Free Power to the Max by Jasmine Haynes

have every right. I care about you, and you damn well know you care about me. You’re too chicken shit to admit it. I will not let you pose as a hooker no matter how much you fight me over it.”

    “Don’t order me around, Witt. You won’t like how I react.”

    “Damn you, Max. You will listen to me.” His bite so harsh, his teeth crunched, and he lost it completely. He crushed her to him, and his lips were on hers before she had time to punch him in the gut.

    He tasted sweet, like strawberry syrup and whipped cream, but his hold across her back was like a vise and his teeth ground against her lips. It wasn’t a nice kiss. It wasn’t a tame kiss. And she liked it for those very reasons. She could feel his desire, his need, like a drug in her veins. She could also hold onto her anger, let it fester and grow, an excuse to keep him at a distance, at least for tonight. For this relationship, figurative distance was the most important.

    He set her down amidst muted laughter and applause from inside the coffee shop, her humiliation complete, his face blank and his gaze simmering, no explanation on his lips. Neither of them needed one.

    Stepping back, her butt up against the car door, she stabbed his chest with her index finger. “You can kiss me, you can even fuck me, but don’t you ever” — another stab—“touch me again with the intention of controlling me.”

    “You see control, I offer protection.”

    “That’s not what I need from you.”

    “Then what do you need? Do you even know?”

    She fisted her hand against his chest, the anger flaring because he was right. She didn’t have a clue. She wanted to run, she wanted to hide, she wanted to open her arms and beg him to help her. Scary thought, that she might actually need him more than he claimed to need her. “You know, Witt, the hooker pretense never even occurred to me. But it’s a damn good idea. It’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

    Then she pushed him back, climbed into the car, started her engine, and roared off into the night leaving him standing utterly alone.

     

    * * * * *

     

    Witt had followed her home, but he hadn’t even stopped the car, merely breezed right on by as she’d parked, expecting her to go in the way he’d ordered. Probably he’d gone back to make sure Ladybird had survived her night out despite Max’s bad influence. Mr. Knight in Shining Armor, looking after little blue-haired ladies and taking care of women who pushed him too far. Didn’t he ever give up? Was there nothing she could say that would make him finally, irrevocably dump her on her ass? Why did he keep coming back for more of her crap?

    It wasn’t because Witt loved her, though he very well might. It was the challenge he liked, she was sure. Nothing to keep a man hanging around better than to tell him you couldn’t stand him and wouldn’t ever consider doing him again. It was a dare their egos couldn’t pass up.

    “That’s doesn’t describe the detective at all.”

    God, she should know better than to have these internal arguments with herself when Cameron could eavesdrop. “He’s a man. Ergo, he’s got a big ego.”

    “He’s got something big all right and you want it badly, Max.”

    “He hasn’t got a thing I want.”

    “You want him to fuck you.”

    “He already has, Cameron. It wasn’t that great.” It was stupendous. And scary as hell.

    “I heard that. You loved it. You’re dying for him to do you again. But you’re on the run again, sweetheart. Stop fighting what you really want.”

    Max removed her blazer and threw it across the wooden chair in the corner. “It’s late. I’m tired. I don’t want to fight with you.”

    “You’re in the perfect mood for a fight. It’s what you do best.”

    Her tie, blouse, and slacks went the way of the blazer, the tie slipping off the chair seat to the floor. “What bug got up your butt, Cameron?”

    “I’m horny.”

    She laughed. “You’re a ghost. You