by Pamela Clare
Chapter One
Celina Davenport looked out at the dark sky, the even darker ocean on her right, and the track of highway flying under the belly of the Porsche. The high pressure sodium freeway lights and the stars shining overhead did nothing to reassure her. The all-consuming view was like a sci-fi movie when the starship hit warp speed and the stars turned into streaks of light.
Warp speed. Her mind was flying in tandem with the car. This was no sci-fi movie. Weirdville, yes, but still planet Earth and still part of her job.
What awaited her on the other end of this crazy ride was either death at Emilio Londano’s hands or the successful end to her first undercover case. A year out of the academy, she’d managed to stay alive so far, due more to her wits than her training. Spending the past two months with the head of the San Diego mafia had taught her more than her training at Quantico ever could. More about flirting with danger while never losing sight of her goal.
At that moment, odds weren’t in her favor that she’d live to see the sunrise only a few hours away.
Time to do something about those odds.
Taking a discreet deep breath, she turned her big, brown eyes to her companion. In the light from the dashboard, Emilio caught and held her gaze. He loved her eyes. Loved her petite frame with its Cuban curves.
He smiled. The cat about to eat the canary.
She gave him a full-on, sexy smile back. The canary about to become the tiger.
Emilio Londano was a man too handsome for his own good. His Latin roots were evident in every hair, every smile, every polite command. His predictable self-confidence came with a self-deprecating charm. The power he held in every pocket of his skin overcame any and all resistance.
No one, man nor woman, said no to him. The legions of employees he directed, from his drug cartel to his housekeeping staff, were more than happy to make Emilio happy. His generous philanthropy and good citizenship wooed the everyday world of executives who clamored to do business with him through his legitimate organizations while they recruited him to be on their community boards.
The man driving Celina into the dark sleeve of the night was irresistible.
But so was she.
He had flirted, charmed, and tried to seduce her for the past two months. She had flirted, charmed, and seduced in return, stopping short of sleeping with him. That she would not do, not only because it would effectively destroy her job as an FBI agent, but because even handsome, charming criminals made her skin crawl. While Emilio and his lieutenant, Petero Valquis, checked into her past and watched her for any sign of deceit, Celina covertly collected information on the Londano operation and fed the damning evidence to her bosses in Carlsbad and L.A.
To Emilio and his mafia world, she was Celina Mendez, photographer and graphic design artist. She took photographs, fed them into her computer, and made art with them. Some of her designs resembled Warhol. Others were more Picasso. Celina Mendez made a comfortable living selling artwork to commercial venues as well as private parties. Emilio himself had a collage she had created of the infamous Che Guevara hanging in his home office.
Finding nothing in her cover background to give him pause, Emilio was in full conqueror mode, every move in his book in action tonight in order to get her into his bed. Generous amounts of flirting aside, the most Celina had offered him was a kiss. A sensuous meeting of her mouth with his that she knew had left the mafia leader weak in the knees.
Never had a beautiful woman said no to him or his advances.
Never had he wanted anyone more than he did her.
“You are quiet tonight.” Emilio down-shifted the Porsche as he brought it to a stop at a red light. They had entered Carlsbad. Nearing two a.m., most of the shops and restaurants that lined the divided highway were closed.
A man, tall and filling out a Billabong sweatshirt to the max, crossed in front of them walking a Chihuahua. The hood of the sweatshirt was up and his face shadowed, but a familiar prick of recognition made Celina’s pulse quicken. Military straight back, self-assured gate. He hit the sidewalk and turned south, the tiny legs of the dog double-timing it to keep up with his long stride.
Checking up on me, are you, Mr. Boss Man?
Time to initiate her plan. A plan DEA Special Agent in Charge of the Southern California Violent Crimes (SCVC) taskforce, Cooper Harris, wasn’t going to like.
