by Mari Carr
She’d just gotten her master’s degree, landed her first real job, was still single, and living with her cousins in the apartment above the family’s pub. Twenty-four years of life and she hadn’t gone more than a couple steps toward adulthood. Meanwhile, Ryder gave the appearance of having had enough of adulthood to last him a good long time.
“Third grade,” he said. “Brenda Goodman.”
Darcy shook her head. “No. First real kiss.”
“Ah. Well then. That would be Taylor Shipley. Eighth grade. My first girlfriend.”
“Was it true love?” Darcy teased.
“No. It had less to do with emotions and more to do with the fact that she let me touch her boobs. When that grew old, I tried to break up with her. Several times. Took quite a few attempts before it would stick.”
“Why?”
“Because I was a thirteen-year-old boy and it was easier to say we could keep being boyfriend/girlfriend than listen to her either cry or scream at me.”
“Wow. Not very romantic.”
Ryder, who’d lifted the bottle of vodka for another sip, put it down. “I’m afraid The Princess Bride has given you a fairly skewed view of relationships. The reality of it is, true love doesn’t exist.”
Darcy sucked in a sharp breath, eyes narrowed. “You don’t seriously believe that.”
Ryder capped the Grey Goose without taking a drink and leaned forward. “With every fiber of my being.”
Darcy didn’t know how to respond to that because there was no doubt in her mind he meant what he said.
“What about your first kiss?” Ryder asked.
“I was older. Tenth grade, after a home football game. The boy I liked, Trey Nichols, tugged me away from our group of friends and asked if I wanted to go to Homecoming with him. When I said yes, he gave me a kiss. It was just a quick one, no tongue,” she added. “I’m pretty sure it was his first kiss too.”
“No fireworks, no sword fighting, no proclamation of undying true love?”
Darcy narrowed her eyes. “I know you’re teasing me. But no. Not that time.”
“That time?”
“Actually,” Darcy blew out a long breath, “not any time. Yet,” she quickly added.
“Yeah well, heads up. I’m thirty-four and I haven’t gotten there yet, either.”
Darcy fell silent, especially when it was clear Ryder hadn’t meant to reveal so much about himself. This time when he picked up the vodka, he took a long drink, and she realized they’d put a pretty serious dent in the bottle. She had a million follow-up questions she wanted to ask about that revelation, but something about the sudden stiffness in his shoulders told her he wouldn’t answer them.
He’d been married, yet he claimed he’d never felt true love.
“Your turn,” she prodded, terrified he’d want to call a halt to the game when he glanced at his phone again, and she got the sense he was trying to pull away. The vodka and the distraction had helped her. If he decided he didn’t want to talk anymore, she’d have way too much time to remember…
Fuck.
Where they were.
She swallowed down the panic rising in her chest. She read the time on his phone. It was nearly eleven. They’d been stuck in the elevator almost two hours.
“Why did you choose to pursue a career in graphic arts?” Ryder asked at last, tucking the phone away again, and Darcy released a sigh of relief. They spent the next few minutes discussing their chosen majors in college, and she was able to beat down the fear once more.
Darcy took another sip of vodka. She’d drunk enough that she was going to have to call a rideshare to get home.
Then she considered her next question. There were countless things she wanted to ask, her curiosity piqued by his earlier comment about love, but she was more terrified of him calling the game to a halt if she asked something he wasn’t comfortable with. “What’s your ideal date?” she asked instead, playing it safe.
“I don’t date.”
Darcy thought back over the past four years and all the babysitting she’d done for him. Every single time Ryder had asked her to keep an eye on the boys, it was because he was working late.
“Ever?”
Ryder shook his head. “Work and the boys keep me too busy for dating.”
“That’s not true.” The words flew out before she could stop them.
Mercifully, Ryder didn’t take offense. “You’re right. It’s not true. I choose not to date.”
“Why?”
