Chapter Nine

“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.” - Katharine Hepburn

Four-hundred-and-eighty-two sheep later and Cam was just as awake as he’d been when he’d shut the bedroom door behind him two hours ago. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the welcome in Drea’s dark eyes and heard her sharp intake of breath when she parted her mouth. The memory of her pink tongue against her full bottom lip had him as hard as a teak two by four.

And he’d fucking walked away from her open invitation.

Like a no-nuts asshole.

No. Like a man who was trying to be more.

More of a no-nuts asshole, walking away from what he wanted.

“You’re a moron, Hardy,” he grumbled as he tossed the sheet off and stared at the ceiling.

She deserved better than him, but remembering that got harder with every second that passed. Screw this. If he wasn’t sleeping, he might as well work—his stomach growled—and get a snack.

He’d do some research, check in with the Maltese team, and pull together an outline of a plan. That should shock the shit out of everyone at Maltese. He rolled up into a sitting position and rubbed the back of his head, the same spot his mom had always patted when she’d remembered he was around. It hadn’t been often, but it had always settled him. Still did.

He lowered his feet to the thick carpet and grabbed his jeans from where they were draped across end of the bed. He stood and slid them on, then left the top button undone. Sure, he was commando, but it wasn’t like he’d run into anyone this hour. He pulled his laptop out of the messenger bag—custom made to fit in his motorcycle saddlebag—and headed into the hall.

He stuck to the quiet side of the stairs, ninja mode, a trick he’d learned in the first few weeks after the judge had taken him in.

A dim glow peeked out from beneath the swinging kitchen door. Adrenaline spiked his blood. He went on full alert.

If the crime boss’s goons had found their hideout, shit was about to hit the fan. Cam wasn’t about to let Drea or the judge go down in the crossfire. He’d take care of this on his own, here and now.

The only weapons he had on him were the laptop and the advantage of surprise. He’d done major damage with much less before. He gripped the seven pound rectangle of aluminum and micro-processors and lifted it over one shoulder like a baseball bat. He nudged the swinging door forward with his bare toes. It swung open fast, and he burst into the room.

The last thing he expected to see was Drea’s hourglass figure outlined by the fridge light. She wore an apple green T-shirt and black cotton shorts that looked as soft as he was suddenly hard. The laptop slipped in his hands, but he managed—just barely—not to let it go crashing to the tile floor.

“What are you—?”

The rest of his sentence couldn’t be heard over Drea’s surprised squeal.

She spun around, holding a jar of pickles in her upraised hand like a hand grenade that she was about to fling at the enemy.

“What the hell, Cam?” She lowered the jar to the island with a heavy clank and slapped her hand over her heart, which drew his attention to the top’s dangerously low V-neckline. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry about that. I thought you were…” He let his words trail off. The last thing he wanted was to make her think trouble would find them here.

She smirked. “One of Diamond Tommy’s thugs?”

Of course she’d know exactly what he’d been thinking. That’s when he noticed the butcher’s knife within easy reach on the counter by the fridge. Looked like he wasn’t the only one feeling a little on edge.

“Is there something you need to tell me?” He pointed at the pickles.

“Very funny.” She flipped him off. “I was going to make a sandwich.”

“Great minds think alike.” He pulled two plates down from the nearby cabinet and laid them down on the island in front of her.

She narrowed her eyes and gave him the mother of all you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me dirty looks. “You can make your own.”

He had absolutely no idea what he’d just said wrong, but he was going to roll past it. “Of course.”

Within a few minutes, everything they needed for a midnight snack sat on the island. They stood side by side and layered the ham and cheese, both ignoring the mayonnaise in favor of spicy mustard. The only noise in the room was the fridge’s hum, the clank of the knife against the mustard jar, and his mind revving as he tried to think of a way—any way—to keep her close to him a little longer. Close enough for him to touch…

She sliced her sandwich in half, added a pickle spear on the side, picked up her plate, and turned toward the door.

