“That was good. Thank you.” She nuzzled her nose to his cock, still half hard as if he could go at her again.
“Do you know the difference between fucking and making love?” He tipped his head the opposite direction, waiting.
“Yes. You fucked my mouth and I made love to your cock, and it was exactly the same thing. I know what making love feels like, Witt.”
“I think you do.” But there was an edge of wonder and uneasiness in his voice. As if she’d rip the rug out from under him, and he’d fall because his pants still hog-tied him around his ankles.
She pulled his pants up, brushing her lips and face along the dusting of manly hair on his legs. Moving to the bed beside him, she watched him buckle his belt. His fingers trembled.
He backed up to the connecting door, keeping his eyes on her as if she were a coiled rattler. “Good night, Max.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re going back to your room?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean it,” she said, rising off the bed. “That was making love. Everything we’ve done was making love.”
“Yeah. It always has been. I’m glad you see that.”
He loved what she’d done, he believed she thought it was making love, but he didn’t trust how long her feelings about it would last.
“But—” She cut herself off abruptly. She’d run him a merry chase. He didn’t trust her change of heart. He needed time to absorb it. She asked him not to rush her. She would give him that same courtesy. “Good night, Witt.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Are you alone, Max?”
The ringing phone dragged her from an immediately forgotten dream, but the voice made her bolt upright in the bed.
Bud Traynor laughed as if he knew how she’d react. The sound grated like nails on a chalkboard. She glanced at the clock. Two-fourteen in the morning, only a little after eleven in California. He hadn’t called simply to disturb her sleep, she was sure.
“What the hell do you want?” Her voice low so as not to wake Witt in the next room, she drew the blankets around and over her exposed back. No matter that Bud couldn’t see her naked state; she felt the vulnerability. It would have been better if she hadn’t turned the thermostat to stifling earlier in the evening, then chosen to sleep without her nightshirt. The heat hadn’t dissipated despite having turned the whole system off, and a sheen of perspiration covered her scrubbed and scoured face.
“Hmm,” he murmured on a sigh. “I don’t hear any telltale male mutterings, Max.”
“Up yours.”
“He isn’t for you, Max. He’s a cop.” He waited one pulse of her blood, then added, “Cops die, Max.”
He plunged the knife straight through to her heart. She kept her voice steady through strength of will. “I’d rather bury another man than spend a second with you.”
She would die if she had to bury Witt, but the words were a potent ward against Bud.
“Why do you deny what’s between us, Max? You wound me.”
She fascinated him. Which is why he hung around like a bad smell. “You’re not going to win no matter how hard you try.”
“Oh, I’ll win in the end. The moment of triumph edges ever closer, Max.” She hated the way he said her name, using it at every opportunity. Repetition was some sort of power trip for him.
“Don’t make me puke.”
He dropped his voice to a purr. “I have so much more to offer you than he does, Max.”
“Like what?” As if anything could be enough. “Money?”
“Knowledge. Information.”
“Why don’t you start with where you got this number?” Sunny hadn’t given it to him.
He answered, as easy as that. “The Internet. My, this was only the second motel in my search. The Lines Motor Lodge, Max.” He tsked. “You should have tried something with a little more class.” He snorted. “But then he doesn’t have much class, does he, Max?”
Wind rumbled against the single pane windows. Light from the parking lot filtered through the thin curtains. The fifteen-inch TV screen, barely discernible from the bed, sat atop a chest of drawers wearing a few scratches. The lumps in the mattress poked her butt. But the room was clean, and it fit her budget, and damn him anyway for getting to her.
She launched a counterattack. “Next to you, Witt’s a prince.”
“But how does he fuck, Max?”
She clenched her teeth at the harshness in the image. Fucking or making love, that was the question. Bud zeroed in on her most sensitive point. Witt had seen the truth tonight, felt it, believed it, even if he had needed a break from her. Damn Traynor for making her think about that, too.
“How did you know I was in Lines?” She should have hung up on him, cut off his games, but she wanted to know, had to know the how and the why of it.
He made a noise, as if licking his lips. “Soulmates, my sweet delectable Max. I’ll find you no matter where you run.”