Katherine Garbera - One Kiss In… Miami

“Justice …” His name escaped on a cry, blurred with passion. “Do that again.”

The last time she’d been held in his arms, had known his possession, it had been gentle and sweetly tender. Tentative. They’d been little more than children, filled with an insatiable curiosity and delight in the physical, yet cautious in that exploration.

This time, it was so much more, their knowledge deeper, their desires fine-tuned. And they were far from children. In all the years that separated the two occasions, one thing hadn’t changed. The magic still existed between them. At his first touch, he revived some inexplicable connection between them that strengthened and intensified with each passing moment.

Justice’s hand slid from her breasts and drifted ever lower until he’d found the welcoming warmth at the apex of her thighs. He dipped inward, a stroking touch, easing her legs apart until she lay spread beneath him, fully open to his gaze. The muscles of her belly and thighs rippled with pleasure, the feeling intensifying with each slow movement of his fingers. He took his time, driving her insane with his thoroughness. Heaven help her, but she adored thorough men.

“Please, Justice. I can’t take any more.”

“I hope you can take more, since I have plenty to give you.” Again, he treated her to that soft, husky laugh. So deep. So dark and delicious. So intimate. She heard the slide of a bedside table drawer followed by the muted rip and crackle of a wrapper. With swift, economical movements, he protected himself. “Let me give you everything I have, Daisy.”

She groaned, her breath quickening, just as her body quickened, tightening with a desire so intense she thought she’d die from it. He levered himself above her, cupping her bottom and lifting her. He came down heavily, dipping into her liquid heat.

With one slow stroke, he surged into her, filling her with steely power. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, angled her hips to take him more deeply. She wanted it to last forever, to cling to this moment and revel in it. Never had she experienced anything like this, not with anyone other than him. She didn’t understand it, didn’t need to understand. She simply embraced it and rejoiced.

And then she couldn’t think, could only crack and splinter while she rode the storm with him, fragmenting into endless pieces as she embraced the wildness that exploded from beneath his impeccable control. With every thrust he sent her flying toward ecstasy, driven higher and further than she’d ever been driven before.

It was a transcendent moment she’d only experienced once before and with only one man. This man. These arms. This same joining, even if years apart. Did he feel it? Did he sense the connection they’d forged once again? Did he realize what she did? She’d thought by having this night together that she’d finally be able to let her memories of him go. Instead, she’d discovered something far different.

Somehow, despite all odds, they’d become one, and there would be no going back. From this moment on, she belonged 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?”