Crashed Out (Made in Jersey, #1)(20)

Oh f*ck, he wasn’t going to make it. The more extreme his mental agony became, the faster she whipped her hips up and back, her open mouth dragging over his with every movement. “Sarge,” she moaned. “You feel so good. So huge.”

Call him a cliché, but that was his point of no return. Hearing the woman that haunted his fantasies refer to his cock as huge robbed his balls of their weight, sending moisture from deep, deep down in the root of him to dampen the lap of his jeans. His throat was scraped raw from saying her name, but he couldn’t remember having said it once. Never had he been so satisfied from an orgasm and he knew, knew it was Jasmine, the woman watching him in amazement from her perch on his thighs. Maybe later he would interpret that expression differently, but not right now. Now he only saw his tormentor delighted by how much control she had over his body. How much control she’d always had over it.

And he’d just busted in his pants as if he hadn’t aged a goddamn day.

“That makes you happy, doesn’t it?” He invaded her personal space, bringing their faces close. “Knowing how easily you can get me off?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, scrutinizing his face. “It kind of does.”

Anger—directed at his past and current self, and at Jasmine—spit hot lava against the inside of his gut. He had to get out of there. Clean himself off. Play his guitar. Something. Anything but having Jasmine looking at him like some exotic specimen she’d never encountered.

He picked Jasmine up by the hips and set her aside on the couch. “I’m going to turn in,” he said, hating the curtness in his voice, but too embarrassed to change it. “Thanks for not putting my stuff on the curb, all right?”

He was already at the guest room door when she spoke. “Sarge—”

The door closed before she could continue. No way would he sit there and listen to Jasmine try to convince him his reaction was natural. Normal. It wasn’t.

And instead of doing something to rid himself of the curse, every encounter with Jasmine only seemed to increase its potency. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would regroup.

His sanity depended on it.



Jasmine kept it real. If you interviewed the Taveras family, they would tell you she told the truth and didn’t smother it in sugar. It wasn’t just a matter of telling people when their new haircut looked a mess or they were acting a damn fool. It was more than that. She owned up to her mistakes and felt no qualms with admitting her error in judgment.

Once during senior year of high school, she’d accidentally burned off a hunk of River’s hair with a curling iron, and instead of trying to hide it or simply apologizing, she’d snipped off an equal piece of her own, so they could match. Just one month ago, she’d clipped another shopper’s car bumper at the mall and waited outside for an hour until the person emerged. And okay, her tenacity had somewhat stemmed from the hope they could trade cash instead of going through their insurance companies. New Jersey rates were no joke.

Point being, since Sarge had shown back up in Hook, she’d been running in a mistake marathon. Really delicious, pulse-pounding, unforgettable, ooey-gooey mistakes. With her best friend’s little—okay, maybe not so little at all—brother, a man seven years her junior. Who even did that? Everyone knew it was only hot the other way around. When a guy hooked up with his best friend’s little sister after being tempted into a near coma. Who didn’t get a little hot thinking about that? But this? This was veritable cradle robbery of a guy she’d once been paid to supervise during his adolescence. Worse, it had been done behind River’s back. Her best friend on the planet.

Junior year of high school, when Jasmine had moved to this über-Irish and Italian town, her Dominican heritage had stuck out like ten sore thumbs. Every guy had wanted to date her, in a way that told Jasmine they viewed her as a novelty. There had been no love lost when she’d turned them all down, especially from the girls at school who thought her stuck up. River Purcell had been the last person Jasmine expected to approach her. Freshman class president, head cheerleader, gorgeous in a way that made passersby shake their heads. River had had everything going for her. But she’d sat down right beside Jasmine where she’d been eating outside the gymnasium and they’d never gone a day without speaking since, even after Jasmine graduated from high school and River still had two years left.

Jasmine massaged the back of her neck in the break room, attempting to psyche herself up for the upcoming confrontation with her best friend. This is what she did. She fessed up when she did something wrong.

That makes you happy, doesn’t it? Knowing how easily you can get me off?

Dios, “liked” didn’t begin to cover how satisfying Sarge’s body had made her feel last night. Powerful. Buoyant. Feelings she hadn’t encountered in so long.

What if she wasn’t ready to give him up just yet?

Even considering a second time was so, so wrong on more than one level. Usually when she made a mistake, she regretted it and swore she’d never do it again. But each time Jasmine spoke the promise out loud—as practice for the real deal—the words got stuck in her throat. Perhaps it was her body banding together to keep the promise suppressed, each little part playing its own role. Her nipples were the ringleaders, tightened to the point of pain inside her factory jumpsuit. Stemming from those pesky peaks was a bobbing line twisting its way down to her tummy, twirling there like a horny, demented ballerina.