Ryder rubbed his eyes wearily. “I find most women date with marriage in mind. I’m not getting married again.”
“Ever?” Darcy tried to ignore the sudden pang in her heart when she realized Ryder definitely meant what he said.
“Ever. My life is uncomplicated. I like it that way.”
It wasn’t much of an answer, but then Darcy realized it was probably the truth and as much as she was going to get. Especially when Ryder turned the question around to her.
“And your ideal date?” he asked. “Roses? Candlelight? Soft music?”
She laughed. “You read me like a book. And yes, all that. I want to be picked up in a limousine.”
Ryder snorted. “A limo? Seriously?”
“It’s my ideal date, Ryder. I can have a limo if I want. Besides, I’ve never ridden in one and I’ve always wanted to.”
“You’ve never been in a limo? Not for prom or a wedding?”
Darcy shook her head. “Nope. Never. And I’m dying to.”
“So this dream guy—we’ll call him Westley—comes to pick you up in a limo. Then what?”
“We’ll drink champagne and tell the driver to put up the blackout screen so we can make out.”
“At the beginning of the date? Very nice.”
Darcy giggled, realizing the vodka was working its magic on both of them. She reached over and punched him on the arm playfully. “Anyway, he’ll take me back to his place for dinner. And it’ll be just like you said. Candlelight and roses, soft music. All through the meal, we’ll talk about our hopes and dreams for the future, then after dinner, we’ll dance in his living room and then…”
“Sex.” Ryder filled in the blank with just one word, and Darcy frowned, shaking her head.
“No. Not just sex. That’s the least imaginative way to describe it.”
“I suppose you prefer making love?”
His words didn’t bug Darcy as much as his tone. Because he’d never made it more clear he didn’t see her as a woman, but as the too-young babysitter who immaturely viewed the world through Princess Bride, rose-colored glasses.
Darcy considered all the things her sister, Sunnie, and her cousins, Caitlyn and Yvonne, had shared about their sex lives over the years. They were all close and there were very few—if any—secrets between them. As such, Darcy had acquired plenty of sex details to fuel her masturbation fantasies. “I want what Yvonne and Leo have in the bedroom. Apparently, Leo—”
Ryder raised one hand. “Please. I’d prefer not to know exactly what those two are doing in the room down the hall.”
“You can’t hear it?” she joked.
“Darcy,” he said, lacing his tone with a warning. “Maybe we should just leave this conversation here.”
Darcy had played it cool with Ryder for years, pushed her feelings for the man deep, deep down because the truth was, when they’d first met, his wife had just died and she had been too young for him. She’d only been twenty and not even able to legally drink.
But now…well…now she was older. And she was ready to open his eyes to that fact.
“No, I don’t want to leave it here.” Darcy took a deep breath. “What I want is something better than just sex or making love. I want raw, rough, earth-shattering, break-the-bed passion. I want to be held down, tied up, spanked, and fucked hard by a man who knows what he wants—and what he wants is me. Just me. However he can get me. And then I want soft, gentle, peaceful-as-a-boat-on-a-placid-lake sex. With kisses and sweet words. I want
it all. With the man I love, who loves me back.”
“Jesus,” Ryder muttered under his breath, his eyes dark with something Darcy couldn’t recognize.
She grinned to herself, aware she’d finally done it.
Ryder was looking at her.
And for the first time ever…he was seeing her.
Chapter Three
Ryder lifted one of his legs, casually draping his arm over his knee. Not because it was a more comfortable position, but because he needed to hide the evidence of the impact Darcy’s words had on him.
His cock was on full alert, thick, rock hard. Something he was struggling to believe.
No woman had managed that feat since…
Ryder closed his eyes, refusing to think her name. Then he tried to will away his hard-on, to find a way to fight down this sudden and unexpected arousal. He counted to ten, then to twenty, then he started to recite the alphabet…in Greek.
Unfortunately, nothing worked.
