Make Me Up

by Avery Flynn

  She released his top button and reached for his zipper, long past the end of her limited patience. “Promises. Promises.”

  “Don’t worry, I always deliver.” He circled her wrist, but instead of pushing her away like he had last night, he tugged her wrist lower and brought down his zipper still held between her fingers.

  But she didn’t look down. Instead, she sucked in her bottom lip and let her gaze travel over the wide expanse of his bare chest. She’d expended so much effort the other night not to look that she couldn’t miss this opportunity to drink in her fill. She never could get enough of looking at him.

  She started at the top, took in his broad shoulders, and dropped her focus. Her mouth watered at his muscular pecs, his flat peach nipples that were so much paler than her own. His pale blond happy trail started near the bottom of his six pack abs, and she followed it lower, until her attention wandered to the spot where the muscle cut a V along his hips. She didn’t know what it was called, but she couldn’t wait to lick her way up the well-defined line.

  Her hands shook as she spread the opening of his jeans and pushed them over his tight ass. Her fingers didn’t snag on any boxers or briefs. The man had gone commando. She looked down…and her brain melted.

  She wrapped her fingers around his hard cock and squeezed lightly. “Damn, you are pretty everywhere.”

  He flexed his fingers, then fisted his hands at his sides and let out a shaky groan. “That kind of talk can go to a guy’s head.”

  “Will it go to this one?” She leaned forward, slid her tongue across the curve at the tip of his cock, relished his shiver of pleasure. This was what she wanted—to make Cam Hardy quake under her touch until they both forgot for a moment about all the bad shit going on outside the motel room door.

  “Fuck yes.” Desire thickened his voice as he tipped his hips closer to her.

  “Good.” She took her time, licked up and down his length before taking him in her mouth and sliding her lips down nearly to the base.

  “Not yet.” He nudged her shoulders.

  She pulled away and looked up at him, then licked her lips and savored the taste of him on her tongue. “Changed your mind?”

  “Yes.” He hooked his hands under her arms, lifted her off the cheap motel quilt, and tossed her farther up the bed. She landed with a bounce, but there wasn’t time to worry about flying off the mattress. He crawled up the bed after her and stopped only when his muscular arms were on either side of her shoulders. He stared down at her, and his dirty blond hair hung forward. “We’re taking it slow.”

  She trailed a finger down the center of his chest, thrilled at the way his muscles flexed under her touch. “So you think you’re in charge?”

  “Babe.” He lowered himself over her like he was doing a pushup, which brought him within millimeters of touching her from thigh to mouth and everywhere in between. “I’m not that big of an idiot.”

  But he was big in other ways, and damn wasn’t she glad for it. Languid desire flowed like a lazy river through her, and all she wanted was to float away on it.

  “You wanna go slow, huh?” Curious about just how far she could push him, she raised one leg so that it slid along his inner thigh. Steady. Deliberate. Teasing. “Like this?”

  “I see I need to teach you a lesson.” He dipped his head and captured her lips in a kiss that turned that lazy river inside her into a rushing torrent. As soft as the rest of him was hard, the kiss was a demonstration in the power of wanting.

  She ran her hands up his arms, over his biceps, across the curve of his shoulder, and around to his back. Whatever else was falling apart around them, they had this right now, and she wasn’t going to let a single bit of him go unexplored.

  As if reading her mind, he flipped over onto his back and took her with him so that she ended up sitting astride him. “I want to watch you.”

  “Then let me improve the view.” She reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. The straps slid off her shoulders, but she didn’t let the silver satin fall from her breasts. Not yet. Never letting the cups drop, she slid one arm and then the other free from the bra’s confines. Then slowly, so slowly that Cam cursed under his breath, she lowered the bra and revealed her breasts.

  She leaned forward and stretched her body as long as it would go. Her breasts hung heavy above Cam’s parted lips. “Still want to go slow?”

  He flicked his tongue against her nipple and circled the hard nub, then sucked it into his warm mouth. His teeth grazed the sensitive flesh and pulled it taut, sharpening the pleasure coursing through her. His hands grazed her sides, then stopped at the tiny strings holding up her satin panties.

  …

  Cam hooked his fingers around the thin straps of her panties. All it would take was a quick jerk to snap the material in two. The temptation would have knocked him on his ass if he hadn’t been already flat on his back and looking up at Drea in all her nearly naked glory. But if she lost that last bit of a barrier between them, the whole thing would be over almost as soon as it began.

  And he wanted this to last.

  He wasn’t going on her keeper shelf. He knew that the same way he knew she’d been right to keep her distance from him up until now. There was too much hustling gutter kid still in him for her, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t smart enough to make the few hours he had matter. Tomorrow would take care of itself.

  He held on to his last thread of control, followed the silky material around to the back, and slid his hands inside. He cupped her full ass. The round globes filled his hands, and he squeezed.

  She let out a mewl of pleasure and slipped down his body so that her damp center rubbed against his hard cock. He gripped her tight and held her in place against him. It was divine torture that tuned his entire body until all his awareness centered on where their bodies touched.

  “That feel good?” She leaned down and nipped the base of his neck.

  “God yes.”

