Suddenly, she lifted her sultry blue gaze to him. “Need something?”

A loaded question. Yes! In fact, he feared he’d gone beyond wanting her to needing her.

Luc drew in a shaky breath. No. He just needed to get laid. His sex drive had finally reasserted itself after Kimber and Deke’s decision to become a couple—and exclude him. Alyssa just happened to be the first female in a fifty-foot radius.

Except . . . if he’d met her yesterday and she looked like she’d be the sort of mother he had in mind, he would have hustled her into bed and into a relationship as fast as he possibly could. He didn’t just want her; he was beginning to like her. And that made her all the more dangerous.

Nor did her pretty pink nipples, hard and bobbing on the water’s surface, help clear his thoughts.

“Alyssa, don’t do this to me.” God, he barely recognized his own voice. “Please.”

She raised a brow at him, dragged the loofah across one breast, over her nipple, licked her lips, and let loose a little whimper. Luc staggered back, gripping the doorknob. The silk that had rubbed against her pussy all day filled his hand. She was everywhere, frying his brain, searing his blood. This had train wreck written all over it, and his craving for her was about to jump the tracks.

“Do what? You’re in my bathroom.”

He fisted his hands and counted to ten, eyes closed. “Shut the goddamn door next time.”

“I’m used to living alone. If you don’t like the view, don’t come in.”

She was being intentionally obtuse.

Swearing, he opened his eyes. “If you don’t stop teasing me, you won’t like what happens next.”

Because he felt like a pressure cooker about to explode. What he’d done to her the last time he’d spent the night with her would look like gentle hand-holding compared to the need charging through his bloodstream. If he unleashed that on her, God help them both.

Alyssa merely sent him a calm, considering glance. “Then leave.”

He exhaled roughly and stared at the ceiling. “I’m trying.”

“Let me help you,” Tyler offered, his voice mere inches behind Luc.

As Luc turned, the bouncer shouldered his way in, drifting farther into the little bathroom. He moaned appreciatively at the sight of Alyssa bathing. “Damn, you look gorgeous, baby. Where’s a camera when I need it?”

“What the fuck are you doing in here?” Luc demanded. “Get out!”

Tyler glared over his shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been staying here since Homer gave my room away.” Luc crossed his arms over his chest. “How did you get in?”

The bouncer sent him a gloating smile. “I have a house key.”

Those five words jolted Luc. Yes, he’d suspected they were lovers, but this sealed the deal.

If Alyssa was going to let Tyler barge in and stay, Luc couldn’t remain here, knowing they were fucking—or worse, hearing them. Getting out was his only option.

Yet he couldn’t make himself walk out and leave her to share her bed with Tyler.

The other man reached around him and grabbed a towel off the rack and held it up. “Out you go. I need to see you.”

Alyssa speared him with an impatient glare. “Now?”

Tyler nodded. “I tried to call and tell you I was on my way.”

“I think I left my phone in Luc’s SUV. ” She sighed. “Can’t a girl get some peace?”

Despite her protest, Alyssa stood, water cascading down her golden skin, nipples beaded and dripping. The sight charged Luc’s need for her again. Turbo-juiced and on fire, his sex drive overloaded his good sense.

“Let’s go,” Tyler demanded.

“She stays with me,” he snarled.

Shaking her head, Alyssa sent him a smile of apology. “This must be urgent. Hopefully, Tyler and I won’t be too long.”

What was urgent? Tyler’s need to fuck her? Couldn’t be more urgent than his own.

Damn, Luc couldn’t believe that Alyssa had chosen the beefy caveman over him. After she’d been relentlessly tormenting him, nearly giving him a blow job mere hours ago? After more than hinting all day that she wanted him? She was giving Tyler her attention.

Alyssa stepped out of the tub and allowed Tyler to wrap the towel around her, draw her body against his. He slurped water off of her soft shoulder and groaned.

Motherfucking son of a bitch! Luc grabbed the door, barely resisting the urge to punch Tyler in the face.

Why hit the man because the woman they both wanted had chosen? If he should be angry with anyone, it was himself, for wanting her in the first place.

“Do whatever the fuck you want. Looks like you’re going to anyway.” Luc slammed the door and stalked out into the night.

NOT at all proud of himself, Luc stood across the street from Alyssa’s darkened house, whiskey bottle in hand, and waited. He’d been here for the past hour, and now that it was nearly four in the morning and he was well on his way to drunk and angrier than ever.

She’d chosen Tyler. Even now they were inside fucking like mad while he wandered the park, his proverbial dick in his hand, wishing like hell that he was in Tyler’s place. This, after Luc had turned her down more than once, fucking idiot that he was.

To make matters worse, he’d picked up a message from Emily earlier. Instead of being relieved to hear her voice, the high-pitched, happy-happy tone had been like a red-hot steel rod shoved through his brain. She’d invited him to a church picnic next weekend, and his first reaction had been dread.

What was the matter with him?

Alyssa Devereaux.

It had taken Tyler’s intrusion, Alyssa’s subtle rebuff, and his own intoxication to realize that maybe the best course of action was to fuck her and get her out of his system. Of course, that option wasn’t available just now since she was otherwise occupied.

Thank God he’d bought this bottle from Alyssa’s bartender after Deke’s visit.

What did Tyler do for her that got her off so satisfactorily? Was he an oral god? Was he exceptionally well hung? Luc made a face at the thought of Tyler’s man parts. The one thing he very much doubted was that Tyler could surpass his stamina. Luc knew he had the bouncer—and just about anyone else—beat at that game.

Not that he’d ever been proud of the fact he sometimes went into a sexual frenzy and didn’t emerge for hours . . . and didn’t ask a lover about her comfort or pleasure. He took and gave to her relentlessly until she was a slave to the clawing need. In his altered state, he lived for her fingernails in his back, her breathy pleas, and above all, her screams.

