Dead to the Max (27 page)

She closed her eyes and felt Cameron’s lips on her breasts, Cameron’s teeth on her nipples, Cameron’s hands on her hips as he pulled her flush against the rigid bulge in his pants.

She went back on her elbows. Nick trailed kisses down her stomach. His tongue delved into her belly button. She shoved her fingers through his hair, getting caught on the snarls left over from the rain. She knew what he wanted, knew exactly where he was headed, knew she’d let him do it despite the frightening intimacy.

His hands cupped her bottom, then his fingers tugged at the elastic waist of her thong. “Christ, I love these panties.”

“Kinky. Bet your wife never wore anything like these.”

He looked up, and she expected something dark, something menacing, in his eyes. Instead he gave her a lady-killer smile. “Neither did Wendy.”

She lifted her hips as he pulled her panties down past her knees, watched as he threw them into the alcove. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. It was the last chance to stop.

But Cameron wasn’t with her anymore, and she felt Nick’s warm breath on her pubic hair.

With the first moan that left her lips as his tongue touched her clitoris, she bound him to her. Her fingers tangled in his hair, urging him on, and she ensnared him. She bit her lip, moved her hips against him, cried out despite herself. His grip tightened on her butt as he held her relentlessly against his mouth and his probing tongue.

An image of Witt suddenly flashed across her mind, and she swore as she came, flexed her legs, held the man between them to her. She claimed him with every shudder that racked her body, marked him with her fingernails, but with her eyes closed, she saw Witt’s blue gaze impaling her.

Nick raised his head, gaze darkened by the fury of possession, then pulled away. She tugged at his button fly, the material popping, and with his help, dragged his jeans and underwear down his thighs. He braced his arms, and plunged inside her.

She almost climaxed, held it off with effort, waited for his mouth, his lips on hers. The edge of the step dug into her spine as he pushed into her. Her head fell back, bumping against the stair above. Then he kissed her. She tasted herself on his tongue. The eroticism of it sent her over the edge, and she cried out against his mouth. She bit down on her own lip because the name she wanted to scream wasn’t his. Moments later, he followed, his semen filling her with power, driving her higher, taking her places she never usually went.

Except with Cameron. And in that morphmare with the detective.

Witt was the name that echoed in her head until she looked at the man on top of her. He pulled out of her in one swift move, and her body closed in on itself. Inevitable shame nudged the edges of her dissipating afterglow.

Nick lay still between her legs. “I didn’t use a condom.”

His words made her feel open, vulnerable, cold. “I didn’t need one.”

She couldn’t have children. She and Cameron had learned that early on in their marriage.

“What about the Round Up—”

He stopped, and she knew suddenly he didn’t mean making babies. He meant disease. He meant her. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut, but she kept them wide. “You don’t have to worry. I’m healthy as a horse.”

“I wasn’t saying...” But he was. She could see it in his eyes. He ran a finger gently down her face. “You don’t need the Round Up or those guys anymore, you know. I’ll take care of you.”

Her stomach clenched. “Take care of me?”

“I want to.”

“Nobody takes care of me but me.” She pushed at his chest.

“I didn’t mean—”

“You’re heavy.” She’d craved just that kind of divine heaviness since Cameron’s death. Now, it suffocated her.

His lids fell, shuttered his eyes, then he stood and pulled up his jeans. He towered over her, and the dynamic shifted. Man on top. In control.

Max sat, backed up one step, closed her legs, pulled together the lapels of her robe, and went for the jugular. It was the obvious power play. “Wendy died because of your affair.”

He stared at her as he fastened the buttons of his jeans. His jaw moved with the grind of his teeth. “Wendy died because I left her alone that night.”

Max stood, too, three steps above him. Buzzard mewled softly at the top of the stairs. “She died because someone knew she’d had an affair with you.”

“We’d stopped seeing each other when I left Hackett’s.”

“You started again.”

“No one could have known she was meeting me.” He grabbed her arms, shook her slightly. “Where the hell is this shit coming from? We just made love.”

She laughed at him. “Made love?” Then she shrugged him off. “We just fucked. The way you fucked Wendy every morning before Remy got there.”

“That’s not the way it felt when you came against my mouth.”

“I told you I like orgasms.”

She wanted him hurting, bruised, and down. She wanted him gone. She wanted her shame hidden from the light of day. Hidden from him. Then maybe she could hide it from herself.

“Wendy left her husband for you. And someone killed her because of it.”

The breath he took expanded the shirt across his chest.

She felt a sharp pain right beneath her bottom rib, as if someone had shoved a knife up there. And twisted. “Maybe you’ve got a clue about who’d have done that.”

He tensed. “Yeah?”

“Maybe it was your wife, Nickie.”

He went still, rock still, except for the muscle ticking in his cheek. “She didn’t know I was meeting Wendy that night.”

“She picked up the kids. She could’ve seen Wendy.”

“She didn’t know what Wendy looked like.”

“Don’t kid yourself.”

His gaze went flinty. “She couldn’t have known.”

“You know she did.”

He backed up, feeling behind him for the doorknob. “I warned you before. Leave my wife out of this.”

“Soon-to-be ex-wife. Feeling guilty that you might have driven your wife to murder?”

His nostrils flared. His fist tightened on the knob. His knuckles whitened. But he said nothing.

“Is she driving your 4Runner?”

“What?” He gaped at Max’s full frontal attack.

“A green Toyota 4Runner tried to run me down this evening. Your wife reported yours stolen this morning.”

Something flickered across his face. Anger? Fear? She couldn’t be sure. “Don’t push. You won’t like what happens.”

But Max couldn’t help pushing. It was what she did best. “Did she kill Wendy? Is she waiting out there to kill me after you leave, Nickie?”

He didn’t slam the door. He simply left without another word. She pushed the curtain on the door aside, but he’d gone as quietly as he’d arrived. She stared at the empty driveway.

“He isn’t coming back, you idiot.” Neither was Cameron. She let the curtain drop.

She reached down to pick up her underwear, and something warm trickled down the inside of her thigh.

Her face burned with her shame before she ruthlessly shoved the emotion aside.

Outside, gravel crunched beneath rolling tires.

Max’s heart kickstarted. She stepped back until her heels hit the first stair. If it was him, she sure as hell wouldn’t look anxious by peering out that window again.

A dark shape appeared. The pounding on the door was loud, authoritative. Max hesitated. Wendy screamed inside her.

Open the damn door.

She opened it to shut up the voice.

Her mouth went dry. A uniformed cop stood on the threshold, his fist still raised in the air. God, why? Did they know Nick was near?

The cop was young, his chin covered with peach fuzz. “You all right, ma’am?”

“I’m fine.” What had it been, five minutes since Nick left? It was close, too close. She thought about tucking her underwear in the pocket of her robe, but figured that would only call more attention to it.

“Ma’am, are you all right?” He scoped out the stairwell and the slash of room visible at the top.

She felt like throwing her hands in the air, but the underwear might just might catch the light. “Yes, I am very, very all right, Officer.”

Her bed was empty. The killer she’d harbored was gone. Her husband had left her for the astral plane. What a question. Of course, she was fine.

The cop tapped the brim of his cap. “Well, Detective Long wanted me to be real sure.”

“Witt sent you?” Now why didn’t that feel like a relief? It smacked more of checking up on her than looking out for her. But at least it meant he wasn’t lurking nearby.

“We’ll do drive-bys all night, ma’am.”

“I can’t tell you how safe that makes me feel.”

He looked at her, apparently figured there was no sarcasm in that comment, and smiled.

When he was gone, Max slammed the door, locked it, then ran up the stairs. She climbed into the shower before the water even got hot.

Witt. The beat of the water on the top of her head couldn’t stop the flood of shame.

She wondered what he would have done if he’d known how close the young cop had come to finding Nick inside her apartment. Inside
her
.

Jesus God, what had she just done?

Chapter Twenty-Four

It was dark. It was cold. It was stuffy. She hated the closet. Hated being afraid. Hated that he could make her feel so terrified.

