And the memories of that incredible night with Alyssa were fraying his self-control.

“No imposition. I have the room; you need a bed.”

She laid a soft hand over his as it gripped the gearshift. Her touch seized him clear down to his balls, igniting his blood.

“Besides,” she murmured. “Maybe . . . you’re right. If what happened tonight isn’t a prank, then I’d feel better not to be alone. Do you mind?”

Yes. Very much. But he’d be every kind of a bastard if he said no.

He sent her a tight smile. “It will be my pleasure.”

HE was lying through his teeth. Then again, so was she. She’d paid Homer very handsomely to give Luc’s room away and she doubted that, despite the prank, anyone would try to hurt her tonight.

As Luc’s SUV whipped down Lafayette’s dark streets, exhaustion should have been weighing on her. Instead, she was filled with anticipation. She was finally going to be alone with the man she most wanted, in her house, where he’d made mad love to her before. Too bad Luc wasn’t happy about it.

He was a puzzle. The lust in his eyes was unmistakable. Hell, every time he looked her way he damn near burned her. But his contempt wasn’t hard to piece together. So his anger that someone else thought she was a whore intrigued her.

“If it’s not a prank, who would stab such a note to the seat of your car?”

Sadly, the list was long. “Luc, let’s wait and see what Remy comes back with.”

“No.” He flashed her an impatient stare. “If whoever did this drops by while you’re sleeping, I’d like to have some idea who I’ll be dealing with.”

“Don’t worry too much. If I thought I was in serious jeopardy, I’d call Tyler. Or Jack Cole. He and your cousin are the best, and he’s an old friend. Because of him, the house has a top-of-the-line security system.”

Luc ground his jaw. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “I said I’d keep you safe tonight and I will. Answer the question.”

He wasn’t letting this go, and that gave Alyssa hope. Maybe he cared, at least a bit. Even if it was against his good sense and his will.

“First, just about any jealous wife or girlfriend who doesn’t like the amount of time her man spends in my club. That’s common.”

“Knives aren’t usually a woman’s style.”

No. She’d had her tires deflated, her house egged, more ugly notes than she could count. Scorned women usually annoyed and rarely disturbed.

“What about past lovers?” He pinned her with a burning stare. “Current ones?”

She closed her eyes. Naturally, he’d assume there were many of both. She’d been down this road; it shouldn’t hurt. But damn, it did. “The night you spent with me, I told you there hadn’t been anyone in two years. There’s been no one since you.”

Luc shook his head, looking as though a hundred different thoughts blazed through it. “Alyssa, you could be in danger. I need you to be completely honest.”

Jerking around in her seat, she faced him, trying to keep a lid on her temper. “I have been honest. Just because you don’t believe me doesn’t make me a liar.”

“C’mon,” he growled. “Not a customer who wanted just a bit more after seeing your gorgeous breasts naked? Not a contractor who did you a favor and wanted something in return?”

Anger seized her, gripping her chest in a steely fist. “I don’t roll that way.”

He hesitated. “So you didn’t agree to fuck me three months ago so you’d have a guest chef this week?”

No, I was willing to say anything because I wanted you so badly . . . and hoped you’d want me back. And not for anything would she wear her heart on her sleeve now. He’d left her before dawn and pawned her off with flowers. Now he’d all but intimated she was a whore.

But if there was one thing she knew, it was men. He felt something for her. Her mission was to make it more.

“You were different.”

“Of course.” He snorted as he stopped at a red light.

Alyssa had had enough of his shit. She grabbed his chin and turned him to face her. “Maybe I was simply stupid enough to believe all your Southern gentleman charm and wanted to know what it was like to have sex with someone who didn’t see me as a prostitute. Silly me. You were definitely more hard-core than anyone I’ve had, way more than your white-bread exterior suggests. You roll out that sort of red carpet for every woman?”

He tore away from her grip and clutched the steering wheel even tighter. He exhaled harshly, clearly trying to restrain his temper. So his behavior that night was a sore spot? Maybe he hadn’t wanted to want her and was mortified that he had. And still did.

“I asked you about lovers. I’ll take you at your word that you hadn’t had one in two years prior to me.”

“But you don’t believe me.”

“What about current lovers? Tyler?”

None of his fucking business. As far as she was concerned, this conversation was in the toilet. Logic told her to retire her stupid happily-ever-fantasies about Luc. He hadn’t made love to her with such fervor because he felt the pull between them. He’d done it because she’d been his first real walk on the wild side and being bad flipped his switch. They probably should just have sex and not bother with emotions.

But her heart didn’t want to give up.

“Tyler would never try to kill me. Whoever did this tonight isn’t someone who’s been in my bed. It’s someone who’s pissed at me.”

He sent her a considering shrug, then took off as the light turned green. “Like who?”

“The kid who barged through the crowd tonight to kiss me. Peter. I don’t even know his last name. He started coming around about six months ago. Real regular. Daddy is rich, and he drops a lot of money at the club. Seems to think that entitles him to special perks.”

“You’ve advised him otherwise?” Even Luc’s voice was dangerously tense.

“Absolutely. Tyler has made it perfectly clear as well. We’ve kicked him out, let him know his advances aren’t welcome. But nothing fazes this kid.”

Luc gripped the steering wheel even tighter. “He ever call you a whore?”

Alyssa shook her head. “He’s usually real graphic about what he wants—nasty, dirty shit—but has never resorted to name calling. That’s Councilman Primpton’s speed.”

“A city councilman? An elected official calling you a whore?”

How naïve was Luc? “Of course. His voting base is very conservative, so if he shut Sexy Sirens down, he’d be their hero. Even some middle-of-the-road folks would be thrilled to see me go. That’s been Primpton’s mission since he got elected eighteen months ago. The attempts started small, but with his reelection coming up, he’s been applying more pressure.”

