Chapter 25
Dominic
Cecily is a statue. Other than punching our destination into the maps app on my phone and showing it to me, there's been no talking.
An open-top convertible doesn't make for great conversation anyhow.
We've been driving an hour, and I've just exited the Phoenix city limits.
Slowly, the city transformed, the homes giving way to farms, and farms giving way to desert.
It's nothing but teddy bear cholla and saguaros as far as the eye can see, interrupted only by mountains jutting up from seemingly nowhere.
It's been a while since I've lived here, and last night I took time to learn about the growth and changes around the state in the last few years.
I don't know our route yet, and until I look through Ophelia's binder, I still won't. From memory, I know there isn't much between Phoenix and Tucson except a couple towns and gas stations.
Other than that, it will be blowing winds and tumbleweeds.
We drive on, and when the fuel gauge needle reads one third of a tank, I take the next exit for a gas station. I've never run out of gas, and my first time won't be with Cecily in the car.
The road noise quiets with every mile we decelerate. Cecily runs her hands over her head, smoothing her braid.
"You look good," I tell her, and when her eyebrows raise I hurry to add, "Your hair. It's windswept, but not in a bad way." Sort of in a romantic, older movie type of way, but I'm not going to say that.
Cecily eyes my hair. "Well, you, Dominic, should have chosen a braid, because you are giving the Bride of Frankenstein a run for her money."
I go still as her hand reaches for me, fingers running through my hair. Swallowing a groan as her fingernails lightly scrape over my scalp is probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do.
She takes back her hand, and to save myself from putting my head in her lap and begging for more, I tell her, "I spaced getting a haircut before leaving New York City a few days ago.
" I've been seeing Natty the barber ever since I landed in the Big Apple, and the idea of trying a new barber puts fear in me.
How could anybody else do a good job with these waves?
Natty knows just what I want, to the point that I no longer have to utter a word.
A man's relationship with his barber is not easily replicable, but three more weeks of this rat's nest might have me desperate enough to go for it.
I can't walk around having bad hair day after bad hair day.
Not when...what, exactly? Cecily doesn't care.
I'm almost positive Cecily is physically attracted to me, but she doesn't care. About me, or my hair.
"I'm thinking of growing it out," I say, bringing the car to a stop.
Cecily turns to me, her first full-on gaze since we left Phoenix. "You should grow it out so long that it tickles your ass."
Stone-faced, I say, "I do enjoy ass-tickling."
Cecily's eyes crease like she wants to laugh, but she's so good at remaining stoic.
Too good. I've learned the best way to infiltrate these walls of hers is to surprise her.
With words. With touch. I nearly put my hand on the small of her back when we were leaving the coffeehouse this morning, but decided against it.
It felt natural to reach out and touch her, something I would do if she were really mine.
"I guess I know what to get you for your birthday," Cecily says, flipping down the car's visor.
"A voucher for a session of ass-tickling with none other than yours truly?"
Cecily wipes under her eyes, unperturbed. "If you present your bare ass to me, tickling will be last on the list of things I'll do."
My eyebrows bounce twice, for good, pervy measure. "Kinky."
She blows a hard breath and makes a sound like she's had it with me. "You're disgusting."
I resist the urge to celebrate. I finally got her. Lifting my hands in innocence, I say, "You're the one who said—"
"I know what I said," she mutters, throwing open her car door. "Come on, Errand Boy."
Back to Errand Boy? Interesting.
Grabbing the pump for premium fuel, I insert the nozzle into the car. Cecily waits for me beside the trunk, examining her nails. Without looking up, she asks, "Do you want to grab a snack or drink inside? Road trips aren't complete without snacks."
"Sure. Let me put Bernice's top on."
Cecily laughs.
I palm my chest. "Forgive my heart attack. I wasn't expecting you to permit yourself to laugh at a joke I've made."
Cecily's head cocks sideways, a tendril of escaped hair sweeping the creamy expanse of exposed neck. "When something is funny, Dominic, I laugh. Perhaps you're simply not as funny as you think."
