“You gave and you gave,” she whispered, knowing she’d never really learned the things Cameron had tried to teach. Not even how to make love.
Nick cocked his head, regarded her with unfathomable eyes. “That’s what Wendy said.”
She closed her eyes, savoring a vestige of Cameron’s voice inside her, then erasing it. “What else did Wendy tell you?”
Nick didn’t answer directly. “I’d dream about her at night. Then one day she came back to the warehouse. A problem shipment...something, hell, I can’t remember what. I just remember the guys were out to lunch. The place was deserted. Empty except for Wendy and me.”
He swallowed. Max figured he’d forgotten she was even there. Her throat tightened. Her pulse rate rose a notch. She felt like a voyeur, and yet she didn’t make a sound to stop him. Wendy wanted to hear. Badly.
“I told her I’d daydream on the drive home. About her. And she asked me what I’d been thinking. She didn’t look at me, but I had her crowded up against the worktable. I could hear her breath, it was fast, and her skin was flushed.”
He looked up then. He hadn’t forgotten Max, after all. Her breath came harsh, too, her skin felt like he’d scorched her with a blow torch, and the neckline of her robe had fallen open. A cool draft of air fingered across her breasts. She couldn’t move.
“I told her I’d been dreaming about going down on her.”
Ripples of desire and alarm ran across her breasts. She should have been horrified. She wasn’t. Neither was Wendy. The woman needed to hear it all again, and she dragged Max along for the ride.
“I shouldn’t have said anything. We could have gone on with longing looks and sexual innuendo. Everything would have been fine. But I asked her to meet me early the next morning.”
“At five,” Max whispered.
“No one else got to Hackett’s until six.”
“And her husband didn’t even wonder.”
“Hal wouldn’t have figured out a thing, because he thought he’d wound Wendy around his finger so tightly she couldn’t wriggle loose.”
“What about your wife?”
“She thought I was doing overtime.” He gave a quick, derisive laugh. He put a boot up one step, draped his arm over his knee, stared at her. “I went down on Wendy on a swivel chair in the warehouse. She was real quiet when she came, and then I made her stand up and took her against the table. I would have made her come again if I could, but she thought she heard a noise up front.”
Max leaned forward against her thighs, her head almost on her knees. “Why are you telling me this? You want to see some reaction? It’s some sort of test?”
The rain had dried in his hair, on his face, and his shirt no longer stuck to his chest. He was close enough to raise one hand from his knee and stroke her shin with the back of a finger, his flesh cold from the rain. Hers was hot. Fire shot up her leg.
She wanted to think of Witt touching her, even of Cameron taking her in the dark with her fingers wrapped tightly around the headboard as he pressed tightly behind her. But Wendy controlled her now, and Wendy wanted only the things Nick could give them.
“Maybe I just want to talk to you about it,” he whispered. “Let me tell you, Max. It’s all I have left to give Wendy.”
“To immortalize her with tales of your sexual prowess? How macho,” she muttered sarcastically, but God help her, she had to hear more. She was no longer capable of distinguishing between her own feelings and Wendy’s. Nick simply turned her bones to jelly, made her fantasize about his tongue between her thighs.
Slut. Whore. Tramp. Call it whatever you like. That’s what she was.
“That was the only orgasm I ever gave her during those early morning sessions.”
“So much for sexual prowess.”
He laughed softly at himself. “She cried after I did it. At the time, I thought it was because she’d never...”
“Committed adultery?”
“Yes.”
“Had you?”
“No.” Then he waved away the admission. “Later I realized she always heard a noise, pulled away. She’d get me off, and then...she found a way to stop the rest. I thought it was guilt.”
Max realized it was the thing that had bothered him the most about the affair. Wendy simply wouldn’t let him take care of her sexual needs. “Maybe it was her power.”
He considered that a moment. “Meaning that when she took me in her mouth, she had all the power?”
“When you came, that was all she needed.”
