Darcy writhing under him, encouraging him to take her harder, do her right. Darcy’s hands exploring his chest and rasping his nipples. Hell, sexy shit she hadn’t even done!

The bag hit his head so hard that his ears popped and rang.

“The fuck?”

“You’re distracted,” Wyatt said as he steadied the bag he had just used as a weapon to usher Beck back to reality. If reality meant the cramped gym at Engine 6 on Chicago’s North Side, he’d take his fantasy life, thanks. The old quarters could do with a face-lift, which given the city’s budget woes and the fact CFD came last on their good mayor’s list of priorities, would not be happening in any Dempsey’s lifetime.

Wyatt cleared his throat. “Keep that shit up and you’ll get your head bashed in by the Five-Oh.”

“It’s not until April,” Beck said, referring to the annual Battle of the Badges. “Plenty of time to get undistracted.” Two more weeks should do it. She’d be gone, off to Texas and some cowboy hick who would learn every inch of her tattooed body, and what each image meant.

“So you are.”

“Are what?”

Wyatt’s flinty expression said Beck shouldn’t even bother playing it cool.

“Yeah, I’m distracted.” He had Darcy on his mind. Then. Now. The future with a heaping side of regret if he didn’t act and lock her down. She’d lied to him about this amazing woman she had become while he lodged his body deep within hers. But as mad as that made him, he understood that deficit of trust on her side. Maybe she was right to keep the real Darcy from him; maybe he didn’t deserve to see the woman behind the ink, not while past mistakes were milling around in his brain.

Beck knew he was going to rue the next words out of his mouth because Wyatt was the worst sounding board ever, but sometimes talking to a human wall was better than a lady-feelings exchange with Gage or Luke.

“There’s this girl.”

Wyatt hoisted an eyebrow. Already overseas with the Marines when Beck and Darcy had started dating, his oldest brother had missed out on all the drama from back in the day.

“I cut her loose years ago and now she’s on my radar again. She was this big bright light that made me feel like I could do anything, y’know?”

“I know,” Wyatt said with uncharacteristic feeling. Guy was completely cryptic when it came to his sex life, so that was about as effusive as Beck had ever heard him.

“Keeping her close would have been the best thing for me, but it would’ve dragged her down, dimmed all that radiance. She had college and this golden life ahead of her, and she would have given it up to stay with me.” She knew he couldn’t leave Chicago, not when his future involved suiting up in CFD bunker gear. Which left the option of a long-distance relationship, or Darcy staying put and possibly giving up her dreams—for him.

He threw a punch at the heavy bag, keeping his top knuckles centered in the glove to absorb the shock. “I needed to be a firefighter, to honor Sean and Logan and everything they had done for this family, this city. My life was here, but hers . . .” Another solid blow to the bag kept him focused on getting out words that had never before found air. “Not sure I could have lived with what a life with me would have turned her into.”

For a start, her father would have cut her off for hooking up with a punk-ass street kid. Staying in Chicago with her wings clipped, living on the fumes of teenage love that might not pass the test after a year or two of real life—no way did Beck want to shoulder the blame for that cluster.

“Love someone, set them free. That your angle?”

“I s’pose.” Beck landed a hard, yet unsatisfying one-two-punch on the bag. “She’s turned into this amazing woman, Wy. Strong, beautiful, independent.” As for what Beck brought to the table, the jury was still out. He knew one thing, though, with a clarity that cut him to the core.

He wanted her.

“Becky, you’ve got a visitor,” Luke called out from the gym’s entrance.

“Are you decent?” a sultry voice crooned. Speak of the green-eyed temptress herself . . .

Darcy peeked around Luke’s shoulder, her palm caging her eyes inadequately as she scoped out the gym. She dropped her hand dramatically. “Oh, that’s disappointing. I was hoping for more sweaty men.”

Beck’s heart punched his ribs with all the force of an attack hose pumping out water at 400 psi. Just when he thought he’d have to chase her down, here she was, and holy shit, she had dressed up for her Engine 6 debut.

Leather molded to her curves like it had been painted on with a brush—or tattooed with her gun. High-heeled boots brought her up to Luke’s chin, and he was taller than all of them. The jacket she wore was unbuttoned, revealing that revolt of colorful florals on the rise of her breast. All she was missing was a frickin’ crossbow.

“Hey,” he said. Wow, positively Shakespearean.

“Hey, yourself,” she said back, a smile in her voice. “Can I have a word?”

That should have been enough of a hint for Beck’s nosy brothers to clear off, but from their assorted smirks and raised brows, no one was budging. Fuckers. Hurriedly, he made introductions and was about to quickstep her out of there when Gage strutted in.

“Hey, it’s Darcy, isn’t it?” Gage asked. “Hot damn, I love your ink!” Never one for boundaries, baby bro nudged the lapel of her jacket aside and scrutinized her cleavage. “Heard you’re a big-time tattoo artist now.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” she said, a becoming watercolor bloom of pink suffusing her cheeks.

Gage threaded his muscled arms over his chest. Today’s T-shirt slogan announced: I’m a Firefighter—What’s Your Superpower?

“Beck’s been stalking you on the Web, trying to piece it all together Sherlock-style. Those pics . . . Darcy Cochrane, you are a stone-cold fox!”

“Sometimes I wonder if this gay thing is just a phase,” Beck muttered, drawing Wyatt’s low huff of laughter.

“Oh!” Surprise perked up Darcy’s face, and she considered Gage with renewed interest. “That’s right, you’re gay. Mel is going to be stricken with grief.”

