Cassie Parker’s most erotic fantasies were about to come true…

According to her aunt, all Cassie had to do was write her sexual fantasies in a diary and lock it inside the lover’s box for the Gypsy magic to work its charm.

Cassie snatched up the pen and started to write. She wanted a man to crave her as he’d never craved another woman. She wanted him to be so filled with lust that whenever he saw her he went hard. And he definitely had to be well-endowed….

Finishing up her wish list with “A physique similar to a Calvin Klein underwear model’s,” Cassie tucked her diary into the box with a lascivious smile. There was no way the box would really make her fantasies come to life, she knew, but it beat spending another night feeling sorry for herself.

Then the unmistakable sound of breaking glass came from the shop below. Cassie groaned and padded downstairs to strangle her aunt’s wayward cat. But reaching the bottom step she found a whole different kind of intruder.

Cassie stared mutely at the very embodiment of her fantasy, wondering if she should scream in terror or knock him out before he could escape.

Because the lover’s box really worked….

MILLS & BOON

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Dear Reader,

I have a magnet on my refrigerator that says, “It’s Better To Have Loved & Lost Than To Live With The Psycho The Rest Of Your Life.” It cracks me up every time I read it. So I decided to write a story about a woman who feels the same way….

We all know that sometimes it’s hard to overcome past pain and risk being hurt again. My heroine needed a little help, and is enticed back into love by an antique relic and a dash of Gypsy magic that promises to make her wildest sexual desires come true. However, she gets more than she imagined when the man of her dreams suddenly shows up and starts fulfilling her fantasies, one by one.

I hope you enjoy my first book for the Harlequin Blaze line. I’d love to know what you think. You can send your e-mails to camidalton@earthlink.net or visit my Web site at www.camidalton.com.

Happy (and satisfying) reading!

Cami Dalton

PLEASURE TO THE MAX!
Cami Dalton

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cami Dalton lives in a small beachside town on the east coast of Florida with her two amazingly cute sons and one English bulldog. She read her first romance—a Harlequin Books title, of course—more than twenty years ago and has been addicted to the genre ever since. However, her career in fiction began in the second grade when she spent hours in her bedroom making up wonderful tales full of passion and love starring herself and her imaginary boyfriend, Andy Gibb. Now she does this for a living.

Books by Cami Dalton

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

972—HER PRIVATE DANCER

To my brother, Shelly, and my niece, Emily.

Your generosity with retired laptops has literally

made my writing possible.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

Prologue

Russian countryside, 1920

THE KING OF THE GYPSIES, Rajko Sanderzej, stared up at his bound hands and cursed under his breath as a drop of sweat dripped down the center of his naked chest. Of course, his entire body was naked. Naked and aroused. Give a female the ability to fulfill her every sexual fantasy and this was what happened…pure erotic torture.

“You look good like that,” Stasi said, her voice with an undertone that made the muscles in his stomach pull tight.

Rajko smirked, afraid that if he spoke he’d give away just how affected he was by her shocking new game. His wrists were secured by a length of rope that had been looped over one of the thick wooden beams that ran above his head, just below the ceiling of the abandoned cottage. He didn’t bother struggling to get loose. There was no point. There were powers at work far stronger than the tether that held him. Not to mention that he was too busy suffering through the most painful erection of his life.

He’d never been more excited. Either Rajko had a secret submissive streak, which he highly doubted, or the thought of his once shy and wounded lover turned bold tigress of domination had him twitching with lust.

Frankly, he should be annoyed rather than fighting not to spill his seed on the scuffed wooden floor before she even touched him. He was the recognized Rom Baro of the Gypsies, the leader of his band of people. He was the only Romani male ever to have been born with the gift of second sight and the ability to cast and quicken charms.

He’d kept his clan safe and fed through a world war, then led them across Russia in the midst of a revolution. His skill with a knife was unparalleled, and both his looks and prowess brought him any woman he wanted whether Gypsy or gadje.

Yet here he stood, twisting like a convict from the gallows, all at the whim of a mere slip of a girl who’d wound her way around his heart and whom he loved above all others. Or, rather, more like a sex slave bound and ready to perform his mistress’s bidding. Oh, yes, with her newfound inner vixen, his Stasi would definitely prefer the latter comparison.

The little hellion trailed her hand over his hip and down his flank as she circled behind him then around to the front. Rajko rocked forward on the balls of his feet, his cock thrust brutally in the air. He swallowed, clenching his hands into fists. While he scrambled for an ounce of control, he could do no more than stare; Stasi’s entire form was backlit by the fire. She’d started a blaze in the hearth to take off the early spring chill, and the flames crackled invitingly.

Her brown hair tumbled loosely down her back, and she was as bare as he except for the black silk scarf knotted sideways at her hip. The scrap hid nothing, merely accentuating her curving buttocks and the ruffle of curls at the meeting of her thighs. The tiny gold key that she wore around her neck glittered tauntingly. Just thinking about the kind of power she held, and what the key symbolized, made his blood pump in dark, thick pulses. She was only a step away. The small distance was killing him.

