She nailed him to the wall with the truth. Daniel felt the sting of it. “Cecily, listen to me.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Not this minute. I can’t breathe. I need to think.”
Daniel grasped her arms with his hands and caught her before she could bolt. “Then think about everything I’ve said, everything I’ve done,” he said, his voice harsh now. She mattered too much not to fight for a chance. “And then think about this.”
He slammed his mouth against hers in a desperate kiss. Cecily resisted and kept her lips rigid beneath his, unyielding with anger. Daniel’s body kicked into high gear, the wine fueling his extreme need. Despite the circumstance, he wanted her with a crazed passion and so he worked his mouth against hers, his heat rising until his fever spiked hers. She hesitated for another moment and then she yielded to him, her soft lips pliable as candle wax. As he grasped her in an unholy embrace, Cecily’s arms touched his shoulders and then locked around the back of his neck. She leaned into him as her breathing shifted and he used his tongue to part her lips.
With increasing need, Daniel French kissed her, and she caught his tongue between her lips. As they mimicked intercourse, Cecily stroked his tongue up and down with just enough bite to tantalize. He shuddered with erotic delight and kissed her with more force, unable to breathe as he closed in on her mouth. Her fingers reached up to travel through his short hair and he pulled his mouth from her lips to deliver a hickey, small but visible, on the side of her throat. He hadn’t given a love bite since he was nineteen, but doing so now sent a surge of pleasure through his body.
In another few seconds, he would have shoved her clothing out of his way and ravished her, two steps from her backdoor in an overgrown backyard, but she pulled back. Panting, eyes glittering, she eyeballed him for a long moment.
“You gave me plenty to think about. I’ll let you know when I’m done thinking,” she said and headed into the house.
Daniel caught her by the arm. “Wait,” he said. “Are you saying you want me to leave?”
Cecily shook her head. “No, you can stay, but leave me alone until I’m done thinking.”
She jerked out of his grasp and he watched her vanish into the darkened house. He almost followed, but he caught himself. If he had any chance left with Cecily, he’d better sit here and wait.
Daniel poured the last of the wine into his glass and drank it down in a single gulp, knowing all too well it wasn’t enough to deliver the oblivion he wanted, not by a long shot.
Chapter Eight
She wanted to throw things, smash anything fragile against the wall to watch it shatter into a thousand pieces, but Cecily knew it wouldn’t make her feel any better if she did. God damn him for a lying sack of shit, a heartless mother fucking bastard. I hate men, they’re all assholes. But Daniel wasn’t, not really and somewhere within she knew it. He didn’t act like her damn ex or any other guy she’d known. Until he confessed to being an FBI agent, he’d been more real than other men. But he should’ve told me upfront.
And she should have known. The clues were all right there and she missed them — the black Ford sedan, the mirrored sunglasses, even her first impression this bad boy must be either a heavy duty criminal mind or a law enforcement officer.
I thought I was smarter than this.
To calm her nerves, Cecily retreated to the bathroom and washed her face with cold water. She peed and considered a long soak in a bathtub brimming with bubbles. Then she rejected the idea. With Daniel cooling his heels outside, she couldn’t enjoy it anyway. In short order, she considered and discarded throwing herself across the bed and crying like some romance novel heroine, taking a late night fast ride to blow away the cobwebs, and wandering to the little park across the street for some solitude. Instead, she ended up sitting on the couch in the living room staring into the shadows. Her nose caught Daniel’s aroma from where he’d lain there earlier and frustrated, she let her mind drift.
Cecily used an old trick she’d read in a magazine somewhere and headed for her mental safe place. In her case, she imagined the porch of the house where she’d grown up, the place where she and Nia spent so many good times. She conjured it up so real she could almost feel the painted floorboards under her bare feet and smell the wisteria vine climbing the trellis. After about thirty minutes in the past, she brought herself forward and faced the truth.
