He raised a brow. "Payback's a bitch."

Chapter Three.

"ONE of us could leave," Morgan suggested, hoping she'd go, yet, true to stubborn form-his and hers-he hoped she'd refuse and stay.

True, if she stayed, he'd go up in flames, because he'd be tinder to her fire. But, ah, what a way to go.

She furrowed her exotic brows, more gull-winged than either of her sisters, and shook her head. "Harmony gave me a key first, so I get to stay."

Morgan tried to get up, using the stairs and balustrade for leverage, ignoring her helping hand, and stood bent over like an old man. "I got to the lighthouse first, so I get to stay." Hard to be assertive when you're staring at the floor.

He tried to straighten, but when he teetered, Destiny slipped an arm around him. "Oh boy. Down boy."

She helped him sit on the stairs, whether he wanted to or not. He was grateful, though he wouldn't admit it.

She sat beside him, looking as if he'd sawed her flying broom in half. "I brought the family to the airport, or I'd have been here first, and a sister is closer than a best friend, so there."

"There? Where?"

"Here," she said, examining the cat scratches on his bare chest with tender, exploratory fingers and very big eyes. "I belong here," she said, her voice suddenly scratchy.

It occurred to him that he should feel at a disadvantage, wearing only his boxers, but she seemed more fascinated than scandalized. One of her long blonde curls fell across his shoulder, the light, intimate touch in this brazenly intimate situation nearly unmanning him, or, more accurately, manning him.

Well, his flagpole was in good shape, hard as boss stone and ready to fly, despite any area discomfort. He swayed closer and inhaled deeply of cinnamon and sin, which had never seemed so tempting. "I've been vacationing here at the lighthouse since I was sixteen," he whispered.

"What?" she whispered, and surprised, she leaned away from him and gathered her artillery about her. "Good for you. Doesn't matter. I'm not leaving."

"Neither am I."

"This is a disaster," she said. "I have plans."

"Propose a solution. I'm listening."

"There is none, except for both of us to stay,"

Morgan shivered inwardly with dread or excitement. Who could tell? "Bad solution."

"There are no good solutions. Neither concussing nor castrating you worked." She helped him to stand and walk to a hard-backed parlor chair. "I suppose drowning you is out of the question."

"Smart-ass." He sat, elbows on his thighs, his head in his hands, and refused to let her see his dizzy pain and dizzier anticipation. The two of them alone together for two weeks, him with a wish-boner the whole time. He could leave when the water taxi came for him on Wednesday, but he wouldn't give her the satisfaction.

"Why are you here, anyway?" she asked, watching him with concern.

"I'm planning to buy and renovate the place as a permanent residence, so I'm here to draw up the architectural design." All true. Just not the entire truth.

"Congratulations. I'll leave when you show me the deed in your name."

"Damn my soul, you're annoying."

"Don't curse. Be positive. No damns allowed. Slam, if you must, but never damn."

Morgan stood and inched back to the stairs, waving away her help and ignoring her to preserve his sanity.

Destiny whistled. "You know, I never took you for the type to wear red boxers."

"I'm in a rebellious phase."

"Red is rebellious?"

"For me it is."

"Are they silk?" she asked with enough pointed interest to raise his, er, hackles.

"No more than that bare-midriff Licensed to Thrill scrap you're wearing." A turn-me-inside-out little number that raised his hackles the more. Could her jeans be any tighter?

She began to gather her scattered possessions and toss them into her boner-crushing cart. He tried helping her, but when she bent over, her fine ass pointed his way. Wow. His only thought was to cup her, just there, with one hand, and use the other to test the tautness of her jeans by trying to slide his eager hand inside, starting at her cowboy boots and running his itchy palm up to-he needed a word like heaven, but better.

Paradise? Nah. The promised land. That's what he wanted, a ticket-better yet, a free ride-to the promised land.

Man, his boxers were about as tight as those jeans right now.

"Hey, be careful," she said. "You're hurt. You'll get blood on my clothes."

Morgan straightened. "You're all heart, Kismet."

She scoffed. "I'm messing with your head and succeeding admirably, I see. Come into the kitchen, and I'll patch you up."

Damn, or slam, his lost soul, this should be fun-like torture with perks, like her hands everywhere, except where he wanted them.

Halfway through the parlor, her cat yowled and leaped from the top of the stairs to land on his sore shoulders.

Morgan jumped and wrenched everything he'd already bruised. "Son of a-"

"Sea cat?" Destiny finished. "Is my little Caramello digging in her baby claws?"

Morgan realized that this new attempt to annoy him amused him. "Not anymore." The aptly named caramel-and-marshmallow-colored kitten was in the process of settling around his neck, front and back paws hanging down his chest from either side of his head, a bit like his grandmother's old fox stole. Now the soft thing whispered meows in his ear and licked his lobe, like they were old friends sharing a secret.

"Leave her," Morgan said, no longer caring whether he could get Caramello, the feline catapult, for assault and battery, because he was paradoxically pleased to be her confidant. The triplets' cats shared discourse with their respective triplet and no one else. Destiny, he could see, was miffed by her cat's desertion, which made Caramello's attention half honor, half payback.

The cat continued to grace his neck while Morgan wet a towel with cold tap water, held it to the bloody gash on his brow, and leaned against the copper kitchen sink so he wouldn't slide to the floor and make an ass of himself in view of Caramello's owner.