  She planted her hands on his abs and swiveled her hips so that her panties became more of an enticement than a barrier, heightening the friction between them. Still, it wasn’t enough. He wanted—no, needed—all of her.

  “You’re killing me,” he groaned.

  “But oh so slowly.” She chuckled and lowered her chest so that her tits brushed against his cheek and came close to his mouth. But not close enough.

  “Not anymore.” He tilted his head enough to draw one light brown nipple into his mouth, then let his teeth lightly raze the sensitive flesh before letting go.

  Her quick intake of breath, the way she shivered against him, let him know he was on the right track. Reading Drea had become his favorite hobby over the past year and he wasn’t about to let that intel go to waste.

  Even after she found the doctor or lawyer or money manager who’d give her everything she needed, she’d remember tonight. She’d remember him. She’d remember them.

  He turned his cheek so that his day’s growth of beard scratched against her tender nipple, then kissed his way over to the full swell of her tits. He needed to taste all of her and discover what made her cry out in ecstasy. What would make her drop back her head and cry out his name?

  In all their secret nights together, she’d never done it, but that would change tonight. He’d spend the whole night trying to make that happen, if that’s what it took. He licked the underside of each breast before moving through the valley between the soft orbs.

  “So sweet, like sugar.” He brushed his thumb across her other breast stopping at her nipple and pinching it between his thumb and finger with just enough force to make her squeeze her thighs tight against him. “Come up here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He curled his hands around her hips and urged her up his body until she was kneeling above his face. “How attached are you to these?” He snapped her panties’ elastic sides.

  “Not in the least.”

  The material shredded in his hands, and he tossed the scraps aside. “Good.”


  He pulled her down so he could lick the sweetness from her body. Slow and easy, he traced her folds with his tongue until he reached her clit, swollen from want, and sucked it deep. Her hips undulated above him as she slid across his mouth. His fingers found her opening, then slipped inside and rubbed against the sensitive bundle of nerves.

  “Cam,” she cried out and arched back as her fingers dug into his scalp.

  She didn’t have to worry. He wouldn’t let go. Not when she was so close to going over the edge. He took a different tact and curled his tongue around her clit, scissored his fingers inside her. A second later, she cried out as she came on his tongue. Her thighs quaked on either side of his face.

  Drea couldn’t take it any longer. She needed him now. “Please tell me you have a condom.” She’d started out teasing him and ended up being the one begging for release, and she wasn’t done yet.

  He grabbed his wallet out of his jeans on the floor and pulled out a condom. He held it between two fingers like a business card. “I’m like a Boy Scout.”

  She grabbed the square from him. “I think you belonged to a different type of troop than any I’d ever heard of.”

  She made quick work of the condom, ripped open the foil, rolled it on his hard cock, and got in position to sink down on him.

  His hands grasped her hips and held her in place above him. “You don’t have to pay me back for anything.”

  Pay him back? For helping her? For being there when she had no one? “Is that what you think this is?” If the idea wasn’t so ridiculous, she’d be as furious as a woman whose favorite lipstick shade had been discontinued.

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Doubt covered his face, and it pissed her off. How long had he been running away from the world by diving between a pair of long legs? Probably as long as she’d been pushing people out—too damn long.

  She balanced above him, her hands planted on the flat plane of his abs and her knees bracketing his hips. Her thighs burned from the effort necessary to hold herself above him when all she wanted to do was the opposite. “I’m not like your others.”

  His abs flexed under her palms. “I know that,” he ground out through gritted teeth.

  But he didn’t get it. She could tell by the way his gaze skittered away from her.

  “And you’re not like my others.” She said it with all the fierce commitment she felt, and before he could deny her, she lowered herself onto his cock—slowly—until he filled her up. All she wanted to do was close her eyes, toss her head back and ride him hard, but she had to make him see. “This is about us. The others don’t fucking exist.”

  Understanding cleared the doubt from his blue-eyed gaze. He grasped her hips and pulled her hard against his dick. “No. They don’t.”

  She rocked against him and forgot about all those people who didn’t matter. The rest of the world fell away. It was just her and the one man in the world who made her feel safe. The one she could depend on. The one who wouldn’t leave her even when the police, a crime boss, and God knew what else were on her heels.

  But it was more, and she knew it. Who else had been there for her like this? Who else had stood by her when all of the evidence demanded they run away? He’d made a place for himself in her daily existence, and now she couldn’t image her life without his sexy bod and his signature wink that promised all sorts of dangerous fun.

  He rolled his hips underneath her, changed his angle of entry, scattered the last vestiges of her rational thought. All she could do was feel. She rode him, straining, reaching for more. Always more.

  His fingers bit into her hips. “So. Damn. Good.” He groaned out the words, but she barely heard them.

  Pushing, pulling, urging as the tremors started in her thighs and pulsed outward, gained in intensity. “So close.” She arched her back and braced her hands against his strong thighs, lost in the moment.

  “Come on, babe.” One of his hands slid up her torso and drew the quaking upward until the surging, spiraling hum took over her entire body. “Let me see it. I need to see you come. I want your sweet pussy to squeeze my cock as you break apart.”

