Part 1 (1/2)
Deadly Promises.
by Sherrilyn Kenyon & Dianna Love & Cindy Gerard & Laura Griffin.
Contents
Just Bad Enough
Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dianna Love
Leave No Trace
Cindy Gerard
Unstoppable
Laura Griffin
Just Bad Enough
SHERRILYN K KENYON.
AND.
DIANNA L LOVE.
One.
Jeremy Sunn stood next to the gazebo in the middle of the park and glanced around the festival to be sure no one saw him where he normally wouldn't be. Not on a Sunday off. Working undercover required patience, persistence, and... popcorn. He tossed a fluffy kernel into the air and caught the b.u.t.tery delight in his mouth then eyed the Greek water-maiden statue.
The one he'd been l.u.s.ting over for the past hour.
More like three weeks.
He'd staked out a lot of things in his undercover career with the BAD-Bureau of American Defense-agency, but never a woman for purely personal interest.
No one at the Festival of Emperors paid attention to him, probably because he'd dressed in jeans and a gray T-s.h.i.+rt instead of period clothing. Roman soldiers and women in togas hustled around trying to buy up the last deals of the day. The mid-July event drew traffic from across metro Atlanta to the historic square in Marietta.
And no one strolling past the water maiden in the last hour had noticed why that one statue was different from the other three, besides being the only female sculpture.
But he did.
Beneath all that caked-on makeup beat the live heart of a flesh-and-blood woman. One he had to get an answer from before heading back to work on Tuesday.
h.e.l.l of a way to squander his last day off for a while and ancient history wasn't his forte, but he lived only a mile away and she she was worth standing here waiting for the festival to end. He hoped. was worth standing here waiting for the festival to end. He hoped.
A simple yes or no.
One answer had the power to... eat a hole in his gut.
Sweat trickled down his neck but he couldn't be as hot as that water maiden posed silently amid three ma.s.sive concrete sculptures of Greek G.o.ds.
CeCe Caprice just pretended to be a statue. She could go for hours without moving a muscle when she performed.
He could attest to how hard she trained daily at his gym in Marietta. Yep, every inch of that shapely body wrapped in a toga and posed with a baby doll also coated in white plaster was very much a living, breathing human... and one hot female.
That he couldn't touch, d.a.m.n it.
Correction. Wouldn't touch. Not if he found out she really had meant to give him a ”back off” signal yesterday after spending the afternoon planting some d.a.m.n flowers in her yard.
At least, that's how he'd read her odd reaction when he asked her out to dinner. Now he was starting to wonder if he'd jumped to the wrong conclusion when she hadn't actually said the word ”no.”
He'd never pressed a woman for anything so he'd backed off. Quick. Then regretted it when he missed her for the past twenty-four hours. He'd gotten used to sharing iced tea on her patio for the best part of three weeks, had never spent that much time just talking to a woman. The females he met were only interested in what he intended to do to their naked bodies.
But CeCe had hung on his words. And laughed at his jokes.
He hadn't even kissed her or had dinner with her.
Twenty-four hours of no iced tea, no talking, and no smiles. He missed her. Couldn't get her out of his mind for one day.
A woman had never spun him inside out like this.
l.u.s.t used to be fun, and short-lived. Not obsessive.
Three weeks at home recuperating from a leg wound-a souvenir of his last mission-hadn't turned out anything like he'd expected. Limping to his mailbox the first day at home he'd expected nothing more exciting than his standard fan mail from bill collectors.
When the screen door on the rental house next to his burst open and CeCe strolled down her driveway, the first thing he'd noticed was the sweet belly b.u.t.ton winking at him between a red half s.h.i.+rt and white shorts.
He'd thought one of his teammates from BAD had sent him a get-well-soon girl. No way could that little bombsh.e.l.l be his honest to G.o.d next-door neighbor.
His luck had never run that that hot. hot.
But she was indeed a new addition to the neighborhood. For the first time since moving there he regretted having to leave as soon as he healed.
CeCe had destroyed any operating brain cells he'd possessed the minute she smiled at him. Blue eyes had sparkled bright as sapphires tossed up in blazing suns.h.i.+ne. Every time she turned her head, he fought the urge to touch the wavy auburn hair that brushed her shoulders.
He woke up at night thinking about that thick ma.s.s spread across a pillow. His pillow. His bed.