Suddenly, Alyssa’s porch light flipped on. The front door opened. Tyler stepped outside, and she emerged behind him, wearing a pale satin gown that flirted with her bare thighs, her hair spilling down her back like a shining beacon.

The bouncer reached the door of his truck, then turned. He cupped Alyssa’s shoulders, brought her against his big body, stroked the soft crown of her hair. She laid her head on his shoulder, looking perfectly comfortable in his arms.

Luc looked away and took another swallow of whiskey. The liquid crashed to the bottom of his stomach, burning. Or was his gut on fire because he kept playing the vision of Tyler fucking Alyssa over and over in his head?

No avoiding the truth now. Luc was so damn jealous he could hardly see straight. Wasn’t irony a bitch?

Alyssa straightened. Tyler murmured something, then kissed her forehead. She nodded—then stepped back.

Luc frowned. If they’d been burning up the sheets for the past hour, wouldn’t they part with a lingering kiss?

Finally, the other man hopped into his sleek black truck and drove off. Alyssa watched him turn the corner. Then she clapped eyes on his own SUV.

“Luc?”

Fuck. He should have left, driven off someplace so he didn’t have to see her with Tyler—and have her know that he’d been watching. But no, he’d been too busy drowning in alcohol and jealousy to think straight.

With a sigh, he pushed away from the tree, his gaze glued to her slender form, the breeze rustling her silky hair, her nipples poking the front of her shimmering low-cut negligee, the satin clinging to her hips.

Tyler had probably just crawled from between her thighs, and damn if Luc didn’t want to crawl between them himself. He wanted her so badly, he didn’t give a shit if he got sloppy seconds.

He was in so fucking deep.

Finally, he stepped into the streetlamp’s pool of light.

Alyssa gasped, then smothered the sound with her hand. She peered down at the bottle he clutched. “You’re drunk.”

Luc wished that were true. He shook his head. “Not for lack of trying.”

“Come inside the house and let’s get some sleep.” She turned for the front door.

He darted after her. Just inside the foyer, he grabbed her arm. “You have nothing else to say?”

She sent him a sharp glare. “No one asked you to leave.”

“So I was supposed to watch him maul you?” Luc slammed the door, enclosing them in shadowy silence. Then something terrible occurred to him. “Oh, hell, no. Did you want us both to fuck you? Together? Never going to happen. I may not have exclusive rights to you, but I won’t voluntarily share you ever again.”

Alyssa wrenched her arm free from his grip and slapped him. “Goddamn you! I’m so tired of you finding every snide, roundabout way possible to call me a whore. Just grow the balls and say it. C’mon! You think I fuck everything in pants.”

“Didn’t you have sex with Tyler just now?”

Her mouth tightened. Pain crossed her face for a moment—until fury took over. “Since you left, you’ll never know.”

She stepped into the living room and turned for the stairs. And Luc couldn’t stand it. He should let her go; this consuming sort of anger wasn’t normal, wasn’t him. But he couldn’t do it.

He lunged and grabbed her around the waist, hauling her against him. She’d know instantly how hard he was, but what the hell? He was perpetually hard around her. And if she hadn’t figured it out yet, he had more than a little clue for her.

“Did you let him fuck you tonight?”

Damn if his voice didn’t break. Luc didn’t want the answer to matter, but he was way past pretending it didn’t.

She struggled to get free, but he held firm. When she gave up, he turned her to face him.

“Did you?” he demanded.

“You don’t know a damn thing about me, and that question proves it. Even if I gave you the truth, you wouldn’t believe it. You want to hear that I went down on him in the bathroom, then we moved to the bedroom so he could suck my tits while I rode him, then after a reverse cowgirl, he finished me off from behind. That enough detail for you?”

Luc closed his eyes against the image her words painted. God, he was going to throw up Jack Daniels everywhere.

He tightened his grip on her. “Is that the truth?”

“Wouldn’t that make your life easier? You could quickly write me off. Oh, fuck me first, of course. Everyone else does, right? But then you could walk away because I’m nothing more than a whore. Well, you know what? Fuck you.” Alyssa elbowed him in the stomach.

Luc grunted and doubled over, clutching his middle, as he glared at her retreating back.

“Damn it, Alyssa! I . . .”

“You what?”

What had he been about to say? Did it really matter? He’d insulted her utterly—and he still didn’t know if he was right. He just knew that he had a terrible fear that if he let her go upstairs and into her bedroom alone, he might never have the chance to touch her again.

“I don’t know,” he finally admitted.

“You’re right!” she screamed. “You don’t know. You don’t know shit about me. Did you ever think there was a woman under all this makeup and provocative clothes who had real feelings that had nothing to do with sex? Did you ever think that maybe I wanted you to see me as something other than a stripper and an easy lay? That maybe you meant something to me?” She shook her head. “Of course not.”

Alyssa sniffed, then sobbed. The sound tore through Luc’s chest. Jesus, he never meant to hurt her. “I’m sorry.”

“Forget it. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Her words incited a panic he couldn’t fight. “Wait! I—”

“No.” She stepped back, away from him. “Forget it. I don’t get my car back from Remy until Wednesday, but I’ll have Tyler drive me around until then. I’ll get you a room with Homer in the morning. Shouldn’t be too hard since I paid him to give away your room to begin with.”

Oh, dear God. The bottom dropped out of his stomach, and he finally understood—too late. She’d wanted him to be with her. Spend time with her. See what was between them, sexually and otherwise. And he’d treated her with silent contempt. Like dirt. But even if he magically fell in love with her tomorrow, she didn’t fit into his future plans.