“And that,” Darcy said after a few quiet moments, her voice light and breezy, as if she hadn’t just dropped a big fucking bomb in the middle of the elevator, “is my ideal date.”
“That’s…” Ryder cleared his throat, digging deep for a tone, for words that wouldn’t give away his current state. “That’s quite a date.”
Darcy laughed lightly. “Your turn to ask a question.”
Ryder shook his head. There wasn’t enough blood pumping to his brain to allow him to come up with a single question.
Instead, he was too busy imagining taking Darcy in all the ways she’d just described.
Darcy, for God’s sake.
There was no way he should even be entertaining the thought. She was certainly one of those women who dated with marriage in mind. Besides, she was too young for him, too bubbly and happy and sweet and…
Innocent was the next word that flashed in his mind…before he recalled her ideal date. Darcy obviously had a wild side, something he wouldn’t have foreseen. Not that he’d ever considered anything even remotely sexual in terms of Darcy.
“I can’t think of any more questions,” he admitted.
Darcy bit her lower lip as something he couldn’t recognize flashed across her face. For a second, he thought she looked almost scared. Was she afraid she’d gone too far? Revealed too much? After all, he was her boss.
“Darcy, I know we didn’t…nothing that’s said tonight leaves here. This is Vegas. You don’t have to worry—”
“Oh, I’m not worried about that,” she interjected before he could finish offering his reassurances that anything she’d said would impact her job. “I trust you completely.”
“Good,” he said, still curious about the fear he’d just seen. Darcy didn’t give him time to worry about it.
“Lucky for you,” she said with an adorable smile. “I still have plenty of questions to keep the game going.”
Adorable smile?
Since when did he notice Darcy’s smile? Or her bright, expressive blue eyes? Or her long, thick, wavy, dark hair that smelled like coconut?
Dammit. This wasn’t good.
He recalled the first time he’d met Darcy. It was right after Denise had died. He and Leo had been working on the memorial together and they’d needed to go to the funeral home. They’d wanted Yvonne to go with them to help them with the arrangements, but they hadn’t wanted to take the boys. Yvonne had shown up with Darcy in tow, introducing her as her “baby cousin,” a term Ryder had since come to learn the older Collins’ cousins used for Darcy and Oliver, the youngest two in her large family.
Darcy had only been twenty, a fresh-faced college junior at a local university. She’d shown up in denim overalls, with a hot pink tank top beneath, and her hair in long braids on either side of her head. She’d bounced into the house, a bundle of energy armed with a new video game, and for the first time since losing their mother, Vince and Clint had actually smiled.
She’d been back to the house countless times since then, and she’d solidified her place in his son’s heart. Clint talked about Darcy like she hung the moon.
She—and Yvonne—had come into Ryder’s life when he was at his lowest point, the world around him so dark, he couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face. She’d stepped in time after time to help in the past four years, always available, even at short notice. And he didn’t question for a second that she loved his sons every bit as much as they loved her.
It was one of the reasons he’d gone to bat to help her get a job with the marketing department. He knew she had a can-do attitude and a good work ethic, something she’d proven in her short time working here. Helen had thanked him earlier in the week for recommending her.
Regardless of all that, Ryder wasn’t sure he’d ever really noticed, really seen Darcy as anything more than that young, hardworking girl in the overalls who’d become an important person—a much-needed female influence—in his sons’ lives. Before tonight.
“Not sure how you could top that last question,” he said, trying once more to put them back on steady footing. The last thing he needed to do was start to think of Darcy as…Jesus…a sexy woman.
One with desires that had just awakened something long dead inside him.
Darcy winked. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
“Should I be frightened?”
She smacked his forearm lightly, and he realized she always touched him like that. Playful taps and jabs and hip bumps, like they were two kids in middle school.
He’d been a standoffish asshole for years. So much so, most people gave him a wide berth. And apart from roughhousing with the boys or hugging them good night, no one touched him. It hadn’t occurred to him until now that Darcy was the only other person who didn’t shy away from touching him physically. She never had.
