His arms snaked around her involuntarily; his body had always known what it wanted where she was concerned. By the time his mind caught up, he was a goner. He gathered her closer, perversely pleased that she didn’t soften immediately. He deserved to suffer. As their tongues tangled, realization shocked him stupid: no one else affected him like this, sent his heart soaring into the stratosphere and his cock punching against his zipper. A kiss, that’s all it took with Darcy who had once been his fantasy girl, and was fast becoming his fantasy woman. It was like someone had opened a bottle of good lovin’ wine. Vintage, seven years ago.

She had closed her eyes and the fact that she still did that during a kiss made his heart ache so sweetly. Slowly, she opened them as if waking from a dream.

“Te necesito, Darcy,” he murmured. So strange, only with her did his first language—one he barely spoke anymore—come out. She unlocked that primal part of him.

Their lips met again in a rush of heat and desire, and this time he abandoned his misguided attempt at coolness. It had never been a game with her. She clutched his shoulders, digging into his skin, and he couldn’t get enough of the bite of her. Her soft mouth, her clawing fingers, the fight in her body. She let loose a groan he felt all the way to his balls.

Crowd noise filtered through from the bar, reminding him that they were in far too public a place. Lifting her, he headed a few short feet to the back office and pushed his way through, kicking the door shut behind him. Too small for anything, it was perfect for this. He sat her on the desk, on top of a pile of invoices. Her purse hit the floor. She was breathing heavily, the swells of her breasts lifting her pearls.

“Is there someone else?” he asked, needing to know for a million reasons, none of them good for his sanity.

“Not at the moment.” She reached for his belt and undid the buckle while he pushed her skirt up her thighs. Thick woolen tights covered her legs, and the memory of her peaches-and-cream skin made his mouth water.

“Hurry,” she said, her eyes wild. “Please.”

This was moving at lightning speed, but she’d get no complaints from him. Next time—and yes, there would be a next time—he’d take it slow. Right now, he needed to be inside her, feel the clutch of her silken folds around his cock, find the pleasure he craved after a shitty couple of months. After far too long without her.

Quickly, he produced a condom and rolled it on while she watched approvingly. His hands shot up her skirt, seeking out the top of her tights so he could yank them south, but the snugness of the fabric over her hips made it difficult to get purchase.

“I think we need to—”

“Rip it, Beck,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Rip it.” She dragged his hand between her thighs, and he could feel her pulsing with want right there. A throaty moan escaped her lips as he applied more pressure. “Please. Now.”

Rip it. Get inside her. No waiting, no seduction, no fucking games. Just Darcy with that hot brew of pleading and ordering that destroyed him every time. He pulled the thick wool away from her body and, after a couple of tries, tore it down the seam. Slipping his fingers inside, he pushed aside her panties and found her soaked.

“Jesus, Darcy. You’re—”

“Yes, yes, I am,” she said, grinding her pliant heat on his hand. She hooked a finger in his jeans pocket and drew him toward her. “Do something about it.”

Yes, ma’am.

His mouth crushed hers, and then it was all hot hands and slick tongues. His on her, hers on him. Stroking with velvet licks inside her demanding mouth. Taking timeouts to watch as her pale hands pumped his cock, dark and pulsing even while sheathed. Memories he’d locked down broke through and added an indescribably sweet edge. Darcy giving her body to him the night he buried the two men he loved the most. Darcy making it better before he made it worse.

She felt it, too, he could tell. Remembrance flickered through her green eyes and he entered her just then, like that one action could seal the bond between past and present. He held still for untold heartbeats, ostensibly letting her adjust to his expanding size, but really because he needed to grasp onto this for a few seconds longer before the tethers of his waning control snapped.

One, two, ah . . . He cupped her jaw, enjoying immensely the delicate feel of her bones and how the softness of her skin churned something inside him. He plundered her mouth and mapped it with his tongue, giving her what she wanted, taking what he needed. A wave of clenching pleasure slammed into his midsection. Only then did he withdraw and plunge deep.

So damn good.

With his hands on her wool-covered ass, he urged her closer, tighter, the claustrophobic binding of their clothing adding another layer to the pleasure. It wasn’t enough. He jerked at the hem of her sweater, anxious to see the changes time had wrought on her body, only to be met with resistance. She pushed his hand away.

“No—no—we don’t have time.” A shocking vulnerability shone from her eyes. Was she unsure of being naked? Because he would not allow it. “Just take me there, Beck.”

Take me there. The same words she would beg when they were too young to even know their significance. It might have meant simple pleasure or outright oblivion. He had hoped it meant forever.

He did as he was told. Fucked her harder, got lost in the feel of her, took her to that place. Slick suction where their bodies joined fell into a hot rhythm with their fevered pants. Desperate thrusts and pulls ramped up his desire so fast he had to actively slow it down to make sure he lasted. This woman was so hot. And Christ, he wanted to burn.

Her moans got louder, the clench of her silken muscles tighter.

“Come for me, Darcy. Sé mía.” Be mine.

“Beck,” she whispered. Her tight channel clamped around his cock, and in every cell he felt the shatter of her orgasm as it unraveled through her body. It triggered his own release, and he let go with a roar, pumping every last ounce of tension and need into her.

Un-fucking-real.

“Hmm,” she hummed after a couple of minutes spent panting their way back to even breathing levels.

