Dangerous Curves (11 page)

“Your mom ended up leaving him.”

“Yup. A year after I graduated high school. They both thought I’d get racing out of my system, then come back home and go to college. When she realized racing was my life, I think she woke up and took a look around.”

“Do you ever see your dad?”

“Oh, sure. He’s in sales and it’s good business to bring a potential client to the racetrack, especially when your son owns the team.”

She didn’t say anything for a while, while Blain wondered what she was thinking. Not many people knew the story behind the man.

“I would never have blackmailed you.”

“Shh,” she said, quickly covering his mouth with her hands. She scooted next to him, her hip nearly hitting the kitchen counter. He was silenced by surprise.

“Don’t say anything,” she hissed.

“Why not?” he whispered back, kind of enjoying their closeness.

“Because.” She motioned toward the family room, giving him an exasperated look.

“Afraid he’ll hear your little secret about your run-in with the law?”

She glared, her expression clearing saying
don’t you dare.

“Hmm…I wonder how you’re going to keep me quiet?”

“I’ll find a—”

He covered her mouth with his hand, and as amazing as it seemed, suddenly he felt like laughing.

“You know, it occurs to me that now would be a good time to teach you a lesson.”

“A lesson?” she mumbled before batting his hand away, “About what?”

He smiled. “About using me.”

“Using you? You’re the one who never called me after Las Vegas.”

“I didn’t know your home number.”

Her eyes widened.

“So I figured I’d call you at your office on Monday. Instead you flew here.”

“Oh,” she said.

“My point being that I never intended not to phone you. Yet I have the feeling that you had every intention of calling it quits between us.”

She seemed a bit embarrassed, so he knew he was right.

“I don’t like being used,” he stated.

“I didn’t use you.”

“Jumped me like a bitch in heat.”

“I did not!”

“Shh,” he admonished. “He’ll hear you.”

She pressed her lips together. Blain had a hard time keeping back a laugh. Funny, a couple hours
ago someone had tried to kill her, and it’d scared the shit out of him. Now he found himself smiling.

“You’re used to having the upper hand,” he surmised. “Calling the shots. Using and abusing the male sex.”

“Why, you—”

“Shh,” he said, touching her lips again. She tried to draw away, but her butt came up against the counter. He wanted to lift her onto it, to spread her legs….

But he wouldn’t. Not yet.

Still, when she tried to sidle away, he found himself asking in a loud voice, “So, what was the arresting officer’s name?”

She froze. Well, her body froze. Her face took on a look of fury. She glanced toward the family room as if trying to remind him of the other agent’s presence. Actually, Blain had asked the guy for some privacy earlier, but she didn’t need to know that.

“You really are an ass sometimes.”

“I know.”

Her eyes narrowed.

He kissed her. She tried to turn her head away, but he refused to let her. He wanted to kiss her. He didn’t care that someone might be listening in, or even watching. He wanted to kiss her, and so he did.

But it wasn’t a kiss like those in the hotel. Whether they liked it or not, things had changed between them. He knew her taste now, and she knew his. But it was more than just the physical—so much
more. He felt her stiffen, only to abruptly relax, her head tilting as she opened her mouth. This time his tongue probed gently. This time he knew the contours of her mouth, took note of what she liked. She made little sounds in the back of her throat, almost as if she didn’t know whether to scream or sigh.

He loved those sounds.

“Blain,” she said, wrenching her lips away. “We can’t.”

“Why not?” he asked, the lingering heat of her mouth making him want to kiss her more.

“Because,” she murmured.

He took a step toward her. “We did before,” he said in an equally low whisper.

“That was different.”

“What was so different?”

“Kissing you didn’t mean a potential Internal Affairs investigation.”

“Internal Affairs?”

“Yeah. Internal Affairs,” she said, eyes gone wide with seriousness. “Getting involved with you is a complete conflict of interest, and if I don’t call a stop to this right now, I’ll be facing an investigation.”

He didn’t say anything for a while, and Cece told herself to relax. Obviously, he understood what she was trying to tell him. Getting involved with him would lead to all sorts of complications—complications she didn’t want to deal with right now. She didn’t want to get involved with anybody. Not like she suddenly wanted to get involved with Blain.

“What are you
doing to me?”
she said in a low voice.

He leaned his head down. “Trying to make you realize that what we have is more than just casual.”

“Casual or not, we can’t.”

