“You gave him your body. That said nothing. An apology’s got to come from the heart and the gut, Max. That was you doing the least you had to do to get by.”
She’d given Witt an apology last week, for what she’d done—or hadn’t done—when he’d told her about that young girl. She’d meant every word, but she’d left so much unsaid. While he’d shared a vitally important piece of himself, Max had done the least she could get by with.
“You should have at least told him you were making love to him in the alley.”
She laughed, a certain edge of hysteria to it. She’d known Cameron would bring that up. “You said I don’t know how to make love. He would have seen through the lie.”
“Would it have been a lie?”
Her fingers suddenly felt numb with cold. She loved the feel of Witt inside her. And for a moment, she’d reveled in that sense of oneness she’d felt. Did she want more of it? More meant feelings, the emotions of wanting someone so badly you think about them every minute of every day, feeling like you’d die inside if they ever left you, like you’d lie on their grave and cry until there was nothing left but a dried-up husk.
She’d had that with Cameron. She couldn’t go through it all again.
“You never cried on my grave, Max. You had me cremated and scattered to the four winds.”
“That’s what you wanted.” For herself, she’d bought a plot and a headstone because she’d needed a physical place to go. At least she had until she really understood that Cameron hadn’t left her. She hadn’t visited the cemetery since.
“You never cried, even over that plot. Maybe if you had, you could let me go.”
“Maybe that’s why I haven’t.” Maybe letting Witt in meant letting Cameron go. The thought terrified her more than any other.
She heard him crying for her, a soft choked sound he’d never made in life. She could only remember once that he’d cried back then. It had been towards the end, before the 7-11. A case, the last one he’d ever had. She’d learned later that it was a man named Walter Spring. Cameron had never talked about his cases. He hadn’t talked about this one either, only cried while she held him. Why, she’d asked him over and over, what had he learned, what had happened to bring him to this? Cameron had never answered. Through the years, she’d often wondered if he’d had a premonition of his own death and thus the tears. But Cameron, after death, hadn’t remembered crying, nor had he remembered Walter Spring. He’d only remembered his love for her, only his emotions.
She could not deal with his emotions. She couldn’t deal with her own. Considering the concept that she held Witt at bay to keep Cameron tied to her was more than she could tackle.
“I’ve had enough,” she whispered. One more soul-wrenching discussion and she’d croak. “I’m going to sleep now.”
“Sleep then, my love. There’s always tomorrow.”
He sounded like Scarlett O’Hara after Rhett Butler had walked out on her. Well, someone had written another book, and Rhett had returned.
“You and Witt are both wrong,” Max murmured half asleep. “I didn’t fuck you, Cameron. I think I made love.”
Sometime deep in the night, she fell into the dream.
“You liked blowing him in the backseat of that car, didn’t you, Max? You loved it when he fucked you in that stinking alley.” Bud Traynor’s voice. She couldn’t open her eyes to look at him, couldn’t move her arms or legs to run.
He’d tied her down with yards and yards of ... something, perhaps rope like Snidely Whiplash used to tie Nell to the train tracks. Only Traynor’s voice was the train, squashing her at ninety miles an hour.
“Shall I tell you want he wants, Max?”
She shook her head because she couldn’t speak. She knew, but she couldn’t bear to hear Bud say it.
“He wants to own you, body and soul. But he knows he’s too weak to do it. He can’t stand that weakness. Because he’ll do anything to have you, Max. Anything. Even kill. He’ll never leave you. He can’t. Just like your husband can’t leave you.” He laughed softly. “Shall I tell you why? Shall I reveal the secret?”
She felt his hands move the length of her body, her bindings crackling strangely. Whatever the substance was suddenly covered her mouth so she couldn’t beg Bud not to tell her.
“Because you won’t capitulate, Max. You won’t give in. You won’t give them what they want. They can’t bend you or snap you.” He licked her cheek in one long swipe, his tongue rough and exotic like a cat’s. “That’s the secret, Max. You’ll hold them both captive forever if you never give in. The minute you bare your soul the way they want, they’ll both disappear like puffs of smoke in the wind.”
His words mesmerized, but his hands on her sent prickles of alarm racing to her toes and fingers.