  His thumb circled one of her hardened nipples and brushed over the nub, then grasped it and pulled it taut. The sensation centered the vibrations and the sensation exploded as her entire body went ridged, paralyzed by an orgasm that blazed through every muscle in her body.

  “Cam,” she cried out as her vision turned Technicolor and she rode the orgasmic wave to its crest.

  A second later he surged into her and groaned her name as his own orgasm overtook him.

  She collapsed against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. If not for his arms, she would have floated away in some sort of parallel universe of orgasmic bliss. She wasn’t ready to leave him. Not yet.

  “God, babe, you’re beautiful,” he whispered into her hair.

  She tilted her chin and looked up at him. His eyes were closed, and his breathing had steadied. But it wasn’t that visual that held her attention. It was the slight curl of his lips into a shy smile that was as far away from his normal cocky grin as North Pole was from the South. In this unguarded moment, she glimpsed another side to him—one she wanted to know more about.

  The realization didn’t scare her nearly as much as it should have. There was no going back now. Whatever else happened when they walked out of the motel room, she’d have this moment when everything had been perfect.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “The ones who look best are often a bit wilder.” - Miuccia Prada

  Drea’s soft snores filled the tiny motel room, soft enough not to travel through the paper thin walls but loud enough to cover the clickity clack of Cam’s fingers as he pecked away on his laptop.

  The truth about Natasha Orton’s murderer was buried somewhere in the numbers rolling across his screen. He was as sure about that as he was about the woman asleep in the motel bed behind him—but he was damned if he could get a handle on either. All he knew was that it was fourth down with only seconds on the clock, and they had about ninety yards of turf between them and the goal line.

  He scrolled up to the top of the list and took a fifth look at Fergus’s tax records and bank deposits. He’d pulled up every piece of financial information he could find on their number one suspect—through official and unofficial channels—on the butler with a pimped out pad, but on paper, the man was so clean that he had to be dirty. No overdraft fees. Every bill paid a week in advance—if not sooner. No credit card balances. No unusual charges. No weird tax deductions. Everything was exactly as it should be, and that set off every warning bell in Cam’s head.

  According to the video, Fergus was tied to Knight—and by proxy, Diamond Tommy. And the crime boss didn’t have friends, only associates who gave him what he wanted. The question was: what did Tommy want from Fergus?

  The snoring stopped, and the silence drew Cam’s attention from the screen to the woman still snuggled up under the ugly comforter. She sat up and let the sheet pool around her narrow waist. Her skin glowed in dawn’s soft light sneaking in through curtains, and she stretched her arms up toward the ceiling in a move that elongated everything above her waist and below his belt. Seeing her like that woke him up better than the weak-ass motel room coffee ever could.

  A lazy smile curled her full lips, more pink than cherry thanks to the night he’d spent the kissing every bit of lipstick off. He was half tempted to ask her to reapply the color so he could kiss it off again. His dick pressed against his zipper. Okay, more than half tempted.

  “Good morning,” she said, sleep still heavy in her voice.

  Just the idea of Diamond Tommy getting his paws on her made Cam’s chest tight. She was too good to go down like that. He’d keep her safe. He’d protect her and then, after they’d figured it all out, they could… Damn, he was a fucking idiot. Who the hell was he kidding that he could change. People didn’t change. He’d learned that lesson young and relearned it after each trip his
mom made home from rehab only to stumble back into old habits. What the hell had ever made him think he could be more?

  Drea wasn’t made for a guy like him, a man who lived his life barely on the right side of the line. The best thing he could do for her was to help her clear her name and then stay the hell away.

  “Welcome back to the world of the living,” he said. It came out sharper than he meant, and she flinched. He pulled his lips into some semblance of a smile. “You slept so hard that if it hadn’t been for the snoring, I would’ve thought you’d died.”

  For a guy who’d spent a good portion of his life charming women out of their panties and into his bed, his game suddenly sucked. Being around her did that to him. She made him want to become more than just a guy who survived on charm and luck—instead be a guy who settled down and found something permanent—but he knew himself better than to think that he could ever make that transition for real.

  “You’re full of it. I don’t snore.” Her sharp gaze zeroed in on his open laptop. “How long have you been up?”

  Grateful for an excuse to look away from her beautiful face, he glanced over at the digital clock on the bedside table. It read 6 a.m. “About an hour and a half.” Though judging by the crick in his neck, it had been longer.

  She swiped his T-shirt from the floor and pulled it over her head as easy and smooth as if she’d been wearing his clothes whenever she wanted for years. It hung loose, stopped a few inches above her knees, and gave only the barest hint at her curves underneath. His mouth went dry as she crossed the room to his side. Dressed or naked, the woman was magma hot. The sooner he got away from her, the better for his sanity.

  “Find anything?”

  He turned his attention back to the screen. Not that it made him any less aware of her scent, her warmth, or the low hum of attraction that buzzed in the background whenever she was near. His inability to block it out pissed him off. If he didn’t get his shit together, he’d fuck them both, and not in a good way.

  “Not yet.” He shook his head. “I’m trying to find the string tying Fergus and Diamond Tommy together. What do you know about Fergus?”