Pink Neon Dreams (12 page)

“Anything’s
possible, I guess,” he said.

Cecily
smiled with a beautiful expression powerful enough to light up the darkness.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Now you’re getting somewhere. Listen, I thought my life
dead-ended years ago and then one day, something happened that made me see
things in a different way.
 
I changed my
course and here I am, in a new town, with the boutique of my dreams and with
you.”

Daniel
admired her wisdom, her spunk, and her spirit. He ached to find a new path for
his lonely life and out of curiosity, with need, he asked, “Why did you leave
after what was it, ten years?”

Proud
and unashamed, her gaze met his. “Will was unfaithful ever since I married
him,” she said after a pause. “And once he had me, he just wanted to keep me to
show off like a doll on a shelf.
 
When we
had sex, it was like a ritual, a habit, just something you do because you’re
supposed to do it.
 
Then I found out he
dressed up like a 1940’s movie star, wig, heels, and all to go pick up other
transvestites.
 
On top of all the rest
and his drug abuse, it was just too damn much for me.
 
He treated me like shit anyway, and I decided
I wasn’t going to put up with it anymore. I told him I was getting a divorce.”

If the bastard wasn’t already
dead, I’d want to kill him for treating her like shit.
 
“Didn’t
he realize what he had?”

Her
olive complexion blushed. “You mean me? No, I don’t suppose he did.
 
He liked showing me off like a prize pony or
something, but he kept me at arm’s length.”

“Mistake,”
Daniel commented.

Cecily
met his gaze and took his breath away.
 
Those aren’t the eyes of a killer
or the eyes of someone who hired one.
 
She’s innocent. I know it in my bones.

“I’d
call it that if you’re talking about Will,” she said.
“But
what about you and me?
Do you think we’re making a mistake?”

“No,”
he said and meant it. “I don’t.
 
It’s
fast and it’s wild, but it’s not an error.”

And
Daniel realized as soon as the words left his lips, he’d have to tell her the
truth.
 
If he told her now he was an FBI
agent sent to investigate her, they’d still have a chance. If he kept it secret
any longer, it would destroy any possibility between them.

“Good,”
Cecily said. “I don’t think it is either.”

Tell her, you bastard.
 
Just spit it on out and handle her
reaction.
 
She’s going to be pissed but
better now than after you make love again.
 
He
struggled to find a way to say it so it wouldn’t seem so damn bad or make him
out a villain.
 
Daniel wanted to make her
understand why he’d kept silent about it until now.
 
Somehow he needed to spin it so she wouldn’t
hate him.

Deep
in thought, he didn’t speak for a few minutes, longer than he thought because Cecily
leaned over and shook his shoulder.
 
He
inhaled her sweet, rich perfume and wanted to kiss her first.
 
The wine he’d drunk sent dizzy spirals though
his head when he moved.

“Daniel?”
she inquired. “Is something wrong? You zoned out on me.”

Her
concern made it harder, but he looked up. “Cecily, I need to tell you something
before we go any farther.
 
I should’ve
told you up front, but I didn’t know it’d be like this between us.”

She
frowned and made a furrow between her eyes. “Whatever it is, just tell me.
 
How bad can it be?”

“Try
not to hate me, okay?”

“You’re
starting to scare me, sugar.”

“All
right, I’ll just say it straight out—I’m an FBI agent out of the Kansas City
office. They sent me here to check you out.”

 
Her amazing eyes turned to onyx.
“For what?”

“Your ex-husband’s murder and the
theft of two million dollars in jewels.”

The
words hung between them, almost tangible enough to touch.
 
Daniel watched as the information sank into
her consciousness and saw the terrible knowledge change the expression on her
face.
 
A minute passed, then two, maybe
three. “You think I did it?” she said.

“No,”
Daniel said. “I know you didn’t.”

Cecily
stood up and stood still.
 
She reminded
him of the eerie calm before a tornado slams out of the sky or the pause prior
to a thunderstorm unleashing fury from the heavens.
 
An almost pagan fear of the unknown seized
his chest and he tensed, his earlier relaxation gone.

“How?”
she asked.

Aware
what he said might well either save his ass or trash it, Daniel came to his
feet and faced her. “Everything I’ve come to know about you tells me you didn’t
kill him and you wouldn’t.
 
You’re a hell
of a lot more straightforward than that, and I know you didn’t take the
jewels.
 
And my gut says so, too, for
whatever it’s worth.”

“Uh-huh,”
she said with her usual bravado, but he saw the tears glinting in her eyes.
“Right.
 
Want to
explain why it took so long to mention your career, G-man?”

He
couldn’t.
 
But he tried. “I don’t
know.
 
I was afraid you’d be pissed at
me.”

“Yeah,
I am,” Cecily cried in a voice sharp with the lilt of the Chicago neighborhood
she’d called home. “That’s why you choked, on the fishing pier, isn’t it? You
didn’t want to tell me.”

“That’s
true, I didn’t because I already knew how attracted I was to you,” Daniel
said.
 
It sounded lame even to him.
 

“So
how do I know any of this is real?” she asked.
 
A tear slipped from her eye to trail down her cheek. He wanted to wipe
it away, but he didn’t dare touch her, not now. “Maybe it’s just all some
bullshit FBI tactics to get me to confide in you.”

Her
accusation hit him with force and Daniel knew, reeling, he cared very much for
this woman.
 
Hell, maybe he loved
her.
 
He’d never been one to believe in
‘love at first sight’ but he couldn’t deny the powerful attraction he’d felt
from the second he saw Cecily.
 
Nor could
he explain the closeness he felt to her or why he’d confided things he never
spoke about.

“It’s
not,
querida
,” he said. “It’s real,
realer than anything I’ve felt in years.
 
I’ve been dead inside, but you revived me.
 
Believe me.
 
I don’t lie.”

Her
eyes narrowed to slits. “Except when you don’t mention who the hell you are and
what you’re doing.”

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.