An uncomfortable lump formed in her throat. “Why would I still have that dress? It was worn out back then. It would be a total rag by now.”
His glance in her direction was one of total confusion. “Because you looked incredible in it.” He set the picture down and turned. “Because when I picture you, it’s in that blue dress.”
“I don’t have it,” Jasmine insisted, far too quickly. There was a parting of gray skies taking place here, and she was terrified to know what they would reveal. When I picture you. How often did that happen? Since Sarge blew into town—had it only been two nights ago?—he’d been pursuing her. No hesitations. No momentary lack of focus on his goal…a goal that appeared to be her. The more he spoke and revealed, the more Jasmine wondered how far his crush extended. Did she want to know?
No. She didn’t. Didn’t want to be responsible for anything more than slaking the urges of her body. Eliminating the craving he’d originated in places she hadn’t felt sparks as far back as she could remember. If she allowed that to happen while knowing there were deeper feelings involved on Sarge’s part, the guilt and responsibility would keep her from experiencing the physical completion he was offering. The chance to have this captivating man close, so close, just for a while. Before he left and didn’t come back, possibly for another four years.
Maybe for Sarge, this wasn’t some long-carried torch. Maybe he just wanted to mark Jasmine off his spank bank list, the way men felt sentimental about their first taste of porn. The older woman he’d lusted after as a kid—no better time to satisfy that particular fantasy than on an impromptu visit home. While that possibility caused a suspicious ache deep in her stomach, it suited her far more than Sarge having feelings for her. Yes, it was much, much better. If he simply wanted his fantasy fulfilled, this was a two-way, solely physical street.
When Sarge had almost reached her, Jasmine took him off guard by meeting him halfway on that final step. The move brought their bodies flush, chest to knee, Sarge’s erection pressing against her belly button. “I have the dress.”
His upper lip twitched. “Put it on.”
Jasmine smoothed her hands up his ridged chest, biting her lip over the dips and valleys. “Don’t you want me naked?”
“Yes, I want you naked.” He grazed a thumb down the side of her breast, sending a shudder of heat straight between her thighs. “I also want to be the one who made you naked. The dress, Jasmine.”
It was hot. That was how Jasmine had to categorize a man remembering what you wore almost seven years earlier. Hot that he wanted that particular garment to be the thing he ripped off your body. Yes, hot. Not telling or emotional in any way.
Right.
With a slow brush of their bodies, she floated toward the closet, knowing she would find the blue dress at the back, hidden behind more recent purchases. She plucked it off the hanger and watched Sarge as she changed into it, buttoning the line of buttons that ran all the way down to the hem where it flirted midthigh. Sarge sat at the foot of bed, facing away. His pose was casual, but the line of tension in his shoulders looked as if it might snap him in two. They lifted and fell faster, faster…and some intuition told Jasmine she would find his eyes closed if she circled him. The vision made her heart pump faster.
“A few more parameters,” she blurted, and watched Sarge’s whip-tight muscles bunch even more through the cotton of his shirt. “If either one of us wants to bow out after tonight…no hard feelings.”
His laughter was hollow. “Won’t happen.”
Jasmine smoothed her hands down the front of her dress, over the peaks of her breasts and lower to her stomach. “How do you know?”
Sarge whipped off his T-shirt and discarded it, giving her a view of his broad, sculpted back, the twin indentations at the base of his spine. Those shoulders. “There’s a button I need to press on you,” he rasped, his hands gripping his knees. “For the next few hours, finding that hot button and pressing it over and over is my life’s fucking mission. If you want to bow out after that, it’ll only be because I wore you out or rode you too hard. And you’re too stubborn to admit either.”
She sucked in an unsteady breath. “You probably shouldn’t call a woman stubborn when you’re trying to sleep with her.”
“Stubborn is part of the reason I want her so bad. Any other rules?”
God, this man was dangerous to the detachment that was usually her salvation. He wouldn’t stop saying things that made little lights go off in unused sections of her brain. “No.”
“Good.” She could tell by his flexing triceps that he’d begun unbuttoning his jeans. “Get over here, Jas, or I’m coming to get you.”
Needing to give the flurries in her belly a moment to settle, Jasmine found her reflection in the mirror across the room. Most mornings, she couldn’t even bear to look into her own exhausted eyes, but just then, she appeared the furthest thing from exhausted. In the blue dress she’d always associated with confidence, an exultant moment frozen in time, she looked…ripe for picking. Sexual. Even a little innocent, which made what was to come a hint more exciting. As if sex with a testosterone-charged, filthy-mouthed man needed the added stimulation.
Before she could lose the loose hold on her boosted self-image, Jasmine went to Sarge and rested her hands on his wide shoulders, purring when the muscles jumped beneath her palms.
His eyes blazed, mouth falling open with an agonized sound. Big hands snaked around the backs of her knees, yanking her into the vee of his thighs. Sarge’s height put his mouth level with her pointed nipples, a position he took advantage of like a starving man, opening and closing his lips on her aroused, puckered flesh through the thin material of her dress. As he mouthed her breasts with low grunting noises, his touch slid higher, higher, to close around her bare bottom.
“Last time I saw you in this dress, I was sixteen.” His fingers dug into her twin swells of flesh, tightening hard. “Everyone was looking at you. In awe of you. And I wanted to ask what took them so fucking long.”
Without so much as a warning blink, Sarge twisted, using his grip on her backside to reverse their positions, landing her flat on her back on the bed. The hem of the dress fluttered up to rest at her waist, Jasmine’s hands moving automatically to tug it down. But Sarge’s hungry expression stopped her. His focus was nothing short of breathtaking. He’d apparently just glimpsed the promised land between her thighs, because he looked enraptured, tongue bathing his lips, big hands fisting the bedspread.
“Fuck, Jasmine. Look at your tight slit. Even after I had my fingers pumping inside you yesterday?” Shaking his head, he ran a thumb down her entrance, making her back arch on the bed. “I wondered if your pussy would be smooth as those thighs. Wondered if it would be parted a little so I could see your clit, but I can’t see a goddamn thing. God.” He sucked his lower lip into his mouth, releasing it through his teeth. “You’d never know it from the way you ground on me earlier, but that blue dress was hiding something sweet, wasn’t it?”
Refusing to take his gaze off her dampening center, Sarge ran his tongue along the inside of Jasmine’s smooth thigh. Closer, closer, to the hottest sight he’d ever laid eyes on. Jasmine—his Jasmine—with her legs parted, that blue dress rucked up around her hips. There was a bullish rise in his sternum, smoking out to fill his insides. He wanted to rear up with a shout, cover her with his body, and fuse their mouths together. Wanted to dry-fuck her with his aching dick until she was soaked and then fuck her like the world was ending. It was painful to hold back, but after last night, he was determined to give her more. Not some quick-on-the-trigger moron who didn’t recognize the treasure laid out for his consumption. A treasure representing the curse he needed to break—and he couldn’t do that if he lost himself.