With his lust-stoked gaze, Beck tracked the motions of his hands down her breasts to her hips. When his eyes fell on the stems, the licks of heat on her skin came alive under his laser-like scrutiny.
“Fire,” he said, one finger tracing the orange curls of flame on her hip. “Beautiful. Dangerous.”
He coasted his hands up her sides and rested a finger above her breastbone, the gentle motion enough to make the blossoms on her skin bloom brighter. Beck’s touch, the sun and the rain.
“Tell me about them.”
“This one I got in San Francisco about four years ago. In Chinese culture, cherry blossoms are a symbol of life and love, as well as sexual power.”
“Hmm.” Gently, he turned her and glanced his knuckles along her shoulder blades. “And the birds?”
“I know a guy in Madrid.”
“Sounds like you know guys everywhere.”
There was no snark in his tone. That wasn’t Beck’s style, but nonetheless Darcy imagined an undercurrent of jealousy. Reveled in it a little, if she was being honest.
“The birds represent freedom.”
He hooked a finger in the waistband of her leather pants and pulled her forward so her breasts grazed his chest. Her nipples tightened to pleasurably painful buds. Slowly—so damn slowly—he unsnapped the button and inched the zipper down, the scrape sending her pulse rate into overdrive and her core into a flood. Only when her bare skin met the tiled wall outside the shower stall did she realize he had walked her back.
“Did you ever think of me, Darcy? When you were traveling the world? When someone drew this on you?”
Her first tattoo at the age of nineteen was of a heart in flames, its trite symbolism cringe-worthy years later. Poor-grade artwork, it served as an introduction to a weird new world and sparked her interest in body art. Later she covered it up with the spectacular elaboration of blooms and fire along her torso—not for Beck, but for her. Still, he had always been there, a part of her she could never deny.
“No, I didn’t think of you.” Liar, liar, thong on fire.
He slipped a thick finger under her lacy underwear, through her damp curls, until he found what he needed. Right at the spot where she needed.
“Good,” he whispered. “I told you to forget and you did. That’s all I could have wished for, querida.”
Oh, Beck. Unbearably touched by the words that had once broken her heart, she gripped his shoulders and dug her nails into his skin, needing an anchor. The staccato of her beating heart thudded in her ears and telegraphed an unnamed need for more.
She moaned deep as his finger rubbed through her seam, every return hitting her clit with the perfect amount of pressure. Two fingers breached her body and found a hot, steamy haven. Heat coiled tight in her belly. He was watching her, waiting for her to go over, so she held on desperately because the longer he trapped her in his intense gaze, the better the release would be. His other hand curled around her neck in a possessive, wildly sensual spread.
“More, Beck. Please.”
A finger soaked in her slick heat circled the nerve-packed nub of her clit, just like before, just how she liked it, and she shattered. His hand cupping her sex and the wall at her back were the only things keeping her upright.
And then his hand was gone.
Which left the cool tile. Slumped against it, she watched in a daze as he did that one-hand-over-the-head thing with his tee and reached in to turn on the shower. The tightly loomed muscles of his back moved like cogs under chocolate silk. Everything about him screamed pleasure.
Her spine had dissolved, leaving her useless, so thank God he took over. Holding her steady, he pulled off her boots and socks, divested her of her pants, sinking to his knees as he pulled them down. On the journey back up, he kissed the blue roses along her calf, languidly running his tongue over her damp, heated flesh.
“Where did you get this one?”
“Wh-what?”
“The roses. Where?” He christened the cerulean flowers with scorching hot kisses.
“London,” she panted. “It was the first big piece I got. The first one I was brave enough to get.”
He rewarded her bravery with more brain-destroying flicks of his tongue.
“Beck,” she whispered into the vapor, feeling like she had entered a fevered dream. Feeling a reckless abandon she had never before experienced.
No, wait, she had. With him. Only with him.
Nudging her thighs apart, he splayed those blunt hands over her soft skin. Oh, God, oh, God. The throb built inexorably the closer he moved to the well of her sex.
