An Offer He Can't Refuse

by Christie Ridgway

  Their host’s shallow lob dropped on the line between her and Johnny. She lunged for it, and he watched, hypnotized by the way her skirt fluttered with the movement, lifting to reveal her round butt cheeks cupped by tight little shorts.

  She missed the ball.

  He didn’t. Because he was still ogling her body, it caught him full on the mouth.

  And because his lip was bleeding, the one who got ice-cube watch was him.

  Megan rotated into the game, leaving him with neighbor Clark. Johnny held a cold glass of rum and coconut juice against his mouth and tried making small talk without moving his lips.

  His mangled “what is it you do” must have come out “ut is it uu do” because Clark stared at him with a puzzled expression instead of answering.

  Johnny tried again. “Ur jod?” Your job? Close.

  “Your job,” the other man said, snapping his fingers. “That’s how I know you.”

  “Hm?” Now Johnny was puzzled.

  “The World Series of Poker. Champion. Two years running. You’re not just Johnny. You’re Johnny Magee.”

  Oh, shit. Like most everyone else who played cards seriously, he went into tournament play with a disguise of sorts. Ball cap and smoky sunglasses to keep his expression as indecipherable as possible. Poker tells weren’t only written on the face, but there was a reason that the eyes were called the windows to the soul.

  “My God, I recorded your play at the final table last year. I’ve watched that round a dozen times,” Clark crowed. “Damn, and here you are. A professional poker champion.”

  “You are?” said a new voice. Téa’s voice.

  Talk about the eyes being the windows to the soul. There was no doubt her soul was surprised…and suspicious.

  He quickly shook his head. “No’ po. Hoddy.” When that sounded completely mangled, even to his own ears, he took the glass away from his mouth. “Not pro,” he enunciated. “Hobby.”

  Megan was calling from the tennis court, forcing Clark to leave the terrace and take his turn. Forcing Johnny to face Téa, alone.

  My father cautioned me against gamblers a long time ago. She’d said that to him, the very first time they’d spoken.

  “Hobby,” he said again, wincing as he tasted blood welling again.

  Her eyes went from suspicious to concerned and she grabbed up a napkin, then stepped close to hold it against his mouth. “I didn’t realize it was this bad.”

  It was good, was what it was, with her exotic face turned up to his, and her stellar breasts dressed in SweeTART green just a breath away. His free hand moved down to cup her ass, all by itself.

  “Kiss it better,” he whispered.

  Her lashes swept down, feathers against the skin of her cheek that glowed in the lights that suddenly switched on as the evening darkened. “Is this the simple part?”

  “Yes,” he said. Whatever she wants to call it. Simple. Necessary. Now.

  She went on tiptoe, the curve of her butt snuggling into the palm of his hand. He set his glass aside and cupped the other sweet cheek, pulling her against him. Her mouth gave him one of those prissy kisses, all tiny smack.

  He tightened his fingers. “Don’t tease.”

  Her lashes lifted and her eyes were as hot as he felt inside. She smiled. “I’m trying to be gentle. Earlier you questioned my soft touch.”

  He groaned. Squeezed his fingers again.

  He only got another prissy smack. “So what’s this about gambling?” she asked.

  Careful, Johnny. Careful, he warned himself. He tried shrugging without losing his hold on her. “I’ve been living in Las Vegas, Contessa. It’s a given. We slip quarters into slot machines like other people put ’em into parking meters.”

  “Is that right.” She slid her tongue across his bottom lip.

  Sliding everything but her straight out of his mind. He lifted her higher against him and slanted his head to get himself a real kiss.

  A voice called up from the court, stilling his movement. “Johnny? You up to playing?”

  Oh, yeah, he was up to playing. With Téa. To hell with sixteen-year-old secrets when until now she’d been hiding that bootylicious butt and let-me-at-’em breasts. He’d play investigator with her all night long.

  “Go ahead, Doug,” he called back. “I’m still nursing my lip.”

  “Then we need Téa.”

