Victim of Deception (6 page)

“Am I hurting you?”

“No, no. It feels incredible.”

Slipping one hand beneath her stomach, he held her tighter against him. His thrusts picked up speed until he was hammering into her. Leaning over her body, he drove his tongue into her ear. She shivered.

“This feels…
God
…so good. I love having my cock in your ass.”

“Harder, Max.
Harder!
”

Karessa’s breaths became choppy and uneven…the sign of an impending orgasm. Sliding his hand farther down her stomach, he caressed her clit. “That’s it, babe. Come for me while I’m fucking your ass.”

Her body bucked beneath his. The contractions of her orgasm grabbed his cock. His balls tightened. Max thrust as deeply inside her as he could and came.

Remembering how to breathe took too much concentration. Instead, he followed Karessa as she stretched out on the blanket. He lay still, his shaft still inside her, while the aftereffects of his orgasm flashed through his body. Making love with Karessa was always special. This had been…overwhelming.

His heart clutched in his chest again. He’d never told a woman he loved her. Feelings so strong, so powerful, had to be expressed out loud. He kissed the curve of her ear. “I love you, Karessa,” he whispered.

She lifted her head and gave him a gentle smile. “I love you, too.”

K
aressa slipped her hands in the pockets of her slacks and stared at Max. He sat in the porch swing, his head resting on the back, his eyes closed. She took the time to study him. A few strands of gray were now mixed in his dark hair. The laugh lines at the corners of his eyes were more pronounced. Other than those two things, she saw no evidence of his aging. His stomach was still as flat as it had been five years ago, his chest and shoulders as broad. He’d always had a killer body.

The mustache was new. Full and thick, it almost covered his upper lip. Karessa had never kissed a man with a mustache. She couldn’t help wondering how it would feel against her lips…and other, more intimate, parts of her body.

His chest rose and fell steadily as if he were asleep. He must be having a very sexy dream. His erection filled the crotch of his faded jeans.

Her mouth watered at the sight.

She cleared her throat. “Max.”

Nothing. “Max,” she said a bit louder.

Still nothing. Karessa wiped her palm on her slacks and touched his shoulder. His body jerked. He opened his eyes and
whipped his head toward her. That laserlike silver gaze pierced her, making her catch her breath.

It should be against the law for a man to ooze so much sex appeal.

“Karessa.” He frowned slightly. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s my house.”

“It’s the middle of the day. You’re usually at work.”

He sat up straighter, and winced. She had no doubt his jeans had cut into his erect penis. She turned her head for a moment to give him the privacy to adjust himself. Not wanting to tell him about her headache, she gave him another reason she’d come home in the middle of the day. “I wanted to talk to Kevin about one of the upstairs rooms. I’ve been leaving early and getting home late, so haven’t had the chance to say more than a few words to him in passing.”

She saw him stand out of the corner of her eye. Deciding it must be safe to look at him again, she once more faced him.

“Kevin went out to lunch. Can I help you with something?”

She wanted to get Kevin’s opinion about renovating the bedroom she liked so much. Getting Max to look at it first only made sense. Friend or not, she doubted if Kevin would have Max working for him if Max wasn’t good at his job. “Come with me please.”

She led the way upstairs and down the hall. Outside the door to the bedroom, that strange chill flowed over her again. She paused and looked over her shoulder at Max. He was looking up at the ceiling, a slight frown on his lips. “What’s wrong?”

“I feel cold air.” His gaze met hers. “You didn’t turn on the A/C, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Weird.”

With a shrug, Max reached past her to turn the doorknob. He pushed open the door and Karessa stepped across the threshold. He followed her into the room. Turning in a circle, he took in everything from the ceiling to the floor, including the furnishings. When he faced her again, a sensual light filled his eyes.

“It’s sexy and feminine, just like you.”

She slipped her hands in her slacks pockets, unsure how to respond to his observation. Deciding it was best to ignore it, she returned to the subject of the house. “I’ve thought about making it my bedroom. Aunt Grace’s room is nice, but this room is…” She stopped, not knowing what words to use to describe how she felt about this room.