His breath slipped out. “You are so beautiful, my Krasili.”

She placed her fingers against his lips, then jerked her head to look at the window over her shoulder, apparently to make sure the shutters were closed tight. They were, along with the only door.

“You shouldn’t call me that,” she said in quiet urgency. “What if someone heard.”

Voice dry, he responded, “I’m standing here strung up like a gutted deer. I’m far more concerned about what someone could see rather than hear. Besides, in my eyes, you are a princess. My princess,” he said, referring to the Gypsy term he’d just spoken. He shrugged his shoulders as much as the rope would allow. “It’s just a word. Your reaction is what would trigger suspicion. Besides,” he soothed, “you are safe. No one can hurt you now, and I will keep your secrets hidden.”

Her cheeks going pink, she ducked her chin, then rose up on her toes to press her forehead into the curve of his chest. Her breasts molded to his torso. His flesh burned, and he shivered. The flickering light played over her skin, turning the scars that marred her back and torso silvery.

This time he did pull against his bonds, his arms aching to hold her. She’d come so close to dying. It had been almost two years since he’d found her, broken and bleeding on the forest floor in the midst of a revolution-torn Russia.

She’d been barely conscious, blood soaking her dress from a dozen wounds. On the cusp of womanhood, her wealth and nobility of great fame in the area, he’d recognized her immediately and known that those who’d attacked her would seek her out to finish their evil work. If for no other reason than to claim the czar’s ransom of jewels with which she’d escaped, and that had glimmered from the torn lining of her clothes. Shushing her frightened whimpers, he’d gathered her into his arms and taken her back to his people.

Remembering that time, Rajko nuzzled the top of her head, smiling into her hair. Living and caring for his wounded angel, his feelings had grown beyond what he’d ever thought himself capable. But after her attack she’d become almost fearful, her demeanor quiet and shy. Trying to get more than the most timid of smiles from her had been a daily battle. Though his little mouse had furtively been every bit as fascinated by him, her eyes constantly following him around their camp.

Night after night he’d watch the beautiful young woman, who called herself Stasi, across the campfire as she wrote out her thoughts and secrets in a small diary. And, Rajko had believed, she wrote of her love and desire for him, knowing in his soul that she was a woman of deep hidden passions.

Hoping to win her heart, and release the pain that had crippled her with fear, he’d carved for her a lover’s box and placed it under one of the Gypsies’ most rare and potent charms. About the size of a cigar case, a lover’s box had become a popular trinket among the young gadje women who kept love letters or a journal filled with amorous yearnings for their beaux locked inside. The key was worn as a charm on a bracelet or necklace, a seductive symbol to any male by whom it was seen.

He’d designed the powerful spell so that whenever Stasi wrote her sexual longings and fantasies in her diary, she had only to lock the slim book inside the lover’s box and they would come true for her with the man she desired…none other, of course, than Rajko himself.

At the thought of just how well his gift had worked, his mouth slowly curved into what he had no doubt was an unholy grin and he chuckled wickedly.

Stasi lifted her head, and studied his amusement. She nipped his chin with her pearly little teeth. “Hmm, in my fantasy you were begging, not laughing,” she said. “I’ll have to do something about that.”

Rajko grunted. “I think you’ve done more than enough, Krasili.”

Stasi ran the curves of her nails down the inside of his raised arms, over his chest and down to the muscles that ran on each side of his lower stomach in a diagonal arrow to his groin. The air in his lungs hissed out in a rush.

Clearly fighting a smile, she assured, “You’re just upset at how you arrived. Next time I decide to write out my bondage dreams, I’ll be quite specific in the details,” she said, referring to the idiosyncrasies of the lover’s box.

Yes, the spell he’d created did indeed make her fantasies come true. This, however, left far too many options for fate to play with while getting all the key players into place. And fate seemed to enjoy riling up as much mischief and mayhem as possible along the way. There were times that, in spite of the spine-wringing benefits, Rajko wished she’d grow tired of his wildly successful gift and be happy to hide it away until some other poor woman needed its secrets.

“Next time you should try doing it the old-fashioned way. In a bed. Me on top. No frills. Just the basics. You don’t know. You might like it.”

Now it was her laugh that sounded wicked, and she slid to her knees before him. She laid her cheek against his thigh and her breath washed across him, stirring the dense hair at the base of his length.

“Oh, I don’t think so, my beautiful Gypsy king,” she said, pausing to give the skin between his groin and thigh a slow lick. He actually growled before cutting off the harsh noise escaping his throat. Her palms fit perfectly along the flat planes at the sides of his buttocks, rubbing and pressing, while her lips slipped beneath his heavy stones. She opened her warm, wet mouth impossibly wide then gently sucked as much of him in as she could take. He could hear her lips and tongue erotically working him, and he squeezed his eyes shut and dropped back his head.

His heart banged against his ribs. He had to swallow twice before he finally found his voice and asked, “Why not?”

