Another try, p.6
Another Try, page 6
He had started the coffee when the door swung open and he found Dusan along with his two bodyguards standing there.
“You do know there is such a thing as knocking, right?” He walked out of the kitchen and watched as the bodyguards looked down at his cock then back to his face. “We still have this day.”
Dusan shrugged. “Plans have changed. Where’s your woman?”
“Right here, wondering why the fuck you’ve busted in here when I’ve not gotten my cock this morning?” Jasmine’s voice pulled their focus.
He glanced to his left and saw her there, sheet tucked under her arms and a gun in one hand. Her hair was a tangled mess that spoke of being loved hard and often, and it made him want to bend her over and let that hot pussy suck him in once more.
Dusan’s lips curved up. “You like sex? Maybe my men want a turn.”
Anger spit through Lance.
Jasmine snorted. “I’d hate for your son to lose the only smart person in his life.” She gestured with the gun. “You tell them to come after me like I’m slut on the auction block and I will put a bullet between your eyes. Then fight them. Either way, you die first.”
“I have mentioned to you, Lance, how bloodthirsty your woman is, right?”
Lance moved toward her. “I’m aware. Where are we going?”
“A place you need more clothing than this.”
“But casual?”
“Yes, jeans will be fine for you both.”
He nodded at Dusan. “Give us ten minutes.” He grabbed hand and pulled her back into the bedroom.
Jasmine called out over her shoulder as the door closed behind them, “Make it fifteen!”
* * * *
Hot coffee in hand, the scent wafting up to her nose, Jasmine stared at the two men who she’d mentioned were undercovers. One was dead, his throat having been slit. From her experience, there wasn’t any doubt he’d suffered hard before they’d finally just killed him.
The one beside him in the grave was alive, barely, and he looked up at all of them. She stared down without a shred of sympathy. This fucker was a pedophile. His proclivity was toward children under five. Didn’t matter the sex of the child, he just wanted them young.
“He swore up until he couldn’t speak anymore that he wasn’t a cop.”
She looked away from him to the angry face of Michel, across the grave. The man’s face a blotchy red. Interesting. Her own face schooled in what many people had referred to as a woman’s resting bitch face.
Supposing it was true, she really didn’t give a damn about the fucker about to die, nor the baby of a crime syndicate lord who looked ready to cry when a favorite toy was taken away. Holding that angry gaze, she put the cup to her lips and sipped.
“Have you nothing to say?” His furious words spat in her direction made her all the more grateful the grave sat between them, protecting her from his saliva.
“I didn’t lay a hand on them, not sure why you’re so mad at me.”
“You were the one who said they were cops.”
Tipping her head to the side, she stretched out her neck, aware that not just Dusan but pretty much everyone gathered there watched her.
“Do you really think your father would take my word, one of his men’s women—who according to you should have walked in through the back door at your daddy’s house to clean, not through the front—over yours and the word of people who had worked for him for far longer than he’s known me if he couldn’t see the proof himself? Your father’s not a stupid man. which is why he didn’t let the cops in the door. You did.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you.”
“You’re always welcome to try. All I did was tell the truth, and his digging into them pulled their true selves from hiding. I guess it doesn’t matter who they were to you simply because you wanted your dick in them.”
Lance settled a hand along her back—a silent warning not to go too far. She didn’t want to, but she had a thing about being challenged and threatened. Government dick or crime asshole, it didn’t matter, she wasn’t a fan.
“Enough.” Dusan’s voice settled his son. “Kill him. I need to have another talk with Lance and his woman.”
She barely refrained from rolling her eyes. He rarely called her by name. Not that she minded, it was just amusing in a way. Women were nothing more than pieces of pussy for him, not good enough to call by names. How the hell did he deal with his daughters?
Resting her head against Lance’s shoulder, she sipped her coffee as if she were standing along the beach during sunrise, not squirreled away in a forest somewhere over a makeshift hole in the ground—one where two more men were about to become food for the worms. There were looks that passed between Dusan and Michel but the boy never pulled his weapon. She studied each nuance of their expressions, including the disappointed and disgusted one on Dusan’s face when he eventually had one of his men pull out a silenced gun and end the life of the creep in the hole.
“You cover him up. Too much of a pussy to do what I told you to, you will bury them then come home. We have to talk. I’m leaving these two with you and taking your two. They will not help you with the shoveling and if that means, Michel, you are out here all fucking day, then so be it. It’s time for you to learn that there are consequences to your actions.”
Dusan snapped his fingers and Michel’s two bodyguards immediately left the son and moved to the father. Dusan’s two remained like stone statues.
Lance didn’t move his arm from around Jasmine, continuing to stroke her arm.
Dusan got about ten feet away before he barked, “Lance, come.”
Brushing his lips over her forehead, he stopped the motion on her arm and took up her other hand, the one without the coffee, twining their fingers. The men who’d come with Dusan, his personal guards, remained back there with his son. Michel’s men were trailing Dusan.