In a far corner of her mind, she saw the strangeness of the conversation, but all she felt was the intense intimacy of it, his hand on her leg, stroking, making her hot and wet.
She went into attack mode hoping to short circuit her body. “Neither of you cared about the risks as long as your needs were met.”
His jaw tightened. “You should know about risks. They’re worth it when you want something badly enough.”
“Score one for you, Nickie. Except for your wife and Wendy’s husband, of course, everyone knew what was going on.”
He shrugged, unconcerned. “A small shop, no one cares about affairs. But I never touched her if someone could walk in on us.”
“Never?” Max held her breath. Wendy wanted to know his answer.
He regarded her a moment, then let a slow smile creep across his lips. “I won’t ask again who you are. I won’t even ask why Wendy never told me about you. And yes, there was once. It was after that first time. She was in her office, alone, with a...look on her face.”
“You wanted to hold her.”
“I needed to hold to her, to let her know it would be okay. But I didn’t.”
Max closed her eyes. “What did you do?”
“I kissed her. On the lips. It was quick.”
Just a flash of his lips across hers, but Wendy had obsessed over the feel of that kiss. It had said so much, that he understood her pain, her fear, that he cared. It had never been a part of the sexual stuff. It had been natural. Special.
Max let out the breath she’d been holding and changed the subject, tried to barricade herself against the intensity of Wendy’s emotions. “What about the night she died?”
His eyes went distant a moment. “There was something different. She was aggressive, in control. Maybe it was leaving Hal. I don’t know. She wasn’t like the Wendy I knew. I touched her first, but she was the one who climbed on top of me, took me inside her.”
Max listened, her thoughts polarized on the dream images suddenly fresh in her mind, her body tensed to receive him. God, she was so wet and he was so hard and... “She climaxed.”
“Scared the shit out of me. She said she loved me. That she’d left Hal.”
Her lip curled almost involuntarily. “That’s when you failed her.”
“I failed her the first time I told her I wanted her. I was married. I couldn’t promise anything except...”
“Except what, Nick? Furtive sex on the warehouse worktable?”
He stared at her, his fingers wedged in the crease of her knee. He’d laid his affair out for her, dissected his feelings, affirmed his guilt, and allowed her accusations without lashing out. The intimacy of his voice, his touch, and his admissions stole her breath. She was naked beneath the robe except for a minuscule pair of thong panties. If she spread her legs, he would know exactly what she asked for. What Wendy asked for.
She gulped, sought distraction. “Why did Remy fire you?”
“He didn’t. Don’t ask me why. I never did figure that out.”
Maybe it was like Carla said. Remy knew what was going on, and he liked to watch. “So you quit?”
He shrugged. “Three months ago. One last ditch effort at my marriage.”
“Obviously it didn’t work.”
He laughed softly, sadly. “No.”
“Because you kept seeing Wendy?”
With a shrug, he said, “She’d call. Sometimes, I just...” He clenched a fist. “I needed something.”
Living with a
dead husband, Max understood that only too well.
Nick raised his eyes to her lips, stared. He needed that indefinable something right now. From her.
“I want you,” he murmured.
As if he could read her thoughts. So like Cameron and yet so different. At least she could hide from Nickie when she needed to.
She took her lip between her teeth, not because she was afraid, but because she knew it would draw his attention, make him think of what her mouth could do. “This is sort of like asking Wendy to meet you early that first day.”
“It’s very different. I’m divorced. You’re widowed.”
She winced inwardly at the term. She’d never thought of herself as widowed. Until tonight. When Cameron left. Her fingers clenched in the folds of her robe. Nick Drake thought he could soothe that pain. He had no idea what he was up against.
“Your divorce isn’t final. You have to sign the papers, you know, before it’s legal.”
“That’s just a technicality. Does that matter?”
“I suppose not. Do you have dreams of going down on me?”
His eyes glittered. His fingers tested her flesh on the underside of her thigh. “Yes.”
