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  “You can never have too much. ” She smiled.

  “Hmm. ” He looked as if he was fighting the urge to smile back. “What sort of flooring is this?” He stomped a boot on the surface.

  “Cork. Never slippery, easy to sweep or replace, and provides natural cushion for everyone’s feet. ”

  He finally turned to stare at her, the fact that he was impressed warming his features. “You planned all this by yourself ?”

  “Mostly. A bit of help from my contractor. Sexy Sirens has a few customers in the restaurant business, and I asked their advice. The rest . . . I did my homework. I wanted everything to be right. ”

  Something on his face changed, closed. His body tensed as his dark gaze skittered away. “You succeeded. ”

  Damn! What had caused the warmth on his face to chill? The mention of Sexy Sirens? Deke had told her once that she wasn’t Luc’s type because he was looking for a lady. Did his avoidance mean he saw her as one small step up from a whore?

  She raised her chin. Alyssa knew men. Even if Luc was loath to admit that she was his type, she knew she made his dick twitch. It was a start.

  Now he was all business again. “What time can you have the staff here tomorrow?”

  “Noon work for you?”

  “Perfect. ” He turned away.

  “You’ve already approved the menus. Anything else you need to see tonight?” She gripped the keys in her hand, wondering how to recover the mood they’d shared just minutes ago.

  Patience, she warned herself. Stick to the plan. The night was still young.

  LUC followed Alyssa to the restaurant’s empty parking lot. The ample lighting would make patrons feel secure. However, the illumination pissed him off because he could see every sway of her enticing hips as she sashayed to her car. It made him hard. Again.

  He’d driven his SUV from the strip club, mostly so he didn’t have to shut himself in a confined space with her, even for three blocks. He didn’t think he could be responsible for his actions for even that long. In Bonheur’s kitchen, the thought of laying her across one of those gleaming stainless steel counters and fucking her senseless gripped him by the throat. He should thank her for bringing up Sexy Sirens and the favors she’d likely had to give her loyal customers to obtain their advice. The thought made him grit his teeth and his dinner churn. His temper soar.

  Alyssa was a stripper, for fuck’s sake. Not the sort of woman who went without sex for two years. He’d been an idiot to believe that when she’d whispered the trembling lie as he’d tumbled her into bed three months ago. She was in the business of leading men around by their dicks. And she was good at it. He couldn’t be angry with her for being herself; she’d never pretended to be anything different. But he could—and should—be furious with himself for caring.

  Despite the lot being completely empty, he’d parked three spots from her. As he pressed his key fob to unlock the driver’s door, he watched her do the same with her black sports car. Luc fisted his hands. She’d go home now, lose that little black skirt, white tank, red bra, and fuck-me shoes. Even though she played no part in the future he craved, he itched to follow her home . . . help her out of every garment, sink down into that perfect, tight body.

  He swallowed. Keep your dick in your pants. Cook, shut up, and get the hell out of Lafayette. Seven days. Think you can find some self-control?

  A feminine shriek zipped across the lot, shattering his thoughts. Alyssa.

  Luc’s heart stuttered, and he nearly leapt over his car as he rushed across the asphalt. She backed away—right into his chest. He steadied her, palms cupping her bare shoulders.

  “What is it?” he demanded.

  Alyssa drew in a shuddering breath. “Bastards!”

  Before he could ask her who or what she meant, she reached into the interior and yanked on something. A moment later, she produced a long, serrated knife with a piece of paper attached. Under the streetlamps, it gleamed the word WHORE in bright red lipstick.

  Shock crested, then quickly morphed into molten fury. It was ironic; he’d been thinking something similar only moments ago. But he would never have said it aloud, much less stabbed it to the front seat of her convertible.

  “Who would do this to you?” His voice vibrated with rage.

  She tossed the knife into her front seat and cast him a wary stare over her shoulder. “Who knows?”

  Luc turned her to face him and clenched his jaw. “Who. Did. This. To. You?”

  His tone took her aback. “Look, it’s not new. Shit happens all the time. ”

  All the time? That only infuriated him more. Luc drew her closer as a thunderous frown stole across his face. She wasn’t afraid, and he was scared as hell for her. “What have the police said in the past?”

  “Police?” She shook her head. “This is just . . . a prank or a pissed-off customer who thought I didn’t pay enough attention to him, most likely. ”

  And whoever did this could also be dead serious. That blade was no laughing matter. “What if someone really sick wants to hurt you? How long has it been going on?”

  “Like I said, it happens. It’s been a while but—”

  “Get in my car. ” He was done allowing her to stand like a convenient target in a shadowy parking lot. He didn’t provide personal security detail like his cousin Deke, but he’d spent enough time with the man and his business partner, Jack Cole, to know that remaining out in the open could be deadly.

  “What?” She looked incredulous. “I’m not leaving my car here. ”

  “I’m driving you home. You’re calling the police and reporting the crime so they can investigate. ”

  Alyssa hesitated, then softened. “Luc. Your concern is really sweet, but—”

  “Get in the fucking car. ”

  She blanched, and he cursed under his breath. He needed to get control of his temper. But the soaring sexual frustration, coupled with his alarm, had him on edge. Who thought they had the right to malign and scare her? Fists curled, Luc craved a chance to pound the asshole.

  Alyssa sighed, and Luc readied his next argument, but she strolled toward his SUV. “Fine. ”

  He opened the door for her and watched her slide inside, the strands of her platinum hair settling over her shoulders. She looked somewhere between placid and reserved, despite the fact that she’d just been threatened. Was she out of her mind?

  Shaking his head, he dashed around to the driver’s seat. When he slid inside, she was already on the phone.

