Chapter Nine
Jasmine shoved a hank of hair out of her face and stumbled into the kitchen.
Jesus H. Christ.
She tightened her short terry cloth robe around her body even though you could probably fry an egg on her backside. Sunlight filled her tiny kitchen, and she squinted into the light, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Behind her in the bedroom, she could hear Sarge’s sturdy frame moving on her creaky bed, probably taking a much-needed breather after…after.
It was safe to say she’d learned one valuable lesson this morning. There were worse ways to wake up than with a gorgeous, naked man whispering a husky prayer against your lady parts. Giving thanks to the Lord above in between drags of his tongue through your hypersensitive flesh.
Dear God, thank you for making this so sweet for me. Thank you for this woman who opens her thighs for my hungry mouth. Thank you…thank you…
Jasmine laid a hand on her forehead. Yeah, there were worse things. After the second time he’d brought her to a bone-melting orgasm with his mouth, she’d begged him to stop the torment, but he’d kept going. And going. True to his word the night before, he hadn’t allowed her to leave bed until her body was covered in sweat, stubbornly refusing to push his ready erection inside her.
She had a good idea what his refusal to finish was about, too. Knew he would torment her all day with the knowledge that he was in need. In need of her. Even now, she could barely stand knowing. This temporary tryst felt the furthest thing from casual, especially after Sarge’s revelation over the song. He’d written a song about her, about something she’d worn one day six years ago. Somewhere in the dark last night, with Sarge’s chest lifting and falling at her back, she’d allowed herself to consider the possibility that Sarge’s feelings ran deeper than she’d originally thought.
If that was the case, she shouldn’t allow this affair to go on. Sarge might have grown up—understatement—but he was still River’s brother. Continuing to sleep with him when buds of feelings were starting to spring up everywhere, leaves pushing open, bright flowers blooming…it was a terrible idea. With a lucrative contract just waiting for his signature, what did she expect him to do? Stay in Hook? In just a few days, she would be a thirty-year-old woman. A woman who’d adjusted her life’s ambitions from singer/songwriter to factory floor manager. She had no business trying to tie down this talented, charismatic—not to mention famous—man who was nursing the residual glow of his first crush.
It needed to stop. Distancing herself as of this morning was the wisest course of action, even though Sarge would push back. She knew he would, no question. Having that much certainty about a man’s character was terrifying in itself. Even more terrifying, however, was the certainty that same man would look at her one day and wonder why he’d settled for a Jersey girl who wore a jumpsuit and goggles to work.
Feeling pressure behind her eyes, Jasmine picked up the frying pan sitting on her stove and slammed it back down. She used to overflow with confidence. Used to laugh when anyone had the cojones to doubt her. How had she landed here?
Footsteps moved behind her in the form of groaning floorboards, but Jasmine didn’t turn around, choosing instead to yank open cabinets in search of a granola bar to throw in her purse for lunch. But when the plucked strains of guitar strings filled the kitchen, she froze, still on her tiptoes.
“Morning,” Sarge said. “Everything okay in here?”
She started rooting around again, shoving aside boxes of rice and a bag of flour. “I have breakfast with my father on Friday mornings. He’ll be here any second to pick me up.”
A masculine grunt of acknowledgment. It didn’t sound pleased. Well, too bad. It was the truth. Her Friday breakfasts with Paulie were tradition and she wouldn’t break it. Their breakfasts—and Jasmine’s sporadic visits to her parents’ house in Hook—were a comfort to her. Falling back into the familiar rhythm of speaking Spanish, listening to her father use phrases not spoken in New Jersey, reminded her of where she’d come from and the people who loved her. She wouldn’t cancel just so she could try her hand at seducing Sarge back into bed. Giving him the same treatment he’d woken her with. Jasmine’s face heated. Those thoughts were in direct violation of her resolve. Dangerous.
“Help yourself to whatever you want. There are eggs…” Jasmine turned to find Sarge, naked save a low-slung pair of boxer briefs, guitar draped around his shoulders. The combination of his finger-abused hair—courtesy of her—and that narrowed-eyed, considering look made her skin tingle.
“What are you doing tonight?”
Jasmine scrambled for an excuse to stay away from the apartment, away from him, before realizing she didn’t have to fabricate a single thing. “There is a retirement party tonight for one of the machine mechanics. That’s what I’m doing.”
