A sick feeling settled in the pit of Joe’s stomach at the haunted look on Cari’s face. He prayed it was just the moonlight casting shadows on her features, but he doubted that was the case. He knew that look, dammit. Buyer’s remorse.

He’d known going in that it was one of the risks of this mission. Her sister had pulled a similar stunt nearly a decade ago. Julia had agreed to help the Blackjacks arrest her father, only to back out of the deal at the last minute. And while she was at it, she’d set up the team for an ambush by Eduardo’s men.

Thankfully, when Julia contacted them a few months ago, she had followed through on her promise to help the Blackjacks. But even then, Dutch, the team member who’d been her primary contact on the op, said she’d had periods of doubt about going through with handing over incriminating information about her father.

What was it about Eduardo Ferrare that commanded such loyalty from his daughters? Neither Julia nor Carina had any illusions about what a monster he could be, nor of the crimes he was capable of. Both of them had feared for their lives at his hands. How could they still love him? Surely, that was the only reason either woman would remain loyal to the guy.

Was it really as simple as them both living lives so deprived of love that the occasional scraps of attention Eduardo threw at them were all they knew? Is that why they clung to him like they did? Talk about tragic.

Now the question was, could Carina be lured away from her father? Dutch and Julia had been in love once before and fell in love again when they reunited. Unfortunately, Joe didn’t have that past history with Cari to call upon. All he had was the here and now. And he had precious little leverage to use to pry Cari from Eduardo’s clutches.

The only real bond they had at this point was the attraction leaping and twisting between them, and that was a fragile thing, at best. Damn. He would just have to make what use of it he could.

He glanced at his watch. A little before eleven. He had about an hour to distract her, to get her back on board with the idea of helping him spy on her old man. He hated having to play her like this, but she gave him no choice.

He drew her into his arms and inhaled the clean, sweet citrus scent of her hair. “How long has it been since I told you how beautiful you are?” he murmured.

“It’s been at least an hour.”

“The thing about beauty,” he reflected, “is when you actually get to know a physically attractive person, they either get a lot more or a lot less beautiful in your eyes.”

She snuggled a little closer to him but said nothing.

He continued, “Before I met you, I thought you were stunning to look at. But now that I’m starting to know you, you absolutely take my breath away.” He dropped a kiss, little more than a light touch of the lips, just below her ear. “You’re a miracle.”

That did it. She flowed against him like silk, all but offering herself up for the taking. God, he was a bastard. Here he was romancing an innocent young woman to get her to work for him. How despicable was that?

Her mouth captured his in a hungry kiss, and guilt speared into him. He slid one hand behind her neck under her hair, savoring the warmth beneath his fingertips. She tasted like an orange Creamsicle bar, all sweet and smooth. He could eat her up until he was drunk on her.

Her hands roamed his chest and she moaned in the back of her throat. He swept his tongue into her mouth, searching for the source of that delicious sound, breathing it into his chest like pure oxygen.

She came to him with her whole body, flinging herself against him in abandon, breasts smashed against his chest, her thigh wedged between his and rubbing parts of him that didn’t need any encouragement at the moment. He tried to resist her. Tried to hold himself separate. But, dammit, she was all tropical heat and steamy nights, the roar of the ocean and pounding of the surf. Hell, sex on a beach.

He was the biggest jerk in the world. Here he was, letting her drape herself all over him, enjoying her draping herself all over him. He didn’t want to hurt her, to damage her self-esteem, to turn her off of sex or men. He shouldn’t be doing this. He…should…not…be doing this.

She drew back far enough to look up at him, her eyes big and hurt. Crap. She looked a hurt kitten. “Don’t you like it when I kiss you?” she asked in a small voice.

Aww, hell. She thought he was rejecting her, and the mere thought was enough to wound her. “I love it when you kiss me,” he murmured.

“You’re sure?”

“Hell to the yes, I’m sure,” he growled. Joe wrapped his arms around her, gathering her into him, kissing her like there was no tomorrow. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her ears, her neck. With each kiss, he communicated silently to her that she was worthy, wonderful, and lovable.

He sucked her lips, laved her tongue with his, hauled her up against him more tightly, her breasts pressing against him, her thighs giving against the hardness of his.

“I could stay right here and do this forever,” she mumbled against his mouth.

No arguments from him. He could do this nonstop for a couple of lifetimes.

Her fingertips crept underneath his waistband, hot against his skin. Hello. Parts of him that were already alert zeroed in on those questing fingers. He ripped his mouth free, groaning, and grasped her wrists.

“Slow down, baby. You’re killing me here.”

She laughed against his mouth. “I know the feeling. Kiss me.”