“We can if we’re careful,” he said, his lips just about…oh man, almost touching her own. She refused to move away. Damn it. She would not let him do this to her—whatever
this
was.

“No,” she declared. “No more kissing.” And this time she meant it—she stepped away.

She expected some flip comment from him about how she hadn’t said no earlier, but to her surprise he didn’t look perturbed. Instead he looked amused.

“How about petting?”

“No,” she said.

“A little ear nuzzling?”

She got shivers just thinking about it. “No,” she said firmly.

He held her gaze for a second, thoughts flitting through his eyes that made her skin tingle and alarm bells ring.

“Hmm. A challenge.” Said with a smile. “I love a good challenge.”

She knew he did. But she was one challenge that was destined to disappoint. “Save your challenges for the racetrack,” she said with a brave tip of her head.

Too bad that bravery wasn’t echoed in her heart.

T
HE PHONE WOKE
B
LAIN
the next morning in the middle of a very pleasant dream about Cece, making him curse as he reached for the handset.

“Blain,” Linda, his secretary, said, “you better get down here. All hell is breaking loose.”

He sat up in bed, white sheets falling around his waist. “What’s happened?”

“Someone tipped the press about what’s going on. The bomb threat’s all over the news. Rick Vanhausen called. He and Steve Oxford.”

Steve Oxford, VP of Operations for Star Oil. This couldn’t be good.

“Did he say what he wanted?”

“He’s on his way down,” Linda said.

Crap. Definitely not good news. The only time Steve ever made an appearance was if money was involved—as in, he was taking all his money away.

“What time does he want to meet?”

“Two hours.”

Blain glanced at the clock. Nine o’clock. The sky had really fallen if Steve Oxford wanted a meeting before noon.

“I’ll be right in.” He should have been there hours ago, Blain thought with a glance at the clock. His tossing and turning had taken its toll. He wondered how Cece had slept in the room down the hall, then warned himself not to go off thinking about that. He’d only want to head to her room and ask her himself.

He hurried through his shower, his hair still damp as he made his way down to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat. Cece had beaten him, her standard-issue black slacks and white cotton shirt crisply in place.

“Where are you going?” she asked, and he could tell by her heightened color that she was remembering what had gone on the night before, and his parting shot to her. And even though he was dreading the next few hours, he couldn’t believe how strong the urge was to tease her, maybe even see if he could make her smile.

He stopped himself. There was a time and place to see where this thing between them would go.

“The office.”

“Not without protection.”

“I left my condom upstairs.”

Damn, he hadn’t been able to resist. But the results were worth it because he almost smiled at the way her eyes widened, at the way her lips tightened.

“Relax, Cece,” he said, cutting off whatever words she’ d been about to say. “I’m not going to jump you.”

“Good, because relationships between witnesses and agents are strictly forbidden.”

“Yet,” he added in a low voice, turning to grab a cup of coffee.

When he glanced back to her it was just in time to catch a
drop dead
glare.

“Seriously, Blain. You better tell Agent Ashton what you’re up to.”

“And how do I do that?” he asked. “Speak into a lampshade?”

Was that a smile he saw her bite back? Nah. Couldn’t be.

“Just go outside and wave your arms.”

“Really?”

“No,” she said, and it was her turn to look smug. “I’ll call him.”

“Is it really necessary to check in with him?”

“It is if you want to stay alive.”

Someone had tried to kill her yesterday, maybe him. Amazing how he could put that to the back of his mind.

“What about you?”

“I can take care of myself,” she said quickly, reaching for her cellphone.

“That’s not what I meant,” he interrupted.

She paused in dialing the phone, looking up at him.

“I meant what are you going to do today?”

“Go with you.”

A
ND SHE DID,
and to be perfectly honest, Blain was glad. Not that he’d put up an argument. He’d figured
the two of them would be sticking together, which meant he and Cece would be seeing a lot of each other in the coming days. Too bad it wasn’t under different circumstances.

The FBI had provided them what Blain now knew was “loose cover.” meaning they hung back far enough to allow the bad guys some breathing room, but not so far that the feds couldn’t move in if there was trouble. The fact that they were even there at all was supposed to reassure Blain, but it didn’t. Feeling as if he had giant red circles painted on his back wasn’t a comforting thing. He didn’t know how Cece coped with it as they drove to his office. Granted, she was armed, and maybe that made her feel better. But as for Blain, there was something distinctly disconcerting about being the object of someone’s hatred…and having Cece protect him.

