Legally Hot by Leigh, Lora (smart ebook reader TXT) 📗

“Like the look? I love the look.” Adam said.

“But it didn’t come with the whip,” Keri said.

“Awwwww, it’s not the same.” Adam pretended to look disappointed. “Catwoman without a whip.”

“Maybe I will just have to find one,” she said. “It’s important for Batman to get what he likes.”

“Oh, I got what I like,” he murmured. “Right here.”

“What are you waiting for?” she said. “My permission, that you may kiss the Cat?” Keri tilted her face up. “Wait, you have to open your gift.”

Keri handed Adam the package and Adam opened it.

“Just what I always wanted,” Adam said with a laugh. “A Batman mask.”

“Just what I always wanted,” she said. “My own Batman. Now put it on.”

Adam put on the mask.

“It fits you perfectly,” she said. “Something about a man in a mask … You just might be in for quite an adventure tonight, Batman.”

“You do look like quite the adventurer right now, Catwoman.” He rubbed her upper arms as he met her eyes. “Time to kiss the Cat.”

“I love you, Adam. I—” she said before her words were smothered by his kiss.

“I love you too, Keri.”

Then he kissed her again.

  CAUGHT

  RED GARNIER

  PROLOGUE

  Phoenix, Arizona—August 2005

  He did the same thing every year.

On August 22, at 6:00 p.m. sharp, Cody Nordstrom would drop whatever he was doing in order to head straight home.

He’d have trouble getting to his front door sometimes; phone calls, unsolved cases that suddenly needed his attention, always popped up on this day. But he’d ignore them as best he could.

He’d ignore the tempting call of a cold beer after work, and the buddies clamoring for him to come over to the Starbucks by the station, and the paperwork on his desk and the meetings with his superiors, and he’d drive straight home.

He would start a cold shower, put out his clothes—a black Armani suit and a crisp white shirt he had dropped off in the morning at the cleaners and picked up on his way home—and for this day, the only day in the entire year, he would wear them with a solid black tie.

By 6:15, toweled dry and somberly dressed, he would stop by the corner neighborhood florist and purchase two dozen white roses. Then he would climb back into his car and drive with care, glancing now and then at the petals riding shotgun beside him, starkly innocent against the dark upholstery and caught in mid bloom.

By 6:30, he would reach the cemetery.

This was his destination, and he’d stay here for hours. Until the traffic waned, and the hot desert day began to morph into a cool night.

He’d keep his face downcast, his thoughts to himself, and those white roses would lie on the ground, right on the spot where the bodies of his two parents had been buried.

There was comfort in this routine, and maybe there was some punishment in it, too; punishment in the gloomy sight of the graves during the evening. Yet today—

The hair at the nape of his neck pricked, and Nordstrom raised his head in puzzlement.

He scanned the cemetery for signs of disturbance, noticing how this one time, this strange time, the sun was shining bright, casting an orange glow across the scattered grass, hitting the only tree nearby at an odd angle. He didn’t know that what followed would rock his world—for he hadn’t seen her yet.

“Oh, is that nice girl with you?” a female passerby asked him, noticing that he was looking in the direction of the tree.

Uncertain of the curiosity prodding him to find out to whom she was referring, Cody stared at her hard, then he glanced back at the tree. There, leaning against the trunk, was a … female.

“That girl, is she your sister?” the woman insisted.

Cody honed in on the girl. No. Not a girl. Too curvy to be a girl.

“She comes to visit this same grave every Saturday, too,” the stranger offered before hauling her bag closer to her chest and walking away, dragging a small toddler behind her.

Fixated on the slim figure by the tree, Cody narrowed his eyes as he tried to place her. Blond hair to her shoulders, brilliant eyes even from afar. His pulse stopped.

Something about her, the way she held so still and quiet as she looked back at him. Her skin, the shade of her hair. Time stopped as they stared at each other across the graves and trees and grass.

Megan.

Holy fuck—it was her. It had to be.

But she was there, and she was … walking over? Holy hell, she was walking over.

He stood slowly, wondering if she knew it was him—Cody. Of course she knew. Megan had never looked at his twin quite the way she used to look at Cody, quite the way she was looking at him now.

Ahh, fuck, his groin was heating.

She was a woman now—a very sexy woman—and he wished he hadn’t seen her, for she’d plague his mind from now on.

He hadn’t planned to look for her. Not after social services took him away—he sure as hell hadn’t returned for that. He was just plain bad luck, should let the girl continue on with whatever kind of life she was leading, which was for certain better off without him in it.

She should stay away from a problem like him.

True, he had become a cop. Homicide detective and all that.

He was supposed to be a good man, but the same blood as that of a killer ran in his veins, and he knew what he really was. Soiled. Unfit. And responsible for what that sick bastard had done.

Thoughts of his twin brother made his lips curl in disdain. Theirs had been a complicated relationship, spawned by parents who did not pretend that doing