Chapter 1
Bekka carefully unwrapped the package that sat atop her glass display case. It was an H.P. Lovecraft original, and being a lifelong fan of horror she couldn’t help but smile wide as she gazed down upon the book. Damn, she thought, It’s nice to enjoy what you do for a living.
Bekka had rented the space for her rare used books/oddities/antiques store around two years ago now. Right after her divorce from Corey was finalized. The memory of their uncomfortable parting made her sigh as she ran a reverent hand over the book’s cover.
She thought back to their final day together, remembered Corey and Juanita begging her to reconsider leaving. But Bekka had learned one lesson living with her husband and his stepmother for two years: There was only room for one woman in a man’s life, at least, when it came to living under one roof.
After taking two and a half years with the meddlesome but well meaning woman, Bekka had to admit defeat. It wasn’t that Juanita had meant to gobble up every spare moment of Corey’s time, or that she meant to horn in on their relationship. It just happened. And Bekka, powerless to stop it but desperately wishing she could, had to do some soul searching before she dropped the dreaded “D” word on Corey.
It had practically killed him. She would never forget the look of hollow sorrow in his eyes that day.
“Why the hell am I doing this to myself?” she muttered to a china Buddha sitting in a tall, glass display case, smiling at her cheerily.
Glancing at the calendar by the door, Bekka came around front to flip the CLOSED sign to OPEN.
She looked down at the dusty motorcycle boots on the other side of the glass, wood-framed entrance. Her eyes followed them up to black jeans, and she swallowed as her fingers closed over the sign.
Two years. Bekka never thought she’d see him again.
But there he was, standing on the other side of the door, smiling in at her, wearing a black t-shirt and sunglasses. It gave him that enigmatic, slightly dangerous look she’d always loved about him.
Corey Varkov. Her ex-husband. Bekka stared, and her hand trembled on the sign.
Corey pointed to the doorknob, smiled—showing his deep dimples—and raised his eyebrows.
Nodding her head, Bekka forced a smile through her shock, fumbled with the key in her hand, and let him in.
“What…” Her voice cracked and her throat dried. “What are you doing here?” She tried again, cursing her words for deserting her at the worst possible moment.
Corey looked around her shop and walked about casually. He took off his glasses and exposed those deadly blue eyes. Bekka flipped the sign quickly and made a retreat behind the counter.
“I’m doing great, Bekka. Thanks for asking. How are things with you these days?” He leaned over the counter and stared at her. Not smiling, not frowning, just wearing an impassive face. The stance he knew unnerved Bekka the most. Damn, how she hated him, but was so incredibly happy to see him, in that same moment.
“I-I didn’t mean anything by not asking how you were, Corey.” She crossed her arms tightly over her breasts and set her jaw. “It’s just a bit of a shock, seeing you here, all of a sudden, like this.”
“Well.” He propped one tattooed elbow on the covered counter. “There’s a good reason for my visit.” Standing upright, he walked toward the wall display of pewter dragons and various mythical creatures. “I just rented the space next to your shop, and the apartment above it. See, I’m moving Black Magick Tattoo and Designs into the city. Mom’s got her own things to do, and the big house on the outskirts of town is just too much for her. Plus.” He rolled his eyes and chuckled. “She has a new beau she wants to be closer to. So, looks like I’m on my own, and the space above the shop is more than enough for me.”
She was surprised by how quickly he moved back to the counter; his hands now braced on the silk cover that protected the glass top. His stealth used to thrill her. Such a large, muscular man, yet he moved like a cat, while Bekka was as klutzy as a big dog in a china shop.
“So, we’ll be neighbors?” Bekka frowned and pretended she found a dirty spot on the edge of the display case.
“Looks that way.”
Out of her side vision, Bekka caught his lecherous smile, and a warm heat fluttered in her groin as she swallowed.
***
Had she been affected by his visit? Corey had watched for subtle signs and he thought he’d caught a few, but perhaps that was just wishful thinking on his part.