“Just a little taste, Darcy. You always tasted so sweet.”
As if she could deny him a single thing.
Mouth set to torture, he tongued her blooming folds, scooping up the intimate moisture, creating more with every luxurious sweep. She was flagging, her legs weak as the steam, her body a quivering mess. Any moment now, she would be knocked out of time—
Damn. He stood, giving her a chance to catch her breath (not necessarily a good thing) and appreciate his glistening mahogany chest (most assuredly a good thing). Dark hair arrowed down to his groin, blazing a trail she yearned to follow with her fingers, her lips, her tongue. He was perfectly formed, all steel flesh, so beautiful that it simply hurt to look at him. But she suspected it would hurt more when she no longer could.
“I need a condom. I need to be inside you when you come again.” He stepped back with the intent to grab protection, leaving her boneless against the wall.
“My purse,” she pushed out. Now wasn’t the time for coy.
“Atta girl.” He handed over her purse and she rummaged for the three-pack among the rest of her crap. After what seemed like an eternity, not helped by Beck sucking the delicate juncture where her neck met her shoulder, she found the Trojans.
Within two seconds, he had shucked his shorts, smoothed the condom on, and lifted her off the floor with little effort apparent in his raw, fireman strength.
Then he dawdled.
Teased and rubbed.
Drove her mad with anticipation.
Only when she begged did he enter her slowly in one consuming thrust. Their united groan reverberated against the tile, such a satisfying sound.
Such a loud, satisfying sound.
Panic about how public this was warred with bone-melting desire. “Beck, someone might come.”
“I guarantee it.” He stroked her long and deep, massaging her swollen clit with every return of his thick, sleek length.
“I mean—”
His mouth fitted over hers, choking off her words. A brutal, uncivilized kiss. The steam from the shower—the one they were not taking—added a skin of moisture that made her hands slip off his shoulders. But she never doubted his ability to hold her safe as he took her higher and made good on that guarantee for both of them.
After her world had been rocked—two more times—Beck still held her close, protectively and possessively, wedged deep inside her.
“We just had hot shower sex outside the shower,” she said with a giggle.
“Find ’em hot, leave ’em wet,” he murmured. “Well-known firefighter maxim.”
A stray thought cut through her mind fog. “What’s CPF? Gage said it before he left.”
His grin was wry and about the sexiest thing she had ever seen. “City Property Fuckable. It’s against the rules, so if you’re going to do it, you need to make sure it’s worth losing your job over.”
“And I’m CPF?”
“You know it, querida. You’re my first.”
His first, just like he had been hers all those years ago.
There was that rare smile on his lips but, also, in his lake-blue eyes she saw his determination: the inner strength that helped him survive those early, dangerous years in a life he hadn’t chosen. The same strength that powered him in the ring and on every call in this life he had made his own.
Maybe it was delayed shock, or the power of the O, or the fact s
he was standing in a firehouse shower room with her hot Latin lover impaling her to the tile, but it suddenly hit her like a two-by-four.
He could have died.
And she would never have known.
She would have popped into Dempsey’s bar with Mel and assumed it was his night off. Might even have silently cheered the bullet she had dodged by not running into him. Only two days later, the idea of a world without him—her world without him—turned her blood to ice.
Tears sprang into her eyes. Goddamn him.
“Darcy, what’s wrong? Am I hurting you?” He made to withdraw, and she clasped his perfect, tight ass to preserve the physical connection as if it could minimize the emotional.
“You’re a good man, Beck Rivera.”
He looked unconvinced. “I’m not. I’m selfish and greedy.”
“No, no.” She kissed the knotted bridge of his nose. “Look at what you do, at what you’ve become. I’m so proud of you.”
He drew back with the expression of a stern angel, and when he spoke it was like he gouged each word from a deep, dark place.
“This won’t be enough for me.”
Thoughts toppled like dominoes, and her heart seized in her chest, not unpleasantly. But her walls had walls, so she said the first thing that popped into her scrambled brain.