Daniel Padilla turned her on, full tilt and intense. He touched her within too, in places where she put up barriers to almost anyone else. And try as she did to blame him, to stay angry enough to reject him, Cecily couldn’t. When he strolled into Pink Neon, he didn’t know he’d be smitten, to use an old word of her grandma’s, and he’d been doing his job. Cecily considered all they’d shared, from the kisses to the lovemaking to the conversation, and she didn’t see anything false. He hadn’t forced himself or tried too hard. Unless she’d lost her mind completely, he wasn’t faking any of it.
She recalled the pain she’d read in his eyes, something she recognized because it reflected her own. Different reasons, diverse tragedies but he knew hellish anguish and so did she. Some righteous anger lingered, smoldered within, but she wouldn’t be human if she wasn’t hacked. Even so, Cecily realized she could forgive him. Shit, she already had. There were a string of questions she needed to ask and he’d better provide answers but devil damn her, she couldn’t let him go, not without taking a chance to see how far they might go together.
And he believes you. That matters. He could have decided you’re guilty and hauled you off in handcuffs. He could lose his job over you, bitch. What more do you want?
Forget thought, she acted. Cecily hurried back outside and stopped short. Daniel’s chair stood empty and she thought he must’ve gone away. She could imagine him creeping around to the front and getting into his car, leaving without a word. But she didn’t hear the engine and she would have. “Daniel?” she said into the night.
When no response came, she stepped forward into the grass and peered into the unlit corners of the yard. Just as she turned to fetch a flashlight from the house, a shadow detached from the darkness and moved toward her.
“I’m over here,” Daniel said.
Relief flooded her brain and made her almost giddy. Or maybe it was the wine but she rushed forward. “I thought you left,” she cried and hugged him, relieved and happy.
He opened his arms and folded her against his chest. “No, but I thought you wanted me to go.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. We need to talk and I’ve got questions I need you to answer for me.”
“I’ll answer anything you want,” Daniel said. “Later.”
“Later?”
“Yeah, right now I need to do this.”
Tiny tingles danced down her spine and through her body, delicious and heady as Daniel kissed her. His mouth touched hers without the heated rush from before but with slow deliberation. His lips wrapped around hers and caressed, tender as a spring breeze, softer than brand new towels. His lazy mouth teased and tempted, fanning her inner fire into rampant flame. He didn’t hurry, just kissed as if time didn’t exist.
Until now, Cecily viewed kissing as foreplay, as an intro to the main event. For the first time in her life she relaxed and enjoyed the unhurried experience. Sometimes he let his lips stray to kiss the upraised palms of her hands or to wander along the sensitive skin of her throat. Daniel pressed his hot lips against the soft spot at the base and kissed his way back up to her mouth. On the way, he nipped with his teeth enough to titillate her senses and to turn the blood running through her veins into one hundred proof liquor, potent and powerful.
Although he delivered a physical kiss and there was no doubt his body responded the same way Cecily’s did, she swore to God Daniel also opened a portal into her soul. Although they’d shared confidences earlier, told one another things neither usually spoke about, Daniel laid his soul open bare. He cut a virtual vein, she thought, and tran
sfused her with something so strong she couldn’t begin to describe it. She’d known his body, but something in this kiss linked them in a different way and damn, she liked it.
“Let’s go inside,” Daniel said when he paused for breath. “Otherwise, I’ll take you here, on the grass.”
Do it and I won’t care or bitch. Take me and use me and fill me.
Her body lacked willpower and her legs trembled. In another few moments, she might topple like a tree struck by lightning. “Whatever,” she gasped and as if he divined her weakness, Daniel scooped her into his powerful arms to carry her inside. Caught by surprised, she held onto him with tight fists as he cradled her against his chest.
He strode through the small rooms with the measured tread of an invading army and deposited her on her feet onto the bedroom floor. Before his hands left her, he undid the spaghetti straps holding her sundress in place, and it dropped to the floor with a soft whoosh. She hadn’t put on anything under it and Daniel’s eyes lit at the sight of her nude body.