  And just like that, the little flirt slipped out of his arms. Smiling, her skirt twitched over her butt as she sashayed off. Maybe he liked her better dressed as a librarian, he thought, downing the damn glass of rum and juice as Phillip bounded up the steps to the terrace.

  “Let’s whip up another batch,” the older man said, smiling as if he hadn’t just ripped away Johnny’s fun.

  For the sake of politeness, though, he pretended an interest as Phillip went behind the bar and pulled fruit juices and booze out of a minifridge. “This is my special recipe,” he said, dumping ice in a blender.

  “Yeah?” Johnny craned his neck to see how the play was going. With any luck, Téa would be back soon, and in his arms.

  “Actually, it came from someone else. A man who lived in your house, as a matter of fact.”

  “Really,” Johnny replied absently, watching Téa bend over to pick up a ball. Her partner Doug was watching her too, and he wondered if the other guy was really gay, or if he might just be straightened out by that one glimpse of such a fine, fine female tush.

  Phillip lowered his voice. “His name was Giovanni Martelli.”

  Johnny closed his eyes, then ground his teeth as the blender pulverized the ice. He’d almost let the opportunity slip away! The blender went silent, and Johnny swung toward the bar. “The Martelli who was murdered at my house?”

  Phillip lifted a brow. “You know?”

  “California real estate law. Full disclosure and all that.”

  The other man continued to fuss with the drinks, so Johnny prodded. “Did you know him well?”

  “Well enough. He put in that little course and I’d go over there on Sunday afternoons and play a few rounds with him. Doug, unfortunately, abhors golf.”

  Phillip wasn’t bubbling over with details, but Johnny couldn’t tell if it was because he didn’t know any more or if he was reluctant to share them. He accepted another frosty glass of the rum concoction, and stared into it. One of his father’s other legacies, he thought, besides the mystery behind his death.

  He looked up. “This Giovanni, he was a car salesman, is that right?”

  Phillip poured out more glasses of the drink. “He appeared to be doing well at a dealership down the valley in La Quinta. Luxury sedans.”

  Which jived with what Johnny remembered.

  “Maybe the motive was robbery then,” he wondered aloud, suddenly questioning if the police had thoroughly investigated that angle. At the time, his mother had whisked him back to Yakima, so most of what he knew was secondhand. He’d tried to find the original detective on the case, but the man had long since retired and moved to no-one-knew-where. “Were there other—”

  “Nothing was missing,” Phillip said, walking nearer. “And we’ve never had any kind of trouble around here, before or since.” Tilting the pitcher, he topped off Johnny’s glass. “Is the murder bothering you?”

  “No.” Not until 1:09:09 that night. “Just curious, is all.”

  “Me too,” Phillip admitted. “Even after the rumors that he was involved with the Mafia and that he assassinated one of their own. I liked Giovanni Martelli. He was impossible not to like, especially in the mood he was in during the last few months of his life.”

  “What kind of mood was that?”

  “There was a woman.”

  Which confirmed what his father had told him as well. “Do you remember her name?”

  “I didn’t know it. I just knew Giovanni was in love with her.”

  “Sure doesn’t sound to me like a guy who’d take the risk of commiting a crime against the Mafia.” Murder. That’s the part that neve
r seemed to stick. That Johnny didn’t want to stick. He couldn’t see his father as a murderer.

  “Maybe for money? To impress the woman?” Phillip mused. “He was crazy enough about her to do anything, I think. He built her that tiki room on the property you own.”

  “Huh?”

  “The tiki room on your property.”

  “There’s no tiki room on Johnny’s property.” It was Téa, swinging her racket as she came toward them.

  He had the sudden urge to grab her, to hold her, to sink himself into her SweeTART of a body and let it take him away from all this.

  “I have all the blueprints,” she continued, “and there’s no tiki room.”

  Phillip shrugged, then passed a frosty glass to Téa. “I don’t know what to say. Giovanni Martelli told me he was building a tiki room, but I never saw it.”

  “Giovanni Martelli,” Téa echoed. Her gaze cut over to Johnny.