As her small fist worked its way between his thighs and she pressed two fingertips to the smooth skin behind his sack, her lips loosened their hold on his flesh, though they still touched and brushed against him as she said, “Because we have the kind of passion that legends are made of.”

And with his gift of second sight, Rajko knew she was right and could only hope that the next poor man who found himself at the mercy of the lover’s box understood its true value and discovered the ultimate secret within…that the magic of fulfilling a woman’s desires was the only treasure worth having….

1

St. Petersburg, Russia, Present Day

MINERVA PARKER had done many things in her eighty years of life, but flat-out stealing a rather mediocre, inexpensive antiquity had not been one of them—until today. And damn if her theft of a few minutes ago hadn’t been pure, glorious fun. The last time she could remember enjoying herself as much had been decades ago during an excavation in Cairo when she’d fought off a group of bandits who’d tried to rob a grave she’d uncovered, with nothing more to defend herself than her twenty-two caliber and a whip.

Minerva was a treasure hunter, and had been for the past fifty years. In other words, long before Lara Croft had ever dreamed of raiding her first tomb, Minerva had been on the scene, chasing relics and getting herself into the sort of hair-raising adventures that would make the fictitious video game character’s exploits seem downright subdued.

Smiling to herself, though she made sure to make the expression suitably vacant and dotty, Minerva casually entered the lobby of one of the finest hotels in St. Petersburg, then crossed to the elevator and stepped inside. She didn’t bother to check behind her to see if she was being followed. No one paid attention to old people and she’d just left the legitimate owner of her ill-gotten gains, Max Stone, none the wiser to the robbery and enjoying a drink at the Czar’s Club, a seedy bar in downtown St. Petersburg.

Really, it was far too easy. Slip on a pair of reading glasses and hunch her shoulders a bit to give the appearance of being stooped with age, and people either completely ignored her or looked at her as if she’d just had her ticket punched for a one-way ride on the Alzheimer’s express. However, she was quite disappointed in Max. They might not exactly travel in the same circles, but, as the saying went, it was a small world out there and the antiquities community was no different. After running in to her since he was a rascally teen accompanying his father—a professor in archeology—from dig to dig, the ridiculously handsome scoundrel should have known better.

She was a force to be reckoned with at any age and those who forgot did so at their own peril. Of course he’d been understandably distracted by a seemingly unimportant curio, one of the many second-rate artifacts that a small-time Russian fence had been trying to hawk to him and the other hunters thronging the Czar’s Club. A quite normal occurrence for this time of year.

Every summer the International Antiquities League, or IAL, held a conference here in St. Petersburg. Though the weeklong convention brought together the leading experts from various universities and museums around the world, they weren’t the only ones to take over the picturesque city.

The symposium also attracted every student with enough euros to nab a rail pass, every private collector, treasure hunter—or, as some preferred, antiquities hunter—black market merchant, and hobbyist who wanted to play Indiana Jones. And a person in the know could learn just as much in the Czar’s Club, where the more nefarious members of the above list congregated, as she could in any lecture hall.

Which is why Minerva herself had been in the establishment, drinking a glass or two of vodka—freezing cold, no ice. She might be eighty, but she wasn’t out of the game yet or about to miss all the action by going to bed early. Tonight, however, when she’d walked into the bar and gotten a feel of the room, she’d had the distinct impression that it would be better to slip into the background, watching and listening rather than charging into the action. From there, playing the little-old-lady card had been a no-brainer and had, as usual, worked like a charm.

Minerva entered her suite, then moved to the sitting area, shrugging her large tote bag off her shoulder and onto the coffee table. Sinking into the feather pillows on the settee, she smiled as she pictured the look on Max’s face when he realized that he’d been robbed blind.

Of course, just picturing Max’s masculinely beautiful face would be enough to make any woman smile, and she was no exception. Two or three inches over six feet, he had piercing blue-green eyes, the body for a man to have and the most unusual hair. Quite stunning, actually, with streaks of color from mink-brown to shining gold running through the too-long mass.

Yet Max Stone was more than handsome. He was dangerous and unpredictable. A scoundrel to the bone. His personality and presence were a combination of Han Solo meets Rhett Butler, crossed with that nefarious Sawyer character from the television show Lost, all rolled into one magnificent package.

Minerva had once had a lover like him and she almost sighed aloud at the memory. Every woman should have a thrilling and passionate love affair with an unrepentant rogue like Max Stone. Each moment in their company was exciting and they could usually back up their potent appeal with masterful expertise in the bedroom.

Nothing at all like the spineless idiots her beautiful young great-niece, Cassie, somehow managed to get herself wrapped up with. Especially the toad—as Minerva liked to call him—to whom Cassie had been engaged. Fortunately, the toad had broken it off all by himself before Minerva had been forced to do something drastic, such as have Cassie kidnapped and deprogrammed.

Sadly, though the young woman whom Minerva loved more like a granddaughter than a distant niece certainly tried to live up to the Parker legacy, things usually had a way of getting completely out of hand for Cassie. Which is why the blasted girl was back at home in Palm Shores, Florida, managing Minerva’s shop, Den of Antiquities, rather than out living her own adventures. According to Cassie, she was merely taking a break and reassessing what she wanted to do with her life, or some such nonsense. In Minerva’s opinion she was just plain hiding.