“Let’s not complicate it.”
“No, Darcy. Let’s.”
His kiss cut off all argument, making her blood pound, her heart soar, and consuming her utterly and completely whole.
chapter 7
Have I told you lately how sexy you are?” Darcy tiptoed up to kiss him, then moved her lips along the edge of his ear, eliciting a shiver.
“You’re just sayin’ that ’cause it’s true, querida.”
Damn, she looked fine in a long coat and cream scarf, like a pristine present he wanted to unwrap slowly. And the backdrop could not be more perfect. All around them, the twinkling trees and festive atmosphere at Zoo Lights in Lincoln Park painted the scene in the brushstrokes of a fairy tale. Each year, the zoo—and ComEd—draped the trees in colored lights, blasted tunes from the sound system, and scared the shit out of the animals. A most excellent Chicago holiday tradition.
Darcy had said she didn’t want to complicate what was happening between them, but Beck had quickly kiboshed that idea. Knowing that shock-and-awe tactics were needed to break down her barriers, he had planned a romantic date with holiday lights and hot chocolate and frickin’ polar bears, followed by a horse-drawn carriage ride down Michigan Avenue where he’d hoped to cop a feel under a warm tartan blanket. The fact that this magical space was home to their first kiss years ago made it just that much sweeter.
It had all gone terribly wrong.
“I want to see the gorillas next,” an imperious voice rang out from below. The third wheel, on wheels. Darcy’s grandmother had invited herself along when Darcy let slip their plans during a visit to the nursing home.
“Probably looking for a new husband,” Darcy muttered, not unkindly. She pushed her grandmother’s wheelchair along the tarmac path toward the monkey house with ease. The old lady couldn’t have weighed more than eighty pounds soaking wet.
“I heard that,” Mrs. Cochrane snapped back. “Two of my three husbands had more hair than any of the brutes in the cages here. I like them well covered.”
Darcy shot Beck a sidelong glance, barely suppressing her laughter. The cold brought color to her pale cheeks, making her appear fresh-faced and younger than her twenty-five years. She looked happy, and that brought out his happy.
“How about some hot chocolate, Mrs. C?” Beck asked. “Warm those crabby old bones of yours.”
“Let’s hope you’re hung, young man, because you’re certainly not charming.”
Darcy broke into shocked laughter. “Grams, be nice. Beck didn’t have to bring you,” she said, adding a sly smile for Beck that sent his lungs on hiatus.
“Extra whipped cream,” the old bag muttered.
Beck winked at his girl and hustled off to get the hot drinks, but as he stood in line at the kiosk, his smile melted away. In less than two weeks, she’d be outta here, winging her way to the Lone Star State and this new job she seemed excited about. He could make sacrifices to the gods of Chicago—the Bulls, the Bears, whoever people prayed to on the I-90—but it would be useless. It was like wishing he could hold back the sunrise.
Feeling glum, he delivered the hot chocolates and took over pushing duties so Darcy could have her hands free to drink. After a spin around the monkey house and a pop in to see the giraffes, they watched the light displays choreographed to holiday tunes, followed by the ice sculpting. Or Darcy and her grandmother watched.
Beck watched Darcy.
The lights danced over her delicate features and picked up flecks of gold in her big, expressive eyes. She had traveled all over the world, lived a cosmopolitan life most people could only dream of, and here she was with him, impressed by a crappy light show and a kid with a chain saw. In that instant, all her passion and beauty overwhelmed him.
It was time to lace up the gloves and step into the ring.
“Stop staring,” she murmured out of the side of her gorgeously mobile mouth.
“Never.”
Blushing, she snagged her plump lower lip with her teeth. So damn pretty. He noticed with approval her breathing had picked up, so he leaned in and buried his cold nose in the warm, fragrant skin of neck.
“Problem catching a breath, miss? I can help. Qualified EMT.”
“You’re evil, Beck Rivera. And freezing.”
“I want you to stay in Chicago.”
