Dangerous Curves (14 page)

“Cece,” he whispered against them, his breath wafting back on him, mixing with her own. “Little spitfire.”

And then he pressed his mouth against hers again, urging her to open, wanting to feel that warm heat of hers again, to taste her and know that she was there in his arms—and safe.

When she started to kiss him back—really kiss him—he stopped thinking. No. That wasn’t true. He had one thought on his mind. To make love to her. And so he pulled the cushions from his rattan furniture, creating a makeshift bed on the sunroom floor, then laying her down on top.

She smiled up at him, and Blain’s heart tipped sideways. For just a second, he had a memory of when they were teenagers. The same soft expression. The same piercing green eyes, the same challenge shining from their depths.

You think you can beat my car?
she’d asked.

Piece of cake.

Only
she’d
beaten
him.
And if he was honest, he’d found that fascinating.

He reached up and touched her chin, something that was quickly becoming a habit, and he marveled at how soft her skin was, how utterly feminine. And those adorable freckles…

“If you’d been killed today, I would have made it my mission in life to catch who’s doing this—to make them pay.”

“But I wasn’t,” she said softly.

“Thank God,” he murmured.

Her look changed to one of tenderness and gratitude, and, he thought, perhaps even surprise. And then he did what he’d been longing to do: he covered her, his body protecting her, their faces inches apart. He sheltered her. Tried to keep her safe from harm.

If only he could.

When she reached up and stroked his cheek, he tipped his jaw into her hand, then lowered his head, bringing them closer together as he slowly, softly kissed her. And there was something different about kissing Cece. Something special. Something unique. It felt…right. As if he’d been kissing her since forever.

She sighed, lifting her other hand to frame each side of his face. He pulled back and kissed her palm, making her eyes widen. He smiled, then bent and kissed her cheek, her temple, her ear…such a sweet
ear, Blain thought, licking her lobe, then tasting the inside. She wiggled and he stopped.

“No. Don’t stop,” she said.

He bit back a smile, then nuzzled her ear some more, nipping, teasing, suckling. And she reciprocated, her hands skimming down his sides, one of them sneaking between their bodies. And when she touched him—Lord help him—when she touched him, he almost came unglued. He pulled back to catch his breath, the same breath he’d hissed out between clenched teeth as she worked him, stroked him, teased him.

“Lord, Cece,” he said, closing his eyes.

Her other hand lifted the edge of his shirt. He needed no prompting to tip back and take the thing off. But she wasn’t content with just the shirt. Her eyes never wavered from his face as she encouraged him to kneel alongside her, those nimble fingers of hers releasing the catch on his pants. He couldn’t move. Gasped as he felt her fingers touch him again when she lowered the zipper. Held his breath as she slowly worked his pants down, then his briefs.

She stroked him with her tongue.

Blain threw his head back.

She glided her lips up his shaft.

He looked down at her, cupped her head with his hands, showed her how to work him, how to use those lips of hers to make him come.

But, no, this wasn’t right.
He
wanted to make love to
her.

“Get undressed,” he ordered.

She lifted a brow. “No.”

“No?”

“In due time,” she said with a secret smile, her head lowering toward him again.

“Cece, no,” he said.

She looked back up at him, surprised by the expression on his face. There was firmness there, and determination.

“I don’t want it to be like this.”

And oddly enough, her heart seemed to stop beating at his words. “Like what?”

“Sex,” he said, cupping her face again. “I don’t want this to be sex. I want this to be making love.”

Her body went still.

He reached down and pulled her up so they were kneeling face-to-face. His expression was utterly serious as he said, “Let me make love to you, Cece. Let me touch you and caress you and show you what I’m feeling inside. Let me show you how much losing you today would have hurt me.”

She didn’t understand. Or maybe she did. Maybe she knew exactly what he meant, because she was feeling things that she’d never felt before, too. Things, she admitted with a touch of panic, she didn’t want to feel for him.

For anybody.

Heaven help her, she was falling in love with the guy.

S
HE LEFT HIM KNEELING
there.

And even as she did it, she felt horrible. And guilty. And damn it—something she hated to feel—panicked.

“Cece,” he called out.

But she needed air. Fresh air. Great big gulps of air.

She opened one of the kitchen’s French doors, the humid North Carolina night feeling like a force of its own. It wasn’t quite dark yet; the crickets and frogs starting their evening serenade. Cece headed toward the lake’s rippling edge, the liquid-silver waves gently lapping at the pebbled shore.

“Cece, wait.”

He’d followed her. Damn it. If they were under surveillance, they’d be found out for sure, what with him half-dressed, shirt thrown on and untucked, no shoes on his feet.