Gage winked. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

As he stripped off his gloves, Beck recalled the details of his investigations on Darcy, which had turned up far-flung locations like London, Paris, and LA. She lived a nomadic lifestyle, always leaving her clients—and no doubt her many admirers—wanting more. In the tattoo world, Darcy Cochrane was a big fucking deal. She had won contests, displayed her art at something called the Body Expo, was a respected force in the business of drilling pigment into the skin. She’d even inked a well-known rock star, and there were rumors of a brief, combustible relationship, if TMZ was to be believed.

Gage was still gabbing. Jesus. “I couldn’t believe that in all this time, he’s never once looked you up. I mean, that’s what the Internet is for.”

“I thought it was for cat videos and porn,” Darcy deadpanned, catching Beck’s eye with a glint in her own.

“But it’s also for snooping,” Gage said with authority. “I’m always checking up on my exes, usually with my fingers crossed that one of them has made it onto some revenge porn site or that they take a really bad mug shot.”

Amusement curved Luke’s lips. “Does anyone take a good mug shot, idiot?”

Gage double thumbed in the direction of his head. “This face is incapable of having a bad day.”

Darcy laughed warmly, just like Beck remembered, not that he had ever given her much reason. As a kid, he was too nervous around her, his skin so tight he felt like it would snap right off his bones. He liked to think he had lightened up in his old age, but he would never have Luke’s innate charm or Gage’s easy good humor.

Jealousy of his gay brother gnawed his innards. These two would be fast friends before the day was out; tequila and pillow fights would cement the deal. Still, another part of him enjoyed that she dug his family. He wanted her to be part of this thing that was so important to him.

“What did you need to talk about?” Beck asked, cutting in on the Gage and Darcy Show.

“Oh, right.” She opened the big-ass purse on her shoulder and extracted a piece of paper. “I wanted to show you the design for the tattoo.”

Her moss-green eyes were alight with a brew of fire and apprehension as she handed it to him. The names of Sean and Logan in Celtic lettering hit him like a right hook out of yesterday. Even after all this time, he felt it. The void they had left.

“The black script is a bit hard on the eyes,” Darcy said, “so I thought I’d soften it with a shamrock on one side for Sean and the CFD logo on the other for Logan.”

Beck struggled to get the words out. “Two separate tattoos, then?”

She placed her hand on his bicep. “One for each gun,” she said softly, her fingers cool to the touch from being outdoors. He felt the sizzle as the heat between them expanded, and for a moment everything fell away and it was just him and Darcy, eyes fusing like their bodies had two nights ago.

Several heartbeats later, she lowered her eyes, then her hand. “I can do something else. Just tell me what you need.”

Everyone stared at the design, trapped in their own vortex of memories and pain.

“It’s awesome. We’re in,” Luke pronounced, breaking the heavy silence. “Unless you want this just for yourself.” He held Beck’s gaze, worry that he had spoken out of turn clouding his eyes.

The unabashed rightness of this struck Beck squarely. It was for them all.

“If you guys want to be a part of it and Darcy can manage the work, then that’s fine by me. She’s in high demand and . . .” He trailed off as the memory of how long she’d be around sucker punched him in the solar plexus. She was planning to skip town by year’s end, and shit on a hot dog, that sucked.

“I can do you all.” She bit down on her lip and took in the ring of Dempseys staring at her avidly. “Well, you know what I mean.”

“If I was gonna turn, Darcy, you’d be first on my hetero bucket list,” Gage said, ever the outrageous flirt. He added to Beck with a wink, “CPF, man.”

Beck’s scowl at that was cut off as the alarm sounded, the mechanical voice of dispatch echoing its siren call through the firehouse. “Engine 6, Truck 43, Ambulance 70 . . .”

“Time to get smoked,” said Luke. “Later, bro.” He nodded, doing an admirable job of reining in the pity that they all got to speed off while Beck was forced to stay behind, but Beck saw it all the same and his heart bled a little. In a clatter of thudding boots and organized chaos, they headed out, leaving Beck alone with Darcy.

Bewilderment creased a line between her pretty dark eyebrows. “You don’t have to go with them?”

“No.”

“Day off?”

Lots of days off. “I’m on admin leave.” He huffed out a breath. “I almost killed my brother.”

chapter

6

A cold gush flared and froze to a block of ice in Darcy’s chest. “What happened?”

Beck’s face crusted over like a rusty lock, the tumbler click, click, clicking into place. Damn, she had a nanosecond to grasp at it before he shut down completely.

So she grabbed his sweaty T-shirt and fisted it.

“Jesus, Darcy. That’s skin you’ve got.”

“Oh, sorry. I just wanted your attention.” She loosened her grip, but still held on.

He gave her a bemused look. “You always have my attention. When you’re in the room, you’re my sun.”

Those words battered her breathless, and it was a moment before she could draw enough air to fuel what she said next. “Tell me what happened. It was on a call?”

“A month ago. Fire at a crack house on the South Side that started on the second level. The place was in dire straits when we got there, but it hadn’t reached the first floor yet.”

He paused, so she rubbed his chest over the skin she’d grabbed. Encouraged, or perhaps just resigned to honesty now that he’d opened the floodgate, he went on.

“Another company had arrived before us. Typically the first on site makes the calls and they said the second floor was clear, so Luke and I swept the first. It was empty, but on the way out I heard something on the landing. Someone was trying to get out. I raced up the stairs but the heat was too intense. I could feel it through my hood, fighting to take control of my mask. Luke was calling behind me to get back. My lieutenant was on the radio screaming at me to pull out, but this kid . . .” He laid his head against her forehead. “Darcy, he was just gang fodder, caught in a bad place, pulled in by all the shit. I managed to haul him free for the handoff to Gage, but before I could get clear, the ceiling crashed in on top of me. Luke dragged me out.”