Pink Neon

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

  “Hey,” Cecily said. “It’s me. How’s everything going?”

  Each pause indicated her cousin’s response and he wished he could hear those too but settled for Cecily’s end of the conversation. “Uh-huh. How did it go at Pink Neon? Well, that’s good. Really? Why? Well, what did you tell her? No, I’d rather keep it between us. Oh, yeah, we’re tight. Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow sometime. Call me if you need too, hear? All right then. Bye.”

  Daniel popped six tablets and washed them down with water. He came out of the bathroom to find Cecily changing into a fresh blouse. “How’s everything up in Branson?”

  After she pulled the fire engine red blouse into place, she replied, “So far, so good, I guess. Nia’s mom called her, asked about me.”

  Some wariness in her voice warned him it was unusual. “And that’s strange?”

  “Well, kinda,” Cecily told him. “I don’t have any quarrel with my aunties, not Nia’s mother or my other aunt but I haven’t heard much from either one of them after I got married. Nia’s the only family who kept up with me.”

  In his experience, odd things usually were harbingers of disaster. “Did she tell her where you’re at?”

  “No, just that I’d left town for a few days.”

  Damn, even that might be enough to send red flags flying. He resisted the urge to curse loud and long. And he tried to be casual in case it wasn’t anything of concern. “And Pink Neon’s still standing?”

  The mention of her store brought a smile. “Yeah, she said business was pretty good.”

  “That’s great. Let’s go eat.”

  They dined in the Park Place Cafe downstairs, a simple meal but nourishing. Daniel ordered a shot of tequila, served with a lime wedge and salt. He downed the drink, then ate enough to stay balanced. Afterward, they headed upstairs and although it should be midnight by his tired level, he noticed it was just a little before nine. Between the hot meal, the liquor, and the ibuprofen, his leg eased back to near normal. Once they were in the room Cecily put down her purse and kicked off her shoes.

  “What now, sugar?” she asked.

  “Te quiero,” he said, then in English because he remembered she spoke nothing but the most basic Spanish. “I want you.”

  Until Cecily lifted her head to meet his gaze, he wasn’t sure she felt the same. Sixteen plus hours on the road might leech the passion from anyone and if she’d said ‘no’, he would deal although at this point, he might need to seek a little solitude to relieve the pressure in his loins. But her dark eyes latched onto his and he realized her need equaled his own.

  “’Bout damn time, sugar,” she said, her voice breathless and smooth.

  Daniel didn’t know who moved first but in an instant they were in each other’s arms, her hands soothing and moving over his body. He locked his mouth down onto hers with hungry need. Flavors of the meal they’d just shared lingered on her lips and she tasted sweet to him. Beneath his, her mouth yielded to him and yet gave back too. Heat shimmered between them, heavy with passion and as electric as the lightning streaking the sky earlier. He’d meant to go slow and gentle, soft and patient but the kiss ignited an erotic flame. Want consumed him and he kissed harder, using his tongue to part her lips. His hands peeled away her blouse and unfastened the silky bra underneath. Cecily undid his buttons with such speed more than one of them hit the carpet with a tiny ping sound and he wiggled out of the shirt. Before he could reach for hers, she unzipped his jeans and started pulling them down. When her hands brushed against his swelling dick, tingling pleasure shot through him and he hardened with speed.

  He undid her pants and removed them, his hands lingering on her skin. Daniel backed her to the huge bed and without bothering to turn down the sheets he put her on her back, lovely and nude. His fingers stroked her dusky skin, a shade not so different than his own light brown tone although the ethnic origins differed. Her breasts fit into his hands and he touched them with desire and marveled at how pretty they were. Rosebud nipples, surprisingly pink, perked up at his touch and blossomed. Daniel caressed her curves, the slight swell of her otherwise flat belly, and her muscular thighs. Cecily used her nails to scratch his back in a tantalizing way. He kissed her again, swift and thorough before shifting his mouth to suckle her nipples one at a time.

