Power to the Max (2 page)

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.

* * * * *

They sat in Witt’s truck parked on the gravel drive outside her second-floor studio apartment. Max was partial to his black Dodge Ram. Maybe it was the red decals that really did it for her. Who could tell? But sitting inside, all comfy and cozy with him, was a dangerous thing. She wished she’d left her porch light on to alleviate a little of the dark intimacy. She’d never been partial to big men with blond buzz cuts and a cleft in the chin. Dudley Do-Right look-a-likes had never turned her on.

Not until Witt.

He turned the radio on low, a jazz station. Soft piano music filled the cab. So did the musky scent of his aftershave. She didn’t know what brand, probably something with sex in the title.

“Want your present?”

Her mid-section lurched. “You didn’t get me a present.”

He raised a blond brow. “Did, too.”

“What?”

“Gotta come over here if you want to see it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Not
that
kind of present.”

He smiled, all white teeth and sly male. He smiled like that a lot lately. She could remember a time when she didn’t think the man even knew how to smile. They’d come a long way in two months. Way too far.

She glanced down at the console between them. Ah, a safety net. “I am not climbing over this thing.”

He reached out almost faster than her eye could follow and flipped the console back. Damn. It was retractable.

“Thought you were safe all this time, huh?” He grinned again and leaned a little closer.

She’d had no idea the cab really had a bench seat. No idea at all. If she had, she never would have gotten inside the thing with him. Not the first time, and certainly not now, when he’d had that gleam in his eye all night, even with his mother around.

Witt had a way of getting her to do things against her better judgment. One kiss, one touch, and she lost her sense of propriety. Well, not propriety, since she didn’t have much of that to begin with. More like her sense of self-preservation. Witt was a too-tempting morsel. Especially naked.

“Why don’t you tell me again about your little fantasy in my truck?”

Darn. She knew telling him about that was a mistake. On the phone, late at night, his smoky hot voice in her ear, she’d felt a little safer revealing her predilection for Ram trucks. An explicit revelation. But now he had that look. No big deal. She could handle a little amorousness and still hold him at bay.

Though really, what was the point when she’d already let him have his wicked way with her? His wicked, delightful, delirious and orgasmic way with her.

The point, the point, what was it? Oh yeah. She needed to hold him at bay because ... because ... relationships were dangerous things. A girl could end up needing a big lug like him too much. A girl could get dependent. A girl could open herself to a world of hurt. She’d been down that road before.

Sex, she could handle. What she’d done with Witt had been so much more.

She shuddered with fear and desire, foreboding and need.

Her only mode of self-protection was to make sure she never initiated anything with him. As long as she could control that, she could hold back pieces of herself.

“Taking a long time to answer, Max. You shouldn’t think so much. Might make you lose brain cells.”

She reached for the door handle with her right hand. He grabbed her left with one big hand, pulled her back and then retreated once again to his side of the cab. Laugh lines fanned out from his eyes. “Just teasing, sweetheart.”

Damn. If he’d go ahead and jump her, they wouldn’t have to fight about it. She could put up token resistance, then give in without having to commit herself. God, he was too knowing. Too understanding at times. Sometimes she wished he’d squash her every time she got flighty and fighty like this. She deserved to be squashed, but it was also a very good way to distance herself from him.

Except that the one and only time he had squashed her, that humongous blowout a few days ago when they were so-called “working” on the Bethany Spring case, hadn’t exactly created that distancing effect, probably because she knew absolutely that she’d been at fault. One of these days, Witt would up and leave when he’d had enough of her crap. That’s what he’d done to his ex-wife. He’d as much as told Max he’d do that to her, too, if she pushed him too far. That declaration should have made her feel more secure, given her the perfect out when she needed it.

Instead she still felt like she was walking on eggshells.

“Why don’tcha tell me what’s been bothering you all night?”

She swallowed. “Nothing.”

“Liar. Had another vision, didn’t ya?”

Vision. Not dream. Two months ago, he hadn’t believed a word she said. Now he was asking her about her
visions
. It felt good. Too good. Besides, it was so much easier talking about visions than thinking about her growing attachment to Witt. “It wasn’t like the others.”

“Tell me.” He sounded like he was asking her to take off her clothes.

“Nobody died at the end.” Usually they did. Usually the murdered woman somehow managed to take over Max’s emotions, even her actions. Sort of like possession. Thank God it hadn’t happened this time. She didn’t feel the slightest inkling of another presence in her body. But there was still something very unsettling about the experience.