He tried to take it easy, tried to be delicate and tender with her, but then she bit his lip.

He growled deep in his throat and she matched him with, swear to God, a purr. She sounded like a damned tigress as she licked the spot she’d nipped. An extremely self-satisfied tigress.

He slipped his hands under her shirt and was reaching between her shoulder blades for her bra hooks when a movement high on the wall of the house caught his eye. He swore viciously.

Cari reached up to pull his head back down to her, but he resisted. Reluctantly.

“Sorry, princess. We’re on camera.”

“I don’t care,” she mumbled against his mouth, arching into him.

He closed his eyes. Lord, he could smell the lust on her skin. And he could bloody well feel the lust raging across his. If that camera were a few feet closer, he’d rip it off the fucking wall.

“It’s cold out here, honey. Let’s go inside.”

Still draped around him much more than he could safely ignore, Cari dropped her head against his shoulder and mumbled, “While I appreciate your gentlemanly urges, next time could you not find them for a little while longer?”

He laughed ruefully. “I’m no gentleman. I just don’t like the idea of giving Gunter and Rico a peep show.”

“Screw Gunter and Rico,” she grumbled.

He had to be some sort of Class A idiot to walk away from Cari’s obvious willingness—hell, eagerness—to engage in hot monkey sex with him.

He shook his head and reached for the French doors, holding them open for her. As he followed her inside, he grinned and flipped his middle finger at the camera, which was still pointed right at him.

Cari sat on the foot of her bed, tingling from head to toe. Damn him for stopping!

A tiny voice in her brain argued back. How long had it been since any man had treated her with enough respect to stop of his own volition?

Hmm. That would be…never. God, how pitiful was that? What did it say about her self-esteem? Some shrink would have a field day with a revelation like that.

“Are you okay?” Joe’s concerned murmur made her look up at him in the faint moonlight filtering into the room.

She sighed on a half laugh. “I’ll live. But it’s not nice to let a girl get all dressed up with nowhere to go, if you catch my meaning.”

He smiled wryly. “Yeah, I get your drift.”

Without warning, he leaned down and kissed her swiftly, his mouth pressing hard against hers. “Soon, princess, soon. When there are no cameras.”

And then he was gone, moving across the room, stripping off his shirt as he went. Faint moonlight played across his back, highlighting the bulges and dips of a glorious set of deltoids and lats. He stopped in front of the chest of drawers that held his clothes. She started as he dropped his shorts, revealing a pair of black Lycra trunks cupping arguably the best butt she’d ogled in as long as she could remember. He turned slightly and the moonlight caught him just right. Thank you, God. The fabric clung to him in all the right places, outlining long, powerful thigh muscles, the deep cut up the side of his leg to his narrow hips and another bulge….

She tore her gaze away.

Well, okay, so she cheated and peeked a little. What girl wouldn’t with a hunk like that changing in her bedroom? He pulled on black trousers cut like fatigue pants and a black long-sleeved turtleneck. In the dark clothing, he suddenly became difficult to see in the shadows playing across that corner of the room.

He glanced over his shoulder at her and paused, apparently arrested by the realization that she’d sat there the whole time, watching him change. Far from reacting with embarrassment, his eyes blazed so hot she could see the fire in them from here.

“Go put on something black for me.”

She stumbled to her feet and across the room to her closet, although she was half tempted to change out in the main room in front of Joe. The silk turtleneck she pulled on irritated her sensitized skin. She wanted Joe’s hands on her body, not this stupid shirt!

She tore her mind away from the things she couldn’t have right now. Ah, but later…

Right now, she had to concentrate on helping Joe spy on her father’s meeting. The mere thought of getting caught sent cold shivers through her. Even if Joe could get past all the cameras and guards and other security measures, it was still a dicey stunt to pull off.

Why was Joe so interested in who came to Eduardo’s meeting, anyway? Was he thinking about contacting one of tonight’s guests and asking for help? Surely, he knew better. Possibly the only more vicious, more violent criminals in this part of the world than her father were the men he did business with.

She stepped out into the bedroom. Joe was untangling a jumble of rope and thick wooden dowels. Her fire escape ladder. The same one she’d used to flee her room the night Tony was murdered. She’d been surprised Eduardo hadn’t taken it away from her after she’d gone over the balcony and headed for the ocean. Maybe Gunter had convinced her father that it was better to just give her the ladder because she was wild enough to jump off the balcony without one.

She followed Joe outside to her balcony, where the noise of the ocean would mask their voices.

Joe said, “We’ll wait here until the meeting’s started, then climb down and work our way over to the windows. You can point out to me anyone you recognize and I’ll take pictures of the rest.”