He caught her right at the shoreline. “What the hell is going on?”

She looked up at him. The side of his face was
bathed in color—gray and orange and muted blue. His eyes looked silver, or maybe that was light refracting off the lake. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she didn’t need this. She didn’t want to—feel. And that concerned her all the more. She wasn’t a coward. She wasn’t afraid of anything. And yet she sure feared the way she felt about Blain.

She straightened her shoulders, determined to confront this problem like she did all others in her life. Directly and with no apologies. Still, it took her a moment to quell the urge to squeeze his hand, because the worry and disappointment she saw in his eyes made her heart do things it had no business doing.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what, Cece?” he said with a tiny shake of his head.

“I can’t do this.”

Her words shocked him, she could tell. He rocked back a bit, his mouth compressing into a line. For the longest moment he didn’t say anything.

“Because of your job?” he said. “Because if you’re worried about getting into trouble, don’t. We can wait until this is all over. I don’t mind.”

And that made her heart melt even more.
Man,
he was the complete opposite of who she’d thought him to be. Why did he have to be so nice?

“You don’t understand,” she said.

His eyes asked her to
help
him understand.

“It’s more than my job, Blain. It’s…everything.”

But it was obvious he still didn’t understand.

She tried to pull her thoughts from the dank air, tried to gather them around so they made some sort of sense. “It’s…you. You’re too…” Damn it, why was this so hard to articulate? “Nice,” she said at last, because really, that’s what it boiled down to.

Unfortunately, her words had the opposite effect than what she’d wanted. His wrinkled brow smoothed, his eyes softened. “That’s it? That’s what has you so worried? I’m too nice?”

“Yes.” A mosquito buzzed around her ear with a high-pitched whine. She swatted it away. “I mean, no. Actually, that’s most of it. I’m starting to care for you, and that’s not good.”

He closed the distance between them. “Yes it is good,” he said, touching the line of her jaw. “I care for you, too, Cece.”

Lordy, she wished he’d stop touching her. It did things to her insides. No, it did things to her heart. Everything about him did things to her heart, from the look in his eyes to the tender way his fingers stroked her face.

“But that’s just it, Blain,” she said softly. “I don’t want you to care for me.”

“Why not?”

“Because our lifestyles are too different.”

“So? We can work that out.”

“No, Blain, we can’t. Your job doesn’t involve going undercover, pretending to be someone else, becoming someone you really aren’t for weeks at a time, just so you can flush out a bad guy.”

He shook his head, and it was apparent he didn’t understand.

She tried to help him. “Sometimes, because it’s a part of my job, I have to pretend to be someone I’m not, and it’s hell, Blain. You have to do and say things that are so completely
not
who you are. And if you’re in for a long time, if you’re forced undercover for months, you almost become that person, and then, when you come back home, you have to shut it all off, and it’s hell on the people you love. But that’s my job, and it’s a job I’m committed to, a job I’ve worked years to get. It’s who I am. I won’t give it up for anybody.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Oh, yeah? You really don’t mind what I do for a living?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, and she knew he
did
mind. To be honest, she kind of expected that. Though he wasn’t Southern-born, he’d adopted Southern ways. And in the South, women didn’t become FBI agents. They joined country clubs and had babies.

“You don’t like me being in danger, do you?”

“You know I don’t,” he admitted. “But I’d never ask you to quit.”

“No?”

He shook his head. Her respect for him went up a notch. But that wasn’t really the point, was it? “What I’m trying to say, Blain, is that I don’t want to hurt you, and eventually, what I do for a living
would
hurt you.”

She gave in to the urge to grab his hand, to squeeze it so that she had his attention. “My partner, the one that died—remember me telling you about him on the plane?”

He nodded.

“Well, what I didn’t tell you was the way his widow reacted to his death. I had to tell her, Blain. I had to break the news. I wouldn’t let anyone else do it. I’d been over to their house for dinner. I’d gone to their children’s christenings. Watched their kids on weekends. I wasn’t going to let some perfect stranger break the news that Bill was gone.”

She clenched his hand, part of her realizing she would probably end up hurting him, another part of her suddenly desperate for the lifeline anyway.

“It was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do, Blain. She couldn’t comprehend what I was telling her, and then suddenly her eyes changed and I knew she
did
understand. Bill was dead.” Cece released his hand, looked out over the lake, crossing her arms in front of her. “Her heart broke that day, Blain. I saw it shatter. And I was partly responsible. We were partners. I should have been watching out for him.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Cece.”