Cecily stepped out of the sandals she wore and stood before him. She reached out and grabbed his t-shirt, jerked it over his head, and reached for his fly. Swifter than her, he undid it first and removed his jeans to show he wasn’t wearing any underwear either. His cock, already swollen and engorged with need, twitched with interest and without hesitation, Cecily grasped it in one hand.
Wired with erotic intent, she dropped to her knees and rubbed her hands the length of his shaft. After applying enough friction to create static electricity, she took him into her mouth. She sucked him like a straw, as if she were enjoying the richest, thickest chocolate malt ever. His inarticulate sounds of pleasure pleased her and notched her need up several degrees.
After Cecily brought him to the brink of orgasm, she withdrew, and he pulled her up by one hand. He backed her to the bed and they collapsed onto it, Daniel beneath and Cecily on top. She put her ass on his thighs and put one leg on either side of him, knees bent at an angle. Cecily kept her arms outside of his legs as she lowered her pussy above his rigid dick. She hiked her butt to allow the deepest penetration. “Come on,” she said.
“I’m there,” he gasped. “I’m a fast learner.”
Daniel thrust his hips upward as she rocked harder. Their combined rhythm evoked a carnal delight and Cecily slowed, afraid she’d come too fast. She wanted them to climax together and struggled to pace her actions. He matched her rhythm and the languid movements heightened the intensity. He convulsed under her and she let it go, embraced the wild, wonderful rush and erotic spasms. His cock shot cum into her with a magnificent blast and at the last moment they linked hands. She rocked with the momentum but after the last quivering delight, Cecily couldn’t keep her knees upright so she rolled off Daniel to lie beside him, sweat-soaked and still buzzing.
He shifted position to face her and she curled around him, unwilling to break their physical connection. She basked in his body heat and relished his musky aroma. Cecily drowsed against him and when he slid into sleep, she followed. Her questions would keep until morning.
****
They woke as the first light of dawn filtered through the darkness, shifting black to gray. She awakened to meet his gaze, steady and seductive. Daniel lay facing her, propped upright on his left elbow. When he realized she was aware, he smiled. “So, ask me anything,” he said.
Cecily gathered her thoughts and asked the things she wanted, one at a time, in random order as she recalled them. “Okay,” she said. “You’re not on vacation, are you?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then you can check out of your cockroach motel and stay with me,” Cecily said with a small grin. “Can’t you?”
“I can and I will. Next?”
“How long have you been an FBI agent?”
“Ten years.”
Although she felt like a prosecuting attorney with the inquiries, she continued. She had to know these things. “What’d you do before you became a G-man?”
“Grew up in Forth Worth, graduated from high school, and worked my way through college to earn a criminal justice degree at Texas State University. I spent a couple years working as a cop over in Shreveport before I joined the bureau.”
She tried to do the math and couldn’t compute without morning coffee. “How old are you, Daniel?”
“Thirty-four,” he said. “I got my degree when I was twenty-one. I’m seven years older than you. Is it too old?”
How’s he know how old I am? Oh, right, he’s got a file. Probably knows more about me than I do. And it doesn’t even make me mad if he does.
“No,” she replied. “Oh, hell, no—age doesn’t matter much once you get old enough to drink, drive, and vote, does it?”
His mouth widened in a grin. “Guess not. What else do you want to know?”
“Tell me about what happened to Willard.”
“You don’t know?” He sounded surprised.
“All I know is what Nia told me,” she said. He looked blank. “Nia’s my cousin, ‘bout the only relative I’ve got left I care about. She called, told me my ex got gunned down on the front steps and someone heisted the jewelry. It had to be the stuff he kept in the safe at the house, high dollar stuff, but that’s all I know.”
A frown cut down the center of his forehead. “Didn’t you read about it in the papers online or watch the news video?”
