by Jill Shalvis
Rocco’s expression said that he called bullshit. His words proved it. “Let me give you three reasons why you should stay,” he said tightly. “One, you should be tattooing for our family legacy, at The Canvas Shop. I miss you there, big time. And you could be working at the marina here in San Fran, as well. You remember Jake?”
“Of course.” Diego and Rocco had gone to school with Jake, who’d gone straight into the military after graduation and had come home a paraplegic. He now owned and operated a fleet of tourist boats near Pier 39.
“He’d hire you in a hot minute to do what you’re already doing for someone else.”
“I like San Diego.”
“Which brings me to points two and three,” Rocco said. “San Diego doesn’t have me. And even more importantly, San Diego doesn’t have Daisy.”
Diego shook his head. “It’s not that easy, Rocco.”
“Again, bullshit.”
* * * *
Back on his boat late that night, Diego had to shake his head. He’d somehow been talked into hanging out at the tattoo shop the next day before his next wedding task, which was picking the wedding band from the final five. Because according to Rocco, if he let Tyler do it, a decision would never get made. Diego’s head was spinning, and he had to keep repeating the words he’d given Rocco—it’s not that easy…
But then he thought about how it’d felt to be with his brother again, how much he liked seeing how happy he was with Tyler, and how it would feel to have them back in his life.
Then he thought about Daisy, and how right it’d felt with her the other night. And not even just in bed, but out of it, too. Talking. Laughing. Just being… It’d all felt shockingly right.
It’s not that easy…
Nothing ever was, not in his experiences.
But maybe…just maybe this time it could be.
* * * *
The next evening, he was just getting off his bike in front of Daisy’s place when she stepped outside in a long-sleeved knit dress that clung to her curves in a way that made his mouth water. Or maybe that was her knee-high black leather boots. She was shrugging into a leather jacket when she saw him and froze.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “I assumed we were meeting at the first venue.” She had a list in her hand and looked at it. “The band’s going on in thirty minutes.”
“Yes,” he said. “I got the same list. But mine says to pick you up.”
They stared at each other.
“You know,” she said slowly. “I’m starting to smell a rat.”
“Two of them.”
She pulled out her phone and hit a number. She put it on speaker and tapped her toes impatiently. “Hey,” she said when Rocco answered. “Why didn’t you tell me you were having Diego pick me up?”
“I’m sure I mentioned it,” Rocco said.
“You didn’t.”
“Huh. Sorry, honey. Wedding brain. I can’t keep a thought in my head. Is there a problem?”
Daisy looked up into Diego’s eyes. Once upon a time, he’d been able to read her like a book, and the skill was coming back to him. Like getting on a bike. She was thinking, yeah, she had a problem, and its name was Diego. He smiled.
She rolled her eyes. “No problem,” she told Rocco and disconnected. “Let’s get this over with.”
The first venue was a restaurant and bar on the wharf, with a deck that was suspended over the water. It was packed. The band was playing top hits from the ’80s, and they were good enough that when Daisy started moving to the beat with a tantalizing, hopeful smile, Diego took her hand and led her out to the dance floor.
As he remembered all too well, she could move. And watching her lose herself in the fun and the music loosened him up in a way that he hadn’t felt in a long time. It made him feel like he’d been drinking. Unable to resist, he tugged her to him when a slow song came on, and they moved together as one.
“Miss this,” he murmured against her ear, the words escaping without conscious thought.
“San Francisco?”
“You.”
She stared up at him with those big eyes.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I’d like to think you missed me,” she said. “As much as you’d miss, say, a limb.”
He smiled. “How do you know I didn’t?”
Biting her lower lip, she rolled her eyes, whether at herself or him, he had no idea. “I know.”
His smile vanished. “You’re wrong. I missed you more than I’d miss a limb. I missed you with my entire being.”
“I missed you, too,” she finally whispered. “Even when I was still angry and hurt, I missed you.” She hesitated. “A lot.”
“Daisy…” Pulling her in a little tighter, he ran a hand up her spine and into her hair, wrecked at the thought of how much he’d hurt her. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to desert you. I had no idea—"
She put a finger over his lips. “We talked it out. I get it. It’s okay, you don’t have to apologize again. I mean…” Her tone lightened. “Unless you do something else stupid enough to warrant an apology.”
Warmth filled a hole in his chest that he didn’t even realize he had. “I don’t plan on it.”
“Good to know.”
He held her close through the slow song. “Rocco and I talked.”
Daisy looked up at him in surprise, clearly hopeful that he and his brother had worked things out, which touched him in ways he hadn’t known he could be touched.
He nodded. “We’re going to be okay.” He paused. “He wants me to stay in San Francisco and help him run The Canvas Shop. I could also get a job with Jake at the marina.”
Her gaze briefly skittered away. “Is that something you’d want to do? Stay?”
“Would you want me to?” he asked and found himself holding his breath.