Trying to focus on anything but his pain, he eyed the bulging brown paper grocery bags on the counter. "You brought enough food for a week."

"Two weeks," Destiny corrected.

His destiny, he asked himself again, as in a form of celestial retribution for his defection? He could be in for two weeks with a seducer-type torture device who called herself a witch? Some punishment. The best he could work up was a raging round of happy, so much of it, that he saw stars again and had to grab the counter for support. He needed a shrink. And a drink. Whiskey, maybe a bottle or two.

"Whoa." Destiny caught him and walked him back to the living room, because the bare kitchen held no furniture beyond the fridge that came over on the ark and the stove from Little House on the Prairie. "Sit," she ordered.

Okay, so he'd gotten knocked around a bit. Morgan saluted and slid into the chair, only to have her cat jump into his lap, yowl for his attention, and pat his cheek with a paw.

The cat distraction didn't work. He watched the sway of Destiny's backside instead, until she disappeared into the kitchen. He picked up the cat for a face-to-face. "First thing I'm gonna do after I buy the place," he whispered, "is enlarge it and take down the wall between the kitchen and living room so when Destiny walks through the house, I can watch her ass from wherever I am."

Pedimented pillars, he was so concussed, he was discussing his fantasies with a cat. He set the fickle feline on the floor, so she lay on his bare feet like a warm, purring cat rug. He shivered. She'd upset the balance of his plummeting body temperature.

He'd hardly recovered from the lingering sensual haze of Destiny's touch when she returned with the first aid kit. "Stay," she said when he tried to rise.

"Woof," he barked, and Caramello yowled.

"What are you, a guard dog?" Destiny asked him.

"I was responding to your doggie-type command. I'm a schnoodle."

"Is that a joke?"

Hell. It was hell. Screw the positive words. He knew hell when he lived it. "A child I loved wanted a schnoodle. When I move in, I plan to honor her memory by getting one."

"Her memory? A child? I'm so sorry."

Morgan swallowed the guilt rising in his throat like bile. "So am I."

Destiny looked concerned, tender; God protect him from her brand of tender. "What's a schnoodle?" she asked.

"It's a cross between a miniature schnauzer and a poodle."

"That's so human of you, wanting a dog. Gives me a picture of a different Morgan Jarvis. Way less scary."

"Me scary? You're kidding. All this time, I thought you were the scary one. Mysterious, you know?"

Destiny scoffed and opened the first aid kit. "I think this is the longest conversation we've ever had."

Morgan coughed, a trickle of insecurity creeping in. He was getting too comfortable with this woman of experience. A goddess so far out of his league, he'd have a heart attack if they got any cozier, sex books or not. "Where'd you get the medical supplies?" he asked to turn his thoughts.

"I'm the klutzy triplet. That's why Harmony reminded me that I could find the first aid kit in the closet beneath the stairs."

Morgan willed his heart to slow. Of all places. "I'm surprised you went inside. It's a deep, dark cavern with no lightbulb in the socket."

"You're right. Dark as a dungeon, but the first aid kit was on a door shelf inside."

Thank God she hadn't spotted it. When, where, and how could he hide the evidence of a past that Destiny, of all people, would never understand?

"I should think you'd know where to find the first aid kit, with you staying here so often."

"I've never needed a first aid kit. I'm not the klutz, here."

In response, she raised a brow and vindictively dumped the contents of the first aid kit into his lap.

"Ouch. Victim of near castration, here, begging for mercy."

"Victim of snark here, being klutzy."

Make that one for Destiny.

Bless his loose-cannon libido, was she now going to grab each spilled item right out of his eager lap? He might be bruised, but Lazarus had nothing on his neglected manhood.

Morgan looked beyond the yellowed ceiling. Just hit me with a lightning bolt now and get it over with.

I know You think I deserve it.

Chapter Four.

"HOW did you get here?" Morgan asked, thinking of ways to ship her out.

"As you suspect. I rode in on my broom."

Morgan covered his amusement with a cough.

She stepped back. "From you, that's almost hilarity."

I must have a concussion, then, because there's nothing entertaining about this situation. "It's too late for you to have taken a water taxi, so you must have brought your own boat."

"What's it to you?"

Their relationship had always been strained, not just because she called herself a witch and claimed she saw ghosts while he debunked the paranormal, but because she exuded sex, and he-less than a year before-had turned his back on, well, everything he'd ever been taught, which included his vow of abstinence. But, well, he hadn't considered taking up the sport until he met Destiny.

Frankly, he didn't know what he'd been missing, emotionally or physically, until he got close enough for one of Destiny's sex sparks to land on him and smolder, but she didn't know that, yet. And maybe this was a bit too soon for her to find out. He wasn't ready. Damn it-slam it-he'd needed her in Scotland for these two weeks.

As if to prove the strain between them, she hit the gash on his brow with a glob of antibiotic ointment.

"Ouch, damn it. Why did you do that?"

"So it wouldn't get infected."

"The least you could have done was use a soothing motion to apply it." Damn his libido, he needed to get her the Hades out of here, not reel her in.

Destiny raised a brow and formed gentle circles along his cut. To a man like him, this was as good as foreplay.