"Perhaps," I concede. "Or maybe you're too fucking ornery to let me think making you smile is in the realm of possibility."
Instead of waiting for a response from her, I slide into the driver's seat, locate the convertible top switch on the center console, and hold it. When the top is secure, Cecily and I walk into the convenience store that appears to be in the middle of nowhere.
"This place is cute," Cecily says when she finds me standing in front of a wire display rack of desert-themed postcards.
The place is kitschy, the walls decorated with old license plates from various states and Mexico. In the spaces where there aren't license plates, there are shiny silver hubcaps.
Cecily lopes across the place, stopping in front of a wall of machines churning bright, artificially colored Icee drinks.
My eyes remain on her. She wears cut-off jean shorts, frayed at the edges, and a white tank top.
On her wrists are those gold bracelets she favors.
In her ears, she wears simple gold hoops.
Yes, I studied her on the drive. I can't help it. She's gorgeous.
I glance away, in case she catches me staring and gives me grief about it, and my gaze lands on a man walking through the glass double doors.
I watch him register Cecily's presence. Watch his eyes indulgently peruse her body.
My blood heats the longer his eyes remain on her. Back turned, she is none the wiser.
The man is average height, soft around the middle, a sweat-stained trucker hat clinging to his hairless head. I'd place him in his mid-forties. I'll also place him in a grave if he does anything to hurt Cecily.
"Pretty little car for a pretty little woman," I hear him say. He sounds as slimy as he looks.
Cecily's head snaps to the man, now only a few feet from her. She clocks him, gazes at him with a face full of disinterest for a solid two seconds, then looks away. I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of Cecily's glares. It should be enough to send a man scurrying.
But of course, this is not just any man. This is someone who believes he is entitled to Cecily's attention. He grins at the side of her face, and it's downright lecherous. Well, damn. I've never killed a man, but I suppose there is a first for everything.
"Sugar, how'd you know I like it when women play hard to get?"
The muscles in Cecily's back bunch, and then her shoulders square. "Just yesterday I was thinking about how it's been too long since the human equivalent of a foul stench hit on me. Thanks for bringing me up-to-date."
Her voice is jaunty and laced with venom. It takes the man a moment to process what she has said, but not me. I hold an advanced degree in Cecily's razor-tongued remarks.
His face turns from ugly to uglier.
My feet are moving, apparently of their own volition because I don't remember thinking about walking.
I'm in motion, skirting the end of an aisle with a large candy display, and then I'm there, at Cecily's side.
Wrapping an arm around her trim waist, I press a kiss to the side of her head.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I register how good she smells, but I can't spend more than a nanosecond on the thought.
"Hey, babe," I say against her head. "Which flavor did you decide on?"
Cecily melts into my chest. She fits me. So perfectly. Her dips, my curves. Concave and convex.
She looks up. A soft breath comes from her parted lips. Her brown eyes hold gratitude, and then give way to something else. Something stronger, less inhibited. Something I know she does not want to feel.
"A fire drill," she finally answers. "A little of every flavor."
"I hope you plan on sharing." I drag two knuckles along her jaw.
The tiniest hard breath escapes her, and if I weren't this close, I'd never hear it.
"Twenty on pump three," I hear from somewhere behind me. The lecher, I'm assuming. The bell above the door dings, signaling his exit.
I step away from Cecily. Not that I want to, because I absolutely do not, but Cecily's already dealt with one asshole thinking he has a right to her space. She doesn't need a second man trying to take what isn't his.
"Thank you," she says, grabbing the largest plastic cup from its sleeve under the counter. "He was going to be a handful."
"I am your husband," I remind her, palming the very beginning of stubble that runs over my cheeks. "I promised to protect you."
"You sure did," Cecily murmurs, stepping up to the first nozzle and positioning her cup beneath. She goes down the line, creating a layered drink that likely tastes like sweetened battery acid.