Damn, it was so good to see her again. Bekka looked even better than she had two years ago when she’d walked out on him. His heart ached as he thought of those big, startled grey eyes this morning, staring at him in surprise. If it took him until his death, Corey was going to get her back. Some way, some how. So much had changed since their split, and he just hoped he could show her that, convince that wary heart of hers, that life with him would be different this time around.
It had taken all his strength not to take her in his arms right there in her shop, kiss her hard, and inhale the scent of her hair, her skin. He’d missed her so much these past two years, and he had worked hard to get back on his feet, become a free man, so to speak, and come after the only woman he’d ever really loved. The only woman that ever really understood him.
It wasn’t that his step-mom, Juanita, meant to come between them, while Bekka and Corey had been living with her. Corey and Bekka had fallen on some hard times financially back then, and Juanita had offered to help them out by giving them a place to stay until they got on their feet.
Juanita and Bekka had rented a shop in the small town they’d lived on the outskirts of, and they’d ran a successful business in the farming community of Rexton. Corey had started his tattoo business out of the home they shared, and now his talent had earned him a well-known name, from Moncton, to Saint John, to Fredericton. People thought nothing of driving two hours to come and have a tattoo done by him. He’d even had people come up from the States recently, just before he moved the shop into the city, as far as Connecticut, to have work done by him.
After Bekka left him, Corey’s sole purpose in life centered on one thing: working his ass off, building up a healthy name and a healthy clientele, so he could move the tattoo shop into the city and have the funds to go after her. It was all because of lack of money, and lack of alone time together, that their relationship had gone sour in the first place. Not that Bekka was the kind of woman to base a relationship on money. Hell, she wouldn’t have stayed with him through the rough years if that were the case. But, now he had the freedom to spoil her the way she deserved, and the freedom to be on his own, so he could seduce her back into his arms properly. And Corey was a stubborn man. He wasn’t giving up.
“Hey.” His young apprentice that came with him from Rexton popped his head out of the tattoo room. “What you want for lunch, man? I’ll go out and grab us something.”
Corey draped his leather jacket over the coat rack close to the opening of the tattoo room. “I don’t know what I’m in the mood for, Jamie. Surprise me.”
Jamie, a sinewy kid that Corey dwarfed by a good six inches, looked at him hard. “You okay, man. You seem somewhere else?”
Corey smiled, and Bekka’s mischievous, sparkling eyes and smiling face floated into his mind. “I’m okay. Just got a lot on my mind.”
“You went to see Bekka, didn’t you?”
Corey looked up into the kid’s sharp hazel eyes. “Yeah, I went to see her. Didn’t stay long though.”
Jamie came closer to the entrance of the tattoo area. He leaned against the doorframe. “So, how did it go, man? You think…”
Corey held up a hand to stop him and smiled sadly. “It’s too soon to say yet. Give me some time to work on my woman first. Yeesh, Jamie.”
Jamie grabbed his canvas jacket off a hook and shrugged as he continued to snatch a look at Corey. “Sorry to butt my nose in, Corey. I just know how it has been for you without her. And I like Bekka. She’s a cool lady. I hope you two get back together.”
And with that, Jamie was across the front of the shop in a flash, out the door, on his way to find some grub.
***
Corey stood alone in the tattoo shop, hands on hips, as he stared at the design sheets on one wall and drifted off.
He thought about the first time he’d seen Bekka. It had been back in a little town in Ontario, where they had both grown up no more than a half hour’s drive from one another. She had been working in a coffee shop/souvenir store while going to university. He’d just got back from physical rehabilitation in Toronto for a severe injury he’d incurred working on a construction site in Guelph.
Juanita took him to the coffee shop where Bekka worked almost every day for lunch. He supposed his step-mom had picked up on his interest in the tall, willowy raven-haired beauty. Back then, as she did now, Juanita encouraged him to go for it.