“How?”

“Protesting in front of the club, scathing editorials in the local paper about the den of sin in the city’s backyard and the ‘trash’ who runs it. Recently, he collaborated with a reporter to wear a wire and solicit me for sex.” She snorted. “I can shove a lot of four-letter words into ‘no.’ ”

Finally, they pulled up in front of her house. She hopped out and motioned for him to wait in the car. Juggling her keys, she unlocked the front door, unset the alarm, then ran around to the garage door and hit the button to open it. Luc drove in, then climbed out of the car, duffel bag in hand. He looked tense and nervous.

“I thought it would be better if you parked in the garage. Don’t want anyone vandalizing your SUV or wagging their tongues. Come in.”

He nodded, his stare glued to her. Alyssa closed the garage door behind them. She’d give anything to know what Luc was thinking. His tense demeanor and unflagging erection told her it was probably ways to avoid having the sex with her he knew he shouldn’t want but desperately did. And after tonight’s interrogation, she was in the mood to make him suffer.

Chapter Three

LUC shut the bedroom door behind him, breathing hard. It wasn’t the climb up Alyssa’s stairs that caused his respiratory distress; it was watching her in front of him. The short black skirt that hugged her ass. Those sexy red garters he had a flash of now and then. The hint of her bare cheeks visible with every step.

Damn it, he wanted to fuck her so badly he could hardly see straight. But messing with Alyssa was like dabbling in recreational drugs—stupid and potentially addicting.

Last week, he’d had his third date with Emily, a first-grade teacher at the local elementary school in Tyler, Texas. It had gone well. Sweet, hazel-eyed, and dimpled, she liked country music, couldn’t stand profanity, and had great relationships with her family and pastor. A perfect wife. A perfect stay-at-home mother, just like his own. That’s what he wanted. He needed to stay focused on her—and stay away from Alyssa this week.

Then never see the sexy stripper again.

Once inside Alyssa’s guest room, he drew his cell from his pocket and thumbed his way down his contact list. Emily’s name was there. He desperately needed the fortification of hearing her sweet, high-pitched voice, but it would be rude to wake her up at four thirty in the morning. She’d ask questions he couldn’t answer. Instead of turning the conversation toward her school kids or her activities with the church, Luc feared what he’d say. Alyssa had scraped him so raw, he doubted he could exercise the verbal control necessary to deflect Emily’s questions. The demands of his dark side juiced his bloodstream. Everything inside him screamed for a hard, pounding fuck.

So he was on his own.

Shower. He needed one desperately. Hot water dousing his skin, spray pelting his body, deep breaths . . . coming down off the lust high so he could sleep.

And not think about the sexy vixen lying in her bed less than fifty feet from him.

Grabbing his pajama pants from his bag, he made his way down the hall, toward the darkened bathroom. Soft light spilled down the hallway from her bedroom. Ignore it, he told himself. But when he turned for the bathroom and groped for the switch, he couldn’t resist a peek over his shoulder at Alyssa’s slightly ajar bedroom door.

And her very visible, delectable leg bathed in golden light.

Luc sucked in a breath as a million images of her in that bed bombarded him. Her arms and legs wide-open to him, her husky taunts and whispered encouragements drowning out logic. God, her mouth on his cock had been the most amazing experience . . . until he’d worked his way into her tight pussy and damn near lost his mind. Then she’d topped that by allowing him into that delectable ass, and he’d sunk into her with barely leashed abandon, amazed by the fit and feel of her. And the fact she opened herself completely to whatever he wanted for six undivided hours. No one had ever affected him that much before. Or since.

So being in the house with her now was as dangerous as bathing in gasoline before dancing around a bonfire.

Suddenly, she twisted on the bed. The perfect view he’d had changed as she moved her leg to the side, allowing him an unimpeded view of her taut calf and inner thigh.

A few inches to her left and, if she’d ditched her panties, he’d see every spectacular bit of her wet flesh. Even now, his mouth watered as he remembered the addicting taste that had kept him coming back to her again and again.

Alyssa moaned. Then thrashed again.

Holy shit, is she—?

“Yes!” she cried out, then gasped to catch her breath.

Masturbating. Hell.

Go in the bathroom. Shut the door. Stay the fuck away. The litany of good advice ran through his head, and he sucked in a harsh breath, trying to force himself to hear it over the pounding of his heart and the blood rushing to his cock.

“Oh, yes!”

Her hoarse, broken whisper fried his blood in his veins. He had to see her. Had to. Yes, she was bad for him, and he didn’t want to be one of the many in her bed. But the woman was temptation personified. He’d never seen another woman more equipped to lead a man into sin.

Just one step . . .

Luc left his pajama pants on the bathroom counter and moved closer to Alyssa’s bedroom, wincing when his jeans chafed his erection. But one step was enough to bring only her hip into view. Lovely, but he wanted to see her self-pleasure. How she was doing it, how seriously she pursued it, how her body bowed when ecstasy hit.

Damn, he felt like a sick bastard, but no way could he stop.

Another step closer, then a third, until he was hovering just behind the crack in her door.

Then he got an eyeful that lit him on fire. Alyssa wearing nothing but her red garters, sheer hose, and fuck-me shoes. She gripped her breast in one hand and, with the other, dove into her very wet folds.

Luc staggered back, gripping the wall beside him for support. And he stared. Flames engulfed his balls, licked his cock. Fuck, fuck, fuck . . .

Alyssa’s fingers fluttered around her clit. Moisture gushed. Her thighs tightened, her back arching. He panted, glued to the sight. Seared.