“I’ll take it easy on you,” she promised. “Tell me a secret about yourself. Something no one else knows.”
“A secret,” he repeated slowly.
Ryder felt his spine stiffen, his blood suddenly going cold. It was an innocuous enough request. And he could make up anything, tell her anything, and they could move on.
But he only had one secret. One thing that had been eating away at his soul, bit by bit for the past four years.
Darcy seemed oblivious to his current unease. “Something scandalous,” she joked. “You snore like a chainsaw or you do cosplay or you play the bagpipes in a kilt with nothing underneath it.”
“I don’t snore, I don’t dress up, and I play no instruments.”
Darcy glanced at him curiously. Even to his own ears, his words sounded wooden.
“I notice you didn’t mention whether or not you go commando.”
The Ryder he’d been a lifetime ago might have laughed at that, but he couldn’t right now. Not because she wasn’t funny, but because her question was still rolling around in his brain like a grenade set to explode.
Silence fell between them, and it hovered for too long.
He assumed Darcy was giving him time to think of a secret, but when the minutes dragged on, she finally noticed his distress.
And, because it was Darcy, who had a kind heart, she tried to let him off the hook. “It’s a silly question,” she said. “I’ll think of another.”
“No.” The single word came out louder than he’d intended, startling Darcy, who jerked slightly. “No. I want to answer it.”
Darcy nodded but said nothing more.
He lifted the bottle of vodka and took a long pull, trying to figure out if he was really going to do this. Going to tell her.
“I’ve never…told anyone…”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she said, once again giving him an out.
Ryder had sworn to himself he’d never share this secret with another living soul. But suddenly, he wanted to tell Darcy. He’d revealed more of himself to her in the last two and a half hours than he had with anyone in his entire life. And it bothered him to realize that. He’d blamed Denise’s
death for so many things. For the way he didn’t open up to others or let people in. The way he held the people closest to him at arm’s length.
Now, he could see he’d always been a distant bastard, more at ease with casual acquaintances, less comfortable with making a close friend.
He’d had a million buddies in high school and college, but none he would consider a true friend—proven by the fact he hadn’t bothered to stay in touch with a single one of them. Leo was probably the closest he had to a real friend, and even with him, Ryder held huge pieces of himself back.
“The day Denise died…” he began.
Darcy’s eyes widened, and he knew he’d shocked her. His wife’s death was something he never, ever talked about. Darcy would know that—no doubt told by Yvonne and Leo, and probably even Clint.
“The day she died, I had an early meeting at work. Typically, I was still home when she left to take the boys to school, but that day, I left first. She was in the kitchen making them breakfast, packing their lunches. I called out goodbye from the front door and left.”
Darcy nodded slowly. “You regret not kissing her goodbye?” she asked softly.
Ryder huffed out a harsh breath, a cross between an unamused laugh and snort. Of course, the queen of romance would think that was what was bothering him. Guilt over a forgotten goodbye kiss.
He shook his head. “We never kissed goodbye, Darcy.”
“Oh.” She managed to pack a lot of sadness into that single syllable, and it opened Ryder’s eyes to so many—too many—things about his marriage. Things he’d chosen not to see, chosen to bury under a mountain of anger.
“Around lunchtime, two police officers showed up at my office. They told me Denise had been killed in a car accident. She’d run a stop sign and been sideswiped by a truck. The officers said she hadn’t suffered, that she’d been killed instantly.”
“That couldn’t have been easy to hear.”
“Numbness set in the second they said she was gone.”
“You were probably in shock.”
Ryder nodded once, acknowledging that. “I went to the hospital to identify her body and they gave me her personal belongings. Her wedding ring, a necklace, her purse. I called Denise’s parents from the hospital parking lot—they’d moved to St. Louis after her dad was transferred for work—and then I called Leo and met him at your family’s pub to tell him.”