How did she do it?

It took effort to separate the two sides of her, especially during times like these when she looked far removed from the tousled sexpot she’d been in the hotel room. She sat in the driver’s seat, green eyes alert as she stared around them, a radio and a cell phone strapped to her waist, her FBI badge around her neck.

“You look so serious,” he said. And gorgeous. Damn, but he wished he could kiss her. Just one kiss.

She didn’t look like she wanted to be kissed. She glanced over at him, the silver hoops in her ears
catching the early-morning light. “Protection is serious business.”

“I know, and I’ve got to tell you, I don’t like the thought of you in the line of fire.”

“That’s my job.”

“And I don’t like it.”

He didn’t, damn it. He wanted her back at his house, safe, with a full regiment of agents protecting
her.

“What if there’s more than one bad guy?” he added, glancing over at her.

He caught a look of what-of-it unconcern. “We don’t have any reason to assume there’s more than one. In fact, there’s a lot more evidence to support the theory that it’s not a group.”

“Such as?”

“There still haven’t been any claims by terrorist organizations that this is their work, though that might change now that it’s gone public. Those groups are always quick to jump on the bandwagon. Plus, if it had been a terrorist cell, they’d have been a lot more professional in the way they put the load together yesterday. Al Qaeda operatives don’t use alarm clocks for timers.”

“If you’re trying to reassure me, it’s not working.”

“Actually, it should. I’d rather deal with one person than a group of religious fanatics.”

One or twenty, the point was someone might have killed her yesterday.

And him.

But he didn’t have time to point that out because right then they arrived at his shop, and both Cece and Blain stiffened when they saw the media circus camped out in his parking lot. On a normal day there were tourists around, race fans dropping by the industrial complex in hopes of catching a glimpse of people they deemed “celebrities.” Today, however, the parking area was filled with news vans and satellite trucks, people milling about as Cece pulled into Blain’s reserved parking spot.

“Great,” he said.

“Let me get out first.”

He shot her a glare. “Why? So you can get shot at first?”

She rolled her eyes. “Blain, we’re surrounded by people. Nobody’s going to get a clear shot at me.”

She smiled the cocky, nothing-to-worry-about smile he’d come to expect from her. Still, he noticed that she put her hand beneath her jacket as she stepped out of the car. A gun? Blain was pretty certain it was.

Damn.

How could he so hate what she did for a living and yet still admire her brash attitude?

“Step back from the car,” she said as people rushed forward. “Mr. Sanders won’t be giving a statement today.”

Her door slammed with a pop of air pressure, and Blain watched as Cece came around the front of the car. When she opened his door for him, she was in
full FBI protection mode, her face expressionless, her eyes scanning, scanning, scanning.

It amazed him.

Especially when she glanced down at him, saying, “It’s safe to get out of the car now, Mr. Sanders,” in as impersonal a voice as he’d ever heard from her.

His lips formed a bemused smile almost against his will. He couldn’t help feeling like a sitting duck as he straightened. But Cece treated it all like another day at the office, and for her, it probably was.

As for him, he rushed into the building. It was weird the way she seemed to relax the moment the door closed, leaving the press milling around outside. But he noticed she still peeked out the glass double doors once or twice.

“Thanks,” he said, feeling somehow out of kilter, like his timing chain was off a notch or something. And then it dawned on him that this was the first time he’d ever seen her in protective mode, and he had to admit it was a whole new side of her.

“Doesn’t look like any race car shop I’ve ever seen,” she said, turning toward the lobby.

He forced his mind to address her question. No, it didn’t, at least from the front. The sprawling five-acre facility wasn’t as plush as some of the multi-race teams’, but the chrome-and-glass building looked more like an office than a fabrication shop. He’d had the architects hide the shop at the back of the building, more so prying eyes couldn’t see into it than for aesthetic reasons.

“Gotta look successful to be successful,” he said.

She pulled her gaze away from the trophy case that lauded some of his team’s more recent wins. “Well, by the looks of things, you’re pretty successful.”

He had been, though it’d been a long haul to get where he was. And now it might all go away.

“Thank God you’re here,” Linda said, her brown hair held back by its customary sixties-style headband. “The phones have been ringing off the hook.”

