Cari’s head snapped up. Was he actually suggesting they go to bed and have noisy sex for the benefit of the listening devices in her room? The idea of sex with Joe had been on her mind for most of the last few weeks, but when he put it that way, he could forget it!

His mouth tilted into a crooked grin.

She stopped. Frowned. That almost looked like an apology. And then it hit her. This was more of the clueless but love-struck routine he’d pulled on her father downstairs. Knowing what a bright, sophisticated guy he actually was, she’d been shocked to the point of laughter when he’d done it the first time.

Joe took her hand to lead her inside. To her bed.

Oh, God. Her bed. She balked against the tug of his hand before she even reached the French doors.

He looked over at her with concern and mumbled without moving his lips, “There are cameras out here. Even if it is dark, they can still see some of what we’re doing. You need to look a little more willing to go to bed with me. I won’t pull anything with you, I swear.”

Her first impulse was to do a little swearing herself in response to that promise. But that wasn’t the problem. She was scared to death of her bed. Not of being in it with Joe, but of the bed itself.

And he wanted her to climb into it. To lie where Tony had lain, where his blood had soaked her clothes and skin…. Horror bubbled through her.

“Come inside, Carina. Please,” he coaxed her under his breath.

Taking a deep breath, she bolstered her courage and stepped through the door. She could do this. Her freedom—maybe her life—depended on it. It was just a stupid phobia. She could overcome it. She was stronger than her fear.

Joe closed the French doors behind her, bathing the room in darkness. And the memory of that devastating spill of blood flooded Cari’s mind’s eye, creeping across the floor to reach out and grab her. She barely suppressed an urge to jump up on the couch like a woman on a chair, hiding from a mouse.

She made out Joe’s frown. Questions raged in his eyes, but he dared not voice them aloud for fear of the bugs that he rightly guessed peppered this room.

“Come to the bathroom with me,” she announced. He stared at her in surprise. “I need help with my zipper. It’s stuck and we’ll be able to see it better in there.”

“Uh, okay,” he mumbled.

She turned the water on full blast in both of the sinks as soon as he closed the door behind them. She swallowed her pride and stepped close to him. She leaned forward reluctantly and confessed in a whisper, “I haven’t slept in my bed since…” Her voice cracked.

“Ahh.” Enlightenment dawned in his eyes. And that looked like relief, too. “So it’s not me you’re afraid of?”

She blinked, startled. “Of course not!”

He exhaled hard. “Thank God. I was trying to figure out what I’d done to freak you out so bad.”

Her cheeks heated up. “You’re fine. It’s just the idea of lying where all that blood was…”

He drew her into a hug. “Aww, baby, I understand. You don’t have to explain. You’re authorized to freak out over that.”

She collapsed in relief against his shoulder. “I feel like such a wimp.”

“That kind of a shock has broken strong men. You’re no wimp, Cari.”

She smiled against the warmth of his silk shirt. “You don’t hate me?” she asked in a small voice.

His chest rumbled with a chuckle. “Of course not.”

“So maybe you’d kiss me again?”

He went rigid beneath her. Cleared his throat. “You think that’s a good idea?” he asked dubiously.

She buried her face in his neck rather than look up at him as she muttered, “I happen to think it’s a great idea. But if you don’t want to, I get the message. I won’t ask you again…”

A finger hooked under her chin, nudging her face up. “I happen to think it’s an outstanding idea, too.”

His smile positively incinerated her. And then his mouth swooped down, capturing hers with just enough aggression to make it crystal clear exactly how good an idea he thought it was. Somewhere in the background, she heard the water go off and the bathroom door open, but she didn’t care. He moved them out into her bedroom, and she went with him willingly, enthralled by his mouth and hands and heat.

His lips were warm and gentle, rubbing across hers with finesse. Enough of the gentleman, already! She didn’t want finesse—she wanted the inferno from the nightclub.

She clenched her fists in the fine cotton of his shirt and tugged him closer. “I want a real kiss, dammit!”

He laughed, deep in his throat. And complied.

