“That might be the best idea. Are we good, Jamie?” she asked, looking up at him.

“What? Yes. We’re good. Of course we are. This is all me.”

He tried to get himself to move but he had to get one last look. It was too crowded and he was too far away, but he thought he heard her crying out in pleasure or pain.

Summer Grace.

Fuck.

She’d done this just to drive him crazy. She was good at that. Three years his junior, Summer Grace had been coming on to him all through her teen years and into her twenties. But in the last year it had stopped, and she seemed to be avoiding him. Not that he could blame her—he’d always rejected her blatant advances. Although seeing her now made him wonder how the hell he’d managed it. Summer Grace had been one hell of a sex kitten since she hit puberty.

Jesus. He was getting hard remembering her crawling into his sleeping bag on more than one of the camping trips he’d taken with the Rae family. Remembering what it felt like to wake up with her straddling him . . .

Allie squeezed his arm. “Jamie? You said you were going?”

“What? Yeah, I’m out of here. I’ll talk to you later.”

Allie raised one dark brow. “Drive carefully. You seem a little shaken up.”

You have no idea.

“I will.”

He got out of the club and to the parking lot on the side of the big converted warehouse that housed The Bastille. His auto shop’s white tow truck was parked there—he didn’t like to leave his vintage Corvette Stingray in the warehouse district. He swung open the door with the “SGR” insignia on the side a little too hard—“SGR” for Stewart-Greer and Rae. He and Brandon had planned to go into business together as soon as they got through the automotive technology program over in Lafayette. The least he could do was add Brandon’s name to the business. If only Brandon were there to run the shop with him . . .

If only Brandon were here, this night would never have happened. Summer Grace would never have been naked and submitting in one of the most notorious kink clubs in the country. And Jamie would never have been forced to resist the temptation she offered—not on this scale. Not on his home turf. Temptation he could never give in to. Not only because of the promise he’d made, but because he refused to bring her any closer. He was dangerous to people he cared about, whose lives intertwined with his.

Don’t think about that part.

But now he’d seen her naked, and temptation was brought to a whole new level. Temptation and ideas about the possibility of them being together that made his chest ache.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his head again.

He pressed his fingers against his temples and then his eyes, where a steady pressure was building.

That wasn’t the only place pressure was building.

How the hell could he be so damn mad and so turned on at the same time? He should be used to this by now—that was how things had always been with Summer Grace. He’d chased her out of his bed—his sleeping bag, his tent, off the Rae’s family room couch—at least a dozen times over the years. Every time he’d gotten angry. Every time he’d had to deal with the raging hard-on of his life. But he wouldn’t—couldn’t—do that with her. Not her.

But now he knew she was exploring kink at his club. If this turned out to be more than a one-time thing he would see her there again and again. They’d run into each other and he’d be forced to watch other people have what he’d denied himself. Watch Summer Grace submit to someone else. See her naked body—her beautiful naked body and that perfect heart-shaped ass growing gorgeously pink as she was spanked, paddled.

He groaned, pressed his hand against the hard bulge in his jeans.

“Down boy,” he murmured, his throat raw with need.

He started the truck and pulled onto Magazine Street, gunning the engine, then braking for the summertime tourist traffic.

“Fuck.”

He needed to get the hell home. Needed to either get into his ’Vette and drive off this tension, or get into his bed or the shower or just inside the damn door of his flat so he could work it off properly—with a good, hard orgasm and then some good, hard drinking and swearing until he inevitably got hard again and the cycle repeated.

He came to a red light and waited impatiently, then switched on the radio.

All along it was a fever, a cold sweat hot-headed believer, Rihanna sang.

He sure as hell had a fever. For her. If he’d ever tried to deny it before, it was impossible after tonight, when she’d stepped into his world and given herself over to it. Without him. He might have been strong enough to shrug off her youthful attempts at seduction, but whether she knew it or not, she’d just starred in his own personal forbidden fantasy.

He was so screwed.

The lyrics took a heavy emotional turn and he impatiently switched off the radio. It only made him think of that moment when their eyes had met in the dim light of the club. The electricity that went way beyond mere recognition. That forced him to face head-on the fact that he’d always wanted her, wanted her to belong to him.

The light changed and he moved through the sluggish traffic, finally hanging a left on Canal Street and driving through the French Quarter proper, drumming his fingertips on the steering wheel.

“Take care of her. Take care of Summer Grace if I’m not here to do it, Jamie. You have to promise me.”

He’d never forget Brandon’s words. Never forget the oath he’d sworn to his best friend that day as the stark white walls of the hospital room seemed to close in on him. He wasn’t forgetting it now. Desire was not the same as taking action. But who the hell was going to protect her from everything and everyone else at The Bastille if he didn’t do it himself? It was the same damn situation Allie had wrangled Mick into. With his help, he had to admit. But this was different. Wasn’t it? He had a feeling Summer Grace hadn’t done this because of him.

He’d seen the languorous lines of her body under that Domme’s hands. Had seen the way she responded to being hit with the leather paddle. She was right there, her body, her mind, committed to the moment. Oh yeah, she was all in. That wasn’t something anyone could fake. Even if she knew he was into kink—and if Allie had brought her to the club, he was pretty sure she’d known before they’d seen each other tonight—she was obviously there because it was what she wanted.

Summer Grace. With the same dark desires he had himself.

Which could lead her into some dangerous territory.

He tried to shake off the thoughts about her in some other man’s hands. Being spanked. Flogged. Taken into subspace, where she would be vulnerable. The glossy blue of her eyes.

“Damn it! You’re not thinking about her safety—you’re just hot for her!”

His stiffening cock confirmed it. So did his hands, gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles hurt as he silently berated himself. He sighed in relief when he finally found a parking spot right in front of the three-story building he’d bought last year. Painted in muted tones of sage green, brick red and ivory, the building was one of the newly remodeled Victorians in this neighborhood that was still recovering from Katrina. He was always glad to get home—the first home he’d ever owned, which was a point of pride—and now maybe more than ever, with need still pumping through his system like rocket fuel.

He adjusted the tight bulge under his jeans and took a moment to be sure there was no one else around before jumping out of the truck and striding toward the front door. He fumbled with his keys for a moment, swearing under his breath. Then he was up the stairs to the third floor and in his living room. He tore his shirt over his head as he moved down the narrow hall to the bathroom, kicked his boots off as he hit the light switch. His jeans were next, the zipper catching for a moment on the hard ridge of his erection.