“Making love to a ghost, Nickie?” Not that Max minded ghosts. She’d had two years of furtive wet dreams with her own ghostly husband.
Oh God, Cameron. Cameron who was gone. Forever and ever. She wanted to scream in agony, in need.
Cameron had left her to this. Deserted her. She looked at Nick, and with Wendy egging her on, she took the plunge. “I’m not like Wendy. I don’t need someone to take care of me. I like orgasms. And I don’t cry.”
“You were crying when I got here.”
The man could scent a needy woman on the wind, but she sure as hell didn’t need to confirm it. “You don’t know what you were looking at. And don’t expect to see it again.”
He came up on his knees one step below her, put his hands on her calves, slid them up to the backs of her knees. “I’ve seen you at the Round Up. You don’t need that. Let me help—”
“Don’t help me. Just fuck me.”
She grabbed him then, put her hands on his face, pulled him in.
He tugged the tie to her robe, untangled it until her lapels fell open. She watched his gaze track the lines of her breasts. Her knees parted. His hands slipped along her thighs beneath the terry robe, and he pushed his body between her legs.
His jeans were rough against her skin. She pulsed in secret places only Cameron’d had access to, despite the number of men she’d been to bed with since.
She closed her eyes and felt Cameron’s lips on her breasts, Cameron’s teeth on her nipples, Cameron’s hands on her hips as he pulled her flush against the rigid bulge in his pants.
She went back on her elbows. Nick trailed kisses down her stomach. His tongue delved into her belly button. She shoved her fingers through his hair, getting caught on the snarls left over from the rain. She knew what he wanted, knew exactly where he was headed, knew she’d let him do it despite the frightening intimacy.
His hands cupped her bottom, then his fingers tugged at the elastic waist of her thong. “Christ, I love these panties.”
“Kinky. Bet your wife never wore anything like these.”
He looked up, and she expected something dark, something menacing, in his eyes. Instead he gave her a lady-killer smile. “Neither did Wendy.”
She lifted her hips as he pulled her panties down past her knees, watched as he threw them into the alcove. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. It was the last chance to stop.
But Cameron wasn’t with her anymore, and she felt Nick’s warm breath on her pubic hair.
With the first moan that left her lips as his tongue touched her clitoris, she bound him to her. Her fingers tangled in his hair, urging him on, and she ensnared him. She bit her lip, moved her hips against him, cried out despite herself. His grip tightened on her butt as he held her relentlessly against his mouth and his probing tongue.
An image of Witt suddenly flashed across her mind, and she swore as she came, flexed her legs, held the man between them to her. She claimed him with every shudder that racked her body, marked him with her fingernails, but with her eyes closed, she saw Witt’s blue gaze impaling her.
Nick raised his head, gaze darkened by the fury of possession, then pulled away. She tugged at his button fly, the material popping, and with his help, dragged his jeans and underwear down his thighs. He braced his arms, and plunged inside her.
She almost climaxed, held it off with effort, waited for his mouth, his lips on hers. The edge of the step dug into her spine as he pushed into her. Her head fell back, bumping against the stair above. Then he kissed her. She tasted herself on his tongue. The eroticism of it sent her over the edge, and she cried out against his mouth. She bit down on her own lip because the name she wanted to scream wasn’t his. Moments later, he followed, his semen filling her with power, driving her higher, taking her places she never usually went.
Except with Cameron. And in that morphmare with the detective.
Witt was the name that echoed in her head until she looked at the man on top of her. He pulled out of her in one swift move, and her body closed in on itself. Inevitable shame nudged the edges of her dissipating afterglow.
Nick lay still between her legs. “I didn’t use a condom.”
His words made her feel open, vulnerable, cold. “I didn’t need one.”
She couldn’t have children. She and Cameron had learned that early on in their marriage.
“What about the Round Up—”
He stopped, and she knew suddenly he didn’t mean making babies. He meant disease. He meant her. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut, but she kept them wide. “You don’t have to worry. I’m healthy as a horse.”
