Chapter 24

Help himself? Deke would love to. But it wasn’t going to happen. There was way more at stake than Kimber’s virginity and sophomoric crush on Jesse McCall. Way more than petty jealousy. And damn if Luc didn’t know it and plotted to tempt him.

He might as well start counting the days, probably on one hand, before he wound up breaking through Kimber’s barriers—mental and physical. It was inevitable.

And when it happened, everyone was going to suffer, Kimber most of all.

She woke for the second time that morning alone in Luc’s cozy, downy bed, tossed on someone’s discarded shirt—Luc’s?—and padded down the hall. Heavy-limbed and flushed, Kimber made her way toward the smell of fresh coffee. But she couldn’t pretend anxiety didn’t claw her.

When she reached the kitchen, the sight of Deke hunched over a cup of coffee, lost in his thoughts, brought her to a stop. Especially since they didn’t look like happy thoughts. Of course they weren’t. She was underfoot, and he didn’t