Max nodded. “I understand.” He took one step closer to her. “What do you want me to tell Kevin?”

“There’s a small sitting room next to this one. I’m wondering if it can be turned into a bathroom. I’d like to make a door in the wall there…” She pointed to the wall on her left. “So it could be my private bath.”

“I doubt that would be a problem, but it depends on the plumbing. Eddy can tell you better than I can.” He slipped his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “This is the first time I’ve been upstairs. Kevin assigned me to the kitchen.” He gazed at her again. “It doesn’t look like it needs much work. It’s almost as if…” He stopped.

Karessa knew what he’d been about to say. “It’s almost as if someone lives here.”

“Yeah.” Walking over to the dresser, he ran his fingers along the polished wood. “No sawdust. Have you cleaned in here today?”

She shook her head. “The door was padlocked. I couldn’t find the key, so the plumber unscrewed the hinges for me over a week
ago, but I haven’t cleaned anything. I don’t know how long it had been locked up.”

“Even with the door shut, dust would seep in over time.”

Cool air flowed over Karessa, making her shiver. She wrapped her arms across her breasts.

“You okay?” Max asked.

She nodded. “I just had a chill.”

Eyes narrowed, he walked up to her. “Are you sure that’s all?”

“Of course I’m sure. I…” She stopped when a sharp pain passed through her forehead. She winced and pressed her hand against her temple.

“You have a headache, don’t you?” Max asked.

“It isn’t bad.”

“Yeah, right.” He stepped behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Let me help—”

She jerked away from him. “I told you not to touch me.”

She heard him release a heavy sigh as she faced him again. “I wasn’t making a pass, Karessa. I only want to help.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Max?” Kevin called out. “You upstairs?”

“Yeah,” Max said, his gaze still on Karessa’s face.

She turned to the door. Kevin walked down the hall toward them. When he reached the doorway, he stopped in his tracks. His eyes widened and his eyebrows disappeared into his hair.

“Whoa!”

“What’s wrong?” Karessa asked.

“I can’t…go in there.”

“What do you mean, you can’t come in here?” Max asked. “We’re in here.”

“Yeah, but…” Eyes still wide, he quickly scanned every corner of the room. “I can’t do it, man.”

“I want this room renovated, Kevin.”

He held up both hands, palms toward her. “Sorry, Karessa. I’ll do the rest of the house, but I won’t do that room.”

She frowned. “But that doesn’t make sense.”

“I know it doesn’t, but…” He stopped again. “Sorry.”

He turned and quickly walked back down the hall toward the stairs.

Max looked at Karessa. “What the hell was that about?”

“I don’t know. Eddy wouldn’t come in here either. He took the hinges off so I could open the door, but wouldn’t come in here with me.”

She didn’t understand why Max would enter this room when no one else would. Something was stopping everyone else from crossing the threshold.

“If you really want this room renovated, I’ll do it.”

Karessa bit her bottom lip. She hated to ask Max for anything. Perhaps some of Kevin’s other employees would do the work for her. “You can’t do it by yourself.”

“Sure I can.” He flashed her a crooked grin. “I’m good.”

His teasing made her chuckle. She’d always loved his quick wit and sense of humor.

She’d loved so many things about him…until he’d betrayed her.

“I’ll think about it. The downstairs is the most important. This can wait.”

Max nodded. “Let me know when you decide.”

“So you plan to be in Fort Worth awhile?”

“At least until your house is done.”

She stared at him, unable to drag her gaze away. He was just so…
male
. He filled the room with his presence, his very essence. His height, the breadth of his shoulders, his husky
body, that sexy mustache…everything about him oozed testosterone.

Damn hormones.

Another jab of pain in her head made her wince. Max took a step closer to her. “Karessa, let me help you. I remember when you had those headaches. A massage always helped you feel better.”

Yes, it had, because a massage had always led to sex. An orgasm had been the best pain fighter she’d ever discovered. “I just need to lie down.”

“The guys will start working again soon. You won’t get much rest with all the noise.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Max frowned. “You always were stubborn.”