“She’s cute.” She had leaned over the table and whispered to him. “And she looks like your type, Corey.” Juanita winked, and darted a glance over her shoulder at Bekka, now serving another customer in the log-house-style café. “I see a couple tattoos. She’s got a cool moon on her lower back.”
Corey laughed and took a bite of his corn beef on rye. “Look, Mom, I don’t know…”
Juanita held up a hand, interrupting him. “I know, kid. You just got home, and you want to get your head straight before you start looking.”
“Exactly, Ma.” He took a sip of his cola. “I just want to get into therapy for this back and get well right now. I’ll start looking later.” He darted a glance over his shoulder at Bekka, and then turned back to his step-mom to wink and raise an eyebrow.
***
Bekka dusted the books on the shelf closest to the door and thought about her encounter with Corey earlier that morning. Were there ulterior motives in his move to the city?
He hadn’t given many hints during their short encounter in her store. He’d kept the conversation general—how was business doing, how was it adjusting to the city after living rurally for so long—for most of his stay.
That is, until he had asked, “So, anyone new in your life, Bekka?”
Her hands had clamped tight on the cover of the Lovecraft book. She swallowed hard then shook her head, not daring words as his piercing blue gaze bore through her.
“Damn me.” She sighed, putting an original Edgar Allan Poe back in its place in the cherry-wood bookstand. “Why do I let him have this kind of effect on me, even after two years apart?”
She thought back to their last night together. The night before she dropped the bomb that she was leaving. The big fight that led to a tangle of sheets and raw love making. Bekka shuddered at the memory, and her groin pulsed with a desire she thought she’d forgotten.
***
Chapter 2
Bekka locked up the shop at ten o’clock and took a deep gulp of nighttime air as she headed for the back steps that led to her apartment above the store. The lights of Moncton had flickered on in a kaleidoscope of garish, neon colors. As her foot lighted on the third stair, a voice, all too familiar, came from behind her.
“Hey, Bekka.”
She froze and stopped breathing for a moment. Turning, she found Corey looking up at her. His hands were in the pockets of his jacket and his breath puffed like a fragile ghost on the chilled March air. A slight breeze caught his wavy, long black hair and lifted it from his sculpted, strong Russian features.
“I can’t find my keys to my apartment.” He came part way up the stairs, stopping on the metal plank just beneath her. At six-foot-five, he towered over her in such close proximity. “I called the kid that’s working for me on his cell phone, to see if he’s got ’em, but no answer. I’ve searched the shop, but no sign of them. My phone’s dead.” Corey held up a small, silver cell phone. “Can I come in and use your phone and warm up?”
Swallowing hard, Bekka smiled at him and ran her hand through her long, straight black tresses. She couldn’t very well deny him entrance to her apartment building. And why should she anyway? Hell, it had been awhile. Two years. If the truth were known, she hadn’t had another man since she’d left Corey. Oh, hell, she’d been tempted a time or two, but when she’d tried to go any farther then a bit of making out, the old heartache came rushing back in like a surging flood.
“Sure.” She nodded and turned her back to him as she continued up the stairs. “Come on in. You want me to put on a pot of coffee?”
***
He spotted her collection of horror figurines reverently placed in a antique china cabinet near the entertainment center. Corey chuckled as his gaze drifted over the Wolfman, Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, and her collection from the Evil Dead trilogy. That was his Bekka—a diehard horror fan through and through. She was no pushover, and she had enough fire in her spirit for two people, but his Bekka also had manners and a heart of pure gold.
“Nice to see you are the same ol’ Bekka I always knew.” Corey pointed to her horror figures and she laughed.
“Yup, I still love scary movies, hot rods, and hard rock.” She smiled wide, and the dance of color in her grey eyes took his breath away for a moment. God, she was stunning. Bekka had a face that couldn’t be categorized as “conventionally beautiful.” Her charm, her good looks, came from old-world, almost irregular features—big grey eyes and a soft, cupid’s bow mouth made her a vision worth staring at, in Corey’s opinion.
