Desperate to the Max (32 page)

Witt behave? He wouldn’t be the bane of Max’s existence if he behaved. He also wouldn’t be half as interesting or anywhere near as sexy.

With one deep breath, Max Starr blew out all thirty-three candles on her birthday cake.

“Oh my, oh my. What strong lungs you have. Now you have to cut your cake.” Ladybird held the biggest knife Max had ever seen.

“And don’t forget, I like mine big, Max, very big.” DeWitt Quentin Long, homicide detective, and Max’s sort-of boyfriend, smiled. Scrumptious in his black suit, charcoal shirt, and red tie, he made her tingle. She loved red and black, especially on him. She’d even come to love the blond hair and dimple in his chin.

Ladybird slugged him in the arm. Thank goodness she didn’t use the hand that still held the knife. “DeWitt, I know that was some kind of sexual innuendo. Control yourself. You’re embarrassing Max. And get out of your father’s chair.”

Witt, despite being a foot taller than his mother, vacated his seat at the head of the table. Ladybird had cleared five chairs of the stacks of grocery store flyers, advertisements, and magazines she refused to throw out due to a slightly irrational fear of dumpster divers. She was afraid someone would get her address labels. What was frightening about that since most of them appeared to be addressed to “Resident,” Max had yet to figure out.

So, seat number four was Horace’s. But what about the fifth?

Max had two things in common with Ladybird. First was the fact they both talked to the spirits of their dead husbands, the only difference being that Ladybird’s Horace had been dead for fifteen years and Cameron for only two. Finding out you aren’t the only person living with a ghost had been a real bonding experience. Then, of course, there was a fondness for that big brute of a son. Ladybird adored her son. Max didn’t quite
adore
, but she did at least like him most of the time.

“If you want her to cut, Mom, you better give her the knife.”

Max took the proffered blade and pulled out the burned candles. This was her first birthday party in over two years, even if it was only Witt and his mother. She hadn’t been a social creature since Cameron died, but damn if she wasn’t beginning to like these little get-togethers—tonight being the second one—with the Long family, deceased members included. If she didn’t watch out, she might even start depending on them. Scary thought.

She cut through layers of whipped cream ... and whipped cream ... and more whipped cream, finally hitting chocolate pay dirt somewhere near the cake plate. It was a wonder the candles hadn’t sunk into the middle of all the white goo.

Ladybird clapped her hands as Max lifted out the first piece, a big piece, whipped cream dripping all over. The creation was definitely the most bizarre thing Max had ever seen.

“It’s a bowl cake,” Ladybird said proudly.

“A bowl cake?” Witt echoed, staring at the half-inch layer of chocolate cake amidst all that white sweetness.

“Well, I have to admit it was the first cake I’ve baked from scratch in over twenty years. I don’t know what I did wrong, but the middle fell when I took it out of the oven. I didn’t want to waste it, so I filled it with whipped cream.” She flapped a hand. Thank God she didn’t have the knife anymore. “The girls at the church will love the leftovers.”

Ladybird’s blue hair sparkled in the light of the small dining room’s chandelier. She was a tiny woman. Max had always found it hard to believe she could have produced a giant like Witt. The only thing he’d inherited from his mother was a pair of brilliant blue eyes.

Max finished dishing out three plates of the bowl cake and set the knife down at the edge of the serving dish.

“Oh my dear, you must have more than that.”

Max looked down at the tiny slice she’d given herself.

“You’re such a slip of a thing,” Ladybird added. Cameron, less polite, would have called her anorexic at five-foot six-inches and a bit over one hundred pounds.

Max dutifully added another scoop—
slice
wasn’t really the right word—to her plate, then handed the desserts around.

Ladybird gasped.

“What?” Max looked to make sure she hadn’t dropped gobs of whipped cream on the tablecloth.

“You forgot Horace and Cameron.”

Ah, the fifth chair was for Cameron. It was one thing for Max to talk with her late lamented husband. It was quite another to invite him to a party with Witt present.

Max turned to Witt for guidance. Busy shoveling whipped cream and minuscule bits of chocolate cake into his mouth, he gave her that cool blue stare of his, the one that said
you’re on your own, babe
.

“Horace loved cake,” Ladybird went on. “I always cut him a piece so he doesn’t feel left out. Don’t you feel the same about Cameron?”

Max smiled and picked up the knife to cut two more pieces.

You can find all the Max Starr mysteries at
www.jbskully.com

The Max Starr Series
by Jasmine Haynes

Dead to the Max
, Book 1

Evil to the Max
, Book 2

Desperate to the Max
, Book 3

Power to the Max
, Book 4

Vengeance to the Max
, Book 5

Max Starr is also available in Print on Demand

Kinky Neighbors Excerpt

Here’s a taste of one of Jasmine’s steamy romances. Be warned, this one is pretty darn naughty!

Kinky Neighbors

A naughty little foursome tale

Cover design by Rosemary Gunn

Two couples, two very hot wives, two husbands who don’t mind a little swapping...

The Mitchells and the Harts have been next door neighbors and friends for the past year. They have loads in common; double incomes, professional careers, no kids,...and a kinky streak.

Now they’re about to become
very
good friends...with kinky benefits.

The sex between them all is hot, naughty, and unbearably exciting. It isn’t merely swapping partners and moving to another room; it’s true foursome sex, same room, same bed, all four involved. For Drew and Cat Mitchell and Logan and Alexis Hart, it’s about barreling through boundaries none of them have ever crossed before, doing kinky things they’ve only fantasized about. But when they begin to exchange not just sex but emotional connection, the problems start; a little jealousy, feeling left out, wanting more from the wrong partner. Can two couples really share everything without losing it all?

