Chapter Fourteen
Yesterday is not ours to recover,
but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.
~ Lyndon B. Johnson
The anger he’d been holding at bay raged within him.
A mix of crap from Robert and from seeing his woman with some handsome man who was absolutely, hands-down flirting with her.
As they walked he tried to calm himself, but it wasn’t working.
All he could see in his mind was Jasmine and that man in an erotic setting.
The man’s hands skimming down her curves.
Peeling her clothing off her one article at a time, exposing the smooth brown skin.
A growl erupted from his chest and he damn near dragged her deep into the nearest alley. She didn’t fight him, however when he had her pinned between himself and the wall, he noticed the confusion in her expression.
“You.” The single word fell from his lips, nearly feral.
Part of him expected a glib comment, for that was Jasmine, always with the quick retorts. Not this time. She held still, almost as if she knew sudden movements would spur the predator within him to hunting mode.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now, Jasmine?”
She dragged her tongue along her lower lip and he pounced with a snarl. The hand that had been clamped around her wrist as he dragged her behind him moved up and manacled along the front of her neck. His thumb kept her chin up so he could devour her.
With a bruising grip on her hip, he ground his hard erection into her as he slipped that hand up to wrap around her ponytail. He growled as he pulled back, nipped her lip and kept them nose to nose.
“You don’t get to decide to do something foolish and risky. We’re not done. I’m not done with you.”
He heard the wobble in his voice that appeared at the mere thought of losing her—to another man or to the insanity that surrounded them with the mob and the FBI fuckup.
He kissed her again, needing to have her beneath him.
To feel her soften for him, allow him to command her body as he’d spent the past while doing.
Hear her admit that it was only him she would lower her guard for.
Only him who could elevate her to such heights.
Only him, from this moment on, who would ever touch her.
Her tongue met his as he plundered her mouth. Opening beneath him, she allowed him to take what he wanted.
It wasn’t enough.
It wouldn’t ever be enough for him. Not when it came down to one fiery woman named Jasmine Hoyer.
Moving his touch from her hip, he slid his hand between her legs and cupped her core. Nipping at her tongue when she shuddered, he tightened his hold on her throat and chin, not allowing her to move away. Anger raged within him. A need to dominate. To possess.
It roared over him, like a tsunami racing toward shore. He didn’t even try to stop it. In fact, he embraced it.
Tearing his mouth from hers, he held her gaze.
Lance had expected her fury to be waiting.
That she wouldn’t be happy with his manhandling.
What he got shocked him. There was no aggression in her gaze or stance.
She wasn’t trying to push him away or get him to be gentler.
Jasmine held his stare, waiting for him to make his next move.
“Mine.”
It was the only word he could push through his lips. She settled her hands on either side of his face and yanked his mouth back to hers. Squeezing her thighs around his hand between her legs, she moaned as she stabbed her tongue deep into his mouth.
Yanking his hand from between her legs, he slapped his palm against the wall behind her. “I’m seconds away from fucking you right here.”
She wound her arms around his neck and laughed. “If that’s supposed to be a threat, you’re off base. Way off base.”
“I don’t want anyone to see what’s mine.”
Jasmine leaned forward. “Let’s go before I have to kill some women for looking at yours.”
They took the long way to get back to the safe house, using the bus and making sure that no one was following them by backtracking and the like. The moment they made it back to the apartment, he had her up against the wall, her pants off and his dick so far inside her he could feel her heartbeat.
* * * *
Four hours later, after several rounds of fucking—that’s what it had been, nothing else but hard fucking—he woke to find her not in the bed. Frowning, he rolled to his feet and tugged on some dark blue workout pants before padding up the hallway.
Jasmine stood at the window looking out, tiny pale pink shorts barely covering the globes of her ass while her matching cami made his cock stand at attention.
The lace at the top allowed him to see a teasing hint of her high and firm breasts.
He licked his lips and propped his shoulder against the doorframe.
“Ready to talk?” She didn’t glance away from the window when she posed her question.
While he longed to cross over to her and tug her close, he stayed put, acknowledging that he had to keep his distance or his dick would be fully sunk inside her in seconds. He couldn’t get enough.
