“You’ll give me everything, then give me more. For you, I’m going to be hard all afternoon. All evening. All night. I won’t stay out of you. I won’t leave any part of you untouched.”
“I won’t let you leave any part of me untouched,” she murmured, spreading her legs wider and lifting her hips to Luc.
His thumb raked across her clit slowly, repeatedly. Her ni**les stood up, blushed, begged as she tensed, thrashing her head from side to side.
“Luc!” She screamed his name. Her back arched, and she cried out in a long, wrenching climax.
At the sight of her, his cousin lost it—all semblance of normalcy, civility, restraint.
Deke knew exactly where this was headed. Alyssa was about to become real familiar with Luc’s dark side, thanks to one of his marathon sex sessions. She looked more than up to the challenge.
“Take everything,” Alyssa offered with a sultry blue gaze. “I’ll stay wet, keep you hard, give you more than you imagined possible.”
With a growl, Luc tore away Alyssa’s skirt, leaving her totally bare except for those sexy stockings and lacy garters. Luc’s chest heaved as he looked down at her.
His c**k tented his jeans, and he dived into the zipper, yanking on it viciously, clearly wanting the binding garment off. He pushed the denim down to his thighs, along with his underwear. As his c**k sprang free, he grabbed her hips, and prepared to thrust inside her.
Deke reached into his pocket and extracted a condom.
“Luc.”
His head snapped up. Wild dark eyes. Feral. Unfocused. Indomitable. Quickly, Deke handed the little foil square to his cousin. He laid another handful on the table. Luc gave a shaky nod and ripped into it, racing to get it applied. Alyssa tilted her head back and sent Deke a smoky look.
Maybe it was an invitation. Maybe not. He didn’t care.
Instead, Deke stood and wandered to the front door. He paused long enough to see Luc position himself over Alyssa, the bulge of his strong arms pinning her to the buttery sofa as she curled her legs around his hips in welcome and smiled. He shut the door behind him, in search of the nearest bar, as the first female moans rent the air.
“What’ll you have?” A saucy smile in a tight pair of short shorts greeted Deke.
“Whiskey double. No rocks. Bring me two of them.” The bark in his order must have communicated to her. She clicked her heels together and hustled off. He prayed she came back quickly so he could get on with getting drunk and dissecting his f**ked-up life.
The little waitress wasn’t gone long before she returned with his order and a bowl of pretzels. He shoved those aside and gulped down his first drink. The burning path of the alcohol blazed down his throat, to his stomach. Fire exploded, heavy warmth seeped through his veins, and he welcomed it. How else could he reconcile the fact he’d just turned down the chance to f**k Alyssa Devereaux because he only wanted a woman who was never coming back to him?
From the pocket of his jeans, he withdrew the scrap from this morning’s paper.
McCall’s smug smile taunted him from the black-and-white image. Kimber stood under the singer’s arm, looking up at him. What was that expression? Adoration?
Excitement? Did it matter?
No. But Deke wondered how the hell she could look at him with such tenderness in her eyes and offer herself so sweetly, then agree to marry someone else three weeks later.
The only available answer stabbed him in the heart. She hadn’t loved him. She’d offered herself out of pity, nothing more.
Unfortunately, no matter how much he denied it to Luc, Deke knew he’d fallen hard for Kimber. He’d always wanted her, even when she’d been seventeen, and he’d known better. Even three weeks ago, when she’d been naked and giving under him, he’d known better. And he almost hadn’t cared. But he’d listened to his fear and done the sane thing. The right thing.
Now, she was gone.
At the moment, Deke wished very much that he’d been reckless and given into the hot lava of need thundering in his veins, urging him to take her and make her his. Then she’d be in bed with him and Luc right now, wrapped around him, taking the hard drive of his c**k and answering with her cries. And he wouldn’t be in a bar in Lafayette, horny and hurting and wondering how she could marry a jack off like McCall. Wondering what to do without her.
What if Kimber had stayed? What if the worst had happened? No, not if; when. If she had stayed, it would have happened. Luc would have insisted. How would she have handled it?
Deke grabbed his second drink and tossed it back. Only when his mind was slightly fuzzy did he allow himself to think about Heather. Complicated. Barely sixteen. Sparkling when life made her high and beyond consolation when life kicked her. Often, she’d shown both emotions in the same day. Deke had tried to keep up.
But to someone whose life was one giant bundle of feelings, who believed that all of them should be experienced and expressed, none filtered—he’d just basked in her bright persona. In the end, that volatility had been her undoing.
He slammed his drink back to the table and signaled for his check. Saucy Smile brought it, took his money, and sashayed away.
Feeling like an old man at twenty-nine, Deke stood and stepped out into the evening air. Humid. Breezy. Summer enveloped him in its cloying fragrance. Pain crushed his insides.