Forever and a Day by Delilah Marvelle Read Free Book Online Page B

wondering what she could do without altogether ripping the seams of his outfit apart. She supposed she could soil it, but with what?
She paused. Coffee. How fitting.
Glancing toward Dr. Carter’s desk, she plucked up the porcelain cup of coffee he’d left on the desk and dipped her finger into it to ensure it wasn’t hot. It wasn’t. “I don’t think Dr. Carter will mind. Hold still. Here’s a toast to what should have been.” Turning back to him, she flung the entire contents of the dark, gritty liquid onto the front of his linen shirt and open waistcoat.
He sucked in a breath and jumped back, his hands popping up into the air. He frantically swiped at his wet, stained clothing and glared at her, his dark hair falling from its neat, brushed state. “Damn you thrice into the pits of hell, woman.” He gestured rigidly toward himself, his face taut and his eyes ablaze. “Why did you think it necessary to ruin a perfectly fine linen shirt?”
He was certainly prim for a man who thought he was a pirate. He couldn’t even swear right. “We’re improvisin’, is all. No one’s linen shirts look that snowy white where I live.”
He gave her a withering look. “Forgive me for having a clean shirt. Shall I rip the seams a bit for you?”
She heaved out a breath. “If you can’t survive bein’ stripped by a woman and havin’ coffee thrown at you, you most certainly won’t survive where I’m takin’ you. You’re over six feet tall. Act like every inch counts, will you? Be a man.”
He released his shirt and stalked toward her, veering in tauntingly close. “’Tis damn well hard to be a man around you. Damn. Well. Hard.”
She rolled her eyes and huffed on her way out of the office.
Men. They were all so self-righteous no matter what their upbringing or how hard you hit them on the head.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
Of old there was nothing, nor sand, nor sea, nor
cool waves. No earth, no heaven above. Only the
yawning chasm.
— Saemundar Edda, Codex Regius (early fourteenth century)
R OBINSON INTENTLY WATCHED the shadows of wood buildings as they bobbed and rolled by through the small dirt-streaked window at his elbow, waiting to recognize just one thing. And yet he didn’t. Not the buildings. Not the streets. Not the omni he rode in. Not even the night itself. It was as if he were looking out upon a chasm that meant nothing to him. How much longer would he have to live feeling as if he were seeing everything for the first time?
He tightened his jaw and glanced toward the young woman sitting beside him on the bench. Georgia. Like the state. Who the hell named their daughter after a state? It would be like naming one’s daughter after Paris . It bespoke of too much grandeur with very little to show.
Her sloppily gathered strawberry locks quivered within her frayed, beribboned bonnet with each strong sway of the omni that sent her shoulder bumping into his shoulder. Despite the sways that forced their bodies to touch, she indifferently stared out across the narrow space toward the bench opposite their own, which had long been emptied of passengers.
Something about her was so achingly familiar, but for some reason, it didn’t match any of the erotic images she evoked in his head. He could vividly see pale, freckled limbs and cascading long red hair similar to hers splayed out against linen, but there simply wasn’t a face associated with it. Who was the naked woman in his head if it wasn’t this Georgia? Was it a wife he couldn’t remember? Or a…mistress?
God help him either way.
He dragged in a breath. “What do you know about me?” he eventually inquired above the clattering of the wood wheels.
Georgia shifted toward him. Her seductive eyes met his through the dim light of the lantern that swayed above the closed omni door, shifting shadows. “I know as much about you as you know about yourself.”
“Are you certain I never mentioned having a wife?”
“You told me you had no wife.”
“Oh.” Had he lied to