Evil to the Max (34 page)

He didn’t disappoint her.

“I thought about you all night, Helen,” he murmured in his deep sexy rasp.

Achilles to her Helen of Troy. She’d chosen the name because she’d wanted the face and the body of a woman who’d launched a thousand ships. He was her poet, her romantic. He’d touched her core from that first call over a year ago. They’d long since passed the need for role-playing.

“What are you wearing, Helen?”

“That black garter belt you love, stockings, my black lace bra.”

He moaned. “I want to be inside you. Now.”

She undid the tie of her robe, then ran her fingers across her sensitized nipples. “Do you want me to touch myself?”

“Tell me what it feels like.” His voice was a low groan across the phone line, followed by a buzz and a crackle.

“You’re not on a cell phone, are you?” She didn’t mind if anyone listened in most of the time, but not with him. He was hers alone.

“No. Squeeze your nipples for me. Pinch them.”

She did, lightly, rewarding him with a moan.

“Spread your legs.”

“Oh yes, for you.” Her hand trailed across her stomach, through the nest of hair between her thighs.

“Are you wet?”

“So wet.” She was dripping.

“Put a finger inside yourself. Does it feel good?”

Her only answer was a deep hum she knew he could hear.

“Come for me. I want to hear you come.”

It didn’t take much. She moved her damp finger over her clitoris, whispered his name, and felt her orgasm build. She came with a bucking of her hips against her hand. She cried out, heard his indrawn breath, and knew he wanted her as much as she did him.

“I want to see you, Helen. Now. Tonight.”

A tendril of fear skittered across her scalp leaving a trail of cold in its wake. “You know we can’t do that.”

“I can’t stand it anymore. No one has to know.”

“It’s better this way.” On the phone. Anonymous. Safe.

“Helen, please, I must see you.”

This was an old argument, one they’d been having more and more often. Part excitement, part fear, his desire to meet her fueled her fantasy-lover dreams.

Some things, however, were best left in dreamland. Her Achilles was one of them. “No, it’s not possible.”

“Helen.” His voice changed. Stronger. Angrier perhaps. “I know where you live.”

She clutched her robe to her neck.
Oh God. No. He couldn’t.

“You live in a garden, don’t you?” His voice became almost sing-song. “That’s it, my love, you live on Garden Street.”

She yanked the headset off, grabbed the phone off the table, and threw it against the wall with more speed, strength, and agility than she’d used in the last decade.

She flopped back against the pillows and covered her face with her hands. Oh God. He knew where she lived. He’d see what she looked like. Then he’d leave ...

A noise behind her. Like Kitty-Kat paws on the plush carpet. No. Much heavier th—

The first blow knocked her unconscious.

The second crushed her skull.

* * * * *

Max Starr cradled the cell phone to her ear. “Now don’t get pissed, okay, but ... I saw another murder in a vision.”

Homicide Detective DeWitt Quentin Long sighed across the airwaves. “Dammit, Max, that’s not an excuse to get out of meeting my mother tonight.”

“Don’t worry, I’m already dressed for the occasion.” Still, the murder card
had
been worth a try.

“Good. And, while we’re on the subject, under no circumstances are you to tell my mother about your psychic visions or that you talk to your dead husband’s ghost. Understood?”

Hmm. Two orders in one sentence, and he was using that dictatorial cop tone, too. Obviously the guy felt the pressure with this first “Mom” meeting. Max would have to make an allowance. This time. “I wouldn’t dream of mentioning a thing.”

“My mother wants to know what you’d like for dinner.”

Boy, for a man who didn’t know the meaning of full sentences, he’d used a ton. “I thought she needed a week to clean the house, buy a dress, weed the garden,
and
plan the menu,” she fired back.

“Yeah, and now she’s down to three choices, chicken, turkey, or steak. What’s your preference?”

Her mouth watered. Witt had previously plied her with chicken and steak. “I vote for turkey.”

“Okay, now we’re square on that, tell me you
didn’t
see another murder.”

She shook her head despite the fact that he couldn’t see. “I wouldn’t lie about having a vision, even to avoid your mother.”

Another deep, long-suffering sigh. “Max Starr, you’re gonna be the death of me. All right, who got whacked this time?”

“Young woman, late twenties.” She fiddled with the edge of her new suit jacket.

“Location?”

“San Carlos.” The suburb was halfway between San Francisco and San Jose. The drive shouldn’t take him more than twenty minutes in a midweek non-commute hour. “I’m sitting in my car on Garden Street.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, let it out slowly. She almost felt the sound rather than heard it.

“Think you can find me, Detective?”

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 in Print on Demand:

Dead to the Max POD

Evil to the Max POD

Desperate to the Max POD

Power to the Max POD

Vengeance to the Max POD

Invitation to Seduction Excerpt

Here’s a taste of Jasmine’s steamy
Open Invitation
series.

Invitation to Seduction

Open Invitation, Book 1

Copyright 2012 Jasmine Haynes

Cover design by Rae Monet Inc

Previously published in 2006 in the
Open Invitation
anthology

Here’s your invitation to The Sex Club, elegant, classy, sexy, every woman’s fantasy, every man’s desire...

