Candlelight Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF

light, darkness, shadows, curious eyes, watchful glances, freaking delicious food, spices.
She wrote KISS in capital letters and circled it and circled it and circled it. She was really going to have to move past the fact their lips had touched and she wanted it to happen again. That daydream wasn’t productive—other than helping her write music.
    So tonight she’d let herself daydream a ton but definitely shut it off in the light of day.
    She continued to write down words and phrases while humming more of the melody. Marc’s eyes were beautiful—the way he looked at her, questioned her, laughed with her. What was it like to be him? How did he see the world? She had a pretty good idea after spending the evening with him, but still she wondered how he saw her. He was driven and lived in the black and white—she saw all the colors of the world and understood why people did even the craziest of things.
    The darkness had helped hide identities, literally. She chewed on the end of her purple pen cap. So why had she talked so much? Why had she volunteered information to him so willingly? It’s not like she even liked the guy at first. She was just kind of screwing with his uptight ass, and dinner smelled good.
Went for the food, stayed for the man.
She laughed out loud. She was so cheesy. Maybe if she wrote a country song that would be a line. She wrote it down in the back of her notebook with her other odd one-liners.
    Ugh.
She let her head fall back on her propped-up pillow. She wasn’t doing this again—she wasn’t jumping in eyes closed, head first, no questions. Her heart would remain guarded and hidden, for good. Or at least for the foreseeable future.
    Her norm was dating a series of guys with whom she was never too serious but just enough to feel lousy when she ended it. And she was determined to change her future by not making the same mistakes of her past. Steve, her latest ex, she’d actually liked, but there was something missing, and the final straw had come at Thanksgiving, when he hadn’t invited her to his family’s celebration.
    It was a dumb final reason, probably; she hadn’t even really wanted to go to dinner. It was just a sign, one reason in a long list. They weren’t serious, and she didn’t want to waste time. Being with a partner should be something you looked forward to—what they were going to say next, how sharing with them wasn’t scary, and the empowerment to be better that each gave to the other Steve hadn’t met any of those criteria. No one she’d ever dated had. That’s why she was alone in her apartment reminiscing about a kiss and the fallout that was sure to be better in her estimation than in reality. Hence her vow—she wasn’t going to date just anyone anymore. Taking a break from chasing love and focusing on her dreams—writing songs, performing—was the best choice she’d made in a long time. Doing what she loved for her and no one else. She didn’t need unnecessary distractions.
    Guess I have that in common with Marc, after all.
    She spent the rest of the night on her guitar, putting words down on paper, scratching them out, and remembering their night in detail. After showering when the sun rose, she milled around her apartment, writing more lyrics, cleaning, and finishing other projects on her to-do list, and tried not to listen for Marc’s door. A couple of times she thought she heard the familiar clicking and latching, but when she’d tiptoed to her peephole to see, the hall remained empty. He’d turned her into a schoolgirl. Crap on a cracker. She wasn’t a teenager anymore and preferred not to act like one. It was the candlelight’s fault—it had been conspiring against her for the perfect backdrop to kiss Marc. His sexy body in the dim, dancing light of candles—who could resist? She sure couldn’t. She couldn’t grab him and pull him to her lips fast enough.
    Candlelight conspiracy. That should be the title of the song.
He’d probably never go to