Oh, God, did he comply. His whole body wrapped around her, bending her backward beneath him, the heavy thickness of his arousal pressing against her belly, his arms impossibly strong as they supported her. This was no refined gentleman, dipping his tongue in and out of her mouth in the rhythm of wet, hot sex. This was an alpha male, powerful and in control.

Oh, how she liked that. She got so sick of college boys kissing her like they were scared to death her father was going to burst in at any second and break them in half. And then there were the types who styled themselves great lovers and got so caught up in being suave they forgot to enjoy it. And, of course, she couldn’t forget the selfish jerks who treated her as if she was little more than a life-sized plastic doll.

Joe’s hand stabbed into her hair, pulling her head back, opening her to him even more as he leaned down, kissing his way down the column of her neck.

“You taste so good,” he rasped. “I can’t get enough of you.”

She tugged on his hair, pulling his mouth back up to hers. “So do you,” she mumbled against his mouth. “You taste like coffee with cream and a shot of whiskey.”

“Baby, you taste like great sex,” he growled back.

One of his hands slid up her naked thigh to her hip, pushing her flimsy skirt aside and tracing the route of her thong downward toward her throbbing center. Her thighs went soft and she moaned as she took a step, spreading her feet to allow him better access.

His hand closed over her wet heat and she all but flung herself at him as lust roared through her. This man would make love to her like an adult. No adolescent fumbling around. No self-centered performances that treated her like a blowup toy. This man would take them both to the stars and back.

He stepped backward and she followed, chasing his body heat and addictive touch shamelessly. He laughed as his thighs bumped into something. Then he grabbed her with both arms and fell backward. She started as they bounced onto the bed.

And she froze.

“You’re not lying on the bed, baby,” he murmured. “You’re lying on me. Focus on my mouth.”

And then his hands were on either side of her face, drawing her down, down into a sweet void where nothing existed but his body cushioning hers, his arms holding her close, his mouth sliding across hers, sipping at her like a fine brandy.

She moaned her pleasure shamelessly.

And he laughed in return, a sound of exultation. Of possession. Of soul-deep pleasure. “Come here, princess. I want more of you.”

“I don’t think there’s another inch of me that can get into more contact with you than it already is,” she protested.

His hips rolled ever so slightly against hers.

Oh.

“Well, there is that,” she laughed.

He rolled over, pinning her for a moment against the mattress. And before she could finish the tensing that rippled across her shoulders, he bounded to his feet, pulling her with him.

“More,” she demanded, getting up as well, stalking him like a tigress.

“Patience, love,” he murmured. “We’ve got all night.”

Oh, my. She liked the sound of that.

“Stay right here. I have to get something.”

She looked around. “Here” was right in front of the French doors, all the way across the room from her bed. How had they gotten over here? Damn, that man did crazy things to her head.

She shouldn’t be having these feelings for him. But for crying out loud, the man kissed like a god.

And then there was a giant heave on the other side of the room. Her entire bed moved, the covers went flying and the top mattress slid sideways. What in the world?

She watched, bemused, as Joe grabbed an armload of blankets and pillows and carried them over to where she stood. He dumped them on the floor at her feet.

He murmured in a low voice that barely carried to where she stood only a foot away, “For what it’s worth, that’s a new mattress. It’s not the same one as—well, the same one. There’s no way to remove a bloodstain like that from a mattress, and yours is pristine.”

She all but sobbed in relief at that revelation.

Joe went back to the bed and dragged the heavy queen-sized mattress across to her. He dropped it with a heavy whump to the floor.

A voice called through the hallway door, “Everything all right in there?”

Joe glared over his shoulder and yelled, “It’s our wedding night, for Christ’s sake. We’re not exactly sleeping in here, you moron!”

Cari slapped a hand over her mouth and burst into giggles.

Grinning and rolling his eyes, Joe positioned the mattress in front of the French doors and efficiently remade the bed. Then, with a flourish, he presented her with the makeshift bed.

