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
