First Time for Everything - By Aimee Carson Page 0,1

“I’m

running late,” she went on, “but that’s no excuse for

body-slamming you.”

“You should watch where you’re going,” he said

lightly. He nodded down at the fantasy-inducing foot-

wear. “With boots like those, someone might get hurt.”

“Cheer up. Maybe you can successfully sue me for

a hit-and-run.”

The infectious sparkle in her hazel eyes was more

humor than seduction.

“Except you haven’t run,” he said, attempting to

maintain a serious expression, knowing he was fail-

ing. “And technically, if you left me your name, I’d

have no case.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” She stuck out her

hand, and Blake took it automatically, noting the soft skin and the small tattoo on the inside of her wrist.

“Jacqueline Lee,” she said. “And just in case you were considering asking me out—” she released his hand

“—everyone calls me Jax.”

Blake realized his previous words had been mis-

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construed as a come-on, and his forehead bunched in

skeptical humor. “I don’t date jailbait.”

“I’m twenty-three and of sound mind and body,” she

said. He didn’t know her well enough to verify the state of her mind, but it was obvious her body was most definitely sound. She tilted her head. “Does that help?”

He lifted an eyebrow in amusement. “It would, ex-

cept I never date a woman who goes by a man’s name.”

Her wide smile at his fictitious—and ridiculous—

dating guideline was alluring. “That’s an awful lot of rules you got there,” she said. She turned to go and

then paused, shooting him a mischievous look over her

shoulder. “Give me a call when you want to break one.”

An amused scoff of doubt escaped as he watched

her head out onto the courthouse lawn. When was

the last time he’d engaged in a harmless flirtation?

Too long, apparently. It was definitely time for him to start dating again if he was noticing a little hellion on heels. Hardly the kind of woman he needed in his life.

An old VW Beetle parked in front of the court-

house began to blast a song loud enough to fill the

bustling courthouse lawn. And one minute his sexy

assailant was crossing the grassy grounds, the next

she was stepping out into a dance routine. Stunned,

Blake struggled to make sense of her actions until,

one by one, she was joined by adolescents in a clearly choreographed routine. Soon, more than a dozen youth

were engaged in a dance number good enough to be

aired on a professional music video.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, a flash mob,” Sara said as

she came to a stop beside him. Her voice was loaded

with disapproval. “Don’t kids these days have any-

thing better to do?”

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Blake stared at the group and, in particular, their

leader, passion oozing from her every movement. Her

earlier playful tone couldn’t be taken seriously, but the earnest enthusiasm on her face now was mesmerizing.

“They’re just having fun, Sara,” he said with a dis-

tracted tone.

There was a time when he used to live to have fun,

having entirely too much of it along the way. But just because he’d crashed headfirst into reality when his

father had died, leaving the responsibility for his mad-cap family on Blake’s shoulders, that didn’t mean the

rest of the world needed one of life’s hardest lessons at the age of twenty.

“No harm in that,” he went on.

There was harm, however, in the way he was ap-

preciating the fluid movements of the hazel-eyed

girl/woman. She twisted, twirled and moved to the

Latino hip-hop song—an odd choice given her cow-

boy boots—with a supple grace that was capable of

contorting her body into almost impossible positions.

Her dancing fired his imagination, turning his blood

to molten metal.

“No harm? Tell that to the police. They don’t look

amused at all,” Sara said. “They look ready to make

an arrest.”

With effort, Blake shifted his gaze to the two un-

smiling cops rapidly approaching the dance group,

his mind filling with an interesting image of his hit-

and-run perpetrator in handcuffs. And not in a professional capacity.

What the hell was wrong with him?

Blake gazed at the aforementioned policemen as one

of them stopped to address the dancers engaged in the

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routine—a routine that currently involved undulating

on the grass in an impressive dance move—while the

other cop made a beeline for the beat-up VW Beetle

blaring the music. And, for the first time, Blake no-

ticed the leg encased in a long cast sticking out from the passenger seat of the offending car.

A weary groan of frustration escaped his lips, and

his entertainment in the scene came to a screeching

halt.

There was no doubt in his mind who the leg be-

longed to, because it was highly unlikely there could

be two casts in Miami emblazoned with a red dragon