“Beck, it’s Darcy.” She mentally cringed at having to reintroduce herself after all they had meant to each other, or as was now becoming painfully obvious, all she had not meant to him. Her face heated despite her best efforts to stay chill. “Darcy Cochrane.”

Staring straight ahead, Beck’s lips twitched.

“I know, princesa.”

chapter

2

With alarming ease, Beck plowed through the candy cane–colored haze to the far end of the bar, where he pointedly glared at the expansive backs of two men sitting on stools.

“McElroy,” Beck said impatiently.

The men turned, took one look at Beck, another at Darcy, and immediately stood.

“Here you go, miss,” one of them said deferentially, while the other made way for Mel.

“Oh, I’m quite all right. You don’t need to do that.”

Beck set her down on one of the vacated seats and popped the last hold-out button on her coat. It parted, almost indecently, and ta da! was whipped from her body like a magician’s tablecloth trick. He hung it on a convenient coat hook.

Whoa, that was hot. Flushing at this potent demonstration of his sharp movements and impressive reflexes, along with all the erotic memories they conjured, she caught Mel’s eye. Or her jaw, really, which was grazing the floor.

“Shut it,” Darcy muttered to her friend, who promptly closed her mouth and eyed the rather gorgeous African American hunk who had surrendered his seat. The logo of the Chicago Fire Department popped above a pec that rivaled The Rock’s.

“So, are you a firefighter?” Mel asked, eyelashes batting vehemently, all blond innocence.

CFD Beefcake opened his mouth, but Beck spoke first. “Lieutenant McElroy’s got fourteen years on the job, twelve of them blissfully married.”

A sheepish McElroy shrugged his broad shoulders. “Guilty.”

Mel sighed good-naturedly and climbed onto the next stool. “No worries, my hormones are invested elsewhere.” Once settled comfortably, she turned to Darcy. “Good seats, girl. How we doing?”

“Not bad. Think I just turned my ankle.”

“Do you mind if I look?” Beck asked in a low voice that made her uncomfortably warm.

“I’m sure it’s fine.” Beck’s version of “looking” would invariably involve touching, and she readily admitted that she had enjoyed the previews a little too much out on the street. Determined to prove her well-being, she placed her right foot on the floor with purpose.

Bad move. There was no hiding the grimace that screwed up her face.

“Stop being so brave and let him take a look,” Mel said, giving Beck an appreciative twice-over. “Qualified EMT along with those firefighter chops, I assume?”

“Uh-huh.”

Darcy chewed on her lower lip while Beck waited. He was good at waiting, always had been.

“If you don’t mind,” she said primly, channeling her grandmother.

He hunkered down and held her booted foot with astonishing reverence, as if trying to determine the best access point for a tricky rescue. Almost leisurely, he unzipped the soft suede and slipped it from her foot. Zing! Another sizzle of sensation snaked through her insides.

Opaque tights covered her legs and the evidence of how she had been spending her time all these years. He moved his hands knowledgeably over her ankle, testing with his thumbs, rolling the joint.

“Anything?” he asked, looking up with those serious blue eyes.

Could she plead the Fifth? The truth would be so damn incriminating. An acutely pleasurable ache settled between her thighs, accompanied by an acutely pleasurable dampness.

“It’s just a twinge.” Darcy’s gaze dropped to the top of Beck’s head, her heart throbbing as much as her ankle. That scar . . . what had he done?

“No swelling, from what I can see,” he murmured.

In the ankle area, no. Other areas, however, swelled like a tidal surge. Her breasts, the sensitive area between her legs as she tried not to squirm against the bar stool.

He stood, leaving her foot bootless and her chest strangely empty.

“Hands.”

“Excuse me?”

“Show me your hands.”

When she failed to react quickly enough to his order, he took her hands and examined the palms. They were raw from her fall but the skin was intact. However, instead of letting them go, he curled his long, sensuous fingers around hers and squeezed. Unexpected tears of surprise stung the backs of her eyelids at his gentle touch.

“Darcy.”

“Beck.”

“How do you want to do this?”

She fought a smile. Barely won. Beck had never been one to waste words. “Seven years in a hundred and forty characters or less? Let’s see. College in Boston, traveled the world, returned to Chicago when Grams had a stroke three months ago. She’s on the mend.”

His eyes softened. “Sorry to hear about your grandmother. She’s a nice lady.”

At Darcy’s eyebrow lift calling bullshit, Beck’s wicked lips shaded a hint of a smile. “Okay, she’s crazy as a loon with a tongue that could slice prune cans, but I always liked her. Do you still draw?”

The lie came easily. “No.”

“And the rest of the family?”

“My parents finally divorced, which was really for the best. Jack’s running my father’s empire in London.” Unlike Darcy, her brother was never subjected to the same pressures to fulfill some grander role in the Cochrane dynasty. No need, when he was fast becoming a clone of her father.

Her turn. “How about you?”

“With CFD for seven years as of last September. That and this place keep me busy.”

So, barely a month after he dumped her, he got his wish and joined his brothers in the service. A small surge of jealousy pinched her. She wasn’t proud of it.

“Your family good?” With difficulty, she dragged her gaze away from his ruggedly compelling face to drink in the sausage fest behind the bar. Luke, with mink brown waves framing his handsome features, was not all that changed except for a slight hardness around his eyes. The tall blond must be Gage; he’d been barely sixteen when she saw him last at Sean and Logan’s funeral. Now he rocked a Hemsworth brother vibe as he impressed a gaggle of girls with a cocktail shaker at the other end of the bar. Mel’s Thor, Darcy assumed.

“They’re great,” he said. “All in. Even Alexandra.”

“Your father would be proud. Logan, too.”

Those shocking blue eyes flashed, and remembrance of that night flooded the space between them. The night they both lost something, and everything changed.

He angled his thumbs to stroke her pulse in tight, erotic circles. Unadulterated lust slammed through her. The power he had over her still . . . it electrified her to the core. Just one look stripped her bare and stunned her with want.

An attention-grabbing cough sliced through the loaded silence.

“Hi, I’m Mel.” Her friend thrust out her hand.

Beck released Darcy’s hands, shook Mel’s, and had already redirected his burning focus back to Darcy before he spoke his name. “Beck Rivera.”

Okay, this has been awesome. “We should go,” Darcy said.

“After you’ve rested that ankle and we’ve had a drink,” Mel chimed in. “A couple of G and Ts, please. Heavy on the G.”

“Sure, coming right up.” Beck wrapped Darcy in an all-encompassing look that left her feeling she’d been touched in an intimate way—and enjoyed it far too much. “Leave your boot off in case the ankle swells. I’ll check back on it later.”

He lifted a wooden flap at the end of the bar and went back to work.

“Okay, spill the juicy deets,” Mel intoned. “Now.”

“Well, my ankle really hurts when I put any weight—”

Mel cut her off with an exaggerated eye roll. “When and where did you do Wolverine?” She gestured violently to Beck just in case there was some confusion about which bearded sex god was under discussion.

“We were kids.”