Celina continued to watch the straight back while she nudged her fingers in between Emilio’s on the gear shift. “The Pacific Highway does that to me. The rocks, the ocean, the open expanse of night sky. It’s beautiful.” She let go of a soft sigh. “Makes me feel happy and carefree, like I might dare anything.”
Squeezing his hand, she gave him a knowing smile. A smile that said she might be willing to give him what she knew he wanted.
One side of his mouth tilted up. His dark eyes penetrated hers. “Then I’m glad we chose it over the interstate.”
The light changed. As Emilio shifted the car into first gear, Celina teased open the lapel of his crisp, white shirt. He’d ditched his jacket and tie before they’d left the parking lot of the theatre. The fundraising benefit for one of his favorite charities had given Celina the perfect set up for this take down. She needed him away from the tight security of his home as well as getting him to lower his guard while Petero Valquis was taking care of business elsewhere. Tonight’s date had secured all three.
“You look very handsome,” she murmured, leaning toward him and pressing her breast against his arm. She stroked her fingers across his collarbone.
“We were a perfect pair tonight, then.” He glanced admiringly at her cleavage as he shifted the car. “You’ve never looked more beautiful.”
The dress Celina was wearing was Marc Jacobs, a gorgeous flesh-pink silk and gauze combination with a beaded halter that showed off every inch of her assets to full advantage. When she’d met Emilio at the door of her apartment, he’d been speechless for the first time since she’d met him. Speechless was good.
She hoped Cooper would be speechless when he saw her too.
The first part of her plan a success at the apartment, she’d kept the distaste off her face and smiled as Emilio twirled her around, ogling every inch of her body. It had worked. He did not have his security goon search her, because he was either so enthralled with the merchandise that his mind went blank, or he was so sure she wasn’t anything other than a beautiful woman in a slip of a dress who would finally share his bed tonight.
His mistake. The microphone she wore was a cordless number she’d sewn behind the large jewel centered at the cusp of her cleavage. The transmitter, a small, square, plastic box, was tucked into the left cup of her bra. Off-balanced breasts would have been too noticeable in the dress, so she’d sewn a thick layer of Kleenex between the fabric and the lining of the other cup to even things out.
Which did a great job of hefting her boobs into outer space.
“Oh, look at the sky.” Celina tilted her head to look through the open moon roof. “Let’s stop at the boardwalk and go down to the beach.”
Emilio frowned before looking back at the road. “It’s late. Too late. Parking anywhere along here—” he waved his hand at the empty parking lane next to the concrete sidewalks “—will get my car towed. Let’s go back to my place.”
“Please,” Celina begged. She shifted her pleading eyes to his face and again brushed her boobilicious upper body against his. “A walk on the beach would be the perfect ending to this night.”
She scooted as close to him as the seats allowed and mentally morphed him into her fantasy man before she ran her right hand around his stomach. Her fingers touched leather. Gun holster. One that held a mean Glock.
Nothing like reality to interrupt her fantasy.
Sliding her fingers under the gun, she gave him a small hug and resuscitated the image of Cooper. Sexy, serious. Beast in the urban slang so widely used in the surf shops and outdoor restaurants she frequented when not on duty. She’d started calling
him that behind his back, and the other taskforce members had picked it up. Cooper hated it. She loved that he hated it. He was no beast. In fact, he was two hundred and thirty pounds of sexy. And she wanted to be his Beauty.
Probably a lot of women in the DEA, FBI, and CIA had their own particular fantasies about him. Women all over Southern Cal as well. Too bad for them, she played hard and never gave up. He’d be hers. And soon.
While Cooper and Emilio were at opposite ends of the spectrum, running her fantasy-man mental movie always worked when she had to deal with Emilio. That particular mind game was the only thing that had kept her seduction act even close to believable the past few weeks.
She placed a soft kiss on Emilio’s neck, still pretending he was Cooper. Which took a superior imagination. “One of your men could drive the car around for a few minutes while we walk the beach.” She nipped the lobe of his ear. “If you’re scared of getting towed.”