“The judge has a strict no food upstairs rule.” If his name had been Pinocchio, his nose would be about ten feet long. He’d eaten most of his meals those first few weeks in the corner room upstairs.

Drea changed direction without losing a step and crossed over to the island. Guilt over the lie didn’t even make a blip on his moral radar. He set up opposite her, not even pretending to do anything else but observe her.

It was like seeing a totally different person. Instead of her normal bright eye shadow, her make-up free dark skin brought a different warmness to her brown eyes. In place of her usual attention-drawing lip color, her cocoa-colored lips looked even softer. Her ebony hair that normally fell in a straight line past her shoulders was twisted into three sections and pinned in place. Seeing her like this was like getting a glimpse of a secret side no one else knew existed.

“Stop staring,” Drea said between bites.

“Can’t help it. You’re gorgeous.” How many times had he used that line? A bazillion? And sure, he had a pretty good success rate thanks to it, but this time? This time it meant something more, because he actually knew more about the woman than her first name and bra size.

She snorted and rolled her eyes hard enough he was surprised they didn’t fall out. “So how did you end up staying up with the judge?”

Now that took him right out of smooth operator mode. He bit into his sandwich, buying time and hoping she’d ask about something else. She didn’t.

“Long story.” He took another bite.

Drea got a gleam in her eyes that should have served as a warning. “We’ve got plenty of time. Unless you’ve got a hot date tonight?”

Since the only hot date he wanted right now was her and she was running for her life, he doubted dinner and a movie was in the cards. He demolished half of his sandwich in a few bites, his mind filling up with the different versions of his life history he’d told in the past. The ones that glossed over the ugly.

Alex had been right at the BBQ the other day. He did half ass it a lot of the time. That was the last thing he wanted to do with Drea. She deserved more than pretty half-truths.

He pushed his plate away and mentally prepared for the worst. “I came here after my fifth juvenile arrest.”

She let out a soft whistle. “Damn.”

Out with the rest. “I was sixteen and big, so I looked older, and I thought I had it all figured out.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Not even close.” He’d been a total idiot with a chip on his shoulder the size of New York and figured life was just one big hustle. Girls. Money. Clothes. Food. He was canny enough to get what he wanted without having to work for any of it. “My mom was barely in the picture by then. I had two choices. One, sit in juvie until I turned eighteen, and after that, more than likely, have a short lifespan. Two, agree to participate in an alternative group home. I figured it would be a helluva lot easier to break out of a group home than juvie, so I ended up here.”

“I thought Harris was a judge? How could he run a group home at the same time?”

“He’d already retired by that time. He came from money and had a save-the-world complex, so he wasn’t worried about paying the bills. He stepped down from the bench to start this place—kept the title though.”

She popped the last of her sandwich in her mouth and gave him a considering look as she chewed. With any luck, the inquisition was over, and he could turn the conversation away from his navel.

“What did you do?” she asked.

He should have known better. Well, in for a hamburger, in for the whole cow. “Stole cars for joyrides. Shoplifted. Vandalism. Sold things that had just happened to accidentally on purpose fall off a truck. Pretty basic shit for a kid who thought school was optional. But nothing violent, which is why I could even qualify for this program.”

“What was it like?” She leaned forward and propped her chin up with her hand.

The move gave him a glimpse of her deep cleavage, and it took a second for her question to register in his seriously-lacking-in-blood brain.

“What was it like being here?” He tried to find the words to explain what a surreal experience it had been going from a sixth floor walkup with a mattress in the living room corner as his only piece of real estate to this McMansion with his own room and a fridge that held more than castoffs from the food bank. “Weird. Scary. Hard. My mom was the opposite of a helicopter parent. She cared about her heroin and her men before she even remembered she had me. Being here was the first time I wasn’t on my own.”

She reached across the granite island and squeezed his hand. The look in her eyes wasn’t pity though, it was understanding. “What were the first sixteen years like?”

He pictured his mom, rail thin, hair falling out and droopy-eyed as she slouched down low on the couch and watched some TV judge rail against a cheating spouse or bad roommate. Then he pushed the image back into the hole where he’d buried it years ago.

