by Linda Verji
“Yes, Lucas. Lucas Gallo.” There was an edge of irritation to his voice as he reminded her. “We dated in high-school.”
“Really?” Screwing her face into a mask of concentration, she looked upwards. She spent a couple of seconds pretending to think over it then shook her head. “I’m sorry, that was such a long time ago. I really don’t remember, but it was nice to see you again.”
She turned to leave, but he grabbed her by the elbow forcing her to turn back to him.
“You don’t remember me?” His eyes narrowed in anger. “Jasmine Angela Mitchell. Daughter of Wallace and Yolanda Mitchell. Birthday; April fourth. Graduated from Tonel High. Favorite pizza toppings, pineapples and ham. Favorite movie; Titanic. You don’t remember me?”
With each word, he tugged her closer until they were so close her breasts brushed against the hard planes of his chest. Her whole body came alive at the contact and her breath caught in her throat. If she was capable of thought, she would’ve been astounded that he still remembered so much about her. But with him being so close to her, well… thinking wasn’t high on her list of things to do. High up on that list was breathing.
Breathe, she ordered herself as she stared up at him. Unfortunately, when she pulled in a deep breath, she inhaled his masculine scent. Her senses swooned, begged her to cuddle into him and bury her face into her chest. But she couldn’t do that! This was the man who’d broken her heart so cruelly, so savagely, that she still had scars. Even now, thirteen years later, she still vividly recalled the way it had felt to watch him leave while she sat on the ground getting laughed at by other kids.
She tried to take a step back, but his arm came around her waist to stop her.
She probably could’ve disentangled herself from his hold but she was too mesmerized by the electric sensations that swept through her at that touch and the intensity in his gaze as he studied her.
“You don’t remember me?” he prodded again.
“I don’t,” she insisted stubbornly.
“Maybe this will remind you.” He lowered his head.
She didn’t see it coming. She wasn’t prepared for it. Maybe it was why she reacted to his kiss as she did. She let him slant his lips over hers. She let him run his tongue over the seam of her mouth then suck her bottom lip gently.
By the time she even thought of fighting him, his hand was already at the nape of her neck holding her close as he firmly meshed his lips to hers. She opened her mouth to protest, but he took advantage of the slight opening and pressed his tongue in. The moment his tongue dipped in, she went still, all the fight sucked out of her.
Encouraged, Lucas darted in again. This time she met him, her lips parting for his possession. His hands hadn’t shifted from the nape of her neck or her waist yet it felt like he was touching her whole body. Heat zipped through her nerves in intoxicated waves, pooling at her lower belly. Her core tightened in response and she shifted restlessly against him.
As if knowing just what she needed, Lucas dragged her even closer to him with a hand on her lower back until her breasts were crushed against his chest and her pussy was riding his thigh. The intensified contact was akin to throwing gasoline on an already burning house. The kiss turned feverish, his lips moved more firmly over hers as if he was trying to stamp the memory of himself back into her.
He was right. His kiss had the power to bring back memories; memories of him kissing her just like this beneath the bleachers and memories of him dragging her between the shelves in the library so he could drive her crazy with his lips. It brought back memories of the hurt that had stabbed through her when she’d realized that all those kisses meant nothing to him. That she meant nothing to him.
She pressed her fists to his chest and shoved him away. Running the back of her hand over her lips, she spat out, “I don’t remember you.”
With those words still hanging behind her, she left.
CHAPTER 4
Twenty minutes later, Jasmine settled at a corner table at Grandpa’s Gate, a restaurant known for its barbecued meats and hot-wings.
“Let’s go with a level five today,” she ordered.
“Are you serious?” Geoffrey ‘Geoff’ Webster, the restaurant’s head chef, stared down at her with obvious disbelief. “You never go higher than three, even on a bad day.”
“This was a really, really bad day,” she said, “and I need to numb some stuff.”
