Did that send another shot of liquid slicking down to her core? God, yes. She was dying a slow death, the longer it took to get Sarge inside her. But nothing could stop those insecurities from rearing their ugly heads. They were always present, just waiting for an opening to sing their solo. “You want this so bad?” Her laughter was half breathless, half skeptical, maybe a little sad. “You can still see the outline of my goggles.”

His disbelief was capped with annoyance when he pulled away, wedging her face between his hands. “You listen to me, I’ve been to twenty-nine countries and stared out at millions of faces, and…” He ran frustrated blue eyes over her face. “No one’s lip turns up the way yours does. No one’s chin is as stubborn as yours while still being so stupid cute. No one looks like they can keep all my secrets. Or be the reason for all my secrets. They only built one of you. So no more. I’m shutting that shit down right now.”

Sarge gripped her shoulders and backed her toward the side entrance, reaching around her hip to pry the door open. They were ensconced in darkness, his intensity boring down on her, shredding her up inside as the door slammed. An overhead grate allowed thin slits of sunlight into the silent machine room, giving her shifting views of harsh planes of his face, the heat in his eyes, as her back met a concrete wall. “Sarge—”

He cut her off with his seeking mouth, kissing her until air became necessary to staying conscious, determined hands working the fly of her jeans. “You.” His forehead bumped into hers. “You don’t make jokes about how bad I need you. Feeling like I might die without you wrapped around me isn’t funny.”

“I’m sorry,” Jasmine breathed, meaning it. How could she not mean it when his voice shook, when his words were slamming into her chest like unruly bumper cars? The situation was getting away from her, the morning’s resolve nothing but a distant echo. There wasn’t a precipice in sight she could hold on to to pull her out of the quicksand. “I didn’t mean to make fun. It’s just…the way you’re making me behave.” Something about the near-darkness sent honesty tumbling out. “I’ve never had trouble putting the brakes on before. The first time shouldn’t happen when I’m thirty, right? I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t…”

“What?” The word emerged like an expletive against her ear. “You shouldn’t want a man who walked around all morning feeling sick? For passing up a chance to bang your sweetness up against the kitchen counter?” He dragged the jacket off her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor with a whoosh, before planting his hands over her head. “I’m sick as fuck, Jasmine. Cure me.”

This is what it feels like to be craved. Beyond reason. Beyond anything in her experience. His pain called to an untapped facet of her womanhood and dug in, knitting loose ends together. There was a thrill that came with knowing you’d caused a man’s desperation and you were the only one who could fix it. The only one capable of negating his aches by driving them higher, higher, before letting him down. Sarge had started a boil this morning by denying her the chance to reciprocate the pleasure he’d given. Now the boil rollicked and bubbled over her edges, sizzling down her sides, rousing the dormant seductress housed inside her.

Jasmine hooked a finger in Sarge’s belt loop and tugged his hips forward, smiling when his breath rushed out in the form of her name. Jasmine. “When I was watching the video?”

“Yeah?” he prompted.

She cupped his erection through his jeans, pulse picking up speed at her own bravery, at the weight of him. “I couldn’t look away from this.”

Sarge groaned, tilting his hips to push himself into her palm. “Did you see me fucking your bed I needed inside your pussy so bad?”

“Yes,” she whispered, giving him a firmer grip. “But that’s not what you want right now, is it?”

“I always want it,” he growled, ramming his fist into the cement wall. “I want to be pumping inside you every minute of the day.”

Good Lord. It took Jasmine a moment to come down from the potency of his statement. There were two sides of her battling for supremacy inside Jasmine. The terrified side, worrying Sarge wanted more than she could give—and the side dying to give him everything. In the darkness, with their bodies primed for only one thing, logic was the weaker opponent. Her thighs rubbed together, her teeth raking over her lips like an all-out addict whose drug of choice was this man. Only this man. Now.

Jasmine unbuttoned Sarge’s jeans and slowly lowered the zipper, noticing that he held his breath. “Do you ever think of me on my knees?”

His laugh turned to a gritted curse when she fondled his hardness, pulling it from his jeans and running light fingertips over every ridge and vein. “Ah, Jesus. You don’t want to know how often I think of that, baby.” His forehead dropped down onto her shoulder. “You’ve sucked my cock in every hotel shower across Europe.”

The apex of her thighs contracted—a swift tug of muscles. “But it was all in your head.” Using one hand to grip his length, she found his balls and massaged, her eyelids falling when his body jerked on a moan. “I want to give you the real thing.”

Back and forth, his head shook on her shoulder. “I’ll come too fast. You need me between your legs. The song…the video. I know you need fucking.”

Despite his denial, she could hear the lust coating his voice. He wanted inside her mouth. She was aching to give herself to him that way. There was no stopping this. Jasmine went down on her knees between his body and the wall, pushing away his halfhearted attempts to keep her standing. “You’ll give that to me later, won’t you?”

His eyes blazed, hands clenching in her hair. “Jesus, don’t tell me from your knees that you want me to fuck you later, Jas. I won’t last a minute.”

Had she ever felt this alive? This daring? She swirled her tongue around the slick, engorged tip. “But I do want that. So bad.”

Sarge’s groan rang in her ears. “Fuck this. Stand up so I can rip the panties I made wet right off your sex-kitten ass.”

Jasmine’s response was to glide her mouth halfway down his shaft, maintaining eye contact as she sucked her way back to the tip. Sarge fell forward, his lips parting on a silent shout of pleasure. His palms slapped onto the wall behind her, leaving him bent at the waist, legs spread shoulder width apart. As if the move were unconscious, but he wanted to get all of himself as close as possible, Sarge gathered his shirt in a fist and lifted, giving her a front-row seat to his flexing stomach.

“Baby, baby, that’s so good. Feels so good riding on your tongue. My stomach hurts already just knowing…knowing it’s you. Won’t last, goddammit…I can’t.”

His face was a mask of pleasure, eyes struggling to stay open but squeezing shut every few seconds when she sucked a little more of him. The taste of salt was already spreading on her tongue, evidence of his lust that couldn’t be contained. She lifted his heavy arousal toward his belly to lick the underside, turned on to see how tightly his balls were drawn up. Close, he was already so close, and having witnessed his unbelievable stamina last night, the obvious desire wrought by her mouth was a huge turn-on. Her heart was beating triple time in her chest, wetness rushing between her legs. Without conscious thought, she palmed the twin globes of hanging flesh and gloried in the sound of him releasing a string of curses.

“That’s it. That’s it. Feel me getting ready?” His thighs started to shake on either side of her face. “You…no. Jasmine, baby. You stop now. I’m…oh my God I’m going to lose it so hard. I’m thinking of fucking you. Fucking you. Fucking you. Get up. I can’t stop it.”

Greedy. She was greedy for Sarge. His shaft was so full inside her mouth, so stiff. His hands were punishing fists in her hair, made all the hotter because he likely wasn’t even aware how much they pulled. He was just a hungry male trying to get his mate’s mouth closer, tighter. When she felt his fullness jerk, heard Sarge’s voice choke off into rough pants, she reached around his hips to dig her fingernails into his ass, hard enough to leave marks, tugging him closer as he spent himself down her throat.