That was possibly the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her. She smiled up shyly at his image swimming in her tears, then whirled and headed for the dresser in the corner. She dug around, found what she was looking for and headed for the bathroom.

“I’ll be right out,” she told him.

She changed quickly into a filmy, white negligee she’d ordered from Paris a few months back. It was made of silk so fine it was nearly transparent, and it weighed hardly more than a magician’s handkerchief. She’d never worn it before. She hadn’t been consciously saving it for a special occasion, especially since her love life was more monkish than not. But as she slipped it over her head and let it float down around her naked body, she had to wonder if maybe she’d had a subconscious intuition that this night and this man were about to come into her life.

The silk fabric flowed like a warm breeze over her skin. She adjusted the tiny little rosettes of pastel ribbons that held it up at her shoulder and brushed her hair quickly. When she stepped back into the bedroom, the French doors stood wide open, letting in a warm breeze and the rhythmic pounding of the surf. Joe was already in their makeshift bed, the covers pulled up to his waist. His chest was bare. Oh, Lord. Was he naked under there?

Her heart beat wildly at the idea. As she walked toward him, she pictured what he must look like under the sheet, and the image stole her breath away.

And then she noticed the way his gaze was roaming up and down her body, absolutely devouring the sight of her, and what little breath she had left escaped in a whoosh.

He held up the covers for her in silent invitation. And the world disappeared once more, narrowing down to this man and this moment, this dark cavern of linen and flesh, safety and—

She sank down to her knees and eased down beside him. The sheets were warm from his body heat. She was disappointed to discover he was wearing a pair of boxer shorts, but in the next instant, he drew her against that lovely chest and everything else melted from her mind.

It all crowded in on her again, everything she’d ever wanted and more. A flesh-and-blood man holding her, protecting her, loving her.

Hello, reality check. Total stranger only here to rescue her. Not happily-ever-after guy. But still. He made her feel like he gave a damn about her as he held her close. That was more than most men did.

Gradually, the dream of true love retreated—not a lot, but enough to breathe.

He propped himself up on an elbow and gazed down at her, his body perfectly still but his eyes ablaze. “You are, without a doubt, the most stunning woman I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he murmured.

She reached up to smooth her fingers along his jaw. “You’re not so hard on the eyes yourself, Mr. Smith.”

“Ah, Cari, Cari. What am I going to do with you?” he murmured.

Her lips curved into a sultry smile. “Do you want me to suggest a few answers to that question?” she replied.

“No. Definitely not,” he answered almost sharply. He rolled onto his back beside her, an arm flung over his face. “Don’t tempt me,” he mumbled from under his elbow.

She grinned up at the ceiling. Tempting, was she? She could live with that. The night breeze whispered across her skin and she drew the covers up. Joe’s hand was there immediately, tucking the blankets in around her shoulders.

He murmured, “If you get cold, let me know and I’ll close the doors. I thought you might like to hear the ocean, though. It always helps me sleep.”

She replied, “If I get cold, I’ll snuggle with you. I can feel your body heat all the way over here.”

A pause. A clearing of the throat. “That works, too.”

She smiled into the darkness. And fell asleep with a smile still on her lips.

But the next morning, along with the sun came the reality check she’d been incapable of last night. She looked over at Joe and saw a mature man lying beside her. He was so out of her league. Who was she trying to kid?

She hardly knew him. She had no idea what his agenda was. He seemed to like her, but that could all be an act. Even if it wasn’t an act, bitter experience had taught her that he would get over his infatuation with her soon enough and emotionally abandon her. She’d read romance novels about men who stayed loyal to the women they loved through thick and thin, but she’d l never met any real men like that.

According to Julia, by the time her father had gotten around to killing her mother, all Inez had felt for her husband was terror, and all he’d felt for her was contempt.

Love wasn’t a rock; it was water. It ebbed and flowed, flooded and dried up, depending on the landscape and the capricious weather of life. It certainly wasn’t something to count on.

Joe would get her out of here, and then he would get on with his regularly scheduled life. If she let him, he would love her and leave her like everyone else did.