Minerva chuckled and eyed the items on the coffee table. If she was right, the chain of events that she’d just set into motion would more than launch her beautiful great-niece back into society. Wearing what was no doubt a smug grin, Minerva reached for her satchel and lifted out the fruits of her crime.

She stared down at the lover’s box she’d liberated from Max. Opening the lid, she removed the diary inside, skimming through the pages and smiling in approval at some of the more interesting entries before setting it back.

After the other hunters had wandered off in search of better merchandise, unaware of what they’d overlooked as junk and left behind, Minerva had watched from a nearby table as Max Stone had swooped in and bought the lover’s box from the Russian fence for less than fifty American dollars. The trinket was gaudily painted and in poor condition, but for those aware of its significance, this hardly decreased its value—a find that maybe fifty hunters and scholars combined would even recognize.

Few people were familiar with the Gypsy folklore and fables of almost ninety years ago surrounding the life of the last great Gypsy king, Rajko Sanderzej. Even fewer knew about the lover’s box that Rajko had made for the woman he loved.

One tale claimed that the man who possessed Rajko’s box held the secret to a treasure for which czars and kings would die. Another claimed that the woman who possessed Rajko’s box held the secret to sexual ecstasies beyond those that only the most passionate of females dreamed.

Of course most historians considered it pure bunk, and even among the Gypsies, the existence of Rajko’s box had taken on the status of an urban legend. But, great heavens, it boggled the mind to think about the possibilities a woman could explore if she had Max Stone and Rajko’s lover’s box at her disposal.

Ahh, Minerva remembered thinking wickedly to herself as she’d sat in the Czar’s Club, what she wouldn’t give to be fifty years younger like her niece, Cassie. It had been on the heels of this titillating thought that Minerva had realized the opportunity in front of her was just too darn good to pass up. And, she didn’t have a single doubt that Max would chase after the lover’s box.

Max needed the box in order to find Rajko’s treasure. Though she might not know it, Cassie needed the box to have the sort of glorious sex that thrust a young woman out of hiding and forced her into the open where the stark light of fleshly pleasures illuminated and empowered her soul. Or at the very least gave her great screaming orgasms.

Minerva glanced at her wristwatch. Late, but at a hotel like this one the front desk staff always catered to guests. She needed packaging materials and tape sent up immediately. She walked to the phone and picked up the receiver.

She doubted that Max had yet discovered the theft. He was probably still slamming back the vodkas and riding out the high of knowing he’d found Rajko’s box. Quite a feat since, for almost ninety years, no one had been able to conclusively prove its existence, let alone go after its mythical treasure.

Minerva had about twenty-four hours or so before Max pieced two and two together. Just enough time to express-deliver Rajko’s box to Palm Shores. And just enough time to lay a trail for Max to follow, and to give Cassie a head start on using the box Rajko had designed for his woman.

Then it was up to Max Stone to decide just how badly he wanted a czar’s ransom in treasure. And up to Cassie to decide just how badly she craved pleasure. Pleasure, as the youngsters would say, to the max…

2

Palm Shores, Florida, three days later

CASSIE PARKER could not think of a single sexual fantasy that didn’t sound corny or clichéd. Or one that didn’t require an immediate crash diet. All of which was a major bummer since, if Aunt Minerva’s package that had arrived yesterday and the accompanying letter were to be believed, Cassie had just been given the key to making her most erotic and forbidden fantasies come true.

Ah, well, Cassie had always believed that Murphy’s Law had been written expressly for her, so it was no surprise really that with complete sexual fulfillment within her reach, Cassie was either drawing a blank or worrying about whether she’d look too fat in a French maid’s costume. It was just her luck that this magical opportunity would arrive after she’d spent the past seven months eating her way through the ugly breakup with her ex-fiancé, Satan. (His mother had named him Ron, but the woman had been way off on that one.)

Twelve extra pounds, and every ounce counted when one was five feet two inches tall, on top of an already, er, curvy body type tended to play havoc with a girl’s vanity. Heck, she didn’t even like shopping for bathing suits let alone conjuring up pornographic images where she played the starring role. Well, if she looked on the bright side, a lover’s box that guaranteed life-altering nooky, yet with the potential for crippling self-consciousness and outrageous embarrassment on her part, meant that the whole thing was bound to come true and she’d better start writing.

Grinning to herself—hey, it was either smile or cry in the face of cellulite anxiety—Cassie lifted her wine-glass and took a sip. She leaned against the mound of pillows at the head of her bed. Her legs were crossed, and a brand-spanking-new diary rested on her thighs. The blank white pages gleamed up at her brightly.

Earlier, since Cassie had been at the store, anyway, and since her outrageous aunt would merely hound her until she tried out the lover’s box, she’d bought the slim journal. After reading Minerva’s letter it had seemed to Cassie that her wild and wacky Friday-night plans of eating chocolate chip cookie dough and giving herself a pedicure could only be enhanced by writing out exotic sexual scenarios and locking them inside an antique lover’s box that, according to her illustrious great-aunt, was under a Gypsy love charm.

