Face of Danger (9 page)

Her stomach rolled a little, and not because the plane banked.

Was that the real reason she’d thrown caution to the wind and played her little game with the man who made her crazy? Because he was probably the safest man she’d ever met. So this was the first time she could—

No, she couldn’t. That barrier couldn’t be breached, no matter how much she wanted him. That old pain was always too close to the surface.

“It’s Lang,” she whispered to herself, forcing her brain to go to its usual litany of don’t-even-think-about-its when she got lost in her daydreams about him. He was an FBI geek. Uptight Dudley Do-Right. And, let’s not forget, a major client of the Guardian Angelinos.

Usually those admonitions did the trick to crush her crush. Today, her crush was having none of it. And her body was having a throbbing, aching, ardent field day.

She heard the shower start in the small bathroom. She prayed Cara hadn’t wired the bathroom. That was something only a truly paranoid person would do. Who was she kidding? That was just the kind of thing Cara would do. But she and Lang had to talk and, like it or not, the bathroom was looking like their best option.

Pushing up from the seat and crossing the small cabin, she grabbed the yellow dress she’d considered wearing before deciding underwear was more expedient for keeping Lang’s questions to a minimum.

She slipped the dress over her, looking at Stella, who growled when Vivi’s head popped through the top, obviously expecting the rightful owner of the dress.

“Sorry, Stell. It’s still just me.”

Stella dropped her head on the comforter, her eyes full of distaste as she watched Vivi tap on the bathroom door.

“It’s unlocked,” Lang said.

She opened the door and froze at the sight of Lang behind glass. Sheesh. She hadn’t meant for him to
really
take a shower.

He opened the door, giving her a full view of his magnificently naked and wet body. Her breath caught in her lungs. He was so not playing fair.

“Come on in.” He smoked her with a look, untempered with anything resembling a smile. He was serious. He was naked. He was gorgeous.

“My makeup will come off,” she said.

He reached out and yanked her in, right under the stream. “Precisely my plan,” he said over her gasp of surprise.

She sputtered and tried to dodge the water, but he held her head, letting the water sluice down. She had to close her eyes as the mascara flowed and the false eyelashes became nothing but wet black spiders sliding down her cheek.

“What the hell, Lang?”

“What the hell is right, Angelino.”

She jerked out of the water and swiped the wet hair and stray lashes off her face. “Don’t say my name. And don’t grab me like that.”

“I’ve cleaned the room. There is no hidden camera, no microphone, no nothing. We’re alone.”

“Then why the shower?”

He dropped his gaze to her soaking body, lingering where the thin yellow fabric molded to her breasts. “I wanted to see you wet.”

She swallowed, all her lovely control in the cabin washed away in the shower. “You wanted me off guard.”

He raised his muscular shoulder, even more impressive without his usual golf shirt covering it. “Then we’re even. What the hell is going on?”

“You tell me,” she insisted, still keeping her voice down despite the water noise and his assurances. “What are you doing here?”

He scrutinized her hard and long, pushing the hair back off her face. “It is you,” he finally said, no small amount of relief in his voice.

“You weren’t sure?” She couldn’t help smiling. “I do deserve an Oscar.”

“Why did you do that to me?”

“I had to keep you quiet, Lang. I had to stop the questions and demands. Cara has cameras or hidden microphones all over this plane, if you had said anything you would have blown my cover and this job before takeoff.”

“So you blew
me
and risked my job instead?”

“I had to think fast and… it worked.”

Something flickered over his face. Or he had water in his eye; she couldn’t tell. But he wasn’t happy, that much was clear. “All I care about is doing my job and doing it right,” he said.

“Me too. And I’d say by your response, I did it right.”

“You bamboozled me.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “Never heard it called that.”

His eyes, golden green again instead of dark with lust like they were ten minutes ago, narrowed like the eyes of an angry lion, any hope of humor gone. “You took a huge risk.”

“What, no seat belt during takeoff?”

“Don’t joke about this, damn it. Another man could have raped you.”

