One Kiss In… Miami. Katherine Garbera

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СКАЧАТЬ to him, just as he belonged to her. And they always would.

      Nighttime wheeled by. Justice ordered food that remained uneaten. Started sentences that broke off, unfinished. Drew a bath that turned cold, forgotten. Instead, they tumbled into each other’s arms, insatiable. At some point they slept. He only knew it with any certainty because somehow night became day.

      He woke with a slow smile and a bone-deep certainty that his life had taken a turn, had shifted from one plane to another, and there’d be no going back. Not that he had any interest in going back.

      He glanced down at Daisy where she slept like the dead, curled against him so tightly they practically shared the same skin. She’d pillowed her head on his shoulder, her hair a tormenting sweep of silk against his chest. Her hand was splayed there, as well, her palm dead center over his heart, as though she gathered up every beat, absorbing it until it became one with her own.

      So what next? How did he convince her to become his apprentice/wife? Because he had no intention of letting her go.

      Gently, lovingly, he eased out from beneath her. Lifting up on one elbow, he traced the velvety length of her from shoulder to breast, waist to hip to the pert curve of her bottom. And that’s when he saw it, resting right behind her left hip. A tattoo peeked out at him, a pair of golden eyes gleaming from behind deep green leaves.

      The memory exploded in his head, so ripe with pain it might have occurred only minutes ago. His foster home. What should have been his last placement. For the first time since he’d been orphaned, this one had been a real home, not like the endless stream of residences where he’d been one of a pack. The unwanted. The forgotten. The neglected. The rejected.

      This was a true home with loving parents, his own room … and Daisy. Her name scorched his brain with tongues of fire, ripping through the misty veil of forgetfulness caused by his accident and he remembered, remembered it all. The Marcellus residence had been a summertime way station between his senior year in high school and his first semester at Harvard. He wasn’t the only foster child, and yet the Marcelluses had somehow juggled family interests with work with caring for the needs of those they took in. It would have been perfect, except …

      Except for Daisy.

      The moment he’d walked into his new home and seen her at the bottom of a pile of foster rugrats, he’d wanted her. He shouldn’t have, not considering she’d sported spiky Goth-black hair, kohl-rimmed green eyes and purple-tipped finger- and toenails. He’d been so used to people judging without knowing him, that he tried never to make the same mistake. And it only took one look to see straight through to the sweetness beneath the outer craziness. Or what he thought was sweetness.

      Instead, she’d lied to him from beginning to end.

      Justice escaped the bed in one fluid movement and crossed the room. Ripping open the closet, he snagged the first pair of slacks that came to hand and yanked them on, struggling for control. Damn it to hell, where had his control gone? It had always been like that with her. She possessed an uncanny knack for pushing the exact right buttons guaranteed to turn his carefully laid plans inside out and upside down.

      “Justice?” Her sleepy voice came from the warmth of the bed, slow and sweet and contented. And oh, so false.

      He snatched a deep breath. Then another. His temper might be held by a tenuous thread, but at least it held. He turned and faced her. “Good morning.”

      She blinked the sleep from jade-green eyes, focusing in on him. “What’s wrong?”

      “Nothing. I’d like you to leave now.”

      She sat up in bed. Her hair should have been snarled and knotted with snakes, like Medusa’s head. Instead, the wheat-blond length tumbled straight as a waterfall to her shoulders. The sheet dipped toward her waist exposing the lovely apple-breasts he’d found so unbearably sweet last night. In the morning light, he could see the nipples were rosy pink, the same rosy pink as the color sweeping across her cheekbones.

      It didn’t make sense to him. She was a snake in the grass. An asp posed to strike. And yet, he didn’t think he’d ever seen a more beautiful sight. How was that possible?

      She blinked those impossibly green eyes at him. “I’m sorry. Did … did you just ask me to leave?”

      “Yes.”

      Good. Short and to the point. No mistaking the response, either. She was a woman. They tended to take longer to dress and do whatever it was women did in the morning. He ran a fast calculation. Chances were excellent that she’d be gone in just under nine-point-four minutes.

      “There is something wrong. What is it?”

      She shot from the bed and seeing her in the sunlight, every inch of her on full display, nearly brought Justice to his knees. No question. If he survived the next nine-point-three minutes it would be a miracle. And he didn’t believe in miracles.

      “I remember who you are.”

      “You do?” She smiled in delight. “That’s great. How did you figure it out?”

      “Your tattoo.” That damnable tattoo. “Seeing it has somehow forged a connection between my consciousness and that particular set of memories.”

      “Was that all it took?” She had the nerve to laugh. “I’m surprised your own tattoo didn’t do that.”

      “I don’t have a tattoo.”

      “Sure you do. A panther’s paw with claw marks to match my cat’s eyes.” She pointed. “It’s there on your hip—” She broke off, distress causing her to catch her lower lip between her teeth, a lip he’d taken great delight in catching between his own teeth only hours earlier. “Oh, Justice. There’s only a scar there now. I’m so sorry.”

      “Stop it, Daisy.” He cut her off with a slice of his hand. “Your tattoo is merely a catalyst. I don’t just remember who you are. I also remember what you did.”

      “What I did?”

      A tiny line formed between her brows. Excellent. Maybe it would encourage wrinkles to form and she’d be less appealing. Of course, that might take thirty years. Or even fifty, depending on her genetics. He didn’t think he could wait that long. He needed her out now.

      “You lied about your age that summer. You told me you were seventeen. You told me you would be a high school senior to my college freshman, just one year behind me. Instead, you were a fifteen-year-old child.”

      “Almost sixteen,” she retorted, stung. “And I lied because I knew you wouldn’t kiss me if I told you the truth.”

      “Kiss you?” The thread holding his temper snapped. He literally heard it, the sound as loud and sharp as the crack of a whip. He came at her, not even realizing he moved until he caught her shoulders in his hands and yanked her onto her toes. “I made love to you. You were a damn virgin. You were … untouchable and I touched you. The one true home I’d had since my parents died and you ruined it for me. Took it from me. I lost my scholarship because of you because I was no longer of ‘good character.’” Dear God that had hurt. Devastated. “Because of you Harvard wouldn’t touch me.”

      “What?” He couldn’t mistake the shock on her face. Nor could she have faked the way every scrap of color drained from her face and СКАЧАТЬ