For some reason, Deke would not engage her sexually without Luc in the room.
And judging from Luc’s lack of surprise, she didn’t think this was a new development. Which implied that he had hang-ups unrelated to virgins, but to sex in general.
Kimber heard the clink of pipes that signaled the shower running in Luc’s bathroom, and she knew he wasn’t coming back, not quickly enough to intercede.
She was flying blind in a situation that was clearly touchy for Deke. And she was going to have to wing it.
“Take a deep breath,” she suggested. “We can wait for him to come back or continue as we were. Your call.”
“Don’t touch me right now. You’ll be sorry if you do.” Between his tight jaw and ground-out words, Kimber believed him. He was riding a razor-thin edge of control. One move the wrong way and he’d snap.
Just this morning she’d believed she was too tomboyish to seriously arouse Deke.
He’d quickly proved her wrong and made her feel both alive and feminine in the process. Amazing the perspective a few hours and a little conversation could give a person.
Unfortunately, none of that helped her now.
“I’m in better control of myself than this morning. We can work this out. I’ll say no if things get too hot.”
His hands slid into her hair, his fists gripping her. Indecision and craving warred on his tight face. His harsh breaths fell across her cheek. “Kitten, you just don’t know all the reasons that’s a bad idea.”
“Then tell me the reasons. Maybe I can help.”
His fists tightened in her hair. His tawny brows slashed down over eyes so blue, they nearly looked black. Torture. The emotional kind. It was all over his expression.
“Despite the fact I’ve been a total ass**le to you, you still offer to help me. If I was a better man—” He stopped, apparently not wanting to finish that train of thought.
“You can’t help, kitten. I dug my own grave twelve years ago.” And he’d buried himself emotionally ever since. He didn’t say that, but Kimber knew it. He wouldn’t come without Luc in the room for the same reason he engaged in ménages, she’d bet. Something had happened to him as a teenager that had changed everything.
“Tell me what happened.”
He scoffed and looked at her as if she’d lost half her brain. “A regurgitation of the past is not going to change a thing.”
“Maybe it will. I’ve had time alone with Luc. I want some with you, just you. But this… thing is between us.”
“It always will be. If a small army of therapists couldn’t erase the problem, you sitting there in nothing but a f**k-me skirt and listening to me talk about my past isn’t going to ‘fix’ me. You’ll only be tempting me to take what I know I shouldn’t, and as heavenly as sinking down deep into you would be, it won’t raise the dead.” She didn’t understand his reference at all, but quickly grasped that somehow, somewhere along the way, sex and death had tangled together, and he felt responsible, like some Greek tragedy. Luc had been his watchdog and crutch since.
With a curse, Deke shoved his c**k back in his jeans, yanked up his zipper, and made for the door.
“Stop!” Kimber cried, without even knowing what she would say, what she even could say.
For a moment, she swore he would keep going. But he turned back.
“What?” He whispered the word, almost as if all the shouting of the last few minutes had never been.
Kimber stared straight up into his tormented gaze. Grief and guilt swirled together on his face to create a picture of total misery. He needed someone to care, someone to hold.
Someone to give him a second chance.
She swallowed hard but never looked away as she pinned him with a solemn gaze and lay flat on her back. She lifted her skirt and parted her legs slightly, then let her hand drift up her abdomen to rest on her breast.
Those blue eyes flared to life, and she smiled.
“Make love to me.”
Four words. That’s all it took for Kimber to wrap around his c**k and squeeze.
She did the same thing to the murky feelings inside his chest he’d been battling all evening.