“I don’t mind. Shoot.”

“Okay”—He shrugged—“Yesterday, when Luc and I had you naked and spread across our kitchen counter with our mouths on your—”

“Stop!” she gasped, feeling furious heat dash up her cheeks.

The brother whose name she couldn’t remember chuckled in her ear. Deke smiled smugly. Bastard! He’d come to fight dirty and had gone straight for the jugular. Why hadn’t she seen that coming?

“She belong to you and Luc?” Adam asked Deke.

“Yes.”

“Hell no!” she blurted at the same time.

That muscle in Deke’s jaw began working again. “Come outside with me so we can discuss this.”

Did the man just not know when to quit? “I don’t belong to you and your cousin, I’m not coming near your kitchen counter again, and I’m certainly not going outside with you.”

“I came here to say something I think you want to hear.”

“I’m not interested in being just another wet hole to you, and I’m too pissed to care.”

One second, Deke stood two feet away, not touching any part of her. A blink later, he crowded in and hovered toe-to-toe with her, one arm around her waist, the other tangled in the hair hanging halfway down her back.

“I’m not going to ask again. Come outside and talk with me or I’m going to find the nearest chair, pull that little skirt up over your ass, and spank your pretty cheeks red with the entire crowd watching.”

Kimber didn’t waste the breath necessary to say, “You wouldn’t.” She knew better.

Irritation poisoned her thoughts. He was a high-handed SOB. Even as she thought it, though, her belly fluttered with something… No, that could not be arousal.

“You have no right.”

He shrugged. “I’ll sure enjoy it.”

Adam shoved his way between them. “As much as I’d like the view, there’s no violence or nudity in the club, y’all. You’ll have to take it outside.” She whirled on him, jaw dropping. The jerk was letting her go and feeding her to the wolves all in one sentence? Figures the men would stick together.

“You know what? Go screw yourselves—all of you. I’m going home.” The Catrell brothers laughed. Blood raging with fury, she stormed toward the exit.

Assholes, the lot of them! And she wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Deke would leave it at that. He was following her; she felt him about two steps behind.

Damn the man.

As she reached the club’s door, the music started up again. Kimber found the biggest, meanest bouncer of the trio clustered around the door and smiled his way.

“Can you escort me to my car? I’m being followed.” She sent a nasty glare over her shoulder at Deke.

“Aw, honey,” Deke crooned and wrapped an arm around her. “Don’t be mad.” Before she could tell him where to shove his comment and inform the bouncer that he was an annoying stranger, deranged stalker—something—Deke hauled her against him, dropped his head, and trapped every furious word on the tip of her tongue with a blistering kiss.

She struggled, but within moments, all she knew was Deke. Warm male, ripe with persuasion, soaked in sin, invaded her senses. His mouth coaxed her. Kimber resisted. She really tried. Despite the fury swirling through her, Deke incited a familiar leap of pulse, a surge of want, that doused her protests. With a brush of his lips, a slow caress of tongue, the soft slide of his palm down her back, he enveloped her in desire—and not just hers. His own was so tangible, she tasted the tang of his arousal on her tongue.

His kiss melted her with the restrained urgency of his own need, softened into a tangle of lips, breaths, and tongues she would never have imagined Deke Trenton capable of. Timeless, weightless, thoughtless, Kimber let herself float away into the heart-racing, heat-pooling power of his kiss.

Until he nipped at her lip, soothed it with a tender lick, then slid a soft brush of his mouth over hers. Without thinking, she leaned into him, seeking more kisses, more contact, more him.

Deke grabbed her shoulders. “I’m sorry about yesterday. Come home with me, kitten.”

“Have a good night, y’all,” said the bouncer with a teasing smile.

While she tried to think of a good comeback, Deke took her hand and led her outside, into the humid summer night. A car spilled into the parking lot, headlights bobbing up and down on the dirt road, and cruised to the far end. Somewhere near, a pair of frogs croaked to one another. Crickets sang and mosquitoes buzzed as the parking lot’s halogens combined with the full moon to rain silvery light down on them.

Now that Deke’s persuasive mouth wasn’t obliterating rational thought, Kimber rolled her eyes at her stupidity. Damn it, she hadn’t intended to heel after Deke kissed and stroked her. She may as well have been doing her own imitation of a bitch in heat. Well, she’d wanted to leave, anyway. Now was her chance.

She fished into the hidden pocket of her skirt for her car keys. “Okay, I’m not staying with the Catrell brothers. You got your little way. Happy?” A sly smile quirked up the side of his mouth. Before she could wonder what mischief he was up to, Deke snaked out a hand and snatched the keys from her fingers. They disappeared deep into the pocket of his jeans. The only way to get them back was to slide her hand into his pants. Lovely. Considering the erection bulging the front of his jeans, she didn’t think he’d be at all opposed to having her hands fishing around in his pockets—or anywhere else down there.

“No, now I’m getting my way,” he said, patting her denimcovered keys. “Now you’re not going anywhere until we finish this chat.” Kimber sighed with frustration. “Look, you high-handed son of a—”

“Hang on before you start name-calling. I’ve come here to offer you my help. If you still want it.”

She paused. Did he mean what she thought he meant? “You came here to say that you’ll teach me about sex? You and Luc?”

He paused, not looking terribly happy. “Yeah.”

Relief or irritation—they ran a close race for her reaction. Relief eventually won, since she wasn’t going to win Jesse’s heart without an education. Letting the Catrell brothers teach her, despite how willing they’d seemed, wasn’t something she wanted.

But she wasn’t about to let Deke know that. “Maybe it’s too little, too late.”