Excerpt

Copyright 2011 Jasmine Haynes

Her body was lithe, strong, and she worked him from the inside, milked him, turned him mindless. Cat had taken belly dancing lessons a few years ago, and though she’d stopped the dancing, she’d never lost the ability to use those muscles on his cock when he was deep inside her.

“I want to be fucking you just like this,” she whispered, “straddling your hips, riding you”—she laughed softly, a naughty, sexy sound that tightened every muscle in his groin—“while you’re licking her.”

Drew squeezed her breast, pinching her nipple hard. She moaned, liking sex with a nibble of pain, loving it when she was spinning him a fantasy at the same time.

“I want to look down and watch you devouring her pussy.” This time she groaned. Fantasies about other people always made her engine purr louder. But fantasies about their next-door neighbors made his wife come harder than even in the first blush of love when they couldn’t get enough of each other.

She threw her head back, her gorgeous brown-sugar hair falling over her shoulders. “Oh, Drew, she loves it, moaning, pinching her own nipples.” Cat took him with a faster rhythm, a harder pump, working herself up with her fantasy of their pretty neighbor. “She wants your big hard cock in her, Drew.”

When she was like this, Cat simply dragged him along. His body quaked and trembled, rising almost on its own to drive hard into her. He grabbed her hips, pistoned deep as she leaned back to give him the best angle for her G-spot. With sharp little stings, her fingernails broke his skin as she braced herself on his thighs.

“Fuck her,” she cried out, “fuck her hard.”

Christ, he loved her hot and out of control like this. Then her inner muscles clamped down on him as her orgasm began to ripple through her. She panted, moaned, tightened her thighs along his hips and bucked on him.

Her climax wrenched his from him, and he shot high inside her, shouting out her name.

Moments later, his limbs still jerking, he pulled her down, wrapping her in his arms. “Jesus,” he muttered against her fragrant hair.

“That was so hot, baby. I want us to do her just like that, me on your cock and you with your face buried in her pussy.

Drew laughed. “God, you’re filthy.”

She tipped her head back, grinned at him. “And you love it.”

Yes, he did. “You amaze me.” Cat was special, gorgeous, with a slim, athletic body that made him crazy and a kinky, naughty attitude toward sex that was more male than female. They’d once hired a Las Vegas call girl to watch them have sex. Cat was an exhibitionist. They’d been married for ten years, Cat was thirty-eight, he was seven years older, and their sex life was still fantastic.

She nuzzled his neck. “I know how much you love licking a woman, and that’s what I want to give you.”

“You’re too good to me, sweetheart.” He kissed her forehead as if she’d just made him a great meal instead of offered up another woman to him. She honestly did not have a jealous bone in her body. They did a lot of fantasizing, imagining sex with other couples they’d met, threesomes, foursomes. He knew she’d done a threesome before he met her, two men and her, but neither man was her boyfriend. She claimed that doing it with him, her husband, would be entirely different, taking things to a whole new level.

She stroked his cock to life again. “I just want to make sure you don’t get tired of having sex with me. Men need spice.”
She
needed spice, and her imagination was fertile with ways of getting it.

She loved role playing. She’d had him try to pick her up in a bar, pretending they didn’t know each other. He’d practically had to go to blows with another guy that was hitting on her. She’d loved the attention; then she’d fucked him in their car with the bartender having a smoke not ten feet away. She liked it risky, the fear of getting caught, public sex, in the back of a car, a dark bar, once on the hood in a parking garage. She thrived on anything edgy, always coming up with ways to keep their sex fresh. Cat needed to push her sexual limits; she needed fire.

Six months ago, they’d moved from fantasy into reality. At least they’d tried, meeting a couple off a personal ad Cat saw online. Unfortunately, nothing came of it. The couple was nice enough, married for twenty years, both in their early fifties rather than the mid-forties they’d claimed, and their definition of height-weight proportionate was not quite the same as Cat’s. Ultimately the attraction wasn’t there. Either you felt it, or you didn’t.

Lying in his arms, Cat plucked at the hair on his chest. “I told Alexis that we always hot-tub in the nude.”

Drew chuckled. “What did she say to that?”

He felt Cat’s shrug. “She just gave me a look.”

Tomorrow they were heading out for Tahoe where they’d rented a house close to the lake for a week. And they’d invited their neighbors. Logan and Alexis Hart had moved into their Saratoga neighborhood a little over a year ago. Alexis was a controller for a Silicon Valley microwave radio manufacturer, and Logan was CEO for a San Francisco-based Fortune 500 company. Like Drew and Cat, they had professional careers, double incomes, and no kids to tie them down. They’d gone from backyard barbecues to dinner and card games that lasted long past midnight. Now this, a week-long Tahoe vacation for some hiking, lake fishing, relaxing. And, if Cat had her way, some very kinky games.

“I’m dying to see how you’re going to bring up the subject of sex,” he mused.

Cat puffed a breath across his chest. “We’ve talked about sex before.”

“Sexual innuendo and jokes. It’s not the same as asking her if she’d like me to...”

“Make her come with your tongue.” Trust Cat to finish the thought. “Don’t you worry. I’ll find the perfect opening to get the ball rolling.”

“I’m sure you will.” His wife was out there, known for saying exactly what was on her mind. “What about Logan?”

She outright snorted. “He’s not going to be any problem at all.”

Drew had to agree. He didn’t believe Logan was a player, but the man had certainly gotten into the sexual innuendo thing with vigor. When Cat suggested strip poker instead of their regular game of Hearts on one of their card nights, Logan had jumped at the idea. It was Alexis who nixed it. She was a petite, pretty, blue-eyed blonde with sexy curves and mouth-watering breasts, but she was on the shy side, far more reserved than Cat. Drew liked her well enough. She was smart, funny, your basic all-around nice girl next door with the ability to really listen to what a man said, not just lip service. So to speak.