He had no right to be angry. None.

Even so, Luke was in a shit mood. Had been since he’d left Anna at the boutique three hours ago. One minute he’d been high off the feeling of Anna’s body beneath his, and in the next he’d felt like he’d been kicked in the nuts. Seeing her hotshot neighbor had been, cliché or not, the salt in the fucking wound.

Wrapping a hand around his Abita bottle, he took a pull of the beer. He shouldn’t have come to Tuck’s, to his and Anna’s bar. Or what he considered as their bar, even though they’d never come on a date here together.

No, you’ve just been helping her date every other asshat in the city.

Jesus, he was all kinds of screwed up.

Rationally, he understood that he was overreacting. He and Anna didn’t have a relationship because he was holding back. Sure, she said that she wanted children, but he hadn’t even given her the option of listening to what he had to say.

And what do you have to say?

Luke drew on his beer. Yeah, what did he have to say? That he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another woman; that he wanted a future with her and Julian, despite the fact that only weeks ago he’d been the most solitary motherfucker to walk New Orleans’ streets; that he was open to adoption, if she’d consider it, if only she would be his.

Head pounding like the devil, he leaned back against the cushioned booth. He was thirty-one years old, and had no idea how to tell a woman that he wanted to be more than a hookup. It’d be pathetic, if he didn’t think about all his brothers in the army who had similar emotional baggage.

Emotional baggage or not, Luke was the kind of guy who liked problem-solving. And, as easy as it would be to let himself succumb to a continuous pity party, that’d get him nowhere. Anna didn’t belong with the vet—the man was too fucking good-looking, and honestly? He looked like the sort of dude who wasn’t above a little infidelity. Anna deserved a hell of a lot more than a guy like that.

The way Luke saw it, he had two options. Go after Anna and explain everything, even if it made his skin itch with the possibility of her gaze turning pitying. Or, he could—

“Is this seat taken?”

The soft, feminine voice was all too familiar, and Luke’s heart squeezed when he lifted his gaze to Anna’s gorgeous body and up to her beautiful face. Damn, but he wanted to yank her onto his lap and claim her mouth. Except that he wanted more than that—he wanted to claim her, so she knew as well as everyone else that they were a team, a pack.

“What are you doing here?” His voice sounded rough, even to his own ears.

Her nervousness showed when she wrung her hands and then shoved them behind her back. “I figured you might be here after I called . . . you didn’t answer.”

She had? Reaching into his back pocket, he withdrew his cell phone and flipped it over so he could see its face. Fuck. Two missed calls, along with a text message. Feeling like a complete dick, he shoved the phone back into his pocket. “I didn’t realize that I’d set it to silent this morning when I was helping my mom at the shop.”

“Oh.” Her blue eyes danced over his face. “That makes sense.”

There were so many things he wanted to say, and none of them sounded right. The words were there, waiting, and yet his mind was blank aside from one pulsating word: mine.

“Are you dating your neighbor?” Apparently, he had more words waiting than he’d expected. Luke grabbed the neck of the beer bottle and lifted it to his mouth, wanting to avoid her gaze. He was screwing this up and he had no idea what to do.

Anna slid into the booth across from him, her hands clasping her elbows. “No. Yes.” She dipped her chin, avoiding his gaze. “I went on a date with him a week back—you know that. But after our talk the other day, when we’d decided that we were limiting ourselves to one night, I asked him out again.” Her blue eyes bounced up to meet his. “It wasn’t my plan to upset you, Luke. I mean, honestly, I didn’t think you’d be upset.”

Because he’d given her no reason to think otherwise. He drained his beer, wishing that he could just as easily drain his fears and her hurt. Since that wasn’t a possibility . . . “I shouldn’t be upset,” he muttered, his voice audibly gruff. “I said that I wanted one night with you. If anything, I encouraged you to date other people.”

“You did.” Color warmed her cheeks, and he realized that she was just as ticked-off as he was. “You told me to date other people and that’s what I did. You can’t—” She broke off, her shoulders squaring, her eyes blazing. “You know what I want, Luke. I mean, we were sitting right here a month ago when I pretty much asked you to take me home. You said no. You’ve been saying no. I don’t want to play this cat and mouse game with you anymore. Either you want me or you don’t; either you want to date me or—”

“I can’t have children.”

If it weren’t so painful to admit, Luke would have laughed at the way her expression quite literally shifted to one of shock. Her pretty blue eyes went wide and her full lips, lips he was dying to see wrapped around him again, parted. “I don’t . . .” She visibly swallowed. “What do you mean, you can’t have children?”

Maybe he shouldn’t have blurted out that information, in the middle of a bar, no less, but it didn’t change one fact: if she wanted him, she had to understand what that meant all the way around.

He’d done some pretty fucked-up things in his past, but lying to her about something as momentous as this . . . yeah, that wasn’t a line he would cross.

“Do you want a drink?” he asked, nodding his head toward the bar. “You look like you might need it.”

Without hesitation, she reached for his bottle. Much as it warmed him to know that she had no qualms about sharing his beer, fact was . . . “It’s empty,” he told her. “Do you want something? I’ll get it for you.”

Her hand pulled back. “No, it’s fine. I’m okay. I’m good.” He wondered if she was trying to convince herself more than she was him. “I don’t understand. How do you know you’re . . . sterile?”

A deep inhale inflated his chest as he struggled with the how’s of telling her he’d been a punk-ass kid. God, this was hard, harder than he’d anticipated. For the first time since landing in the hospital some months back, Luke wished that he had his cane, if for no other reason than it provided a useful distraction from the topic at hand.

