“It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not interested in getting involved with anyone so soon after Clifton. I have too much upheaval in my life right now. The boys, the dog, the house, Clifton, my mother. I think I need to figure out who Em is and what she wants before I go figurin’ out another man. Who wants to do all that work anyway? Men are work.”
Marybell’s head tilted to the right, her lip ring catching the soft rays of the new, overhead track lighting Em had just installed. “Nobody encourages that more than we do. You should definitely find out who Em is. While you’re there, could you also find out if she’s going to be the stern teacher all the time or if this is just transitional while you assert your newfound independence. Just so we’re forewarned.”
LaDawn’s lips pursed as she pulled on her faux fur vest. “So all that talk about makin’ the business is off the table for you now Em ’n’ M? We don’t have to worry you’re gonna look for lust on Craigslist? Because we worry, you know. You’re not yourself these days, and I won’t have you makin’ a rash decision, or bein’ talked into something you don’t want to really do.”
Who was herself? She’d decided that was the quest she was on. To find out who she was.
Em giggled, reaching out to hug LaDawn. She dropped a wet kiss on her friend’s cheek, warmed by her concern. “No Craigslist. No one-night stands. Thanks for taking the boys tonight, girls. Promise I won’t be late.”
Dixie popped her front door open, blowing her a kiss. “Now, if the situation takes a turn, and you change your mind and decide you wanna make some business your business, you call us. We’ll keep the boys.” She winked, giving her the famous sexy smolder.
Em rolled her eyes back at Dixie, digging for her keys in her purse. “There will be no makin’ anything but decisions about color palettes and whether I’ll have a big plate of fries with my hamburger, so never you mind with your lewd suggestions. Now, give the boys a kiss for me, and have a great time.”
* * *
Intentions and hell. There was something about a road and the paving thereof. Em just couldn’t put the two thoughts together well enough to clearly summon the metaphor.
All while she and Jax pored over paint swatches at Lucky’s, while they’d strolled the aisles of antiques stores and furniture departments in Johnsonville, while they’d tested mattresses, while they’d had a glass of wine and a bowlful of creamy pasta, Em had tried to remember the metaphor.
It applied to good intentions—none of which she had after spending the evening with Jax. There wasn’t a pure thought in her head. Not when he’d sat beside her on the pillow-top mattress and his thigh had brushed against hers, creating a shiver of awareness so intense, she’d bitten the inside of her cheek to bring it under control.
Not when she’d sunk so low into one of the mattresses they were testing, he’d offered his hand to pull her up, and she’d ended up falling into him, resisting the insane urge to rest her cheek on his stubbled jaw.
Not when he’d placed his hand at the small of her back to usher her through the restaurant. Or when he’d offered her a forkful of his meatball so she could have a taste.
Touchy.
Jax had been touchy. Not in a “How many hands do you have, you octopus?” way. In the best possible way. The way that set her skin to a delicious slow burn, made her feel sexy, desirable, like a woman.
Every last indecent thought she could cram into her head was swimming right beside her raw nerve endings. She’d never met a man who’d left her so edgy with awareness, who did things to her insides with just a glance.
Now, as they sat under a secluded tree in his driveway, bare of its leaves, while the creek babbled in her ears, and Jax filled up her Jeep with his everything, her nerves were at their white-flag stage. It wasn’t like he could help filling up her Jeep—he was an enormous man, enormous men filled things up. But it wasn’t just his body filling up the space. It was him—his scent—his aura—him.
The glow of the dashboard lights made his hard jaw harder, the thick gleam of his hair soft and blurry around the edges.
“You’re good fun, Em. Thanks for coming with me tonight. I had a really good time.”
“Anything for Maizy.”
Jax leaned over the armrest between them and smiled—this was the devastatingly charming smile he’d bestowed upon her more than once tonight. Sexy and secretive with a hint of some flirt. “Was it really just for Maizy? I’d like to think it had a little something to do with all the charm I radiate.”
More flirting. He was teasing her, and the more he teased her, the stiffer she became. The more tightly strung she became, the more likely she was to say something stupendously stupid.
Em shifted in her seat, begging her body to move away when all it wanted to do was sprawl out on top of Jax’s. “I’m always happy to help out a coworker.”
He found her hand, running his finger over the outline of her red nail with a light touch. “Speaking of, how long have you worked for Call Girls?”
Work. She could talk work, if he would just stop rubbing sensual circles along her fingers. Em cleared her throat. “Just a few months as GM. I worked for our local lawyer, Hank Cotton, as his legal secretary before that. Dixie hired me when Cat retired to have a baby.”
He nodded his head, letting it roll to the headrest. His throat, long, strong, was exposed, every tendon, each muscle making her breathing hitch. “Right. I remember Caine saying you were a mediator when there was some contest for ownership of the company between him and Dixie. Caine said the two of them had to start their own phone-sex lines and win clients, right?”
“The phone-sex games. That’s what the girls and I call it.”
“Hah!” He barked the laugh. “Caine had to talk dirty to men? Can’t wait to tell the guys at our college reunion.”
