the icy exterior a fire burned, one fierce enough to melt any and all resistance. Did he realize what a dichotomy he represented with that ice-cold logical exterior and that white-hot inner blaze? He reminded her of a distant star, an inferno of heat within the cold vacuum of the space it occupied.
His mouth came down on hers and she sighed, opening to him with bottomless enthusiasm. His fingers tightened in her hair as he sank inward and she heard a faint rumble, almost like a cat’s purr. Maybe she hadn’t gotten it wrong in her books. Maybe at heart he really was like her jungle panther creation, Cat. While Cat hid behind a wall of protective foliage, Justice hid behind his icy demeanor and the isolated walls of his compound. Were they truly so different?
“What do you want from me?” Her question was smothered beneath his mouth.
But he caught the words. And he understood. Reluctantly, he pulled back, pressing a searing kiss to the dampness of her lashes before taking her mouth a final time, a bittersweet tribute to the emotions he denied.
His thumbs traced the swollen contours of her mouth. “I want you.”
“It’s not that simple,” she protested. “You treat whatever this is like it’s a simple sexual equation. You plus me equals sex.”
“It’s just that simple.”
She fought free of his hold, some of his iciness invading her own veins. “Is this really how you regard people in your life? Like simple equations? While you skate across the surface, never daring to plumb the depths?”
He turned away from her and reached for Rumi, freezing at the last instant. And that’s when she saw it. Somehow, at some point during their earlier conversation, he’d transformed the device into a flower, one that looked remarkably like a daisy. She started to comment, then stopped, something warning her to tread carefully.
“I didn’t realize it could do that,” she commented, striving to sound casual and offhand.
“It’s only happened once before.” He spoke so quietly she almost didn’t catch the words.
Before she could press him about it, Pretorius’s voice erupted from hidden speakers. “Justice, who are those people in the kitchen?” He sounded almost frantic. “They’re doing things in there. You need to stop them. Now.”
“Take it easy,” Justice replied. “I’ll deal with it.”
“You’ll make them leave?”
“I’ll deal with it.”
At a guess, probably not the answer his uncle was looking for. “Cut communication,” Justice ordered. He took a second to lock gazes with her. “This isn’t over.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “You’re just figuring that out? Well, let’s see if I can put this in terms that your computer-like brain will process …” She fisted her hand in his shirt and yanked until they were practically nose-to-nose. “I’ve known it wasn’t over between us for nineteen months and twenty-five days. You didn’t manage to figure it out until ten days ago and only when I showed up here to draw you a picture. Try to keep up from this point forward, okay?”
With that, she released him and swept from the room, though she could have sworn she heard a snort of laughter. Must have been the wind. Lord knew, it couldn’t have been Justice. Together they returned to the kitchen … and walked in on sheer chaos.
“Son of a—”
She elbowed him. “Condition One alert.”
“Look at what they’ve done to my kitchen!”
She couldn’t blame him for being upset. She would have been, if it had been her home. Aggie had pulled everything out of the huge, walk-in pantry and stacked the contents on every available surface. A bucket of hot soapy water rested on the floor while she swabbed every shelf and cubbyhole.
Jett sat with her back to the doorway, earbuds plugged in and no doubt rocking out music at full blast. She pounded away at her laptop. Next to the laptop sat the cat, Kit, the other half of the inspiration for Daisy’s storybook creations. She’d been freed from her carrier and reclined on the table, busily grooming herself, accepting the craziness around her with her usual equanimity. A computer’s disembodied voice gave incomprehensible updates in a hiccupping voice, competing with Pretorius’s shouted demands, demands that were interspaced with some truly creative obscenities.
And then there was Noelle. Daisy sighed.
All of the cupboard doors stood ajar. And her precious daughter sat buck naked in the middle of the floor surrounded by articles of baby clothing, along with every last pot and pan the kitchen possessed. She busily banged lids against pots adding to the noise level.
For an instant, Daisy thought Justice would explode. “Computer, disengage!”
“Disengaged.”
Abruptly, silence reigned. Noelle paused in her banging, Jett in her typing. Aggie poked her head out of the pantry. One look at Justice and she flinched, knocking over her bucket of soapy water. It swirled in an ever-expanding puddle of suds heading toward Noelle.
Jett’s fingers hovered over her laptop, mid-keystroke and her head jerked around. Her inky dark eyes widened in dismay when she saw Justice standing there. “Uh-oh.”
Daisy hastened to pluck her daughter off the floor before the surge of dirty water reached her. “Darn it, Jett. You promised to behave.”
Jett cleared her throat. “Actually, I didn’t. You told me to. But since I didn’t answer, technically I didn’t promise anything.”
“How many times have I warned you not to get technical with me?”
“Nineteen hundred and fifty-two.”
“Enough!” Justice broke in, glaring around the room. “Someone tell me what the bloody hell is going on and I mean now.”
Noelle beamed from the safety of her mother’s arms and spoke her very first words to her father. “Hell!” she said, clear as a bell.
Daisy groaned. “Oh, that’s just great. Which part of Condition One didn’t you understand?”
“I possess perfect comprehension. This, however—” He swept his arm in a wide arc to encompass the disaster that had previously been his kitchen. “This defies even my ability to comprehend. But it’s not beyond my ability to correct. First things first.”
He waded through the water to the one drawer that had so far escaped Noelle’s detection and remained intact. He upended the stack of dishtowels it contained onto the floor. Then he crossed to Jett’s computer and with a few swift keystrokes disconnected her from his computer system.
“Full control returned to you, Pretorius.”
“They’re leaving now, right?”
“I’ll be down shortly to discuss it.”
“Discussing implies ‘not leaving.’ I don’t want to discuss.” A hint of panic crept into his voice. “I want them to leave.”
“Give