The pain kept her from responding to him. Instead, she turned toward the door. “I have to lie down.”

Two feet from the doorway, a cold gust of air washed over her…colder than anything she’d felt so far in the house. Karessa gasped and stopped in her tracks. She didn’t realize that Max was right behind her. He bumped into her back and grabbed her upper arms.

“What’s wrong, Karessa?”

She drew in a sharp breath, but not from the cold. Max’s hands on her quickly brought forth yearnings she’d tried to forget. How she’d love to lean back against him, have his arms slide around her waist, his hands glide up to cradle her breasts. She’d gained weight in the last five years. She wondered if Max would like her fuller breasts.

His warm breath ruffled the hair over her ear. “Karessa,” he whispered as he squeezed her arms.

The feel of his cock brushing her buttocks gave her the strength to pull away from him. “Excuse me.”

She hurried down the hall to her bedroom, eager to be away from Max as quickly as possible.

Mary crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “I
told
you she still loves him.”

“Yeah, you did.” The satisfaction in her eyes made Aaron frown. “You don’t have to be so smug about it.”

“After a century, you should know when I’m right.” She flopped down on the bed, resting on one elbow. “Unfortunately, being right isn’t getting them back together.”

“Don’t you think Karessa’s dreams are helping?” Aaron asked. He sat on the bed next to his wife, as close as he could get.

“They’re helping her to remember, but they aren’t helping her to forgive him.”

“Maybe whatever he did to her is too much to forgive.”

Mary tapped one fingernail against her teeth. “There has to be a way to find out why she’s so angry at him. I’d have a better chance of helping her get over it if I knew exactly what he did. I tried to get them to stay in here so they’d talk longer, but they ignored me.”

“Too bad we can’t just ask them what happened between them.”

“That’s true.”

She lay back on the bed and linked her fingers together on her stomach. Her position let Aaron clearly see the soft swell of her breasts inside her neckline. His mouth watered with the desire to run his tongue over her creamy flesh.

“Aaron, stop,” Mary said softly.

He raised his gaze back to her face. Sadness filled her eyes. “Stop what?”

“We can’t be together. Stop looking at me like you want to make love to me.”

“I
do
want to make love to you. I want to kiss you, touch you, lick every inch of your skin…”

Mary abruptly sat up, her back to him and her head lowered. Aaron bent down so he could see into her face. “Mary, we can still pleasure each other.”

“I know that. We’ve been masturbating for almost one hundred years.”

“Do you think that’s wrong?”

She pushed her hair back from her face and turned to look at him. “No, I don’t think it’s wrong. I know it pleases you when I touch myself. I enjoy looking at you, too, when you touch yourself.” Tears flooded her eyes. “I’m just tired, Aaron. I want to be with
you
. I don’t want to rely on my own hand for an orgasm.”

Her tears made him feel helpless. “Mary—”

“They’re the key, Aaron. Karessa and Max are the key to breaking the spell. I
know
that. That’s why we have to get them back together.”

If she felt so strongly about it, then he’d do everything he could to help. “What do you want me to do?”

A
soft knock on the door made Karessa look up from her great-grandmother’s diary. “Yes?”

Max opened the door and peered inside. “Feeling better?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“May I come in?” He held up two plastic bags. “I thought you might be hungry.”

The scent of lemon chicken and pork chow mein drifted to her nose. Her mouth watered and her stomach growled. Her pounding head had kept her from eating any lunch.

She didn’t want to accept anything from him, but her taste buds had other ideas. “What did you buy?”

He grinned. “A little of almost everything. I didn’t have any lunch.”

“Me either.”

“So, may I come in? There isn’t much of a place to eat downstairs.”

That was true. The downstairs and most of the upstairs were demolished. Her room and the bedroom at the end of the hall remained the exceptions. If Max had been good enough to go out and get their supper, she could at least provide a clean place to eat it. “Come in.”

