Luc shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Shit, this wasn’t going well. “Look, I’m sorry for what I did to you—”
“You’re sorry for making me orgasm so many times I lost count? I’ve got to hear the reason for this.”
How the hell could she not get it?
Raking a stiff hand through his shoulder-length hair, he growled, “Damn it, I was in a frenzy. I plowed into you. I couldn’t possibly have been gentle or considerate. And I apologize. I’m sure I didn’t ask your permission before I . . .” God, he couldn’t even talk about having anal sex with her without getting hard as concrete again. “It just wouldn’t be a good idea if I stayed.”
Alyssa pulled the lapels of her little jacket together in a useless attempt to cover her breasts. All she did was provide better shots of cleavage. And give him a harder cock.
“Did I seem like I minded that night?”
He swallowed. “Don’t you understand? You probably begged me to stop. And I didn’t. I don’t remember hearing you. If I stay this week, I can’t guarantee that I won’t lose my head again. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m not made of glass,” she assured him, her whisper shivering right down his spine.
“There’s someone else.” Sort of.
Three dates didn’t constitute a relationship. Looking at Alyssa’s lush features and centerfold body, Luc could not summon up a vision of Emily’s face to save his life. But he was going to marry her. Or someone like her. Alyssa simply wasn’t the kind of woman he could see willingly playing mommy when he finally found a way to become a dad.
“Kimber? Still having ménages with your cousin and his wife?”
No, and he’d never go down that path again, but admitting that to Alyssa would only make her more determined. “Does it matter?”
She shook her head. “Whoever she is, I hope she can understand that you’re here to do a job. I can put the past behind me and focus on work if you can.”
Luc’s hungry gaze skimmed down her body. “You haven’t touched me, and I’m already unfocused.”
He stormed across the room, grabbed her hand, and fitted it over his aching cock. Instantly, it was better—and worse. God, he wanted her to move on him, strip him bare, put his cock inside her mouth, her body.
Before he got carried away, he pulled her hand away. “You’re a very sexy woman, and I am not myself around you. I can’t stay.”
Alyssa drew in a deep breath, and her chest expanded. Hell, he didn’t need to see that. But he couldn’t walk away as she slipped off the edge of her desk and sidled closer. “First, for your concern to be valid, I’d have to say yes to sex with you. Today, I haven’t. Don’t assume I would tomorrow, either. Second, you came to me three months ago, remember? In exchange for hooking up with you and your cousin, you’d cook for me during opening week. Even though Deke left before things got hot, I lived up to my end of the bargain.”
“You more than lived up to your end. It’s one reason I can’t not think about you and sex in the same sentence.”
In an attempt to show his cousin Deke that his now-wife was the perfect woman for them, Luc had arranged a threesome with himself, his cousin, and Alyssa. It had backfired on Luc. Deke left before the party started, which Luc had expected. What he hadn’t anticipated was needing every sort of sex he could think of with the strip club owner—repeatedly.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’ll send you someone else who’s totally qualified.”
“I’ve already publicized the fact you’ll be here. I have a year’s worth of work and my entire savings riding on this place. I’d rather not have this restaurant fail and force me to dance around a pole again for a living. You gave me your word, and I trusted you. Are you really going to bail on me?”
Chapter Two
MUSIC pounded through Luc’s ears. As the closing notes thumped and Alyssa struck a suggestive pose around the stripper pole wearing a thong—and nothing else—Luc’s steel-hard cock stiffened again, now bordering on pain.
The moment the music died, the all-male crowd, squeezed into the upscale club, erupted into thunderous applause. Luc gritted his teeth. Every man in the room had a hard-on for the woman he was dying to get into bed again. And again. The woman he shouldn’t touch.
After a full two minutes of standing O, the patrons finally sat again. Wearing a mischievous smile, Alyssa grabbed the microphone, halfheartedly slapping that little red sequined jacket on so that it covered her nipples—barely.
“Thank you for coming tonight, y’all,” she breathed, still panting. “Your enthusiasm for the past five years has made Sexy Sirens a truly special place. I’m thrilled you came to spend your evening with me.”
She batted her black lashes over her baby blues, working the crowd. Luc wanted to vomit. No, that wasn’t true. He wanted to pick her up, throw her over his shoulder, and forbid her to ever return here or take her clothes off in public again.
He sighed. The caveman thing was Deke’s style. And Alyssa wasn’t his. Never would be.
Why the hell had he agreed to stay here and cook for the week? Oh, yeah. Guilt. She had agreed to help him three months ago. It wasn’t her fault he hadn’t—and still couldn’t—keep his dick under control. Also not her fault that Deke had walked away and left her alone with Luc’s regrettable dark side. Given how much of her life and savings she had tied up in her new restaurant, he’d be seven kinds of scum to skip out on her now. Her amazing breasts, her sharp, sugar-dipped questions, and his combustive memories had all worked against him. He hadn’t stood a chance in hell of leaving.
After making a few more announcements, she sashayed her way off the stage and into a waiting throng of male admirers. Tyler, her bouncer, pulled out a chair for her and hovered protectively. With arms crossed and a menacing expression, he looked every inch a badass. Still, that didn’t deter her ardent admirers. They fawned close. Some slipped bills right into her thong. She slapped hands away with a naughty smile . . . but that really didn’t stop them.
A guy in an LSU shirt shoved his way through the crowd to Alyssa’s side and planted a kiss right on her mouth. She didn’t pull away, just placed gentle hands on his shoulders. A few seconds later, Tyler yanked the guy off her, shoved him toward the door with a mean motherfucker look, then hovered even closer to Alyssa. His stance screamed, Mine!
