AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I won’t let them do that to you.” He shook her—not hard, but enough to snap her out of the fog.
He loomed over her, his jaw set at a determined angle and a vein throbbing against his temple. The normal smartass Cam was gone, eaten up by the man in front of her who looked like he wrestled alligators in the morning and boxed bears at night. Barely restrained fury tightened his shoulders, and righteous indignation rolled off of him in waves of heat. She’d never understood before how a cocky guy like Cam had successfully spent years working as a paramilitary agent, but she did now. If he’d come after her with that dead cold look in his hazel green eyes, she’d run for the hills.
Swallowing past the lump in her throat she tried to make sense of his words. “You won’t let them do what?”
“Make you feel like that.” His grip slackened, and he brushed his palms up and down her biceps as if to brush away marks on her arms only he could see. “Your parents’ shit is not your shit. Don’t let it be.”
She eased away from him, the need to run a living ache inside her. “Like you’d know anything about that.”
“I know more than I’d like to.” He looked away, but not before she saw the hurt in his eyes. “You don’t get to choose your parents, but you do get to choose how you live your life.”
The words, although he meant well, shredded her soul, and she did what she always did. She didn’t give an inch, instead got toe-to-toe with him, literally, and fought back. “What is this? Deep thoughts with Cam Hardy?”
“Call it whatever you want.” He shrugged those broad shoulders of his that looked big enough to take the weight of her rant. “You know I’m right.”
“Does it really matter?” God, she’d run away from her former life and transformed herself into a better, brighter Drea Sanford for a reason. Her past had sucked all the color right out of her world, leaving nothing but muted grays. And now that she’d finally put a little light back into her life, they wanted to take it away.
“Yeah, it matters.”
“Why?” What was it with their chromosome that made men think they had to be right all the damn time?
“Because I’m the one who’s going to get you out of this mess.” Whether it was the truth or not, he believed it. There wasn’t any way to fake the bone-deep assurance in his deep voice.
Wouldn’t it be nice if she could believe too? For once. But she knew better. “You’re not the only investigator at Maltese—and that’s if I even agree I need the agency’s help.”
“Oh you need it, and I’m the only one who will do it right.” His fingertips slid down her sides and settled on her hips, setting off sparks across her skin. “This isn’t about us sleeping together before. And it’s not about how high you keep those damned walls you’re hiding behind. It is about the fact that I’m the on
ly one who will take this wherever it needs to go, no matter what.”
How she heard his words over the rushing in her ears was beyond her, but she did, and it made her want to run to him and away from him at the same time. That was one battle she didn’t have time to fight right now. “Big promises.”
“I’m a big guy, I can back it up.” He grinned, slow, sexy, and full of sin. “So you’re on board as Maltese Security’s newest client?”
She took his measure. The man was six-feet, five-inches of temptation, but he was right. For all his faults, he was loyal, and he was her best chance to get the cops off her back. They both knew it. “God help me, I am.”
“Don’t worry.” Cam dropped his gaze to her mouth. “I’m all the help you need.”
Damn, the man was worse for her than a deep fried Oreo, but she didn’t care right now. After the day she’d had, she could use a little comfort and he was more than willing to offer it. To hell with tomorrow. She’d take him tonight and figure out how to get him to leave in the morning.
“Are you what I need?” She licked her lips—slow and deliberate, tempting fate and the hunk of a man in front of her.
He sucked in a quick breath and tugged her forward so that she stood between his thighs. “Without a doubt.”
“This is a one-time only offer.” After the chaos of today’s events, she needed the kind of rock-solid, no-strings-attached comfort Cam could offer—needed it enough to break her cardinal rule. “I don’t give second chances.”
“My whole life is second chances.” He palmed her ass over her skirt and picked her up like she weighed nothing, then pulled her tight against him and pressed her back against the wall.
She wrapped her legs around his lean hips and her arms around his neck, eliminating the last millimeter of space between them. “Maybe you need to work on getting it right the first time.”
“And here I thought you liked me getting it right the second and third times too.” He kissed and licked his way up her neck, the tenderness of his lips balanced out by the scratch of his stubble—just the mix of hard and soft she needed.
He’d gotten that about her from the very beginning, which was what made him so dangerous. If she let him in, really let him in, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to kick him out in the morning.
His hard length pressed against her core, a rock solid reminder of exactly what she needed right now, a momentary escape with someone who knew the score. Nothing more. “Are we going to flirt or fuck?”
“Babe, I’m going to rock your world.” His palm skimmed the outside of her thigh, sliding under her skirt until he cupped her ass and squeezed with just the right amount of pressure to send a delicious shiver through her.
Oh my God, she couldn’t think when he touched her like this. Hard. Demanding. Promising exactly what she knew he could deliver. “That’s a big promise.”