Specifically, she needed to numb her lips so that they could forget that darned kiss. She’d gone to the police department to find out why her assistant was dead and why the cops were trying to pass it off as a suicide, not to get kissed by that… that man.
Lucas Gallo! Her anger rose a few notches at the thought of him. That asshole! After everything the jerk had done he still had the nerve to kiss her? The nerve! But what was even more unbelievable was that she’d let him kiss her. Was she mental? Obviously she was because if she had her full sense she would’ve punched him in the throat. Yup! She should’ve kicked him in the balls.
Ugh! She was crazy for kissing him, and only the hottest wings this side of the Mississippi could bring her to her senses.
“Bring on the hot-wings, Geoff,” she ordered firmly.
Looking more than a little doubtful, Geoff headed to the kitchen. When he came back fifteen minutes later, he was carrying a plate full of hot-wings. The wings looked appetizingly orange, but their spicy scent was so overpowering that Jasmine’s nose itched.
“You sure about this?” Geoff held the plate high above the table as if giving her a chance to change her mind.
“I’m sure.” Jasmine grabbed the plate and set it in front of her. She picked one wing and bit into it.
Lord. Jesus. Almighty. Save me. It tasted like pepper flavored with lightning, like kissing a rattlesnake. She couldn’t tell if the chicken was tasty or not because her tongue went numb as soon as it touched it. The pain that accompanied the chewing process was eye-wateringly intense, but it was also sweet, in an excruciating kind of way. Still, this torture was the best way to relieve stress because nobody – absolutely nobody – could think straight while their mouth was on fire.
“That looks painful,” Geoff winced as he watched her take another bite.
It was painful. It was hellishly painful.
What the hell are you eating? Her brain screamed at her taste-buds, but they were too numb to hear anything. Jasmine finished the last bit of flesh on that wing before picking another one. As soon as she bit into it, she had to exhale several times to cool her mouth down. Holy crap!
Geoff poured a glass of water then pushed it her way. “What am I supposed to do if you end up fainting?”
“Call nine-one-one.” Jasmine pushed the water right back to him. After the sins her mouth had committed today, it deserved to get punished. No water for you. She bit into the wing again and winced. “Whoo! These are hot.”
“I know who I’m gonna call,” Geoff said right before he left her table.
Since the wings were so hot, it was hard to gulp them down. Still, Jasmine kept on torturing herself. She was about halfway through the plate when someone stopped in front of her table. She looked up to find Kenny staring at her with a frown.
“Jaz, I thought we said we were done with the wings.”
Jasmine narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think I’m doing here?” Kenny retorted with raised eyebrows.
Jasmine’s eyes swept from her friend towards the counter where Geoff was standing watching them. “He called you?”
“He called me,” Kenny confirmed.
“Wow! What a tattle-tale.” Jasmine threw a narrow-eyed glare at the black man. “If I’d known that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, I would never have introduced you two.”
“That again?” Kenny laughed. “You can’t throw that at us every time we try to keep you from killing yourself.”
“I’m not trying to kill myself,” Jasmine said as she reached for another wing.
Kenny pulled the plate away from her before she could. “Kenny!”
“Girl, please!” Kenny set the hot-wings at the table behind them before coming back to settle opposite Jasmine. “I’m not trying to explain to your momma why your autopsy report says that your cause of death was chicken wings.”
“They weren’t that bad!” Jasmine wiped her fingers with a napkin.
“It was a level five. I can’t even go past two.”
“That’s because you’re a chicken.” Jasmine grinned. “See what I did there.”
“Ha ha ha. You’re so funny,” Kenny retorted sarcastically even as her eyes glittered with amusement. However, her features soon sobered up. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean what’s going on?” Jasmine asked as she grabbed the glass of water. When the water touched her still-tingling lips, she almost burst into a worship session.
“You know what I mean!” Kenny studied her. “You only come here when something’s happened, and it has to be really bad cause you were at five.”
