Power to the Max (9 page)

“Second was the hairdresser.”

“But I took the receptionist job.”

“If you knew how to do hair, you’d have taken Tiffany’s job.”

Tiffany Lloyd. She’d given her male clients far more than a haircut. Another woman with secret motives and secret desires. And wanting something someone else owned had gotten her killed.

“Number three—”

“
Bethany
Spring
. Phone actress.”

“Phone sex operator,” Witt corrected with gritted teeth. “You liked that job the best, didn’t you?”

Max ignored the comment, unwilling to admit the truth. “Did you want me to ignore the fact that one of her regulars could have killed her?”

, who desperately wanted someone to love her, even if it was only a voice over a phone line.

“I wanted you to let the cops do their job.”

“They never would have figured it out.”

“No matter how many good reasons you think you have, Max, no matter how many times you throw the fact that you uncovered those killers all by your lonesome, you are not going to pretend to be a hooker.”

“Pretend?”

That’s when he grabbed her arm, shackled her wrist with his fingers while he dug in his pocket for some bills. Max tried to wriggle free, but his grip was impossible to budge. So was the grim set of his mouth. When he started moving, she almost had to run or he’d have ended up dragging her.

At the side of her car, in full view of the wide-eyed spectators, he shoved his finger in her face. “Do not push me, Max. I will use my handcuffs to lock you to your bed if you don’t promise not to do something stupid.”

Lots of full sentences, he was pissed. So was she. She gave him a pert but tense smile. “Sounds like fun. I didn’t know you were into the kinky stuff.”

His eyes glittered dangerously in the light streaming through the restaurant windows. “Don’t push. You won’t like it.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. You have no right—”

Hauling her against his chest, he cut off her breath and her words. “I have every right. I care about you, and you damn well know you care about me. You’re too chicken shit to admit it. I will not let you pose as a hooker no matter how much you fight me over it.”

“Don’t order me around, Witt. You won’t like how I react.”

“Damn you, Max. You will listen to me.” His bite so harsh, his teeth crunched, and he lost it completely. He crushed her to him, and his lips were on hers before she had time to punch him in the gut.

He tasted sweet, like strawberry syrup and whipped cream, but his hold across her back was like a vise and his teeth ground against her lips. It wasn’t a nice kiss. It wasn’t a tame kiss. And she liked it for those very reasons. She could feel his desire, his need, like a drug in her veins. She could also hold onto her anger, let it fester and grow, an excuse to keep him at a distance, at least for tonight. For this relationship, figurative distance was the most important.

He set her down amidst muted laughter and applause from inside the coffee shop, her humiliation complete, his face blank and his gaze simmering, no explanation on his lips. Neither of them needed one.

Stepping back, her butt up against the car door, she stabbed his chest with her index finger. “You can kiss me, you can even fuck me, but don’t you ever”
—
another stab—“touch me again with the intention of controlling me.”

“You see control, I offer protection.”

“That’s not what I need from you.”

“Then what do you need? Do you even know?”

She fisted her hand against his chest, the anger flaring because he was right. She didn’t have a clue. She wanted to run, she wanted to hide, she wanted to open her arms and beg him to help her. Scary thought, that she might actually need him more than he claimed to need her. “You know, Witt, the hooker pretense never even occurred to me. But it’s a damn good idea. It’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

Then she pushed him back, climbed into the car, started her engine, and roared off into the night leaving him standing utterly alone.

* * * * *

Witt had followed her home, but he hadn’t even stopped the car, merely breezed right on by as she’d parked, expecting her to go in the way he’d ordered. Probably he’d gone back to make sure Ladybird had survived her night out despite Max’s bad influence. Mr. Knight in Shining Armor, looking after little blue-haired ladies and taking care of women who pushed him too far. Didn’t he ever give up? Was there nothing she could say that would make him finally, irrevocably dump her on her ass? Why did he keep coming back for more of her crap?

It wasn’t because Witt loved her, though he very well might. It was the challenge he liked, she was sure. Nothing to keep a man hanging around better than to tell him you couldn’t stand him and wouldn’t ever consider doing him again. It was a dare their egos couldn’t pass up.

“That’s doesn’t describe the detective at all.”

God, she should know better than to have these internal arguments with herself when Cameron could eavesdrop. “He’s a man. Ergo, he’s got a big ego.”

“He’s got something big all right and you want it badly, Max.”

“He hasn’t got a thing I want.”

“You want him to fuck you.”

“He already has, Cameron. It wasn’t that great.” It was stupendous. And scary as hell.

“I heard that. You loved it. You’re dying for him to do you again. But you’re on the run again, sweetheart. Stop fighting what you really want.”

Max removed her blazer and threw it across the wooden chair in the corner. “It’s late. I’m tired. I don’t want to fight with you.”

“You’re in the perfect mood for a fight. It’s what you do best.”

Her tie, blouse, and slacks went the way of the blazer, the tie slipping off the chair seat to the floor. “What bug got up your butt, Cameron?”

