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Books by P.J. Mellor
PLEASURE BEACH
GIVE ME MORE
MAKE ME SCREAM
THE COWBOY
(with Vonna Harper, Nelissa Donovan and Nikki Alton)
THE FIREFIGHTER
(with Susan Lyons and Alyssa Brooks)
NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY
(with Melissa MacNeal and Valerie Martinez)
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Make Me Scream
P.J. MELLOR
KENSINGTON BOOKS
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
To Emily Suzanne Mellor. See you later, baby gator!
As always, special thanks to my wonderful editor, John Scognamiglio—it’s taken me a while, but I can now not only pronounce his last name, I can actually spell it!
Thanks, too, to my husband, Michael, for taking on laundry duty while I write. Good job, babe!
And thanks to my martini lunch bunch—you know who you are!—for listening to me whine and helping me brainstorm, even if sometimes it was more like only a drizzle.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
1
Hip deep in drug dealers, rogue cops, prostitutes and assorted bad guys, aspiring mystery writer Devon McCloud frowned and tried to recapture his train of thought.
The PI hero of Devon’s book had just discovered the lead witness for the crime family hiding naked in his bed.
The woman stroked my impressive erection.
“Are you going to kick me out?” the buxom blonde asked with a sultry pout.
“Something just came up,” I replied.
“I can help you with that,” she whispered, stroking my length.
“Put your mouth where your money is,” I hissed in a breath when she took my advice. Her mouth closed over me, practically swallowing me whole.
Okay…now what? The flashing cursor on the screen of his laptop mocked him.
Out in the courtyard of the little beachfront apartment community he managed as his day job, voices rumbled. His fellow tenants were starting their nightly celebration early.
Above the laughter and conversations, a deep bark sounded, followed by the shrill voice of his neighbor, Francyne Anderson. Devon’s mouth quirked. Petunia, Francyne’s one-hundred-and-fifty-pound rottweiler, must be joining the party tonight.
Deliberately shutting out the noise in the courtyard, Devon narrowed his gaze at the flashing cursor.
“C’mon, Mac, be brilliant. What would Trent say?” Trent was the hero of his work-in-progress, Darkness Becomes Her. A PI with the prerequisite heart of gold, Trent not only got all the bad guys, he got all the girls.
Devon sighed and rocked back in his desk chair. Maybe that was the problem with finishing the book. Trent had scored approximately every five to seven pages. He, Devon, hadn’t been laid in months. Heading way too close to being a year. He didn’t have the time, which made him an even more pathetic loser. Who doesn’t have time for sex?
Voices rose in the courtyard.
Him, that’s who didn’t have time for sex. Devon Edward McCloud. With working on his novels by night, writing catalog copy for sex toys by day—which oddly did not help his lack-of-sex problem—while attempting to maintain some sense of normalcy with the rowdy tenants of the Surfside Villas apartment complex, who had the time or energy for sex?
Male laughter vibrated his walls. Opportunity wouldn’t hurt either. Of the eight apartments in the old complex, five were occupied by men (six, counting himself), the seventh occupied by a female at least eighty if she was a day. And one vacant unit. Not a lot of opportunity.
He’d just returned to the seedier side of his imagination when a knock sounded on his door. Judging by the lightness of it, his deductive reasoning told him, it was a female knock. Since Francyne never knocked, it could mean only one thing: someone inquiring about the vacancy.
He growled and saved his work before closing his computer. Obviously the intruder could not tell time. The sign on his door clearly stated office hours. Said hours ended—he glanced at the old school clock on his wall—almost two hours ago.
He threw open his door.
The short, blond woman in a denim miniskirt and yellow tank top hopped back with a squeak.
“Yes?” No point in being polite. Once Blondie got a look at the group sitting around the fire pit in the courtyard, she’d realize this was not the place for her.
She swallowed and licked soft-looking pink lips. “Is—is…I mean, are you the manager, the person I need to see about renting an apartment?”
He turned to look meaningfully at the manager sign on his door. “Looks like it, doesn’t it?” He tapped the posted hours. “But I’m closed. Office hours don’t start again until nine tomorrow morning. Come back then, if you’re still interested.”
“But I need a place tonight!”
He paused midslam. “Try a motel.”
“They’re all full. At least, all the close ones.” She looked down at her painted toenails peeking out from a pair of ridiculously high-heeled sandals.
He tried not to speculate how short she would be without the heels. He tried not to notice her Barbie-doll build. He also tried not to appreciate the way the firelight from the courtyard played in the silky strands of her blond hair.