“It was shitty.”

“That’s succinct,” she retorted.

“You’re one to talk.” He didn’t mean for the words to come out harsh, but they did. He took a breather and softened his tone. “You’re usually zip lipped about your past.”

She withdrew her hand from his and wrapped her arms around her middle. “I grew up the only black kid in my neighborhood. There were a handful of black kids in my grade at school, so I guess that was lucky. Of course, I’d grown up in West Bay where everyone’s mom or dad was a CEO, a stock broker, or the head of some department or another at Harbor General. I never knew anything different. That didn’t matter though. I was always an outsider. At least that’s how I felt. Then my father got arrested, and I really understood what it meant to be an outsider. My few friends abandoned me. My dad died in jail shortly after agreeing to a plea deal. My mom committed suicide. They were both only children, and their parents were gone. I graduated a month later with no family and without any money for college—not that I was equipped emotionally for that then.”

“What did you do?” He’d grown up at loose ends and knew how to function with no one to rely on. He couldn’t imagine what he would have done if he’d grown up like she had—love, stability, security—only to have it all yanked away.

She kept her gaze on the island as she used her hand to flick their sandwich crumbs into a pile. “I found a job at a hair salon, sweeping the floors. I worked my way up and eventually went to school to become a makeup artist.”

“Why makeup?”

She looked up and nailed him to the floor with the intensity in her eyes. “Some people think of makeup as a way to hide yourself behind layers of foundation and power. In the beginning, that’s what drew me to it. I’d never fit in, and God knew I wanted to tuck away into a dark corner sometimes. But then I realized makeup’s real power. I could highlight someone’s features, and it would turn on a light inside them. I wasn’t helping them hide or conform to some bullshit beauty standard or whatever. I was giving them a way to express their inner personality. When a woman feels confident, it changes how she interacts with the world. I love being able to see that happen and know I had a small part in it.”

The grandfather clock in the living room chimed once.

“I guess that’s my cue to get back to bed.”

“Yeah,” he forced himself to move. “I need to head up too.”

They put their plates in the dishwasher and headed upstairs. As he followed her up the single flight, he was treated to the sight of her ass in those black shorts swishing from side to side, hinting at the roundness underneath. The view was sweet torment.

He gripped the banister and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. It didn’t help. He could still smell her lavender scent and imagine if that scent was the only thing she was wearing. All the blood went rushing from his head straight to his cock.

“You okay?”

She stood on the top of the landing. She’d turned around to stare down at him, which put him nearly eyeball to nipple with her. The banister almost splintered in his grip as he tried not to come in his pants.

“I’m good.” It came out half groan and half growl.

They stood there, locked in position as her nipples hardened under her thin shirt. He’d bet money she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“You’ve got to stop staring.” Her voice had risen a few pitches, taking on a lighter, breathy tone.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Shit. He needed to get his the blood circulating back to his brain. Just because he was in the house where he’d lived as a teen didn’t mean he had to think like one.

She smiled as if she knew exactly what was going on in his head, then dropped her gaze to his cock. Yeah, she knew what was going on in his head—big and little. “Well, good night then.” She strutted to her door and pushed it open, but she didn’t walk through. Her hand still on the door knob, she looked up at him. “Why didn’t you kiss me before?”

In his life, he’d talked more women into things—and out of them—than he could remember. He’d dodged more difficult questions about “where’s this going?” than any man had a right. But Drea short circuited his brain. He couldn’t think of three words to string together to form a sentence. So he took the coward’s way out and just shrugged his shoulders.

She harrumphed, and her chin jerked an inch higher. “I see.”

The hurt and disappointment on her face hit him like a roundhouse kick to the gut and left him gasping for breath. She took a step inside her room. Adrenaline spiked in his veins. He’d fucked up. The iceman had lost his cool and melted. Sprinting up the final three steps, he knew he had one last shot at this. He didn’t deserve her, but he couldn’t let her walk away thinking he was just another asshole. As she began to shut the door, he slid to a stop in front of it and curled his hand around the doorjamb, ready to sacrifice his fingers if she tried to shut it in his face.

