Dead to the Max (13 page)

“Take it off,” he insisted with a beguiling heat in his voice.

She wanted touch,
his
touch. Sitting up, she disturbed the cat cuddled against her. It stared at her with wide yellow eyes, then jumped from the bed to the sill and finally to a branch outside.

Peeling the shirt off felt like rubbing silk against her breasts. She flopped back against the mattress and closed her eyes before he told her to.

“I’m going to lick your breasts.”

Her nipples peaked inside his warm wet mouth. The nice thing about an ethereal lover was that they could be everywhere at once. His tongue captured both breasts and the burgeoning button of her clit all at the same time. She arched on the bed.

“Moan for me, baby.” The other nice thing was that he didn’t have to stop sucking on her when he talked.

Max moaned loudly. A pearl of heat and moisture beaded between her legs. She put her hands there to intensify the sensation, to make him tongue her harder, faster.

Then he took his mouth away. “I don’t want you to come too soon.”

“But you can make me come over and over.”

“No. Just once.”

“But I want more.”

He whispered a kiss, scented with her tangy juices, across her lips. “It’ll be so much better because you had to wait for it. Now roll over.”

“Roll over?”

“I’m going to kiss your back. All over. Remember how you loved that?”

Her back was an erogenous zone. His tongue would tickle, and she would writhe. She’d always come the quickest with his kiss on her back, a hand shoved beneath her, a finger sliding across her clit, and a deep thrust hitting home between her legs.

She rolled over. First came the light caress of his lips, from her shoulder blades to the base of her spine. Moisture creamed the inside of her thighs. She rolled her hips against the mattress.

Then came the tongue. He lapped at the indentation of every vertebrae. He reached beneath and pinched her nipples. He gave her clitoris a swipe. He was everywhere. Trembling, she raised her butt and spread her legs slightly, inviting his penetration doggie style. He continued kissing, licking, sucking every bit of flesh, his chest a hairy mat rubbing against her. She wriggled, but it earned her only the blunt tip of his cock massaging between the wet folds, not the penetration she craved.

The pressure was intense, yet still building.

“Finger yourself,” he commanded, feathering delicious light kisses all over her back.

“I want you inside me.”

“I’ll stop if you don’t finger yourself. I want to watch.”

She’d die if he stopped, so she shoved her hand between her legs and found her clitoris. She rubbed, her body moved, humping her hand as if it was his cock.

“God, it turns me on watching you.”

She pretended to herself that he could really see. With her eyes closed, she imagined the feverish light sparking in his. She reached inside, coated her fingers and went back to her clit. So slippery, so delicious, so incredible, especially knowing that he watched and liked what he saw.

She felt him slide beneath, the rush of warmth as he blew hot air on her hot body, on her hot, hot clit. While she toyed with herself, he stuck a finger up inside her, then two, and massaged her canal.

“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Oh my God, I’m going to come.”

He immediately pulled out. “Don’t you dare.”

“Oh God.”

“I said don’t come. Stop touching yourself.”

She felt him jerk her fingers away, and the come hovered on the edge of the horizon. “Please. Tongue me. Fuck me. Anything.”

He rose behind her. As she’d played with herself, she’d risen to her knees, her butt high in the air. Now, he soaked his cock in her juices, rubbed between her cheeks, then nudged her rear entry.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to fuck you in the ass until you scream.”

She froze. “No,” she said.

“Yes,” he countered.

“It’ll hurt.”

“But you said you deserved punishment.”

“Yes—I—no.” He had her so hot, she couldn’t think.

Then he changed his tone, cajoled. “It won’t hurt, baby. That’s the nice thing about being a ghost. You don’t need condoms and you don’t need lube.”

“But...”

“I’ll let you come only if I get to fuck you in the ass.”

Her body wept. She was a mass of sensation from head to toe. Her clit throbbed. Her muscles twitched with need. The tip of his cock breached her, then a finger rubbed, once, twice, across her clitoris. She bore down on the touch, accidentally taking a tiny bit more of his cock.

“That’s all you get if you don’t let me fuck you in the ass.”

“I can give myself my own orgasm,” she said, still fighting him.

“It won’t be as sweet.”

