An Offer He Can't Refuse Read online

  But when he was settled in the driver’s seat beside her, he had to prompt her again. “I gather the FBI raided your house—after your father’s disappearance?”

  She took a breath, nodded. “They came in wearing bulletproof vests and carrying sledgehammers and crowbars. At least a dozen of them. They pounded on the door and then didn’t give us a chance to answer. They poured into the house like cockroaches.”

  Her mother had been frozen for days, ever since it was clear that Salvatore wasn’t coming home. She’d watched the agents invade with dead eyes. “My father had been missing for more than a week.”

  “Where did they find you, Téa?”

  She laughed, the sound dry and bitter. Scornful. “I wasn’t hiding, if that’s what you’re asking.” She’d still thought of herself as royal then. And loyal. So stupidly loyal. “I stood in the foyer and told them to get the hell out.”

  It seemed to take him a moment to absorb that. “How old did you say you were…twelve?”

  “That’s right. Twelve years old and I thought I could order them off the premises.”

  “Jesus.” Johnny forked his hand through his hair. “Did they have a search warrant?”

  She laughed again. “I don’t know. Do you think they would have bothered to show it to me, Salvatore Caruso’s little bitch of a daughter?”

  “They called you a little bitch.” Apparently he recognized the direct quote.

  “Only when I bit the hand of the agent that shoved me out of the way.”

  That surprised a laugh out of him. “I would never have guessed you’re a biter, Contessa.”

  “Oh, you don’t really know me, Johnny.” And he never would. Strange how sad and glad she felt about that at the same time. “You don’t really know me at all.”

  He let the comment go, staring straight out the windshield as if he found the dark street fascinating. “They found cash then?”

  “Wads of cash. I remember this one agent getting a little giddy as she scooped handfuls of twenties from a space behind the shelving in a linen closet. I read all about it in the newspapers. There was over $130,000 found in various places around the house. They confiscated every last dollar bill.”

  “It’s no crime to have an aversion to Citigroup and B of A.”

  “I wish I’d thought to mention that when they smashed our piggy banks. I’m fairly certain that’s what cemented Joey’s hatred for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “Jesus,” Johnny said again. “Jesus.” With a jerky movement he started the car and then slammed it into reverse.

  “Wait, wait.” Bewildered, Téa put her hand on his arm. It was stiff and tense beneath her fingers. “My car.”

  “We’ll get it tomorrow.”

  “You’re driving me home?”

  He glanced over. “What? I thought we were going back to my place.”

  “I…I don’t want to go home with you.” She cleared her throat. “I mean, you can’t want me to go home with you.”

  “Why the hell not?” He was already racing down the street.

  “Because…” She wanted to cool things between them. Because he had to be disturbed by what he knew about her family.

  “You can’t think this changes my attraction to you, Téa.”

  Of course she thought it changed his attraction to her! She was counting on it! Panic started to flutter in her belly again. Her family wasn’t known as part of the Mafia because they were Italian and liked their pasta. It was because the FBI had found inexplicable sums of cash in the walls…and because of the Loanshark book.

  “You don’t understand. You don’t know everything,” she heard herself say.

  He sped through a stale yellow light. “What don’t I know?”

  “Don’t kid yourself.” She’d done that, of course. But not anymore. “My father didn’t have an aversion to banks, Johnny. He had a business that dealt in cash. An illegal business that was documented in the Loanshark book.”

  “Eve mentioned this Loanshark book. But if it was never found, then how does anyone know what it actually documented?”

  Johnny was already pulling into his driveway. In another couple of minutes they’d be in his house and in his bedroom and she didn’t know if she’d be able to deny herself another night with him…or where another night with him might take her heart.

  So she had to tell him the truth now—or at least most of it, she thought, desperate. Get it out, so that he’d have his eyes opened about who she really was. Then certainly he’d be done with her.