  “Phillip was giving me the history of my place,” he said, thinking quickly. “As a matter of fact, we were just getting to the snowbirds and their bedroom mirror.”

  Her gaze dropped. She blushed. And he was pretty certain that one little comment had pushed her concerns about Giovanni Martelli out of her mind.

  Leaving him free to lie another day.

  But he wasn’t going to feel bad about that! There was no reason he should. He had other issues, after all. Though he wished to God it wasn’t so, the Mafia connection was no longer coming from some cop with a knee-jerk reaction to an Italian last name. Phillip was someone who had known his father and he seemed to believe it was possible.

  Meaning Johnny might have to accept his father had been a murderer.

  The idea made him want to go to Téa again. He wanted to grab her, hold her, bury his face against her hair and let his dick be the brains of the operation again. But of course, if what he’d learned was the truth, she was the last one he should be fucking.

  It meant his father had really killed hers.

  Not to mention the other lesson he should take away from all this. He may have followed in his father’s footsteps and become a gambler, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to make Giovanni’s other mistake. If Phillip was right, it was a woman who had led Johnny’s father to his downfall. So now Johnny had to take extra care not to let a woman be his.

  Fifteen

  “The Way You Look Tonight”

  Stan Getz

  Stan Getz Plays (1952)

  Though he’d gotten the information he was after in the first forty minutes, the “cocktails and tennis” that Johnny took Téa to turned into cocktails, tennis, conversation, and enough hors d’oeuvres to serve the entire U.S. Davis Cup team. After playing and eating and trying to fill Clark’s hunger for knowledge of Texas Hold ’Em and all things poker, it was closing in on eleven P.M. when Johnny drove Téa home and escorted her up her front walk.

  At the door, she turned to face him, and he looked down at her, grateful for the shadows that disguised her curvy, follow-me figure. It was only her eyes he could see clearly, their exotic tilt framed by wavy tendrils that had worked free from the long braid hanging down her back.

  “I had a good time,” she said. “Thank you.”

  She put her hands behind her back, an action that he knew would be thrusting her breasts forward. If he let himself think about that. Which he didn’t.

  “You’re welcome. I wasn’t expecting the evening to end so late.” When he’d picked her up, he’d expected a few drinks, a little information, then long hours in the warmth of Téa’s bed. It was optimistic, hell yes, but any good gambler went into the game expecting to win.

  Though after what he’d learned from Phillip, Johnny had revised those expectations. It had made the evening hellishly long as he’d watched Téa and wanted her, all the while knowing he wasn’t going to do one damn thing about it. But the best gamblers also knew that when the game wasn’t going their way, it was time to pick up their chips and leave the table.

  Still, it was with regret that he let himself lift one of those liberated wisps of her hair and curl it around his forefinger. “Good night,” he said, giving it a little tug.

  “Good night?” she echoed, her voice uncertain.

  Though his finger, he felt a little tremor run through her. How could she be jittery when he was leaving? He’d thought he was what made her so nervous. “Are you all right?”

  She glanced around at the surrounding shadows, then licked her lips. “I thought you might like to come in.”

  Well, yeah, he might love to, but now it was way too complicated.

  Maybe she was reading minds again. Because she went on tiptoe and put her arms around his neck. “Johnny,” she whispered. “Show me how simple it can be.”

  Her mouth was turned up to his, tempting, juicy, and his cock stirred, despite himself. “Téa—”

  “I want to forget everything tonight,” she said, her body shivering against his as she stepped closer. “I don’t want to remember anything but you and me.”

  Okay, fine, he’d give her a good night kiss. After all his big talk she’d at least expect that. He’d do the perfunctory it’s-been-nice smooch, then get the hell out before getting them both in trouble. It might hurt like hell to stop, but nobody ever died of lust.

  His hands fell to her waist. Slid around to her ass. Her lips found his and her fruity, warm taste filled his mouth. The tip of her tongue touched the tip of his and he went fully erect and rock-hard.