She needed that extra sweetness. She’d do anything he asked to get it. “Just do it then. Please.”

He laughed close to her ear. Triumphant. Excited by his mastery of her will. He eased in another inch. She felt filled, stretched, pushed beyond some limit that wasn’t physical. He was right; there was no pain. She pushed a little harder, taking more. He hunched over her, slid a finger over her clit, two more inside her, then he thrust deeply.

She almost screamed, as if he’d ripped her in half. Yet still, there was no pain. He rocked against her, the bushy hair at the base of his shaft tickling her. She pushed back.

And finally, after two years, she felt all those empty spaces inside her filling up. A bubble of tension built in her clitoris, inside her channel, even at the nerve endings he penetrated with his cock. He moved faster, harder, and plunged deeper, his testicles slapping against her butt.

“Is it good, Max?”

She moaned and went down on her elbows to give him a better angle. He rammed deeply, infiltrating the hollow places inside her. She’d never thought she’d like this, she thought she’d hate it. So undignified, so violating. Yet she loved it. She needed it.

She hit her orgasm at precisely that moment, splintering into a million pieces, coming endlessly as he continued to pound into her. His taking was relentless, fingers and cock draining every last sip of cream from her. Her knees and elbows gave out, and she flopped to the mattress with him still inside her. Not wanting to lose the sense of weight on her, she didn’t open her eyes. His breath sawed against her ear, then finally slowed to a gentle puff.

“Why did you do that?” she whispered so softly it was almost her mind to his.

“You liked it.”

“I’m not sure I did.”

“You loved it.” He shifted, his hairy chest scratching, tingling nerves up and down her back. She could go at him again.

“Are you sure you weren’t just punishing me for...everything,” she asked. Though it hadn’t felt like punishment at all.

“That was true intimacy, Max. You trusting me. You can’t have that with strangers.” His words whispered away in the dark, pierced her heart.

His weight was suddenly unbearable. She tried to roll him off, but she was too boneless to move. “So that was some sort of object lesson?”

“Let’s call it a pleasure lesson.” Smugness seeped through.

“I think you enjoyed making me do what you wanted. I wouldn’t let you do it when you were alive, so you figured you could trick me into doing it now.”

“If I’d really tried, I could have gotten you to beg me for it even when I was alive, Max, and you know it.”

“Not.” Yes. Of course.

But while he might have meant to teach her a lesson about intimacy, she’d learned something else entirely.

Cameron had just one-upped her by getting her to do the one thing she’d always refused, by making her love it. And by proving only a dead man could give her what she needed.

That was its own form of punishment.

Chapter Ten

She slid her new key to Hackett’s into the lock. Monday morning and a new week was almost like a new life, if you really thought about it. She’d put the weekend behind her.

It was early, a little after six-thirty. The lights weren’t on, and the front office was empty. She moved quietly down the hall with only the fire exit light for illumination. Max wasn’t sure what she’d find out by arriving before everyone else. But Wendy used to get in early, too. Real early.

Trying the door of Remy’s office, she found it locked. Jimmying was out. She needed the job, and she figured Remy would hate B&E more than he hated smoking, swearing, and lying.

“What are you looking for?” Cameron sounded normal. A little mystified, a little peeved, a little sarcastic. In other words, normal. They were both going to pretend last night—and Friday night, for that matter—hadn’t happened.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” she muttered. “Maybe I’ll know it when I see it.”

She tapped a finger against her lips as she walked back down the hall to her office. “Something else occurs to me. The more I think about it, the more I conclude that we missed an important detail concerning Nick Drake.”

“I didn’t miss anything about the man.”

She ignored his snide tone. “I think he was trying to tell me that
I
was his alibi. He saw me at Billy Joe’s Monday night.” She took a deep breath, hoping Cameron wouldn’t once again pounce on the reasons
why
she’d been at the Round Up on Monday.

“Timing?”

Ah, he’d let it pass. “Witt said Wendy died around ten.”

A moment of silence, then, “Witt never gave you a time.”

“He did. Sort of. He said Hal was with the victim’s father during a three-hour window surrounding the ME’s estimated time of death at ten.” She unlocked her door, turned on the light.

“Except
you
added the time.”

