Evil to the Max (6 page)

Max picked up her beer, felt the cool sizzle of it in her throat just as Tiffany had, and fixed the players of Saturday night in her mind. Witt simply watched her.

“Tiffany was over there.” She pointed at a stool halfway down the bar. “He was over there.” She indicated the other side of the dance floor. “He came over and asked her to dance.” Her lids drooped as she recalled the beat of the music, his body grinding against her backside. She could still smell his male scent as his callused hand found its way beneath her skirt.

Max’s fingers clenched on the lip of the table. Her eyes snapped open. Witt still watched, eyes hooded, gaze enigmatic in the gloom of the bar. She had the disturbing feeling he knew exactly what she’d been thinking.

Desire pumped through her. Hot, sharp, and spicy. God, he had large hands. She shivered. Wow. Guys with hands like his had the biggest cocks. She really went for blonds with blue eyes. But then she went for dark guys, too, with hot gazes and even hotter tongues. In fact, she got wet for all kinds of guys, all shapes, all sizes, all ages, all races, all occupations, and all educations. She’d never been choosy. By the age of nineteen, she’d promised herself she’d fuck as many types as she could. She’d write a book about it, like Xavier Hollander, or whoever that Happy Hooker lady had been. She’d rate them, say what kind of guy was best at what sexual acts and what positions—

“Wanna dance?”

“No.” Max’s voice squeaked like a terrified mouse. Ohmygod. What was happening? Her breath came in fast little pants. Her mouth tasted like sandpaper. Beneath her blazer, her nipples were hard as diamonds. She wanted to drag Witt out onto that dance floor and do him in front of everyone in the whole place.

Holy hell.

Tiffany
.

Deep inside Max, the woman writhed in sexual agony. Good God, she’d been possessed again, just as she had been with Wendy Gregory. Taken over by the alien thoughts and emotions of another woman.

Max grabbed her Corona and gulped it down to wet her parched throat.

Witt frowned. “You all right, Max? You’re all flushed.”

She squeaked again, totally unintelligible.

Tiffany
went for guys like Witt. Max made the fatal mistake of looking at his big hand holding the bottle on his thigh. Oh goodness. Oh my. “I think we better go.”

“Just got here. What’s wrong?”

He’d have to drive her home in his black and red Ram truck. She’d never survive. Because Cameron wasn’t lying when he’d said he hadn’t given her that fantasy last night.

Tiffany had
.

And Tiffany wanted to do it on the hood of a Ram truck.

Witt lifted his beer to his lips, tilted his head, and kept his eyes on her.

Role reversal. Usually the guy watched the woman put her lips around the neck of the bottle and imagined she had put her lips around something else entirely. Something hard, something smooth, something juicy at the tip with a little spurt of salty—

Max stood, bumped her own Corona, catching it before it spilled. “I don’t recognize anyone here. I have to get up early. I’d like to go home.” She mimicked the strained enunciation of a drunk, but her beer was three-quarters full.

“I wanted to dance.”

Not likely, buster. “I don’t dance.” She gathered her purse from beneath the chair where she’d kicked it.

Witt held her arm. “What’s wrong? And don’t give me any crap about how tired you are.”

She tugged free, wended her way through the tables, pushed open the massive wooden door, and stepped out into the cool night. Ah, fresh air.

A man barreled around the corner from her right, knocked into her, and sent her flying back into Witt’s hard chest.

“Hey, sorry.”

Max could only stare.

Dark hair curled against the neck of his flannel shirt. The scruffy week-long beard was gone, and no one at the Round Up would have recognized him, but she knew. Soulful brown eyes. Soft, well-worn jeans faded at the bulge. His scent.

Soap and fresh laundry.

The only thing missing was the aroused male part.

Tiffany pulsated deep inside her.

With a hand on the middle of her back, Witt pushed her forward as the dark-haired man moved around them.

Tell him
. Cameron whispered relentlessly in her head.

She couldn’t.

Not because she didn’t want to. She was simply incapable of speech. Her vocal cords constricted. Her brain ceased to function. Witt’s lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear him.

By the time Witt dropped her off in front of her apartment, she still hadn’t told him she’d just seen the guy Tiffany had done the nasty with in the men’s bathroom on Saturday night.

