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  “Don’t die yet,” Drea whispered.

  “Don’t worry about me, babe.” He stole one last barely-there kiss. “I always figure something out.”

  He rammed his foot against the door near the doorknob. Pain rattled his bones, but the door didn’t give. He planted his feet, then rushed forward and hit the oak with everything he had. It flew open.

  Chaos reigned inside. Broken glass littered the floor. Side tables were turned over. The couch sat at an odd angle.

  Knight had one hand wrapped around Fergus’s shirt, holding him upright, the other hand cocked back for a punch.

  “No, please,” Fergus begged. “No more. The police are on their way.”

  Cam rushed inside, ready to rain down misery on Diamond Tommy’s thug. Knight had other plans. He whipped around and half tossed, half pushed Fergus into Cam’s path. The butler crashed into Cam, throwing him off balance. Cam righted himself, but not before Knight had put the cockeyed couch between them.

  Cam ignored the butler cowering on the floor and turned his full attention onto Knight. “I knocked you out once. I can do it again.”

  Knight laughed, and the sound came out more like a honk thanks to the gauze wrapped around the thug’s broken nose. “That was a lucky shot.” He pulled out a black handgun. “But it looks like I’ll get the lucky shot today.”

  Everything slowed down, and ice solidified in Cam’s veins. It wasn’t the first time he’d faced down the business end of a gun, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. He’d be damned if he met his fate at the hands of a two-bit thug with a shitty tattoo.

  His mind was so busy going through attack options, it took him a second to realize Knight wasn’t pointing the gun at him. He was aiming it at something behind Cam. He forced himself to turn around, and his heart stuttered to a stop.

  Drea stood just inside the doorway.

  Knight chuckled. “Ladies first.”

  …

  The tattooed thug’s words were as loud as a thunder crack in her ears. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t look away from him. Her entire world shrank to the muzzle of that black gun. A shot rang out.

  A flash of black crossed her vision. Pain exploded in her side, and she was knocked to the ground, barely able to breathe. Cam lay on top of her for an instant, then jumped to his feet. He grabbed the pewter globe on Fergus’s entryway table, whirled around, and winged it at Knight.

  The orb hit the thug square on his bandaged nose. He went down without so much as an anguished groan.

  Cam kneeled down and gathered Drea in his arms. “You okay?”

  “I am now.” She laid her cheek against his chest, felt the furious beat of his heart, and realized she really was okay. Finally.

  Footsteps thundered behind her, and the room filled with cops in full tactical gear.

  “You two up against the wall,” one officer yelled.

  The next twenty minutes were a flurry of paramedics, pat downs, and confusion until Reggie came in looking tired and bedraggled. A few days ago, his hound dog look would have puffed her up with schadenfreude. What a change a few days made. She glanced over at Cam being questioned by another officer and wondered just how much things really had changed.

  Paramedics, escorted by a uniformed cop who looked all of twelve, wheeled Diamond Tommy’s unconscious muscle out of the apartment.

  “All right. I want them over here,” Reggie called out.

  The officer next to her grabbed her arm and guided her to the kitchen, where she stood between Cam and Fergus.

  “I’m done chasing you all over this fucking city.” The detective slumped down into one of the chairs. “I don’t know what you’ve got as far as this case goes, but I want it all. Now.”

  “Diamond Tommy Houston is running a blackmail scheme,” Cam said, disgust heavy in his voice. “The butler here is involved up to his neck in shady business and murder.”

  Fergus inspected his shoes. She didn’t know whether to smack him silly or cry over his stubborn silence.

  “You have to tell them Fergus, or we’ll all be dead.” She begged as if her life depended on it, which it did. “Diamond Tommy isn’t going to give up as long as we’re walking around with his little secret in our pockets.”

  Blood dripped from the corner of Fergus’s mouth. One eye was swollen shut and his shoulders sagged. “I want immunity.”

  Drea squeezed Cam’s hand, and an almost giddy excitement swept through her. They were going to make it out of this.

  “I can talk to the prosecutor, but I can’t promise anything,” Reggie countered.

  A pathetic sigh shook his shoulders. “I never dealt with Diamond Tommy directly—only Isaiah Knight. He was the one who told me if I didn’t shut up Mrs. Orton, he’d silence me for good.”