“She died at ten o’clock, okay? Do you have to question
everything
?” Yet that was normal, familiar, almost comforting.

“You live in denial of your talents.”

She was quite happy that way, too.

Wendy’s plant drooped sadly on the lateral file. “Oh, would you look at that?” She lifted the limp fronds.

“Why don’t you tell me about this alibi?”

“I was trying to tell you”—before he got on her case—“I was at Billy Joe’s from approximately nine-thirty until a little before eleven. So despite what Nick thinks, that still gives him time to kill Wendy
and
get there to see me before I left.”

“Jury’s still out on Nick then, huh? If logic prevails.”

She ignored the dig. “Wendy might not believe he did it, but I require proof.”

Cameron snorted. “So what do we have here? Remy wears a ring similar to one you saw in a dream—”

“I’ve got to get a better look at that ring.”

“And Nick implies you’re his alibi for the time Wendy died. Let’s face it, sweetheart, we haven’t got a shitload of useful evidence in all this. Even if the ring is exactly the same, what the hell does it prove?”

“It proves Remy beat her at one time or another.”

“It only says that
someone
wearing a ring exactly like his was in your dream. Because you never saw a face, did you, Max?”

Dammit, no, she hadn’t seen a face. In addition, while she didn’t like Remy, she hadn’t picked up quite the same level of malevolence from him that she’d sensed in the bad man of her dream.

Max headed to the tiny lunchroom, flipping light switches as she went. In minutes, the rich aroma of brewing coffee filled the area. Her stomach growled appreciatively. She filled another pot with water and returned to hydrate Wendy’s thirsty plant.

With liquid and light, it perked up in minutes. Its death would have been a bad omen.

“What am I doing wrong, Cameron? Why can’t I figure this all out?”

“Are you talking to yourself, Max?”

She jumped. Water from the half-full pot splashed all over her black suede shoes and the legs of her slacks. “Jesus Christ, you scared me, Mr. Hackett.”

“Call me Remy. And please don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”

She passed a hand across her brow. Jesus Christ was bad. Screw was okay. All right. Fine. She’d get the hang of it.

“I’m sorry. I forgot myself for a moment.” Dickhead. She enjoyed the word, even if it was only in her mind. “Well, now that my heart rate is back to normal...” She fanned herself. “I was just thinking what a nice class ring you have. Rubies are one of my favorite stones. May I see it a little more closely?”

Her approach certainly lacked finesse, but Max was past caring. Cameron laughed from somewhere in the breakroom. He’d undoubtedly gotten high on the scent of fresh coffee. Or he’d sneaked a cigarette.

Remy held out his hand. Max refused to actually touch his fingers. “It’s not a ruby,” he said. “I preferred a garnet.”

Max saw that now. Damn. The stone was not the bright, eye-catching red of the gem in her dream. Remy’s was rustier in color. She hadn’t seen the dream ring closely enough to notice other contrasts, but Remy wore his on the pinkie, whereas the monster in Wendy’s vision wore it on the fourth finger.

“Quite diaphanous, don’t you think?”

Diaphanous. She wasn’t sure he’d used the word correctly. Then again, she wasn’t sure he hadn’t.

“It’s very nice.” She stepped back, catching Remy’s speculative look. All she could do was throw him her best ditsy, dumb-blonde smile. Even if she wasn’t blond.

“You’re in early, Max.” He stood in the doorway of her office. Somehow, she felt trapped.

She spread her hands. “An accountant’s work is never done.”

“I’ve asked. No one admits making that call to your agency.”

Max turned, fluffed the fronds of Wendy’s spider plant. “Oh well, must have been a ghost.”

He made a sound halfway between a laugh and a snort. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

From the breakroom, there was a crash, then the sound of something heavy smashing on the linoleum tile floor, then more crashes, in rapid succession. Remy jerked, turned, then half-ran, half-skipped across the bullpen, with Max fast on his heels.

Cameron was calling attention to himself again.

Remy stopped two feet into the coffee room. Max almost slammed into his back. Sidestepping around him, she shook her head as she gazed at Cameron’s mélange of broken crockery. He’d knocked the entire rack of mugs off the wall. Of the twelve they’d started with, only four survived.