Rekindle the Flame by Kate Meader Read Free Book Online Page B

should push out in the next five years to whether a political wifeactually 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 mereacknowledgment 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.
    God damn 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