It never occurred to her and she hadn’t wanted to know anything else. “No, I wasn’t interested enough to bother. I got done with his ass a long time before the divorce. So I know less about it than you do.”
“I’d say so.” Daniel sighed and sat up, shaking his head.
“Isn’t it a good thing?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “Thing is, the FBI’s got no other suspects so far so they want to put you under the microscope. I believe you’re innocent, but I can also see how—hypothetically—your situation looks to someone who doesn’t know you. You divorce the man, you don’t take much money, and you walk away from it all. A short time later—what was it a month?—he’s dead and the jewelry in a locked safe is stolen. Profilers are probably saying the un-sub has to be familiar with the layout of the house and know Bradford’s routines. You’re up on both, so they’re looking at you.”
“Are you going to tell them it’s not me?”
When he didn’t answer immediately, she got a sour feeling in her gut.
“It’s not as simple as just telling them I believe you’re innocent,” Daniel said after a long pause. “I wish like hell it was. But we’ve either got to find some way to prove you had no part in any of it or figure out who’s guilty. I’ll let you read the case file if you want—if anyone has any insight in who could be the un-sub, it’s you.”
“What’s ‘un-sub’?”
“Unknown subject, the perpetrator, the probably guilty person.”
I am so fucked, screwed, nailed to the wall. But if there’s a way out, I’ll find it.
“Well, shit,” Cecily said.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Anything else you want to know?”
His question took her mind away from the tangled mess and she smiled. “Oh, I’ve got about a thousand things I’d like to know sometime, sugar, but that’s all for now. Well, just one more thing—when’d you decide you liked what you saw?”
In a way she couldn’t begin to describe, Daniel’s face changed. His features softened and some of the lines around his eyes, the ones cutting deep, relaxed until he looked ten years younger. “You know the ice cream place next to your shop?” he said with a smile so tender Cecily ached within. “I sat over there, checking you out the day before you opened. You came out and you didn’t look much like the woman I’d been sent to tail. I expected some high toned rich bitch, but this amazing, beautiful woman walked out instead. But you didn’t have me, querida, until you turned on the Pointer Sisters and drove off singing.”
God, she remembered. If she’d known anyone watched, she’d have been too embarrassed, to
o restrained to cut loose. “‘Fire’,” she said. “The song was ‘Fire’.”
“Yeah, it was.” His beautiful eyes burned with heat as he met her gaze.
“So you came back the next day to Pink Neon?”
Daniel shook his head. “No. I followed you to the supermarket, trailed you, and tailed you home. I sat over in the park for a few minutes and I knew right then I wanted you to be innocent. In the morning, yeah, I headed for your shop.”
She remembered. “And you asked me to sing. That’s why. Is Down To The Water really one of your favorite songs?”
“Si, querida,” he said. “Are you angry I followed you?”
Under any other circumstances, she’d be furious, but Cecily shook her head. “I’m not. You were doing your job and if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here now, so how can I be?”
“I’m glad.” His voice wasn’t much more than a breath between them.
Reality shadowed some of her happiness. “It’s going to get harder before we get this thing resolved, isn’t it?”
“Probably,” he replied. “When you said you had questions, you meant it, huh?”
Cecily traced his cheek with two fingers. “Uh-huh, I did, but I’m done for now.”
“Are you?” He sounded interested.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “I have to get up and open Pink Neon in a couple of hours.”
Daniel squinted at the bedside alarm clock. “When do you open? Nine?”
She laughed. “You ought to know better than that. You were my first customer. I open at eight.”
“Then you’ve got time for me to take you out to breakfast.”
Pleasure crept over her at his invitation. It’d been a long time since she enjoyed small things so much. “I’d like that, a lot.”
“Good,” he replied. “Then you’d better get dressed or I might come up with another idea I like better.”
His grin left no doubt what the other option might be so Cecily climbed out of bed before she yielded to temptation. As she showered, then dressed for the day, she couldn’t stop smiling—or marveling he’d managed to convince her of his sincerity.
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