“Why not confess your game instead?”
“To nail someone’s ass to the wall for murder.” She smiled. “Might as well be yours.”
“If anyone’s gonna get nailed, sweet cheeks, it’ll be you.”
She traced a fingernail down his sleeve. “Is that a double entendre, Jake?”
The music changed. Couples moved onto the dance floor. The Drifter. Tiffany’s last dance. Jake took Max’s hand. “Dance with me.”
She let him lead her into the throng. They turned, back to front. She fit neatly against him, her butt wedged against his crotch. He was hard. She closed her eyes and for just a moment felt his hand beneath her skirt. But that was Tiffany’s skirt and that had been another night.
Feeling Tiffany squirm inside her, Max shivered.
Would you do it?
She was damned sure Tiffany would. Tiffany had. Right before she died.
Max moved to the music on instinct, leaning her head back against his shoulder. His hands passed over her breasts without touching.
“You were supposed to do her right on the dance floor, weren’t you?”
The music, the dance, the moment seemed to hold him in thrall. “I couldn’t do that,” he rasped.
“Admirable,” she murmured. “You want me to believe she made the arrangements for that night?”
“Yeah.”
“And you just went along?”
“Sometimes it was easier that way.”
“And you hated it the whole time,” she mocked, tilting her head to look at him.
He turned, dipped, and rotated his hips, taking her with him. Moisture pooled between her legs. “I’m not saying that either. I just shouldn’t have let her leave without me.”
“If she didn’t leave with you, Jake, then who did she leave with?”
He grew silent, then, after a long moment, said, “I didn’t see. She left the bathroom first. There was a lot of shouting. I stayed behind to make sure they didn’t follow her.”
“But someone did. Who was there that night? Who was supposed to watch the two of you fucking on the dance floor?”
Another dip of his knees and a thrust of his hips. He punctuated the movement by bringing her ass up tight against him, grinding against her. It was probably the word fuck that set him off. Feeling him pulse, she was almost sick, even as she heated deep inside.
She looked up then, straight into Witt’s eyes. He stood at the bar by her abandoned beer, his features carved from granite, his blue eyes icy. Max shuddered.
Despite the sexual moves, the obvious evidence of his desire, and Tiffany raging inside her, Jake Lloyd couldn’t satisfy her. Not the way Witt could.
Another tune, a slower beat, Max turned in Jake’s arms and laced her fingers behind his neck. Witt’s gaze was like an ice pick in her back. She picked up where she left off, only one goal in mind, to get answers. “Who was watching, Jake? Who followed you here? Who would she have left with?”
He kept her flush against him, but leaned back to look at her, pushing his cock against her crotch. “Miles Lamont.”
Shee-it, as Bubba would say. Her pulse raced. She leaned her forehead against his shoulder. She’d guessed it, but the confirmation still stunned her. And for just a moment, her stomach fell to her knees.
She’d hoped that he’d tell her it was Bud Traynor.
Wrong again.
The music flowed around her, along with the voices, the laughter, and the shouting. Miles Lamont. She didn’t doubt Jake’s statement in the least. She simply doubted his motive. Had he followed her here tonight, planning all the while to hammer a nail into Lamont’s coffin, just as Miles had tried to do to him? And if so, why hadn’t he implicated Miles a week ago? Why hadn’t he told the police?
Why couldn’t he have wanted her, no strings attached?
A ridiculous thought. It came from Tiffany. It was her pain and jealousy, almost child-like in quality.
And it was only Jake holding her. Not Cameron. Not Witt. Just some fantasy man whose potent desire would fill her like a drug, like the drug she’d taken time after time since the day Cameron had died.
The music played the soft strains of Diamond Rio singing “You’re Gone.” Such a sad, old ballad. It reminded her of Cameron. Of loving him. Of losing him.
The last words drifted away.
“You’re gone,” she whispered and looked over Jake’s shoulder straight into Witt’s unreadable eyes where he stood watching her from the bar.
Max remained in the loose circle of Jake’s arms and knew the ringing of that little pseudo-Cameron voice inside her head was absolutely right. She would never have slept with this man. Not for Tiffany. Not for Jules. Not even for herself. She’d think about it, she’d tell herself to do it, but in the end, she’d walked away.
He wasn’t the one she really wanted. And tonight, no one else would do. She couldn’t take Witt up on his offer, but she wouldn’t fill the spot with anyone else.