She sighed. Sure, he kissed amazingly well, but was it worth getting her heart broken over? Probably not. As hot to trot as he made her feel, lust was a purely transient thing. It would pass. It always did.

“Good morning, Mrs. Smith,” Joe murmured beside her.

She rolled onto her side. His hair was tousled and a hint of whiskers shadowed his jaw. In the daylight, his bare chest was a sight to behold, wrapped in hard muscles, bronze flesh, and a sprinkling of dark hair. Okay, so until he dumped her, he was a gorgeous hunk to wake up to.

“Hey, Mr. Smith,” she managed to mumble back past an inexplicable constriction in her throat. If only he were real. She could fall for him like a ton of bricks.

“Sleep well?”

The question startled her. Or, rather, the answer did. For once, her dreams hadn’t been inhabited by images of dead bodies and blood. Instead, they’d been filled with this man. It was perhaps the best night’s sleep she’d had in her bedroom since Tony’s murder.

“I actually slept great,” she replied. “You?”

He smiled and shrugged, a breathtaking display of bunching muscle. “I don’t need to sleep much. I spent most of the night watching over you.”

Watching over her? The thought sent her stomach spinning and a warm feeling fluttering through her. Safety. That was the feeling of being safe racing through her. Certainly a novel sensation in her father’s home.

“Ready to go face the lion?” she asked.

Joe rolled onto his back and stared up at the deep-blue sky outside. “I dunno. I see him as more of a shark than a lion. Maybe it’s the gray color of his hair.”

She added dryly, “Or maybe it’s the way he always seems to be testing the waters for the smell of blood.”

Joe nodded. “Good point.”

He got up and she was surprised when he dragged a sheet with him, holding it around his lower body like he was naked. But then he stepped outside onto the balcony and called “’Morning!” down to someone out by the pool.

Gunter’s curt voice floated back up. He didn’t sound too happy. But then, he was grumpy most of the time, anyway.

Joe stepped inside, grinning, and closed the door behind him.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

“Gunter was hiding in the bushes and was annoyed that I spotted him.”

“He was actually hiding in the bushes?”

“Yup. In among those oleanders that head over toward your father’s office.”

Cari grinned. “He’s actually a reasonably nice guy if you give him half a chance.”

“Gunter?” Joe retorted. “The Terminator? Nice?”

Her grin widened. “Relative to the other guards around here, he’s a veritable saint.”

Joe shook his head and suggested, “Why don’t you go take a nice, hot shower? You’ll feel better.”

She felt just fine, thank you very much. Except he was giving her a significant look and even jerked his head ever so slightly in the direction of the bathroom.

“Come with me?” she purred.

His eyebrows shot up. “I beg your pardon?”

She laughed. “We are married. It is allowed, you know.”

“Uh, right,” he mumbled. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” she said firmly.

Joe frowned. Clearly, Cari had something in mind other than a shower. But what it was, he had no idea. She was in a strange mood this morning. Last night, she’d been all over him. And in all fairness, he’d been all over her. It had taken all of his willpower not to pick up where they’d left off once she climbed into bed with him.

Two things he was sure of, though. One was that her room was under surveillance, and the other was that they’d had an avid audience of guards at the other end of those bugs and cameras. At least, his and Cari’s romp on the bed had probably satisfied the bastards that the two of them were really married.

And then a disturbing thought occurred to him. Maybe last night had been just another piece of Academy Award-caliber acting for her. He wouldn’t put it past her to be capable of it or to have done it. So where did that leave him?

Fine. He would go into the damned bathroom with her and see what she wanted. But disquiet filled him at the idea of once again closing himself in that little room with her.

Taking a shower with Carina Ferrare certainly wasn’t part of the game plan.

It had been hard enough to look at her in that transparent wisp of cloth she called a nightgown without leaping all over her, not to mention lying beside her in it all night long. Sleep had been entirely out of the question.

His nerves were stretched plenty thin, right now. The thought of warm water running all over that luscious, naked body was almost more than his formidable self-control could contemplate.