“That’s what the shrinks said, too. And I know that. But I’ve seen that look before.” Cece turned back to face him. “I’d seen what my dad’s death did to my mom, too. I’m not going to do that to someone
I
love.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Maybe so, but it’s the way I feel.”

Blain couldn’t believe his ears. That she would live her life like that? Didn’t she realize you didn’t get anything out of life without risk? Granted, he didn’t know where their relationship would lead. Friendship? Marriage? He surely didn’t know. He doubted Cece knew. But how would they
ever
know if she didn’t open up?

“So you’re closing the door? Refusing to feel anything more for me because you’re too afraid?”

“I’m not afraid for myself,” she said. “I’m afraid for
you.”

“Don’t you think
I
should make the call as to whether or not I want to take the risk of getting hurt?”

“You can’t make that choice.”

“The hell I can’t.”

“No, you can’t. You don’t know a thing about what it’s like to live with an FBI agent.”

“I’d like to try.”

She shook her head, and Blain felt almost as frustrated as he had when his sponsor dropped him earlier that day. Damn it. What the hell had happened to his life?

“I’m sorry, Blain,” she said, stepping back from him.

“Cece, wait.”

She turned.

“C’mon, Cece, don’t.”

But she walked away, which pissed him off even
more. If anyone could understand the dangers inherent in a job, he could.

He crossed his arms, turned back to the lake, debating. But what could he say? There would be no reasoning with her right now. He’d have to work on her tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.

Because there was one thing he knew for certain—he wasn’t about to give up. When he saw something he wanted, he went after it.

And he wanted Cece Blackwell.

T
HE NEXT FEW DAYS
went by in a blur for Cece, mostly because she kept herself busy any way she could, and that involved learning the inner workings of a race shop—while somehow avoiding Blain.

And she did manage to avoid him, though she had a feeling he let her. The man didn’t act like someone who’d been dumped. No. He was entirely too nice. Granted, they were forced to work together out of necessity, which meant she drove with him everywhere, slept in a room down the hall, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with the man. And through it all, he smiled, conversed with her and otherwise behaved like a big brother. That should have reassured her. Instead it made her feel edgy, off balance—maybe even a little mad. Darn it, she wanted to touch him, to hold him, to forget for a moment what she did for a living. She couldn’t.

So when it came time to head out for the next weekend’s race—Blain having delayed their departure as long as possible—she wasn’t exactly in a
great mood. All right, she could admit it—she was in a terrible mood.

Granted, part of her irritation stemmed from someone having tried to kill her. Twice. Sleep didn’t exactly come easy when you were worried about explosives being lobbed through the window. But so far, their suspect was lying low. She expected that to change at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where they held the Cutmax 400, and where Blain was racing on his own dime. Unfortunately, that meant a long time with Blain in a car—make that a Hummer, Blain having selected his new vehicle with bricks of C4 in mind.

“Jeesh,” Cece said when she caught sight of the bright yellow vehicle outside his house. “You thinking of going to work for Chiquita Banana?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, following behind her, an overnight bag flung over his shoulder.

Overnight. With Blain.

Ay yi yi.

“It’s yellow.”

“So it is,” he said.

“Bright yellow…as in the Space Shuttle can see us from orbit yellow.”

“I wanted a color that your friends tailing us would be able to spot in traffic.”

“Mission accomplished,” she grumbled.

She thought she heard him chuckle, but she didn’t look back to check. Even when she opened the car door, the smell of freshly unwrapped Hummer greeting her, she didn’t look at him.

“An armored tank probably would have been cheaper.”

“They don’t come with cruise control.”

She glanced over at him. He gave her a crooked smile. She hated that crooked smile. It reminded her of what a great guy he was—and how hard a time she’d been having remembering that she didn’t get involved with great guys.

“What? No leather?” she said, hopping into the thing, doing her best to appear dignified as she contorted herself into the vehicle’s small interior.

“No, but it has a diamond-plated underside.”

“No kidding,” she said, thinking Blain must not be doing too bad financially if he could afford a Hummer, and one with the bomb-proofing option at that.

But, see, that was just it. He appeared to be taking everything well. Have someone blow up your fancy import, buy a Hummer. Have someone kill your driver, hire another one. Lose your multimillion-dollar sponsor, race your car without a fancy logo on the hood. Actually, what he’d put in place of that logo had made her laugh: Your Name Here.

But she didn’t
want
Blain to make her laugh. She wanted him to do things that made her think she’d been right to call it quits between them.

“I still think the color’s all wrong.” But she was grumbling more about her internal monologue than the color of the car.

“You’ll get used to it,” he said with a smile, and Cece’s heart did that little flippity-flop.

