“It would be a little surprising if you weren’t,” she informed him gently. He didn’t reply, but remained still and quiet beneath her tentative touch. Did he think she’d walk away because of a few scars? He didn’t know her very well anymore, but he’d soon learn. “Let me show you how offensive I find your scars.”

Ever so gently, her touch as soft and light as the sweep of butterfly wings, she pressed her lips to the first, tracing it from end to end. She located the next one and kissed that one, as well. And the next, until she’d found each and every one, created a road map of lingering caresses across his body.

“No more.” His harsh voice split the silence, as twisted and tortured as his scars.

He swept her into his arms and carried her through the living area into the bedroom. A single light burned a pathway through the darkness, chasing away the shadows and haloing the bed in a ring of gold. He came down beside her and the warm glow skated over his work-hardened muscles and sank into the crevices lining his face. Pain lingered there, a pain she’d have given anything to ease. And maybe she could.

Daisy reached for him, pulled him into the warmth of her embrace and adjusted her curves to accommodate his lean, graceful form. No question, Justice had become the panther she’d long considered him, sleek and trim, with an edge of tough, masculine danger. His skin rippled beneath her touch, the sweep of warm, taut sinew as appealing to the artist within her as the faint golden hue of his skin tones. His hardness pitted against all that made her yielding and feminine, creating an interesting dichotomy, one she could lose herself in. So why resist?

This time when she mapped the pathway of scars, she did it within that merciless glare of light. She wished her kisses had the power to heal, that she could give ease and comfort to the rips and tears that had damaged not just his body, but somehow his heart and soul, as well. She anointed each and every one while he lay rigid beneath her, his jaw rigid and eyes squeezed shut.

She had an instant’s warning before he moved, the quick clench and flex of toned muscle. And then he had her flat on her back, his arms planted on either side of her head, caging her. He held himself above her, his gaze marking her like a hot branding touch.

“My turn,” he said.

Not giving her an opportunity to reply, his mouth closed over hers, hungry with demand and intent. Sheer pleasure swamped her and she wrapped her arms around his neck, tugging him down until all of him blanketed her in endless masculinity. With a husky laugh that turned her insides molten, he slid his hands between them and traced her breasts, exploring every inch, shaping them, dragging those delicious calluses over and around before lowering his head to catch one taut tip between his teeth. Her breath escaped, sharp as an explosion while pleasure ripped through her.

“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?”

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 the pupils of her eyes narrowed to pinpricks. “Oh, Justice. I’m so sorry. They told me you’d left early for college … I never realized …”

He released her and stepped away. “Put on your clothes.”

That brought color back to her face. Without a word, she snatched up the various bits and pieces scattered across the suite and dressed. Even that she did with grace and elegance, and Justice turned his back, unable to watch without—Without wanting her again. Without touching her again. Without snatching her into his arms, carrying her to that bed and making love to her until they were both too exhausted to move. How the hell could he still want her after what she’d done?

“Justice?”

He hadn’t heard her approach, but he sure as hell felt her tentative touch on his bare arm. He almost broke, catching himself at the last instant. He turned on her, wanting her to understand just how much she’d cost him. How he’d never forgive her duplicity.

“That final home, that place—” he practically spit out the word “—they put me those final months was the worst of them all. They knew what I’d done and treated me …” He broke off, shaking his head, his back teeth clamping as he fought back the blistering spill of emotions. Emotions he refused to acknowledge. Refused to allow to touch him ever again. “When I turned eighteen, they kicked me loose. I had nowhere to go, no one to help me. No job or money and no chance of acquiring either.”

Her breath hitched throughout his recital, disbelief warring with … It took him a moment to identify the emotion. Pain? Heartbreak? “I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t.”

Tears came then, sliding down her cheeks and reddening her eyes and nose. She wasn’t a pretty crier. Instead of pleasing him, the discovery bothered him on some deep, visceral level, perhaps because it suggested that her tears were sincere. He should have taken pleasure in her distress, felt some sort of redemption. Once upon a time he might have. But not now. Not after all these years. He struggled to ignore the tears, using her emotion to lock away his own. To distance himself from that long-ago time.

“Are you even an engineer?” he demanded.

“No, of course not.”

Of course not? God save him from illogical women. “You are at an engineering conference. Only engineers were permitted to attend the keynote speech. No guests. No media. No—” He made an impatient gesture. “Whatever you are.”

“I write and illustrate children’s storybooks.”

It was so far out of expectation that it took him a split second to adjust his thinking. “Then, what the hell were you doing at my speech?”

“I saw your name and photograph on one of the hotel placards and recognized you. I slipped in on impulse.”

“You told me you were an engineer.”

She scrubbed impatiently at her cheeks before planting her hands on her hips. “I most certainly did not. In fact, I told you I wasn’t.”

He sorted through their time together and came up empty. “No, you didn’t.”

“It was when we had tea. Or rather, didn’t have tea.” She drove that point home with pinpoint accuracy. “You asked if we’d met at an engineering conference and I said I wasn’t an engineer.” She hesitated. Blushed. “Well, to be honest—”

“Yes, please. I’m sure it would make a nice change for you.”

Anger flickered to life in her gaze. “I never lied to you. I told you we’d met before. I never claimed to be an engineer. In fact, I started to explain what I did for a living when the waitress arrived. If she hadn’t interrupted, I’d have been able to finish my sentence. By the time she left, the conversation switched gears.” She folded her arms across her chest. “As I recall, you asked me for another hint.”

“Maybe you should have told me you were the woman who ruined my chance to attend Harvard. That would have been an excellent hint.”

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.” Her apology sounded sincere, not that it helped.

Even so, he caught the distress and pain. Not on her own account, but for him. Not that he wanted it. “They could have pressed charges against me. Your parents threatened to.”