  His hands tightened, tilting her closer to him. He slanted his head, needing the taste, the fit, the heat of her body because the whole night was suddenly so damn hot. She moaned, trying to move in closer, but he held her still, keeping just that fit of pelvis-to-pelvis, mouth-to-mouth, remembering that he was going to have to stop this soon.

  Any minute.

  She broke from his hold and pressed her entire body against his. Soft breasts against his chest. Her belly to his cock. He lifted his head, thinking he needed air, but instead it was the skin of her neck he needed, the smooth warmth of it against his tongue, the thrum of her pulse beating against him.

  His hands raced up her back, encountering that tight club of her hair. He didn’t like it. He didn’t want any of her bound, fastened, kept away from him. The band at the bottom pulled free and then he sifted his hands through the dark mass, unwinding it as his lips went back to hers.

  For just a second or two.

  Moving in, he pushed her back against the door and fisted one hand in her hair. Lust and heat were speeding through his system like a car chase, spinning thoughts and sense from his head. He grabbed her left breast.

  He grabbed her, he who finessed women, he who had found great success in slow warm-ups and stealthy touches. He who’d enjoyed the kind of foreplay that you could measure in half-degrees.

  She arched into his hand, from beneath her bra and the stretchy knit of her top, her nipple poking into his palm, just as if half-degrees weren’t enough. Just as if finesse didn’t matter to her.

  It didn’t seem to matter to him.

  He kneaded the softness in his hand, his fingers firm, unable to be soft when his cock was so hard and this need for her was driving him so high.

  “Johnny,” she whispered, and one of her legs wrapped around the back of his calf. Her smooth skin was rubbing his, any second certain to set off sparks.

  His hand slid under that tiny skirt and under those skintight shorts and he grabbed again, cupping real skin, her curvy, silky ass. He groaned, ready now for heaven.

  “Inside, Contessa, inside,” he said, his voice thick and harsh. There was heat and wet between her legs, he sensed it, just inches away from his hand. “Now. Don’t wanna do it against the door.”

  She froze.

  Oh, shit, he thought, replaying his last words. Don’t wanna do it against the door. Shit! Where was smooth Johnny, cool Johnny, charming Johnny? Women loved his manners, they loved him. Don’t wanna do it against the door.

  “Contessa, I—” Bu
t then he realized what had caught her attention. Through her door, he could hear her phone ringing.

  “Your machine will pick it up,” he said, gentling his hands and letting them fall away, all the while thanking God for the interruption. Though there was no way in hell he was going to stop now—and he’d probably roast in hell or at least under the broiler of his own conscience for it—at least it gave him time to find the practiced lover inside himself, the one who knew how to ease a woman into bed. The lover who did it smooth and slow to prevent any scratches to the surface of his life.

  A voice floated from the machine and through the door. “Téa? Téa, if you’re there, pick up. It’s Eve. The security firm called. There’s been a break-in at your office.”

  Téa stiffened. “Break-in?” she questioned in a frozen voice even as the answering machine clicked off. “Break-in?”

  Her eyes moved off his face and into the darkness. “They must think it’s in my office,” she murmured, sounding faint.

  She wasn’t making any sense. Feeling a little scared, he figured, and a little startled from having to go from passion to business in the space of a breath. Hell, he was just getting his own breath back. And his sanity, he thought, relief washing through him. Tonight he needed distance, detachment, and with his hands all over Téa and his tongue in her mouth, he’d been speeding in the wrong direction down a one-way street.

  “Come on, Contessa,” he said, sliding an arm around her shoulders and taking a deep, steadying breath. “I’ll drive you over.” Even with his big brain functioning again, he couldn’t leave her to find her way to her office alone, though he’d be singing silent hosannas all the way that he’d made it past tonight without an emotional scratch.

  Her business wasn’t far, but the ride was long enough for him to realize that Téa grew tenser with every block that passed. By the time they glimpsed a small crowd ahead, huddled on the sidewalk beside a private security cruiser, she was shivering. He grabbed a front-zip sweatshirt from the backseat and encouraged her to put it on.