Refusing to watch a second longer, Luc cursed and swallowed a bitter truth. He’d been suckered. The night he’d spent with Alyssa, she’d sworn she hadn’t let a man in her bed or her pussy for nearly two years. At the time, he’d believed her. She had been incredibly tight.
Faced with this foaming-at-the-mouth crowd, he didn’t see how it was possible that her bed had been empty for even two days.
It didn’t matter if she slept with her bouncer, all of her customers, and most of Louisiana’s male population. He had made an agreement with her, and he would honor it. Furthermore, he’d keep his hands off of her for the week, no matter how alluring she was. He had a future—God willing, a wife and a child someday soon—to think about.
THREE in the morning. With the doors to the club shut and the dancers and waitstaff cleared out, she and Luc were alone. Finally.
She took a moment to savor the fact that, if all went well, she’d performed her last pole dance. Never again would she fill her belly by exposing her body. She’d done it to survive for the past fourteen years. The restaurant represented her future, her path to a better life. She’d work hard for a successful opening just to avoid showing complete strangers her tits again. Luc was a big part of her recipe for success. Thank God she’d convinced him to stay.
For her restaurant’s sake—and her own.
Beside her, he stood tall, and so tense she could have bounced a quarter off him. Alyssa smiled. The scrumptious, skittish chef had no idea what was about to hit him.
“You sure you want to tour the restaurant now?” she asked.
He nodded. “Seeing your setup will allow me to plan stations, feel the flow of the food. Tomorrow I need to meet your staff. I’ve spoken on the phone with your sous and pastry chefs, as well as your assistant manager. They’ve all completed the training I sent along. We have the week’s menu set. You said someone purchased the quantities of supplies I requested?”
Alyssa nodded and cast him a saucy glance. “You have expensive taste, Mr. Traverson.”
“You’ll make your money back, Ms. Devereaux.”
Of course he’d make that promise. He wanted to be sure he didn’t owe her a damn thing when he walked out that door. And she was dead determined otherwise. At the end of a week, Alyssa swore she’d own him, body, heart, and soul.
In separate cars, they drove the few blocks to her new endeavor. She refused to look at the fact that he’d declined to ride with her as a setback.
Once they arrived, Alyssa took the keys from her purse and unlocked the door. Just inside, she walked around the corner and flipped on the lowlights overhead. There was a brighter set . . . but why kill the mood?
Alyssa looked out over her creation. Simple elegance. A wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Dark wood accented by walls of taupe and earthy gold, splashed with accents of burgundy and chocolate. The open space held an expectant air, as if waiting for guests. Chairs and crisply draped tables abounded, a few outfitted with china, linen napkins, and crystal so she could see the effect. The understated lettering on the foyer wall read BONHEUR, and the sight filled her with anxious pride every time she came here.
Out of the corner of her eye, she cast a glance Luc’s way. Arms crossed over his chest, he scanned the restaurant, his gaze assessing. Her heart beat faster as she waited for his response. It made no sense, wanting his approval so badly . . . but that didn’t stop her anxiety.
“Well?” she breathed.
“Bonheur,” he murmured. “That’s French for ‘happiness.’ ”
“I thought it was fitting. Patrons should be happy here.” And I pray owning makes me happy, too.
“I like it. Fine dining for large parties? Couples?”
“Either. Both.”
He glanced out across the tables again. “If you’re hoping to be a hot spot for romantic dining, you have too many tables for parties of four to eight, particularly in your cozy corners. The partition between the bar and the dining room . . .” He pointed halfway across the room to the half wall that separated the eating patrons from the merely drinking ones. “It’s too short and too close to the bar. It will be hard to get any ambiance if people laughing, smoking, and drinking a lot are visible from the dining room. Raise that to the ceiling. Do you have vents to push the smoke back to the bar?”
She’d debated that, hating to close off the room. But he was right. “There’s no smoking at all.”
He hesitated. “Even in the bar? That will cost you money.”
“It’s worth it. I want to make my money from the bar because people are ordering drinks with their food or while waiting for their table, not because they’re skipping dinner and loitering over a scotch, hoping to find a date for the night. I’ve got one bar; I don’t need another.”
Luc nodded, but didn’t react otherwise. She made a mental note to drag more of the smaller tables out of storage and call her contractor to fix the wall in the morning.
“Where’s the kitchen?” he asked.
Biting her lip, she led the way around a corner, flipping on more lights. Teasing and seduction, she understood. The restaurant business . . . That was his area of expertise, and now he was all button-down assurance. Alyssa was grateful for it. She’d tried hard to make Bonheur’s kitchen optimal, a place a chef of Luc’s caliber would be proud to cook in.
Winding down the hall, she was conscious of Luc’s eyes on her. His gaze brushed her shoulders, hugged the curve of her waist, lingered on her ass. She could feel the burn.
“The kitchen isn’t visible from the dining room. Good layout.”
When they reached the large, mostly stainless steel room, she flipped on the lights. “I’ve heard people don’t like seeing the kitchen when they eat.”
Again, Luc crossed his arms over his chest, looking from one end of the room to the other, nodding slowly. “Very nice. Butcher-block prep area is well placed and large. Twelve-burner stove. Gas?”
“Of course.”
His approval showed on his face, warming her. “A fair number of industrial ovens. Four sinks. Good placement of utensils along the walls. Warmers?”
Alyssa pointed to shelved space under the counters and another at the pass, where plates would be assembled.
“Good. You’ve got plenty of refrigeration space.” He glanced around another corner and opened the door. “Great freezer. Ample storage.”