Authors: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy
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 transfused 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, too 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.