“Go away,” she said. Her gaze flicked to his hand, then to a spot off in the distance.

“I was afraid.” It wasn’t a hustle. It was the truth, and he’d put it out there as naked as he felt.

She drifted away from him without moving an inch, keeping her attention focused on whatever was behind him.

He should walk away now, get out before he went down in a blaze of too little, too late glory. But something he didn’t understand kept his feet nailed to the floor. He reached out with his free hand and cupped her chin, drawing her focus to his face so she’d have to see what there was no way in hell he could fake. “I was afraid that if I started kissing you, I wouldn’t ever want to stop.”

Her hand fell from the door, and it swung all the way open. “Who said I’d want you to?”

It was all the invitation he needed. He might not deserve her, but at least for tonight, he wouldn’t walk away from her again. Tonight he’d try to be a little old Cam and new Cam mixed together.

Drea would have to find a way to rationalize her actions tomorrow, because as soon as Cam’s lips touched hers, thinking fell to the very bottom of her priority list. She wanted him. Knew she shouldn’t, but needed him. Needed this.

His tongue teased the seam of her lips, not begging or demanding but promising something too sinfully good to miss. And she was done with denial.

She opened underneath his sensual assault and let him in.

Warm. Strong. Dangerous. His kiss delivered on all of the sexy swagger that made her want to jump him, no matter how many times she’d tried not to. And God knew she’d fucking tried—but not tonight. Tonight was all about giving in. About releasing the tension building since she’d gotten on his motorcycle outside of the Orton’s brownstone.

The pounding of his heart vibrated against her palm as she trailed her hand down his bare chest, through the pale hair that covered his hard pecs, and continued down the center of his hard-earned six pack, then disappeared behind his unbuttoned jeans. Downstairs in the kitchen, she’d been so distracted by the valiant effort of his zipper to stay up without the aid of his top button that she’d put mustard on her sandwich. She hated mustard.

Desire pooled low in her core as she skimmed her fingers across his warm skin, desperate to touch him everywhere at once. She grasped the cool metal of his zipper tab with bold intentions, but he had other ideas.

In a swift move, he captured her wrists, raised them above her head, and pushed her back against the wall. Her upper arm hit the light switch, turned it off, and threw them into a darkness that only served to intensify every delicious touch.

“What’s your hurry, Drea?” His words caressed her throat as he kissed his way down her neck, leaving a devastating trail of want and need in his wake.

One by one, he unwound his fingers from around her wrists before inching the back of his hand down her still upstretched arm. His knuckles traced the line of her forearm, followed the curve of her elbow, and caressed her upper arm. Slow and deliberate, he acted like a connoisseur savoring every inch of her. She could only close her eyes and surrender to the wanton heat burning her from the inside out as he traced the outside curve of her breast with the side of his thumb. The soft contact was enough tease, but not nearly enough to satisfy, and it was going to make her lose her mind.

“Why so slow?” She arched into him, her tank’s thin cotton a weak barrier between them, and elicited a tortured groan from him. “Worried you can’t keep pace with me?”

“Sugar.” He pressed his hard cock against the damp center of her shorts, and she nearly came undone. The thrill coursing through her was like a weak preview of coming attractions. “You should know better than to doubt me.”

“Prove it.” She stretched herself as tall as she could and kissed him, hard and demanding. “I won’t break.”

“I might.” His hands settled on her hips, and his fingers curled around so the tips rested on the upward swell of her ass. He tucked his thumbs into the elastic waistband of her cotton shorts and dipped below her belly button, though not nearly as low as she needed him.

The man was trying to kill her. Every nerve in her body screamed for attention, for relief. Instead, he kept her right on the edge.

“I don’t know why it’s different with you…” He slid his hands up, sweeping her tank top up as he slid down to his knees so his mouth hovered above her waistband. “But it is.”

His words branded her skin with their intensity, and her knees threatened to give way.