Emilio’s two bodyguards were behind them in a black SUV. They were characteristically big, bad and ugly. To arrest Emilio without endangering anyone, Celina had to ditch them and get him totally alone. If one bodyguard had to drive their vehicle and one had to drive the Porsche, she’d have Emilio all to herself.
The key to success. Easy on paper. Hard in reality.
Time for the big guns. Or boobs, in this case.
“The night is dark and the beach is unlit,” she said softly. Emilio leaned toward her and she teased his lips with hers as she spoke. “The rocky walls and concrete boardwalks will hide us. You don’t need your security detail.”
She switched her lips to his earlobe, and still envisioning Cooper, she whispered, “You’ll love this dress even more when it’s wet.”
That sealed it. Emilio’s hand came off the gear stick and grabbed her by the back of the head. He drew her to him, bringing his mouth down on hers even as he drove the car.
Forcing herself not to recoil, Celina shifted her imagination into high gear. It was Cooper whose tongue was now in her mouth. Cooper holding her captive while they sped down the road ten miles over the speed limit, playing a dangerous game of make-out roulette.
She forced herself to return Emilio’s ardor with her own.
Chapter Two
You’ll love this dress even more when it’s wet.
Cooper Harris wanted to hit something. Hard.
FBI Special Agent Celina Davenport—sexy siren of his daydreams as well as evil temptress of his night dreams—was sucking face with the biggest drug cartel leader in California and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
Her soft voice coming through the mic as she taunted Londano to have sex with her on the beach gave him an instant headache of giant proportions. But it was the silence that followed, broken only by the sound of them kissing, that made him want to slam the wall of the surveillance van with his bare fist.
Sucker punched. That’s what it felt like.
It’s her job, idiot. She knows how to handle herself.
Didn’t make him any happier. Which showed what a total sexist he really was. Sure, he felt protective about all the guys on his squad, but he never second-guessed them or their skills. He never went apeshit if they kissed a mark or led her on in order to get the information to take someone down.
Celina was female and a little one at that. Short, underweight, except for a few well-placed curves, and she had a soft, almost Southern Belle persona that totally belied her fiery Cuban roots. Push her buttons and you’d see that fire, but it took an ungodly amount of button-pushing for it to surface. He knew. Out of everyone on the SCVC taskforce, he’d managed to tweak every hot button she had at least once. Most of them he’d not only pushed, but punched into the stratosphere.
He loved it when the real Celina came out. Not the professional FBI agent she’d polished to perfection, but the holy shit amazing woman underneath. The one whose emotions rose up and took over, blasting him with her clever wit and overwhelming logic even as she flushed with anger and made gestures with her hands he’d never seen before.
Yeah. That was the Celina he’d fallen for.
But he couldn’t ever let her know that. How she tied him up in knots. How absolutely gone he was every time he was around her. He was her boss. Head of the taskforce.
He was also fourteen years, six months and four days older.
She was a baby. A rookie. A Feebie, for Christ’s sake. DEA agents did not play well with FBI agents.
And he was The Beast after all. His reputation would hardly hold up under the pressure if he robbed the cradle and got the female rookie Fed on his team hurt in the line of duty.
So he didn’t cut loose and punch the wall of the surveillance van, didn’t give into the surge of acid in his stomach. Instead, he scratched Thunder’s tiny square head and batted away the image of Special Agent Celina Davenport kissing Emilio Londano.
FBI agent Dominic Quarters’ gaze was heavy on Cooper’s neck. Fucker had the hots for Celina, too. Cooper shot him an accusatory glance. Fucker could eat shit. “What the hell is your girl doing to our op, Quarters? This wasn’t the takedown we had planned.”