  Heat wafted from the cleft between her legs as he reached it. He began by stroking her outer lips with a firm yet gentle motion. Cecily moaned in response, low and full-bodied and he inserted two fingers into her cunt. He lightened his touch but stroked and probed until he hit her g spot. In response her hands gripped hard around his waist and held tight as he brought her pleasure. Although he thought about using his tongue, he decided he couldn’t wait. His stiff cock begged for release and so he pulled up, supported on both arms as he entered her with one fluid motion. He slid into her with ease, her waiting pussy eager to receive and he pumped back and forth in a rhythm older than time. She locked her legs around his torso and thrust to pull him deeper.

  Daniel held back as long as he could, savoring each intense wave of pleasure as it poured through his body, as intoxicating as alcohol but with far more physical impact. Cecily whimpered under him, her mouth whispering sweet things he didn’t half hear over the pounding of his heart and the roar of his blood. “Are you ready, querida?” he asked.

  “Oh, god, oh jesus,” she cried. “Yeah, sugar. Do it before I die from wanting it.”

  Her eyes reminded him of a doe’s, dark and filled with secrets, beautiful and amazing. He locked his mouth onto hers, their gazes matched and rammed hard into her. He used his hips to make it the ultimate and her already rapid breathing notched higher. Blind, near deaf, and consumed with erotic need, Daniel felt the fever tide sweep over him, turning his body into fire and ash with rippling pleasures so powerful they rocked him. In the moment of climax he knew he’d died, gone down into the darkness but he didn’t care. If this was death, it nurtured and gave. His body shuddered and hers answered with a convulsing fit. Their outcries became one sound, louder than anything he’d ever heard, quieter than his heart.

  “Te amo, querida,” he told her. She wouldn’t understand what he said, he thought, or realize he’d confessed he loved her. And Daniel didn’t want her to, not yet. Too much lay ahead before he could share his heart with her, darkness and trouble and fate.

  But once he caught his breath, after they showered one at a time and crawled into the tangled nest of covers, he held Cecily in his arms and heard their heartbeats in tandem. And he thought before sleep pulled him down into the depths maybe she did know after all.

  With any luck she might love him too.

  Time would tell.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Boneless, sated, and content as a cat sunning on a winter window ledge, Cecily let her heavy fatigue drag her into sleep. Hours later, she woke with an abrupt start. Something niggled at her brain but she couldn’t quite pinpoint it but she knew it mattered. Think, girl, focus ‘cause I’m pretty sure it’s damn important whatever it is. Something Daniel said, she thought and glanced at him. In repose, his face lost the stern look he often wore and sleep eased some of the harsh lines the years cut into his features. A wave of affection rose within and she stroked his face, her touch so light she didn’t think he’d be aware but his lips twitched into a small smile. Oh, wow. Touched by his unconscious response, she smiled too and remembered what he’d said at the height of their intimacy. Te amo, querida.

  Oh, fuck me; I think it means ‘I love you’. Although she didn’t speak Spanish, didn’t know more than a few of the simplest words or phrases, ‘te ammo’ jangled a distant memory bell. Cecily knew – hell, he’d told her – querida meant something like ‘honey’ or ‘darling’, an endearment but she hadn’t registered any significance. Some people peppered their conversations with such terms and she’d thought maybe it was just a Texas thing but now she wondered. She could boot up the laptop and look up the phrase to see but it might awaken Daniel. But she knew someone who woul
d know and so she unwound out of his arms. Cecily grabbed her phone from the desk and slipped into the bathroom. She sat on the floor and texted Nia: What does te amo mean?

  Since it was almost two in the morning, she figured she might have to wait for a response but her cousin answered within a few moments: Means ‘I love you’. Y?

  Daniel said it she texted back and Nia’s reply came back: OMG!!