He plucked an easy combination of strings that had the nerve to sound incredible. “Let me guess. This party is at the Third Shift?”
A reluctant smile tugged her lips. “Is there anywhere else in this town?”
His jaw went tight. “Is that prick going to be there?”
It took Jasmine a few beats to recall exactly which prick Sarge referred to. After all, she worked with quite a few of them. “Oh, Carmine?” She feigned nonchalance, playing with the tie of her robe. “Yes, he probably will.”
A darker, more complicated scale of chords, played without taking his gaze off her. “Are you going to invite me or do I just show up?”
Jasmine crossed her arms. “Oh, are those my two options?”
“Yeah.” He took a step toward her. “So pick one.”
Outrage stiffened her spine and released a fog of heat into her throat. It felt…phenomenal. She hadn’t been good and mad in a long time. There hadn’t been anything worth invoking her wrath. Now, though, she let the irritation trickle down into her fingertips, which curled themselves into fists. When satisfaction crossed Sarge’s handsome, stubbled face, Jasmine realized his aim had been to anger her. Why? “Is there a reason you’re pissing me off in my own kitchen?”
“Yeah.” He jerked the guitar over his head—sending his muscles dancing in mesmerizing patterns—and set the instrument down with a thunk. “I didn’t like the way you looked when I walked in here.”
Something heavy flipped over in her stomach. “It’s seven thirty in the morning. Were you expecting a flamenco dance?”
His full male laughter put a dent in her anger. “I wouldn’t turn one down.” He prowled toward the fridge and opened it, giving her an eyeful of his profile, complete with the fat, unsatisfied bulge in his underwear. Which she would clearly be thinking about for the rest of the day. “So, Paulie’s got breakfast covered. Can you wait while I make you lunch?”
Jasmine crossed her arms to hide her distended nipples. Since when did triple orgasm recipients get hot and bothered again after mere minutes? “You can’t just piss me off and then make me lunch.”
Smile playing on his lips, Sarge lifted his head, sending dark hair falling over his eye. “Why is that?”
“A sandwich is an easy way off the hook.” She pursed her lips. “Too easy.”
Good God, she was flirting with him. How had he managed to flip her mood around when she’d been mired in dread upon entering the kitchen? She was shameless and utterly self-destructive. None of that seemed to matter, however, when Sarge closed the refrigerator door and sauntered toward her. “If you don’t wait while I make you lunch…” He propped his hands on the counter, blocking her in. “I guess I’ll just have to bring it down to the factory later.”
“You can’t just walk in there. You’ll be mobbed,” Jasmine breathed. “Besides, we have a cafeteria.”
He came closer, crowding, giving her a mouthwatering whiff of man. “It’s not good enough for you.” His fingers teased the hem of her robe, forming goose bumps down her legs. “Go get dressed while I make you something.”
“Stop being so pushy.”
“Stop being so beautiful.”
There was no way around his magnetism. Not when they were both half dressed, the morning after sex so good she’d thought it impossible. Not when sincerity threaded his deep voice. Not when he was looking down at her like she might be the only other living, breathing person in the world. And maybe they needed to keep having the impossible sex because it was the only way to continue the human race. Really, it would just be for science. They’d be humanitarians.
I’m losing my damn mind. She lost it even more when he tilted his head and rubbed that bulge against the knot of her robe, side to side, in slow, devastating drags. “Let me feed you.”
“No.” Jasmine tried to back up, but there was nowhere to go, pinned between his big body and the counter, watching his abs flex as he rubbed against her. “The scales are too imbalanced here.”
“Why?” His expression mirrored the confusion in his voice. “Because of what we did in bed this morning?”
“What you did, Sarge,” she whispered, shocked to feel a flush climb her neck. Men did not turn her red. Ever. They didn’t immobilize her under a single look, either. Didn’t drape her insides in warm, sticky silk.
Jasmine’s thoughts were cut off when Sarge framed her jaw in one big hand, tilting her head back. “Baby.” He applied gentle pressure to her cheeks, forcing her mouth to open on a gust of breath. “Eating your pussy isn’t a chore, it’s a privilege.”
“Stop,” she tried to say, but it emerged as a moan. A moan that turned to a whimper when the hand not holding her jaw slipped between their bodies. Down, down, deft fingers making quick work of her robe tie and pushing it open. Sarge’s grip found the apex of her thighs, cupping her through cotton panties.