“Luke,” Anna murmured, “just tell me.”

He blew out the air he’d been holding captive. “I hooked up with this girl, Mariah, just after finishing basic training and being stationed in New York. I don’t want to get too much into the details with you, but it was very casual. She didn’t talk about dating and neither did I. Then, the condom broke.”

He wondered if Anna made the comparison to her own circumstances, in which her own ex had knocked her up at the age of eighteen. But there was a key difference between their experiences, mostly because the kid hadn’t been his. “Like any asshole teen, I asked for a paternity test. The idea of having a child terrified me, and I doubted it was actually mine, broken condom or not.”

“Was it?” Her brows drew together, her arms wrapping around her belly.

“No.” Luke hung his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. God, he could still remember the way he’d strutted around the military base after that. No prospect of ever having kids? It’d been his teenage version of living the dream.

“I did the test, just like I wanted. And I’d been right, the baby wasn’t mine. Not much of a surprise, considering the fact that she lived just off base and hooked up with a lot of my buddies. But then the doc told me the reason why . . . low sperm count.” He practically choked out the words because, hell, telling the woman you cared about that you were lacking in some capacity wasn’t his idea of fun.

It was the opposite of fun, actually.

It was hell.

Luke eyed his empty beer bottle. “Guess up to fifteen-percent of us lucky assholes have infertility issues. Luck of the draw, or what not.” Jesus, could this get any more painful? He rolled his shoulders, then gripped the bottle between hands just so that he didn’t have to sit motionless. “I’ve been with a lot of women over the years, but I don’t want you to think I was reckless when it came to protection.”

He expected her to stand up and maybe crack her palm across his face. Maybe storm out of the bar without another word to him. But he should have known better, he should have known that wasn’t her. Anna was passionate, yeah, but she was level-headed. So, when she placed her hand on top of his and asked, “How did you feel knowing that you couldn’t have children?” Luke felt like she’d taken a sledgehammer to his chest and stolen every last bit of oxygen from his body.

Not even his family knew about his infertility, and it felt . . . right that Anna be the first person to know. The only person to know. He shifted, but didn’t pull away from her hand. She grounded him; her touch reminded him that he was still living.

“I guess, in theory, I could have children,” he said, voice low, “but I was advised it’s pretty unlikely. Until three months ago, I’ve lived a pretty nomadic lifestyle. I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I’ve been here in New Orleans for longer than a month during the last decade. After Mariah, I didn’t care for a repeat with the women who lived near base. So, the childless thing didn’t bother me. I rarely thought about it.”

Until you.

He needed to say it, needed to be honest, but she beat him to the punch.

“Is that why you told me to date someone else?” she asked. Her fingers retreated from his, and it was crazy the way he wanted to steal them back. “Because you asked me one time whether or not I wanted any more children?”

“Well, yeah. It’s not fair to—”

The sharpness in her blue eyes cut him off mid-sentence. “No, what’s not fair is that you asked me that question without bothering to give me any other information. You took my completely objective answer, and judged me on that. Were you scared that I’d say no and you’d feel pressured to date me?”

“Fuck no!” When he saw heads snap in his direction, he lowered his voice. “Did I want to date you in the beginning? I’m not going to lie to you, Anna, I wasn’t interested. But I wasn’t interested in anyone. Then you were popping up everywhere, demanding that I find you dates, and I grew to crave that time with you. I didn’t want you dating anyone else but me.”

“What about Julian?”

He met her gaze straight-on, so that she could see he was telling the truth. “What about Julian? He’s a great kid.”

Her chin kicked up defiantly. “That’s not what I mean. Julian and I are a package deal. You can’t have me without him.”

Something warm spread in his chest. This had to be a good sign, right? If she was talking packages, then that had to mean she wasn’t totally put off by what he’d told her. He offered her a grin, the first since she’d sat down at their booth. “Did I ask for you without Julian? The kid is awesome, Anna. You raised him right.”

Her cheeks colored again, and then it was her turn to shift uncomfortably in her seat. Like she felt weird with the praise. “I like to think that I did,” she murmured. “If you were to ask me to choose, I couldn’t . . .”

“I’d never.” He leaned forward, touching his thumb to her chin. “Don’t forget that I come from a broken home, sweetheart. I spent years—hell, I still do—taking care of my mom and my sister at the expense of myself because we’re a family, even when certain individuals tick me off. Family is family. I would never, never, ask you to choose me over Julian. That’s not the way this works. He’s your kid, your life, and that’s how it should be.”

She gave a little sigh of happiness, or maybe it was relief, and then promptly stole his heart when she grasped his wrist so she could nuzzle her face into his palm. One upward glance, and she slayed him. “I want another night, Luke.”

Lust hit him hard. It didn’t matter that he’d had a taste of her just hours ago. He wanted another, and another after that, until neither of them could walk straight again. In a gravel-pitched voice, he said, “You can have as many nights as you want.” You can have forever.

“Tonight.”

He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

With a roll of her eyes, she muttered, “Don’t call me that. It makes me feel old.”

Luke pulled away from her, slid from the booth, and then motioned for her to take his hands. She did, allowing him to tug her up onto her feet, and then tipped back her head, as if knowing he planned to steal a kiss.

And he did. Soft and coaxing, he worked her mouth the same way he planned to work her body. Slowly, until she clawed at his chest in need. Breathing hard, he dropped his mouth to her ear and murmured, “You’re older, Blondie.” He kissed the sensitive place behind her earlobe. “A cougar, some might say.” She made a move to swat his chest, and he grasped her hand, flipping it over so he could flick his tongue against the soft flesh of her wrist. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have you any other way.”