.
“Tony was gay,” she explained gently. “Not-the-slightestbit-interested-in-girls-except-to-borrow-their-clothes gay.”
“Oh.” Joe’s jealous anger deflated in an instant. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? For being jealous, or for being sensitive to the fact that I might not want a new relationship so soon after losing someone I cared about?”
He frowned. “I’m not jeal… What the hell. I’m just sorry, okay?”
“Okay,” she smiled. “Look. A light just went on in my father’s office.”
Joe glanced at his watch and frowned. “It’s not time for the meeting yet.”
“Gunter will go in first and sweep the place for bugs. Then he’ll lock the door and only open it again when it’s time for the servants to take in the refreshments. He’ll stay in the room with them until the meeting begins.”
“Thorough.”
She was silent as Joe reached into one of his pockets and pulled out an average-looking digital camera.
“Planning a sightseeing trip on the side, are you?” she quipped.
He grinned. “You didn’t think I’d come in here to rescue you without a few cool toys, did you?”
“How’d you get them in the door?”
“By giving the thugs who searched my suitcase exactly what they were looking for. Average, everyday items. Like this camera. Looks like a middle-of-the-road model, but it can store up to a hundred high-resolution pictures taken under extremely low-light conditions. The pictures can be blown up to ten times their regular size with no appreciable loss of detail.”
Wow. That was a whole lot of pixels crammed into a single image.
“What else did you sneak in here in your little bag of tricks?” she asked.
Darned if he didn’t choose that very moment to wax evasive on her. “A little of this and a little of that. Of course, I wasn’t able to bring in a weapon or any obvious surveillance gear. But I’ve got enough doodads to jerry-rig almost anything we might need to get out of here.”
“You hope,” she retorted.
“I hope,” he amended with a boyish smile that just about knocked her knees out from under her. She gulped and tried to catch her breath as he moved with the grace of a tango dancer to one side of the porch and peered below.
She moved up behind him and stood on tiptoe to murmur in his ear, “You’re almost too pretty to be a mortal man.”
He mumbled indignantly, “I’m not pretty.”
Chuckling, she slipped her hands around his waist beneath his turtleneck. Ah, yes. Rippling muscles flexed beneath her palms, his skin sliding against hers like rough satin. He felt so delicious she could practically taste him. His flavor would be a combination of woodsy and pungent. She swallowed as her mouth puddled with anticipation.
“I’m working,” he muttered.
“So am I,” she murmured back.
“How’s that work?” he grumbled. “It feels like—”
Hmm. It felt like what? She filled in for him in a whisper, “It feels like heaven? Like you want more? Like sweaty sex on satin sheets?”
He jerked beneath her hands. Tension thrummed through him. “Jeez, woman. Do you take pleasure in torturing me?”
“I might,” she murmured, her lips pressed against the back of his neck. Oh, yes. He did, indeed, taste like bergamot and fine wine. “I’m game to find out.”
He jerked completely away from her this time, turning sharply to stare down at her.
She stared right back. “You keep treating me like some naive little girl. I’m not, Joe. I’m a grown woman and I know what I want. And I’m not afraid to go after it.”
The next words hung unspoken between them. And what she wanted was him. All of him. For some of that sweaty sex on satin sheets.
He cursed under his breath and spun back toward her father’s windows. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was breathing hard. She satisfied herself with standing right behind him, not touching him, looking out over his shoulder on tiptoe at her father’s office. It was almost sexier standing here not touching him than it had been to put her hands on him. This way, she could imagine putting her mouth on all the places where her hands had been and more. And darned if her breathing didn’t take on a heavy quality, too.
Joe had waited out some tense vigils in his day, but this one topped them all. By a lot. The sound of Cari all but panting over his shoulder was going to kill him soon. Assuming his imagination didn’t get the job done first. The memory of her soft, warm hands roaming over
his flesh refused to go away. It was all he could do not to turn around, rip off her clothes and bury himself in all that sexual energy all but exploding from her.
The mission, dammit, the mission!
And how many times had he watched the other guys on his team struggle with that one? As many times as he’d seen them weaken and give in to the women who’d stolen their hearts. He unleashed a long string of profanities inside his head. He wasn’t losing his heart to Carina Ferrare. He wasn’t!
