Dangerous (20 page)

“No wonder you were an emotional wreck.” He hugged her harder. “I'm so sorry. But it's time you forgave yourself.”

She was an emotional wreck now with Drago's arms around her, with his lips brushing her forehead. And when she lifted her face to his, he kissed her softly at first, deepening the connection gradually until she felt like she was drowning in his kiss.

In him.

When he shifted her to his right hip, using his arm to urge her from the doorway, she knew he was taking her to bed. Her body responded to him as it always did, but this time there was more. Something she couldn't explain. A feeling that made her want to weep.

Once in the bedroom, they began undressing each other between kisses. When she removed his shirt, her gaze flashed to the bandages covering his left side. For a moment, she'd forgotten. “Drago—”

“Don't worry,” he said. “I'm good.”

He definitely
was
good.

Not acting like an injured man, he kissed his way down her neck and between her breasts to her stomach. When he didn't stop there, her legs gave out on her and she fell back against the bedding, a cry of need rising in her throat, making it difficult to breathe. His tongue did wicked things to her. She opened herself wide and, wanting all of him, tried to tug him upward, but he wouldn't budge, not until her hips arched on their own and she cried out with pleasure.

Then he laved her belly with his tongue up to one breast, then across to the other. She reached down and guided him inside her, just as his mouth reached her throat. He suckled the flesh between neck and shoulder until she started to squirm under him. Then he stopped long enough to kiss her, really kiss her. Not an all-out assault, but a long, sweet, breathtaking connection that made her throat tighten and brought tears to her eyes again.

It was too much. She wouldn't weep. She
wouldn't
.

She shifted the mood of the kiss into something hungry and wicked, dug her nails into his buttocks and began to rock her hips under him until he couldn't resist following her lead. When he ended the kiss to suckle her throat, she gasped for air and let herself enjoy pure sensation. He slipped a hand between them and found her sweet spot, flicking her there until she couldn't hold on any longer. The cry that escaped them both together was purely primal.

Drago brushed her mouth with another soft kiss, then fell to his good side. Camille turned so that he was behind her and wrapped around her and twined with her like they were one.

The tightness in her throat returned and her eyes stung. Clenching her jaw, she closed them. Then forced herself to breathe evenly.

Wondered what was wrong with her.

Why she felt so different.

Feared she knew.

Maybe she had known all along but had been in denial. Self-protection. The issue wasn't really trust. She would trust Drago with her life. But that didn't mean they were right for each other.

So when sometime later Drago murmured, “You know how much I care for you, don't you, Camille…how much I love you?” she pretended to be asleep.

She'd tried to stop herself from loving him, but maybe it had been destined. Maybe she had from the moment they'd met and looked into each other's souls.

Though she felt the same—though she could admit to herself that she loved Drago Nance with all her heart—she couldn't say the words. She was too sealed up in the past and in her belief that they were simply too different. That a real relationship would be a disaster. Considering the things she'd experienced with him in three days, she wasn't sure they fit together outside of a bed. She feared a relationship between them would, in the end, simply break her heart again. Fear was the nemesis that never slept. Drago had gotten himself shot tonight, and he'd done it because she'd involved him in her mess.

Her fault…all her fault…

If he had died, she would never be able to forgive herself.

If she admitted she returned his love, would she forever live in fear that what she treasured most would be taken from her?

Squeezing her eyes tight so she wouldn't cry, Camille mentally retreated to the world she'd long ago created for her own protection. A world without relationships, where she could distance herself from the thing that scared her most.

Despite his wound and the medication he was taking, a combination that should have knocked him out, Drago lay awake half the night.

Despite his doubts that they could find a way to accept each other's differences, he'd finally admitted his innermost feelings to Camille, but rather than responding, she'd pretended to be asleep.

Now she really was asleep, and he couldn't simply stay in bed with her any longer, or he might be tempted to wake her by making love to her again.

It wasn't just sex for him anymore.

But obviously she didn't feel the same.

So what would be the point?

Stiff and sore after what he'd gone through the night before, he took a painkiller, then taped a plastic bag over the bandage the way the doc had instructed before getting into the shower. Turning his back to the stream, he wedged his hands against the wall and let the water work its magic on him.

He had to face the fact that he had nothing to offer Camille that she wanted other than sex. He couldn't forget the look on her face or the tone of her voice when she'd pulled him off Huerta. Even though Huerta was a soulless killer and deserved more than a few punches, she had been appalled.
With him.
It was as if she'd expected he would kill the gang leader. If he'd been willing to go that far, he would have done it long ago. But he'd never killed anyone. And he hoped he would never be forced to do so.

