He pinned her wrist between their bodies again, and she felt her bra wrap around it. Then he groped around for the other. Damn, he was going to bind her with her own clothing. Hell, no. Never!

Not caring if he broke her arm or slipped it from its socket, she reached back. He had her face turned right, and her left hand was free, so she couldn’t see. She’d have one chance to score on this. Thank God she kept her fingernails sharp.

She reached back, aiming high and dead center. On the first try, she grabbed his balls. And squeezed mercilessly.

He grunted and tried to back off, but she held tight, edged off the desk, and turned to him.

“You bitch! I’ll fucking hurt you for that.”

Alyssa stood over his crouched form, anger pounding her. “I’ll hurt you first.”

She jammed her heel into his instep. Though he wore tennis shoes, she figured she’d made a bull’s-eye when he howled and began hopping on one foot. Then, just for fun, she twisted his balls.

He screamed like a little girl. And she smiled.

Suddenly, he reared up and roared, his fist coming at her like a barreling semi. She feinted out of the way and released him, running for the door. He was on her before she could take a step, pulling her by the hair to face him, then shoving her down again. The back of her skull hit the desk with an audible crack. Pain exploded through her head, and she gasped.

That wasn’t enough for Peter. He made sure her head banged the concrete floor as he dragged her to it. An aching band of abused nerves throbbed across her skull, in her temples. She felt sick. But then he grabbed her hand and took her forearm in the other—and jerked. She heard a snap and felt pain blast down to her hand, radiate through her wrist. She cried out, and he smiled.

“That was for grabbing my balls, bitch. Now, lie still and take it like the slut you are.”

Roughly, he grabbed her arms and restrained them above her head. She whimpered against the pain.

Psycho. He was completely mental. And she had no idea how she was going to get free as he pinned her body to the ground and worked his hips between her thighs, his hard cock bare between them. Oh, God . . .

Alyssa knew the nightmare she was about to endure.

Despite knowing her office was soundproof and it would do no good, she screamed.

Peter took his cock in his hand and pushed against her swollen opening. “That’s it. I like the screamers. You’ll scream a lot for me before I’m done.”

A moment later, she heard pounding on the door, and Peter stilled. “Fuck!”

Shaking his head, he reared back and tried to stab his way into her body. A moment later, the door burst open.

Tyler and Luc charged Peter like madmen. Her bouncer grabbed him by the hair and the ass of his jeans and threw him across the room. Luc ran after him and kicked the frat boy in the ribs, then followed with ferocious punches that made Peter scream. Tyler joined in, grabbing his hair and slamming his face into the concrete.

She drifted out for a moment until two sets of feet skidded to a stop beside her.

“I’m calling nine-one-one.”

Luc sounded concerned. And angry. She frowned. Why? He didn’t really care about her. Then again, he wasn’t mean. He wouldn’t like to see people hurt.

Afraid. And cold. As much as she hated to admit, Alyssa knew she needed help. Someone she knew cared about her.

“Tyler,” she cried, her voice broken.

“I’m here, baby.”

Carefully, Tyler gathered her against his warm body. She choked against the pain when he jostled her wrist, but finally he stilled. Ah, warmth.

“Paramedics are on the way,” Luc assured her, holding the phone to his ear. “Police, too. Peter is out cold.”

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Tyler demanded softly.

“H-he . . .” She wasn’t talking coherently between tears. “Rape—”

“Ah, damn . . . ” Tyler pressed his finger to her lips. “Don’t think about it now. It’s over.”

“Not again.” Her voice trembled, her insides shredding at the memories of Peter hovering over her, overpowering her, forcing his way inside her. “N-never again.”

Identical looks of shock and horror crossed Tyler’s and Luc’s faces as the edges of her consciousness began to turn black. The truth dawned on Luc’s tortured face. She closed her eyes, hating the fact he now understood her eternal shame.

LUC paced the emergency room’s waiting area. Three long hours, and not a word. Over and over in his head, he saw Peter restrain Alyssa’s struggling form with his larger body, the promise of violence on his face. For the hundredth time, Luc chastised himself for treating her so badly and letting her walk out of the bedroom alone. No matter how angry she’d been, how crushed he’d been, he should have followed her until she was safe. He hardly needed Tyler’s glare to tell him that. Instead, Peter had gotten to her and—

Luc sank into an uncomfortable green chair and buried his head in his hands. God, what had he done? Because of the way he’d behaved, she’d run from him—and straight into Peter’s trap.

In the anxious din of the ER’s waiting room, the automatic doors whooshed open, and in walked three familiar figures.

“Deke.” Luc rose and accepted his cousin’s handshake and hug. “What are you doing here?”

“After I got your call, I figured I was coming tomorrow anyway. I thought you could use the support. Jack insisted on tagging along.”

“Thanks for coming.” Luc stuck his hand out to Jack. “Especially at three thirty in the morning.”

Jack shook it. “Alyssa is my friend, too.”

And probably a former lover. Luc couldn’t let that matter now. Jack was happily married. Alyssa . . . Luc knew she wanted nothing more to do with him.

Taking a deep breath, he turned to the third man, Kimber’s older brother Hunter. To say the soldier had never been a fan of Luc’s was a gross understatement.

“How are you, Hunter?” He stuck out his hand.

Hunter Edgington stared pointedly at Luc’s outstretched hand until he dropped it. “Fucked up another woman’s life, huh?”

Luc sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. Hunter was right and had never been one to pull his punches.

Deke slapped Hunter on the back. “Come on, buddy. Now’s not the time.”

Mercifully, Hunter dropped the subject. “Who wants coffee?”

