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:
“Love lasts forever but a tattoo lasts six months longer.”
“Tattoos hurt. No bitching, whining, or passing out.”
“A man without tattoos is invisible to the gods.”
Were the gods looking down on him now, laughing at his torment? Giving him a taste of Darcy and what might have been, only to snatch her away from him again? He’d spent his whole life defying those fuckers’ plans for him. The gods could go screw themselves.
Something gla
nced by his legs, and he dropped his gaze to an obese tabby cat that reminded him of another place and a time long gone. It rubbed against his jeans affectionately.
Then it hissed.
Beck’s eyes widened in recognition. That cat had always hated him.
No way. No. Fucking. Way.
“I’m looking for someone who lives around here,” he said, but he already knew he’d found her.
She straightened, every muscle in her curvaceous body locking up tight. Carefully, she raised the machine from her client’s arm and placed it down on a tray like it was loaded. As she turned, hints of color peeked out above the edge of her left bra cup.
The blinding realization that had crashed over him about ten seconds ago was just now catching up to make his skin buzz. Still, it was nowhere near enough time to adjust to this new information. He had known she loved to draw, but he never imagined this. Could never have connected the neurons to even dream it. Darcy Cochrane, tatted and dressed like she belonged here. Like this was her world.
The Earth had flipped on its axis, dragging his brain along for the crazy ride.
“How did you find me?” she asked, cool as the other side of the pillow.
“I have my ways, princesa.”
Long denim-clad legs swung off the chair behind her, and combat boots thumped the ground. A beast of a man towered over Darcy’s shoulder, boasting raw scar tissue on the right side of his face that gave the impression he’d road tripped to hell and made a few friends there. His protective stance sent a surge of fury through Beck.
Darcy and . . . nah-ah.
“It’s okay,” she said, looking up into her protector’s smoke-dark eyes. “Beck’s an old friend.”
Old friend? Hell yeah, he was.
With care and a slightly unsteady hand, she placed a wrap over her recent work, which looked like—was that a habanero pepper? Both of the guy’s arms were blanketed in ink, barely room to spare for a postage stamp.
“I’ll stay while you lock up,” the brute said, one eye on Darcy, the other on Beck.
“I’ve got this, Brady.”
Brady crossed his arms resolutely and planted his feet.
Seeming to arrive at a decision, Darcy pushed out a noisy breath. “Brady, Beck. Beck, Brady.”
This dude was clearly important to her, not in a romantic sense, because if he was her man there would be zero debate about leaving her solo with another guy. But he was important on some other level, a realization that did not put Beck at ease. Darcy seemed A-okay with the situation, though. Her worlds had collided and she was figuring it out—with a lot more mental agility than Beck.
Beck stepped forward and held out his hand, half amused because the situation had the ring of a hostage handoff in Berlin circa 1985. She’s safe with me, new scary friend. Brady acknowledged Beck’s outstretched hand with a look but refused to take it. Alrighty, then.
Without further pleasantries, not even a “later” for Darcy, Brady headed out into the Chiberian night in short sleeves, ink as armor. Watch out, darkness.
Beck turned back to Darcy, his surprise momentarily giving way to blatant curiosity. “Where’d you find him?”
“Paris. Don’t take the handshake thing personally. He doesn’t like to be touched.” She clicked off the music with a remote control, and then with nimble fingers unhooked the needles from the tattoo machine and placed the apparatus in a box like a cube-shaped microwave. Entranced, he watched her, waiting for the wavy lines in front of his eyes to clear. On the off chance he was stuck in a crazy fever dream, he shut his lids, counted to three, and opened them again.
Nope, still there.
Darcy Cochrane, heiress, charity doyenne, and one of Chicago’s elite, had turned into a tattooed biker chick. So, no motorcycle as far as he knew, but she had the boots and the ’tude and the fucking ink. This was a million times removed from old Darcy with her pink, fuzzy sweater that used to have him in fits. And not even on the same planet as Darcy 2.0 from last night with the designer clothes and the pearls.
“Think I’m gonna need the non-Twitter version, Darcy.”
“Oh, but we never needed words, querido.”
Throwing his own smooth line back in his face? Nicely done, princesa.
He leaned on the counter, making it abundantly clear he was settling in for the long haul. In the bruising silence, he raked his gaze over her from head to toe, trying to craft his own story of what her body art meant. Last night she hinted at bad blood between her and Daddy, but hell if this wasn’t one head-kicking case of rebellion. Those images were etched into her skin for a reason.
“So paint me a picture.”
Oh, he looked good. Grumpy and annoyed that he didn’t have all the information, sure, but surly had always looked like sex on him. All that heart-wrenching intensity, and when it had been focused on her as he moved inside her, it was so easy to believe they were the last two people on Earth.