“C’mon,” she beckoned with a smile that was both shy and a siren song—a combination he’d never been able to resist. And then it hit him. The minx was playing him! As smoothly as she’d played Freddie and Neddie yesterday, and as smoothly as she’d played her father.

Damn, the woman was as big a shark as her father, only when it came to manipulating men. She already had his number and they barely knew each other!

In minor shock, he followed her to the bathroom.

Twice more, she looked over her shoulder, smiling encouragingly at him.

He stepped into the bathroom cautiously, not sure where to point his gaze. When did the walls close in and turn this spacious room into a shoebox, anyway? Heaven help him if she stripped and climbed into the shower in front of him.

But thankfully, she only turned on the jets and stood back to wait. Perplexed, he leaned against the counter, his arms crossed in self-defense against what she was planning to do to him.

Clouds of white mist rolled out of the shower enclosure—it must be a steam shower—and in a few moments, the mirrors fogged up. And then Cari did something strange. She relaxed. Truly, completely relaxed for the first time since she’d set foot in this house last night.

She leaned close and murmured, “This room is free of bugs and cameras. I meant to mention it last night, but we got…distracted.”

“How can you be sure?” he asked skeptically.

“Because I’ve wired a jamming system into the electrical outlets, and I’ve done a thorough check for cameras. Plus, the steam will fog up any camera lens behind the mirror.”

“You wired a jamming system?” he repeated in disbelief. “How in the hell did you learn how to do that?”

“I have a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Miami.”

He stared at her, openmouthed. How in the bloody hell had their research on the Ferrare clan missed that one? “You’re kidding,” he finally managed to blurt out.

She grinned sheepishly. “While everyone thought I was sleeping off the wild nights in South Beach, I went to college during the day. I specialized in microelectronics. It wasn’t hard to build a transmitter to interfere with the equipment my father uses in the house.”

“When’s the last time you checked to make sure there hasn’t been a frequency or baud-rate change in the transmissions?”

“Two days ago,” she replied easily. “And most of the stuff around here isn’t digital. Straight EM transmissions work better with all the steel in the walls.”

Okay, then. Maybe she really was an engineer. Holy shit.

She continued. “I check my father’s equipment about twice a week in this bathroom. I don’t mess with the stuff in my bedroom because that would draw too much suspicion. Although, I have been gradually changing where the cameras are pointed. I’ve got them mostly pointed away from my bed and the French doors to the balcony.”

There were cameras pointed at her bed? Talk about an invasion of privacy! There was such a thing as being security-conscious, and then there was plain being a sick bastard. Joe’s jaw tightened into a knot of tension. But Cari continued, apparently not noticing the sudden fury rolling off him.

“In here, it’s plausible that the steam, and my blow-dryer and my other electric appliances could mess up the signals. So I went ahead and jammed them. I needed someplace to have a little privacy.”

So that explained the wide array of hot rollers, curling irons, hair straighteners, electric toothbrushes and the like cluttering her counter. He nodded, impressed as hell.

She went on, “Anytime we need to talk, we can come in here and turn on the shower. And in case you want to check out the system…” She moved over to one of the electrical outlets by the sink and popped out the whole plug face.

It was fucking impossible to concentrate with her leaning over the counter like that, her perfect tush jutting out and the fine silk of her gown clinging to the curve of her hips.

Over her shoulder, she explained, “I installed fake screws with springs behind them so it’s easy and fast to get in behind these and adjust my gear. I did this on my summer break a few years ago—once I knew how—so the equipment might not be totally state-of-the-art. But it gets the job done.”

She turned around, showing him a full-blown circuit board wired behind the plug, a red light blinking on its surface. But his eyes strayed to the delicious curve of her breasts, the faint, rosy shadows of nipples beneath the silk.

She pointed down at the little red light with the tip of her French-manicured fingernail. “That means the jamming system is active. You deactivate it by flipping this toggle here.” She pointed to a tiny black switch. “Sometimes when I come in just to put on makeup, I turn off the system. I figure if no signal ever gets out of here, someone will get suspicious. But I’ve got Gunter convinced this is just a bad reception area.”

