Outspoken Angel (12 page)

Her mind spun with bewilderment. Did he feel
the same? Or was she just an assignment? She knew his loyalty to
Hawke and Rachel would never be broken, but was this more than
loyalty? She pushed herself off the wall and tabled her
uncertainties. Only one way to find out.

At the sound of her footsteps, Max glanced up
and gave her a heated look that accused her of being naked. Her lip
curled. At least she was dressed this time.

“Looks like you two made up,” she said.

He shrugged and released the cat. “The noise
makes him nervous and I’m familiar to him.” Obviously unhappy,
Maxwell braced his two front legs against Max’s leg and poked his
claws into the black denim, intent on climbing back into Max’s
bulky grip. Max shook him loose and nudged him out of the way with
the toe of his boot. Maxwell meowed his objection before strutting
out of the room.

Cameron stood mesmerized by the unmistakable
power and energy that oozed from Max. Even her stubborn, alpha male
cat felt it.

Max turned and offered his hand. “Careful
where you step.”

She didn’t think twice before she slid her
hand into his. The strength of his gentle grip sent a warming
shiver through her as he guided her around the mess and into the
kitchen.

He dropped her hand. “I’m hungry.”

Disappointed by the loss of contact, she
rolled her eyes. “You’re always hungry. Cereal or frozen
waffles?”

“You’re not going to cook breakfast? You owe
me, remember?”

Cameron opened her mouth to argue, but words
escaped her as she glanced into his flickering eyes. The intense
heat she found there forced her to reconsider her response. She
could think of several ways to repay her debt, all of which
involved hand-to-hand combat. Or sweaty-naked-body to
sweaty-naked-body.

Shaking those thoughts from her brain, she
grabbed a skillet and went to the fridge. Once she opened the door,
she stood there a minute and begged the cool air to soothe her
heated skin. She definitely needed the freezer, but that would be
too obvious.

“Are you gonna just stand there and stare at
the food, or are you gonna cook it?” she heard him say from behind
her.

As she spun around, she felt her backside
graze the bulge behind his zipper. She closed her eyes, gritted her
teeth, and fought to keep from pressing herself against the
enticing discovery. As if reading her mind, he inhaled sharply and
stepped away.

“Ha, ha, Smartass.” She grabbed a carton of
eggs, a package of bacon, and a roll of sausage and attempted to
distract herself. “I’m going to cook it, if you’ll get out of my
way.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Okay. I’ll
go check on the progress of your new security system.”

“The house is a mess,” she fussed. “Don’t you
think you’ve gone a little overboard?”

“No. Your security system sucked. This one is
top of the line. You should consider getting a big dog.”

“A dog?” She whipped the eggs in a bowl. “I
don’t need a dog. I have a cat. Who, by the way, scared away the
intruder last night.”

“Only because I stepped on him on my way to
intercept the bad guy,” he mumbled as he stalked out of the
kitchen.

Her mouth curved into a smile. It was fun to
push his buttons. He would never let a fat, lazy cat take the
credit for protecting her.

She had just finished up the sausage and
bacon when Max stuck his head inside the door.

“Come in here for a minute so I can explain
how to set the alarm.”

She turned off the stove and followed him to
the control panel.

“You have two panels, one here and another in
your bedroom. This red button is the panic button. Push it if you
need the police.”

Her head spun as he rattled off colors,
buttons, sensors and all kinds of other electronic-genius-speak she
didn’t quite understand.

“Wait.” She laid a hand on his forearm. “You
had cameras installed? And motion sensors? What about Maxwell?
He’ll set it off all the time.”

“No, he won’t. Anything under fifty pounds
won’t trigger the alarm.”

Skeptical, she raised an eyebrow. “The alarm
can judge weight?”

He inclined his head. “I designed it. Trust
me, it will work.”

“How?”

He twisted his lips. “It’s a secret.”

Amused by his cockiness, she studied him
intently for a moment and admired his intelligence. Although Max
issued orders and did his best to bury any spark of emotion, day by
day he gave her more and more reasons to love him. And love him,
she would.

