Make Me Up Page 9

  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.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life.” - Bill Cunningham

  Cam downed the last dregs of coffee in his mug and watched through half-hooded eyes while the Mr. Coffee hissed and spurted out a skinny stream of black gold. In the dawn’s pink light, the idea of yanking out the pot and sticking his mouth under the spout for a direct caffeine hit didn’t sound completely stupid—which was exactly why he was brewing a second pot. Maybe then he could get the case to make sense, because it sure as hell wasn’t now, not with every piece of evidence the police had pointing to Drea as the murderer.

  “Morning.” Drea strutted into the kitchen wearing a tomato red dress that stopped high on her long, dark brown legs and was held up on her shoulders by thin straps, the kind made of barely-there material that made him want to slide them down just to see if the dress would stay up.

  He forgot about the case and could only think about the woman. The totally sexy, completely hot Drea who made him forget every promise he’d ever made to himself about women. She did that to him without even trying. The case he wasn’t worried about—he’d faced worse odds and come out on top. But Drea? He’d never faced down anyt
hing or anyone like her. Fuck, he really was screwed.

  “You’re up early.” He grabbed an empty mug out of the cupboard. “Coffee?”

  She nodded, her droopy eyes giving away just how much she needed a caffeine jolt. “God, yes.”

  He pulled out the now half-filled pot, pausing the brewing process, and poured them both a cup. Their fingers brushed as he handed her the heavy stoneware mug, sending a surge of electricity up his arm and straight down to his dick. She lifted the mug to her bright red lips and Cam had never been so jealous of an inanimate object in his entire life.

  “So what’s the plan?”

  Thankful for the granite island separating them, he dumped enough sugar in his joe to terrify a dentist, took a sip, and recited Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher statistics in his head until he got the blood to start flowing north again.

  “Reviewing security videos from businesses around your building between when we left and when the police served their search warrant. Figured we might get lucky and see who planted fish guts in your apartment.”

  Her spine snapped straight and she lost her just-out-of-bed slouchy gaze. “Find anything?”

  “Getting ready to start.” He carried his mug over to the small kitchen table where he’d spent the night doing background checks on what seemed like every person in the Western Hemisphere—trying and failing to find red flags. “Want to join the fun?”

  As she crossed the room, her skirt swished around her thighs, then snuck up high on her legs when she sat down beside him. He managed to keep his eyes on the keyboard while he logged into the Maltese Security portal, but his gaze wandered to her shapely legs while the encrypted website loaded onto his screen. The ten second window of time was a blessing and a curse.

  The profile of a black falcon appeared on his screen, which dissolved into the words MALTESE SECURITY. He clicked on the first folder and accessed the videos he’d uploaded earlier. “This first one is from the ATM across the street from your building.”

  “How did you get this?”

  Hacking, subterfuge, and general computer badassery that could probably land him in the federal pen. “I learned a while ago not to answer that question.”

  They sat in silence, sipping their coffee and watching the background of the video feed, hoping to see someone familiar over the shoulder of some schlub withdrawing a hundred bucks from the ATM. A second cup of coffee later, they were still in the same position and still without any leads. It was cases like this that made him miss the simplicity of a tactical hostage removal. Get in. Get out. Simple.

  He hit play on the second set of videos. These were from a consignment shop on the corner with a limited view of Drea’s apartment. Ten minutes went by on quick speed with nothing but traffic snarl ups and people rushing toward the subway.

  She gasped. “Hit pause.”

  He right-clicked and took a closer look at the screen. It had been a while since he’d gone through a photo lineup of Diamond Tommy’s crew, but there was no mistaking Isaiah Knight’s neck tattoo that went from earlobe to collarbone. It looked like Knight’s neck had been slashed open and a three-headed skeleton was crawling out. Even in grainy black and white, it was something out of a slasher movie. The only thing good about seeing him, was the fact that Drea hadn’t been home when he’d shown up.

  “That’s one of Diamond Tony’s most trusted enforcers.” That was the polite word for it. More like he was the guy who took enough sicko pleasure in intimidation, torture, and murder to make serial killers cross the street to avoid him. “We were acquaintances when I was still living part time on the streets and part time with my mom.”

  She tapped the screen with her hot pink fingernail. “And that is Fergus.”

  He looked closer at the guy walking next to Knight. “You sure?”

  “No doubt.” Her tone was a mix of shock and straight-up fury.

  At first blush, Fergus had looked clean on his background check. Single. Average bank account. No arrest record. He was a butler by day and ferret rescue volunteer by night.

  Weasels. It figures.

  Cam right clicked, and the video resumed. While Knight played it cool, strolling along like he was on his way to visit his grandmother for Sunday dinner, Fergus had the jerky movements of a guy trying to play it cool even though there was a bomb strapped between his ass cheeks. Cam could smell the flop sweat through the computer screen. The men disappeared into the building next door to Drea’s.