“Sweet setup,” he commented warmly, adding, “Well, aren’t you just a bundle of surprises?”

The grin she threw him was positively impish. “I like to keep my men off balance.”

No kidding.

She turned to replace the plug in the wall and the side of her breast was outlined clearly by the silk gown. The way her negligee kept going see-through as it clung to various parts of her anatomy had Joe way beyond off balance. He was positively reeling. He had to get out of here before he embarrassed them both.

He mumbled, “Uh, why don’t you take a shower for real? I’ve got a couple of things I need to do in the bedroom and there’s no reason to risk you getting caught, too.”

She frowned and opened her mouth, but he cut her off gently. “Don’t ask. Just trust me, okay?”

She nodded doubtfully. “Okay. But be careful. The guards are going to be watching your every move.”

“Thanks for the warning,” he muttered.

He spun and bolted from the bathroom, closing the door between them fast. He leaned, literally panting, against the wall to catch his breath and his equilibrium. Damn, that woman was lethal! She was sexy as hell and not afraid to use it.

He shook his head to clear it. Get your act together. He looked around the bedroom. She said the cameras had been pointed at the bed and now weren’t. That narrowed down where the suckers could be hidden. Under the guise of putting the bed back together, he scoped out possible hiding places. He identified three possible spots to conceal a camera.

He wandered around her room, examining little trinkets and doodads, and approached the likeliest spot. Bingo. A small black lens aperture poked out of a vase of silk flowers sitting on a bookshelf in the corner. The bastards. The amount of ire that little round eye provoked in him border-lined on shocking. But then, he was starting to get used to these bursts of violently protective feelings toward Carina.

Time to make a statement to his new father-in-law. He picked up the marble horse statuette at the other end of the bookshelf and smashed the vase. Pieces of porcelain flew in every direction.

He grabbed the camera lying in the wreckage and yanked its wires free from where they disappeared into the shelf where the vase had sat. He jammed the black box into his pocket.

A sudden motion behind him made him whirl around defensively. Cari. Rushing out of the bathroom, a towel clutched in front of her naked body. God Almighty, look at all those miles of wet legs.

“Are you all right?” she gasped. And then she took in the smashed vase behind him and her eyes widened in shock. She opened her mouth, but he waved her to silence.

“Go back and finish your shower, princess. Everything’s fine out here,” he said clearly.

Looking terrified and beyond stunned, she turned, absently clutching the towel ends over her rear end and gifting him with a view of most of the slender length of her back and more of those sleek thoroughbred legs of hers.

Only one coherent thought formed in his head and he voiced it aloud. “Nice tan.”

Cari jerked, looking over her shoulder in shock. She stared at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. She disappeared into the bathroom.

Cari stepped back into her shower. Nice tan, indeed. The man was incorrigible. His glib tongue was going to get him in trouble as surely as she was standing here. She tipped her head back and hot water sluiced over her face in a cleansing rush.

Her hair pulled, heavy and wet at her neck, like the steady tug of Joe at her emotions. His intelligence and compassion filled her mind, and the way his dark eyes lit when they looked at her filled her heart.

Back off, girlfriend. He was a strictly look-but-don’t-touch proposition.

Dammit!

Okay, maybe a look-but-don’t-fall-head-over-heels proposition. She was pretty sure she wanted to touch him. A lot.

It was almost possible to forget what a force to be reckoned with Eduardo was when Joe so commanded all of her attention. But she had to be careful. Eduardo was a cobra. She knew never turned her back on him or he would strike to kill in a heartbeat.

A new thought sent an icy chill rippling through her. If she developed real feelings for Joe, she would be handing a lethal weapon to her father. Eduardo would jump all over that weakness the second he saw it. Not only would he use it to manipulate her, but also caring about Joe would put him at just that much more risk of being killed.

The lesson of Tony’s death was not lost on her. Oh, no. Not by a long shot. She could let herself be in lust with Joe, but never in love with him.