She lowered her eyelids, and the twinkling lights on her dark lashes made them sparkle like decorative fans. “What are you doing to me?” she breathed, and when she opened her eyes again, they shone glossy with emotion.
“I refuse to believe you entered my life again only to walk right out a few weeks later. The gods couldn’t be that cruel.” His lips brushed hers, gentle, teasing, then a stronger press that made his intent clear. She was his.
Then. Now. Forever.
She sniffed and pulled a tissue from her pocket, then scowled at his inevitable smile. “Shut it, Rivera. I always get sniffly in winter.”
Her father had done a number on her, made it so she had a hard time letting anyone in. Now Beck was insinuating his way into the emotional nooks and crannies, finding those hard-to-reach places, shining a light. And just like he practiced out on the battleground of fire, no one would get left behind.
Over the sound system, a holiday classic filled the air with its smooth, velvet croon.
“I really can’t stay . . . But baby, it’s cold outside.”
“Gotta stop running sometime, Darcy.”
Darcy held Beck’s stark blue gaze and let the words sink in. Soured by her near-miss marriage and her father’s formerly tyrannical grip on her life, funereal bells tolled in her brain as soon as any guy started dictating the terms. “Always be moving” had served her well so far. Free agency suited her.
Beck might be different, but was it enough? He had dumped her once with no explanation, no apology, nothing. Of course, she refused to delve deeper. Asking implied caring.
So she did what terrified, fragile, in-denial girls everywhere did—she fronted with her stock answer. “Chicago’s not big enough for me and Dad.”
“Oh, I dunno. Third largest city in the United States. And you have other reasons for sticking around.”
“Such as?”
“Meddling friends. Terrifying, tatted guys who care about you. Evil grandmothers.” That one he mimed, unnecessarily as it happened, because Grams had nodded off. “A business you can do anywhere because you rock at it.” Pause. “Burn-the-sheets sex.”
Considering they’d never made it to a bed, that particular claim was not entirely legit. She turned into his chest to keep her voice from carrying in the clear night air—and oh hell, because she fit perfectly under his strong jaw—and sucked in a
heady lungful of him. “Hmm, you might have something there. The pickings for burn-the-sheets sex are bound to be better in the third largest city in the United States.”
He gentled the back of her neck and kissed her, sweet and slow. His sexy jaw scruff conjured up a wash of sensation and sensual memories of how it had rasped her thighs during their steamy not-shower.
Gettin’ so warm inside . . .
“Let’s keep it PG, handsome,” she said, when he let her up for air.
“Pretty good? Think I can manage that.”
Another press of his lips, and the addition of his wickedly effective tongue, lifted her to a higher plane. This man of hers could kiss away every doubt, make her believe anything was possible. Even that she could live in the same metropolitan area as her father.
She was a much-sought-after body artist who loved her job and the freedom it gave her. She had built a good life, yet the idea of letting someone in—someone who might seem perfect on the surface, but could end up as manipulating and controlling as Sam Cochrane—seized her heart in a fist.
“Tell me why bustin’ out of Dodge is so important,” he whispered. “Because the way I see it, you have more reasons to stay than go.”
“I didn’t turn out how he wanted. The pliable daughter, the budding trophy wife. If I stick around in Chicago, he’ll find a way back into my life, and before I know it I’ll feel small again, just another cog in his machine. Look at how he tried to marry me off.”
“You should be thanking him.”
She gulped, unsure she’d heard that right. “Excuse me?”
He cupped his ear. “Do you hear what I hear?”
“You mean Mariah Carey warbling her way through one of my favorite holiday songs?”
“No, I mean the sound of your brass balls clanging, Darcy Cochrane. You’ve grown from a dependent girl into a self-reliant woman. And you have your father to thank because his dick moves set this great life of yours in motion.” He curled his hand around her neck and tunneled those rough-cast fingers through her hair, his tactile strength unbelievably sensual against her scalp. “Look at what he unleashed on the world. Look at you takin’ names, querida.”
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