Then the ramifications had sunk in, and the wine had been brought out.

Cassie stared down at the blank page, suddenly feeling more than a bit stupid about the whole thing. Granted, it wasn’t like she’d canceled a date with George Clooney, but what had earlier sounded like a fun way to pass an evening now seemed sort of dorky and desperate. Two adjectives that pretty much summed up her life.

Sighing, she tossed her empty book and pen down next to her on the bed. She picked up the original diary that had come inside the lover’s box and had been written by the Gypsy king’s lover, and started flipping the pages. For the most part, the woman had signed her entries as Stasi, though toward the end she’d started penning off as Krasili. Since the handwriting matched, this presumably was a nickname, though that was merely a guess.

In any case, good old Stasi had imagination and daring up the wazoo. She might have started out too shy to talk to her Gypsy king, Rajko, but, with the pages all but smoking, it was apparent that as soon as Stasi had gotten the hang of it she’d become a different woman.

Cassie had read Stasi’s entire diary, and noting the other woman’s transformation from a timid and fairly vanilla lover to a wild temptress of the night had been inspiring to say the least. Or rather, the general concept had been inspiring, rather than the specifics.

Before she’d started dating Ron, Cassie had been the sort of gal who’d really liked sex. Okay, really, really liked sex, and as long as she’d been aroused past her don’t-look-at-my-fat-butt stage, she’d been able to swing from the chandeliers with the best of them. No, Cassie thought sourly, from the little she remembered of the act—pre-Ron era—she didn’t need inspiration from Stasi’s diary to let go of a few hang-ups so she could enjoy doing the wild thing.

Rather, she needed inspiration to change and grow for the times spent out of bed when, no matter what excavation she’d tagged along on, no matter what extreme sport she’d somehow been conned into trying by Minerva, no matter what exotic career she’d pursued in an attempt to live up to the legacy of her treasure-hunting aunt—not to mention, all the other annoyingly adventurous females in their illustrious family—things had consistently gone haywire and Cassie had always come out looking like a boob.

Oh, who was she trying to kid? Post-Ron she was pretty screwed up in the bedroom, too. Her ex-fiancé, through great stealth and passive-aggressive tactics, had turned her into a weight-obsessed mess who could barely glance at herself in the mirror let alone strut up to a guy as if she were Angelina Jolie and ask him back to her place for a little somethin’-somethin’. Although Cassie had high hopes that this would be a condition she’d get over rather quickly if the right man diligently applied himself to the cause.

Lost in her morbid thoughts, Cassie started when her great-aunt’s cat, Creature, jumped up onto the bed. He stalked over to the quilts that she’d pushed into a clump down by her feet. His tail had been broken in a fight, and she watched it twitch back and forth in a disjointed pattern. Cassie liked to think of herself as someone who loved animals, but Creature—so named for his lack of resemblance to a normal feline—put a strain on her self-perception.

Since she shared the top floor of the house with her great-aunt, and the shop she managed for Minerva was downstairs, Creature came as part of the deal, and whenever Minerva wasn’t around to keep him company he amused himself by biting and scratching Cassie and generally vandalizing the place to show his displeasure.

Creature dug his claws into the bedding, kneading the sharp little devils back and forth as he rhythmically lifted and lowered his patchily furred paws. The vicious beast stared right at her. Well, one of his eyes stared directly into hers, the other wandered to the left with the accompanying eyelid permanently fixed at half-mast. His personality matched his appearance and she could swear he shot her a look that said, “Lady, you might as well just write down the word intercourse, plain and simple, in that little diary of yours, because even a Gypsy love charm can only do so much.”

Cassie flattened her mouth, but did nothing, not even shooing him off the bed as he snagged and snarled her blankets. She wouldn’t dream of going up against the feral brute without a chair and a whip. Besides, despite being destructive and mean, at least he was company.

Eventually growing tired of his game, Creature plopped down and stretched himself out. Call her nuts, but that cat was clearly an alien life form intelligent enough to take over the planet: no animal should be able to convey so much disdain and mockery on his face. This time, he gazed directly at her diary before he flicked his attention away, obviously bored with such inactivity. Something about the feline’s contemptuous expression reminded her of Ron.

Cassie narrowed her eyes and snatched up her pen. She opened her blank diary to the first page. A neurotic, unlucky mess she may be, but she was not about to be dissed by a damn house cat. Ron, the butthead, had been bad enough. She had her pride. She was a Parker. And Parker women lived life to the fullest and took no prisoners. If she needed to come up with a sexual fantasy, then, by golly, she was going to come up with the hottest, steamiest, wildest fantasy that was ever fantasized.

Ink to paper, she started writing. Cassie wanted power. Specifically, she wanted sexual power. She wanted a man to crave her as he had never craved another woman. She wanted him so filled with lust that whenever he saw her all he could think about was getting inside her before he came. A single glance at her and he was stone hard.