“Explain.” Lance frowned over the growl in his tone.
Now she turned toward him. He bit his lower lip as he skimmed her front. How the fuck did this woman ruin him and turn him into a horny teen who basically lived by and for his dick?
A shoulder bounce. “Nothing to explain. You did what you had to, as did I.”
He gritted his teeth. “Disagree. You deliberately put yourself in danger. Then, as I had to track you down, when I locate you, I find you getting all cozy with some hot-ass man and his kid, looking like a family.”
“So I should have smacked a kid who was being nice to me because he saw me crying?” She strode over the floor to him and propped her hands on shapely hips.
Lance gulped hard, reached out and snagged the waistband of those going-to-be-the-death-of-him shorts, pulling her flush to his bare chest. The urge to go scorched earth slammed him. “Why were you crying?” His tone was low and about five hundred nautical miles beyond feral.
She flattened her lips and shook her head in the familiar brisk Jasmine “Nothing Gets to Me” Hoyer way.
“Fuck no,” he muttered, gripping her throat as he’d done in the alley. His thumb moved slowly along her lower lip, caressing, even as his hold was absolute. “Talk to me, baby. Why were you crying? Who do I need to kill? I’m happy to start with that dick who bought my woman ice cream.”
She cocked an eyebrow at his statement but he didn’t refute it. Fuck no, he meant every word. Every. Single. One.
“It’s stupid.” She shook her head, or rather tried to, but he refused to allow it.
“Never diminish your feelings, baby. It’s not stupid.” He softened his touch and tugged her closer, spreading his left hand over her ass cheek, fingertips caressing the soft skin below the hem of her shorts. “Tell me.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’d called Caro.”
God damn it he wanted to make all her pain go away.
“How is she? Your nephew? Declan?” He’d gotten along fairly well with Declan McBride when they’d been protecting Caro, who had—unbeknownst to the law—taken Jasmine’s place, but since he’d gone under, he hadn’t reached out and made contact.
At all. Had there been a man he would have considered a friend, it was Declan.
Tears glistened in her gorgeous big brown eyes. They didn’t fall. “I didn’t say a word but it’s like she knew it was me. Said she missed me, they missed me and they loved me.”
Her voice cracked on that last admission and her legs wobbled.
Turning them so the wall supported her back and wedging a leg between her legs, he kept her there.
Her heated core was on his thigh and he groaned low in his throat when she rocked on him.
Clenching his jaw, he didn’t respond. This was an avoidance tactic he knew well. Distract him with sex.
Normally he was all-in for that, but right now his woman needed more than just physical from him. Tightening his grip on her neck, he waited for her gaze to slide back to his.
“Talk to me, baby.”
Her plump lower lip trembled. He leaned close and dragged his nose along her face, inhaling her subtle and all-too-fucking addictive scent.
“I miss her, okay?” The four words were sharp and angry. Accusatory almost. “She’s my fucking twin and I miss her.” Jasmine’s voice broke on the admission and Lance’s heart did the same.
* * * *
She ached. And not in that good, I’ve been fucked within an inch of my life ache. More like the I bawled like a baby ache.
Jasmine Hoyer rolled over in the queen-sized bed, flopping her face into the pillow that smelled like Lance. He’d done it. Gotten her walls to not simply drop but fucking shatter.
Raw. Exposed. Vulnerable.
Nothing she’d allowed herself to be since she’d escaped the second abusive foster home. But this man, this arrogant, sexy-as-sin detective who was risking his life going undercover, had revealed it all.
“Gahhh!” She screamed in the pillow before punching it then leveraging up and off the bed. He’d rolled from bed maybe ten minutes before her.
Naked, she made her way to the bathroom and allowed herself a swift shower.
Normally, lingering would be something to indulge in but this morning her emotions were still too open and she would think about how Lance was getting to her far more than she wanted to let him, or had believed she would ever allow someone to. Dwell. Sink further into her head.
Barely pausing to dry off, she pulled her light gray cut-off sweats up over her ice blue thong before tugging on her pale green razorback tee. She tossed her hair up in a messy bun as she walked up the hallway.
Lance stood in the kitchen over the stovetop frying some eggs and bacon. Shirtless.