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 imagination 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?

He inched closer, invading, conquering her body and soul with his quiet intensity.

Goddamn him.

One thick finger traced along her collarbone and down, down, down over the inky flora blooming above her tank top’s neckline. He tracked the motion with his somber gaze. It was unbearably erotic.

“Last night, you were covered up. Looked like you’d come from one of your grandmother’s fancy parties.”

Her breathing came in short tugs. “The Cochrane holiday photo. Just playing the part for my father.”

“Rip it, Beck,” he whispered hotly against her ear, mimicking her desperate plea from the night before. “You didn’t want me to see your body. You chose to hide this shiny new version of yourself from me. Why?”

The edge in his tone boosted her pulse precipitously, and not just the one that supplied oxygen to the troublesome muscle in her chest. Between her legs, another heart beat a chant to the one man she had loved like no other. Her labored breathing smashed her breasts against his chest, the friction turning her nipples to aching points of need.

Those Beck blues flashed. “Why did you insist on hiding this beautiful body from me, Darcy?”

“It seemed easier to . . .” Her mind flailed like a dying fish. “. . . to pretend.”

“That you’re something you’re not?”

Perhaps she had been playing the part for more than just her father. She’d taken enough Cosmo quizzes to know that walling up her essence and falling back on the old was a classic defense mechanism. This way, she controlled the situation. She stayed in charge. No need to complicate sex with something as inconvenient as the truth.

“People have certain expectations of me. Even you. You wanted to relive the good old times with the Gold Coast princess, and that’s what you got.”

He swiped her lower lip with the thick pad of his thumb. “Think I got a whole lot more, querida. Think I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of this fascinating, new woman you’ve become.”

The shock of that almost undid her. She was so much more than Darcy Cochrane, the painted rebel or her father’s pawn. The way Beck held her gaze captive completely unnerved her. She wanted to be seen so badly. She wanted to be seen by this man.

Why him? Why the man who had cast her aside like day-old bread? His arrogance made her muscles seethe. Men like that were welcome in her bed, but not in her heart.

Stark evidence of his arousal pressed against her hip, hard and thick, sending a message to her clenching sex. Soaking wet, it shot back like a Morse code throb. If she shifted a couple of inches, it would be an invitation for him to lift her skirt and thrust into her. She suppressed a groan. If she stayed still, what did that say? He could wait her out forever with the patience of a feline predator.

So color her surprised when he withdrew his granite body from her personal space, the loss of it so shocking she almost whimpered.

“Do you have a portfolio?”

“What?”

“An album of work, demonstrating what you can do.”

Irritation frayed her patience. Might have had something to do with the chill his body’s removal left on her sensitive skin. “I know what a portfolio is, Beck. And it just walked out the door.”

“That guy?”

“Yeah, I’ve inked most of his body. Even parts you can’t see.” She plastered on a saccharine smile, enjoying his disquiet and especially getting a kick out of how she had hauled the power back to her side of the room. Because now he was thinking about what other ink lay beneath her clothes—and whose hands she had permitted on her body. “Why do you want to see my work?”

“Because if I’m going to let you brand me, I’d like to know it’s worthy of forever.”

Her breath caught. Power shift, activate.

“Brand you?” Forever?

Their gazes locked. Held. Warmth unfurled in her blood.

“Yes, Darcy. I want you to design a tattoo for me and brand it on my skin.”

The way he said that, the way he owned it, made her wetter. Word that she was in town had filtered out, guaranteeing her dance card was full through the end of the year. She didn’t need new business. She didn’t need this business. But hell, she needed something.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Something for Sean and Logan. To commemorate them.”

“That’s beautiful, Beck.”

He coughed out a mirthless laugh at her compliment. “It’s a typical reason to get a tattoo, isn’t it? Remembering people.”

The air was charged with memory and want. Dangerously so. The past held risk, the present just as much. She needed to claw her way back to the safety of the future.

“I’m only in town for another couple of weeks. I’m moving to Texas for a job after the holidays.” It was best to get it out there, establish the parameters of the transaction. An old friend had offered her a job in his parlor, and Austin was on her never-ending bucket list of places to live.

Nothing on his face indicated whether he cared about that. The pang of disappointment in her chest pissed her off to no end.

“Will you have time?” For the tattoo, he meant.

“Yes, I will.” But Darcy meant something else. Time enough to flush Beck Rivera out of her system once and for all before she headed to warmer climes—and a fresh start.

chapter

5

The pots of money invested in Sunnyvale couldn’t quite mask the astringent smell of disinfectant, marking it a place where old people went to pass on to the other side. Sort of morbid, Darcy admitted as she quickly navigated the slick floors of the lavish care facility, where her grandmother was camping out while she recovered from her stroke. The old girl was richer than God and could have afforded around-the-clock care at the mansion, but the docs had recommended she spend her rehab here. Something about socializing her way back into regular life.

Lord help the other residents, was Darcy’s answer to that.

Darcy entered her grandmother’s room without knocking. “Hey, Grams, how’s it hangin’?”

Eleanor Cochrane’s regal gaze landed with a thud on Darcy’s bustier-molded cleavage.

“You trying to catch a cold or a man in that outfit?”