She shouldn’t believe him. He went through women the way she went through eyeliner before the social gala of the year. But as idiotic as it was, she did.

She looked down at him as he kneeled before her like a golden Apollo, and something shifted inside her, scattering everything from her brain except for the truth. She needed him, even if it was just for tonight. Needed his touch. His body.

She’d spent the last year running away from Cam before he could run away from her, even when she was sleeping with him. Yet here she was with him now and without regrets. “God, you’re dangerous.”

He winked. “You have no idea.”

Out of nowhere, the Star Wars theme song sounded. She jumped, and the motion nearly knocked Cam onto his ass. He recovered, stood, and pulled a phone out of his pocket. “It’s Carlos. I told him to call the burner phone if he heard anything.”

Her heart choked to a stop and rattled against her lungs. As Maltese Security’s resident computer guru, Carlos specialized in finding bad news. “Put it on speaker.”

He stood and fished the phone out of his back pocket. “It’s probably not good.”

“Shocker.” She crossed her arms and kept her mouth shut.

He mumbled something under his breath, but he swiped the screen to answer on speaker. “What you got, ‘Los?”

“The Harbor PD just put out an all-points bulletin for Drea. They charged her with Natasha Orton’s death.”

Murder…? But that didn’t make sense. The shooting at her apartment. The broken glass everywhere. The bullet lodged somewhere in her kitchen wall. It all should have been enough for them to at least doubt that she was the murderer and start suspecting that someone was after her.

The whole world shrank to the size of a pebble with darkness closing in fast and without mercy. They’d arrest her. There would be a trial. Her legs failed her, and she slid down the wall. If Diamond Tommy didn’t find a way to gut her first, she’d spend the rest of her life in jail. The room wobbled beneath her, and she had nothing to hold onto.

Cam sat down beside her and clamped his hand around hers, drawing her away from the edge of oblivion. “What changed?” he asked Carlos.

“I’m bringing up the arrest warrant now, give me a second.” The sound of clacking keys sounded as he typed. “Okay, they executed a search warrant at her apartment based on information from a confidential source that a shooting had taken place at the residence. When they arrived, officers found no signs of a disturbance, but did find the remains of a puffer fish in the garbage. The fish’s liver was missing. That organ is a source of Tetrodotoxin determined to be the victim’s cause of death. They added in more about the lipstick Drea brought with her having traces of Tetrodotoxin and her uncooperative attitude when questioned at the scene.”

They’d staged her apartment. She hung onto Cam’s hand like a lifeline while she tried to wrap her brain around what was going on before she lost it completely. Even when the coffee cup had exploded in her hand at her apartment, she hadn’t really believed—not on a gut level—that this was all really happening. But she couldn’t deny it any longer. This wasn’t a misunderstanding. She was being set up.

“Is it public yet?” Cam asked.

“I haven’t seen anything on the news wires yet, but Orton is high profile. It won’t take long.”

“Fuck me.” He rubbed the back of his head, his go-to move when frustrated was beginning to become as familiar to her as her own tics and quirks.

“What do you need?” Carlos asked.

“A fully equipped safe house.” Not an ounce of hesitation, not a bit of deliberation and not a sliver of doubt colored his tone. “We can’t stay here and have the judge get hit with an accessory after the fact charge.”

That he could be so confident helped Drea get her pulse back on an even keel. If he could still believe they’d make it out of this, so could she. The alternative was too fucking scary.

“I’ll find something ASAP,” Carlos said. “In the meantime, stay low.”

Cam laughed as he looked around the room from their vantage point on the floor. “‘Los, if we got any lower, we’d be underground.” He hung up and flung the phone onto the bed.

Drea stared at the black phone sitting in the middle of the four-poster bed’s pale yellow comforter. The sight cut between her ribs like a prison shiv. Only a few minutes ago, all she’d wanted was to get Cam naked and between those sheets. “So what now?”

He stood, then turned and helped her up. “You sleep. I’m getting to work.”

“Running away?” she joked.

His lips touched hers in a kiss that curled her toes. “It only looks that way.”