  “I know what the Loanshark book actually documented, Johnny, because I did all the record-keeping for my father.”

  Twenty-nine

  “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was”

  Bobby Darin

  Love Swings (1961)

  Johnny screeched to a stop in the apex of the circular parking area adjacent to his garage. “What? What did you say?”

  “I’ve never told another soul.” Téa found herself whispering it, as if the night might now be listening. “I’m trusting you not to tell anyone either.”

  “You kept the books for your father’s business? A high-interest, unsecured loan business, I assume.” He sounded both puzzled and upset. “Why the hell did he have you do that?”

  “The business was loan-sharking, bookmaking, a little blackmail.” She gave a shrug, trying to play it nonchalant. “And I did it because I was good with numbers.”

  “Jesus, Téa! You were a kid, a little girl.” In the moonlight she saw him squeeze the steering wheel as if he was throttling it. “Your father should be shot.”

  “He probably was,” she said.

  “Oh, shit.” He rubbed both hands up and down his face. “What a fucking mess.”

  “It’s my mess. My mess, my family, my sin.”

  “Your sin.” He rubbed his face again. “My God, Téa. My God.”

  Which only reminded her of that bargain she’d made so long ago—that if she would stay away from trouble, then He would let her get away with her crimes. Johnny, with all his golden good looks, had dazzled her, rendering her blind to reality. He was trouble. He had to be, right? Because she’d just confessed to him her past.

  “None of this is your fault,” he said. “None of it.”

  She wouldn’t let him sugarcoat it. “I knew what I was doing, Johnny, don’t think I didn’t. I saw the names, the sums, the payments made and the debts enlarge. I wanted to help my dad and I wanted to do something for him that my sisters couldn’t. I didn’t care what that entailed or whether it was right or wrong. I only knew he was proud of me, and that I was special for the secret we kept together.”

  “But you didn’t understand—”

  “Of course I understood it was wrong.” It made her feel sick to say it, but that was the truth. She took a breath. “And later, I admitted to myself that I was wicked.”

  “Téa.”

  “Now if you’d drive me home, I’d like to get on with the rest of my life.” Her voice was steady but her body was trembling. She wrapped her arms around herself to stop her bones from rattling like a skeleton’s. “I hope none of what I’ve told you will affect our professional relationship, but I’ll understand if you think it does.”

  “If you expect I’ll walk away from you tonight, after this—”

  “I don’t need a hero, Johnny.”

  He laughed, short and harsh. “You’d be out of luck if you did.”

  “Look, who we Carusos are, what I am and what I did, I can’t pretend them away.” She’d thought she could. Her arms pressed tighter to her ribs. “I can’t ask you to pretend them away either.”

  “I know who you are, Téa.”

  “No—” Yes.

  Yes. She’d just told him, hadn’t she? She’d just told him something she hadn’t shared with anyone, not her mother, not her sisters, not the FBI. Her bones started rattling again.

  Johnny reached out to touch her face. “Sweetheart, you’re ice cold and shaking.”

&n
bsp; “I’m just…it’s just…” Her voice was shaking now too. “Please take me home.”

  “Not before we talk this out.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” She wanted to go back home to her dressmaker dummies and her TV shows. There, she could stuff the past and her memories, her shame and her anger, into the mental compartments where they’d resided for the last sixteen years. “Please take me home.”

  “Not until we’ve warmed you up.”

  Despite her protests, he pulled her from the car, and wrapping an arm around her, propelled her back to the house. The heat of his body burned against her skin, but couldn’t seem to penetrate.

  Inside, the entry and living room smelled of fresh paint and the new sofa, chairs, and coffee table were pushed to the center of the room and covered with drop cloths. Téa struggled to muster a professional interest.

  “I should check on the painters’ work,” she murmured.

  “Jesus Christ, Téa,” Johnny said, sounding irritated. “Turn off the good girl for once, please.” He propped her against a kitchen counter and then pressed a half-full brandy snifter in her hand. “Drink up.”

