Again a frustrating tingle of recognition teased her without mercy, but she still couldn’t place him.She’d known a few Lances in her time.Some good, some most definitely bad.Others just running the middle.
Whoever he was, he moved closer to her, keeping up with the forward progression of Michel and his bodyguard.That one would be the one who had to get put down first.
“Just a bit of a disagreement between me and my woman.She’s pissed I haven’t been by in a while.”
His woman?Did this fucker just lay claim to me?Why does that make parts of me that have been untouched for far too long sit up and take notice?
No accent to speak of in that delicious voice and damn it all, she was fucking intrigued.She didn’t move away, instead moving closer to him.She didn’t know who he was, but she was sure that he wouldn’t attack her until he got what he needed from her.
Fairly certain.
Hopeful.
“She doesn’t know her place then, if she doesn’t think a man can go after all the whores he wants.”Even though she couldn’t see him, Michel’s voice was unmistakeable.
The stranger shifted smoothly before her, blocking her view of either man.She narrowed her eyes at his back.Protection wasn’t anything she had counted on from a man for a long time.“I didn’t say she was a whore.I said she wasmy woman.”
“Same thing.”
He reached back and took hold of her arm.“Not to me.You’re always so curious as to why I turn down the women you toss in my direction.This is why.I have a woman.I have pussy at home, so I don’t need to go out and beg or pay for it.”
Surely she had to be hearing things because it sounded to her like this man, one she didn’t know, had just declared herhiswoman.Guess my earlier thought was spot-on.And he still held her like he meant it.She was pressed up against him and he’d wrapped his arm around her, settling it on her ass as if she’d not just beat him with her ASP and as if he had the right to touch her in such a manner.
Strange thing was, she was intrigued and didn’t argue with him.While she didn’t completely relax into him, she didn’t fight him on the personal touching or his outrageous claim either.
“We don’t like surprises,” Michel barked.
“Again, I don’t work for you.I work for your father.I’ll introduce them when I’m ready.”
Words that pushed alarm through her.Michel was bad enough, but if this guy was working for Dusan, she may be up shit’s creek.Naked.
Michel crossed beefy arms.“Be ready now.I’m bringing in my father.”
“Do what you must.I don’t care, but step away and let me apologize to my woman without you trying to get some fucking lessons on how a man talks to a woman as opposed to what you usually do, interacting with a child.”
Even more interesting by the second, things got.
The man watched the other two move away before he faced her again.Jasmine blinked, her fingers comfortable around her baton, just waiting for some wrong move.This time it wouldn’t be a disabling blow but a deadly one.He shifted them a bit more but made sure he could keep an eye on the two men.She recognized the move.
“I need your help, Jasmine.”
“I told you, I don’t know you or who that person is you keep calling me.I think you had better tell your friends there you made a mistake.”
His chuckle was deep and, fuck it all, arousing.He could have just pushed his hand down her pants and flicked her clit given how her body responded.Working her over completely and reminding her how long it had been since anything beyond her own fingers had been between her legs.
Not good.
“I know I didn’t.Want to know how I know this?Becauseyoupropositionedme.”
“I’ve done that to more than one man.It doesn’t make you all unique or special.”
That chiseled jaw flexed and a low rumble escaped.“You do that a lot to detectives?”He thumbed back the bill of his cap and she stared into his eyes.While they were no longer the icy green she remembered but blue-green, they were still intense as all get out.
Holy fucking shit and goddamnit.He may look a bit different, but no way would sheeverforget this man.And, from the looks of things, he’d not forgotten her either.
Be that good or bad, it was something that remained to be seen.
One of Atlanta’s own, Detective Lance Baldwin.
