Just pay attention to the road.”
He didn’t respond, but he removed his hand, putting it back on the wheel. He obviously needed it because he intentionally maneuvered in jerks and swerves as he tore off down the street, as if physically trying to shake off pursuit. He drove like it was a sunny, warm day with miles of dry blacktop in front of them. Not as though there’d been a blizzard up until this afternoon and patches of slick ice were lurking beneath snowdrifts, anxious to send a car into a deadly spin.
He drove that way for a good five minutes. Bridget watched him from between the front seats, seeing the way he leaned forward, his chest almost against the steering wheel. He stared out, his gaze constantly moving from side to side. But even that rapt attention couldn’t keep him from almost fishtailing into the path of a long, black stretch limo.
“Watch out!” she yelled.
“You’re supposed to be staying down.”
“You’re supposed to be preventing me from getting killed.”
“I’m the one driving.”
“Seems to me like you’re the one almost wrecking,” she muttered under her breath, even as he brought the SUV back under control and the limo driver honked his horn wildly.
Oh, did she wish she was in one just like it, preparing to go back to her hotel and her nice, plush bed. Rather than here. With him. The guy who messed with her head and filled her senses up with the musky smell of him and the big, strong sight of him and oh, Lord, his heat.
The Dean she’d known had been cute and endearing. Good-looking but usually appearing self-deprecating. Boyish.
There was nothing boyish about the man whose whole body was tense with adrenaline as they tried to outrun danger.
Danger. To her.
“Does someone really want to kill me?” she whispered.
Even in the low lighting from the dashboard, she saw the way his jaw jutted out and his eyes narrowed. “Yes.”
It was almost too much to believe. Bridget was a big fan of crime shows and mystery novels, but the idea that she could be a target was so crazy she had trouble grasping it. “Is it Marty?”
He appeared to hear the note of hurt in her voice, which she just couldn’t hide. She’d known Honest Marty since she was a kid growing up in the neighborhood. He’d been a nice, paternal, if slightly overbearing, boss. And he wanted her to die?
“Not Marty,” Dean finally replied, sounding loathe to admit it. “His…former colleagues.”
She didn’t know why it relieved her that a bunch of drug dealers wanted her dead but one pudgy, blustery car dealer did not. But it was true. A little, anyway. “You’re sure?”
He nodded. “He was the one who came forward with the information about the hit.”
“The hit?” she yelped. “As in hit man?”
He reached back, seeming to want to calm her down with a hand on her shoulder. But he didn’t touch her shoulder. Instead, those strong, rough fingertips of his brushed her cheek. Lightly, carefully.
Bridget felt the touch clear down to the bottoms of her aching-in-spiked-heels feet.
He’d touched her only a few times in the past. And, like the passionate encounter they’d shared in her office, his touch had imprinted itself on her memory. The thoughts sometimes eased out of her subconscious to torment her during long, sleepless nights when she wondered why she couldn’t get over him. Why the fully clothed kisses they’d shared had seemed much more intimate and erotic than the sex she’d had with other men.
Dean’s fingers traced a delicate path on her cheek, but when his thumb dropped to her bottom lip, scraping across it in a sensual caress, he obviously realized what he was doing. He pulled his hand away quickly.
He cleared his throat. “You’ll be fine.”
Swallowing hard, Bridget rubbed the back of her hand against her cheek, which felt so cold again now. Trying to keep her thoughts strictly on the crisis that had made him haul her into his car, she asked, “What exactly did Marty say?”
“He had been keeping his mouth shut about his accomplices, until he got word that they were going to try to remove some of the evidence against him. Starting with you.”
“I don’t know anything!” she insisted, as she’d tried to explain to the other FBI agents and the prosecutor. “I never saw any drugs, never handled anything suspicious.”
“It’s not what you know, it’s the context you can provide about his business. How much money should have been coming in versus how much did. Accounts you saw open and close.” He lowered his voice, as if not liking what he had to say. “You are important to the case and Marty’s former associates know it.”
Yes. That’s what the prosecutor had said.
The full implication of Dean’s words finally washed over her and she sucked in a quick, hopeful breath. “So Marty’s cooperating now?” Meaning maybe she wouldn’t have to testify!
“Not exactly.”
She sighed.
“He’s not naming names, he’s trying to score points by being cooperative only as it pertains to you. I think he’s hoping whoever is after you will get caught and turn on his bosses so Marty doesn’t have to.”
“What a guy.”
“Yeah, I’d really like to thank him one of these days.”
Dean’s tone suggested his “thank yous” would be punctuated with his fists.
She shivered a little, not only because of his audible rage, but because she still couldn’t get over the strength and power of the man. She hadn’t seen this side of him, not ever. He’d been the cute guy she worked with, then the cold investigator. She had never seen the powerful, enraged man.
“I think it’s safe for you to sit up now.”
Bridget did so, slowly rising, keeping her hands on the backs of the two front seats. She remained forward on the seat, her butt perched on the edge, her face leaning close to his shoulder. Close enough to smell him. To see the tiny hairs at the nape of his neck, with the hint of curl she’d loved in his much-less formal, used-car-salesman look. Her fingers almost throbbed with the need to slide against that thick, blond hair and mess it up, push away the conservative agent and bring back the nice guy she’d once laughed with.
Why did her body not remember that she hated him?
But it didn’t. She was obviously still very susceptible to the man, at least physically. Despite being scared out of her mind that someone could have blown her away in front of her family and friends at the bar just now; despite being furious at having been kidnapped for her own good the overwhelming feeling flooding through Bridget was awareness. Physical awareness. Her thighs were clenched, her fingers shaking. Her heart was racing out of control; her breaths were ragged and irregular.
And