As if startled by her newfound epiphany, he
turned and headed back to the kitchen.

“Is breakfast ready?”

She shook her head and followed. Silly man.
Did he really think he could avoid the obvious?

She nudged him to the table set for two with
a bowl of scrambled eggs, a plate of sausage and bacon, and a plate
of biscuits waiting for him.

“I’ve got milk, orange juice, and I can put
on a pot of coffee.” She placed butter and jelly on the table.

“Milk sounds great. You sit and I’ll get
it.”

He poured them each a glass of milk and sat
down.

After several mouthfuls, he said, “This is
great.”

She smiled and picked up her fork. “You
didn’t realize I was such a domestic goddess?”

“I thought you couldn’t cook.”

“No, I told you I don’t cook. It’s too much
trouble to cook for just me.”

“These eggs are delicious. What’s in
them?”

She winked. “It’s a secret.”

Max took a deep breath to steady his pulse.
That one small eye movement tempted him to snatch her from her
chair, flatten her on top of the table, and take her right there,
smack dab in the middle of the scrambled eggs.

He cleared his throat and attempted to
maintain distance. “Do you want to know what was in the box last
night?”

“Do I?” she countered.

He shrugged. “Your call.”

She laid her fork next to her plate and met
his eyes over the table. “Tell me.”

He paused for a brief moment as his brain
weighed the consequences of telling her.

“Tell me, Max.”

“A blue slinky thing.”

“Lingerie?”

He nodded.

“What kind?”

“Huh?”

“What kind of lingerie?”

“Like I said, blue, slinky and transparent.”
He shifted at the thought of the soft silk as it flowed over her
slender hips, caressed her smooth thighs and tickled the rounded
edges of her creamy ass.

“Oh, God.” Her shoulders shook and she
dropped her head into her hands.

He threw his napkin on the table as he
scooted his chair back and walked around to her side. Removing her
hands, he pushed her head down between her legs. “Breathe.”

He watched her slender shoulders rise in her
attempt to fill her lungs. Several seconds later, she raised her
head and sat up. “This is getting creepy, Max, why would he send me
lingerie?”

His fingers worked the muscles at the base of
her neck. “You’re just so irresistible, Sex Kitten.”

“What did you do with it?”

“Kept it as a souvenir.” He grinned, making a
mental note of the designer label.

Her eyes widened and she began to
hyperventilate all over again.

“Sonuva-” He growled and pushed her head back
between her legs. “I was just kidding. I gave it to the
police.”

“Max,” she murmured breathlessly. “I really
need to go to the spa.”

He shifted impatiently as she lifted her head
and looked over her shoulder with her anguished eyes pleading for
him to understand. His restraint broke. Anything to make her eyes
sparkle.

“I’m driving.”

She dismissed his ultimatum with a wave of
her hand as she shot out of her chair and left the kitchen.
“Whatever,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Give me three
minutes.”

Caught completely off guard by her agreement,
Max pushed her chair back to the table and loaded dishes into his
arms. No sense coming home to a mess. Maxwell meowed from the
doorway and Max turned to watch him lick his lips.

Max threw a cautious glance out the doorway
toward the stairs to satisfy himself Cameron was occupied, then
placed the bowl with the remainder of the eggs on the floor.
Maxwell stood and flicked his tail before he sauntered to the bowl
and began nibbling the eggs. Max snickered and finished clearing
the table.

He had just stacked the last plate into the
sink when Cameron blew back into the kitchen and stopped beside the
table.

“You did this?”

He nodded.

Maxwell meowed and she glanced at him. “You
fed Maxwell.”

Max nodded again.

A smile spread her shiny pink lips and her
eyes sparkled with their usual luster. Hellcat Cameron was
back.

She braced one hand on her shapely hip. “If
you can get me to the spa in five minutes, Prince Charming, you
just might be worth keeping.”

An hour later, crammed into something
resembling a plastic lawn chair and forced to listen to some sort
of high-pitched music through the overhead speakers, Max heard
Cameron sigh as she lay on her stomach, almost comatose after her
massage. At least she was relaxed.

