Chapter Two
Every moment of your life is a second chance.
It had been a risk.He knew that and understood it but he didn’t care.Lance knew she could help him and he was willing to do what it took to secure that help.And he meant whatever.Thinking back over everything that Declan had said about her, he knew trusting her wasn’t something he should just do blindly.After all, she’d set her own sister up.
Despite the fact that every nugget of information he’d read about her—and that had been a thick and a damn interesting read—and had had to deal with when their paths crossed, informed him this was a woman who spelled nothing but trouble for any male stupid enough to think with his cock around her.Or underestimate her.
She’d make them pay.
Even though she’d not been his informant or even his issue, he had been helping out Declan McBride and they had been on the steps of the courthouse on a nice sunny day when Declan’s then-lover—and a woman whom everyone had thought was Jasmine—had reminded him she wasn’t her.At all.
He’d been about to get back in his vehicle and back to his world of being a detective, not a babysitter, when the witness who’d everyone thought was Jasmine announced once more she wasn’t and that Jasmine was over there.The similarities were there but Caro had a softness about her that Jasmine didn’t.Jasmine’s gaze was shrewd and never slowed as she constantly watched the world around them, even as her lips turned up in a mocking smirk.
Enter Jasmine.The real one.And the prosecuting ADA had been livid.She’d lit into both sisters after getting them into a small room, and while most people had watched Carolyn’s responses, he’d been focused on Jasmine—the real Jasmine—and there hadn’t been any way to disguise the rage that had flared in her gaze as she’d looked at the woman threatening her twin.It had taken him everything in him to ignore the heat that flared in his gut the longer he watched her.Caro did nothing for him but Jasmine, hell, he’d not wanted to focus on it.Given Declan had married Caro after he got his head out of his ass, he assumed it was the opposite for that man.Caro did it for him, not the real Jasmine.
So while on paper the woman had set up her own sister, he would be stupid to assume she didn’t care about her.
“What do you want?”
Her tone had as much warmth as it ever had when they were back in Atlanta and she’d been dressed like a five-dollar hooker.Made him nearly reach for a winter coat as if they weren’t in sunny California.Didn’t matter then and it didn’t now, there had always been something more to her.He would have bet his shield on it then, now he had something a bit more on the line.His life.
“I told you.”Lance rolled his lower lip between his teeth.
She narrowed her eyes ever so slightly.“Lose your cushy gig in Hotlanta?”
He noticed that she continued to monitor where Michel and his asshole men had gathered.More arrived as they stood there, far enough away that their words weren’t going to be overheard, but that Michel felt he still held some control.
Shifting his stance, he swallowed hard as his cock responded.“Something like that.”
She popped the gum in her mouth and shook her head.“Fail to see how this is any concern of mine.”
He moved his hand along her ass, fingers brushing just below the hem of the shorts she wore, exposing her sexy, toned legs.She trembled beneath his touch.
“What will it cost me?”The moment the words left his mouth, he realized there had been a million other,better,ways to ask her to keep his secret from the men gathered.But no, his mind, which didn’t seem to work right when he thought about her, had gone on the fritz once again.So of course I make sound like she is a whore and I want to hire her.
The sneer on her face wasn’t faked, and when she held up her hands, the men watching them laughed.His stomach twisted.This could very well be the end.The four men walked closer.He wanted to kick their asses and keep them away.He didn’t have a solid on her cooperation and it made him nervous.
As fuck.
She shifted away from his touch and he disapproved of her move for more than one reason.Told himself theonlyreason that was important was he couldn’t shield her if or when shit went sideways.
“You think that offering up some lame-ass apology is going to make up for this latest stunt you fucking pulled on me?”Her voice pitched higher, definitely carrying to those near, as she pulled her gum out of her mouth and smashed then stretched it between her thumb and index finger.She watched it as if it held all the secrets to the universe.
Lance latched onto that and prayed his instincts about her hadn’t been wrong.
“Come on, baby.You know I have to go when my boss calls.I can’t tell him no.I didn’twantto be away from you for the past few nights.Ihadto be.”
She scowled and flicked her gum in Michel’s direction.The man scrambled back and glared at her.She shrugged her slender shoulders and turned toward Lance once more.
“I’m not sure you’ll be able to pay what this will be costing you.”
He saw a lifeboat and grabbed on the line it dragged without a second of hesitation.Shifting so they were again touching, he skimmed a hand down her face.The result was far from an act.Lightning crackled through him, his pulse skittered up, and not because of the men there.It all had to do with this woman.Blood zipped south and settled all too comfortably in his dick.
“Whatever it takes, baby.Just, please.No more ASP and forgive me.I’ll spend all night on my knees for you if that’s what it takes.”A wicked grin.“You know how much Ilovebeing between your legs.”
The men gathered laughed but he didn’t take his gaze from her.There in her brown eyes was a spark of something he’d seen in her gaze the first day he’d met her.Coincidentally that had been the day she had propositioned him.In all his days of wearing a badge he’d never been so tempted to take someone up on an offer as he had been then.
She shifted to him, hips swaying with a seductive motion he knew people paid good money to learn.He would bet his life, and in a sense he was, that she came by hers naturally.Just like everything else about her.Natural.