Methinks the boy doth protest too much.
Crap.
A movement from inside Eduardo’s office caught his attention. A bartender setting up shop behind the stainless-steel-and-glass bar in the corner. Almost showtime. Praise the Lord. He couldn’t take much more of Cari’s fast breaths tickling the back of his neck like this.
Yup, there he was. Ferrare had just walked into the room. Bingo. He paced around the room a couple of times. Damned if the bastard didn’t look nervous. Oh yeah. Joe definitely had to find out who Eduardo was meeting with tonight.
“When your father’s guests arrive, we’ll go,” Joe muttered.
He felt Cari nod behind him.
There they were. Four men had just walked into Eduardo’s office, accompanied by a phalanx of security types. The thugs looked around and then backed out of the room.
“Ready?” he murmured.
Another silent nod at his back.
“On the next sweep of the nearest camera, all the cameras will be looking away from the balcony. We’ll have about fifteen seconds.”
She tensed against his back.
He did his best to ignore the hands that settled nervously on his waist. “Three…two…one…”
He moved fast, flipping the end of the ladder over the balcony. It snaked down into the darkness below. Cari crouched beside him, her eyes huge with fear.
“I’ll go first,” he breathed.
Lying on the balustrade on his belly, he slipped over the edge fast and down the rope ladder. He paused about six rungs down to help Cari climb over the edge. She mimicked him, keeping a low profile as she went over the railing. She’d taken about four steps down and her head was level with the floor of the balcony when she lurched violently above him. What had happened? She started back up the ladder.
“What are you doing?” he bit out.
“Someone just knocked on my door,” she hissed.
Dammit!
She raced up and over the rail, tumbling to the floor of the balcony in her haste. “Just a minute,” she called out. She sounded flustered and out of breath. But then, that might not be a bad thing. Whoever was knocking would think the two of them were fooling around. It would explain the long delay in answering the damn door.
As Cari jumped up and ran inside, Joe raced up the ladder, rolling over the balustrade, falling onto the balcony floor and popping to his feet in one frantic movement. He took off, running across the bedroom, as Cari reached for the door.
“Cari! Get some clothes on!” he called out urgently. No time to get close enough to whisper so the bugs wouldn’t hear.
Cari jerked to a halt, frowning. He ripped off his turtleneck and gestured for her to do the same. He jumped for the bed and ripped the covers back, tearing a sheet off.
As she disappeared inside her black shirt, he did his damndest not to notice the black lace bra she wore with its little bow nestled in her cleavage, or the way her golden flesh showed in far too much detail under the flimsy lace, or the generous display of curving breasts above the lingerie—he so failed not to notice.
He flung the sheet at her and then jumped under the covers himself, stripping off his pants and jungle boots under the tangle of blankets as Cari wrapped the sheet around toga-style and cracked open the door an inch or so.
“What do you want, Gunter? Why aren’t you downstairs with my father?”
“He changed his mind. He wants you at the meeting.”
Joe froze in the act of yanking off a sock. He poked his head out of the covers. Cari voiced his exact thought aloud.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” she exclaimed.
“I’m to wait while you put on a dress and escort you down myself.”
“I’m married now. I don’t want to schmooze his clients anymore. It’s not…seemly.”
Gunter’s reply was impassive. “I don’t think he’s particularly concerned about propriety. He ordered you down there and he expects you to go. Now.”
Chapter 10
While Cari stared at the German in dismay and shock, Joe’s brain kicked into overdrive. He didn’t want to subject Cari to any unpleasantness in the form of stares or gropes. But on the other hand, he knew from the tone of Gunter’s voice that this was nonnegotiable. And he wasn’t ready to start an all-out war with Eduardo. Not just yet. The soldier in him gave a silent “oh yeah” at the realization that she’d be able to hear exactly what Eduardo was up to with these important strangers. It was almost too perfect an opportunity to believe. She could get names, dates, exact details of whatever they were up to—it was a stroke of extraordinary luck. He was surprised when an even fiercer voice inside of him said Cari’s safety is more important than the information.