“If they’d pressed charges I would have told the authorities the truth. That I lied to you about my age and what happened between us was consensual. Quite consensual,” she made a point of adding, then released a sigh heavy with regret. “I swear to you, Justice, I didn’t know they’d found out. They never told me. I just woke up one day and you were gone.”

“And that would have made everything all right? Damn it to hell, Daisy. I took you to a tattoo parlor—” Another thought struck him and he groped on the dresser for Rumi, his fingers fumbling across the smooth surface. “Son of a bitch. I let you drive to the tattoo parlor.”

She reddened. “I was a bit … precocious back then.”

“Precocious?” he roared. “You were a walking, talking bundle of rampaging hormones intent on getting into as much trouble as possible, while dragging me along for the ride.”

“That, too.” Her expression turned wistful. “But it was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it?”

“Out.” He couldn’t take another minute without totally losing his temper. What was it about her that drove him so close to the edge? “I want you to leave. Now.”

“For what it’s worth, Justice, I really am sorry. I never realized you paid such a steep price for something so wonderful.”

“It wasn’t wonderful for me.”

“No,” she whispered. “I guess not. Just like last night wasn’t wonderful, either.”

“It was sex.”

She flinched and he realized he’d hurt her. Really hurt her. She moistened her lips and gave a curt nod. “Of course. Well, thanks for the amazing sex, Justice.”

Without another word, she turned and left the bedroom and his only thought was that she considered their sexual encounter amazing. He wasn’t sure any of his previous partners had ever called it amazing. It shouldn’t matter, and yet somehow it did. He heard her rummage around in her carryall for endless moments, the contents clashing and chattering in agitation. Then silence. What the hell was she doing? Because he knew damn well she hadn’t left. He could still feel her. And that alone threatened to drive him insane. Finally, finally, finally, the suite door opened and closed behind her.

He released his breath in a long sigh. Okay, she was gone, this time for good. It might have taken fourteen-point-six minutes instead of the nine plus he’d originally calculated, but at least the confrontation was behind him. He headed for the living area and crossed to the phone, intent on alerting the front desk of his early departure. Sitting on the desk he found a book that hadn’t been there before. A children’s storybook. He set Rumi aside and reached for the book, hesitating at the last minute.

The cover exploded with color, teeming with plants and flowers that seemed to overrun the jacket. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the chaotic riot of shape and shade. Then the analytical side of his brain kicked in and he began to separate the various objects, leaf from bud, fruit from flower, until finally he caught the intense gold eyes peering through the jungle foliage, their appearance almost identical to her tattoo.

The eyes were also eerily familiar, maybe because he looked at them every damn day in the mirror.

He touched the cover, tracing the bit of black panther she’d buried within the scene. Unable to help himself, he opened the book. She’d autographed it with her first name and a swift sketch of a flower—a daisy, of course. “To Justice,” she wrote. “I got it wrong. You’re not Cat.”

The words didn’t make any sense to him until he leafed through the pages and discovered that she’d named the panther Cat. Beside the huge jungle cat romped a domesticated kitten named Kit. She was a tabby, one with green eyes and wheat-blond stripes, identical in name and appearance to the kitten he’d given Daisy the day they’d made love. He’d chosen the silly creature because it reminded him of her. He’d even tied a huge floppy green bow around its neck, one that had been half-shredded by the time he’d presented Daisy with the kitten.

Unable to resist, Justice flipped the book to the beginning and read more carefully this time. He quickly realized this was the first in a series of books about the adventures of Kit and Cat, and told the tale of a kitten lost in the jungle who meets a panther cub. The two became best friends. Kit caused nothing but trouble and Justice found himself smiling since it was so similar to the sort of escapades Daisy used to get into. But Cat was always there to rescue her, to protect her from the dangers of the jungle. Even when it meant choosing between her and his pride, Cat faithfully remained by Kit’s side.

He flipped the book closed and his glance fell on Rumi. Somehow, at some point during his argument with Daisy, he’d transformed the sphere. It sat on the desk, its ebony pieces gleaming in the sunlight, the mathematical symbols flowing symmetrically across the metallic petals of the flower he’d created.

A daisy.

Justice’s hands balled into fists and he took a step back, rejecting both creations—book and flower. He wasn’t Cat any more than she was Kit. Even more telling, she’d made a mistake in the book. Didn’t she know? Hadn’t she researched her facts? Panthers didn’t have prides.

Panthers were loners.

Four

Nineteen months, fifteen days, five hours, nineteen minutes and forty-three seconds later …

Daisy jiggled the tiny earbud that never seemed willing to fit properly in her ear. “Are you sure you have the directions right, Jett?” she asked the girl she’d agreed to foster nearly a year earlier.

“Positive,” came the breezy retort.

With an exclamation of disgust, Daisy pulled off the pavement and onto the narrow shoulder. A harsh November wind swept by, causing the small compact rental to shudder from the blast. This time of year never failed to depress her. It was an in-between season that offered neither the crisp and glorious richness of fall, nor the deep, frosty slumber of full winter. Instead, it hovered somewhere in the middle, a twilight that was neither a beginning nor an end, not a becoming nor a final metamorphosis.

She snagged the map from the passenger seat and fought through the various fanlike folds to spread it open across the steering wheel, even though she could picture every road and turn in perfect detail from the last time she’d checked it. Sure enough, her memory hadn’t failed her. None of the various lines and squiggles included the turnoff for the homestead Jett had described.

“Listen up, Jett,” Daisy announced. “I’m lost in the wilds of Colorado. This place isn’t on the map and your stupid GPS is demanding I make a U-turn at my earliest convenience and leave. I’m inclined to do what she suggests.”

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