He joined in her mirth. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear that.” Corey walked over to the couch and sat beside her.
“Why’s that?” Bekka cocked an eyebrow and cast him an almost sassy stare. She was daring him; Corey could see that. Mischievous as always, that was Bekka.
“Well…” He let a finger trace lightly up the arm of her dark burgundy sweater. “I was afraid you might have changed a lot…you know.” He shrugged. “While we were apart.”
She watched his finger, and then her steely stare locked on his ice-blue eyes. “Why would you care whether I had changed or not?” Her voice was low, and Corey thought he heard a hopeful, anxious, lilt to it. Perhaps wishful thinking on his part but, at this point, he’d take any scrap as a sign. He wanted her back so badly it hurt right in his gut just to look at her.
“Do you remember what I told you when you left me?” Corey moved his face closer to Bekka’s; their lips now inches apart. “Just before you walked out the door?”
He heard her swallow and her breathing had grown shallow. “What…”
Taking her into his arms before she could resist, Corey nipped at the shell of her ear, flicking his tongue inside before he whispered, “What I promised you?”
Bekka cleared her throat, but her voice was still thick when she spoke. “That you’d come find me one day. That you’d get me to come back to you, no matter what…”
He stole the last of her words with a deep, hungry kiss.
Bekka shoved him back suddenly and Corey looked at her with a puzzled frown.
“Wait a second.” Bekka glanced at the clock. “Isn’t it a bit early to be closing up a tattoo shop, Corey? Are you sure you didn’t set this up on purpose, to get me in a position like this?”
His lips still hovered close to hers and, while staring at her lips, it was hard to comprehend her words through his fog of desire. Corey shook his head. “What?” He followed her gaze to the clock. “Ohh…that.” He turned back to her, pinning her once more with those intense, blue eyes of his. “The shop isn’t technically open yet. Me and Jamie are in the process of getting things set up. We’ll be opening on Friday.” He yanked her back into his arms and Bekka let out a surprised yelp. “And quit trying to change the subject.”
Bekka let herself dissolve into his kiss. Damn, it did feel good to be back in his arms. She hadn’t had a lot of men before Corey; she was skittish when it came to males, after suffering years of mental and physical abuse at the hands of her father as a teen. Still, she was no innocent when it came to pleasing and pleasure. Corey, much more experienced in sexual matters than her when they first met, had taught her a lot in their five years together. They’d been best friend with incredible chemistry—a rare combination. And that chemistry only blazed hotter now that they had been apart for so long. At least it did on Bekka’s part, but she tried to hold her excitement back some. It was all she could do not to tear his clothes off as she helped him out of them.
Before she realized it, Corey had her bra off, and he tossed it over the arm of the sofa. She laughed at his dexterity before he took her lips again and squeezed her nicely rounded, large nippled breasts. His long fingers kneaded hard, and she moaned against him.
“Oh, hell, Corey.” He nibbled on her neck, and placed urgent, open-mouth kisses down her throat. “It feels so good to have your touch back.”
His hands slipped down her unbuttoned pants, and he slid the black flares, along with wispy underwear, off her legs. “I missed you so much,” he murmured, around her hardened nipple.
She bit her lip, as he splayed the top of her labia, exposing the swollen mound of her clitoris. Grinning at her wickedly, Corey licked his fingertips, and then he rubbed the wet tips over her sensitive bit of flesh. Bekka arched her back, smiling as familiar sensations of intense pleasure flooded her.
“Like that, sweetheart?” he whispered. “You use to love it.”
“Sssssonnnnofaaa…” she managed, through gritted teeth, as Corey bent his head and ran the tip of his tongue over her clit. The man had many talents, and eating pussy with incredible skill was one of them.
“Remember how hard I could make you come, Bekka?” He rested his head against her inner thigh and slid two fingers inside her, curling them forward so he could massage her g-spot. “Just with my hands and my mouth.” He kissed her dark, trimmed mound. “I didn’t even have to fuck you to satisfy you, did I, sweetheart?”