“Just a minute, Gunter,” Cari said heavily.
She closed the door and hurried over to the bed. “Oh, God, Joe. I don’t want to do this. I thought I was done with all that.”
He sighed heavily as well. “I know. But your father is testing us, testing me, to see how much of a threat I am to his relationship with you. He needs to know if I’ll yield to his wishes. He needs to know that I won’t take you away completely before he agrees to give you to me.”
Cari closed her eyes for a moment in anguish. “One more time. I’ll do my father’s bidding one more time.”
She turned toward her closet. Joe lay back on the pillows, his gut churning. He didn’t like letting her go to the meeting. But Colonel Folly would put his butt in a sling if he messed up this mission because he suddenly went über-protective on this girl. He called out, “Don’t wear anything too sexy. You’re my wife now, not somebody else’s plaything.”
One thing he could do was make sure she wasn’t down there all alone. He might not be able to get into the room, but he could damn well be right outside to keep an eye on her.
It appeared that Gunter was willing to wait patiently outside until Cari emerged. So Joe reversed himself and started putting his clothes back on. About the time he zipped up his second boot, Cari emerged from her dressing area. She wore a short tropical-print dress with a halter top and a floaty skirt. It was less revealing than some of the things he’d seen her wear, but there was no disguising her sex appeal.
He swore at himself. The green-eyed monster was alive and kicking, all right.
Jaw clenched, he got out of bed. She paused in front of the door and Joe moved over to her side. He put his arms around her waist and mumbled, “You’ll be okay. I’ll be watching.”
She turned around, burrowing into him, and nodded against his chest. His arms tightened around her possessively, willing her to feel him, to think of him when she went into that meeting and flirted with those other men. Her father had no right to ask this of her. Joe swore some more under his breath.
Cari slipped through the door and out into the hall. And then she was gone. Joe charged across the room, heading for the balcony, but drew up short in front of the French doors. Patience, man. Don’t be stupid.
He waited until the cameras all lined up, pointing away from him, and slipped outside. Although it took good timing and speed to slip past the security measures and shimmy down the ladder, it wasn’t particularly difficult to pull off. He landed on silent feet in the lush oleander bushes, with their long, narrow leaves. Interesting choice for Eduardo’s garden. Oleanders were beautiful but very poisonous.
It was kid stuff to make his way through this dense cover over to Eduardo’s office. The last oleander bush came right up to the end window in the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows tha
t faced the ocean. Even better, a lower panel of the window was tilted outward from the bottom, granting him the ability to hear what was going on inside.
The bar was no more than ten feet from his position, and Eduardo and his four guests bellied up to it, grazing on the hors d’oeuvres and sipping glasses full of ice and amber liquid. None of the men were drinking much—experienced businessmen, then. They knew better than to let Eduardo get them hammered before they worked out the details of whatever deal they had cooking.
All the men’s heads turned abruptly. A door opened across the room and Cari breezed in, as shiny and beautiful as a polished diamond. Joe’s gut clenched at the impact of her beauty. Even though he’d been staring at her nonstop for the last two days, he couldn’t get enough of her.
Eduardo’s guests responded pretty much the same way. They swelled up en masse as Cari turned her dazzling smile on them. Joe restrained a serious temptation to reach through the window and roll up the jerks’ tongues and stuff them back in their mouths. They could quit drooling at his wife, dammit.
She…was…not…his…wife!
Yeah, whatever. He still wanted to clobber them for ogling Cari.
Eduardo seemed a bit taken aback by Cari’s dress but quickly recovered and made the introductions. “Gentlemen, this is my daughter, Carina. She’s here to serve you tonight and see to your pleasure and comfort.”
Joe’s black gaze snapped to Ferrare. The bastard had put just enough emphasis on the words pleasure and comfort to make that sound like a sleazy offer. Cari’s smile abruptly developed a fixed quality to it.
One of the men spoke. Sounded Slavic. “And do you have any sons who participate in the family business, Mr. Ferrare?”
Eduardo answered with sincere regret. “Alas, I do not. I was cursed with only daughters. And what good are they to a man in my position? Women are good for one thing only. And it isn’t running a multinational business conglomerate.”