Joe. Abrupt awareness of time passing made her lurch. Knowing him, he was already downstairs at breakfast with her father, saying something outrageous and all but daring Eduardo to kill him. She hustled out of the shower and dried off hastily. Eduardo was as grumpy as a bear in the morning and wouldn’t take kindly to Joe’s antics.

She rushed out into the bedroom, wrapped in a towel, and stopped cold as Joe turned around. He was standing in the corner, his back plastered against the juncture of the walls, apparently studying her room for more cameras. She’d only found two cameras in all her searches. She watched as he sidled along the sidewall toward the pale-pink Renoir sketch of a little girl hanging in its gilded frame.

“There’s a motion alarm on that,” she warned, nodding in the direction of the painting. “It’s an original.”

Joe nodded his understanding. “I’m not planning on stealing it,” he remarked aloud. He reached up and took the painting down and, sure enough, an ear-splitting alarm made her slap her hands over her ears. But it didn’t prevent her from seeing Joe reach up and tear the camera behind the painting frame and its wires out of the wall. The actual camera had been wired into the spotlight that shone down on the painting.

“Get dressed,” Joe ordered her shortly over the din of the alarm. “It’s time to go downstairs and have a little chat with your father.”

But she continued to stand there and watch in dismay as he snatched a towel out of the bathroom and wrapped it around the jumble of wires and cameras. A pounding noise added to the chaos and it took her a second to realize it was a fist slamming against her door. Joe rehung the Renoir and headed for the door, jerking his head sharply in the direction of her closet. Right. Clothes. She hustled off toward her dressing area.

As she crossed the open space, she felt Joe’s gaze on her as surely as if he’d reached out and touched the warmth between her shoulder blades with his fingertips. A purely sexual thrill whispered across her skin.

Ducking into her closet, she stopped just inside the door to catch her breath and heard Joe talking to someone outside.

“What the hell’s that noise?” he complained to Gunter. “Man. I was, uhh, kissing Cari, and the thing went nuts. You got some sort of sex alarm installed in here, or what?”

Cari giggled and pushed away from the wall. Clothes. She needed to get some clothes on. She hustled into a tennis skirt and matching top while Gunter explained curtly that there was a motion sensor on the priceless painting.

Joe harrumphed. “You got any more of those damned things in here? I mean, we’re likely to make a whole lot of stuff shake, rattle and roll, if you get my meaning….”

She grinned as she tied her shoes. She’d better go rescue the poor German from her irrepressible spouse.

“Thanks for turning the alarm off, Gunter,” she said as she stepped into the room.

Both men turned to look at her, one in exasperation and the other in frank male appreciation.

Joe commented to the older man, “Is she a knockout or what?”

Gunter blinked in surprise, and his features softened. “Miss Ferrare is quite beautiful, yes.”

“Why Gunter! Thank you!” she exclaimed.

Joe held out his arm to her and she grasped his forearm, looping her fingers around rock-solid muscles that were surprisingly tense. She noticed the rolled towel tucked under Joe’s other arm. What outrageous stunt did he have up his sleeve now? He escorted her to the doorway and paused beside Gunter.

All kidding erased from his voice, Joe spoke to Gunter in deadly earnest. “The name’s Mrs. Smith now. Don’t forget it.”

On that note, he moved gracefully past the stunned German and hauled her down the hall while she stumbled in shock.

“Are you nuts?” she murmured under her breath. “You practically threatened Gunter!”

Joe murmured back, “There’s no ‘practically’ about it, princess. That was flat-out meant as a threat.”

“I’ll say it again. Are you nuts?”

He smiled down at her gently. “Trust me, baby. I know what I’m doing. I know guys like him and I know what it takes to establish respect with them.”

She frowned up at him. If, indeed, he was a member of the Blackjacks, he certainly did know about men like Gunter. He was a man like Gunter.

But then Joe derailed her train of thought completely by announcing, “C’mon. I need to teach your old man a little respect, next.”

Oh, God. What was he going to do now?