He entered the room and closed the door behind him. Although spacious, Aunt Grace’s bedroom seemed so much smaller with Max in it. Karessa moved over to make room for him on the bed. He sat down, one bent leg resting on the bed, and began unloading white cardboard containers from the sacks.

It seemed so right to have him in her bedroom.

She looked down at the diary still open on her lap. Thinking about her few months with Max hurt because of the way their relationship had ended, but she also had many fond memories from their time together. She’d loved him desperately, and had no doubt that he’d loved her, too…at least, in his own way.

What happened between them had taught her a lot about men and love. She didn’t trust as quickly now. It made it easier for her to determine whether or not to give a man more than one date.

It also made life lonely.

Max held out a bottle of water to her and a long, wrapped straw. “Here you go. I stopped at the convenience store a couple of miles from here so I could get a straw that would fit in your bottle.”

He remembered she liked to drink from a straw. The knowledge made her swallow hard. It was a simple thing, but something that had been important to her and he remembered. “Thank you.”

His smile made her breath catch. Dropping her gaze from his handsome face, she reached for one of the white containers. She opened it to find her favorite—lemon chicken.

Max handed her a plastic fork as he peered into her container. “Figures you’d find the lemon chicken right off the bat.”

“I have a good nose.”

“At least save me a bite.”

“Maybe,” she said with a grin.

He opened another container and scooped up a forkful of broccoli and beef. “I guess I should’ve picked up some paper plates.”

“This is fine. It’s like a picnic.”

She looked at him when she realized what she’d said. His eyes narrowed and turned sultry. “Picnics can be a lot of fun.”

Karessa cleared her throat and took another bite of lemon chicken, deciding it would be better to say nothing to that comment.

Max ate silently for a few moments before he gestured to the diary. “Whatcha reading?”

“My great-grandmother’s diary.”

He paused in the process of opening another container. “Really?”

Karessa nodded. “It was among the papers from Aunt Grace. I remember her mentioning it several years ago. She never read it. I can’t imagine why not. It’s part of our family’s history.”

“Your Aunt Grace was a bit of a rebel.”

“You’re telling me?”

Max chuckled. “I liked her. She was wild and fun and didn’t worry about what anyone thought of her. She followed her desires, no matter where they took her.”

“Yes, she did.”

She couldn’t help the sad note that crept into her voice. Max must have noticed it. He lightly touched her knee. “You miss her, don’t you?”

“Very much.”

“Look at it this way—she’s driving everyone crazy in heaven.”

The mental picture of Aunt Grace telling God exactly what to do made her laugh. “I have no doubt of that.”

She took another bite of her chicken. Max nudged her container with his fork. “You really aren’t going to share that, are you?”

“Only if you’ll share your pork chow mein.”

“Deal.”

She switched containers with him and dug into the noodles and meat dish. She’d taken two bites before she realized how intimate it was to share food with him.

The rumble of thunder startled her. “Is it raining?”

“It wasn’t when I came in, but there were a lot of dark clouds in the sky.”

“I haven’t turned on a TV in days, so I haven’t watched the weather or the news. I’ve no idea what’s happening in the world.”

“Same old stuff. You haven’t missed much by not watching the news. I’d imagine your great-grandmother’s diary is a lot more interesting than anything on TV.”

“I’m enjoying it very much.” Karessa set her container on the nightstand and turned the diary toward Max. “Here. Read this sentence.”

Max wiped his hands with a napkin before taking the book from her. “‘Some of those things make me wonder all over again if she is truly my mother.’” Frowning, he looked back at Karessa. “She doesn’t think her mother is really her mother?”

“She’s written that several times in the diary, at least in what I’ve read so far. I’m eager to find out if that’s actually true.”

He laid the book on the bed. “If it
is
true, then your ancestors are completely different than you’ve believed your entire life.”

“I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Does that bother you?”

Karessa considered his question for a moment. “No. I didn’t personally know any of my ancestors earlier than my grandparents anyway. I’ve always been interested in my family history, but if I find out my great-great-grandparents were other than who I thought they were, it won’t make any difference to me now.”

A frigid gust blew over Karessa and she shivered. “Did you feel that cold air?”