Em’s head bobbed at the memory, her grin wide. “Actually, it was women he claimed he was doin’ the talkin’ to. He was so sure he’d win he bet Dixie he could take the harder road. We all thought he was gonna smoke her with all those celebrity voices he does, especially Sean Connery, but come to find out, he never talked to a single woman. Not one. He had some college friend hack the system to make it look like he was getting a bunch of calls.”
Jax winced, ducking his dark head playfully. “Confession time. That was me.”
“It was you? Well, it all makes sense now. You bein’ a software developer.”
“Well, not me, but I’m guilty by association. I was in a bad place when he called me and asked me to help, so I referred him to a buddy of mine. I feel stupid for not making the connection. Swear it was all on the up-and-up, though. Caine just said he was doing something to win back the woman he thought he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. I didn’t pry.”
A bad place was all she garnered from his confession. “So you know the rest of the story, then?” Somehow in her excitement over retelling the tale, she’d moved closer to him, let her fingers curl into his.
Jax brought his fingers to his chin and rubbed them against the accumulation of dark stubble. “There’s more?”
“All that time we thought he was locked away in his office, building his clientele, he was really devisin’ a plan to win Dixie back. He was calling her line and pretending to be someone else entirely so he could get to know the newly changed, not so mean girl anymore Dixie.”
Jax whistled. “Wait. Dixie was a mean girl? Dixie Davis?”
She grinned, her eyes skimming his. It was so much easier to talk Dixie. “The meanest. Anyway, that’s how Caine reacquainted himself with her.”
Jax grumbled his approval. “Smooth. Very smooth. Gotta give it to Caine, he knows what he wants. Must have been something to see.”
“I can verify, as their court-appointed mediator, it was a sight to see. The two of them always trying to one-up each other. But it all worked out in the
end, and they’re happy now.”
“Bet there was no funny stuff while they were on your watch. You can be pretty forceful.”
Her cheeks grew hot. She was a bag of hot air. All bluster, no substance. It was all just a show so people wouldn’t feel sorry for poor, divorced-by-her-cheating-husband Em. “The girls call it my stern teacher’s voice.”
“I never had a teacher that looked like you.”
“I’m convinced there was funny stuff from the two of those devils, and I just wasn’t clever enough to find them out. But make no mistake, Dixie and Caine were a handful.”
“And now they’re in love and getting married. It’s good to see Caine so happy.”
“Dixie, too. Life’s funny, isn’t it?”
“And Landon was responsible for all of that?”
“Did you know Landon?”
“Only met him a few times when he came to see Caine back in college. Nice guy. Bought us all a steak dinner and tickets to the Falcons game.”
“Landon was one of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever known. Kind, loyal—”
“And a little eccentric, if I remember right.”
Em laughed with the fond memories Landon had left in his wake. “Yes. He was all that and more. Some people say he was crazy. But I choose to believe he was crazy about love, and life, and when he knew his was ending, he decided to ensure Dixie’s and Caine’s futures. So he threw them together in the one way he knew they’d never be able to resist just so they could find each other again. It’s probably the most romantic gesture I’ve ever witnessed. How many people do you have in your life that would go to such extremes, from the grave no less, to do something like that for you?”
“He sounds like he was something else.”
Em’s eyes grew watery remembering Landon. “I spent some time with him...in the end before he passed, taking care of things for him, getting Dixie here for the reading of his will. I can’t ever seem to put into words his kind of generosity. How...how hard he loved everyone in his life. I didn’t know him much growing up—he was two years older than me and always with Dixie and Caine—but it didn’t take long for me to recognize, Landon knew his heart. He knew how to love people, and he knew how to show it.”
Jax sat still, his eyes on her face, his fingers moving over her arm.
Too intense. Too intimate. Way to frighten the man while you’re just bein’ you. She drew her hand back, embarrassed by her obsession with a romantic tale. “Sorry. I’m just a silly romantic who loves a happy ending. Sometimes I get carried away.”
Jax pulled it back into his grasp and held it there. “Personally, I think it’s attractive on you. Especially the way your eyes light up when you talk about it. It sounds like you grew to love him as much as everyone else seemed to. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
His approval was so warm in her ears, so unlike Clifton’s disapproval when she found a cause she wanted to support, or became too loud in her defense of something, that was so intense she had to change the subject.
“You have a beautiful house,” she said, craning her neck to get the full view of the old farmhouse with a wraparound front porch that went on for days. It needed work. The paint was peeling, the windows were sagging, the trees and shrubs were overgrown and out of control, but Em didn’t see that. She saw the possibilities.
His chuckle was thick when he leaned over and gently shifted her chin to point her in the direction of the full view of the house. “Are you kidding? Do you see what I see? It’s a dump. It doesn’t need a renovation, it needs a bomb squad.”