Jasmine wanted to lie and say that nothing was wrong but she knew her friend. Kenny knew her too well and was persistent. It was better to give up while she was ahead.
“You know how I was going to find out why they closed York’s case so fast?” Jasmine reminded her. When Kenny nodded, she continued, “Yeah well, I didn’t get any answers.”
Jasmine knew that sometimes bright personalities hid the darkness and sadness lurking beneath, but York was so bright, energetic and full of life that it was hard to imagine him taking his own life. Also, there were too many things that didn’t fit the pattern.
Yes, his acting career wasn’t going too well, but it wasn’t his end-all game. He had a decent enough job right now and even had back-up plans in case it didn’t work out. He’d even enrolled in night business classes and started a YouTube beauty and fashion channel with the aim of starting a make-up line. A new dent in his acting career shouldn’t have been enough to make him suicidal.
“That’s unfortunate.” Kenny sighed. “But maybe it’s really a suicide.”
“-I’m telling you, it’s not,” Jasmine insisted. “Besides that, they claim he jumped off Walcott Towers. Doesn’t that leave you a little suspicious?”
Kenny didn’t say anything but her frown was answer enough.
Both women had had prior experience with the thuggish owner of Walcott Towers, Michael Walcott. Though Jasmine hadn’t brought it up when she’d talked to the detective, the fact that there was even a tenuous connection between York’s death and Michael Walcott was enough to send the alarms in her head blaring. Michael wasn’t a man one could trust. She wouldn’t put it past him to have done something to York then spun it into a suicide.
“I’ll keep pushing until they do a better investigation,” Jasmine swore.
“Okay, I’m with you on that one. But-” Kenny cocked her head. The action sent her long weave flying to flow down her right shoulder. “-something tells me that that’s not the reason you’re trying to burn your mouth. Did something else happen?”
Jasmine paused then revealed, “I met Lucas there.”
Kenny’s eyes immediately widened. “What?”
“I met Lucas there.”
“What?” Kenny blinked, then blinked again. “Why? How? Here? In Chancery? What is that bastard doing here?”
Her shock wasn’t surprising. Even though the two women had met in college, Kenny knew the whole story about Lucas and how much he’d hurt Jasmine. Since Kenny was the type of woman who hated people her friends hated, she’d developed a deep dislike for Lucas even though she’d never met him.
The two of them had spent drunk nights calling him all sorts of names and strategizing about all the ways they’d torture him if they ever met him. There was even a plan to bust the windows out his car and burn his apartment. In college and afterwards, every man who they assumed was no good became a Lucas. Their hatred for him was so passionate that they’d unwittingly spread the use of that term around their college until everyone, even now, still called players Lucas.
“I don’t know what he was doing there,” Jasmine said. “I just saw him.”
“No wonder you went level five,” Kenny said with a cringe. “Did you two talk?”
“Mm…”
“What does mm mean?”
“Not exactly.”
Kenny’s eyes narrowed. “Jasmine, what did you do?”
“Nothing, I did nothing.” Jasmine pointed to herself. “It was all him.”
Her friend’s eyes were still narrowed. “Okay, let’s try this again. What did he do?”
Jasmine leaned forward and whispered, “He kissed me.”
“That motherf-” Kenny was obviously on the verge of swearing but when her eyes caught those of her boyfriend, she paused. “That jerk-face. Is he serious? Tell me you knocked him out. Tell me you slapped him back into next week.”
Jasmine’s expression was all the answer Kenny needed.
“Nooo.” Kenny groaned and flopped backwards into her seat. “You let him get away with it?”
“I was too shocked,” Jasmine defended herself even though she knew that wasn’t entirely true. Being shocked didn’t explain why she’d kissed him back. Fortunately, Kenny’s interrogation was cut off by the sudden ring of Jasmine’s phone.
Jasmine extracted her phone from her purse. She frowned when she realized that the number was blocked. Nevertheless, she answered, “Hello?”