Jack was first with an “Amen to that.” Deke and Luc both accepted, and Hunter left them to their conversation.

“Any news out of the doctors yet?” Jack asked.

Luc shook his head.

“Tell me what happened.” Jack began to pace.

“This bastard who’d been stalking her, leaving her terrible notes, got her alone in her office. He attacked her. We don’t know if he succeeded in raping her, too.”

“Son of a bitch,” Deke spat.

“I hope they put him in County.” Jack smiled evilly. “If the boys down there find out he hurt their favorite entertainment, there’ll be hell to pay.”

Maybe that should have comforted Luc some, but it didn’t. He couldn’t shake a question that had been haunting him for hours.

“How long have you know Alyssa?” he asked Deke’s business partner and self-proclaimed Dominant.

Jack sighed as he clearly sifted through his memories. “About ten years. She started dancing at Sexy Sirens when it was called something else and owned by this bitch named Marquessa. You should have seen Alyssa. Even then, she could light up a room. I was still in the army and on leave when we met. I’d been helping a buddy track down the drug-dealing scum who’d been selling to his little brother in middle school. Apparently, he liked to drop his money on strippers. When Alyssa heard what I was up to, she tracked me down and volunteered to help. I knew she was good people then.”

Yeah, that sounded like something she would do, championing the underdog, helping where she could. Her life was far from perfect, but she still found ways and means to assist others. So damn admirable. Why hadn’t he focused on that, rather than on her profession and who else might be warming her bed?

Luc swallowed, wishing he didn’t have to find a way to get the next words out. “When we pulled this asshole off her, she was sobbing ‘not again.’ When was she raped previously?”

Jack recoiled. “Raped previously? Not in the last ten years. Alyssa and I are tight. She would have come to me, and even if she hadn’t, I would have found out. I know everyone down there. Someone would have spilled.”

Horror washed over Luc. “Ten years ago, she would have been, what? Eighteen? Nineteen?”

Jack grimaced. “Yeah.”

“Shit,” Deke muttered.

Someone had raped Alyssa as a teenager.

The scene with Peter, her in pain and helpless, played over and over in his head. Goddamn it.

Luc felt two inches tall. He’d treated her like dirt and judged her. All this time, he’d been thinking that she didn’t fit into his future and may not be good enough to play mother to “his” children . . . Truth was, he was no good for her.

Maybe Tyler had it right; none of this violence against her had materialized until he appeared. God knew, he hadn’t looked past her façade to really know the woman underneath until it was too late.

“Who’s family here?” the ER doctor, thirtysomething and harried looking, asked in a no-nonsense tone.

“No one,” Tyler answered. “She doesn’t have any family. I brought—”

“We brought her here.” Luc raced across the room and cut in.

Tyler shot him a hard look, then nodded. “We brought her in.”

Sadie, Jack, and Deke crowded around. The doctor barely glanced at the stripper’s brief silk robe and abundance of makeup.

“Ms. Devereaux suffered a mild concussion, multiple contusions, two cracked ribs, and a broken wrist.”

With every word out of the doctor’s mouth, Luc wanted to thrash Peter all over again. How did that rich little prick dare think he was entitled to hurt Alyssa?

Yet Luc wondered how he’d been different. He hadn’t hurt her physically, but he’d treated her as if her profession meant she had no heart, no feelings. He’d trampled all over her. Like Peter had. He was fucking slime.

“She went into shock in the ambulance,” the doctor continued. “But we’ve stabilized her. Nothing life threatening. She will fully recover with time. She’s sleeping now. We want to keep her overnight for observation. She’ll need a few days of bed rest.” He hesitated. “She’s refused a rape kit.”

“What?” If the rape kit would put Peter away, he wanted her to take it.

“She can’t do that,” Tyler put in.

The doctor cut a stare in his direction. “I tried to talk her into it. The vaginal area shows considerable signs of penetration and a cursory exam found traces of semen.”

Oh, shit! Luc cleared his throat. “Could be mine.”

“You had unprotected sex with the victim?”

Luc didn’t look at Tyler; he knew the bouncer was ready to hit him. Instead, he just nodded. “About ten this morning and again around eleven thirty tonight, just before the attack.”

“That complicates things. Unless she starts talking, I can’t say whether she’s been raped.” The doctor raked a hand through mussed brown hair. “If she changes her mind about the kit, I’m guessing the police will want you to leave a sample so we can rule out your DNA and see if there are traces of the suspect’s.”

Luc didn’t hesitate. “If she does, I’ll do whatever I can to help nail this bastard.”

“Well, he’s got his own laundry list of injuries, including a broken nose. He won’t be hurting anyone for a while.”

Luc couldn’t feel much triumph. A broken nose? That wouldn’t keep Peter from coming after Alyssa again. Only putting him behind bars for a long while would. All those notes the bastard had left her before attacking her would hopefully help put him away for ten to twenty.

“Can I see her?” Luc asked.

The doctor sent him an apologetic stare. “We gave her a sedative, and she’s asleep. Before that, she refused all visitors.”

Of course. She preferred to suffer in silence. And why would she want to see him?

Tamping down the pain, he turned to Tyler and Sadie. “While she’s recovering, can you keep the club going? She’ll worry herself sick unless she knows it’s being cared for.”

“Of course,” said the well-endowed brunette.

Tyler nodded. “Part of my job description.”

“I’ll take care of Bonheur through Wednesday. She’ll likely be back on her feet by then.” He turned to Jack. “Can you make sure she stays safe for me?”

The Cajun frowned. “You make it sound as if you’re leaving.”

“I’m leaving her alone.”

“The hell you say! She needs you now.”