She stared at him for a long beat, her eyes saying yes, which had him breathing again. Until she spoke, her tone not matching her eyes. “That’s…a lot of pressure,” she said quietly. “I’d never ask anyone to move because of me.”
Not what he’d wanted to hear, but what had he expected? He’d hurt her, she wouldn’t want to take another chance on him.
When the song ended, he lowered his head and kissed her without thought. It was simply like drawing in air. When she moaned and pressed closer, he deepened the embrace, not breaking away until the music revved up again and they were bumped from all sides by people dancing.
“We should get going,” she said. “To check out the next band.”
Right. The next venue was another restaurant and bar in the Castro district. They walked up the rainbow-colored sidewalks and into the place that smelled so delicious they ordered food.
Over a pile of hors d’oeuvres, they dug in. Diego worked his way through a stack of wings and pizza chips and was headed for the queso when Daisy spoke and had him stilling.
“This is nice.”
“It is,” he said. “But last night you were reluctant to go there with me again.”
“I know. I know I must seem like an emotional see-saw, and I don’t mean to be making you dizzy with it. I just couldn’t see how this could ever work out between us.”
“And…something changed that?” he asked and then held his breath.
“I decided I would regret not even being willing to try.”
Her words both revved him up and also calmed his heart. “Me, too,” he said quietly.
She was playing with the condensation on her glass. When he’d picked her up earlier, she’d had that polished, professional, can’t-touch-this look about her, and that had been hot as hell.
But she’d been dancing and had imbibed a bit. She was flushed. She’d let her hair down, and it was wild around her face. She stared at his mouth in a way that made him want to do a whole bunch of really wicked things to her.
This band was even better than the first, and Daisy looked happy and relaxed and sexy as hell, and Diego had no idea how he was going to let
her walk away from him again.
“Dance with me,” she demanded softly, letting her gaze travel the length of him. At whatever she saw, she smiled and stood. Then she pulled him up, and with her hands on his chest, shimmied close to him.
She was going to be the death of him.
But he let her draw him out onto the dance floor, where she slowly slid her hands up his biceps and wound her arms around his neck, all while wriggling the sexy, hot bod that fulfilled his every fantasy. With a low groan, he yanked her roughly into him and let his fingers slowly trail down her back, his hand cupping her ass to press her closer.
With a gasp, she met his gaze. “You want me,” she breathed.
“Yeah, but what I want, I can’t have. At least not on this dance floor.”
She bit her lower lip and kept moving against him, practically glowing as if it were her greatest wish to drive him as insane with lust as he could possibly get.
Mission accomplished.
But two could play this game. Eyes locked, he dragged his hand up from the curve of her ass, his fingers scoring lightly up her back to tangle in her hair. With a gentle tug, her throat was exposed, and his mouth instantly covered the curve between her shoulder and neck. His other hand rested lightly on her hip as he started moving slowly in time with the driving bass of the music.
She moaned low in her throat and closed her eyes. The lights above them blinked and changed color to the beat of the band. Diego couldn’t have said what the song was, whether it was fast or slow. He couldn’t have said how many people were on the dance floor. Hell, he couldn’t recall his own full name. Because when she looked at him like she was, her eyes hot and dark, he could think of nothing at all.
“Diego?” she whispered.
“Yeah, babe?”
“Take me home.”
He couldn’t get her out of there fast enough, grabbing her hand, tugging her toward the dimly lit exit. Snippets of muffled conversations reached him, the vibrations of the music as they exited out into the night.
“Your place or the boat?” he asked when he had them on the road.
“Most definitely the boat,” Daisy said in his ear, a move that gave him the very best kind of shiver down his spine.
Twenty minutes later, they were walking down the marina dock towards his vessel. He was holding her hand because though the docks were lit, it was still tricky going at night. His body was on high alert, feeling tight and achy and anticipatory.
Given the way Daisy was breathing, she felt the same.
She stopped walking and turned to him. “Diego?”
“Yeah?”
“I lied before.”
He stilled. “When?”
“When you asked me if I wanted you to stay, and I said that it was too much pressure. That was the lie. I want you to stay.”
Chapter 8
Daisy had to practically run to keep up with Diego’s long-legged stride down the dock. She laughed breathlessly. “In a hurry?”
Since his answer was a low, nearly inaudible growl, she went from amused to almost having an orgasm in zero point four seconds. At his boat, he physically lifted her up and in, following so closely they were touching the whole time.
“On the top deck?” she asked hopefully, thinking about how it might feel to be pinned beneath him, the stars above, the sounds of the water surge slapping up against the boat…
“No,” he said. “Below deck.” He had a grip on her, tugging her to the stairs.
“But—”
He guided her down, then pressed her up against the door without turning on a light. “Another time beneath the stars,” he promised. “Tonight, I have plans.”
“Plans?”
“Yes, and they involve making you cry out my name over and over again. And call me selfish, but that…that sound from your lips, Daisy, is for me alone.”
