He poked his head out. “They’re gone.”
She pushed her way past his bulk and into the hallway. She’d never been claustrophobic, but she’d spent just about all the time in the cramped closet as she could stand. She took a right turn and headed toward the bedroom. “Fire escape?”
He grinned. “Seems appropriate.”
Trust him to make a joke out of almost getting caught. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
They sprinted to the bedroom and out the window. Once they were on the metal landing, the warm summer wind whipped at her hair. The building’s residents mingled on the sidewalk around the corner. A few looked up at the four-story brownstone, but most searched the distance for the first sign of Harbor City Fire Department. She held tight to the railing and quick stepped it down the fire escape and away from immediate danger, even if the larger threat still remained.
Chapter Twelve
“A woman is closest to being naked when she is well dressed.” - Coco Chanel
The Harbor Inn didn’t advertise hourly rates on the blinking sign looming over the parking lot, but Drea wouldn’t have been surprised if the motel didn’t offer discounted short-term rates.
When they walked in, the clerk barely looked up from the tele-novela playing in the office behind the registration desk. They checked in with little fuss. Cam paid in cash and the clerk didn’t blink an eye, just slid the plastic room key across the counter and shuffled back to the office.
The light in their room flickered when she flipped the switch, but after a second it returned to full strength. The room was about what she’d expected. A thin floral quilt in orange and tan covered the bed. A TV was bolted to the wall above a two-seater table. Threadbare towels hung in the small bathroom. She’d stayed in better when her parents were alive, and she’d stayed in worse after they’d died.
Cam shoved his hands deep in his pockets and looked everywhere but at her. “I know it’s not much, but my place would be the first place Reggie would look for you.”
She’d learned the hard way not to depend on people—especially not people who always looked for the easy way out. People like Cam.
Or at least the Cam she’d thought she’d known.
But after what he’d done to get her this far, to help her survive and clear her name, she had to wonder if she’d never given him a chance. She’d taken one look at the too pretty for words cocky guy in the hospital and judged him at face value.
Now they were both running from the cops, and Diamond Tommy, too.
“You’ve risked everything for me,” she said. The truth of it sucked the air from her lungs, and for a moment, all she could do was stare at all six-feet-five-inches of him. It was like seeing him for the first time.
He reached out, and his strong hand grasped her elbow, sending shocks of awareness up her arm. The air sizzled around them. “Are you okay?”
Totally fine. Except for almost losing her mind. Even his light touch made her want to finish what they’d started last night. Other than that, she was totally good.
“Don’t worry.” She should step away from him, but she couldn’t. The feeling of his skin on hers was too good, too right. “I’m not going to pass out because of a hot mess of a motel room.”
“I don’t know, did you look at the bedspread?” His tone was light, but the way his teal eyes darkened and his gaze dipped to her mouth—then further down, to the curve of her breasts—told another story. One she desperately wanted to hear.
Heat rushed up and caressed her skin. “This bedspread?” She sat down on the edge, directly in front of him, and brought herself eye level with the outline of his fast hardening cock in his jeans. “It’s lovely.”
He captured her chin between his finger and thumb and tilted her head upward so she couldn’t help but look at him. “It is now.”
The world stopped spinning, and the atmosphere lost all its oxygen. Part of her—the side that remembered what it was like to be abandoned by her parents and have her whole life opened up to the media—wanted to sprint out the door, Diamond T
ommy and the cops be damned. The other part of her—the one who finally saw beyond Cam’s pretty face and cocky attitude—just wanted to tumble back onto the bed and pull him with her.
“You have to stop talking to me like that.” Half desperate plea, half hopeful request, the words came out quiet enough that she barely heard herself.
“Why?” His thumb swept across her bottom lip and elicited a moan she tried—and failed—to restrain.
“Because I’ll start to believe it,” she said. Too late for that. She already believed it, and that scared the shit out of her. But not enough to warn her off of Cam. Those days were gone.
He leaned down and put his palms flat on the bed on either side of her hips—not touching, just close enough to remind her how talented he was with those strong fingers.
“Would that be all that bad?” he asked, his mouth only inches from hers.
She arched her back, tilted her chin higher, and brought their lips even closer to his. “It could be the worst.”