In the meantime, he had to stop hoping that things could be different between him and Camille, that they might really belong together. Justus had been right about him needing her in his life.

Too bad she didn't need him.

It was midmorning by the time they arrived at the office, having taken separate cars at Drago's suggestion. What was that about? Camille wondered. She had enough to worry about as it was, having no ideas of how to go about finding Sandy. Drago had been acting weird with her all morning. Serious and silent.

You know how much I care for you, don't you, Camille…how much I love you?

Drago's whispered words kept
running
through her head. And she kept running from having to acknowledge them. Perhaps he'd been too smart to believe she'd fallen asleep so easily. If he knew she'd been faking…

She tried to shrug off the dark mood enveloping her. They'd caught “Angel,” and surely Sandy was safe a little while longer until they found her.

When they entered the office, Justus was waiting for them. “Good work,” he told Drago. Then, to her, “You must be relieved.”

“As much as I can be with Sandy still missing.”

“I take it Huerta still isn't talking?”

“On the advice of his lawyer,” she said. “Jackson texted me an hour ago.”

Drago added, “Now we just have to find the girl without his help.”

“Any thoughts on that?” Justus asked.

“Not yet,” Camille said.

Then Drago surprised her. “Noreen Butler.”

“First, how do you think she can help?” she asked. “And second, how can we even find her again?”

“I was thinking that she might get some satisfaction knowing the man who abducted and raped her was behind bars. And that if she felt safe enough, we could ride around the area where he most likely held her until she recognized something.”

“And you're going to find her how?” Camille asked again.

“Through her mother. Once I explain the situation to Alleen, hopefully she'll call her daughter and ask her to come in and press charges. Her identifying Huerta as her abductor will seal his fate.”

“Maybe you should go see Alleen yourself.” Maybe without him around distracting her, she could think about something other than him. “I can be thinking about an alternative way to find Sandy if yours doesn't work.” Besides which, they'd taken both cars at his insistence. Could be he'd planned to do this alone all along. He certainly hadn't said much to her since she'd woken up. “I'll stay here and brainstorm with Justus. If that's okay with you?” she asked her old mentor.

“Fine by me.”

There was an odd note to his voice, though, and Camille saw the way Justus was looking at his brother, as if he was sending him some kind of message.

Whatever, Drago shrugged it off. “Fine with me, too.”

Neither man looked or sounded fine.

“All right, then, I'll call the moment I know something.” Drago walked out the door without so much as a personal word to her.

His leaving lightened the load so to speak, Camille thought, but at the same time, there was a part of her that already missed him. Not wanting Justus to question her about it, she put on her good face.

Even so, Justus asked, “What's going on with you and my brother today? Did you have a fight?”

“What makes you think something is going on?”

“I know you both and neither of you is quite all right at the moment.”

“Probably because we're both exhausted and frustrated and just want to find Sandy so this can be over.”

“Do you now?”

He crooked an eyebrow at her, reminding her of his brother.

“Um, of course we want to find Sandy as quickly as possible.”

“That's not what I meant. I was talking about Drago and you. I know about the infamous weekend you spent together.”

Heat crept up into Camille's cheeks. Justus had been her mentor, but she'd always seen him as a father figure. Well, more like an older brother, perhaps, but still…

“Drago told me you didn't know.”

“I didn't. Not until yesterday.”

Yesterday?
“What happened to make him spill?”

“His feelings for you. He didn't know what to do about them.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. The question is, how do you feel about my brother?”

To be honest…
“Conflicted.”

“Because…”

“Because we're so different, Justus.”

“I don't see it.”

“How can you say that? He's associated with gangs and now with convicts. He hit an ASA, which is a felony, no matter that he pleaded it down to a misdemeanor. I'm having a difficult time dealing with all that.”

“Did he tell you
why
he hit Anderson?”

“No.”

“And you didn't ask?”

“No.”

“Closed-minded much?”

“Wait a minute.” What in the world did Justus have to be disapproving of her? “You didn't even bail out your own brother. You let him sit in Cook County Jail for more than six months.”

“For his own good.”

“What? You thought that was the way to teach him a lesson?”

“Not even close, Camille. You need a little history lesson to understand. Drago wasn't even of legal age when he became a self-appointed leader of what you could call an antigang gang. That's why there's gang activity in his juvenile record, because of the altercations with Tomas Huerta. Huerta had been trying to recruit him and others who didn't want to become criminals as members of the Humboldt Lords. Huerta and the scum who reported to him used some pretty harsh tactics to make people cave. Not Drago. He decided he and those who were still resisting weren't going to be forced into being criminals. Instead, they were going to learn how to fight Huerta and keep him from getting even more power than he had. They were going to make sure the people they knew and cared about had someone to fight for them, too, so they could feel safe.”