  “Sorry it’s late, Remy. I thought maybe I should call y’all. Someone messed with my car . . . ”

  Quickly and unemotionally, she relayed their location and the event. Luc heard murmurs of the other man’s conversation, his tone more good-ol’-boy than concerned, and he frowned. Didn’t anyone take this seriously?

  He grabbed the phone from her and spit out an introduction. “Dust for prints. She touched the weapon, but you may find other sets on the handle. Whoever did this broke into her car. ”

  “Doubt it was much more than a prank. Boys down here get a little rowdy from time to time—”

  “And stab the word ‘whore’ into her seat? That’s funny how?” Remy cleared his throat. “It’s not. But I don’t think no one meant no harm. ”

  Luc gritted his teeth together. “Do you usually solve all your cases before you visit the crime scene?”

  Finally, Remy got serious. “I’ll investigate. ”

  “Thoroughly. ”

  Alyssa grabbed the phone. “Thanks, honey. I appreciate it. ”

  When he ended the call, Luc could barely unclench his jaw as he sped away from the parking lot. “Honey? The man didn’t even want to investigate, and you call him ‘honey’?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a Louisiana thing. You’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar. ”

  “Yeah?” he challenged. “Or is it a ‘he’s-my-customer’ thing. Did he watch you strip tonight?”

  She
swallowed. “I asked all the local enforcement to come, including the sheriff. Keeps down the possibility of rowdies getting out of control and trashing the club. ”

  Luc gripped the wheel tighter as he peeled out of the parking lot. “So that’s a yes. ”

  Fighting the urge to hit something in an unusual show of temper, he took a deep breath. The night he’d spent with her, it had been easy to pretend she had no other lover. They’d been alone, her house quiet. No phone ringing, no customers nearby, no psychos leaving menacing “gifts” in her car. Just the two of them, and hours upon hours of pleasure. God, he’d been so damn gullible.

  She nodded. “Why does it matter if Remy and the boys were there?”

  The short answer was that it shouldn’t.

  “If you should be worried about anything,” she went on, “it’s your hotel room. At nearly four in the morning, Homer has likely given your room away to one of those tourists come around for the arts festival that starts tomorrow. ”

  He frowned. After everything that had happened tonight, she was worried about him? “I guaranteed that room with a credit card. ”

  A Mona Lisa smile played at the corner of her mouth. That quickly, she made his dick hard again. Damn, how did the woman do it?

  “Doesn’t mean a damn thing to him. I’m sure when you didn’t show up after the club closed, he figured your room was fair game. But if you don’t believe me, call him. ” She punched a few buttons on the phone and handed it to him.

  “You have the motel owner on speed dial?” He could think of only one reason why, and it horrified him. Did she turn tricks?

  Hell, he was going to throw up.

  “Out-of-town customers often need to sleep off their alcohol. Homer usually helps me out. ”

  Luc liked her explanation much better. But still, he wondered. Didn’t a lot of strippers earn extra cash on the side?

  As the phone rang in his ear, Luc turned to Alyssa. Her face was golden under the streetlights shining through the windows as he raced down the quaint redbrick street, toward a neighborhood of older, still elegant homes. Odd that he remembered exactly how to find her house, despite the fact he’d been here just once. The image of the little craftsman with the Zen interior was burned into his brain.

  Homer answered a moment later, muttering his words. Clearly, he’d been asleep and sounded none too happy about being awakened.

  “This is Luc Traverson calling to advise that I’ll arrive in a few minutes to check in. You still have my room?”

  The man on the other end cleared his throat. “Well, when you didn’t show, I thought . . . ”

  Luc waited, his temper rising again, for the motel’s owner to finish that thought. “Thought what? You’d give my room away?”

  “I waited until two thirty. You said you’d be here before midnight. Some road-weary folks came in with little ones and—”

  “Do you have another room?” He closed his eyes and pressed the phone to his ear.

  “Booked up. First time in a while, but this festival always brings ’em in. Some great zydeco bands playin’ this year. ”

  Luc resisted the urge to count to ten. “And tomorrow night?”

  “Don’t have a free room until Tuesday. Got a couple of those lousy chain hotels a few miles down the road . . . ” Homer said with obvious distaste. “Bet they’re booked up, too. ’Sides, I wouldn’t let my dog sleep there. They don’t clean nothin’. ”

  His head was going to explode. Luc was accustomed to traveling to cosmopolitan cities. He stayed at Hotel de Crillon when he traveled to Paris, the Dorchester in London, the Peninsula in Tokyo, the Beverly Wilshire in Los Angeles. The fact he’d been stiffed on a room at Homer’s Cajun Haven at four in the morning crawled on his last nerve.

  He hit the end button on the conversation. Instead of giving in to his urge to throw the phone, he stiffly handed it back to Alyssa.

  “You were right. ”

  “Thought I’d save you the drive out there, since I know Homer too well. ”

  And since he was, no doubt, another man who had seen Alyssa naked, Homer knew her awfully well, too.

  Luc sighed. He had to stop caring who’d seen her bare. He’d want to rip the heads off most of the male population of this town for the next week if he didn’t get himself under control. He’d fucked her for one night. What she’d done before—or after—was none of his affair.

  So why did it bug the hell out of him? And where was he going to sleep tonight?

  “I have an extra room at my place,” Alyssa offered quietly. “It’s clean and quiet and—”

  “I couldn’t impose. ” Because if he did, he’d get inside her again.

  Last time he’d spent the night in her body, he’d been insatiable. For six hours. Nothing had been too searing, too depraved, too intimate. She’d wrenched the sort of desire from him that burned him, shamed and elated him at once. He’d taken everything she offered, then more—then come back again. He’d fucked her in every way a man could, repeatedly. Bareback. Something he hadn’t done in more than a decade, except with Kimber.