Silence lingered in the woods as they strode back to the dark SUVs waiting along a path she wouldn’t even consider calling a road. Lance held the back door of the second one for her and they climbed in while Dusan got in the front. When the second guy tried to get in on her side, Lance growled low and she patted him on the leg, letting him know not to make an issue of this. She had a feeling they would be scrambling later. Right now having a sleaze sit beside her wasn’t a huge thing on the grand scale.
“Do you like music?” Dusan asked the question as he looked over his shoulder.
“Yes.” Lance bit off his word.
She nodded when Dusan looked at her but didn’t speak, instead continuing to sip her coffee, paying attention to the bodyguard beside her and what he was doing.
His gun was at the small of his back and he wore a backup on his right ankle. Other than that, he wasn’t armed. A plus in her favor. Dusan’s typical men had shoulder holsters for quick draw even in a car. This guy would bumble first.
They drove an hour and finally got back into the city. Dusan took them to a botanical garden. As they got out, she shared a look with Lance. His confusion matched hers.
Dusan charmed the woman at the front who waved them through. He led the way into a section of the garden that was being renovated. Tall plants in both burlap wrapping and pots waited for whatever was being done here.
“I love it in this place.”
Dusan’s voice was low and smooth. He crouched down and pushed his hand into the fertile soil and allowed a fistful to filter though his fingers.
All three of the men with them looked on edge. She didn’t work for the man so she wasn’t sure what was normal for him, but from their looks, this wasn’t it.
“You know why I love it here so much?” Dusan looked over each of them individually.
“Because when you kill someone, if you put an endangered plant over it they won’t be dug up.” The words just slipped from her mouth, and the second they had, she wished she could recall them.
Dusan smiled, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. In that moment, she saw a handsome, charming businessman, not a ruthless cartel leader who ran a human trafficking ring as one of his means of income.
“You and I, Jasmine, could do a lot together.” His gaze snapped to Lance. “Hold onto this one or she will be snatched up.”
“Don’t ever plan on letting her go.” Lance wrapped his arm around her again, tucking her into his side.
Dusan rose, brushing off his hands. “She is correct. Out here no one would know if you kill and bury a body. They are so worried about the beautification projects no one thinks to ask why the soil is so fertile.”
The lighter-haired one of the duo who typically guarded Michel got shifty feet and couldn’t hold still. There was something else in play here.
“You two,” the man began with a quick glance down to his hands before he looked back at them. “You are supposed to protect my son.”
They nodded.
Jasmine believed she knew where this was going to end and she didn’t want to be part of it.
“So explain to me how two of the guys closest to him turned out to be undercover cops.” He straightened his suit coat. “The knowledge that such a thing has happened, tells me he has been in danger this entire time.” His mouth thinned. “I don’t like the fact this was going on under your noses.”
Fidgety blond stabbed finger in her and Lance’s direction. “He’s a cop.”
Jasmine tipped her head to look up at Lance, whose expression couldn’t be read.
“That’s your response?” Dusan shook his head. “I come to you with concerns about the men you allow around my son and you point at one of my men and call him a cop. Instead of shifting the blame, perhaps you should try to figure out a way to save your ass, because right now, this hole has your name all over it.”
The blond blanched. The darker-haired man beside him hadn’t moved a bit, his expression stone.
Dusan shook his head. “Kill him.”
Before she could figure out if that was to her or Lance, the dark-haired man pulled out his gun and put one right in the blond’s head, the silencer muffling the sound. Within seconds, the blond had been pushed into the hole and dirt was being slung over him.
When the four of them walked out there was a newly completed area with some plants that had just been planted.
Jasmine wanted to get out of this hell she’d jumped in. She’d had no feelings for the one who’d just been buried in front of her—for none of them from today—but she did care about Lance, far more than she should. Because of that she couldn’t just, well, wouldn’t just, ghost on him and leave him to fend for himself. Especially since she knew Robert was here. Just being in the same city with the man who’d hung her out to dry meant sleep wasn’t going to come easy anymore.
One thing at a time. Let’s find a way to get away from the man who is everything you despise in a human.
Chapter Six
Sometimes you fall in love with the most unexpected person at the most unexpected time.
“You’ll be there tonight. This is not a request.”
Dusan’s tone was cold and autocratic. He expected his order to be followed. Of course, the man always expected that.
“Black tie?”
A sniff of distaste. “Of course. Unlike my children, I know the meaning of dressing for your success.”
“My woman?”
Lance glanced over his shoulder at the woman in question. Jasmine lay sprawled nude over the queen mattress in the bedroom. A light blanket draped over her, covering her firm ass and part of her lower back. She slept on her stomach, arms bent and beneath the pillow supporting her head. Her skin glowed and he grinned even as his heart thumped in a possessive way, flipping and calling for him to head over to her, hang up the phone and drill his cock as far as he could inside that tight pussy until she couldn’t imagine what it was like to not feel him in her.
“Of course she will be with you.”
The smooth delivery had him suspicious, more than he already had been. There was something going on that he wanted to shock Lance with. Problem was, with a man like Dusan, that could be anything from ordering him to kill a man, having one shot in front of him or any other myriad of shit that he could demand.