“What happened?”

She ran a hand through her short, dark hair. Definitely a nervous gesture. She dropped her hands to her lap. “A man and a woman. And they were...” She couldn’t say it.

“Having sex.”

Role reversal. Last time her vision had been about sex, he was the one who couldn’t say the words. Showed how much their relationship had changed. Witt now had the upper hand. “Yeah ... they were doing that.”

He chuckled, and when she looked at him, his blue eyes were sparkling much like his mother’s. “Gotta love your dreams, Max.”

She breezed past that innuendo. “It wasn’t like the other visions. I’m not even sure it was a vision.” Except...

“But it was, wasn’t it?”

The man was always reading her mind. It was another thing that made him like Cameron, another thing that unnerved her. She’d already watched one man she loved die. She wasn’t up to another relationship, especially with a cop whose life was constantly on the line, yet she wasn’t up to telling Witt to get lost either. Having sex with him had been a big-time mistake.

But she knew she’d make that same mistake again.

She put her hand to her hair again, stopped in mid-touch. “It’s the way the dreams feel. I know when I’m not ... me. When I’m dreaming about other people. Real people.”

The soft music filled the silence. He regarded her from his side of the cab. She was almost sure he wanted to slide over next to her, but was waiting for the invite. Then he said, “Suppose we’ll have to wait until something else pops into that psychic little brain of yours.”

“You’ll be the first to know.” She bit her lip, unsure of herself. “Okay, I’m ready for my present.”

She waited for him to exact a price. He didn’t. Instead, he reached to his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small wrapped box. Not flat like a jewelry case, not square like a ring box. Max took it gingerly. It was light. She shook it like a child. It didn’t rattle, but something moved. Tearing off the wrapping, she stared until she started to laugh.

It was a toy Dodge Ram, three inches long. Black with red decals. She took it out of the box.

“Put it by your bedside.”

“What? So I can think about you?”

He just smiled. They were both thinking about the Dodge Ram fantasy she’d told him.

The temperature in the cab rose a few scorching degrees. Her mouth went dry. Those fantasies were dangerous, especially when she was sitting with him in his Ram. “It’s time for me to go in.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t move, not to open the door and not to lean across to kiss her. He waited like a spider, spinning a web with that blazing look in his eyes.

“I’m starting a new temp job tomorrow at seven.” Her bank account was dangerously low. Of course, she could have dipped into the blood money fund—proceeds from Cameron’s life insurance—but she’d sworn never to touch it. “The job is setting up a consolidating company.” She was an accountant by trade, a former CPA, and good at what she did. She was also babbling, nervous as hell with Witt’s silence and the predatory glitter in his gaze.

“Come here, Max.” He pointed to the spot right next to his thigh. She eyed all his delicious, powerful muscles.

“I just told you I have to get up early.”

He slid over to her side, melding that tempting thigh to hers. “You’re a hard woman.”

He was a hard man if that bulge in his jeans meant anything. He also smelled too damn good. She shrank against the door while her mind and body screamed to jump in his lap.

“Witt, behave yourself.” She hoped the repetition of his mother’s admonishment would cool his ardor before hers flared out of control.

No such luck. He trailed a finger from the hollow at her throat to the first open button on her blouse, taking him deep into cleavage territory. “That wouldn’t be much fun,” he rumbled, the sound vibrating inside her.

Involuntarily, her nipples peaked against her bra.

“Now isn’t that an interesting reaction?” He hummed in this throat. “Cops always read body language to see if a suspect’s lying.”

She couldn’t breathe without inhaling his aftershave and hot male scent.

“And lookee here. Your pulse is fluttering. Another sign we detectives look for.” He leaned in, licking her throat. She almost moaned.

“Undo your blouse,” he whispered.

Maybe it was okay, since he was doing the asking. She fumbled with two buttons, his chin slightly stubbled and enticing against the back of her hand.

“Now your bra.”

She popped the front clasp, and he was there, a big warm hand cupping her, a roughened finger caressing her burgeoning nipple, then his tongue and lips sucking her into the depths of his mouth. With a hand at the small of her back, he arched her against him.

Shit, oh shit. So good. Heat shot between her legs as she juiced up. He palmed her, sliding a finger down the crease through her slacks. Then he bit her nipple. Light. Exquisite.

Max exploded in a flash of brilliant colors behind her closed lids. He rode her little storm, working her panties and her nipple until her need became a physical ache to have him inside her.