“You didn’t look too comfortable with Adam and Burke.” So uncomfortable that she’d blocked out the older brother’s name apparently.

“Who cares? Not me, since you purposely tried to scare me off the other day.” Deke chuckled. “Figured that out, huh?”

“I’d have to be a moron not to. You would never have talked to me like that when you worked for my dad.”

“No.”

Kimber snorted. “You would never even have thought about me in a sexual context if I hadn’t come knocking on your door.” He stilled. “You’re naïve if you believe that.”

Who was he kidding? Kimber frowned. Big, bad special ops man turned bodyguard couldn’t have thought about her sexually before Luc had invited her into his kitchen.

“Oh, c’mon,” she scoffed. “Before yesterday, you never imagined doing the wild thing with me. I was what, eighteen? Nineteen?”

“Seventeen.” His lips twisted in a grim smile. “And a half. And everything that ran through my head back then was illegal in every state, Kimber. My thoughts haven’t changed. I’m just damn glad I won’t go to jail for acting on them now.” Deke looked serious. Dead serious, with those dark blue eyes burning her.

“All those years ago, you wanted to…”

“Fuck you? Oh, yeah. And anything else you would have let me do. I wanted you.

Bad.”

Kimber sucked in a shocked breath. Oh my God… She sent a long stare toward the obvious erection about to burst out his zipper. “So you still want me?”

“Haven’t I already said that?”

She licked her bottom lip. As his hot gaze zeroed in on the action, her belly clenched, her nipples tightened. Fantasy flashed her a vision: Deke leaning over her, sliding into her with hard insistence. She’d come under her own fingers last night to that mental picture. Heat flooded her cheeks. It made no sense, being aroused by a guy who was nothing more than a tutor to her. Temporary insanity, she supposed. Stress after a hectic school year or lingering adolescent curiosity. It would pass. But suddenly, a few things made sense.

“So you wanting me, that’s why you barely talked to me when you worked for Dad.”

“Yeah.”

“And the reason you’ve changed your mind about my…favor.”

“In part. The other part was Luc. He nearly tore the skin off my back with his sharp tongue.”

“Because he didn’t want you talking to me like that?” He nodded. “And because he wants you as badly as I do.”

“And you tried to scare me off because you think I’m in over my head.” Deke nodded. “I still do. But as Luc reminded me, you’re an adult.”

“I have been for some time now. I have my own place. I’ve put myself through nursing school. I’m not underage, and I’m not an idiot.”

“I’m not convinced you really understand what you’re getting yourself into, but it’s your life.”

Kimber gnawed on her bottom lip, suspecting that he was right. She understood—in an abstract way—what being involved in a ménage a trois would mean. She’d read an erotic book this morning and found herself aroused by the story of one woman loved by two men totally devoted to her pleasure. What redblooded woman wouldn’t be?

But, despite what Deke had said about emotion easily not being a factor in a ménage, Kimber knew better. Already she felt a tug toward Deke that made no sense. Probably because she’d always been curious about him. He’d repelled her as much as he’d compelled her back in those days. The bigger factor was Jesse. She really missed him after his nearly four-year absence. Even though they didn’t look alike, she was probably using Deke as a subconscious substitute. That, and Deke had already done more to her sexually in fifteen minutes than Jesse had in years.

Kimber sighed.

“I’m also not convinced that Jesse McCall is the right guy for you.” Deke would think that. To Mr. Practical here, she would look like a groupie chasing a star, like a teenybopper with some silly adolescent, happily-ever-after fantasy. He couldn’t possibly understand how her relationship with Jesse had grown and evolved in the last few years through faithful e-mail and telephone conversations.

Kimber shrugged, trying not to be annoyed. “You’re entitled to think that. But like you said, it’s my life.”

“It is, and you want to learn about ménage. So here’s the deal,” he went on. “Come back to the house. Stay with us for two weeks. We’ll show you what you need to know.”

Relief slid through her. She’d won. It was tempting to tell Deke to shove it, but her pride wasn’t going to solve her issue with Jesse. He’d insisted she couldn’t be what he needed, was too innocent for his lifestyle. She was going to prove him wrong by learning everything. It was the only way to secure a future with the man she adored.

And despite the crappy way Deke had acted yesterday, she knew he was a man of his word. He would teach her everything necessary. Still, she had questions about his plan…

“Stay with you? As in move in for two weeks?”

Deke nodded. “Part of learning to deal with a ménage is satisfying two horny men. Sex with two men at once isn’t easy. Some men also have individual demands they’ll want you to fulfill. Some guys are partial to morning sex. Others to midnight sex or anything in between. You’ll have to learn to deal with two sets of demands.” His explanation made sense. Two men would definitely be more taxing than one.

Odd to be thinking about having sex multiple times a day when she’d never had sex at all, but this was Jesse’s reality.

“Let me guess, Luc is a midnight man. Your favorite time for sex is in the morning.”

Deke shook his head. “Luc is a morning man. My favorite time for sex is every time Luc is in the mood and you’re willing. I won’t fuck you alone. Ever.” Like before, he was totally serious. He wouldn’t have sex with her if Luc wasn’t there and participating. What was that about? His face gave away nothing, but his expression was too empty, almost painfully blank. Was he trying to hide something? With Deke, who knew?

“Anytime I say yes, you’ll want to…?”

Lust glowed bright and blue from his eyes. “If Luc is ready and you say yes to us both, I’ll be there.”

The suggestion of his words created a heady, melty feeling that swirled delicious heat through her and settled a dangerous ache right between her legs.