  It wasn’t a smoking gun about the identity of the actual killer, but it was more than they’d had to go on before. Fergus didn’t seem the type. Knight did, but hiding behind poison sure wasn’t his thing. “Any way to get from that building to yours without being seen?” he asked.

  She nodded, her gaze never leaving the screen. “There’s a rooftop bridge connecting them.”

  “That way they’d avoid getting picked up by the security cameras in your lobby.”

  Knight was the worst kind of stone cold killer—a street smart one. But everyone fucked up somewhere along the line. Knight wasn’t any different. All Cam had to do was find the weakest link, which right now looked a lot like a sweaty little butler who, despite appearances, just might have the balls to be a murderer.

  The judge shuffled into the kitchen with a rolled up newspaper under his arm, looking looked like every one of his seventy-three years. He didn’t say good morning or make a move for the coffee. Instead, he jerked to a dead stop and served up a glare that had caused defendants to quake in their leg irons.

  “Have either of you seen the paper yet?” the judge asked. He laid the paper out in the middle of the island. His age-spotted hand smoothed out the wrinkle in the front page and revealed the main headline.

  THE LIPSTICK KILLER: SCORNED MAKEUP ARTIST TAKES HER REVENGE.

  “I want to help, but as a former officer of the court, I can’t ignore the fact that one of my house guests has a warrant out for her arrest.”

  She flipped the newspaper around and pulled it closer to her. She scanned the words with the intensity of a woman reading her own obituary, which—in a way—she was. He reached out to snatch it away from her and keep her blissfully ignorant of what an uphill battle they were facing, but she stopped him with a steely-eyed look.

  She slid her gaze away from him and focused only on the judge. “Someone’s setting me up.”

  “My dear, you wouldn’t believe the number of times a judge hears that while sitting on the bench, even during a short tenure like mine. You gotta have more than just words. You need proof.”

  She leaned forward, and her limbs strained with tension as her no-shit stare dared the judge to look away. “And I’m betting my freedom right now that some of those people were telling it straight.”

  The judge opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  “It’s true.” Cam seized on the judge’s hesitation and brought his mentor up to speed on the surveillance video.

  “Can’t say I’m seeing enough evidence to sway the police,” the judge said after the video stopped. “Most of it is circumstantial, or there’s no one to back up your side of things.”

  Heat ate its way up his spine, hot enough to turn his internal organs to ash. “We just need some time.”

  The doorbell sounded. He whipped his head toward the front but noticed too late the flashing red lights reflecting off the living room windows. Drea’s chair screeched against the tile as she shoved it back and jumped up. The judge must have called.

  “I didn’t have a choice,” the judge said.

  “There’s always a choice.” Cam snapped his laptop closed. He had to give it one last shot. “A two minute delay. That’s all I’m asking for.” It wasn’t. Not really. He was asking the man who’d saved him from a life of crime to send him back into it. They both knew it. “Please.”

  The judge didn’t say anything, but he also didn’t block Cam’s way as he grabbed his laptop and keys.

  Drea grabbed her purse, and they sprinted out the door connect
ing the kitchen to the garage. The doorbell rang again, followed by the law’s unmistakable heavy-handed knock. Cam ignored the clear and present danger of the uniformed wolves at the door and secured his laptop in his saddlebag, then tossed a helmet to Drea and put on his own.

  “Is it too late?” she asked into the Bluetooth mic.

  “Never.” Not as long as he had breath to say the word.

  He revved the motorcycle’s engine and pushed the button to open the back bay door that led to an asphalt path connecting the unfenced backyard and golf course just beyond it. They shot out like a bullet. They zipped along and wove through the smattering of golf carts puttering along, and after a few blocks they burst out onto the street. Police sirens wailed in the distance.

  They’d be coming for both of them now. It didn’t matter. He’d promised to keep Drea safe, and that was exactly what he was going to do. No. Matter. What.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I’m not a girl who spends my life in a ball gown.” - Vera Wang

  Drea had acted as a lookout exactly once. In seventh grade, her best friend, Ambrelle, had smoked a cigarette in the girl’s bathroom at a school dance. Drea had peered around the door watching for teachers and hated every paranoid minute of it.

  Fifteen years later, she still hated it. With her heart in her throat, she stood guard in a hallway again while Cam jiggled flattened pieces of metal inside Fergus’s door knob.

  “I still think this is nuts.” The pulley yanking her nerves cranked the tension a little higher. Every creak on the steps leading to the top floor apartment. Every echo from the street below. Every time her pulse pounded in her ears loud enough to make her think it was footsteps coming down the hall.

  “The cops will be looking everywhere for us but here,” he said. “It’s the perfect place to be.”

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” She edged closer to his hunched frame.

  He didn’t spare her a glance, just kept fiddling. “It’s been a few years, but popping a lock is like riding a bike.”