Writing furiously, she expounded on the general theme of her irresistible sexual allure, then decided, oh, what the hell, she might as well deal with all her issues in one fell swoop, and her pen was off again. She wanted excitement. She wanted danger. She wanted adventure.

While Minerva and her mother both thrived on the stuff, Cassie had secretly found the concepts annoying and overrated. And, with her track record, who could blame her? Well, Cassie had. Or did. Or whatever. But no more.

She was going to hold her own and be confident no matter what lay ahead. She didn’t want to worry about getting hurt, or embarrassing herself, or making stupid mistakes. She was going to be tough. She was going to kick ass. And the whole time she made lesser mortals look like incompetent turkeys, the man in her fantasy was going to be so brutally aroused that he’d screw her brains out every chance he got. Bullets could be whizzing over their heads and he’d want her. She was going to be the ultimate sex object. Albeit, a tough and powerful one.

Cassie gave a lascivious chuckle. She dotted off the final punctuation mark with a dramatic flourish, then lifted her pen in the air, making a voilà gesture. After a moment, though, she sat up straight and frowned, wondering if she got to have any say as to how this paragon of manly prowess would look. The ever-mysterious Stasi had already had the hots for her stud muffin, Rajko, when she’d used the lover’s box. Was Cassie allowed to write down her preferences? It wasn’t like the darn thing came with an instruction manual.

Then Cassie shrugged—it was her lover’s box and her fantasy; she could do what she wanted. All-righty then, she said to herself, what should he look like…? She tapped the pen against her bottom lip as she ran through the possibilities. One thing was a given. He definitely had to be well-endowed behind his zipper. Thick and large were the two most salient words that came to mind and she quickly jotted them down. A physique similar to a Calvin Klein underwear model’s would be fabulous, so she added this specification to her list.

A few seconds later she also added the requirement, so hot he might as well be from a superior race of godlike beings. There, she thought, that should leave little to chance. Then she paused, and finished with, and a sexy killer tattoo!

Cassie could feel a huge smile spread across her face as she placed the diary inside the lover’s box and closed the lid. She leaned over and carefully turned the miniature key, leaving it in the lock. She didn’t have a charm bracelet or a spare chain. Short of hanging it from the small yet erotic little nipple ring that she’d gotten back when she’d been trying to spice things up with Ron (a cringe-inducing phase of her life when she’d been desperate for a successful relationship and would have pierced her hoo-ha if she’d thought it would have cranked Ron’s motor), she’d have to wait until she could buy a ribbon or something.

Though surely it didn’t matter if she wore the key or not as long as she locked her diary inside the box, right? Then again, maybe it did. What did she know? Cassie grinned. Decisions, decisions…

Not that she actually believed that the whoopee-making Gypsy charm would work, but it would be a shame if she actually could’ve gotten laid by a Calvin Klein underwear model look-alike, yet didn’t because she’d screwed up over such a minor point.

Then she decided, Aw, what the heck. This was supposed to be for laughs so she might as well go for the triple-X gold medal. Surprisingly having fun, she took the diminutive key out of the lock, then walked over to her dresser. She rummaged through her accessories until she found the tiny hoop of thin, fourteen-karat wire hiding among her earrings. She bunched her shirt up under her neck and after a few minutes of fiddling, turned to the mirror and caught sight of the erotic adornment.

Wowzers. Talk about sexy. She flicked the key with the tip of her finger while a delicious tingle spread through her nipple. The tiny weight was an exquisite presence, subtle yet hard to ignore. She smoothed down her shirt. With the fabric on her bra fairly thin, only the barest hint was visible. She felt almost risqué, like she had a fabulous secret. For a girl with nothing but TiVo and snack foods on the horizon for the rest of the weekend, this was not a bad place to be.

Cassie laughed and stepped over to the bed, picking up the lover’s box. It was made of wood and ornately carved, the outside intricately painted with gold-leaf swirls and a variety of hues that age couldn’t completely diminish. The gaudy thing somehow reminded her of a treasure chest turned inside out with all the jewel-like tones decorating its exterior. Gypsies were said to love bright colors and flashy ornamentation, and it appeared that King Rajko epitomized the stereotype. Not exactly the most tasteful curio or collectible she’d ever seen, but she liked it and thought it added character to her room.

Her mouth curved into a wide grin, and with a bounce in her stride, she set the lover’s box onto her bedside table, then put Stasi’s diary in one of the stackable, plastic cubbies inside her closet for safekeeping. Wow, she thought, suddenly aware of her considerably elevated mood. Journaling out her deepest sexual longings had been downright cathartic.

Yes, yes, obviously none of that nonsense about her fantasies was going to come true even if she was wearing the sexy key on her breast. Still, not to have a total Dr. Phil moment here, but…by going through the process of recording her secret desires she felt downright empowered. Free, somehow.

Cassie couldn’t stop smiling. She even beamed at Creature when he yowled his displeasure at having his nap disturbed. She’d have scratched the little booger’s ear if she didn’t think he’d take her hand off.