“You want more, Jasmine.” It wasn’t a question. “Feel my dick? It got the best last night and doesn’t want anything else. It needs more. Needs to feel you again so bad. Especially now that we know your pussy is a size too small for me.”
“Sarge,” she gasped, moving on his hand, going up on her tiptoes seeking a firmer hold, which he gave her in spades, molding, squeezing. Owning.
“I know,” he grated, the words vibrating where he laid them on her mouth. “I know, baby. Come back to me tonight and get what’s coming to you.”
Jasmine’s frustrated cry filled the kitchen. “You’re playing dirty.”
His tongue licked up her jawline and slid into her mouth, nudging hers in an invitation to come play. Jasmine’s eager participation was short, though, when he broke the kiss before she was even close to satisfied. Catching her off guard, Sarge lifted her legs up around his waist and dry-fucked her against the counter. Buried his face in her neck and pumped, three, four, five times, before dropping her back down. “You haven’t seen dirty yet, Jas,” he rasped into her ear. “I saw your face when I walked in, and you’re not getting rid of me that easily. Now go get dressed while I make you lunch. I hear your father honking outside.”
After he had to physically prop her up against the counter, his arrogant walk back to the fridge should have made her indignant. It should have had her throwing a blunt object at the back of his head. Instead it had her admitting quietly that even with her newfound appreciation for Sarge, she’d severely underestimated him.
She just managed to keep her feminine pride intact five minutes later when she dodged his attempt to kiss her while walking out the door. Carrying the sack lunch he’d handed her.
His laughter echoed in Jasmine’s ears the entire car ride to breakfast.
The problem with trying to keep a woman coming back for more was…the waiting. It had been years since Sarge had this kind of free time on his hands, usually packing up and moving to a new city after only one gig. His days on tour were filled with phone calls with the press, annoying photo shoots, morning interviews at local radio stations, sound checks, and playing mediator to James and Lita. There wasn’t a lot of time left over for thinking. And he had a shitload to think about.
Jasmine had walked out of her apartment only thirty minutes ago, although it felt like a week. Now that he’d acknowledged that his bonehead game plan of fucking Jasmine out of his mind once and for all was nothing more than a pipe dream, he needed a new course of action. And if he blocked out all the noise in his head and focused on what felt like necessity, Sarge couldn’t think past holding on to Jasmine as long as she’d allow it. Going back on the road had seemed like a given when he arrived in Hook. It wasn’t a given now. Simple as that. There was more than lust between him and Jasmine, but if he needed to use their attraction as a means to spend more time with her—until she saw he was for real—so be it. No one would catch him complaining.
Mentally replaying the phone calls he’d just made, he could admit without ego that he had a few tricks up his sleeve.
Truth was, the last year on the road had been shitty. He’d stopped chasing a way over Jasmine by sleeping around after two years away from Hook, but nothing he did regained what he’d lost by repeatedly giving up that part of himself. That part of himself he’d always felt he should be hanging on to. Fine, what he’d learned about women over those two blurry years was clearly being appreciated by Jasmine now, but just knowing he’d honed those intuitions with others made him nauseous. It had never felt good. Not the way it did last night. He was ruined for anyone else. Maybe he had been since the first time Jasmine walked into his living room.
There was a battle ahead, and not just to keep Jasmine in his life. Something had turned down the volume on the music inside her. She still painted the air with life everywhere she went, but it was subdued, and it shouldn’t be. Not from someone so amazing. But Sarge understood the feeling all too well. After the lights went off and the screaming crowd went home, he’d just been left with himself and his choices. That wasn’t an easy thing when somehow your choices had made you instead.
One such regret was his stupid belief that a monthly check was all his sister needed from him the last four years. Which is what brought him to Holy Cross Church’s doorstep, blowing warm breath into his cupped palms while waiting for Adeline, the choir director, to arrive. Anyone in Hook knew, if you wanted gossip without asking for it, you paid a visit to Adeline. She had a habit of talking to herself within earshot of anyone who would listen in—although Sarge always suspected she stirred the pot on purpose. Knowing River, though, she wouldn’t tell him without a fight how the last four years had been. And he needed to know so he could help.