  Reggie pulled a small notebook from his jacket pocket and flipped it open on the table. “And the blackmail?”

  Fergus shook his head and immediately winced. “Knight was my contact. I told him everything.”

  “Do you have anything to back up your claims?” Reggie continued to scribble notes.

  “Yes.” The butler didn’t move his head this time. “I have a safe deposit box at the Harbor City Bank and Trust. I kept copies of texts, e-mails, reports, records of deposits to my offshore account. I collected everything from the other employees at Grayson Domestic, made copies for myself and gave the originals to Mr. Knight. What he did with them, I don’t know.”

  “And your decision to pin Mrs. Orton’s murder on Miss Sanford?” Reggie asked.

  Her heart stopped. The moment of truth.

  “I’m not saying anything more without my attorney.” Fergus refused to even look in her direction.

  Reggie shrugged and jerked his chin toward the door. “Take him down to the station.”

  The detective gave her a curt nod and walked over to where another officer waited by the door.

  She sank down into the kitchen chair, her wobbly legs too weak to hold her. It was over. It was finally over. With Fergus spilling the beans, she wouldn’t be targeted anymore.

  Cam stopped in front of her. If she’d trusted her legs not to give out on her, she would stand up and get the hell out of Fergus’s apartment before she started crying. But running wasn’t an option anymore, and after everything that had happened, she was done with hiding.

  “You almost died because of me.” The words fell out of her mouth before she could clamp it shut, the pain of it all too raw to be held back.

  He winced, pulled up a chair, and sat down beside her. His knee rested against hers and set off alarm bells in the sane part of her brain. “But I didn’t.”

  “Everyone I’ve ever loved has died before their time.” Long-buried broken dreams of forever and family forced their way to the surface because of Cam—because of how he made her feel. “I couldn’t handle it if that had happened to you too.”

  He placed a finger under her chin and turned her head to face him. “You love me?”

  Afraid she’d break down if she looked into his eyes, she kept her gaze locked on the uniformed officers milling around the living room, pretending not to be eavesdropping on her conversation with Cam. “Yes, you idiot.”

  “But I’m no good for you.” The dull flatness in his tone nearly broke her heart.

  “No. You’re not. You’re the best for me.” She looked up at him, ready to publicly plead her case if that’s what it took to make him understand. “Please, don’t go.”

  “I’m here.” He took her face between his palms. “I will forever be here. You’re mine. I’m yours. The others don’t fucking exist. It’s just us. Remember?”

  That had been her line in the motel room. She’d been so sure of him that day—so sure of them. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Today the only thing she was sure of was the aching hole where her heart had been when she thought she’d never see him again. “Promise?”

  “Forever.” His hands slid from her shoulders and down her arms until his large hands wrapped around hers. “I lov
e you, Drea Sanford.” He leaned in close, stopped inches from her lips.

  Her heart went into overdrive. “So why don’t you quit stalling and kiss me?”

  He chuckled. “In front of all these people who are pretending not to watch?”

  She smiled. “Let them watch.”

  She wanted them to see, to know that she was his and he was hers. She inched in and closed the distance between them. “Isn’t a public kiss like this what got you into trouble in the first place?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  And she didn’t have one single doubt in her mind when she leaned over and kissed the man she loved in full view of half the Harbor City police department.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Being happy never goes out of style.” - Lilly Pulitzer

  Boxes with KITCHEN, LIVING ROOM, and BEDROOM written across the sides lined the freshly painted yellow walls in the Waterburg bungalow. Cam sat back on the couch still covered with a moving blanket and stared at the white picket fence outside his living room window. Who’d have thought he’d ever end up with a house in the suburbs? He sure as hell hadn’t.

  Drea made her way through the handful of friends eating pizza off of paper plates as their reward for being unpaid movers and stopped in front of him. She tapped his beer with her own and sat down beside him. “I still don’t know how you talked me into moving to the ‘burbs.”

  “The same way I got the police to drop the charges related to breaking you out.” He trailed his fingers across her smooth knee. “I’m very persuasive.”

  “We both know we have the judge and his many connections to thank for that.” She looked around at the domestic chaos around them. “We aren’t hosting BBQs.” She was adamant, but there was no mistaking the desire threading through her tone.