The words slugged her. She opened her mouth to argue, then shut it, and not because water poured into her mouth. Another man could have. “But it wasn’t another man—it was you.” And that was the real reason she’d chosen
sex for silence, wasn’t it? Because she trusted him, and she wanted him. “I got the job done,” she said softly. “I needed to not blow my cover.”

“Well, I needed not to blow my wad, sweetheart, since it’s generally frowned upon in the line of duty.”

“Sometimes rules need to be broken, Lang.”

He put his hands on her shoulders, pressing her against the shower wall, his face inches from her, his bare chest skimming her dripping dress. “Rules exist for a reason. You follow them because when you don’t, you die. Is that clear?”

She lifted her chin, determined not to let him intimidate and overpower her. “You would have said my name and I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Is. That. Clear?” His nostrils flared and she could feel his breath on her face.

“You made your point. But we don’t agree and you don’t happen to be my client on this assignment.”

He clenched his jaw so hard she could hear his teeth grind. “Where
is
your client?”

She shrugged, her mouth slammed shut. His grip tightened on her shoulders.

“Where, Vivi?”

She shook her head.

“Goddamn it!”

“Look, even
if
I knew, I couldn’t tell you.”

“You don’t know?” Fury sparked in his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter if I do or don’t, I’ve signed a nondisclosure—an over-the-top nondisclosure, I might add—and I can’t reveal anything about my assignment to anyone—not even the FBI.”

He stared hard at her, searching her face, thinking.
“Then she probably won’t be too happy when you get off this plane in Nantucket cuffed and arrested for obstruction of justice.”

She sputtered some shower water. “Why? She hired a body double. That’s not breaking the law or obstructing anything.”

“The FBI is providing protection for her.”

“What happened that put you guys on such high alert? A threat? A copycat?”

“Didn’t she tell you?”

Goddamn Cara Ferrari and her secrets. “Tell me what?”

“There’s new evidence.”

“Of what? The possibility of a real serial killer?” Up to this moment, Vivi hadn’t bought the media hype, especially after everything she’d read about the prior deaths. Except for the Oscar win, there was no pattern at all, absolutely no evidence that linked the deaths.

“A possibility, yes.” Lang shook water off his face, stepping out of the stream. Vivi had to work not to let her eyes follow the water as it cascaded over the dusting of dark curls on his chest, down his six-pack abs, down to his—

Damn it. She lost the fight and looked.

He wasn’t completely hard anymore, but the nest was dark and his manhood was still swollen and although she was no expert, pretty impressive. What would that feel like…

He tipped her chin up to look at him. “You’ve had enough for one day.”

Heat burned her cheeks as she stepped under the spray. “I hate you.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“You know I was acting before.”

“Like you said, Oscar worthy.”

She gave him a harsh look. “But
you
weren’t. You liked it.”

“That’s an understatement, Vivi, but—”

She put her hand on his mouth. “You cannot call me that. It’s Cara. Or”—she dropped her gaze one more time—“nothing at all.”

“Are you trying to bribe me with sex? Because that
is
against the law.”

She let out a sigh, finally managing to escape his grip. “Please, just tell me why you’re here and what evidence the FBI has.”

“The FBI task force discovered two hairs that might connect the first two victims. Since Cara is supposed to be headed to Nantucket, which is under the jurisdiction of the Boston office, I was asked to protect her and investigate anyone who comes near her. Especially anyone wearing a wig.” He slid his hand into her wet hair. “Anyone.”

“These are extensions and I am sure as hell not your perp.” She pulled away and let his hand drag through the length of an extension so expertly woven into her own hair that it would take an act of God to pull one out. “Why you?”

He hesitated a second. “The orders came out of L.A.”

He made it sound as though that should answer her question. “And—what—they’re trying you out for the job you want?”

“In essence, yes.”

Oh, that was just great. “So your success in protecting Cara will impact your ability to get this promotion you want so much.”

“Yep.”

Shit. “Seems we both have a lot at stake.” She reached for the door, but he pulled her back.

