Witt finished his perusal. “Nice.” Hot. She saw that in his eyes. His breathing wasn’t quite normal. He read her mood. God, help them both. She’d been counting on him to be the sane one.
But it was a car. All she had to do was put her head in his lap. Angela would never know if she didn’t actually blow him. A car. Safe. No big deal. “We don’t need the room.” She shifted, twitchy and uncomfortable. “We’re to use a car.” She dipped her head. “Mine’s too small, and I’m not supposed to know what you drive.” With a deep breath, she told him what she’d done. “I suggested Hammerhead’s Lincoln.”
“They wanna watch.” Witt didn’t make it a question.
“I don’t think they completely trust me.”
He rolled his eyes. “Told you that last night.”
“Angela wouldn’t take no for answer.” Max couldn’t remember quite how strenuously she’d fought against the woman.
“Insane, Max. Totally insane. I wanted the room.”
God. Witt was insane.
No. Surely he didn’t mean it that way, not the way she’d thought of it. He meant a room made the charade easier. “They won’t be able to get close enough to really see what we’re doing.” She gulped air, then covered her nervousness with a sip of champagne. “I mean that we’re really not doing anything.” Damn the over-explaining. “I’ve got the money.”
“How much am I supposed to pay?”
She couldn’t help it. “How much am I worth?”
He didn’t answer, let his eyes travel from hers to her lips to her breasts and down. It was answer enough. In red neon, the word flashed across her mind’s eye. Power, power, power.
Panic clutched her throat. “Why are you doing this?”
His eyes went all secretive again. “Same reason you are.”
Power? No, it couldn’t be. “You want to know what they want. But why’d you change your mind about how to find out?”
“Seems like playing their game is the way for now. So how much do they want?”
She’d forgotten to ask. “Five hundred dollars.” She chose the amount because it made her feel expensive, not cheap. “And all I’m supposed to do is—” She stopped.
“All you’re supposed to do is what?” Voice low, harsh, almost a whisper, striking an answering chord inside her. Eyes so blue they seemed to burn like flame, looking straight into hers. Breath short and sharp, his hot hand pressuring her arm, a scent rose off him, like the afterglow of good sex.
She swallowed. “You know.” She bit her lip.
“Hand?”
She shook her head.
“Mouth?” She only saw his lips move, the sound whisked away in a drenching of laughter from the next table. Somehow she’d forgotten they weren’t alone.
She nodded.
His pupils dilated.
Sexual games. Power games. He was thirty-six, she was thirty-three. They’d both been married, one divorced, one widowed. They shouldn’t have needed to play these games at all. Yet she’d been playing with him since he’d first held her hands captive in his large grip two months ago. She remembered the exact moment the sexual tension began. She’d had her nails done. He’d checked out the paint job. Her flesh had heated. Her bones had melted. He’d accused her of murder. She’d wanted to take him home.
She’d been scared then.
He terrified her now.
“Let’s get it over with.” She sounded good. Offhand. Like the charade was a chore. He’d never know how much she wished they’d gotten the room. She started to rise.
He stopped her with a big, warm hand. “Are you going to pay for my help later?”
She swallowed. “If I have to.”
He shook his head. His mouth quirked. “Never give an inch, do ya? I’m beginning to think there’ll never be a day that you’ll touch me without a price tag or an ulterior motive.”
He didn’t know she already had touched him just for the sake of feeling his skin or his mouth or his tongue against hers. If she told him that, he’d hold the power, and she’d be lost. She couldn’t even come up with a pithy reply, so she rose to her feet. This time he didn’t stop her.
“I’m supposed to go first,” she told him. “You follow a few minutes later.”
His hand fell away from her slowly. Reaching for her glass, he held it out to her. “Finish your champagne.”
Once again, the glass was almost empty. How the hell did that keep happening? She took it, drained the contents, then licked the sugar and bitters from her lips.
Witt watched.
The look was enough to make her come.
Chapter Twenty-One
Her silk skirt swishing across her thighs, Max scurried away from the hungry look in Witt’s eyes.
Jeez, she might have bitten off more than she could chew. So to speak.
Angela Rocket sat with Hammerhead at his table by the entrance. The man’s hand had disappeared beneath the lacquered top. His whole arm moved, starting from the shoulder. The scent of sex swirled in the air. Or maybe it was merely in Max’s head.