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 ni**les 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.”