  But her trembling fingers made it difficult to bring the rim to her mouth. Johnny muttered another swear word, then covered her wrapped hands with his and helped her bring the glass to her lips. He tilted it too far, and though she took a hasty gulp, some of the alcohol spilled and dribbled down her chin.

  His gaze on her face, he made a soft groan. Then he dipped his head and tongued the brandy away.

  Now heat spread over Téa’s skin, moving from her lips to her breasts to between her thighs. She pressed her spine against the countertop even as his mouth moved and pressed a kiss on hers. He freed the snifter from her hands and set it aside, then cupped her face between his big palms.

  “Contessa.” He kissed her nose, then each corner of her lips. “Sweetheart.”

  Oh, she liked that. And oh, she still wanted him. But she closed her eyes instead of succumbing to that warm comfort and that tantalizing sizzle. “You should take me home.”

  “Téa?”

  Her lashes lifted. He was a nose-and-a-half away, his gaze direct. “Is that the good girl talking again or is that the real you?”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “I know you now. We don’t have to be in the dark anymore.”

  “That’s not why—”

  “I think it was, Contessa.”

  She shook her head. “You just want more sex,” she said, trying to stay strong. “You know I see right through your smooth talk.”

  A corner of his mouth kicked up in a rueful smile. “You’re right. But now I think I see through you, too.”

  You could recognize charm and temptation and still be swayed by it, Téa thought. But this was never going to last! As a matter of fact, she’d been certain it was over half an hour ago. Yet now…now…oh. He did know her now.

  He knew her.

  As no one else did.

  She reached blindly for the brandy snifter and brought it to her mouth and swallowed more down.

  Now, she had nothing to hide and no reason not to indulge while she still could.

  And she must be truly wicked, because she couldn’t muster any more reasons to deny herself. It was going to end sometime, of course, she knew not to dream of forevers, but it didn’t have to end tonight.

  Going up on tiptoe, she took Johnny’s mouth.

  He gave it up without a fight.

  She realized she liked that in a man.

  Without her crimes or secrets between them any longer, Téa felt free. Not too free, she was quick to remind herself as she stroked her tongue against his.

  She would open herself to passion and nothing else.

  He speared his fingers in her hair and slanted his head to find a new fit. She took the initiative next, moving her head, moving her mouth, letting it roam from his lips over his chin, to the hot skin of his neck.

  She bit him.

  He grunted, and his hand sped down her back to pull her against his hips. His erection was hard and heavy against her belly.

  It made her breasts feel heavy too, achy, and she pressed them against his chest while she licked down his skin to the notch of his collar. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, and then she had the sides open. She rubbed her cheek on the skin she’d bared, until she found the hard point of his nipple.

  He groaned when she bit him again.

  His fist wrapped in her hair and he pulled back her head. His eyes glittered like blue ice. “Don’t push me,” he whispered, his voice rough.

  The gypsy girl stamped and whirled, freed by the wild music and the heat of the flames. She would push him, tease him, take him because letting go meant he’d let go too.

  Rising to her toes, Téa bit Johnny’s bottom lip.

  He grabbed her shoulders and held her mouth to his. Their mouths met in a feast of wet and heat and tongues. Her head fell back. He curled his fingers in the stretchy fabric of her knit pullover and yanked it down her arms to below her breasts. With her elbows trapped at her sides, he jerked his mouth from hers and stared down at the cleavage revealed by her bra, his chest heaving.

  “A boy’s fantasy come true,” he said. “I’m weak just looking at them.”

  A boy’s fantasy? Something about her was his fantasy? The idea rushed through her blood with another jolt of arousal. Leaning her hips against the counter, she took a centerfold pose, feeling strong and powerful and womanly. “Tell me you’re not just going to be looking at them.”

  A flush edged high on his cheekbones. “Maybe you are wicked,” he whispered, then bent his head.

