from ordering another one. After two, she felt a lightness she hadn’t felt in a long time. After three, she was smiling for no particular reason, and after four, she was downright happy.
She didn’t realize the band had stopped playing and that music was being pumped in over the speakers until she recognized “Rhythm Of Love” by the Plain White T’s. A group of people formed a sort of dance floor, so Darcy stood—almost losing her balance and grabbing the stool until she was steady—then walked over to join them.
The words of the song poured over her; she’d never realized how accurate the lyrics were to her own life. She had had more than a night of loving, she had had weeks, and for that time she was his and he was hers alone. And like the song, even after he was gone she remembered him; boy, did she remember him.
She felt him before she saw him, walking toward her in that sexy way of his. She couldn’t read his expression and at that moment she didn’t really care to. He pulled her into his arms without saying a word. And being in his arms again almost made her sigh.
Her hands moved over his back, relearning his body, the muscles and contours now unfamiliar. Her eyes closed and she rested her cheek against his heart and listened to the strong, even beat of it. His fingers trailed down her neck, lingering at her nape before he threaded them through her hair, and the memory of him doing that so many years ago made her tilt her head into his hand.
The song came to an end, and he separated them, waiting a minute to make sure she was steady, before he turned without a word and walked away. She was tempted to follow him, until he stopped at the side of the woman he had been talking to earlier. She looked pissed that he had danced with Darcy, but then Lucien leaned into her and pressed his mouth to hers. She obviously wasn’t so pissed that she couldn’t immediately drape her arms around his neck to pull him closer.
The alcohol had blessedly numbed her, so his cruelty was going to take a while to sink in. She just stood there watching and knowing that this was payback. She wanted to hate him for being so deliberate and, maybe when she wasn’t numb from the alcohol, she would.
Somehow she watched as he disengaged from the succubus who was trying to swallow him whole, and his eyes turned to Darcy. For a moment it was like they were the only two in the room. She nodded her head at him, acknowledging that his slight had hit its desired target. She turned and headed to the table and grabbed her purse. She offered her good-byes and then left the club.
The cab pulled up in front of Trace’s cooking school, Everything, which pulled Ember from her thoughts on Lena, her onetime best friend. They hadn’t spoken in over a year, but that didn’t keep Ember from thinking about her sometimes. She climbed from the cab and took a minute to study the building. Had someone told her that the man she first saw in all of his sexy beauty two years ago would now be teaching people how to make homemade pasta, she would have thought they were on drugs, but Trace loved it.
He had come a long way from the tormented, lost soul trying to deal with the life he’d been dealt. There were times when she saw that lost look buried in his expression, but it was occurring less and less and that must be looked upon as progress.
Ember loved sneaking in and getting a seat in the back, so she could watch Trace, unnoticed, but somehow he always knew she was there.
As soon as she stepped inside, she heard the deep voice that still had the power to make butterflies take off in her stomach. When she entered the main section of the school, she saw him immediately. Standing at six feet four, he towered over everyone else in the room. He was walking around the various kitchens as his students worked on the day’s lesson. Dressed in his favorite outfit of faded jeans, tee, and boots, he had added one of those chef’s jackets in black. He’d been wearing his hair shorter lately, and the inky black strands were spiky around his wonderful face.