Oh, brother.

I
T WAS A LONG,
long,
loooooong
drive to Atlanta. Cece wished for about the hundredth time that they’d flown, but FBI higher-ups had advised them to keep their feet firmly on the ground—they didn’t want any airplanes falling out of the sky. She glanced over at him, and instantly wished she hadn’t. He’d forgotten to shave this morning, the result being that he had a light dusting of black hair on his handsome, square and thoroughly masculine chin. She’d always been a sucker for men who looked good in business clothes. And while Blain didn’t wear a suit and tie, he
did
wear a white button-down shirt that highlighted the tan he’d gotten while working outdoors. Masculine legs were defined by dark blue slacks that would look preppy on a lesser man. Not on Blain. By the time they reached the track, the Hummer felt about the size of a wheelbarrow.

“The entrance to the infield is over there,” he said, pointing toward the gate.

And a good thing, too. But when she took the time to actually look around, she was surprised by how much foliage surrounded the track. Somehow, she’d always pictured racetracks in industrialized areas, but Atlanta’s rose up from a sea of trees. VIP suites, press boxes and the track’s private offices ran along the front stretch, hundreds of seats visible beneath them.

“Did Linda give you a copy of our schedule?”

Linda of the low cleavage would sooner hand her a vial of bubonic plague than give her something as useful as a schedule, or so Cece surmised.

“Actually, no,” Cece said.

“I asked her to.”

“She must have missed me on the way out.” Hah. She’d probably withheld the information.

“Okay, well, the first thing we need to do is have a meeting with Barry Bidwell.”

“The president of NASCAR?” she asked.

Blain nodded. “That’s the man.”

“I thought you’d worked everything out with him last week in Vegas.”

“He called this morning and requested a meeting.”

And something about the look on his face alerted Cece that this would be no ordinary meeting, and she couldn’t believe he’d waited until now to tell her about it. Didn’t he believe in the intimacy of sharing?

You’re the one who’d called it quits.

Oh, yeah, she’d forgotten. “What do you think he wants?”

“I don’t think he wants anything. I think he’s going to pull my license.”

A
ND HE WAS RIGHT.

“You can’t do that,” Blain said calmly, though Cece could tell the words rankled.

“Actually, we can,” said a man who’d introduced himself as the head of PR, Rick Something-or-other.
“We have the right to pull anyone’s license. It’s in the rule book.”

“Yeah, but that only applies when rules have been broken.”

“Not necessarily, Blain,” the PR guy said. “We reserve the right to pull a license for
any
reason.”

Blain just shook his head. “Why the about-face?” he asked.

“We didn’t take the threat seriously before. Now we do,” Barry Bidwell said. “And with someone out there targeting your team, and those affiliated with you—” he glanced in Cece’s direction “—we really feel it’s better for the fans if you’re not around this weekend. We’d hate for the killer to miss you and hit someone else instead.”

And even though Cece hated to admit it, she could see their point.

“When can I have it back?” Blain asked.

“As soon as this crazy son of a gun is caught,” Bidwell said.

“That might be awhile,” Cece muttered under her breath.

Barry glanced at her for a second, then back at Blain. “It might,” he said, his vowels sounding longer, like Blain’s. Southern. “But we can’t do anything about that.”

“Son of a bitch,” Blain said. “By the time I get back to racing, I’ll be millions in the hole. Crap, I may as well shut the whole operation down.”

“That’s certainly an option.”

“No, it’s not. I can’t tell my guys that they’re out of a job—what about their families?”

Silence followed. Outside, the drone of race cars rose in volume, higher and higher, a million angry bees roaring down the homestretch. Practice time.

Cece spoke up. “Mr. Bidwell, with all due respect, perhaps this decision is a bit precipitous. It might be weeks before we solve the case—months, even. Asking Mr. Sanders to ground his team is tantamount to asking him to give up racing.”

“We can’t help that,” the PR guy said. “We’re just trying to do what’s best for the sport, and the fans’ safety.”

“Bullshit,” Blain shot back, slamming his palm down on the table. Cece jumped. Everyone in the room did, except Mr. Bidwell, whose eyes had never left Blain’s.

“What would be best for racing is if you canceled the upcoming races until this guy is caught.”

“We can’t do that,” Barry said instantly, “any more than the NFL canceled the Super Bowl when there was a terrorist threat.”

“The Super Bowl was
one
event. You have a whole list of events where a killer might strike.”

“And we’re increasing security to counteract that threat.”

“You think that will help?” Blain asked, his face turning as red as the flag they used to stop the cars. “You think you can protect one hundred thousand race fans?”

