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.”