Laughing as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders, Cassie strolled into the bathroom and started looking through the powders and gels in the cabinet under the counter. She decided to pamper herself, and deserved the treat. Fifteen minutes later, however, she had a moment’s hesitation when she found herself generously waxing parts of her body that were only waxed when a girl planned on getting very, very lucky. For a second she feared that subconsciously she somehow believed that the lover’s box was going to work.

Then she shrugged this off, and decided that her aggressive, nudist-colony wax job was really just a sign of her positive, proactive thinking and she should be proud of herself for moving on as if there was truly a chance of anyone seeing her naked before the year was out. The touch-up job to her Honey Hotness toenail polish, and the liberal use of the deliciously scented bubble bath were also signs of her healthy mental state. Or so she assured herself as she lounged back in the warm bathwater, her eyes closed, her feet with their newly painted toes propped on the opposite rim, and the saucy little key to the lover’s box floating at her nipple.

Her mind, at the moment, seemed incapable of thinking about much besides sex and she indulged herself, playing out a variety of scenarios where an obscenely handsome man licked, fondled, then fabulously screwed her newly waxed and scrubbed body. Then she heard the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. Cassie groaned.

Creature had no doubt sneaked into the shop downstairs. She was not in the mood to deal with his vandalism when she felt this happy and relaxed. She heard another thump float up the stairs and cursed under her breath. Creature was a porker, on top of all his other attributes, but considering that he weighed only thirty pounds, any thump that made its way up to her apartment suggested the vexing animal was wreaking a path of pure destruction.

Water and bubbles dripping down her body, Cassie jumped from the tub, grabbed the closest towel, then padded off to strangle Creature.

MAX STONE HAD NEVER run across a lock he couldn’t pick, but when the damn thing was rusted shut there was only so much a man could do. He cast a quick glance around the moonlit backyard, then lifted his elbow and cracked the glass. That done, he took off his shirt, wrapped it around his hand, then pushed the bottom pane out of its frame. The glass chimed in little plinks as it broke against the floor, quieter than if he had just smashed his way through with a rock.

As he slid his arm inside the window, then broke open the latch, Max silently fumed. If he ever again saw that old battle-ax, Minerva Parker, he was going to throttle her. Just thinking about being ripped off by a woman who was eighty if she was a day made him want to knock out a few more windows. Anger, shock and plain old embarrassment made up a large portion of his present state of mind.

Seventy-two hours ago he’d been in St. Petersburg because that’s where treasure hunters went during the IAL conference, and because Victor Hofford had planned to attend. Good old Vic had been a boil on Max’s backside since Max had been a teenager dragged around the globe in his father’s wake and Victor had signed on as the old man’s assistant. Victor, of course, had been an amoral kiss-ass even back then, but Max’s dad had been unable to see past his appeased vanity and recognize that the grad student who assisted him was a glorified grave robber and smuggler.

Max didn’t necessarily have a problem with either of those job titles, but, at the time, he’d been young and hadn’t enjoyed being set up to take the fall when Victor inevitably got caught. He might have been only seventeen, and a hell-raising seventeen at that, but if he was going to rob graves, then smuggle what he stole out of the country, he sure as hell wouldn’t have left any tracks. A fact he’d proven a couple of years later when he’d taken up the profession himself.

His father had been dead more than a decade, and all that old crap with Victor, who was now a professor—one of those Ivy League, tenured thugs whose ethics were worse than most organized-crime bosses—should have become ancient history. However, Max had his reasons and it was usually in his best interest to keep an eye on the bastard.

Victor was all but a professional nemesis, and he’d thrown Max into the role of archenemy. The guy must have watched every James Bond marathon ever shown on the Spike TV channel. The only thing missing was the fuzzy white cat and the shifty accent. Although, staying current on whatever fresh hell Dr. Evil spent his time stoking wasn’t all for Max’s own protection. If he’d been the type of person to keep score, which he was, then he was well in the lead for screwing with Victor’s finds and generally robbing relics right out from underneath the idiot whenever the opportunity arose. Immature, yes, but fun as hell.

Three nights ago, though, at the Czar’s Club, Max had not been in the mood to deal with Victor’s crap and had gotten rid of him with a story in the right ear about a Hindu statue that had supposedly surfaced. Complete and utter bullshit, but Vic had fallen for it.

A smart move as it turned out. Because when the small-time Russian fence had kept shoving his wares in Max’s face, Max had caught a glimpse of something that had sent a queer rush of excitement spreading through his gut. One good look at the lover’s box and Max had known what he’d found. Ironically, his father had been one of the few people to believe in the Gypsy king’s treasure. Which meant that Victor, as dear old dad’s one-time right-hand man, would immediately understand its significance if he ever learned of what Max had stumbled across.

Of course, at the time of his discovery, it had been all Max could do to get his mind around the reality that he was the lucky son of a bitch who’d finally found Rajko’s box. And that Victor Hofford was off on a wild-goose chase. Unfortunately, it had been this euphoric rush of adrenaline and his false sense of superiority that had led to the mortifying downfall of being swindled by a senior citizen.

