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?”

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 glanced 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.