Pink Neon Dreams by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

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