She nodded, the misgivings piling up in her gut. It was one thing to try to leave her father. It was another thing altogether to actively help Joe disrupt Eduardo’s business on the way out the door.

By bringing her to this beach house, his private killing ground, Eduardo had already hinted at doing her harm if she didn’t cooperate with him. Rumor among the servants was that her father had ordered Julia killed a number of weeks back. A couple of the whispers had him pulling a gun on Julia himself in some big confrontation between the two of them.

And, Lord knew, Julia was a lot more important to her father than she’d ever been. If he would kill Julia for disobeying him, he would certainly kill her, too. And she was going to help Joe and expose herself to additional risk why?

Memories of Joe’s hands on her skin, his mouth on hers, his body against hers, of what else she wanted from him skated through her head.

It was a lousy reason to spy on her father. But it was a reason. The faster they got done checking out this secret meeting, the faster they could get back to what they’d been doing before.

She shook her head in disgust. She knew better than to do something dumb or dangerous in the name of impressing a guy. But here she was, blithely agreeing to this insanity.

Apparently, she’d decided sometime during the last twenty-four hours that she was going to ignore the inevitable pain of losing Joe in favor of diving headfirst into their current mutual infatuation.

At least, she hoped he shared her infatuation. He could just be putting on a big act for the cameras and bugs. Now that she thought about it, the surveillance devices always seemed to be around whenever he laid a hot kiss on her. She frowned, doubt assailing her.

And yet, she still wanted him.

As Joe hooked the ladder onto the side railing, tucked close to the wall of the house in a deep shadow, he said conversationally, “I’m surprised you and your sister didn’t figure out how to sneak out at night when you were kids.”

“We didn’t spend much time here, especially after our mother—”

“She died here?”

She nodded. “He does most of his killing here. He likes to toss the bodies to the sharks. No messy evidence, you know.” She thought of Tony and her voice broke on the last sentence.

“You really cared for Tony, didn’t you?” Joe asked quietly. “What a jerk I’ve been. It’s too soon for you to have another relationship, and here I’ve been coming on to you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Christ, I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“He had enough feelings to risk his life for you!” Joe retorted.

“Tony was gay,” she explained gently. “Not-the-slightest-bit-interested-in-girls-except-to-borrow-their-clothes gay.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“For what? For being jealous, or for being sensitive to the fact that I might not want a new relationship so soon after losing someone I cared about?”

He frowned. “I’m not jeal… What the hell. I’m just sorry, okay?”

“Okay,” she smiled. “Look. A light just went on in my father’s office.”

Joe glanced at his watch and frowned. “It’s not time for the meeting.”

“Gunter will go in first and sweep the place for bugs. Then he’ll lock the door and only open it again when it’s time for the servants to take in the refreshments. He’ll stay in the room with them until the meeting begins.”

“Thorough bastard.”

She was silent as Joe reached into one of his pockets and pulled out an average-looking digital camera.

“Planning a sightseeing trip on the side, are you?” she quipped.

He grinned. “You didn’t think I’d come in here to rescue you without a few cool toys, did you?”

“How’d you get them in the door?”

“By giving the thugs who searched my suitcase exactly what they were looking for. Average, everyday items. Like this camera. Looks like a middle-of-the-road model, but it can store hundreds of high-resolution pictures taken under extremely low-light conditions. The pictures can be blown up to ten times their regular size with no appreciable loss of detail.”

Cool.

“What else did you sneak in here in your little bag of tricks?” she asked.

Just her luck, he chose that very moment to wax evasive on her. “A little of this and a little of that. Of course, I wasn’t able to bring in a weapon or any obvious surveillance gear. But I’ve got enough doodads to jerry-rig almost anything we might need to get out of here.”

“You hope,” she retorted.

“I hope,” he amended with a boyish smile that just about knocked her knees out from under her. She gulped and tried to catch her breath as he moved with the grace of a tango dancer to one side of the porch and peered below.

She moved up behind him and stood on tiptoe to murmur in his ear, “You’re almost too pretty to be a mortal man.”

He mumbled indignantly, “I’m not pretty.”

Chuckling, she slipped her hands around his waist beneath his turtleneck. Ah, yes. Rippling muscles flexed beneath her palms, his skin sliding against hers like rough satin. He felt so delicious she could practically taste him. His flavor would be a combination of woodsy and pungent. She swallowed as her mouth puddled with anticipation.

“I’m working,” he muttered.

“So am I,” she murmured back.

“How’s that work?” he grumbled. “It feels like—”

Hmm. It felt like what? She filled in for him in a whisper, “It feels like heaven? Like you want more? Like sweaty sex on satin sheets?”

He jerked beneath her hands. Tension thrummed through him. “Jeez, woman. Do you take pleasure in torturing me?”