“So Drago became a vigilante?”

“He became the leader of a group of vigilantes.”

“You were a cop and you approved of that?”

“Should I have stopped him? Let Huerta force kids into becoming his drug runners and prostitutes? Drago gave the ones who didn't want to go that route a sense of purpose.”

Camille realized that changed the way she saw Drago, at least in part. She couldn't put out of mind the reality of what he'd become, the way he'd pinned Buzzard to that bar by his throat, the way he'd kept battering Huerta, even after the man had lost the ability to fight back.

And what about his hitting an officer of the court? Anderson was an upstanding prosecutor, not a gang member.

“Get to it, Justus. Why did Drago throw that punch at Lucas Anderson?”

“Because Huerta decided to teach Drago a lesson through someone who refused to join the gang. He had some of his goons beat up Rosie Suarez, one of the young girls Drago was protecting.”

Camille remembered what he'd said when battering Huerta:
I'm not going to let him hurt another woman…
He hadn't just meant Teresa and Noreen and Susan and Leanne and Sandy. He'd been thinking about his friend Rosie, and who knew how many others.

“So what happened?”

“Huerta was arrested, and it was supposed to be Anderson's case, but then Rosie freaked and said she couldn't testify. Drago found out Huerta had threatened the girl's mother, had said the mother could have a tragic accident, and then Rosie would be alone. In the meantime, Anderson dropped the case, and, of course, Drago tried to change his mind.”

“And when he couldn't…”

“Right. When he couldn't, he lost it for a moment and Anderson got pissed off enough to have him arrested.”

“And you didn't bail him out to teach him a lesson.”

“I didn't bail him out to keep him
alive
. I feared he would go after Huerta directly, and Drago might be tough enough for a down-and-dirty fight, but he's not a killer. Huerta most certainly is. I wanted my brother to live to a ripe old age, not die before he even had a chance to find out who he could be. Drago needed time to cool down. In the can, he befriended inmates who were mostly victims of circumstance or bad judgment rather than violence. Inside, the gangs got even tougher. Drago was Drago. He backed up anyone who was victimized, and they naturally saw him as their leader. He earned the trust and friendship of these men.”

“Like Titus.”

“Like Titus. I'm not saying some of the men he befriended aren't dangerous. But they're no Angel.”

Camille realized what stood between the brothers was Justus's refusal to bail Drago out of jail, even though Justus did it out of love to protect his younger brother. She also suspected that since Justus had resigned from the department and started his own PI company soon after Drago's arrest, there must be a connection.

“Is Drago the reason for Justus Investigat
ions?”

Justus shrugged. “His incarceration was the last straw for me. You know, brought it home, made it personal after too many years of criminals getting away with their bad acts because the legal system failed them somehow. Drago was already doing it in his own way. I'm no vigilante, but I wanted to see if I could make a difference in
my
own way.”

“And once Drago made the deal and was released, you convinced him to join you.”

“I figured his being a PI would give him a different perspective. Maybe it would even keep him alive. But he still needs someone to rein him in once in a while.”

The way Justus was looking at her, Camille figured he meant her.

Awkward.

Camille might have a newfound respect for Drago after everything Justus had just told her, but indeed, he was still a wild card. She hadn't figured out what she wanted to do about her conflicting feelings yet, and she certainly wasn't ready for a heart-to-heart with her former mentor/father figure about her love life.

Luckily, the office phone rang just then.

Justus picked up the phone, listened for a moment, then said, “Okay, send him in.” When he hung up, he said, “A client. This might take awhile.”

“I'll do my thinking in the other room.”

Camille passed the client on her way out. She wasn't in the receptionist area long enough to get a single idea about how to find Sandy before Lois said, “Call for you. It's Eva.”

Camille took the phone and moved away from the desk. “Hey, Eva, what's up?”

“Thank goodness you're there. Why didn't you call me back?”

“You called?”

“Texted.”

Camille checked her cell phone. “That would be because my phone is dead. I've been using it so much I ran out of battery and didn't remember to charge it last night. Your friend…did you find her?”

“I did. And Isabel is willing to talk to you.”

“Can you give me her number?”

“In person,” Eva said. “She'll meet you at Café Pena on Milwaukee.”

“I've never been there, but I'm familiar with it. What time?”

“She said she would be there at eleven thirty
exactly
. You have fifteen minutes. If you're late, she won't wait.”

Pulse racing, Camille asked, “Can you meet me there?”

“Sorry, I'm on the other side of the city with a client.”

“What does she look like?”

“Get yourself there. She said she'll find you. And whatever you do, keep Drago out of this, or she'll never talk to you.”