Deadly Promises (Tracers #2.5)(18)

Starface wouldn’t be so kind to the next person who interfered.



CLUTCHING TWO ARMLOADS of groceries, CeCe stormed from her car into the house that had been the perfect place to live until Jeremy Sunn started driving her crazy.

What was all that at the gym about her brother?

Vinny called earlier to let her know he’d hit a snag and wouldn’t get in until tomorrow morning. Which left her the whole evening with Jeremy again.

Great news. Right?

So why wasn’t Jeremy excited about another night together? She’d told him how her brothers were an overprotective bunch. Didn’t he realize she was trying to make it easy for them to spend some time alone?

Or did he think that she hadn’t enjoyed the evening?

Or had he not enjoyed last night?

Juggling bags all the way to the kitchen, she thought back on how Jeremy had acted when she’d asked him to leave before daylight this morning. He’d been a little cranky, but she’d attributed that to his not being a morning person. He seemed to accept her explanation that her brother might stop by on the way to the airport and how it might be uncomfortable for everyone.

Mainly her.

Jeremy had dressed, kissed her, and left quietly.

So what was bugging him? Why had he withdrawn? Did he think she would make assumptions based on last night? She’d made a point at the gym of letting him know she wasn’t trying to push him to the altar after sleeping together.

To be honest, she’d never push any man to the altar, but last night with Jeremy produced a revelation.

She wanted a man like him in her life.

No, she wanted Jeremy in her life.

And with a little patience from him she could be creative enough to make this work, but he’d have to agree to keep their relationship quiet for a while. At least until she could get settled here and figure out how to introduce him to her family.

She’d planned to explain her situation over dinner tonight, but now she was reconsidering after Jeremy’s about-face in the gym. Guys had the strangest way of thinking. What had happened since this morning for him now to want to be only friends all of a sudden?

Was he backpedaling, worried she was going to cling?

CeCe shook her head and yawned. With Vinny out of the way, she had twelve hours to show Jeremy that he was more than a neighbor to her, but she’d have to rethink her original plan of laying it on the line with him. If she approached tonight wrong, Jeremy might back away big time at the first sign of anything that sounded too serious.

Opening cabinets, she started shoving cans onto shelves, getting more ticked off by the minute.

At everyone, including herself.

Her brothers meant well and had been her rocks of support since her mother died when she was in high school, but the men in her family expressed that love by smothering her.

Her fault for letting them.

CeCe finished shuffling everything into place then raced into the bathroom to shower, shave her legs again, and groom any other wild hair on her body. She attempted to tame her wavy locks as they dried and finally gave up.

Jeremy hadn’t seemed to notice her uncivilized morning hair.

But then Jeremy hadn’t even noticed the new outfit she’d picked up today just to do her stretches at the gym. He’d been more interested in that damn cooler.

When the familiar sound of a vehicle next door reached her, CeCe ran over to peek out between the slats of her blinds. Night had taken over the city. Jeremy drove his sport utility into his garage, then the lights went dark. She felt like she was sixteen again, watching for the cute guy in the neighborhood to walk by her yard.

But back in high school she’d been warned against acting on a primal urge to go out and flirt with a boy.

Tonight she intended to act on a primal urge that went way beyond flirting with Jeremy. She didn’t have experience in holding the attention of a man like him, but she had one chance to pull out all the stops and find out if she could.

Spinning around, she strode over to her antique bureau that had one drawer filled with fabulous lingerie she’d been buying for a night like tonight. CeCe glanced at the pink robe lying across her bed.

That had friends written all over it.

Digging through the drawer, she shook her head at the pastel colors and paused when her fingers touched lacy red and black selections she’d purchased from an online store. Lifting two sinfully sexy pieces into view, she chewed on her lip.

If Jeremy saw her in this and still wanted to be just friends she had no chance of keeping him.



JEREMY SHOWERED, THEN pulled on a pair of jeans and shoved the wallet and cash he’d tossed on the bathroom vanity into his pockets. He’d finger combed his damp hair back off his face and strolled into the bedroom when a light blinked twice over the doorframe to the bathroom. Someone had tripped the silent alarm for his backyard, which meant he’d jumped the chain-link fence since his gate was locked.

It could be an animal but he doubted it since there was nothing to draw a dog or cat to his yard. In his line of work he took any intruder seriously.

Yanking on a shirt, he palmed his weapon off the nightstand. He opened a drawer where he found a pair of night-vision binoculars and moved silently through the dark house.

Years of living on the edge had taught him to leave the lights off anytime he didn’t absolutely need them on.

He checked his security panel hidden in a kitchen cabinet, which showed additional sensors being tripped. Someone was moving through his backyard. Jeremy shuffled over and barely lifted the curtain aside where he could scan the pitch-black area filled with just two trees and patio furniture.