So with an agonized shout at the ceiling, he’d abandoned his quest for self-love and answered.

Now? He couldn’t blink without his dick getting hard.

Jasmine. God. The way she’d popped those hips back and slid forward, choking his fingers with her tight—he’d known it would be—pussy. The way her lower lip pouted every time he talked dirty in her ear, as if she didn’t understand why she liked it so much. At least, he prayed like hell she liked it, because he didn’t appear to be capable of keeping the words locked inside, the way he always did until it came time to write songs. Although didn’t it make perfect sense that Jasmine would call forward the words, since his songs were about her?

Sarge leaned back against the gray limestone building, mentally berating James for not being his usual early self. He wanted to get back to Hook. Tomorrow night, he would meet his niece for the first time. Spend some clearly much-needed time with his sister. Tonight he would go back to Jasmine’s and hope she hadn’t already put his possessions on the curb. Oh, and also hope she’d let him fuck the stuffing out of her. He couldn’t forget about that.

As if he could. He had a near-decadelong obsession with a woman—no end in sight…yet—and a punishing, uncompromising need to get deep, deep inside her where he hoped to lay the obsession to rest. If there was a stern voice in his head telling him on repeat that his heart would be set on fire like Jimi Hendrix’s guitar once all was said and done? He was beyond listening. Distance hadn’t worked. So he would eliminate every speck of daylight between them and attempt to grind his infatuation into dust.

Sarge pushed off the wall when he saw James approaching, looking as though he wanted to tear down the city with his bare hands. “Hey, man.”

“Is she still in holding? Have you gone in yet?”

“Not yet.” When James tried to bypass him into the building, Sarge stepped into his path, ceasing his progress with a hand to the chest. “I waited out here for a reason. You need to cool off before you see her.”

James shook him off and stepped back, tugging on the sleeves of his trench coat with meticulous movements. “Trust me, I’m feeling positively chilly.”

Sarge noticed a photographer across the street taking pictures of them and turned his back, indicating that James should do the same. Not that it would be anything new when gossip blogs broke the news that once again, Lita Regina had ended up behind bars for the night. “It doesn’t matter if I trust you. It matters that Lita expects you to go in there and throw your weight around like an asshole. You do it every time.” Sarge shook his head. “She loves it.”

For once, James actually looked interested in something, one dark eyebrow dipping behind his aviator sunglasses. “Why would she love it?”

“So she can be angry at you instead of herself,” Sarge near-shouted, jabbing the freezing air with a finger. “Shit. You know what else? I’m done playing referee for you two. You’re both reasonably intelligent people—you can figure each other out without my help. I’ve hit my limit.”

James took off his sunglasses with a casual sweep of his hand, removing a square of material from his coat pocket to clean the lenses. When he was finished with the task, he replaced them over his eyes and nodded once at Sarge. “Your sister wasn’t quite as enamored by the prodigal son’s return as you’d hoped, I take it?”

“Oh, just fuck right off.” Sarge bypassed James on his way toward the entrance. Yeah, he was well aware that he was taking out his piss-poor mood on James, but someone could ask his rock-hard balls if he cared. Until he got back to Hook and got his own family situation—and the Jasmine situation—under control, he didn’t have the capacity to focus on much else.

The two men showed identification and signed in at the glass enclosure just beyond the entrance vestibule. James spoke in a curt tone with the officer as he completed the bail transaction. After funds and paperwork had exchanged hands, they were escorted by a female officer to a beige waiting area where Sarge dropped into an orange plastic seat and James began to pace.

It was a familiar position for them.

Sarge reached over and picked up the nearest magazine from a stack on the wobbly side table, but closed the rag immediately when his face popped up on the fourth page under speculation that the band was breaking up, piggybacked by an article about his recent hookup with a reality show star he’d never met in his life.

Neat.

Sarge realized James had stopped his nervous laps around the room, and was now standing with his buffed loafers pointing in his direction. “What?”

“I’m waiting to hear what happened with your sister.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re in a waiting room.”

A muscle ticked in the band manager’s cheek. “You’re not acting like your usual self. Something must have happened, and I’m your manager. So.”

Sarge lifted his hands and let them drop to his bent knees. “You just want me to distract you until they release Lita.”

“Partly.”

Sarge had no choice but to laugh, but it faded fast. He and James got along fine in their silent agreement not to discuss feelings, but in an artistic profession, shit tended to come out in the wash, whether in song lyrics or after a particularly sloppy night out on the road. It didn’t matter how succinct he made his explanation, James would see everything. Same way Sarge saw what was taking place between James and Lita. But hell, Sarge needed a distraction from thinking about Jasmine—about everything—so he’d talk. Anything to get him through another ten minutes without wondering what the night would bring.

“My sister didn’t want me to stay,” Sarge began. “She had a rough breakup with the father of my niece. Doesn’t want her daughter to get attached to me since I’ll only leave again.”

“Right.” James sat back in his chair, thumb tapping on his thigh. “Where are you staying?”

Sarge stared hard at the cinder-block wall when he answered. “With Jasmine.”

His manager was silent for a tick. “The Jasmine? Jasmine Taveras?”

Hearing her name felt like rolling around in burning cinders. “I liked you better as guy who doesn’t give a shit.”

James started to say something else, but the metal door on the opposite side of the room swung open to reveal Lita. Barely reaching the escorting officer’s shoulder, she had both hands shoved into her ripped jeans, a red-and-black-checkered beanie pulled just above huge, apprehensive green eyes, which were firmly trained on James. “Um.” She shifted in her boots. “I’m with the band?”

In an effort to keep from pissing off James, since the poor fucker had stopped breathing beside him, Sarge didn’t voice the other half of the band’s inside joke. Lita’s innocent, kid-sister appearance had gotten her stopped at security more than once at Old News shows. She looked incapable of lifting a pair of drumsticks, let alone whaling on a kit like a legend. Once, before a show in Amsterdam, she’d told the venue’s head of security she was “with the band,” to which he’d replied in a deadpan tone, “The Spice Girls broke up fifteen years ago.”

Now, even though Lita wasn’t looking at Sarge, he knew she expected the rejoinder, but how the situation was handled needed to be James’s call this time. Too often, Sarge had played good cop, and clearly, it hadn’t done a damn thing to keep Lita from diving back into self-destructive waters.

Thinking of his fingers thrusting into Jasmine’s addictive heat that morning, Sarge wondered if he’d jumped headfirst into self-destruction himself.

Finally, Lita turned her attention to him, arms crossing over her middle. “You were supposed to come alone, Sergeant.”

Sarge shrugged, but sighed when he couldn’t pull off being callous when it came to Lita, even though she’d used the nickname she knew he couldn’t stand. “You were supposed to stay out of trouble.”