Sitting through her massage, watching another
man caress her baby smooth skin had been pure torture, not to
mention listening to her soft moans of pleasure. Hell. They’d been
almost orgasmic.

She claimed Spa Day was her favorite day of
the week, and as much as he hated to admit it, when she was happy,
he was happy. Damn happy since she was stark naked under the thin
white sheet over her, a fact he knew to be true since her clothing
occupied the chair beside him.

“Mmmm. You really should try this, Maxie,”
she murmured. “You need to relax, and this is the ticket.”

An easy smile played at the corners of his
mouth. He could think of a way that was a million times better: her
hot, writhing body pinned under his while he bucked and branded her
as his own. His now-erect cock twitched. Fortunately, it would take
several repeat performances to relax him.

“No can do, Princess. I’m on duty.”

“The security is tight here. Vince can’t get
in.”

“The answer is still no. I don’t want some
guy rubbing oil all over me.”

“I have some coconut oil at home.”

He coughed. The thought of her hands smearing
oil all over his body was enough to undo him.

“No.”

“Spoilsport.”

He took a deep breath. Now that she had
planted that seed in his brain, he could almost feel her dainty
little hands kneading oil into his very tense, knotted muscles.

The incessant buzz of her cell phone from the
depths of her discarded clothing jerked him back to reality.

Max glanced at Cameron, who hadn’t moved
since the buzzing began. “Aren’t you going to get that?”

She made no further effort to move. “No, I
don’t answer on Spa Day.”

He reached for the phone and stood. “Then you
should have turned it off.” He flipped it open, and bent to slap it
into the palm of her hand under the massage table.

She glared at him as she raised her head and
placed the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

Cameron’s rosy cheeks turned ash white as the
phone slid from her grasp. Max caught the phone in mid-air and
pushed the speaker button before handing it back to her.

She molded the sheet to her body before she
sat up. “Vince?”

“Hello, Cameron. Did you enjoy your
massage?”

“How do you know where I am?”

In an effort to reassure her, Max squeezed
her bare shoulder.

Stone cackled. “I know everything. Do you
really think your security alarm and that beefy idiot are going to
keep me from getting to you?”

“You’re supposed to be in prison.”

“They let me out for good behavior.”

“You don’t know how to behave,” she taunted.
“Leave me alone.”

Stone laughed again. “Not a chance, Baby. I
will have you again.”

“Listen, you jerk. I don’t –“

Max pulled the phone from her grasp and
snapped it closed before handing it back to her. “Leave it to you
to argue with a mad man.”

She snarled and pulled her arm back to throw
the phone across the room. She hesitated a moment and then handed
it back to him. He accepted her offer, impressed by her spunk.

“We’ll change the number today. Get
dressed.”

She lifted her chin. “No, I’m not leaving
until I’m done. I haven’t even exfoliated and that jerk is not
going to ruin my day.”

* * *

He grew angrier as he paced. She hung up on
him! When had Cameron gotten so brave? The more he thought about
her rejection, the more he realized he would have to show her he
meant business. She belonged to him and he would get her back, one
way or another.

* * *

CHAPTER TEN

After an amazingly quiet drive home, Max felt
a little more confident that Cameron might have actually been
scared into cooperation. Then he remembered exactly who he dealt
with. No way would she cooperate.

As soon as he brought her home from the spa,
she claimed she had work to do and headed to the upstairs den she
used as a studio. Relieved she would be occupied, he sauntered past
a large picture window on his way downstairs. He glanced out at the
bright sunlight and paused in mid-step as a flash of something
caught his eye. He took two steps backward and looked out the
window. There, in the yard next door, lay a woman sunbathing in the
nude. He scrubbed a hand down his jaw. Good God, did any of the
women in this neighborhood wear clothes? Granted, he hadn’t seen
Cameron naked, yet, but he’d come damn close.

He whistled low under his breath as he
watched the woman below smear suntan oil all over her full, naked
breasts and down each winding curve of her body. As she rubbed her
hands over the tanned surface of her stomach, she created absolute
chaos in his brain. Not because of her activity - she had no idea
he watched - rather, because Cameron already had him so dangerously
aroused.