When she finishes securing the top, we make our way to the cashier. Cecily snags two more items just before we get to the checkout counter. I do the same. A bottle of water and Corn Nuts.
The cashier says very little other than a mandatory and lackluster greeting.
I press my credit card to the reader, and when we step out into the midday sun, Cecily stops out of the way of the door and says, "Thank you.
We should probably take turns paying. Unless we're in front of my family, then you can pay, and I'll pay you back. "
I'm already shaking my head before she finishes her sentence. "No. Sorry. I'm old-fashioned."
"Are you sure about that?" She nods her head at Bernice. "Don't I appear to have deep pockets?"
"Are you flush with cash?"
"No. I don't accept money from my parents. Or my grandma, though I will admit she loaned me the money to put a deposit down on my apartment."
How do I explain to Cecily that although she is my wife in name only, this is important to me?
Tightening my grip on my bottle of water, I say, "I didn't grow up with a lot, and it embarrassed me.
Not that I didn't have things, but that I couldn't invite a friend out to dinner.
" Never mind how infrequently we went out to a restaurant.
Overpriced, my dad would declare. Shit service, shit food, and tiny portions.
I remember wondering why he would want bigger portions of shit food.
Cecily's face softens. Her head tilts. She's listening intently.
"It matters to me that I pay for you, ok? Whether that's wrong, or right, I don't know." I shrug. "I only know that it matters to me."
"Ok." Cecily nods. "I was trying to buy a present for your heroics in there, but since you paid for it, I guess I'll say that I picked it out for you."
She holds out her hand, and in her open palm lies a rectangular-shaped yellow lollipop. Suspended in the center of the candy is a small scorpion.
"The choices in there weren't exactly robust," Cecily says, offering the kind of smile I've yet to see on her face before now. Bashful.
"I love it," I tell her, taking the treat. "Even if it is disturbing." Sunlight beams through as I hold it up by the stick, revealing tiny striations in the candy.
It's only a piece of weird candy, but the gesture brings a tightness to my chest, my throat. It's so sweet, so unexpected. "Thank you," I tell her, forcing the emotion from my voice.
"You're welcome," she says. "Thanks for saving me from having to remember my old Krav Maga lessons."
She heads for the attention-getting ride that nearly prompted my first murder, and I follow, holding on to that little martial arts tidbit she offered.
I disconnect the nozzle from the car and secure the gas cap, then slide into the car where Cecily waits.
I point at the top, wordlessly asking if she wants it retracted.
"No," she answers. "It'll be harder to eat our snacks." She pulls a bag of Bugles from the thin plastic gas station bag, passing me the ranch-flavored Corn Nuts I snagged in haste.
"Are you well-trained?" I ask, ripping open the bag like a caveman and tossing back a handful. I'd never eat these if Cecily and I were really together. Too much garlic.
"In Krav Maga?" she asks, opening her bag of snacks. "I was. I'm not anymore."
I nod, watching her pluck out a single crunchy corn snack and, instead of eating it like a normal person, places the cone-shape on the pinky finger of her opposite hand.
"It's probably something that comes back to you when you need it," I say, mesmerized by her process. Cone-shaped corn snacks now adorn every finger on her right hand.
She nods sagely. "Very true. And you'd do well to remember that for the next three weeks." She leans closer. Taps the end of my nose with the tip of a Bugle. "It's a bad day to be a Bugle," she says, biting one snack off a finger.
"It appears so," I answer, throwing in another handful of Corn Nuts so I don't say something I regret. Namely, Can I be a Bugle?
I shift into Drive and make my way back to the freeway.
Cecily proceeds to demolish the other four. She washes them down with her fire drill Icee.
Wordlessly she offers me the drink. "I already drank from it, so you know I didn't poison it."
I take it from her, grimacing at the injection of sugar when I take a sip. She smirks, and I pretend I'm not thinking about the way my lips were on something that was in her mouth only a moment ago.