Different hat. Different boots. Clean-shaven now, but it was the same man. And this time she had a name to go with him.

Jake Lloyd. Tiffany’s ex-husband. Max just ... knew.

* * * * *

Restlessly, she rolled over in bed. Another dream had awakened her, this one even hotter than the last. Witt again. Damn the man. She was wet, her body humming for him, begging for a sweet little orgasm. But she wouldn’t touch herself, and she wouldn’t mention this second dream to Cameron. Oh no, no, no, he’d start saying—

“Give in, Max. You want him. He wants you. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Dammit. “Stop listening in on my dreams.”

“You were moaning so loud, it woke me up.”

“You don’t sleep.”

“Neither do you, at least not very well. Too much unfulfilled yearning. Fuck him,” he whispered, “and get it over with.”

Cameron was crazy. He hadn’t been this insane when he was alive. Crossing over must have scrambled his brain.

“Death made me see more clearly.”

“God save me from philosophical ghosts.” She pushed the covers aside and put her feet flat on the floor. She glanced at the clock. It was only a little before midnight. She’d fallen into that dream pretty damn quick, not that she’d been fantasizing before she fell asleep. Had she?

“Yes.” His whisper filled the room and beat against her eardrums.

Max jumped off the bed and padded straight to the closet.

“What are you doing?”

“If I can’t sleep anyway, I might as well go back to the Round Up and see what that man’s up to.” She pulled out a skirt and blouse.

“Tiffany’s husband?” A definite snarl twisted his voice. “You don’t want to see what he’s up to. You want to get laid.”

“Not by him.” But Tiffany’s spirit swirled inside her, putting the lie to her words.

“You don’t need him.”

“I don’t need anyone.” She took fresh underwear from her bureau. “I’m just investigating.”

“Liar.”

She wasn’t a liar. She didn’t have control over what Tiffany wanted. But she did have control over her own body, and Tiffany wasn’t getting her way.

“I’m just going to ask some questions.” She couldn’t have done that earlier with Witt hanging around.

“That’s an excuse, Max. We both know what you’re going to the Round Up for. What you always go for.”

In the bathroom, she brushed her teeth, and avoided looking in the mirror. Okay, so sometimes she did have to fulfill a few needs with a man she’d never have to see again. Sometimes, she needed a little flesh and blood, a little reality. What was so wrong with that? But that’s not what she wanted tonight.

“Liar,” he said again.

“Shut up.”

“You said you weren’t going to do that again.”

“I’m not going to do it.” But she hadn’t exactly said
never
. And right now, her skin felt as if a thousand ants scrabbled all over it. Her sex throbbed. Her nipples peaked and ached. The Witt dream had set her on edge, made her feel as if she had to jump out of her own flesh and do ... something.

“Not that, Max, please not with one of those men at the Round Up. It’s killing you.”

“I won’t tell you to shut up again, Cameron.” She padded out of the bathroom to the pile of clothes she’d left on the chair.

“You don’t need some nameless, faceless cowboy. You wanna get fucked, I’ll fuck you.”

He tackled her as she crossed the braided rug. She smashed to the floor, his weight crushing her.

Okay, so probably she had tripped on the edge of the rug. He was a
ghost
, for God’s sake, and he couldn’t
tackle
. But if she closed her eyes and stayed very still, she was sure she could feel him. It had been this way for the two years since she’d lost him. She would close her eyes and suddenly he was real, his voice, his touch, the heaviness of his body—the orgasms he gave her.

Right now, Max wouldn’t have opened her eyes for anything. Because she needed this, needed him.

“Fuck me, Cameron, please.” She almost sobbed.

From behind, he slipped a hand between her legs and massaged the aching bud of her clitoris. She writhed, her hips rotating against the hard ridge of his cock nestled between her butt cheeks.

“Does that feel good, baby?”

“So good.” She wanted to come, wanted it so badly. She’d have begged if she had to. But Cameron worked his fingers against her. He reached beneath and pinched both her hard, aching nipples. She turned her head to the side, and he kissed her, his tongue slipping between her lips. He was all over her. Somehow, because it was a dream, a fantasy, he could touch every part of her all at once. She orgasmed and screamed into his mouth.

