Page 34 of Shots Fired

I’m flooded with relief, although it’s brief, as it gives way to more unease. How do I get this girl to return to my bed?

“Where did you get this?” I ask, trying not to sound like a suspicious douchebag. I’m a possessive one instead.

Darcy rolls her lips together, shifting to face me. “Oh, this?” She lifts the bracelet between us. “This is from Emmett Richards, the hot-as-fuck defenseman on your team. I woke up with him yesterday, and he gave it to me as a birthday gift.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Darcy.”

She’s on her back in seconds, and I’m hovering over her, a caveman growl I’ve been fighting to suppress escaping my chest. I’m tempted to slide inside her right now and demonstrate how I’m the only man she needs.

Small hands rest on my shoulders as the bracelet slips down her arm.

“Did your dad get it for you?” I ask softly. I know from Jack that she doesn’t have a relationship with him anymore. That doesn’t stop me from hoping the guy didn’t miss his daughter’s birthday.

“No.” She shakes her head, a subtle sadness dulling her eyes. “I haven’t spoken to him in months. The bracelet is from my mom. She bought it for my twenty-first birthday, and I wear it on special occasions.”

Although I wouldn’t describe us as estranged, I’m not especially close to my dad. Darcy might be right to keep Elliott out of her life—just like Jack cut him out completely too—but that doesn’t mean there isn’t residual hurt.

“Do you miss him?” I ask cautiously.

She peers up at me like she hasn’t been asked that in a while.

“That’s a complicated question, Archer.”

I settle down between her parted thighs. I know she can feel my hard cock as it presses into her. Casually, I run my fingers down her stomach, holding myself up with an elbow braced next to her shoulder. We’re both completely naked, but that isn’t the most intimate part of this moment. I want to explore every part of Darcy, well beyond the conversations we’ve previously shared.

“We’ve got the time.”

She clears her throat and shifts beneath me. “My dad is one of those people who always has an agenda with everything he does. When I was younger, I couldn’t see the games he played or the way he would emotionally attack Mum, not until I got older. Then, when Jack joined the Blades and met Kendra, Dad tried to come back into his life after he learned what my brother was earning and how much his girlfriend’s family was worth. Kendra told me all about it when I moved to Brooklyn, but I’d already hated his guts anyway.” She pokes her tongue into her cheek. “And I don’t hate anyone. Ever.”

My blood boils on behalf of Jack and Darcy, two of the kindest people I’ve ever met. If they despise this guy, I can only hope we never cross paths.

“Did he hurt you?”

Shaking her head again, she presses her lips into a thin line. “No, never physically. Dad doesn’t need to get physical to cause hurt. He likes to weigh and measure people, and when he has a drink, the venom really starts spouting. He once told me I’d walked away from a good relationship with Liam because of my ego.”

“But he cheated on you,” I immediately fire back, my rage simmering.

“He did, although Dad never saw it that way. He said Liam was going to have a great career in finance.” She laughs darkly. “Funny, because that’s what my dad does—he’s a stockbroker in London.”

I remember Jack telling me his dad worked in Canary Wharf. A place where some of my own investments are run. He’d better not manage any of my offshore accounts.

“After Liam and I split, Jack admitted he could see more and more of Dad in Liam’s behaviors. Mum spent a lot of time detangling herself from Dad’s grasp, and Jack was afraid I’d go down the same route. I once failed a test at university?—”

I release a mock gasp, and she swats me on the chest, giggling.

“Yes, Archer. Believe it or not, I did. Anyway, do you know what Liam’s reaction was?”

I shake my head, already convinced I’m not going to like it.

“He told me not to worry because a woman’s place is really in the home and with the kids, not out earning money because he could take care of that. It was a carbon copy of what Dad used to say to Mum.”

I can’t imagine Darcy ever accepting something like that from a guy. They do say love is blind.

When she looks up at me for a reaction, I know my jaw is clenched, molars grinding hard.

“There were plenty of red flags I chose to ignore because I’d invested so much time into the wrong person, but I didn’t want to feel like all of it was wasted, so I kept plowing ahead with him. I guess that’s why now I’m not keen to get into anything heavy. The next person I date, I want to be sure they won’t screw me over.”

My tongue burns with the need to tell her that I’d never let her down. Then I consider the evidence of my past and what she has to go on.

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