Mr. Miggins, her crusty old kitty, snaked a figure eight through Darcy’s legs and scratched out a plaintive mewl. Evidently, already feeling the tension.
May as well start with the easy stuff. “I’m filling in for the owner who heads to Florida this time every year. Snowbird. I do this during the downtime when Grams can’t bear the sight of me fussing around her. I’m staying in the apartment upstairs.”
“That covers the last three months.”
Needing to do something, anything, to escape his visual dissection, she turned the knob to the high setting on the autoclave so the tattoo iron would be sterilized in fifteen minutes, then set about tidying up her work area. Always be moving.
“I’ve been in Paris for the last couple of years, working with François Bernet. He’s a well-known tattoo artist and he’s taught me a lot.” Both in and out of the sack, when he wasn’t being a controlling French jerk, but Beck didn’t need to hear that.
Too late. The crimp creasing his forehead said he’d read between the lines and come away with “Darcy did Paris” in more ways than one.
After some first-rate glowering, he found his voice again. “I knew you loved art, but . . .”
“You had no idea how much?”
“I’m pretty sure Skin Ink 101 is not an elective at Harvard.”
She sighed. “I dropped out my sophomore year. The expectations . . . well, they got to be too much.”
“Was your engagement part of those expectations?”
She had wanted to study art, but there was no room in her father’s plans for a foolish girl’s dreams. A Chicago media and real estate tycoon, Sam Cochrane had a rather feudal attitude when it came to the family’s fortunes. For years he had treated his children as cogs in a plan to consolidate power without dirtying his hands with outright politicking. The front lines were of no interest to him, not when playing puppet master suited him better. The Collinses were a wealthy Connecticut family where everyone over the age of thirty was a U.S. congressman and had numbers after their names. Preston was the dynasty’s most eligible bachelor.
“I met Preston at a political fund-raiser my father encouraged me to attend. We dated for a few months and he asked me to marry him. I was only nineteen. I thought it was what I wanted, but every day closer to the wedding I became more panicked. I bailed two weeks before the big day.”
Darcy had stared down a lifetime of bruncheons and getting her hair ombréd, and realized this was not how she was supposed to go out. Finding out that Preston and her father held regular powwows with agenda items covering everything from how many children she should push out in the next five years to whether a political wife actually needed a college degree had woken her up from the Matrix-like life she’d been sleepwalking through. When she asked for her father’s help canceling the wedding, he told her to play ball or be cut off.
“Let’s just say I didn’t want my life to be mapped out for me.”
On a grunt, Beck flipped open one of the flash books, the shop’s equivalent of clip art for people who wanted a tattoo but had no imagi
nation beyond the initial impulse.
“Last night you ran out on me,” he murmured.
“You ran first.”
Electric eyes snapped to hers. Jaw muscles bunched. She longed to bite back the hastily spoken words. Not supposed to care, Darcy.
“Ancient history, princesa.”
“And you can cut that princesa shit out, for a start.” For a start? No, no, no. Nothing was starting here because he was right. They were ancient history and dredging up the whys and whats was about as useful as Matthew McConaughey’s shirt collection.
“Why are you here, Beck?”
“You ran out on me,” he repeated, the edge in his voice hitting the hollow between her lungs. He shut the flash book, the sound a brutal echo in the tense silence, and skirted the counter, devouring the ground with long, measured strides. She backed up into the remaining inches available until her butt met the chair.
“And now I’ve found you.”
She took those words as more than mere acknowledgment that he had located her at this point in time, in this particular place. The underlying meaning, that she had been rediscovered and would be at his mercy, thrilled through her despite her best intentions not to be aroused.
“And now you can be on your way.”
He placed a big palm on either side of her, hemming her in against the chair’s armrest with his feral, male heat. So sexy, so dangerous. That damn pirate’s jaw!
“Do you think I’m stupid?” he rasped.
“Well—”
“Let me rephrase, because right now you might have something there. Standing this close to you makes me feel incredibly stupid.” He sucked in a hissed breath. “Do you think I’m going to let you go now that we’ve reconnected?”
Her heart thudded insanely fast. “I’m thinking you don’t have a say in the matter, Beck Rivera.”
Shit. She needed to stop using his last name like that. Or his first name. It smacked of a lover’s familiarity and a level of comfort she did not want to indulge in. Last night, the ease between them as they teased and flirted had filled aching gaps in the cold corners of her mind. Not to mention what had come after. All day, she had savored X-rated visuals of his hard body fusing to hers, that in-out rhythm as he entered her so deeply she felt him clear to her heart. Tasting him had been such a boneheaded move she wondered how she was still standing. Shouldn’t her brain matter have squeezed out of her ears? Shouldn’t she be collapsed somewhere in a fetal heap of regret?
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