  Did he love her? Cecily pondered the question and reviewed everything between them, from the first day he strolled into Pink Neon to waking beside him at the Holiday Inn. There was no doubt the attraction between them possessed power, something on a scale like the moon and the tide. Sparks ignited into fire from the first but it wasn’t just physical. Shared music played through her mind and she recalled so many moments of caring, of compassion, of connection beyond the sensual. He’d touched her soul too many times too count and she loved Daniel without any doubts. But Cecily hadn’t expected him to love her too. Burned by a raunchy marriage, scarred by a decade of pain, she feared embracing love. Until she met Daniel, her jaded heart scoffed at the very notion love existed. She knew different, now, but tiny tendrils of fear tried to take root. What if it didn’t work? Or what if she ended up doing time for a murder she didn’t commit? Worry something might happen to Daniel before the situation could resolve reared up, ugly and potent but greater than either dark emotion, an amazing burst of happiness surpassed it.

  Wonder brighter than a noon sun, more vivid than the prettiest sunset she’d ever seen banished the shadows. It began as a warm spot somewhere around her tummy and spread to her heart. From her cornrows to the bottom of her bare feet gladness burst out with such force it overwhelmed her. Basic emotion in its most raw form brought tears, born not from sadness but from joy. And she wept aloud as tears rained down her cheeks. Sound burst from her mouth, giggles and sobs combined. In her celebration, she thought the closed bathroom door would contain the noise and she never dreamed it might wake Daniel. Nor did she know how long she’d cried when he pushed the unlocked door open and came in. “What’s the matter, querida?” he asked, his voice so tender it brought more tears. “I heard you crying.”

  Blinded by tears, she responded to his voice by raising her arms to him, the way a child would. Without hesitation Daniel knelt before her and enveloped her in his arms. Cecily clung to him and wept without rhyme, restraint, or reason. He held her and crooned soft words of comfort, some in English, and others in Spanish. When she continued crying, he carried her into the hotel room and sat on the sofa. He rocked her back and forth and after a little while, he sang to her. At first she heard nothing but the sound of his voice but as her sobs slacked Cecily realized he sang the Marty Robbins’ classic tune, El Paso. Although it wasn’t her style of music, she liked the easy rhythm and when she quit crying altogether Daniel wiped her face with tissues. “Tell me what’s wrong, querida?,” he said in a voice husky with concern. “Are you afraid or did I offend you? Or don’t you feel well?”

  Looking up into his worried face, his dark eyes she wondered how she ever missed the reality of his emotions. “I’m fine, sugar,” she said with an effort to put some normal sass into her voice. He looked upset and very concerned. “And nothing’s wrong.”

  Daniel shot her a skeptical look. “So you cried your eyes out for nothing?”

  Cecily shook her head. “No, for something very important but I wasn’t crying because I was sad, just overwhelmed but in a good way.”

  His frown forehead deepened. “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re worried,” she said as her fingers stretched to touch the concerned crease dividing his forehead.

  “I am. So tell me.”

  She almost hesitated but didn’t. “I understood what you said to me, awhile ago. I didn’t then but I remembered what it meant.”

  As comprehension dawned, Daniel’s expression shifted and became more vulnerable. In a very quiet voice, almost too low to hear despite their close position, he said, “I didn’t think you would, querida, or I wouldn’t have said it.”

  “Don’t you mean it?” He did and she knew it but slivers of hurt began to prick her heart. If he didn’t...

  “I do, with all my heart,” he said. “But I didn’t want to complicate things, not now. I thought maybe you wouldn’t believe me. Maybe it’s not the best time to fall in love. You just got divorced after a hell of a marriage. We haven’t known each other very long and...”

  “No, we haven’t,” Cecily said. “But it’s long enough to know.”

  “What?”

  “I love you, Daniel. I knew I did before you said it and Nia guessed before she even met you.”

  His chest moved as he drew a long breath and released it. Back in Branson, she’d whispered she thought she did but the certainty meant far more. “Dios! Oh, querida,” he said in a hushed voice. Cecily thought she heard tears in it and understood how he felt, how the knowledge bowled through you with force. “So what do we do now?”

  “We do the best we can, sugar,” she told him. “And be happy.”

  Her head rested against his shoulder and she lifted her left hand to touch his face. “Are you happy?” he asked.

  No way could she keep from smiling. Everything else in her life might’ve gone to hell but loving Daniel made her very happy. Knowing he loved her too brought contentment and a rich joy. “Sugar, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier,” she told him. “Not even with things the way they are. What about you?”