“Is this Jasmine Mitchell?” The voice that emerged was oddly disembodied, like a robot’s voice. It was almost like the caller was using voice changing software. She couldn’t tell if she was speaking to a woman or a man.
“Yes, this is she?”
“Stop being nosy.”
Jasmine’s frown deepened. “Sorry?”
“Stop being nosy. Keep away from York’s case,” the voice said, “or-”
“Or what?”
“Or you’ll get it.”
“I’ll get it?” At the back of her mind, Jasmine knew what was happening yet she couldn’t quite believe it. She mocked, “Get what?”
“Just stop or you’ll get hurt,” the voice said then before Jasmine could interrogate it further, the line went dead.
What was that? Jasmine stared at her phone in disbelief. Had that conversation just happened?
“What? Who called?” Kenny cut into her thoughts.
“I think I just got threatened.” Jasmine’s laugh was as filled with disbelief as her expression.
WAS HE INSANE when he’d kissed her? Probably. An hour later, Lucas still couldn’t figure out why he’d done it. All he remembered was the cocktail of emotions that had crashed into him the seconds before he’d done it. Anger because she was pretending not to remember him. How could she not remember him after how much they’d loved each other? It wasn’t possible.
Next had come desire. She looked so damn good that he couldn’t help bringing her close to him, and once her body was against his… amazing. That desire had come with longing and relief. Even after all these years, something melted inside him just because she was close. A knot he never even knew was tied inside him seemed to unravel at the knowledge that she was back. It was almost as if a part of him had been waiting for her all these years.
He didn’t quite know how to react to her presence in Chancery. Part of him was jumping in joy. Never in a million years had he expected to see her again. He’d assumed that the place she’d occupied in his heart would always be hollow. That she’d always be the one who’d gotten away. His senses wanted to jump to their feet and go looking for her so he could confirm that she was really back.
The other part of him was scared. As cowardly as it was, he would’ve preferred to have never seen her than to be left spinning with all these emotions. Despite the desire, longing and relief, he already knew that there was nothing he could do about her being here. He couldn’t go looking for her, or even try seducing her again.
With age came wisdom, a
nd he’d realized that he’d broken up with her in the wrong away. But even so, he still believed that breaking up with her was the right thing to do. Even though the years had changed a few things, the reason he’d let her go still hung between them like an anchor threatening to sink both of them if he so much as made a move.
“So,” Shane’s voice cut into Lucas’s thoughts. “Who is she?”
Lucas looked up to find his partner watching him with curious eyes from across their joined desks. “Who is who?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know who I’m talking about.” Shane leaned forward, excitement glittering in his dark eyes as he prodded, “I’m talking about my future wife. You looked like you knew her. So who is she? What’s her name? What’s her number? Can I meet her?”
Shane’s flirty ways had never bothered Lucas before, but for some reason the thought of his friend flirting with Jasmine sent hot anger through Lucas. His voice curt, he asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be off-duty?”
“So are you, and I don’t see you leaving.” Shane was unmoved by the annoyance in his partner’s voice. “Come on, tell me who she is. Set me up.”
Lucas didn’t bother answering. He swept his gaze away from his partner and straight to Buddy’s desk. Buddy wasn’t there. Perfect! Lucas shot to his feet.
“Where’re you going?” Shane called out behind him.
“Keep a lookout for Buddy,” Lucas instructed without turning.
What case had brought Jasmine back into his life? Lucas was curious. He headed to Buddy’s desk. A while back, Shane had bet that Lucas couldn’t figure out Buddy’s password. Buddy was so dumb that it had only taken Lucas a day to figure it out. Lucas typed in ‘chucknorris01’ into the computer and the desktop came alive. All the files for cases Buddy was working on were right there on the desktop.
Of course Lucas could’ve asked Buddy to tell him what the case was about. However, along with being lazy, Buddy also had an ego the size of Mount Everest. He would never willingly allow anyone else to look at his files for fear that they’d spot one of his mistakes. The only solution was to sneak a look.