“I’m horny.”

She laughed. “You’re a ghost. You don’t get horny.” Max climbed into bed without removing her panties and bra.

“I can smell how hot you are,” he whispered.

Her panties grew moist. She rolled over to face the window and pulled her knees to her chest, clamping her legs to try to hide the evidence. “I’m going to sleep now.”

“You can’t sleep. You’re dying to get fucked.”

“Why are you doing this
now
?”

The bed dipped as he crawled in behind her. A warm body against her back, a hard cock pressed to the seam of her butt. She knew it was her imagination, but in the dark, her lids closed, barring reality, Max could actually feel him. It had been this way since he died. She could make him real, corporeal, as long as she kept her eyes closed. When she opened them, the sensation of his limbs twined with hers would disappear. Poof. Gone. All she had to do was open her eyes.

That, Max couldn’t do. Not right now. No matter how much she tried to tell herself to do so.

“Beg me, Max. Tell me how badly you want my cock deep inside you.”

“You sound like Witt.”

“Pretend I am Witt.”

God, she ached. She fought Witt every step of the way, maybe because she had Cameron to come to her in the night and give her what she couldn’t willingly accept from Witt.

A hand slipped inside her panties, delved between her legs to that sweet hot spot. Her clitoris. He stroked in all her heat and wetness. She unfurled her legs, granting him greater access.

“You love sex. Why do you fight it? Just take it, baby, take it all.”

She bit her lip to hold back a moan.

“This is what you want from him. Every night. His fingers in you. His tongue working you over. Admit it.”

The work shifted and a tongue played her clitoris, sucking and licking until she knew she’d lost her mind. He entered her from behind, pulling her leg over his for a deeper penetration. Witt’s aftershave swirled around her and in the dark, his size and breadth filled her. He rocked against her butt, driving deeper, higher.

“It’s not him,” she whispered.

A big warm hand cupped her breast, squeezing the tight bud of her nipple. Cameron’s hands were never that big.

“It’s me.” Witt’s voice rumbled against her ear.

“Don’t do this, Cameron.”

He pushed her forward onto her stomach and rose above her, holding her legs wide as he pumped. He was so good, so heavy, so big. So like Witt.

“You want me to make love to you, Max. I know you do. Admit, how badly you want it.”

“I don’t,” but she couldn’t hold back the moan that followed. “All I have to do is open my eyes, and you’ll be gone.”

“Then do it. See if you can.”

She couldn’t. Her eyes seemed glued shut. She couldn’t give this up. He pushed a hand beneath her and stroked her clit again, a rough rub as if it were Witt’s slightly callused fingers touching her.

“Stop it, Cameron. Please be yourself. Don’t be him.”

“It’s your fantasy, Max.” That voice. Witt’s voice. Seducing her. “You can change it any time you want.”

She couldn’t dispel the image or the feel of Witt. She couldn’t find Cameron in the darkness. He wrapped his arm around her belly, held her tight as he rammed into her. Oh God, oh God. Lights swirled and showered behind her lids. She was so close, almost there.

He hit high and stopped. She almost screamed her need aloud.

“Say it.”

“Please don’t stop.”

He rotated his hips. “Say it.”

She panted. Her fingers twitched, trying to find her clitoris for that shining relief. But he held her back with one of his big hands.

“Say it.”

“Fuck me.”

He gave a quick pump, pushing her further out on that orgasmic ledge, but not quite over.

“Say what you really want.”

“Make love to me. Please.” Tears of need squeezed past her lids.

“What’s my name? Say my name.”

She wriggled, trying to force him to move.

“Say it, Max.”

God. “Make love to me, Witt. Please, please make love to me.”

He let loose, his cock slamming into her, kneading her cervix, while his fingers glided across her clitoris. She came then, in an explosion of lights and hard, pounding breath. He pumped his semen into her, his cock throbbing, pulsing. Her orgasm seemed to go on forever.

“I love you, Max.” Still Witt’s voice, floating around her.

Terrified, she opened her eyes, and he was gone.

Witt wasn’t in her room, and Cameron’s eyes flashed in the branches of the tree outside her window.

“Why?”

Cameron knew what she asked without further explanation. “You have to move on, my love. Witt is your destiny.”

Her body’s moisture dried up. Her throat closed, suddenly parched. “I only said that to get the orgasm.”

“You could have opened your eyes and given yourself the orgasm. You didn’t need to beg him to make love to you.”

“I don’t like your games anymore, Cameron.” She rolled over, away from the window.

“It wasn’t a game, Max. It was your heart’s desire, if you’d only reach for it.”

If she reached for Witt, she’d lose Cameron.

“I’m already dead, sweetheart. Dead and cremated. I’m not even beneath that headstone you erected.”

Max covered her ears and burrowed her head beneath the pillow. With strength of will she didn’t know she had, she fell asleep to the mantra of, “I will not remember this nightmare in the morning.”