  “Mi corazon,” Daniel said. “I’ve never had this before or felt like this about anyone. You’re mine and it’s like family but it’s more, too. I never knew loving a woman could be so intense or strong. This connection with you, it reminds me of the way I used to feel after communion in church. I’ve got you inside of me now, querida. I’ve never been afraid of much but the idea of anything happening to you or losing you scares the shit out of me. So, yeah, I’m happy but worried too.”

  Cecily moved her hand and he kissed it, his mouth tender against her skin. Although she grew up too fast in a hard neighborhood and understood how fast bad things happen to good people, knew the swiftness of danger and death, right now she didn’t believe any of it could be possible. For these moments she savored the cocoon of their new found affection and basked in it. Nothing could happen to her or to Daniel because she couldn’t stand it. She hadn’t been on speaking terms with God for a long time and she’d gone far from the Baptist churches of her childhood but Cecily decided no deity with any heart at all could let anything awful happen. They would be fine because they had to be and she willed it so.

  “You’re not going to lose me, Daniel,” she told him. “And I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Que sera, sera,” he replied and his arms around her tightened. “The future’s not ours to see, querida but I’ll do the best I can to make it happy.”

  The song he referenced floated through Cecily’s mind, not the old Doris Day classic but the haunting version by Pink Martini. His prosaic acceptance of fate irked her and birthed unease within. Whatever will be will be the way I want ‘cause I won’t accept anything else.

  “That’s good enough for me,” she told him. “You look tired, sugar. Let’s go back to bed.”

  Daniel exhaled a long sigh. “Yeah, let’s do. We’ve still got a long way to drive tomorrow and god knows what to face over the next few days.”

  Back in bed, snuggled up against him, Cecily asked, “How much farther to your mama’s?”

  “Six hours or so,” he replied with a yawn. “I want to get an early start if we can, maybe leave here at six or seven at the latest.”

  They overslept, though. Worn out from their long trek from Branson, neither one woke until seven-thirty in the morning. Cecily awakened with slow somnolence and noticed the room wasn’t pitch dark but grey. Light seeped around the edges of the drapes and she sat up, searching for a clock. Beside her, Daniel still slept. “Shit!” she said when she located her cell phone to check the t
ime. “Sugar, wake up!”

  “What?” he replied, eyes shut.

  “It’s after seven-thirty.”

  “Shit!” His response echoed hers and she laughed.

  “It’s not like we have to be on time, is it?” she asked.

  He managed a fleeting grin as he bailed out of bed. “I guess not.”

  Although neither dallied, getting dressed, by the time they ate a quick breakfast downstairs and packed everything back into the truck, it was almost nine. After Daniel loaded the pickup, he climbed into the cab beside Cecily. He pulled out his cell. “I need to call my mom,” he said. “She’ll want to know what time to expect us.”

  Curiosity overruled manners. “What did you tell her about me?” she asked.

  Daniel smiled. “I told her I was bringing a friend with me because we needed to lay low for a few days. I haven’t told her your name yet or even if you’re a man or woman. Mama knows not to ask too many questions.”

  “Sugar, I think you might want to mention it now,” Cecily said. “I don’t want to shock her socks off when I kiss you in front of her.”

  His smile widened into a grin. “Yeah, I’ll say something about us. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “About what?”

  “I’ve never brought a woman home to her before so she’s going to treat you like family,” he said.

  Cecily met his gaze and smiled just as big. “I can deal with it, sugar so start dialing.”

  “Mama? It’s me,” he said after he placed the call. She noticed he spoke English, probably for her benefit. “We’ll be there this afternoon, three or after so plan on supper, okay? Yes. She’s very excited to meet you. Her name’s Cecily Brown. Yeah, she’s a girl, a woman, really, and very beautiful.”

  She heard his mother’s voice and although she couldn’t make out the words, the woman sounded happy and eager for their arrival. Daniel listened and then said, “Yeah, she’s special. I call her querida. Si, mama. You’ll see her then. I’ll tell you all about it or she can. All right, Mama, we need to get on the highway.”