“Yeah.”
“But you didn’t say anything.”
“I’ve warned them, but they won’t listen.”
She came close enough to stand directly in front of him. He could see the starlike pattern in her eyes-green shot with black. “You’re not saying words they want to hear,” she whispered. Her hands were at her sides, her head tilted back so she could retain eye contact. Scarce inches separated them.
After last night, he wouldn’t have thought she’d want to breathe the same air as him, let alone stand so close. “Why did you come here, Cleo?”
She slid a sandaled foot between his bare feet, hooking a thumb in the belt loop of his low-slung shorts in a way that seemed way too familiar. He liked it. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think I came to see you.”
He smiled then, a smile that began deep inside him, a smile that was suddenly reflected in Cleo’s face. “I was hoping you’d say that,” he said.
He felt the weight of her pressing against him. He had to do something to make up for last night. A thought came to him. A great thought. So great, he marveled at his own brilliance. He took her by the shoulders and set her away from him. Her smile immediately faded.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Wait here.” He turned and hurried down the hallway, opened the storage closet, clicked on the light, and began digging.
Cleo stood in the living room, arms crossed at her chest, watching as Daniel disappeared into a walk-in closet. She heard things sliding across the floor.
Why did you come here, Cleo?
She thought she’d come to get away from the motel room and to bring Premonition’s things, but had she really come to see Daniel one last time before leaving? Had she become so accustomed to subterfuge that she could no longer see into her own heart?
Daniel must have found what he was looking for, because he emerged from the closet, a black box in his hands, then disappeared immediately into another room. A few seconds later, she heard running water. Then he was back with the same box. “Wait there.” He dove into another room off the long, narrow hallway, shutting the door behind him.
She couldn’t imagine what he was up to. While waiting, she wandered around the living room, lifting framed pictures and putting them down, easily picking out Daniel and Beau.
Their mother had been beautiful, with a sweet, angelic face, a kind face. She looked like a real mother. There was a picture of a man who might have been their father, but the photo was faded and of poor quality.
A door slammed and Daniel reappeared in the living room. “Ready?”
She moved down the hall with trepidation, while he opened the door and stepped aside.
In the bedroom, he’d given her the darkness she’d asked for the night before. And in that darkness, he’d lit perhaps a half dozen candles. From the far side of the room came a steady whooshing sound she couldn’t identify. Drifting out the door, swirling around her ankles, was fog.
“Fog machine.” He applied gentle pressure to her shoulders. She moved forward, stirring the fog around her ankles. He shut the door behind them. “I came across it at a garage sale back when Beau was putting together a magician’s act. He never did get the hang of any magic tricks, but he sure could wow ’em with the special effects.”
He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, pressing a flat hand to her lower belly. She felt his breath against her ear, his lips against her neck.
Fog. Imagine that.
She turned in his arms, loving the solid warmth of him, loving the smoothness of his satiny skin under her palms. His lips found hers, and the kiss was a tender surprise.
Clothes were shed.
She was weak, shaking. She sank into the fog, sliding along his body. He followed her down until they were knee to knee, chest to chest. She felt his fingers against her bottom and against her neck. She heard his labored breathing, felt his trembling muscles.
He pressed her down until she was lying on her back, the fog swirling around them, enveloping them. At one point, he laughed, a low sound, full of wonder and delight, that filled her head, that melded perfectly with the tone of their coming together.
This time there was no anger. No resentment. No holding back. It was all sweet, open, aching vulnerability, a hoping, a wanting, a dreaming in a dark room with no walls, in a dark room with no color, with magic swirling about them.
Chapter Nineteen
For about five minutes Daniel couldn’t move. But, after a while, he became concerned because Cleo wasn’t moving either.
“Cleo?” He lifted a hand to touch her temple. Her riot of hair was damp with sweat. His fingers followed a strand to the end, where a chain lay against her collarbone, stuck to her damp flesh.
“Hmmm?” she asked vaguely.
“You okay?”
“You could say that.”
He didn’t want to let her go, didn’t want to break the mood, but he had to deal with the rubber. He kissed her long and deep and tender, in case this was it. In case it was their last kiss. In case she jumped to her feet and darted away, which would be very like Cleo. And then he slipped away from her, her body imprinted upon his where cool air met hot flesh.
He took care of business, then turned off the fog machine, the absence of the rhythmic drone plunging the room into an ear-ringing silence. Then he dropped backward on the bed, one hand tucked behind his head, the other resting on his rising and falling chest. Would she join him? Or would she leave?
She joined him.
The bed dipped as she settled herself beside him, curling up next to him, her breast pressed against his rib cage, one leg draped across his knees, her foot tucked under his ankle. He brought his arm from behind his head and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling her closer. She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she let out a deep breath and snuggled closer.
His fingers once again finding the chain around her neck. He followed it until he reached a small ring. “Does this have any significance?”
She was quiet a moment. “No,” she finally said.
He might not know anything about Cleo’s life-her past, her plans for the future-but he knew a lie when he heard one.
Maybe she could read minds, because at that very moment she slid over him, on top of him, a knee on either side of his hips. Then she stretched, reaching past him to blow out the candles on the headboard, leaving only one flame burning in the corner of the room. “Where are the rubbers?” she whispered.
He groped the surface of the bedside table, his fingers coming into contact with the packet. He peeled it open, but before he could pull out the latex, she took it from him.
“I don’t think I’m ready,” he said, hoping he didn’t have to go into some lengthy explanation of how it takes a guy a little while to get wound up again. At that very moment, he realized he was ready.
With her knees clasped against his hips, her bottom resting on his thighs, she wrapped her hand around him. His breath caught. She began with the condom, struggling to unroll it.
“Here. I’ll do it.”
“I want to.”
“You’re not pushing hard enough. You aren’t going to hurt me.”
She shoved harder, the latex finally sliding into place. And then, before it even entered his mind to do anything, she came down on him, her hands gripping his waist.
“Don’t move,” she commanded.
She slid her hands up his ribs to his shoulders, following with her body until they were chest to chest.
“Just stay in me like this.”
Stay in me like this, stay in me like this. Her words echoed in his brain.
Her voice had the rhythmic cadence of a hypnotist’s, and for a fleeting moment he wondered if that was what she was doing-hypnotizing him.