“I might,” she murmured, her lips pressed against the back of his neck. Oh, yes. He did, indeed, taste like bergamot and fine wine. “I’m game to find out.”

He jerked completely away from her this time, turning sharply to stare down at her.

She stared right back. “You keep treating me like some naive little girl. I’m not, Joe. I’m a grown woman and I know what I want. I’m not afraid to go after it.”

The next words hung unspoken between them. And what she wanted was him. All of him. For some of that sweaty sex on satin sheets.

He cursed under his breath and spun back toward her father’s windows. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was breathing hard. She satisfied herself with standing right behind him, not touching him, looking out over his shoulder on tiptoe at her father’s office. It was almost sexier standing here not touching him than it had been to put her hands on him. This way, she could imagine putting her mouth on all the places where her hands had been and more. And damned if her breathing didn’t take on a heavy quality, too.

Joe had waited out some tense vigils in his day, but this one topped them all. The sound of Cari panting with lust was going to kill him. Assuming his imagination didn’t get the job done first. The memory of her soft, warm hands roaming over his flesh refused to go away. It was all he could do not to turn around, rip off her clothes and bury himself in all that sexual heat exploding from her.

The mission, dammit, the mission!

How many times had he watched the other guys on his team struggle with that one? As many times as he’d seen them weaken and give in to the women who’d stolen their hearts. He unleashed a long string of profanities inside his head. He wasn’t losing his heart to Carina Ferrare. He wasn’t!

Methinks the man doth protest too much.

Fuck.

A movement from inside Eduardo’s office caught his attention. A bartender setting up shop behind the stainless-steel-and-glass bar in the corner. Almost show time. Praise the Lord. He couldn’t take much more of Cari’s breath tickling the back of his neck like this.

Yup, there he was. Ferrare walked into the room, pacing a lap of the big space. The bastard actually looked nervous.

Oh yeah. He definitely had to find out who Eduardo was meeting with tonight.

“When your father’s guests arrive, we’ll go,” Joe muttered.

He felt Cari nod behind him.

Speak of the devil. Four men walked into Eduardo’s office on cue, accompanied by a phalanx of security types. The thugs looked around and then backed out of the room.

“Ready?” he murmured.

Another silent nod at his back.

“On the next sweep of the nearest camera, all the cameras will be looking away from the balcony. We’ll have about fifteen seconds.”

She tensed against his back.

He did his best to ignore the hands that settled nervously on his waist. “Three…two…one…”

He moved fast, flipping the end of the ladder over the balcony. It snaked down into the darkness below. Cari crouched beside him, her eyes huge with fear.

“I’ll go first,” he breathed.

Lying on the balustrade on his belly, he slipped over the edge fast and down the rope ladder. He paused about six rungs down to help Cari climb over the edge. She mimicked him, keeping a low profile as she went over the railing. She’d taken about four steps down and her head was level with the floor of the balcony when she lurched violently above him. What had happened? She started back up the ladder.

“What are you doing?” he bit out.

“Someone just knocked on my bedroom door,” she hissed.

Shit!

She raced up and over the rail. “Just a minute,” she called out. She sounded flustered and out of breath. But then, that might not be a bad thing. Whoever was knocking would think the two of them were fooling around. It would explain the long delay in answering the damned door.

Joe raced up the ladder, rolling over the balustrade and popping to his feet in one frantic movement. He took off, running across the bedroom, as Cari reached for the door.

“Cari! Get some clothes on!” he called out urgently. No time to get close enough to whisper so the bugs wouldn’t hear.

Cari jerked to a halt, frowning. He ripped off his turtleneck and gestured for her to do the same. He jumped for the bed and ripped the covers back, tearing a sheet off.

As yanked off her shirt, he did his best not to notice the black lace bra she wore with its little bow nestled in her cleavage, or the way her golden flesh showed in far too much detail under the flimsy lace, or the generous display of curving breasts above the lingerie. He so failed not to notice.

He flung a blanket at her and jumped under the covers, stripping off his pants and jungle boots under the tangle of blankets as Cari wrapped the blanket around herself and cracked open the door an inch or so.

“What do you want, Gunter? Why aren’t you downstairs with my father?”

“He changed his mind. He wants you at the meeting.”

Joe froze in the act of yanking off a sock. He poked his head out of the covers. Cari voiced his exact thought aloud.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” she exclaimed.

“I’m to wait while you put on a dress and escort you down myself.”

“I’m married now. I don’t want to schmooze his clients anymore. It’s not…seemly.”

Gunter’s reply was impassive. “I don’t think he’s particularly concerned about propriety. He ordered you down there and he expects you to go. Now.”