“Yeah.” Max frowned again as he looked around the room. “I’ve got to find that draft. I can’t figure out why there would be cold air in this house when it was eighty degrees today.”

Thunder rumbled again, closer this time. Max closed his empty container. “Sounds like that’s my cue to get out of here. If it starts raining, my truck will get stuck in the mud.”

“Thank you for bringing supper.”

He smiled. “My pleasure. I’ll put the rest of it in your refrigerator. The egg rolls are still in the sack. I figure you’ll have one about…nine o’clock, right?”

“You remember a lot about my habits.”

His smile faded. “Yes, I do,” he said softly. “You might be surprised at all the things I remember about you, Karessa.”

The tenderness in his voice made her want to reach out to him. Instead, she handed him her empty container and water bottle. “Good night.”

He stared at her for a long moment before standing. “Good night.”

At the door, he turned to face her. “This was nice. Thank you for having dinner with me.” He opened the door, but didn’t step
across the threshold. “I want you to know I regret hurting you. If I could go back, I’d do everything differently.”

“But we can’t go back, can we?” Karessa whispered.

“No, we can’t. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorrier than I can ever tell you.”

She watched him go through a blur of tears. She was sorry, too…sorry that the lure of riches had meant more to Max than her love.

A flash of lightning lit up the dark sky outside the dining room. Max glanced out the window at the churning clouds. If they ever opened up, it would rain buckets.

“Hey, Max.”

He turned at the sound of Kevin’s voice. “Yeah?”

“All of Tarrant County is under a tornado watch. I don’t want to take any chances with my guys’ safety, so I’m letting everyone go early.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“You wanna lock up for me?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks. My wife freaks at thunderstorms. I gotta get home and protect her.” He bobbled his eyebrows and grinned devilishly. “She’s always
really
appreciative of my protection.” He clapped Max on the shoulder. “Finish up and get out of here. I’ll see you Monday.”

“Okay.”

Max thought about Kevin’s words as he began gathering up his tools. Kevin’s wife was afraid of thunderstorms. Karessa loved them. She wasn’t crazy about lightning, but the more thunder and rain, the better. He could remember a couple of times when
they’d lain together in bed after making love and listened to the storm raging around them.

He missed that closeness, that intimacy, with a woman. He could get sex anywhere. Making love to a woman was totally different than having sex. He didn’t think he’d ever “made love” to any woman but Karessa.

It would be so easy to fall in love with her again. Knowing that she wouldn’t return his feelings hurt all the way to his soul.

Sticking to their agreement hadn’t been easy. He couldn’t help being around her when she came home early. He also couldn’t help worrying about her, like on Tuesday afternoon when she had a headache. All he’d wanted to do was take care of her. Chinese food had always made her feel better.

In the past, Chinese food had always been followed by lovemaking. Hell,
everything
had been followed by lovemaking. Karessa was an incredibly passionate woman.

Max sighed heavily as he dropped the hammer in his toolbox. He needed to get out of here. Being around Karessa and not having her was slowly eating away at him. He had to find that bond and get out of Fort Worth…and out of her life for good.

He had the perfect opportunity now to search. No one else was in the house. Karessa wouldn’t be home for hours. Some rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightning wouldn’t frighten him away.

Grabbing his hammer again, Max headed for the stairs and the bedroom at the end of the hall.

He stopped two feet past the doorway and looked at every corner, every wall. The bond had to be hidden in this room. It’s the only room in the house that had been padlocked, meaning
something
of value was in here.

Starting at the wall to his left, Max began tapping the wooden
boards, searching for a hollow sound. There could be a false wall, or even a secret hiding place behind one of the boards.

He jumped at a crack of thunder. A moment later, the skies finally opened up. It sounded like large hail hitting the roof instead of raindrops. At least with the horrible weather, he could be assured that Karessa wouldn’t be home early.

There. Max couldn’t be sure over the sound of the pouring rain, but that tap sounded different from the others. This could be it, the break he’d been wanting for two weeks. He tapped again, a bit harder.

“What are you doing, Max?”