Her chin lifted, but she was suspicious. “Thanks…”
“But you have to take a bite of this sandwich.” He felt the amusement slip from his expression, but couldn’t stop it from going. Yeah, it was important to him that her last meal not be from some unworthy son of a bitch. But there was a darker part of him that wanted to fall asleep knowing he’d put something he’d made in her stomach. Ah, come on, who was he kidding? He wouldn’t sleep a damn second tonight. It would take him an hour to figure out how to wring his cock out without her hearing across the hall. And if the past were any indication, once wouldn’t be enough where Jasmine was concerned. “What’s it going to be?” he asked, his voice having dropped around fifty octaves.
“Oh for the love of…” Jasmine stomped across the kitchen barefoot, obviously uncaring that her tits were bouncing like sweet little temptations as she went. Sarge stepped closer as she took the bite, swallowing a growl when her teeth sank into the bread and she chewed, swallowing a few seconds later. “Happy?”
God, he wanted to smear the lipstick painting her mouth. Over to her chin, across her cheek, down her belly. “You have no idea.”
She held up a single finger. “That sounded like gutter mouth in disguise.”
“You know me so well.”
Jasmine paused at the kitchen’s threshold, one hand lingering on the frame as she perused him over her shoulder. “I thought I did.”
Chapter Four
Jasmine never had trouble sleeping. Since childhood, she’d had the ability to black out as soon as her head hit the pillow. Couch armrests, car doors, and folded arms were all fair game. At the factory, she was famous for catnaps in the break room while vending machines vended and employees chattered. So there was just no excuse for being wide-awake with three glasses of wine in her system. Dreamland should have been an easy destination, reached in mere seconds, but no. No, she had a too-young man with an ambitious mouth right across the dark, narrow hallway.
There wasn’t a chance—negative chances, in fact—that Sarge could back up the talk with the walk. She’d dated plenty of men who spoke a big game and failed to handle business in downtown Ladyville.
Oh, but he’d been so convincing. So specific. There had been knowledge in those baby blues she didn’t recall from before. Honestly, she didn’t recall that kind of try-me-you’ll-love-me attitude from anyone she’d spent time with. Coupled with that moan? That moan that made her body feel like an object to be lusted after? In the mirror across the room, she could see herself in her white nightshirt, and the image sent a flush climbing her neck. Nipples distended against the cotton material, lips parted as she struggled to regain composure. So very non-Jasmine.
Co?o. Knock it off. It was River’s brother she was thinking about. She’d attended his middle and high school graduations when she was already in her twenties. This little bud of attraction—and it was little…teeny tiny, minuscule, a speck, really—she’d felt between her thighs when the silk of her underwear had slipped down his rigid fly, it had to have been a fluke. An unwelcome one.
Jasmine went on occasional dates, enjoyed male companionship, and afterward, she slept the sleep of angels. No second-guessing her actions or wondering what would happen when the sun came up. No replaying interactions or trying to recapture the feel of a man’s body with a now-scandalized pillow. God, if anyone in Hook knew she was lusting after a man seven years her junior—a famous musician nonetheless—she would never live it down. Everyone in this town had a long memory, and they remembered just-watch-me-blow-this-town-and-your-mind Jasmine. What’s more, they remembered her failure to succeed almost as well as she did. They would view her taking up with Sarge as an attempt to recapture her youth—the future she’d never lived up to—and she wouldn’t be able to stand the sympathy that would garner.
Especially if it turned out they were right. Less than a week until her thirtieth birthday, she could be having a one-third-of-life crisis. There was simply no other way to explain why she felt like she might suffocate if a certain honor-defending, potty-mouthed musician didn’t follow through on his threats.
She sighed. Tomorrow, he would find another place to crash and she could put the embarrassing crisis behind her, never telling another soul as long as she lived. Poof. It would be gone. Never happen—
“You awake in there, too, Jas?”
Jasmine’s back arched on the bed as Sarge’s voice shimmered along her spine, down the small of her back. God, had she been breathing heavily? Had she voiced her inexcusable thoughts out loud?
“I know you are,” he continued, his tone dark and teasing.
“How?” Jasmine answered, before her brain could intercede.