Max put out a hand to touch the walls, felt something soft brush the top of her head as she moved. Clothing. Wendy’s clothing. Wendy’s closet. Wendy’s dream from when she was young. But it was Max’s nightmare, too, the one she began living when her mother died and they sent her to her uncle’s house.

Terror rose in her throat.

No, not again. Her own thoughts paralleled Wendy’s. She couldn’t catch her breath, the walls moved closer, and the sharp angles of Wendy’s Sunday shoes dug into her hip. She tugged her knees tight to her flat chest, wrapping her arms around them and clasping her fingers until the pressure made her hands throb.

Together, she and Wendy rocked on aching butt cheeks. Back and forth, back and forth, until she was dizzy.

Dizzy with Wendy’s thoughts. If she could just make it through to morning. He’d be sorry, put a hand to her face, beg her not to make him punish her again, beg her to be good, beg her to call him Daddy. All she had to do was wait till morning when he was so different from the nighttime Daddy. The bad Daddy.

The closet door jerked open.

She almost screamed.

He was a dark shape against the hall light, and all she saw were his legs wrapped in cotton pajamas and his ugly, bare toes. She was thirteen years old, and she knew what was coming. She had known since she was six. Sometimes it was better if he was naked from the start. That way he didn’t make her undress him. If he was dressed, he always made her touch him when she undid the buttons on his pajamas.

She hated touching him.

“What the hell are you doing in there?”

I knew you were coming, Father, and I hid. She didn’t say it out loud. Best to say nothing. She couldn’t win anyway. He was too strong. Always had been, always would be.

He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet.

Max’s heart pounded, her head pulsed with a litany of run-away-run-away. But Wendy had stopped running years ago.

He shoved her to her knees, her bones slamming on the hardwood floor. The shockwave rumbled up her spine.

“I told you no party, no gifts, and you did it anyway.”

Just a small party, with her two friends after school. Just small gifts, playing cards with pink and yellow fish, a paperback book, Marguerite Henry. She loved Marguerite Henry’s horse books.

But he smelled deception like a police dog sniffed out drugs, and he’d come home early.

“How many times do I have to teach you a lesson before you finally learn it?”

She didn’t answer, reached instead for the pearly white buttons on his pajamas. She just wanted it to be over. He slapped her hand away. “Not until I tell you.”

She bit her lip. Her teeth shuddered.

He grabbed her hair, yanked her forward, ground himself against her face. The tinny taste of blood seeped into her mouth where her teeth had split her lip.

“Do it now. I know you can’t wait, you little whore.” Moments later, his blue pajamas lay bunched around his ankles, and she didn’t have to say anything anymore. He groaned.

Max started to cry, felt the tears on Wendy’s cheeks. Felt them on the inside, too.

Wendy felt nothing.

He wrenched a fistful of hair. “Get on the bed. Take that nightgown off.”

She undid the ribbons and bows of her floor-length, flannel gown, then lay on the bed. She prayed that if God were merciful, she would die right this minute.

But the God she knew had never been merciful.

“Whore,” her father whispered close to her ear.

When he was done, he stood beside the bed. “You’re worse than any whore. You push me and push me until I’m forced to punish you this way. Now get up and wash yourself.” He closed the door to her bedroom, and she heard the twist of the key in the lock.

She rose then, went into the bathroom, and used a washcloth. He was right. She always did something, made some mistake, didn’t properly anticipate what might set him off. Almost as if she asked for the things he did. Moonlight fell through the bathroom window across her face, illuminating her features. She didn’t even know what she’d done until warm, sticky blood seeped through her fingers and the new crack in the mirror cleaved her face in two.

Totally alone, Max woke deep in the night, and dry-heaved over the side of the bed. Nothing came up except her fear. She dragged her legs to the edge and sat up, gripping the mattress. Body still trembling, she rocked. The rain had stopped. The birds were silent.

It was a holy time for promises.

Eyes closed, Max whispered into the dark. “I’ll kill him, Wendy. One day, I swear, I’ll kill him for you.”