“I wasn’t saying...” But he was. She could see it in his eyes. He ran a finger gently down her face. “You don’t need the Round Up or those guys anymore, you know. I’ll take care of you.”
Her stomach clenched. “Take care of me?”
“I want to.”
“Nobody takes care of me but me.” She pushed at his chest.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You’re heavy.” She’d craved just that kind of divine heaviness since Cameron’s death. Now, it suffocated her.
His lids fell, shuttered his eyes, then he stood and pulled up his jeans. He towered over her, and the dynamic shifted. Man on top. In control.
Max sat, backed up one step, closed her legs, pulled together the lapels of her robe, and went for the jugular. It was the obvious power play. “Wendy died because of your affair.”
He stared at her as he fastened the buttons of his jeans. His jaw moved with the grind of his teeth. “Wendy died because I left her alone that night.”
Max stood, too, three steps above him. Buzzard mewled softly at the top of the stairs. “She died because someone knew she’d had an affair with you.”
“We’d stopped seeing each other when I left Hackett’s.”
“You started again.”
“No one could have known she was meeting me.” He grabbed her arms, shook her slightly. “Where the hell is this shit coming from? We just made love.”
She laughed at him. “Made love?” Then she shrugged him off. “We just fucked. The way you fucked Wendy every morning before Remy got there.”
“That’s not the way it felt when you came against my mouth.”
“I told you I like orgasms.”
She wanted him hurting, bruised, and down. She wanted him gone. She wanted her shame hidden from the light of day. Hidden from him. Then maybe she could hide it from herself.
“Wendy left her husband for you. And someone killed her because of it.”
The breath he took expanded the shirt across his chest.
She felt a sharp pain right beneath her bottom rib, as if someone had shoved a knife up there. And twisted. “Maybe you’ve got a clue about who’d have done that.”
&
nbsp; He tensed. “Yeah?”
“Maybe it was your wife, Nickie.”
He went still, rock still, except for the muscle ticking in his cheek. “She didn’t know I was meeting Wendy that night.”
“She picked up the kids. She could’ve seen Wendy.”
“She didn’t know what Wendy looked like.”
“Don’t kid yourself.”
His gaze went flinty. “She couldn’t have known.”
“You know she did.”
He backed up, feeling behind him for the doorknob. “I warned you before. Leave my wife out of this.”
“Soon-to-be ex-wife. Feeling guilty that you might have driven your wife to murder?”
His nostrils flared. His fist tightened on the knob. His knuckles whitened. But he said nothing.
“Is she driving your 4Runner?”
“What?” He gaped at Max’s full frontal attack.
“A green Toyota 4Runner tried to run me down this evening. Your wife reported yours stolen this morning.”
Something flickered across his face. Anger? Fear? She couldn’t be sure. “Don’t push. You won’t like what happens.”
But Max couldn’t help pushing. It was what she did best. “Did she kill Wendy? Is she waiting out there to kill me after you leave, Nickie?”
He didn’t slam the door. He simply left without another word. She pushed the curtain on the door aside, but he’d gone as quietly as he’d arrived. She stared at the empty driveway.
“He isn’t coming back, you idiot.” Neither was Cameron. She let the curtain drop.
She reached down to pick up her underwear, and something warm trickled down the inside of her thigh.
Her face burned with her shame before she ruthlessly shoved the emotion aside.
Outside, gravel crunched beneath rolling tires.
Max’s heart kickstarted. She stepped back until her heels hit the first stair. If it was him, she sure as hell wouldn’t look anxious by peering out that window again.
A dark shape appeared. The pounding on the door was loud, authoritative. Max hesitated. Wendy screamed inside her.
Open the damn door.
She opened it to shut up the voice.
Her mouth went dry. A uniformed cop stood on the threshold, his fist still raised in the air. God, why? Did they know Nick was near?
Dead to the Max (Max Starr Series, Book 1, a paranormal romance/mystery) Page 21