Her bones liquified. But that was okay because Diego had her. He had her against the door, held there by his big body while shutting out the rest of the world. She felt him nibble her throat and had to laugh breathlessly. She was already halfway to crying out his name.
Then his hands were in her hair, his mouth on hers, not a single space between them. His body was deliciously hard. Everywhere.
Then, suddenly, he pulled back from her. Without notice, she was alone. She opened her eyes, but she couldn’t see a damn thing, not even a faint outline of him. The only light came from a narrow line of moonlight slanting vertically down the middle of the bed and the floor, ending at her feet. “Diego?”
He stepped into the shaft of moonlight. Wordlessly, he tugged his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor.
He was gorgeous bathed in the glow, his lean, tough muscles rippling with his every movement, his body reminding her of a sleek, powerful cat. A wild one.
She heard the dull thud of his boots hitting the floor. The rest of his clothes followed, and he turned to her, making her swallow hard.
Mine, she thought.
“Now you,” he said. But before Daisy could, he came to her and turned her away from him, placing her hands on the wall. He slowly unzipped her dress, nudging it off her shoulders and past her hips before leaning his body into hers and pressing his mouth to her shoulder. Her bra fell away like magic as he kissed and nibbled his way to the crook of her neck, the column of her throat, and then he was at her ear. “I can’t wait to be inside you again,” he said. “The way you pant my name drives me insane.”
It was a good thing he was holding her up. But then he wasn’t. He’d dropped to his knees to unzip and pull off her boots. Then her tights. When his fingers hooked in her undies, she made a sound, and then another when he slid them down.
“I…can’t stand,” she managed.
Far more adaptable in any given situation than she was, he rose to his feet and took her with him to the bed. She hit the mattress on her back, and he followed her down. Their gazes met and locked, and in his eyes, she saw the things that hopes and dreams were made of. Her heart rate spiked. Feeling emotionally exposed, she actually tried to look away until she realized that the vulnerability she saw reflected back wasn’t hers, but his.
Cupping his jaw, she whispered his name, and then he was inside her. Their bodies moved together as if they’d been built for each other, hips surging and retreating in sync. She never wanted this to end. His weight holding her down, how he looked at her when he brushed the hair from her face, his hand reaching for and gripping hers tightly on the pillow beside her head. It all combined as wordless pleas and demands that tumbled from her lips.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “I promise.”
The sweet words uttered so roughly cascaded through her. Arching up, she came, shuddering into him. Somehow, she managed to open her eyes because she didn’t want to miss a single second.
His head was back, the cords of his neck taut, his entire body strung tightly, his hands gripping hers hard as he finally let himself come, her name on his lips.
* * * *
Diego came awake the next morning to find Daisy sprawled across him, one leg thrown over his, her arm heavy across his abs, a hand gripping his biceps, face pressed into his chest. Her hair was all up in his face, and he was pretty sure she was drooling on him a little bit.
Carefully, he slid out from under her. Still deeply asleep, she murmured her displeasure and snuggled into the spot he’d vacated, never waking up.
He had a ridiculously primal response, knowing that he’d put her into a near coma. With a smile he couldn’t tame, he made coffee and whipped up some bacon and eggs. Breakfast of champions.
Daisy still hadn’t so much as budged by the time he finished, so he leaned against the counter and drank his coffee, content to just watch her sleep.
On the counter at his side, her smartphone screen lit up as an email came in. Another guy, a better guy, would’ve probably looked away. And Diego started to, but the subject line caught his eye: Daisy’s and Poppy’s Grand NYC Venture.
And
…because of the way she had her settings, he could see the first two lines of the email.
Hey hon! I put together the budget we talked about for the new business AND I found a few places right here in NYC that are actually available and almost, sort of, in our budget. Both attached, hurry up and move back!
Diego had to set his mug of hot coffee down before he dropped it. Her phone went dark, but he didn’t need to see the email again. Last night, she’d said things. Like the soft, sweetly uttered, “I missed you…” and, “I want you to stay…”
What the hell had that been about if she’d known she was moving back to New York?
It was such a terrible, awful instant replay of what had happened the first time they’d been together. Once again, he’d fallen in love with her. And once again, it’d thrown his world into turmoil. Love always did. It took all the power from him and gave it to someone whose decisions could affect his life in a negative way. Like his dad. Like Rocco. Like Daisy—for the second time.
Apparently, he was a slow learner, but he finally got it. He was done with this. Done with love.
Chapter 9
Daisy woke to the scent of coffee. Not yet opening her eyes, she smiled and stretched, reaching out for Diego, but he wasn’t in bed, and the sheets were cool on his side.
This had her opening her eyes and sitting up.
Diego was across the room in the galley area, leaning back against the counter, sipping at a mug of coffee.
Watching her.
He wore his jeans unfastened and nothing else, which meant they sat dangerously low on his hips. His hair was uncombed, his jaw unshaven, his bare feet crossed.
The wild mountain cat playing at domesticity.