The woman was an evil genius. Hell, he’d seen professional cons with less finesse. If he weren’t so damned pissed off, he’d be in awe. The whole sham was pure artistry and Max had found himself screwed over and abandoned before he’d even realized she’d gotten to first base. Infuriatingly, when he’d finally tracked Minerva down and accused her of theft (a beyond ironic moment, he admitted) the wily broad had merely waved her hand dismissively and claimed that she had no idea what he was talking about. Worse, she’d stressed that her lover’s box had already been sent to her antique shop in butt-fun, Florida, and that it was too late because she’d given it to her great-niece as a present.

The type of guys who hung out in the Czar’s Club didn’t exactly hand out papers of sale or provenance records, and there had been little that Max could do short of calling out the eighty-year-old woman and challenging her to pistols at dawn. He had no idea what she was trying to pull with her niece, but he didn’t really care since he planned to steal the damned thing back, find the treasure, then live out the rest of his life on easy street. Maybe a tropical island with two or three local women to keep him company.

And even more disconcerting than being the victim of such a farcical robbery was the strange sensation that he couldn’t shake. A niggling itch prickling the back of his neck. As if there was something hazardous waiting for him, but not the kind of peril he was used to facing. Stupid, because nabbing the lover’s box should be a no-worries retrieve and run.

But there you had it. The same rush of adrenaline that pulsed through him when he was on a dangerous hunt was right now surging through his nervous system. To Max, hunting relics was a game, the greater the risk the better. He always gambled, occasionally with his life. He preferred it that way. It made him come alive, the thrill real and palpable in a way nothing else could match, when he risked the ultimate price of failure.

Max challenged every damn odd thrown against him. He flipped fate the bird and got off on the rush of walking away unscathed. And, for some reason, right now his instincts were giving him a hit.

A killer grin curved across his face. Max Stone loved this shit….

Feeling cocky and riding the high—hey, anything was better than thinking about Minerva Parker—he silently climbed through the now-open window. He crouched down once he stepped inside, then pulled out his small flashlight and turned on the beam only to find himself face-to-backside with a stuffed water buffalo. That Minerva had such a bizarre item in the middle of her antique store came as no surprise, but when he stepped around the unfortunate animal and came face-to-breasts with something that was not stuffed and definitely alive, he was more than surprised.

Strangely, he wasn’t overly concerned that, for all practical purposes, he’d just been caught. If he had to, he could take down the small, curvy bundle of woman in front of him in less than a second and Max found himself praying that he had to. He slowly ran the beam from his flashlight up the smooth, wet legs dripping water onto the oriental carpet beneath her dainty feet, and over the soaked, clinging towel that looked more suited to drying a pair of hands than wrapping itself around an adult’s body. But damn if that’s not exactly what the lucky little stretch of terry cloth was being forced to do.

And it was doing a damn poor job of it, he was happy to say, since the damp fabric barely hit the very tippy tops of her thighs, and just covered her small, enticing mound. Max’s fingers itched to flick it away and see the exact color of those pretty feminine curls that were hidden from his gaze.

His mouth suddenly dry, he slipped the light up over the heart-pounding curve of her tiny belly clearly outlined by the clinging towel. The sight was enough to make him want to fall to his knees and push his tongue against the enticing dent of her belly button. Then he moved the light a little farther up, to the absolute sweetest, plumpest handfuls of breasts for which he’d ever sprung a boner.

Now, Max generally liked all breasts and had never really had a complaint with any pair he’d seen or touched, but the cherry-tipped duo in front of him looked beyond centerfold perfect. He’d found his dream tits and until this very moment, hadn’t even known that he’d had this strong a preference.

Quite frankly, if he was even half as stunned by the rest of her, he was afraid he’d shoot off like a teenager on prom night. So far, every inch of her that he could see had suddenly become his absolute favorite: his favorite kind of toes that he liked to lift to his mouth, then kiss and nibble. His favorite sort of legs that he liked to stroke and caress, and feel wrapped around his torso. His favorite sort of belly that he liked to feel cushioned under his body while he rhythmically pressed his stiff cock into its plump softness as he mimicked the motion he’d re-create when he was deep inside her.

And his hands-down, all-time favorite pair of tatas that he liked to squeeze and suckle and bite until just the pressure of those erect little tips against his tongue was enough to make him come.

His instant, painful attraction to her was so strange, and he felt so damn good about it, that if he didn’t know better, he could swear that someone had put a spell on him.

Then the woman said, “Oh…my…gosh…”

Max lifted his light to her face and almost dropped the damned thing. His heart started to pound, slamming against his rib cage. He stiffened his spine and willed himself to stand absolutely still, because he’d never wanted to mate with a woman so badly—there was no other word for the sheer lust-craved act he wanted to perform on her delectable body—and if he so much as twitched, he was afraid he’d nail her where she stood.

And then she said in a voice that he swore made a drop leak from his dick, “I can’t believe it. It worked….”

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