  Wicked. The word was swept away in the sensation of his mouth running over the thick fabric of her bra. Now she cursed the figure-minimizing style with its no-see-through styling. Her nipples felt trapped behind the material, the points hard and desperate to feel his fingers, his mouth, his tongue.

  “Take if off,” she pleaded. “Please, Johnny, take it off.”

  He glanced up and met her eyes. “You want to be naked?”

  Before, she’d always managed to keep something on—her shirt, his shirt, some piece of clothing to cover her in case the darkness wasn’t adequate camouflage.

  He cupped his hands around her bra, lightly squeezing her breasts. “You want to be naked for me?”

  “Anything,” she heard herself say, because the darkness had been lifted from her. He already knew her worst. “Yes. Please. Now.”

  He popped the front catch free, brushed the bra straps from her shoulders, and then cupped his hands beneath her breasts to hold them up for his inspection.

  Then for his mouth.

  She arched into him as he sucked on one hard nipple and pinched the other between his fingers. “So good,” he said, his voice guttural. “So good.”

  His sleek hair tickled the inside curves of her breasts, sending goose bumps skittering down her belly and between her legs. She struggled to free her arms, and he helped her, pulling down her top until it was caught at her waist, even as he continued to mouth her with slow, steady pulls on her breast.

  Too slow, too steady, too not enough.

  Not naked enough. Not free enough.

  With one hand she held the back of his head against her, with the other she tugged and pulled at her knit skirt until she could shimmy it down her hips into a pool at her feet.

  His hands slid around to cup her bottom. “Take these off,” he said, giving a little snap to the elastic of her panties at the crease of her thigh. “Take everything off.”

  Then he moved away to watch her, his eyes narrow, his body tense. Sexual.

  She stood in front of him, her shirt a band at her waist, her panties the only real protection she had left. He remained dressed, his hair messed by her fingers and his shirt open and rumpled, but still much more covered than she.

  I’m free, she reminded herself. Wicked, and passionate, and free.

  Squeez
ing her eyes tight, she caught her thumbs in her stretchy shirt and then in the top band of her panties and slipped them both over her curves and off her body.

  She heard his harsh intake of breath, and savored that proof of his arousal. Then she felt the bite of his hard, hot hands at her waist. In a quick move, he boosted her onto the countertop.

  It was cold beneath her bare bottom, but she had only a brief moment to register the sensation. Then he was pushing her knees apart to stand between her thighs.

  “Open your eyes, Contessa,” he said, his voice rough, “and watch. Because I’m not going to just look at this either.”

  Surprise and excitement gave her another hot jolt as he knelt between her splayed legs. “Oh, God,” she whispered. Her breaths went no further than her throat.

  The silk covering his shoulders brushed against the insides of her thighs. Johnny stroked through her folds with his fingers, opening her to his gaze. She knew she was slippery and could see her wetness already coating his fingers. Embarrassment started edging in on her arousal, but he glanced up, as if sensing her mood.

  “I see you, Téa,” he said. His breath brushed against her wet flesh. “All of you.”

  His fingers slid over her aroused flesh again. “I taste you, Téa.” He sucked two of the fingers into his mouth. “All of you.”

  “I want you.” He ran his palms up the inside of her thighs, opening her wider. “All of you.”

  Then he put his mouth there and wrenched away the last of her control and the last of her inhibitions.

  She fell back to her elbows. She would have screamed if she could have found air, but the room was devoid of it. Instead there was only the soft-rough sensation of Johnny’s tongue exploring her sensitive flesh, the incredible sight of his blond hair against the olive-toned skin of her thighs, the curling, twirling, climbing path that he drove her along as he encouraged her, cherished her, laved her toward orgasm.

  She was almost there, his tongue had found that perfect spot and he fluttered against it.

  “Johnny Johnny Johnny.” Her muscles were tense, everything inside her clamoring for relief.