Page 23 of Indirect Attack
The knowledge sent a tendril of warmth curling through me, growing until it became a light blazing in the center of my chest. I was half sure the glow would be visible to everyone in the room.
As the night continued and the dining room emptied, I could feel our connections growing again, the bonds we’d forged over our childhood and teenage years reconnecting and strengthening. Jasmine was the same woman I’d always loved, the same smile, the same laugh, the same sense of humor, the same tenacious spirit. But that woman had become even more, maturity adding a spark to the foundation that was unmistakable, alluring, bright, and beautiful all at once.
Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t take my eyes off Jasmine. My gaze followed the expression flitting across her face. Followed the way her head tilted. Watched the movement of her long-fingered hands as she swept the hair away from her graceful collarbone and slim shoulders. It settled on her lips as she licked off a drop of wine that had beaded there.
The night’s goal had been to catch up as old friends, but I felt a warm stirring where I wished there wasn’t, and it wasn’t the three glasses of whiskey I’d downed. The feelings for her I had thought long buried when I’d left Jasmine, the ring, and my phone behind had come roaring back full force when I’d seen her that morning. They weren’t about to be shoved to the back of the proverbial closet again, either.
By the time our server came over to gently remind us for a second time the dining room was closing, I knew I would need a cold shower, or several, once I returned to the barracks.
We strolled to the lobby’s front doors, each step slower than the last, our conversation dancing around the fact that we would have to say goodbye in a moment. When finally we couldn’t go any further, Jasmine turned toward me and stood on her toes to kiss me on the cheek. The contact left a buzz of electricity running like a current across my skin, the hair on my arms standing on end,
“Thanks for tonight,” she said softly, her face so close to mine I could see the flecks of black in the deep green of her irises.
“Thank you for inviting me.” The words seemed too little to encompass what I felt at that moment as our gazes caught and held.
Jasmine pressed her lips together, then bit at her lower lip in a gesture I knew to be indecision.
“Do you want to come up to my room?”
The words were soft, hesitant, her gaze searching my face for an answer before I could give her one. But I’d known my answer before she’d even finished her sentence.
“Yeah.”
Our walk to the elevator through the empty lobby was quiet. Despite what I thought vibrated between us, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Jasmine’s room was, after all, the only place we could hang out privately. Maybe she simply wanted to stay up talking all night, like we’d done as teenagers. Maybe she was having fun catching up.
We stepped into the elevator, Jasmine so close beside me our arms brushed as she hit the button for her floor and stepped back. I could have dreamed up the electricity crackling around us, dismissed it as imagination, attributed it to my awareness of every inch of her body brushing against me. I wasn’t imagining the way my heart pounded, and my pulse sped up.
The elevator doors slid shut with maddening slowness, and suddenly Jasmine had her arms wrapped around my neck and her mouth pressed against mine, her kisses demanding and fervent.
All thoughts fled but one—to kiss her back. And that was what I did: gather her into my arms, pull her tightly against me, and capture her mouth with mine.
It was as though six years of pent-up feelings, of ups and downs and heartache, came rushing out at that moment. I couldn’t draw Jasmine close enough, wind my arms around her tightly enough, take in her scent and the feel of her mouth and tongue against mine enough.
I fell back against the elevator wall, driven by the force of Jasmine’s passion as we lost ourselves in each other, hands grasping for anything to which to hold on, fondle, stroke.
We were so oblivious to the world that we would have continued had a loud clearing of a throat not interrupted.
Jasmine and I jerked away from each other like teenagers who had been caught behind the bleachers. An older man in a robe, the hotel’s emblem embroidered over the chest, stood with one hand holding back the open elevator doors and an ice bucket in the other. He was looking at us pointedly, his expression one of polite displeasure.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, dragging my hand across my mouth. Jasmine, too, murmured multiple apologies as we slipped past the other guest. When I looked down, her cheeks were brightly pink. But at the sound of the doors closing behind us, she let out a cascade of giggles. The sound was so infectious I had to laugh, too.
Our hands were the only thing touching as we tiptoed down the hallway, aware, thanks to the ice bucket guy, that other people existed in the hotel outside of us. But for a long moment, we had been the only ones in the world—and I’d liked it that way.
Jasmine slipped the keycard out of her bag and twisted the door handle when the little light flashed green, which seemed to happen in slow motion. My pulse had slowed only slightly in the time it had taken us to walk down the hallway to the door at the far end, but my craving for Jasmine had only grown.
I hadn’t let myself think about the two times we’d been together in years, but her lips on mine, her body pressed against mine, had tugged them out of their dusty resting place. Vividly, I remembered what it was to have her writhing under me, to feel her around me, to see the pleasure flash across her face, and hear her passion. And now, I wanted more.
The room was dark but lit by the lights of Florin spreading beyond the window, but I only had a moment to take it in before the door closed behind us, and Jasmine was on me again. Her need was palpable, her fingers already working loose the buttons of my shirt, and I wasn’t about to put on the brakes.
Instead, I shifted, swinging us around so Jasmine was up against the wall, my knee between her thighs, my hands yanking her dress up above her waist. I began kissing her in as many places as I could reach—her neck, her collarbone, her shoulders, her mouth, the curve of her ears. I was self-satisfied by her soft intakes of breath and moans, and her hair was soft between the fingers of the one hand I’d threaded through the raven locks.
“Don’t take too long,” she gasped as I dragged my tongue, feather-light, over the skin between her breasts. “I don’t think I can stand it.”
“Trust me,” I murmured between kisses, reveling in the feel of her against me.
We were only passion and heat, flames exploding between us that threatened to engulf us. And we welcomed it.
Chapter 12
