Brazen (Brazen #1)

Brazen (Brazen #1)
Maya Banks


Chapter One

Jasmine Quinn stared at the email message in her inbox and smiled as she read the text.

Of course you can come home. And about damn time, too. We’ve missed you, Jaz. You shouldn’t even feel you had to ask. I’ve already booked your flight into Houston. Your confirmation numbers are below. I’ll meet you at the airport.

—Zane

Home. She stood up from her desk and shut the laptop before moving to the window overlooking the beautiful Parisian skyline. In the distance, the Eiffel Tower gleamed and twinkled with a thousand lights.

She loved it here, and she’d miss it, but she loved it back home on the Texas ranch more. Even if she hadn’t considered that she’d return when she left a year ago. She stepped out onto her small balcony, and breathed deeply as the late spring air blew over her face.

Zane and Seth. She couldn’t wait to see them. It had been painful to stay away from them for the last year. So many times she’d nearly caved, picked up the phone and asked to come back home. But going back to a place where she’d be reminded of her feelings for both men on a daily basis and having to cope with never having a chance with either had made going back impossible. Until now.

Now? She was going back with a purpose.

When she arrived in Paris, she’d been defeated. Heartbroken and convinced she’d never get over the painful dilemma she left behind. Cherisse had changed her outlook, changed so many things about Jasmine’s way of thinking. It was because of Cherisse that Jasmine was taking a chance.

She wouldn’t go home the same little girl Zane and Seth had looked out for after that disastrous night in Houston so many years ago. A light shudder worked over her shoulders as she revisited her past shame.

No, she’d go home a sophisticated, mature woman. One who knew what she wanted and exactly what she had to do to get it. After a year away, Zane and Seth would see beyond their overprotective tendencies and see her. A living, breathing woman with adult needs. She needed them. She needed what they could give her. And somehow she knew that they needed her just as much.

* * *

Jasmine reached back to unclip her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders. She dragged her fingers through the strands and tucked the layered bangs behind her ears as she stood waiting for the line of passengers in front of her to disembark. She twitched with impatience and tapped her foot accordingly.

She shoved her thumbs into her jeans’ pockets and looked down at the waistband that barely cleared the top of her pelvis. The shirt she’d chosen to wear bared a three-inch strip of her abdomen and teasingly bared more when she moved her arms upward.

Yeah, she’d chosen her outfit carefully. She wanted to knock Zane’s socks off. It would help to get a reaction from him before she had to face Seth at the ranch. Seth was going to be a harder sell, of that she had no doubt.

He was the oldest, the responsible brother. Zane was the younger, more laid-back sibling. He’d flirted shamelessly with her in the past, but it had never gone beyond idle teasing. She was going to change that come hell or high water.

Finally the line moved and she surged ahead, anxious to see Zane after so long. She strode up the long ramp and finally burst into the terminal. She didn’t waste any time. She skirted around the people milling about and headed for the security checkpoint where she knew Zane would be waiting.

As she traveled down the small exit corridor, anticipation quickened her stride. When she stepped out of the hallway, she stopped and stared around, her heart beating an anxious rhythm. Then she saw him.

She sucked in her breath and tried to control the urge to run pell-mell and throw herself into his arms. She drank in the sight of him. A curl of heat untwisted in her stomach, fanning out until she felt warm all over. If she thought she was attracted to him before, the reality of seeing him for the first time in a year hit her square in the hormones.

He stood staring at her, a smile carved into his handsome face. He hadn’t changed a damn bit.

His midnight black hair fell to his shoulders, a slight curl making it unruly. A diamond stud glinted in his left ear. He wore a tight T-shirt that stretched across bulging biceps and a hard, muscled chest. Wrapped around his upper arm, between the upper and lower muscle, was an intricately woven tattoo. A pair of deer antlers interrupted the circular flow of the band. It was the same graphic that was branded into the metal arch over the driveway to Sweetwater Ranch.

Zane’s blue eyes twinkled in welcome, and when he opened his arms, she forgot all about not throwing herself at him. She felt the sting of tears at her lids. She was home. She flew across the crowded room and launched herself at him.

He caught her with a chuckle and palmed her ass as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

“Gee, Jaz, one would think you missed me.”

Following her instincts, and her desire, she ignored his outburst and pressed her lips to his. He stiffened in surprise, his hands tightening on her behind.

For the briefest of moments he returned her kiss, allowing his mouth to work hot over hers. It was a bolt to her system, a welcome flood of desire.

One of his hands slid up her back, resting against her spine. She shivered at the feel of his palm against her bare skin. His tongue brushed over the curve of her mouth before he tore his lips away. He stared at her, his eyes wide with shock and something else. Lust. He blinked rapidly and eased her body down his until her feet hit the floor with a thud.