“Sí,” he managed.

She laughed. “That Spanish gets me every time.”

How lucky was he to have found her, right here, right now, as if he’d wished for it? Kissing her softly, he worked the condom off and disposed of it. She kissed him back, caressing his mouth with sexy kitten licks that melted his insides and hardened him everywhere else.

“I can’t leave the bar now,” he said, “but I can see you later.”

Keeping her gaze low, she adjusted her skirt to cover the ripped tights, like she could hide the glorious sleaziness of what they had just done. “I . . . I don’t think so.”

“It wasn’t a request, princesa.”

Her head snapped back and a flash of the old Darcy sparked in her sea-green eyes. “I don’t follow orders anymore. Not my father’s, not yours, not any man’s.” Standing tall, she gave his dick a gentle tug. “It was great seeing you again, Beck. Feliz Navidad.”

And before he could muster an argument or shove his still aching dick in his pants, she was out the door, moving astonishingly fast for someone who had twisted her ankle not half an hour ago.

Five seconds passed in disbelief, another ten in outright awe. He forced himself to swallow this devastating dose of reality: he had just been wham-bammed by Darcy Cochrane and then she had said good-bye with a dick shake.

A dick shake!

The door flapped open and his heart boosted in hope before plummeting to the floor, along with his flagging cock. It was only Luke with that well-worn smirk on his face.

“For fuck’s sake, Becky, how about you put your dick back in your pants and come help us out here?”

chapter

4

Something was off here.

Beck strummed the steering wheel of his truck and peered up at the gray, nondescript building on this industrial stretch of Clybourn. A construction site a half block down instilled hope that the area might be up-and-coming, though that claim had been made about this neighborhood before. Not that “neighborhood” really applied—it was no neighbors, all hood.

He checked the torn-off slip of paper in his hand, covered in Gage’s loopy writing. The snooty butler at the Cochrane mansion in the Gold Coast said Miss Cochrane was not residing there, which left Beck to tap his usual sources. Marcy at the DMV had turned up mothereffin’ zilch, and he still owed her sister a date. Finally Gage had come through with a call to Darcy’s drinking buddy—Melissa or Paula or something.

He needed to see her again. Her taste still coated his mouth, honey-sweet, exactly as he remembered it from all those years ago. How could she taste the same and how could his body still react like that? Even now, the memory of her eager lips and that surrendering sigh as she came gave him pleasure he had no right to enjoy. Not after how he had let her down, treated her as no better than something stuck to the bottom of his boots.

But lust makes monsters of us all, and this monster was greedy for more.

Sucking a sharp breath of snow-tinged air, he pressed each label-less button on the intercom panel in turn. The metallic buzz echoed in the quiet, broken only by the intermittent whoosh of traffic behind him. He let a minute tick by. Tried again. Nothing. Looked like the friend had sent him on a wild goose chase, maybe under orders from the princesa herself. Which wouldn’t surprise him, given how fast Darcy had bolted from his bar last night.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a ghostly flicker. At the gable of the building, a wall-mounted neon sign read Skin Candy Ink, the S struggling to stay lit, the K in Ink extending to an arrow that pointed to a spot out of sight. Maybe someone there could provide the answers.

Decided, he stepped between the buildings, half expecting the gap to close behind him and explode into a fantasy world like something out of Harry Potter. If someone were to approach from the shadowy bowels at the end of the tight passage, they’d both have to flatten their backs against the walls and slither by to avoid contact. Ten seconds and a hundred heartbeats later, the passage opened out into a small clearing. Like a dirty beacon, the tattoo parlor shone, its glass windows darkly tinted except for another neon sign affirming he’d reached the right place and a large banner proclaiming “We reserve the right to refuse service to any asshole.”

Better keep his asshole tendencies in check, then.

He pushed the door open and his body thanked him for the warm blast. The gratitude did not extend to his ears, however. Classical music assaulted them where something hard edged with a booming bass would have been more welcome. The feeling of having stepped into a strange new world washed over him.

“Be with you in a second,” a muffled voice came from the back.

Moving farther in, Beck scanned the surroundings, first looking for exits. Nothing marked, which was against code. He tripped his gaze over the walls. Every inch advertised the shop’s craft: cartoon figures, superheroes, skulls, half skulls/half devils, half skulls/half Marilyns, winged hearts, arrowed hearts, hearts inset with Mom. The whole gamut.

Another few steps brought a whole other level of artistry into view. A raven-haired woman bent over a client, a tattoo machine poised in her gloved hand. On her exposed shoulder blade, a flock of birds gathered low before taking flight at the base of her slender neck. Inked cuffs laced her toned biceps, a shocking contrast to her porcelain skin and the white tank top barely covering purple bra straps. One of them fell in dishevelment off her rounded shoulder, the kind of messiness that always stirred him up. Pretty damn sexy.

As was the rest of her. Slim, with full hips that flared and kept her short black skirt snugly in place. The ink picked up along her left thigh, a vine of blue roses that disappeared into her biker boot. Sexy and badass.

Beck felt a ping in his chest—perhaps more of the strange new world effect, but something was off. All firemen learned to recognize that whisper, that gut check, and shit if he wasn’t feeling it now. Seeking his bearings, he scoured the walls and let his eyes rest on signs that broke up the images: