Текст книги "Baby, It's Cold Outside"

Автор книги: Anne Melody

Соавторы: Jennifer Probst,Emma Chase,Kate Meader
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

“Kind of like how he’s looking at you now?”

No need to lift her gaze to verify that his eyes were still trained on her. Her skin sizzled with his penetrating heat.

A patchwork of sensual images grabbed hold. Their first kiss during a winter festival at Lincoln Park Zoo, her hot chocolate cooling while his lips kept her warm. A yearlong diet of sexy smooches and teenage exploration, stopping short of home base because Beck refused to take full advantage.

“I begged him to do the deed, but he said I was too young. Finally, when I turned eighteen, he—” She stopped as memories of Beck’s blunt prizefighter hands on her body, seeking out erotic flash points and bringing her to blistering release, assaulted her senses.

“Did you good?”

“So good,” she said, lowering her voice though the bar’s noisy hum provided adequate cover. “I was gaga about him and I thought it was mutual until he sent me packing.”

Darcy still remembered his final words to her all those years ago, spoken in that graveled voice, dripping with sex and menace. Only a month after he had made her a full-fledged woman and claimed every part of her.

Forget you ever met me, Darcy.

And she had, after a year—or five. She stowed the boy in her brain’s basement and went on to a new life, one she chose for herself instead of following the gated path her father had insisted she travel. Underneath this designer sweater and perfectly cut skirt was the project she had been working on for years. A well-traveled, well-adjusted, reinvented woman.

“You’re not a kid anymore,” Mel said. Despite only seeing each other a few times a year, her friend could always intuit when Darcy was about to send out invites to the pity party. “You should go for it.”

“Go for what?”

“School the cherry popper. Make him beg. Milk. Him. Dry.”

Though Darcy had been on that very wavelength before actually coming face-to-face with Beck, now that he was in her immediate orbit, looking hot as sin and twice as dangerous, doubts assailed her. “Hooking up with the old flame who took my virginity and cast me aside quicker than the used condom? That seems a bit—”

“—revengey,” Mel finished with a smug grin.

“Sad. It seems sad. I’m not looking for revenge. Revenge is for people who care.” She most definitely did not care about Beck Rivera and his soulful eyes. Nor did she care about that livid scar on his head or how he came by it. And no way in hell did she care about how good his ass looked in denim. Those trim, tight glutes were the natural resting point for a gaze that started at the broad triangle of his shoulders and traveled down his solid back, tapering waist, and slim hips. Even from behind, the man was painfully beautiful.

Did not care.

“You lied to him,” Mel said, her brows veed. “About your art.”

So she had. Explaining how her life had turned out would open a can of worms and invite unwanted scrutiny. While wearing the costume of her alter ego, the Gold Coast princess, she could keep her true identity hidden. She didn’t owe him any explanations. She didn’t owe him a thing.

“Like I said, don’t care.”

“So bang that hot firefightin’ ass and don’t care,” Mel said. “And hope to God he’s better at that than he is at tending bar. I’m parched over here.”

Bang him and don’t care. Not revenge, necessarily, just raising her sex point average. And if, in the process, she happened to remind him of everything he had given up by casting her aside? Well, that was just extra credit.

Forget you ever met me, Darcy.

Maybe it was time to ensure Beck Rivera never forgot he met her.

chapter
3

Of all the bars in all the world, she had to be tackled to the ground outside his. And she had hardly changed. Beck’s man card required he knew subshit about designer duds, but even he could tell those fancy fabrics clinging fondly to her curves and the pearls around her swanlike neck were the real deal. The princesa still oozed money, class, and keep-the-fuck-away.

“She looks familiar,” Luke said as Beck poured shots of gin.

“Darcy Cochrane. Another lifetime.”

Luke’s mouth tightened in recognition. “She was at the funeral. Her father owns the Trib?”

“And Chicago magazine, a slice of the Cubs, part of the United Center.”

“She’s grown up fine,” Luke mused.

True that. The prettiest girl Beck had ever known was now a knockout on an epic scale. Sleek hair pulled tight off her face in a swishy ebony fall. High, haughty cheekbones, ruby pink lips, a chin as stubborn as her father’s. The feel of her curves beneath his searching hands left the impression of a heaven-formed, amazingly built woman.

“She’s been traveling the world,” he said, because Luke seemed to expect something more. She had skipped any mention of her marriage from the catch-up checklist, though he noticed she wore no ring. Admittedly not compelling evidence, and that it spiked his pulse annoyed the bejesus out of him. The day Luke had pointed out the engagement notice in her father’s paper, eighteen months after they had split, Beck had punched a wall so hard he broke his hand. Whatever Darcy’s situation now, apparently she could drop her jet-setting life for three months to help her grandmother.

“Well, now she’s back,” Luke said. “Whatcha gonna do about it?”

Beck’s heart hitched and tripped out a ragged beat. She was the cliché, the one who got away, and now she was here, a glowing second chance. A do-over.

Except she was still so far out of his league that she may as well be crater hopping on the moon. And oh yeah, he had dumped her without explanation in the name of doing her a favor.

Right.

“It’s not quite so simp—”

“Jesus Christ, ladies, could you put a plug in your hourly gossip and help me out here?” Gage threw his hands up dramatically in case the caps-lock delivery didn’t reflect sufficiently The Real Housewives of New Jersey vibe.

“You’re doing fine, Short Stack,” Luke returned, clearly amused. “Think of all the tips you’re making.”

“Tips I’m sharing with you dickheads. When I should be keeping them because I’m so fucking awesome.”

With both hands in perpetual motion, Gage deftly added vodka shots to a couple of metal shakers, then got busy squeezing lime halves into the mix. His T-shirt advised his fans to Feel Safe at Night: Sleep with a Firefighter.

A group of enthusiastic female customers cheered Gage on and slammed a couple of twenties down on the bar. Their youngest brother had read an article on mixology last year and introduced a special cocktail menu that no one could get right the nights he was on shift at Engine 6. His grand pretentions were a menace, but they loved him all the same.

It had taken Beck awhile to get on that page. By the time he was pulled out of the foster care system into Waif and Stray Central at the Dempseys, he was thirteen years old, and the rest of the kids had been part of the family for years. A well-established unit with rituals and connections and nuances he could never hope to understand. He spoke to no one for the first six months, just nodded to Mary when she asked if he’d had enough to eat and grunted at Sean for everything else. Unfortunately, he had to share a room with a ten-year-old Gage, and the kid would not shut up.

Want to read my Spider-Man comics? Gage was obsessed with Spider-Man. The transformation from wimp to superhero really appealed to him.

Beck had ignored him. Not there to make friends, he’d already been kicked out of two families because of his “emotional dissociation,” which apparently meant he wasn’t emotional enough. Like he was a robot. He’d show them robot. Because if he showed them anything else—the rage inside him, the fury spitting for a target—they would return him as defective, anyway. The Dempseys had five foster kids already, and he was the last one in. Even a fucked-up junior banger like him knew what that meant.

Last in, first out.

But Gage would not give up. His sunny disposition bugged the shit out of Beck until one day he threw the little runt’s latest peace offering, a Game Boy, against a wall. And then he called him names. Queer. Fag. Words that filled Beck with shame to this day. While waiting for Gage to rat him out to Sean, just in from his shift at the firehouse and pounding his steel-toed boots up the stairs, Beck refused to look at Gage. Refused to give him the satisfaction. But as his heart galloped in time with Sean’s heavy tread, two piercing realizations smacked him upside the head.

He was so frickin’ tired.

And he wanted to stay.

He wanted to stop fighting, but his mouth couldn’t shape the words in his heart, and now it was too late.

Sean curved his head around the door and, after ten mind-blurring seconds, pulled back with a mere nod. Gage hadn’t snitched. Though he didn’t fully understand why, Beck was overwhelmed with a gratitude that warmed his cold, neglected heart. His little brother, more annoying than all get out and one of the best people Beck knew, had smiled like he’d won a prize and dropped the latest issue of Spider-Man on Beck’s bed.

Gage and Beck had been on the same page ever since, and it opened the floodgates with the rest of them. When Logan took Beck to the gym to try his hands at boxing, Beck knew he was in the right place and with the right people at last.

But growing up Dempsey was a double-edged sword. If not for them, he might have been content with an ordinary girl instead of an upper-crust babe like Darcy. The problem with being a Dempsey is that they made you believe anything was possible.

“You need to talk to her,” Luke said, jolting Beck back to the present.

Beck shrugged his response, all those old insecurities coming back to bite his neck. Talking had never worked for him. And what could he say after all these years? I was crazy about you, but I let you go for your own good. Because that shit would fly. Women just loved being told what was good for them.

Luke took an order from the adorable blonde who’d been manhandled by Red Suit. Clearly interested in more than a rum and Coke, her face fell when his brother didn’t respond to her overt flirting. With his divorce recently finalized, Luke had yet to reach the bang-his-way-out-of-his-misery step. It would come.

Beck remembered it well.

Gin and tonics in hand, he ambled over to the side of the bar, frowning when he found no sign of Darcy. Her coat still hung on the hook but her boot was gone. Darcy’s friend was groping the bicep of Jacob Scott, one of Beck’s coworkers on the truck, but paused to thumb over her shoulder. “Little leprechaunette’s room.”

“Think I’ll take that break now,” he said to Luke, who smirked at that.

Smug bastard.

“Sure, Becky. Take all the time you need.”

Not even Luke’s use of the girly nickname Beck had been plagued with as a kid could quell the anticipation thrumming through him. Sort of like the energy sparking his blood before a run or a fight. He didn’t want to punch anyone, but he wouldn’t say no to stoking a fire. First, though, he wanted to talk more. Find out what she’d been up to all these years.

And touch her. Definitely touch her.

He found her in the corridor heading to the restrooms, and covertly he watched as she tentatively tested out her ankle with brief stops to flex her foot. Satisfied she was back in business, she leaned her back against the wall, and he took a blessed moment to admire the curved wave of her body as she texted on her phone with quick, supple fingers. He used to love how fast those fingers moved, creating portraits in charcoal, quick sketches that she would later develop into masterpieces. It was their only communication during that first year of nonversation. She, trying to capture his mood while he sat in her family’s den. He, biding his time, scheming to capture her heart.

“How’s the ankle?”

She lifted her tilty-green gaze, but there was no surprise at seeing him. “I’ll live.”

He stared, the need in him rising more quickly than expected as every cell in his body clamored for action and release. A fiery blush crept up her neck. When the sweep of heat tagged her cheekbones, she made a disgruntled noise in the back of her throat, and knowing he still had that effect on her had his dick at attention in an instant.

“Some things don’t change, I see,” she said as she slipped her phone into a purse slung over her shoulder. “You’ve not become a sparkling conversationalist in the intervening years, Beck.”

“We never needed to talk, princesa.”

Man, how she used to hate that endearment, though in days past, using it had sparked some of their most pleasurable moments together. He would goad her until her cheeks flushed and his cock swelled and relief could only come from sinking his fingers in her hair, her mouth, her slick-for-him sex.

Now, on a razor’s edge, the moment lived, then deflated when she gave him a nervy smile. She looked unsure, vulnerable, not at all like the girl he knew.

“What are you up to these days?” he asked.

Thoughts ran circles over her face as she geared up to . . . huh. Lie her sweet ass off.

“This and that. Mostly helping with Grams’s recovery and organizing the charity fund-raiser for the homeless she hosts each year. Big party in a couple of weeks.”

Maybe this was a boyfriend or that was a husband.

“How’s Preston Collins III?”

Her composure took another hit, but on the beat of three she picked herself right back up and smoothed her expression to a cool slate.

“I’ve no idea.”

“So your marriage didn’t work out?”

“I never got married. That was something my father wanted, not me.”

There was no time to enjoy the sweet balm of relief those words created in his chest. Something else was going on here, a restlessness about her that matched his own edgy mood. The tell in her eyes piqued his interest. Time to double down.

“So how mad at me are you right now?”

She sucked in a breath. “Mad? At you? Why would I be mad at you?”

“Oh, I dunno.” Because he had dropped her like a bad habit. “You seem uncomfortable at seeing me again. Pissy.”

“Beck,” she said in the tone of one about to explain something to a dimwit. “When I was eighteen years old, you broke my heart. Stomped on it. Pulverized it into a mess I thought would be irreparable. I cried for two months, cut my hair and dyed it a really awful blond, let it grow out, made friends in college. I even had a boyfriend, a hot linebacker who was excellent in bed. But every day since, I’ve wished I was here with a guy who voluntarily runs into burning buildings. I wanted to be waiting at home with my heart stuck to the roof of my mouth, hoping he’d text me whenever a warehouse fire was splashed all over the local news. I longed to be getting into arguments about whether it was okay to use my family’s money to get us a better apartment because my man was so proud he insisted on supporting us on his city salary.”

“So, still mad.”

She angled her head, taking him in like he was a bug not worthy of her attention. And then she gave him a huge-ass smile.

Fuckin’ A! Hell, fuckin’ B, C, D, and E. He felt like he’d been pumped with a triple dose of tropical sunshine.

“Sorry, just needed to get it out,” she said. “You dumped me a month after we had sex for the first time and that kind of thing is enough to give a girl a complex. I had it in my head that I must have been god-awful in the sack.”

Mierda. Surely she had not been living with that?

She stayed the tip-of-his-tongue protest with a hand, and that she still had the imperious thing going on put his groin on serious notice.

“But I realized fairly quickly that it was for the best. We were from different worlds, Beck. I don’t harbor any grudges.”

Listening to her mature and measured assessment should have put him at ease. Should have. But his body did not feel loose. His mind did not accept this.

“It’s okay to be a little ticked off,” he said, strangely ticked off himself at her self-possession. “I treated you pretty shabbily.”

She arched a dark eyebrow, its delicate upward curve a message in itself. “After all this time, you’d rather I was angry. You’d rather I kept you in here”—she touched a clenched fist to the soft swell of her breast—“because it would mean I still care and you still have some power over me.”

Yes, a million times, yes. He hooked her pearls to bring her closer and then, very deliberately, placed one palm against the hallway’s wall inches from her heat-stained cheek.

“I’d rather you were mad because then I could make it better. Remember what I used to do to calm you down? Your dad would piss you off and then I would piss you off more and before you knew it, you were coming apart, screaming my name.”

A muscle ticked at the corner of her mouth, begging for his thumb to soothe it.

So he did.

“Kissing you, touching you, every hurried fumble in my car, every time we explored each other’s bodies—it was all amazing. And when after months, years of waiting, I finally drove deep inside you where I belonged, that was also amazing, Darcy. Sex had nothing to do with why we didn’t work out.”

There. He’d said it. As for the reasons for their split—the real reasons—now was neither the time nor the place. Might never be, but she needed to know she was not to blame.

The soft thud of a closing door signaled that someone was exiting the restroom around the corner. A guy weaved by on his way back to the bar, and with each passing second, Beck’s heart thundered in his ears.

He turned back to Darcy in time to catch her blinking away an intrusive thought. “Thank you for setting the record straight and letting me know my sexual inexperience was not a contributing factor.”

Uh-oh. Sarcastic, if his snark-o-meter was calibrated right. “You said you had a complex.”

“I said it was enough to give a girl a complex.” She rubbed a tuft of his coarse beard between her finger and thumb, like she was testing the quality of fabric in a high-end store. “But I figured out quickly that I’m rather awesome, both in and out of the bedroom. Lots of hot college guys helped with my sexual awakening.”

“Your what?”

“My sexual awakening. Those first few months of school, I jumped right in with all the zeal of a frat boy at a kegger. Discovered what I like.” She tugged on his beard and it felt surprisingly good, despite the fact he was half-past pissed at the words spilling from her pert, kissable mouth. “What I don’t like.”

A tight band of steel squeezed around his chest, and the pounding in his ears grew louder. He had been the one to nurture her sex-starved body, not some Dockers-wearing college boy. Beck’s nineteenth year had been one of the most painful of his life. A year of stiff sheets and balled-up tissues, every cock-stroking fantasy filled with sweet, sexy Darcy begging him to touch her, take her.

Own her.

Denying his raging needs for months, he made sure to take care of hers until finally he surrendered to her tight, virginal body the night of the funeral, in the boxing ring at the gym where he had made Sean and Logan proud so many times. Not how he had planned it at all. It was too rough, too raw, too damn visceral. But he had needed her desperately, the only drug that could numb his soul-splitting pain.

He scrubbed a hand across the scruff on his jaw. “You like the beard, princesa.”

“It disgusts me,” she deadpanned, but there was no missing the wisp of a smile on her lips. Teenage Darcy was a fiery creature, spoiled and perpetually indignant, and the ability to laugh at herself was not part of her makeup. Somewhere along the way, she had developed a sense of humor, and damn if that wasn’t sexier than every one of her soft, womanly curves.

“What else about me disgusts you?”

“How long have you got?”

“Ten good inches.”

She snorted. “See? Dirty mouth.”

Covering her body with his, he nuzzled his raggedy jaw against her cheek and absorbed her shiver into his own. “You used to like my dirty mouth and all the magical things I could do with it.”

“Teenage hormones have a lot to answer for.”

“Adult ones, too.” Though it killed him a little, he put a few painful inches between them and trailed a finger along her jaw, noting with satisfaction that she trembled under his touch. “It was good to see you again. Have a nice holiday.”

Her expressive brow told him she liked what he’d done there. “When did you get funny, Beck Rivera?”

“Around about the time you got a sense of humor, querida.”

There it was, that fire-bright smile. He felt like he’d swallowed the sun.

“Your shtick needs work.”

“Then show me how it’s done. Bésame.” Kiss me.

She laughed, right in his face. “Bésame el culo.”

Kiss my ass? Oh, it was on. Leaning in, he caged her with palms on the wall. The air around them shook with sex and need. Her lush body damn near vibrated with it.

“So demanding, princesa. How about I start with your mouth, then work down to your breasts, your belly, your thighs? Plenty of country to rediscover before I get to your sweet culo.”

But before he could kiss her, she kissed him. Unexpectedly, like the Darcy of old, and expertly, like this new Darcy he liked very, very much. Her lips claimed one corner of his mouth, then the other, and he parted to let her in. An invitation she accepted with joy. He’d always loved how she approached kissing, like she approached everything—with a single-mindedness that bordered on pathological. Over the years, she had probably honed her technique with a ton of guys. He hated every fucking one of them.

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?”