Em shrugged and smiled, lost in her mind’s revival of Jax’s home. “Well, you see what you see, and I’ll see what I see. What I see is beyond that, and this amazin’ house has tremendous possibilities. It could be a real showstopper. Add in the gorgeous location, the creek and the two acres of land, and it could be a divine place to hang your hat. That porch for instance, can’t you just see it in the summer? Close your eyes and picture ivy climbin’ up the trellis at each end. Hanging plants all along the porch full of petunias and trailing geraniums. Potted plants lining those wide steps in the fall in a riot of colorful mums and big fat pumpkins carved for Halloween. Maybe a vegetable garden over there where that patch of dead grass and leftover bricks are. Antique white rocking chairs to sit on with a glass of sweet tea while you listen to the creek. It could be magnificent—just breathtaking. And think about how much Maizy would love a swing right over there in that big oak.” She pointed to it with her finger, closing her eyes and exhaling to stop her rambling.
When she opened them, Jax’s eyes were crinkling up into another smile, an indulgent one. “You know, when you describe it, I can almost see it. You really like the DIY thing, don’t you?”
Realizing her enthusiasm had taken over again, probably making her sound rabid, Em toned it down. She lowered her voice a notch when she said, “I do. I love taking nothing and making it something. I love fixing what others think is unsalvageable. And I like knowing I did it myself.”
“Where does that come from?”
“What?”
“The need to say you did it yourself?”
Em pulled back. “Did that come out like someone was stopping me from doin’ what I like? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that it was anything more than me stopping myself. But nowadays, I just have a lot of...free time.”
His eyes pierced hers, blue and intense as he drew her back toward him, his hand strong on her arm, his face so close to hers she could see the twitch in his hard jaw. “You mean since your divorce?”
A hard knot had formed in her throat, one she had to fight the words around to get them out of her mouth.
She lifted her shoulders in a “maybe” shrug. “I guess.” Once the boys were in bed, it was just her and a long, lonely night. She’d decided early on, she could fill those nights with regret and sorrow, or she could fill them with projects and self-improvement.
“Em?”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to do something right now. Something that might piss you off. But I’m gonna do it anyway. Because it’s driving me damn crazy. You’re driving me crazy.”
Em flinched. Just when you thought your small talk skills had hit a new low, you aimed lower. “I’m talking too much, right? Boring you to death with my enthusiasm over something that obviously doesn’t interest you.” Her heart drove against her chest; embarrassment flooded her cheeks. Good heavens, Em. Will you never learn babbling’s not high on a man’s list of endearing qualities?
Jax’s breath was on her face, warm, coming in quick bursts, his hard features outlined by the blue glow of the dashboard lights. “Not even close. You’re enthusiasm interests me—makes me want to grab a hammer and start pounding nails. Chew some wood up with my teeth, maybe. Something we both know, and the evidence shows—” he held up his bandaged hand “—I just shouldn’t be allowed to do. That aside, everything about you interests me. And that’s why I’m going to do it. Too soon or not be damned.”
The words he spoke didn’t quite sink in. She didn’t understand where he was going. She only knew, their lips were so close she was slightly intoxicated by the heady heat between them. “Do...do what?”
“This,” Jax muttered, gravelly, sexy-low as he cupped her neck and pulled her as close as he could with the barrier of the bulky armrest in their way.
Em froze—stilled until her muscles ached from the tension.
He wasn’t going to...
Her?
Why would he want to do that with her?
Six
“Kiss you. I’m going to kiss you, Emmaline Amos, and I think I might do it without your permission if you keep holding things up. Interested in knowing why?”
Jax’s chest constricted when she clammed up. This was the adorably freaked-out Em. He�
�d had glimpses of this Em all through mattress shopping and right into dinner.
Every time he’d touched her, even just brushed against her, she couldn’t decide whether to enjoy it or run away from it. “Okay, then, I’ll tell you. Because your mouth is driving me crazy.”
Her eyes were so wide—so full of disbelief, he almost laughed. Had no one ever told her how damn hot her lips were? Well, he’d just be the first.
Snap out of it, man. This is not the road that leads to no dating. You have other things to worry about—like Reece. But Em was like kryptonite, and forcing Reece from his mind was easy when he looked at Em’s lips.
She winced, her beautiful features lining with disgust. “You mean my mouth is big, don’t you? You want to shut me up because I talk too much? I do that sometimes. I forget myself. I’m sorry.”
Her apology made him chuckle. Whoever had given Em the impression her enthusiasm, her ability to draw you into what brought her happiness, was annoying, made him want to beat the shit out of them.
Cupping her jaw, he said, “No. I mean your hot mouth is driving me crazy—words and all. I don’t care what’s coming out of them.”
Letting his tongue finally caress the soft flesh of her lower lip, his gut tightened on impact when he glided over the silky surface, tasting, testing.
Christ.
She stiffened beneath his hand, so he eased his grip, caressing the back of her neck, stroking the soft skin until she relaxed. “Is that okay, Em? If I kiss you?”
“Why would you want to kiss someone like me?”
She said it like those lips weren’t amazingly kissable. Fuck. Who’d messed with her head like that? Jax nibbled on the corner of her mouth, smiling against it when she shuddered then leaned into him. Just a little, but enough to signal her body language was adjusting to his touch. “The question here is, who wouldn’t want to kiss you? I can’t imagine watching your mouth move and not wanting to kiss you.”
Something to Talk About Page 8
