Max yanked her car door open, looked both ways, then crossed the street. Cameron didn’t follow. She knew by the lack of peppermints in the air and that strange sense of aloneness, as if the tether binding them together had stretched to its limit.
She wondered how far she could go before it snapped.
Lighting in the parking lot was poor. Under other circumstances, she’d have complained to the management. Now it suited her.
She approached the truck from the side of the building to make sure she wasn’t visible from the ground floor apartment Jake had entered. The closer she got, the faster her heart beat. Oh yeah, it was fear all right. Without Cameron by her side, Max could admit that. But it was not the fear of discovery. That she could deal with.
It was Tiffany’s influence that set Max’s adrenaline rushing. Tiffany’s scent oozed from her skin, something mesmerizing and erotic. Tiffany’s excitement pumped through Max’s blood like cocaine. Tiffany’s need ate at her insides, sexual and power-hungry.
Tiffany had hated and loved that truck. She’d been at her best and worst in and against that truck.
Something shifted inside Max. A flash of heat shot through her, images pulled at her. It was all about sex.
Tentatively, she put her right hand flat on the door of the vehicle.
Hot! Hot! Hot!
Her body exploded with bright colors. He drove deep, then pulled out again. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulled him closer, then ground against him with each angry thrust. Power streaked through her. She brought out the animal in him. Power-drunk, she wanted to come forever. The heat built inside her. When he withdrew slightly, she massaged her clitoris, loving the sensation as he dove in again, smashing her fingers to that sensitive spot. Pressure, intensity, colors swirling behind her closed lids, she panted and bucked against him. Almost there, almost over the edge, almost ...
Max jumped back and cradled her hand as if she’d been burned. She stared at the white truck door as if the surface crawled with maggots.
Cameron blew in alongside her with a waft of peppermint and compassion. Damn, she wanted to lie down and draw him inside her, pretend he was alive. Pretend he existed somewhere other than in her mind.
“I’m here, my love.”
She didn’t realize she’d been crying until his phantom tongue licked away her tears.
Giving him a mental push, she wiped moisture from her face. “Tiffany was crying, not me.” Tears of overwhelming passion.
Of course, the experiment had brought out Tiffany, not just Jake, because everything was about Tiffany.
“What did you see?”
“You know what I saw.”
“I know what I saw through you. The two things are miles apart, Max.”
She turned her back on his voice in her head. “Sex. It was just sex. Again.”
“It was more.”
“It’s part of her—sex—that’s what she was all about.”
“You’re afraid that’s what you’re all about.”
She slashed a hand through the air. “No.” He was right. “She did it to control him. Made him take her where she wanted and when she wanted, even when he didn’t want to. He was pissed as hell she could make him lose control.”
“So he decided to kill her?”
Whirling on Cameron’s peppermint scent, she jammed her hands into her pockets. “He didn’t kill her. She was capable of it. He isn’t.”
“We all are. Given the right circumstances.”
“I refuse to believe that.”
“Is that your hunk syndrome talking?”
“It’s my—” She cut off the thought. She had visions. Now she knew she could even bring on sensations and images, but her abilities still tied her insides into painful knots.
“It’s your gift, Max. Use it. Tell me what you’ve learned about him.”
She swallowed, her mouth dry, her throat muscles working. Closing her eyes, she let her head fall back and stretched out her arms. Opening her fists, she sought to put the flashes of insight together. “He wanted her to stop seeing other men. He wanted her to be only with him. At first she was amused, then she got angry and threw him out. But he went slinking back on her terms, even though he hated himself.”
When she opened her eyes, complete darkness had fallen. Jake Lloyd’s truck stood in the shadows at the end of the parking lot where the lights didn’t reach. Max was just as alone and isolated.
Except for Cameron.
“Sounds like a motive for murder to me,” Cameron broke the silence.
“Maybe,” she finally agreed. Jealousy and lack of control were two powerful motivators. “That’s why she slammed the door in his face,” she added, cocking her head to the side like an antennae to pick up stray emotions. “He called her a whore.”
“And?”
“And he had to crawl back on his hands and knees and beg her forgiveness.”
“I wonder if he ever forgave her for that humiliation.”
“It’s a metaphorical image.”
“It’s still begging. Does he look like a man who could forget the way a woman humiliated him?”
Could any man forget? She suddenly thought of Witt and the crap she’d heaped on his head. At least she hadn’t made him beg yet.