“We’re not done yet, baby. Get on your hands and knees and spread your legs.”

She wanted him inside her more than she’d ever wanted anything, except for him to be alive again. She wanted him in the flesh, doing her for real, and filling her every night, every morning, the way he’d always done. God. She ached with everything they’d lost.

“Don’t think about that. Think about this.” And he plunged inside her.

She almost came again, just with the joy of being filled. With his hands on her hips, he pushed her slightly forward, perfecting the angle of penetration. He kissed her back as he pumped, blew warm air against the rim of her ear. She squirmed and pushed back at him, taking everything. Somehow, he was larger than in life, bigger in her dreams, reaching to her womb, to her throat, to her heart.

He put two fingers to her clitoris and shot her straight to heaven, but he was far from done with her. And she wasn’t done with him. Need burned in her belly. She planted her hands firmly on the floor, bracing herself for each plunge. Her own gasps and grunts filled her ears, strange animal noises laced with a feral urgency.

Three orgasms had wracked her body before he thrust a final time and filled her with hot semen, a flood that warmed every inch. Then he collapsed, driving her once more to the rug.

She relished the hot sweaty scent of sex, his breath against her nape, and his weight pinning her to the floor. She’d never give it up. She’d never give
him
up. She’d go to an asylum before she’d ever do that.

Cool night air blew in through the open window, chilling the sweat on her skin.

“Open your eyes, Max.”

“No.” If she did, he’d disappear. She wouldn’t be able to feel him on top of her. The almost real sensations would vanish into the night. And she wasn’t ready for that yet.

“You’ll have to be ready someday.”

Now the chill filled her very bones. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His weight feathered off her despite the fact that she hadn’t opened her eyes. And the perfect sense of being filled vanished, too, leaving only a vast emptiness in its place. She rolled over and opened her eyes.

He sat on the bed, visible only as a strange glow and bright points of light that she’d always assumed were his eyes. He watched her.

“That’s what you need, Max, one man, in you, filling you up again. And again. Not those men at the Round Up.”

Jesus, he sure knew how to kill a good orgasmic buzz. “Leave it alone.” She couldn’t deal with another one of
those
conversations. Not now. Not after what he’d just done to her.

“If you’re searching for fulfillment, you’re never going to find it with one of them.”

She wasn’t searching for that with anyone else. She’d had it with Cameron. And there would never be anyone else. She’d only gone to the Round Up for flesh and blood arms to hold her when the need overwhelmed.

“Sex is easy, Max. Intimacy is harder.”

She sat up, brought her knees to her chest and hugged them. “I’m intimate with you.” And it was the only kind of intimacy she wanted.

“I’m dead.”

“Not to me.”

“That’s the real problem. The only man you can be intimate with is a dead one.”

She covered her ears. She hated that word, hated the way he always said it even when he knew how much it hurt. “Shut up.”

“This can’t go on forever, Max.”

“It can go on as long as I want it to.”

“What if
I
don’t want it to?”

Her breath caught in her throat. She almost choked on it. “You’re
my
insane fantasy. I’m the one in control of it.”

“Are you really?” Then he disappeared altogether, even the points of light.

Max bit her lip until she tasted blood. It was the only way to keep the tears at bay. Too bad it didn’t do anything about the fear that sat like a rock in her belly.

Chapter Six

By eleven o’clock the next morning, Max had decided that Cameron was just pushing her buttons again. His parting comment hadn’t been a threat, no way.

By eleven, she was also convinced receptionists ought to make one hundred thousand dollars a year instead of a mere ten dollars an hour.

Damn, but they earned it. Listening to complaints. No, not just complaints. Diatribes. Diatribes of pampered, spoiled women who had nothing better to do than complain about services, inconveniences, or petty nuisances.

And that was just the customers.

Then there were the stylists. Nothing was right.

“You’ve screwed up my appointment.” And then, “You’ve ruined my entire day.” Finally, “This client will never be back because of
you
.”

Max didn’t care about the real names of the stylists who occupied the three stations on the right half of the salon. She’d retained their individual names long enough to write down appointments, but after that, all bets were off. Their nit-picks went in one ear and out the other. After an hour and a half, Max had dubbed them the Three Stooges, not only for their striking similarities to the Three, but also for their constant bickering.