“Yes, we do. Because if there really is a serial killer, you just put your family’s future, your business,
and
your life on the line. Why the hell would you do that, Vivi?”

She stepped away, plucking a false eyelash off her cheek. “I think we covered my attraction to risk and your aversion to it. But, sorry, I’m not doing anything that any good Guardian Angelino wouldn’t do. This is my job and I’m going to do it.”

Disgust and frustration practically rocked him. “Where is she?”

“Sorry, but I don’t know.” She tried to escape again, to no avail.

“Do you have a number for her?”

Yeah, ten million dollars if she breathed a word. “No.” Which wasn’t a lie. She only had a number for her assistant. “Please, Lang. If you give me away, she’ll crucify me professionally and personally. I honestly don’t know where she is, and that’s the way she wants it for her own personal safety, which, as her security professional, is my top priority. I’m going to her house in Nantucket to let the media think that’s where she is, and if that brings a killer to the door, then I’ll catch him.”

He took her wrists in his hands and raised them over her head, bracing her against the slick shower wall, immobilizing her with his power and size. “You are
not
going to be bait for a killer.”

She almost buckled under the vulnerability of her position. But she couldn’t let him know that. Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, she looked up at him,
digging deep for the power she needed when a man—any man—even thought about pinning her. She couldn’t take it.

“Let me go, Lang.” She ground out the words, her throat closing more with each passing second.

“You are not—”

“Let me go!” She jerked her hands so hard that he had to let go, his eyes widening at her raised voice. She shook her wrist, despising herself for the outburst and the sense of helplessness. “I don’t answer to you and you cannot tell me what to do,” she said, steadying her voice. “So don’t even try. And do not ever grab me like that again.”

“Then I’ll blow your cover and force her out.”

“Which just makes
her
bait for a killer.”

He sucked in a breath to respond, then blew it out, obviously seeing the sense of that argument, so she pushed it. “If you want to protect her, let her stay hidden. Just pretend you don’t know I’m Vivi and let’s do this together.”

He turned away, his hand on the faucet, ready to turn it off, the internal debate raging on his features. “If I protect you, then I put her in danger.”

“I don’t need protecting.”

The look he gave her said he disagreed.

“What I need is your cooperation. We can do this together, Lang. If you cover for me, we can pull this off together.”

“I don’t want to pull anything off except catch the son of a bitch who’s killing movie stars.”

“Are you sure there is one? Two hairs isn’t exactly ironclad evidence.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “We have to work under the belief that it is.”

“If that’s the case, then all the more reason to keep her location hidden.”

He looked straight up into the spray, letting the now icy water pour over his face. Then he got out, grabbed a towel, and left without another word.

She turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, and let out a low moan at the sight of her bedraggled, smeared, soaked self. Bridget had taught her how to apply the makeup and lashes, but, damn, it would take her at least two hours to put Cara back together again.

In the meantime, it was almost midnight on the West Coast and she was toast. After washing her face and towel-drying her hair, she slipped on a robe and returned to the cabin, surprised at how disappointed she was to find it empty.

And he took the dog, proof that he had a powerful protective streak. But who would he protect: her or Cara—or his own pending promotion?

At 6:00 a.m., Vivi finished the process of transforming herself, dressing in a much more reasonable T-shirt and low-rise jeans—still had to wear heels, though, as Cara didn’t own a pair of sneakers—and emerged into the sunlight of the main cabin. The copilot leaned against a bulkhead, a cup of coffee in his hand, chatting with Lang, who reclined on one of the large chairs, his own coffee steaming on a table in front of him. In the seat next to him Stella snoozed contentedly. Little traitor.

“Are we landing soon?” she asked, pointing at the boomerang-shaped island off to the left and recognizing it as Nantucket.

The copilot pushed off from his comfortable position
to greet her. “We most certainly are, Ms. Ferrari. Good to see you.”

She gave him her best Cara smile, her heart jumping. Lang had actually done as she asked?

“And you,” she replied.

“Would you like coffee?” he asked. Lang still didn’t so much as turn to look at her.

“Yes, please.”