“The airports do it every day.”

Blain just gave him a look of disbelief. But unlike Blain, Cece could understand the association’s position. If they let terrorists rule their lives, they’d never race again. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if her friend Agent Ashton hadn’t advised Mr. Bidwell to do exactly as he was doing: increase security and ditch the biggest threat—Sanders Racing.

Shit.

“This isn’t an airport,” Blain said.

“No, but we’re using the same measures to protect our fans. Given the circumstances, it’s the best we can do.”

Blain fell silent, but Cece could see how upset he was by the white brackets around his mouth.

“Son of a—” He got to his feet, crossed to the bank of windows that overlooked the track, and stared outside at the vehicles roaring by. “I have a car out there practicing right now, and a driver who expects to race day after tomorrow. What am I going to tell him?”

“As to that, we have a solution,” Rick said.

Blain turned and faced the men at the table.

“We’re not without sympathy, Blain,” Barry said. “You’ve been in this industry a long time, and we realize you need to keep up a presence, maybe even collect some purse money so that sponsors might get interested. We asked Pat Pearson if he’d like to manage your team in your absence.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Blain said, and Cece
could tell if he’d been furious before, that was nothing compared to his anger now. “He’s my biggest competitor, and a man who’d love to get a glimpse of how I do things just for the advantage it’d bring him once this is over.”

“It’s your choice.”

“Well, it’s a shitty choice—”

“Then don’t race.”

“That’s not an option.”

“Not from where we sit—”

“Gentlemen,” Cece interrupted, straightening up a bit as she put on her most professional smile. “I mean, really, what difference does it make who’s managing Mr. Sanders’s team? The driver and crew might still be targeted—”

“Since none of the other teams, nor their friends, have come under fire, we’re not of that opinion,” Bidwell said, “and so the only solution we’re prepared to offer is the one we just suggested.” He looked at Blain. “Either you do this or leave the track. Today.”

Cece had a fantasy of jumping up on the table, pulling out her pistol and saying, “Make us, you varmints,” just like they did in the cartoons.

But when she caught a glimpse of Blain’s profile over by the window, her heart broke instead.

Oh, jeesh…

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” he said, arms crossed.

“We have no choice,” Bidwell said.

Yes, they did, but Cece knew trying to convince them otherwise would be an impossible task. She was a racing outsider. She had about as much clout in their eyes as the conference room windows.

“Then I guess we’re leaving.”

“If that’s your choice.”

He nodded, and they all stared at each other for long seconds before Blain turned toward the door. Cece got up, too, shooting Bidwell and the PR guy her nastiest look. By the time she and Blain emerged into the Atlanta sunshine, he was ten feet ahead of her.

“Blain.”

He kept going.

“Blain, wait,” she insisted, catching up to him, touching his arm. He jerked away, and she tried not to get angry at that. She’d walked away from him enough times, that’s for sure. And he was furious. She could understand that. But she also expected him to know she knew how he felt.

“Blain, stop,” she said, taking a firmer grip on his arm, stepping in front of him.

There were tears in his eyes.

Cece felt as if the ground dropped from beneath her feet.

“Oh, Blain,” she said, her hand tightening on his arm.

He tried to step around her again. She wouldn’t let him, placing a hand against his chest in spite of the agents who might be watching. And beneath her
palm, she could feel the furious thump of his heart, her own heart tearing in two at the look on his face.

“They’re going to ruin me, Cece.”

“No, they’re not.”

“It’ll take me years to recover from this.”

And before she could think about the consequences, before she could remind herself that someone might be watching, she found herself wrapping him in her arms. He let her.

“We’ll find out who’s doing this, Blain. I promise. You’ll be out there racing before you know it.”

“What am I going to tell the guys?”

She drew back. Tears still hovered on the rim of his lower lids. If he’d been any other man, she would bet he’d be hiding his tears. But Blain wasn’t that type of man, and the way he fearlessly allowed her to see how he felt touched her in a way she’d never been touched before.

“Tell them the truth, Blain—that you’ve been grounded. Tell them you’re sorry, and if they want to find positions with other teams, that you’ll understand. Tell them the FBI is going to solve this case and then everything will be back to normal.”

“What if you don’t solve it?”

“We will, Blain.” And, Lord, how she wanted to reach up and kiss him. How she wanted to wrap her arms around his neck, pull her to him and comfort him. But she couldn’t, partly because she didn’t want to risk an Internal Affairs investigation, and partly because she didn’t trust herself to touch him that
way. God help her, she was feeling things right now that should have sent her scurrying away.