“Pull your shorts out, Harris.” The shorter man eased back in his plastic chair and shrugged. The San Diego Mafia had been formed in the early 1970s by Jose Prisco. Thirty years later, his twin nephews, Emilio and Enrique Paloma-Londano took over the business. While most cartels gained international reputations for brutality and murder, the San Diego traffickers posed as legitimate businessmen. Their unique criminal enterprise involved itself in counterfeiting, kidnapping, and drug trade, but Emilio and Enrique passed off as law-abiding citizens, investing in their country’s future and earning the respect of their neighbors and the general public. The Feds wanted them gone. The DEA wanted them gone. Even the CIA thought it was a good idea. Too bad it wasn’t one of the spies he’d worked with before instead of Quarters sitting next to him. “She saw an opportunity and ran with it.”
An opportunity? That’s what this asshole called it? “She’s going to get herself killed.”
Quarters did the shrug thing again and Cooper’s hand balled into a fist. Punching Quarters would be way more satisfying than punching the van’s side panel.
The van slowed, following a discreet distance behind Londano’s car and bodyguards’ vehicle. “Perp is pulling off highway and parking approximately one-quarter klick from here,” announced Thomas, a West Point grad who’d held a high profile position with the Department of Defense before defecting to the DEA. The T-man was Cooper’s right hand man on this takedown.
Two keystrokes of Thomas’s fingers and a night-vision view of the boardwalk appeared on the screen in front of Cooper.
The surveillance van wasn’t the only vehicle in the area. A few diehard surf heads always parked near the beach overnight, only moving when the cops harassed them. There were plenty of cops in the area tonight, but none would be visible until after the sting took place, thanks to Cooper’s friendly relationship with the police units from L.A. to San Diego. They all wanted Londano out of business and they knew Cooper’s taskforce was about to do it.
“Perp is exiting car.”
Like he couldn’t see that. On screen, Londano and Celina headed to the beach. Thunder, in Cooper’s lap, whined. Cooper was petting the dog too hard. “Sorry, hot rod,” he murmured, never taking his eyes off the screen. He wanted to watch Celina. But years of intense training and experience told him to keep his attention on Londano. “Radio the other units in the area that this is going down here and now.”
Thomas made a sound of acknowledgment and began notifying their backup.
Celina kicked off her high heels and strolled into the rolling Pacific Ocean. The moon and stars lit the beach with a surreal light that even the night-vision view couldn’t compete with. Cooper could only shake his head at her stupid courage and undeniable sensuality. She glowed like a beacon.
A beacon that only reminded him he was trapped in a hell of his own making.
&nbs
p; “What is she doing?” Done with notifying the local units, Thomas leaned closer to the screen as if he could decipher Celina’s plan by getting face to face with the video. “She gets that mic wet and it’s all over. We won’t have jack squat of a confession to bring to court.”
They all watched Londano plant his feet in the sand and observe Celina with a predatory posture that made adrenaline burn in Cooper’s veins. He set Thunder on the van floor, littered with empty disposable coffee cups and torn candy wrappers, and stood up as best he could. The van ceiling was higher than most to accommodate their equipment, but still not tall enough for his large frame.
“That’s what you get with rookie Feebies,” he said, moving to the back of the van. One step closer to Celina. “I’m going in before she winds up shark meat.”
Quarters and Thomas protested. Cooper ignored them. Raising the hood of his sweatshirt, he jumped out onto the pavement. Good thing he’d worn his boots instead of his running shoes. They’d hurt a lot more and leave an unforgettable impression when he kicked Celina’s butt back to Quantico.
Chapter Three
An ocean wave hit her and Celina sucked in her breath. The water was freezing. If only she had on her wet suit instead of the gauze dress.
But everything was in place. Dumb and Dumber cruised the side streets while their boss watched her from the dark deserted beach. He was waiting for her to drench herself in the ocean and reveal what only his mind had imagined. She wondered if he would try to take her right there under the stars, but it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let things get that far. The high wall of rock and concrete behind him did exactly what she’d told him it would. It shielded them from the traffic on the street above, while giving her the opportunity to arrest him quickly and quietly.