To his surprise, Cece didn’t eye Linda up and down. In fact, she seemed coolly unaffected by his receptionist’s model-type looks.

“Linda, this is Cece. She’s an FBI agent.”

Despite how frazzled she appeared, Linda eyed Cece closely. She nodded a curt greeting.

“Nice to meet you, Linda,” Cece said.

The secretary turned back to Blain. “Steve Oxford is here,” she said.

Blain couldn’t conceal his surprise. “Already?” he asked, silently cursing. He’d expected to have at least an hour.

“He was in a hurry.”

Bad news. A CEO flying out to see you when you hadn’t won a race was always bad news.

“In the conference room?”

Linda nodded, her eyes on Cece.

“Might as well get this over,” Blain said.

“You want me to sit in?” Cece asked.

“Sure. You know as much about what’s going on as anybody.”

But judging by the expression on Steve’s face, Blain should have taken the meeting alone. He had always thought the man looked like retired military. Though Steve had to be nearing sixty, he still had the square face, square jaw and buzz cut. But the hard glint in his eyes was more pronounced today, giving Blain a pretty good idea this wasn’t going to be pleasant. He shut the glass door to the conference room, glad the vertical blinds had been closed already.

“Blain, maybe we should keep this private,” Steve said after he’d been introduced to Cece.

But Blain shook his head, settling himself in a dark green chair that he rolled out from under the glass-covered conference table. “Cece’s a big part of the investigation, and since you’re no doubt here because of what’s going on, I think you’ll want her input.”

“Is she in charge?” Steve asked, the fluorescent lights revealing his skepticism.

Blain felt his eyes narrow. Something about the way Steve had said that…

“I’m not in charge, Mr. Oxford, but I’ve been in on things since the very start.”

“I’m sure you have,” Steve said, in such a placating tone of voice he sounded like a used-car salesman. “But maybe it’d be better if you called your boss and asked
him
to join us.”

If Cece had been a dog, Blain was certain that her hackles would have lifted.

“The agent presently in charge of the investigation is busy,” Cece said. “I can stand in for him.”

“Well, maybe we should reschedule the meeting until he’s not busy.”

“That would be a waste of time for all of us, Mr. Oxford,” Cece said tersely. “Speaking of which, I really need to get to a briefing that’s scheduled for an hour from now, so if we could hurry this up…?”

Blain wanted to smile. Steve had always been a pretentious S.O.B., but Blain had never pegged him as sexist. Apparently the gloves were off for this meeting, however, because Blain saw unmasked irritation cross the man’s face.

“Very well, then,” he said as if he’d given his approval, when, in fact, he’d had no choice. “But I’ll expect a written transcript of what we discuss here today.”

It was a blatant attempt on Steve’s part to put Cece in her place—as if she were nothing more than a glorified secretary for the FBI.

But Blain should have known she’d be able to handle herself. “I’m sure Blain’s personal assistant would be happy to come in here and take care of that for you,” she replied curtly.

Good for you,
Blain privately conveyed to Cece with the hint of a grin. Oh, yeah, she knew how to put men in their place.

“No need for that. What I’ve got to say will only take a minute.”

Then why the hell had he wanted Cece to take notes, Blain almost asked him, but he tried to keep it professional, even though he was fighting the urge to clock Steve Oxford in the face.

“As you know, Blain, Star Oil has been with you for four years now—”

“Cut the crap, Steve. You’re ditching me because of all this nonsense, aren’t you?”

If Steve seemed surprised by his aggressiveness, it didn’t show. He just leaned back in his chair, unbuttoning his suit coat. “We are.”

Mother f—

Blain bit back the oath. Sure, he’d suspected the news, but he’d been hoping Steve would deny it.

And as his hopes went sailing out the conference room door, so did the leash on Blain’s temper.

“This is bull, Steve. Complete and utter bull.”

Blain caught a glimpse of Cece’s eyes widening before she glanced at Steve to see his reaction.

“Actually, Blain, it’s not,” Steve snapped back just as aggressively. “You know as well as I do that things haven’t been the same since Randy’s death.”

“It’s only been a month. Give us some time to pull it together.”

“But to be honest, this started before Randy died.”

“What started?” Blain huffed.

“The losses. Poor qualifying. Poor finishes. Our tracking service claims we’ve only gotten two hours of network exposure.”

He’d known the number was low—his own tracking service had come up with much the same. “Every team goes through ups and downs.”