Corey descended on her sex once more, pulling back the hood of her large clitoris and taking the throbbing nub in his mouth completely. He nibbled and sucked, running his tongue back and forth over the bundle of tender nerves just beneath skin. Bekka bucked her hips against his face and grabbed at the couch cushions. Her orgasm was not far off.
“Christ, Corey,” she whispered, as her climax burst, and release washed over her in a warm, satisfying wave. “That’s one amazing mouth you have on you.”
He sat up and took her hands, urging her up beside him. His eyes were so bright they shone with an eerie, electric glow. He stared, intently, at her. “Are you still on the pill, babe?”
She took a moment to answer, still lost in the fog of a powerful orgasm. “What was that?” Bekka shook her head, and took Corey’s hand.
“Are you still on the birth control pill?”
Bekka had been on the contraceptive for most of her life. Since her early teens, she’d had terribly painful, and frequently irregular, menstrual cycles. The only thing that took away her suffering, and kept her regular, was the pill.
She nodded, and her gaze fell to his straining erection, thick and long, slapping against the bottom of his stomach.
Corey took her face in his hands, and kissed her roughly, passionately, once more. Bekka moaned as she wrapped her hand around his stiff shaft.
“I want you so bad.” His voice came out almost like a strangled cry, and Bekka felt her heart lurch at the sadness she heard in his plea—the endless months of loneliness.
“I never wanted to leave you,” she told him quietly, as he guided her to the floor. “I’ve never stopped loving you, Corey.”
Lying down, Corey positioned her so Bekka was straddling him. “It nearly killed me when you walked out that door, darling.” He rubbed the head of his cock against her clit, and up and down her slick folds, but he wouldn’t let her slip him in yet.
Goddamn tease. “ Corey,” she warned, and he let her slide his penis into her wet pussy.
“Christ, you are so tight, baby,” he moaned, as she rocked against him, grinding hard on his root. “So hot…”
He reached down as she rode him, and Corey found her clit with his fingers once more. While Bekka ground hard against him, Corey played with the now tender nub of flesh. She felt her pleasure threshold spike, and then tip over the edge. Corey rubbed faster and faster…and soon, Bekka climaxed.
She bent over him, bucking against his chest as the orgasm zigzagged through her body. Sensations fired across her flesh, and in her brains, like firecrackers popping. Bekka raked her nails down Corey’s chest and he grunted then sighed. His hips bucked, once, twice, three times upwards. Hard, final thrusts. He pulled out of her and took her lips again.
Pushing him back to catch her breath, Bekka laughed, running shaky fingers through her auburn hair. “How did we get from you using the phone to this?” She knew exactly how. Corey Varkov was a charmer, and she certainly hadn’t resisted his obvious ruse to get into her apartment.
He faked a shrug. “Haven’t got the slightest idea.”
She laughed, and rolled off of him. “Bullshit, Corey. You probably planned this all day, waiting for the right moment to pounce.”
Corey propped himself up on one elbow and feigned hurt. “Your distrust wounds me, honey.”
Bekka slid on her shirt and rolled her eyes at him, smiling. “ Corey, I know you too well for you to get away with playing innocent.”
He stood, pulling his own shirt on, and buttoning the last three buttons. He shimmied back into his shorts and jeans. “Actually, I did come here with a different intention, Bekka.”
She slid into her panties, and wrapped thick blanket from the back of the couch around her waist. “Ohh, and what was that, Corey?” She grinned sideways, expecting some smart-ass remark to make her laugh.
He sat down beside her, looking serious, and coiled a hand around the back of her neck, stroking her lightly. “I came here to talk about…us.” He looked up at her, and she thought his deep blue gaze just might swallow her. “To see if there was any chance of you and me…” He looked away, and tapped his knee with a nervous rhythm. “A chance for us to get back together.”
***
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