“Never say that’s Sarge Purcell waiting on me.” He turned just in time to see Adeline slap her knee, lipstick-smeared teeth spreading into a genuine smile he couldn’t help but return. “I heard you were back in town and I said, send that boy to see me. Who was it that sent you? Was it Gerald at the tobacco shop?” Adeline trudged past him, fumbling with her keys. “Nasty gambling habit, that one,” she muttered on the way.
Same old Adeline. Funny how when he’d left Hook, he’d been disgusted by its inability to change. Now, though, he was glad as hell it remained the place stored in his memory. “How’s the choir shaping up for next year?” Sarge asked, following Adeline into the church office.
“Oh, fair enough, I suppose. A few squeaky wheels, a blown tire or two.” She said something under her breath that sounded like goddamn Debbie. “What do they want from us, though?” Her eyebrows bobbed underneath her eyeglass frames. “We’re not big fancy professionals like you.”
“We’re not fancy, but we get by,” Sarge murmured, dropping into the chair she indicated. “River asked me to play a song or two on Christmas Eve.”
That was the only prompt the choir director needed. “That sister of yours, Sarge. I tell you, there isn’t a single bad word a body could say against her. And after everything she’s been through.”
“Right.” A lump formed in Sarge’s throat. When River and her high school sweetheart broke up, Sarge had just left Hook, caught up in the whirlwind that came with earning a contract and being thrown into a recording studio with three seemingly incompatible strangers. “All she’s been through.”
“I thought that man would come to his senses when she got pregnant with Marcy, but I was wrong. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since he rolled back into Hook after being discharged. Only stayed in town long enough to break your sister’s heart, then off he went, the bastard.”
Ah, Jesus. River had led him to believe the breakup with Vaughn had been a mutual decision. But it hadn’t. She’d been pregnant and abandoned. Had she even been truthful with their parents about the situation? Strange enough, he remembered Vaughn as a stand-up guy, if clearly troubled. One who’d been crazy about River since Sarge could remember. Obviously he’d been way off about the man who’d dated his sister through high school. “Vaughn’s uncle still in town, or…?” Sarge managed around the razor blades he’d swallowed.
“No, he made for Florida when Vaughn enlisted. Do you know he never once set foot into the Sunday church service? Not when he was raising Vaughn and not after,” Adeline said, lowering her glasses as if she’d just imparted the worst transgression known to man. “I think his apartment above the stationery store is still empty, which should tell you something about the real estate market in Hook. Dead as a doornail.”
“Sign’s still broken over the stationery shop?”
“That’s the way things stay when you’re cheap as dirt.” Adeline patted her hair. “Ask your sister about cheap. That man she’s working for would risk his life to save a penny from being run over.”
Sarge couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “The factory owner?”
“Nope!” Adeline slapped both hands onto the desk. “That run-down house of sin she’s working in three nights a week. Cocktail waitressing, if that’s what you call donning a skirt and parading around with a tray.” For some reason she put the word “tray” in quotation marks, but Sarge was too stunned to explore why.
He leaned forward slowly in his chair. “We’re still talking about River?”
“Yes, sir.” The old woman huffed. “You can’t blame me for passing on news. I just assumed you knew.”
With a jolt, Sarge realized he’d come to his feet. “No…of course. I don’t blame you. I’m glad I know.” He remembered the shock of seeing his notoriously peppy sister looking so exhausted, framed by the doorway of their childhood house. Hadn’t he decided then and there to help River? To make up for his four-year absence by doing a hell of a lot more than sending checks? Better get started. “You wouldn’t happen to have a phone number for Vaughn, would you, Adeline?”
“No, I do not.” Adeline lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “But I have an address for him.”
“How?”
Adeline took another long drag of nicotine, watching him over her fingers. “When Vaughn’s uncle left town, he left behind some furniture and the landlord said the church could have a look, see what was worth keeping. I found a few envelopes from Vaughn among his things. Nothing inside, but there was a return address.” Cigarette in her mouth, Adeline rooted through the top drawer of her desk before pulling out a sealed envelope and handing it to Sarge. “Don’t make me regret I gave that to you.”
“I won’t.” Sarge turned from the desk, dropping a heavy hand on the doorknob. “I’m going to take care of it.”
She clicked her desk drawer shut and inclined her head. “See that you do.”