Shit. Witt.
Power. Her body ached with the need for it, for him. He’d said he was addicted to her. He’d turned around and come back for more of her. He’d cried out against her lips and come inside her, then he practically begged her to keep him on an orgasmic high all day. He said he had control over his body, but did he really? Could he resist if she set her mind to seducing him completely. Would he do anything for her?
Her body buzzed with hot, wet physical reminders of their little tease that morning. The sexual high he’d left her with had died in Julia’s house, but it was back in force. She burned with it.
“That’s him, isn’t it? I saw the way your eyes widened. You feel it in your gut, don’t you? That immediate zing straight to your clitoris.” Angela’s voice, Angela’s perfume making her dizzy, Angela’s words as if they were her own thoughts. “You could think yourself into coming merely by looking at him. But you don’t want to come. That’s not what it’s all about. You want him to beg you, to do anything for you, anything you ask.”
Anything?
Max turned slowly, finding Angela’s face too close, invading her space. “Even to kill a person for you?”
Angela sat back. For a moment, she looked far older than the twenty-five or so years Max guessed her to be. Something in the eyes, deep, perhaps pain, perhaps fear, perhaps Lance.
Then it was gone, Angela back on top again. She didn’t take the bait. “I suppose killing is the ultimate power.” She traced a crimson fingernail down her cheek like a trail of blood. “But killing, beating, and maiming is something men do.”
Yes, they did. Angela knew how familiar Max was with the concept. She steered the topic her way. “Women do it, too.”
Angela tipped her head to the side, thoughtful. “I lost you somehow, didn’t I?”
Max cocked her head. “You mean that you thought I was really going to ask that guy for money?”
“Yeah.”
“I was only fantasizing.”
“No, you weren’t.”
Max neither confirmed nor denied.
Angela crossed her legs, then her arms, plumping up her breasts for the audience around them. “You’re going to have to do this for me.”
Fear snaked its way around Max’s insides. “Why?”
Angela looked across the room to the entrance where Hammerhead sat with his glass of amber beer. “He won’t let me keep you around or answer your questions if you don’t.
Max, with a show of bravado, snorted. “So much for feminine power.”
Angela shrugged. “Women have brains, men have brawn. It’s a fact of life. In this business, we need protection. Nothing’s free, Max, and he wants payback for our time together.” She leaned forward, a touch of sadness in her brown eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any other choice.”
Of course, Angela would have told him all about Max’s research needs. Hammerhead would have made his demands. Max, however, still had choices.
“You’re free to walk away at any time,” Angela conceded, before slamming home her final ball. “But you have to ask yourself how important this book is to you.”
The book, synonymous with Lance La Russa’s murder. How important was finding Lance’s killer? Max didn’t know. She’d had one dream, several flashes of more. She wasn’t possessed. She could walk away at any time. Couldn’t she?
“I have to write it.” She had to see the visions through.
Something Max needed badly lay at the end of the trail, even if she didn’t know what that something was. It wasn’t only Lance, it was all of them, all the dead girls. It was Bud Traynor. She’d hadn’t reached the finale, couldn’t stop until she did. But was succumbing to Angela going to give her what she needed?
Max mentally pushed Angela anyway, a last ditch effort to save herself from something indefinable but bad. “I can write the book without you and him,” she said, indicating Hammerhead with a jut of her jaw.
The other woman’s eyes went serious, the jokes, the sensuality, all gone. “I’m sorry,” Angela said again. Max believed she meant it. “But if you don’t do it, I’ll know you’re setting me up. And that could have consequences for you.”
Like what? Her legs snapped like chicken bones?
Max took a deep breath, understanding already that she was losing. Angela wasn’t going to back down. “What could I possibly be setting you up for?”
Angela didn’t answer that, said instead, “No one has to know. No one will know. Not from us.” She looked down at her glass, put a finger on the rim. “Tit for tat, Max. You have to give to get. It’s the law of the streets.”
“You said you’d never been on the streets.”
Angela said nothing, waiting her out. Max rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. The working girl saw it for the yes it was.