  “Only during football season.” In the last few months, Cam had developed a strong sixth sense for just how far he could push Drea. He’d gotten damn close to that line when he’d suggested they move in together, but for once, she was the one who surprised him when she said yes.

  “And March Madness,” he said. “And baseball playoffs. And—”

  She cut him off with a soft kiss that made him hard in an instant. It used to be he wanted nothing more than to kiss her in front of all their friends, but now he’d like nothing more than to have them all disappear in a poof. Sure, they’d helped unload the moving van this morning, but still…

  She pulled away. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

  “No.” He snuck in a quick kiss. “I’m lucky to have you.”

  A large shadow in the shape of Carlos, Lee, and Reggie fell across them. Cam looked up and couldn’t help but laugh at the mock horror on all three of their faces.

  “Good God, this is painful to watch.” Carlos shook his head.

  Lee elbowed the smaller Maltese Security agent in the ribs. “You should have heard him talk about her during the stakeout the other night.” His shoulders shook in an exaggerated shiver, as though he’d just swallowed a shot glass’s worth of worm guts.

  “Cam.” Reggie held out his hand, palm up. “You have lost your man card, time to turn it in.”

  He flipped off Carlos, Reggie, and Lee before standing and raising his beer for a toast. “To good friends and new beginnings. When it mattered, you didn’t hesitate to help us nail Fergus and get the charges against Drea dropped. Diamond Tommy may have gotten away without charges again, but his luck can’t hold out forever.”

  “I’ll toast to that.” Drea lifted her beer, as did everyone else in the room.

  They’d get Diamond Tommy eventually. Cam didn’t doubt it for a second. When the crime boss had zeroed in on Drea, he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. Maltese Security was family—Cam’s family, Drea’s family—and they protected their own. He looked around at them and realized how much his life had changed from being a junkie’s kid living on the streets to finding a home, a real one, with the woman he loved.

  Cam cleared the emotion from his throat and pulled Drea up so that she stood beside him. Her hand fit perfectly inside his. “Not that long ago, it was safe to say that I didn’t do plans, I didn’t play well with others, and I didn’t fall in love. Then I bumped into Drea Sandford in a hospital hallway and my entire life changed without me even realizing it. Because I’m a dude and I’m slow about that stuff.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “But eventually the truth sank in.” He raised his drink. “To the woman who changed everything—who changed me.”

  Not giving her time to get a word in, because God knew the woman loved to have the last word, Cam pivoted and kissed Drea. Their friends’ clapping and laughter faded into the background as soon as his lips touched hers, because he was right where he planned to always be—right by her side.

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  Author’s Note

  Hey you!

  I really hope you enjoyed Drea and Cam. If you have a second to leave a review of Make Me Up that would be awesome—you know every time a reader leaves a review Drea gets a fabulous new shade of non-poisoned lipstick. :)

  Please stay in touch ([email protected]), I love hearing from readers! Want to get all the latest book news? Subscribe to my newsletter, Love Goggles (http://bit.ly/1tFzn4e), for monthly prizes and more!

  And don’t forget to check out my other books for more sexy stories featuring alpha heroes who are as good with a quip as they are their *ahem* equipment and strong heroines who know how to stand on their own two feet and knock the back guys off theirs.

  xoxo,

  Avery

  Acknowledgments

  I can’t miss sending out a giant thank you to the toxicologists and experts who did not call the FBI on me when I started asking about the best way to kill someone by using poisoned make up. And if you did call the FBI, I still love you anyway. Thanks also go out to my editor, Stephen Morgan, who knows I’m crazy but doesn’t call the FBI on me either. My partners in crime, Robin Covington and Kimberly Kincaid, probably have wanted to call the Feds on me but instead they talk me down when I’m on the ledge about what should happen next. And, of course, I have to thank my family who no longer look twice when I start mumbling about plot points and how pretend people are driving me nuts.

  About the Author

  Avery Flynn has three slightly wild children, loves a hockey-addicted husband, and is desperately hoping someone invents the coffee IV drip. Find out more about Avery on her Website, follow her on Twitter, like her on her Facebook page, or friend her on her Facebook profile. Join her street team, The Flynnbots, on Facebeook. Also, if you figure out how to send Oreos through the Internet, she’ll be your best friend for life.

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  High Heeled Wonder

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