An Offer He Cant Refuse - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,45

It was a slinky luxury car in the land of slinky luxury cars, but something about the way it stayed even with Johnny's back bumper sent a warning signal down her spine.

Watch your back, cara.

Tea slipped down in her seat, her head turned just enough to keep her eye on that side view mirror. "I know a shortcut," she said.

He frowned. "What shortcut?"

There was no shortcut. But someone might be following them, set on her trail by a rival don in the California Mafia, or even by her grandfather himself. "Just follow my directions, okay? Take a left at the next light."

He maneuvered into the storage lane. So did Slinky.

Tea drummed her fingers against her left thigh as they waited for die green. Was someone following her? Johnny reached over to still her fingers and she started, his touch distracting her from the car behind them.

He gave her hand a light squeeze. "You're avoiding my questions again."

The light changed, and he returned his attention to the road, following her directions of four blocks straight - Slinky followed - two blocks right - Slinky followed again. Another right turn, and her neck craned as Slinky continued on without them.

A single driver... a man's profile...

A silver crewcut? She couldn't be sure. And she couldn't suppress that sense that someone was watching.

They'll be searching for vulnerabilities in the family and looking for ways to take power.

That warning signal edged down her spine again and when Johnny touched her arm, she jolted.

'Tea. I don't get why you're so skittish. Most women like me."

"It isn't - " But it was him as well. With her need to keep her distance from the Carusos and every other Mafioso certain to be prowling Palm Springs in the next few weeks, she didn't need another man, another complication in her life.

They hit a stoplight, and while they waited at the red, Johnny dropped her hand to take her chin and turn it toward him.

"Contessa, I'm not asking for your soul."

Then why did it feel as if he was touching it with those hard, warm fingertips?

"I'm not asking for your secrets."

And there. He'd said it. That's what she was truly afraid of, with him, with every man. It scared her to think that some guy could set a match to her one day and burn down all her defenses. That in the throes of wild sex she'd lose her inhibitions and lose all control, setting free God knows what. Secrets, emotions, a badness this mob daughter had been born to but had bargained heaven to keep caged.

"I want nothing so dire," Johnny was saying, his nighttime voice finding its way inside her like sweet, warm smoke. "Nothing so complicated."

She lifted her gaze to his, finding all that open blue. "What is it you want then?"

"Only where this is already leading to."

Bed. In was in his eyes, in his voice. She was tingling all over again because she wanted that too. Of course she did. But it was such a new force, such a new drive to deal with that she felt confused and conflicted. Because though all the reason inside her brain said it was a bad idea, she couldn't be reasonable when she was looking at him, when he was looking at her and that chemistry between them was bubbling like a high school experiment gone bad. "I still don't think - "

"Don't think then," he said, pinching her chin and letting her go as the traffic ahead of them moved. "If you don't think so much, it will all fall into place."

As they pulled back onto Palm Canyon after their short detour, Tea found herself watching the cars around them again. Then Johnny reached over and put his arm across her shoulders.

His voice was all smoke and sex again. "Relax, Contessa, and you'll discover it's all very, very simple."

Simple? God knows she needed some simplicity in her life, Tea thought, tempted by the notion. She rested her head on his arm, just for a second. A test.

It felt masculine and reassuring and the warnings that had been running down her back were replaced by a wholly different kind of shiver.

It felt good. A good kind of scary. A straightforward kind of scary that was all about sex and nothing about secrets and suspicions. Maybe she could do this. And if she did, if she went with Johnny to where this was leading, then tonight she wouldn't have to be alone with the shadows and what might be