“We’ll be there in an hour.”
Everything inside him wanted to hang up on the man but he knew better. A poised few seconds before a low grunt and the call was done. He huffed and made sure the phone was off before placing it on the oak bedside table, next to hers where it leaned against the brass base of her lamp.
Sinking to the mattress, he reached out a hand and placed it on the small of her back. Not even a full second later, he found himself looking up the barrel of her sidearm, her gaze sharp and very much aware.
Lance hiked an eyebrow. “I left the bed maybe ten minutes ago. Did you already forget me?”
A slow blink but no verbal response to his question. Instead, she rose to a seated position, her full breasts distracting him for a few seconds with their dark nipples that hardened beneath his perusal. He slid his gaze down her toned body, admiring the lean muscles that flexed and moved with her.
Shifting her legs, she moved them to the side he sat on but had them so she could slip off behind him. Didn’t stop the flash of her pussy that he definitely ogled. Still silent, she set her weapon on the small table before striding from the room without care she was naked and headed into the bathroom. When the water turned on, he moaned and flopped to his side.
He watched her from below lowered lids as she walked back in the room, a towel tucked above her breasts.
Without a word, she moved by him and bent to grab her phone and gun then padded out on silent feet. The moment she was back in the hallway, he reached down and gripped his dick, squeezing hard trying to push his hunger for her down.
“Fuck.” He pushed to his feet and walked out to find her in the kitchen, unwrapping a Hot Pocket type of food.
She held it up and popped an eyebrow. He shook his head, not wanting to eat that. While it heated in the microwave, she got herself a tall glass of cold water.
“Dusan has an event tonight we have been ordered to attend.”
He watched her throat move as she swallowed. “Okay.” Glass on the countertop, she wiped the back of her hand over her mouth. “What kind of event?”
“Fancy.”
The microwave beeped and she turned to it, pulling out the pastry and huffing slightly as she pulled it from the sleeve. He groaned when she took a large bite. Eyes wide and watery, she opened her mouth and fanned a hand before it like that was going to help cool it down.
“Coulda waited a second or three.” His deadpan remark was met with a narrowing gaze.
“Hungry.” She barely waited before taking another bite. This time the moan of pleasure kicked his cock to high gear.
“I’m going to shower. It’s fancy and I have to go back to my place and get a tux.”
He pulled one out in the shower, because otherwise it was going to be a hell of a night, then frowned as he stepped out and heard Jasmine talking to someone. Towel around his waist, he peered through the doorway and watched her nod to someone at the front door before she closed it on him.
While his woman had on more than a towel, she wasn’t wearing all that much. She walked back toward him, picking up a garment bag on her way.
“What’s that?”
“Tom Ford.” She brushed by him and hung the garment bag on the doorframe. Facing him, she raked her gaze over him and smirked. “Personally I’d rather you stay in the towel.”
Said towel began to lift as his cock swelled.
“I’d prefer you naked and on my dick.”
“Pencil me in for later.” A wink and she vanished in the bathroom.
He definitely would do that. Once he tugged on a pair of black boxer briefs, he unzipped the bag and whistled low. “Love me some Italian wool.”
A sharp onyx black. Satin along the lapel and side stripe, peak lapel, and double vent. The crisp black shirt fit like it had been made for him alone. Bowtie hanging around his neck, he drew up the pants and fastened them as she walked out of the bathroom in a barely there dark silvered gray lingerie set.
“Shit.”
Lace. It was lace covering her pussy in the smallest triangle possible. Her breasts were pushed up in some lacy bra that was going to have him hard all night. Her lips turned up as she walked toward him.
“You’re looking good, Detective.”
“You’re fucking sexy as hell.” He left the pants undone and prowled toward her, circling her but not actually touching. “You trying to kill me?”
“That would be counterproductive now, wouldn’t it? I wouldn’t get more of that dick I’m addicted to.”
Her Cheshire grin had his dick fighting for escape. Giving in to his need, he gripped that very cock and squeezed, loving how her gaze dropped there.
“It’s always for you, baby. Only for you.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Better be, because if I find out it’s gone in anyone else or been touched by anyone else, I’ll fucking feed it to you in pieces.”
Lance moved toward her and she locked her knees at the pure predation in his gaze. Fucking panty-melting. Jasmine understood why some women had a thing for men in tuxes. While jeans and a tee were her catnip, there wasn’t any denying how this looked on him.
He caged her in, hands on either side over her head, and bent close.
“We are supposed to get moving, baby and you being all dangerously possessive turns me on.” A deep breath and he dragged his nose along her neck and up along her face. “Seriously fucking turning me on.”
She whimpered as he thrust his thigh between hers, lifting her up on her toes, even in her heels. Her pussy clenched, desperate to have his thick length filling her, stretching her. Lance secured his hand around her throat.
Pulse kicking into high, she licked her lips. He squeezed and she rocked against the granite-hard thigh beneath her.