When her best friend drags her out to a bachelorette party, Debbie Carter knows one thing for sure—this will be the last time she'll try to attract the opposite sex. She's learned the hard way that she isn't desirable anymore. But when she flirts with a man at
The Sex Club
, she gets far more than she bargained for, and the game she plays soon turns to obsession for the fire in one man’s touch. Will she have to choose between the love of her life and her secure, safe, yet intolerable existence.

Stephen Knight enters the club looking for the woman he has fallen for over email and through her art work. She's everything he's ever dreamed of and seeing her in the flesh makes him desire her physically as well. As her passion comes to life in his arms, Stephen's lust turns to love. Wanting far more from her than a few nights of seduction, can he make her believe in forever?

Excerpt

“It’s a veritable mansion.” Virginia, seated in the backseat, rolled down her window. For the outing, she’d worn a peach silk suit, the skirt covering her to her knees. Next to Stacy, and Debbie in her sexy borrowed skirt and blouse, Virginia looked like a maiden aunt. Yet this place had been her choice, though Debbie thought The Sex Club was way out of character for Virginia.

Set amid a grove of eucalyptus at the end of a long, sloping drive, with the moon providing the only illumination, the house looked like something out of a Vincent Price movie. A hulking behemoth over three stories high, with dormer windows at presumably the attic level. No lights filled any of the windows. No valet parking attendants swarmed about the wide stone porch. Not a single living soul moved; not even a curtain flickered.

“It’s so quiet,” Virginia said, “it’s almost creepy.”

Stacy huffed. “It’s private. And exclusive. What did you expect, floodlights and a marching band?”

Debbie didn’t find the mansion creepy. Excitement rippled through her at the sight of it. The Sex Club’s mystery made her blood pump faster and her nipples harden. Moisture gathered between her thighs. The darkness beckoned, promised seduction, secrecy, and fantasy fulfillment.
Just
fantasy, she didn’t have to
do
anything. Observe, pretend for a little while. Jaywalk over to the wild side for a night. The clingy black top and skirt Stacy had loaned her, the high heels and stockings with garter belt, even the truly outrageous shade of vermillion Stacy had painted on her nails, all fit her blossoming mood. She’d walked out of her home with the promise to herself that something spectacular was going to happen. Something that would make her feel alive. This was a night for magic and a house that invited it.

Some gorgeous man was going to seduce her with nothing more than a look. Of course, she wouldn’t act on it, but she would believe, for one night, that she was gorgeous, sexy, and desirable. She wanted to add to her store of fantasies that could be put to good use when she was going mad for an orgasm.

Stacy maneuvered the car into the parking garage—which turned out to be under the house—pulled into a spot, and turned off the engine. Porsches, Jags, and BMWs dominated in the underground lot. Sex appeared to be for the rich, at least here.

“Virginia, the invitations, please.” Stacy waggled her fingers, her French manicure gleaming in the shaft of overhead light falling through the windshield.

Virginia pulled the stack of cream-colored envelopes from her purse. Stacy took them with a flourish. “Now, ladies, here are the rules. It’s invitation
only
the first time. After that, women are allowed in without it. Or sometimes a woman might be sent an invitation by a very special someone.” She arched a brow and smiled, which made Debbie think Stacy’d been honored with a special invite at one time or another.

“But men,” Stacy went on, “must
always
have an invitation or they don’t get in. That excludes horn-dog frat boys who don’t know a clitoris from a hole in the wall and aren’t willing to spend the time to learn. We don’t use real names. We do use condoms. They have bowls of them all over the place. Like candy dishes. We say no to whatever we don’t want, and we say yes to whatever we do. If somebody bugs you, you tell an attendant, and the offending party bites the dust. Got it?”

With all the talk about clitorises and condoms, Debbie glanced back at Virginia. She was getting married tomorrow in Las Vegas. Was she out simply for a night of titillation before settling down? Or did she plan on something more? Titillation, Debbie decided, or Virginia would have chosen a more provocative outfit than the peach suit.

Stacy flipped through the gold-labeled envelopes in her lap. “This one’s mine. Serena.” She put a hand to her sequined chest. “I look like a Serena, don’t you think?”
Serena
could do anything she wanted, she had that kind of feminine power.

She handed the second invitation to Virginia. “Regina.”

Virginia wrinkled her nose. “I was going to say something about that earlier. It reminds me a little of vagina.”

Stacy smiled. “Depends on how you say it when you introduce yourself, darling.” Then she got to the last envelope.

Debbie held her breath.

“Desiree.”

Debbie held the invitation lightly in her fingers, the name embossed in gold.
Desiree. Desire.
“I like it,” she whispered. “So this is the name we give if anyone asks?”

Stacy gave her the once-over. “Everyone’s going to ask. No real names, remember.”

Debbie traced the raised lettering. “This place must cost a fortune to get into. You haven’t asked for any money.”

“The first time, you’re a guest.” Stacy held her gaze.

“The first time?”

“Almost everyone comes back.”

Debbie felt the challenge in the statement. For a moment, she got the distinct impression that Stacy knew her entire marital history, even the months and years between lovemaking. She’d given herself away somehow, though she couldn’t remember even hinting at her problem.

Stacy turned in her seat. “We can stick together or we split off. But we’ll meet back in the lobby at midnight.” She checked her thin gold watch. “That gives us three hours.”