“The awkward part is standin’ at attention. It’s a little awful.” So awful she wanted to borrow her stern teacher’s eraser and wipe it away.
“But you have nothing to feel awkward about, Em,” he grumbled.
She stared down at her suede boots.
He put his lips to her ear, making her curl into him. “Whaddya say we start over?”
Pouty face. “And forget last night ever happened?” She leaned back and waited for his response.
He leaned into her, too, making her shivery and light-headed. “Well, I’d like to think what happened wasn’t forgettable, but if it makes you feel more comfortable, we can put it on a shelf. Wipe the slate clean. Technically, we just messed around like we were still in high school.”
A shelf. Like that kind of explosive reaction to him had a shelf. She had two choices where Jax was concerned. Give in to her secret fantasies or avoid him altogether.
That rush of whatever Jax did to her, the wave of plum crazy that held her brain hostage and let her lips roam free, took over again, unplanned and totally unprovoked. “I have a question.”
“I hope I have the answer.”
“Do you want to have sex with me?”
* * *
Jax’s brow furrowed, deep lines forming on his forehead, the scent of Em in his nose. He had a brief, speechless moment filled with all the visuals her words spawned before the sweet lines of her face came back into focus. “Come again?”
In the dim corner, right beside the biggest brass planter he’d ever seen, Em’s eyes flew open. Her hand went to her throat in that cute way it did when she was embarrassed. “I just said that out loud, didn’t I?”
He half grinned, watching as she licked her lips—nervous, embarrassed. “Yeah. It was a little awesome.”
“And not like me at all, but...”
He made sure she was hidden from prying eyes with the size of his body, but couldn’t resist running his finger along her cheek. “You know, you keep saying that, but maybe it is like you and you just weren’t aware of it.”
She didn’t look too sure about that, yet it didn’t stop her from responding to his touch. Her jaw shifted an inch, the tips of her toes moving closer to his. “So you think this crude, forward half of me, the half of me that has no filter, is emergin’ now because?”
“Because you like me?”
She retreated, her chin lifting, exposing her long, pretty neck. “I don’t even know you, and as a by the by, I’ve liked plenty o’ people and I’ve never been forward with any of them.”
He leaned into her, giving him the opportunity to move even closer—smell her hair, take a quick peek at the front of her knit sweaterdress, hugging all those curves. “Well, let’s face it, I do give good car.”
She relaxed again. “Jeep.”
Was she teasing him now? “Right. Point being, you’re obviously comfortable enough with me to show me who you really are. Sometimes, it isn’t just in the movies where physical connections like that happen.”
“I don’t want a connection.” She sounded like she meant it. Jax didn’t like that sound at all. He didn’t want to not like it, but for the moment, he was going to concede to his curiosity.
He found himself asking, “Who doesn’t want to feel connected?” Yeah. Everybody wanted to feel connected.
“Someone who just went through an ugly, very scandalous divorce no one in this gossipy town can seem to stop talking about. Someone who doesn’t want to add new people to her life so the gossipy people of this town can talk about them, too. Someone who has a son that needs her and can’t afford to add in the stress of a new relationship when the end of the old one is what’s still tearing said son apart, and someone who isn’t interested in being tied down again.”
She put her boys first. He liked that about her. Even if it meant she’d just lumped him into the stressful category. He feigned offended. “Wait. Who said I’d be stressful? I’m pretty low maintenance.” Said the man who had demons beating down his door right at this very moment.
The sudden shift in Em’s demeanor, the way she squared her shoulders like she was preparing for battle, only made him want her more. Her quest for independence looked damn good on her.
Her life balance was just off right now. Maybe. Hopefully. Wait, why did he care?
Em smiled a smug smile. “I’m not sayin’ you’d be stressful per se. I’m sayin’ maintaining a new relationship can be stressful—especially with children. I don’t want that. I don’t want to worry about your happiness, or whether you’re fulfilled enough, or whatever it is that keeps a relationship going. I’m more concerned with mine and the boys.”
Take that, Needy. “What if I don’t feel the same way you do?”
Her blue eyes sparkled up at him—teasing him—owning him. “We’re due for more awkward?”
“So I have to agree to be your sex toy or it’s over? Just like that?” Damn.
Now her eyes went wide as she realized she’d voiced something she wanted and what she wanted, coming from a woman, was generally frowned upon and considered too aggressive, or at least he’d lay bets in Em’s mind it was.
She pushed her finger into his chest. “Yes! That’s exactly what I want.” Then her brows bunched together and her hand went to her throat.
She’d just asked a man to have nothing but sex with her. Right here in Dixie’s house with the children playing in the background, with Caine laughing at something LaDawn had just said, and her libido squarely on her sleeve.
Where was this brash new Em coming from? Not two months ago she’d have torn her own tongue out before saying such a thing. Yet, each time she voiced another desire, it became easier. And crazier.
But just the freedom of it was an aphrodisiac. For a moment or two, she felt like her bones would burst right through her skin if she didn’t say it. The words had just exploded from her mouth like a volcanic eruption.
And then she’d wanted to clamp a hand over her mouth and chew her own tongue off. Or did she? Was that notion something her mother would suggest, or was that how she really felt?
And why was every facet that made up Em all blurred lines and fuzzy outlines these days?
The space between them grew smaller, the heat of Jax’s body pulsed into hers as she watched the wheels of his mind turn. He was choosing his next words carefully. Or maybe he was just choosing to opt out of her emotional roller coaster altogether.
Not that she could blame him, but the idea that Jax might, left her a little empty.
“Daddy?” Maizy was suddenly between them, pushing Em out of the way and demanding Jax’s full attention.
She clung between his thighs, holding her arms upward. Jax turned her around, stooping to his haunches. “Maizy, you’re interrupting a conversation. Please say excuse me.”
Just as Em had suspected, the little girl attached to that angelic voice was adorable, and chubby and perfect, and a redhead. Her mother must have been perfection. A stab of petty jealousy poked her for this woman who’d created this child with Jax.
Speaking of, where was Maizy’s mother? She’d invented all sorts of stories in her head for her whereabouts today while she’d taken extra care picking an outfit then reminding herself it was none of her business where Maizy’s mother was. If you were going to ask a man to have nothing more than illicit sex with you, the rest of his life was off-limits. Those were the rules. She’d read them in a magazine a long time ago when she was still married.
Avoiding personal entanglements began with creating boundaries.
Em smiled down at her, forgetting her out-of-character behavior when Maizy muttered a petulant “Excuse me.”
“Better,” Jax said, smiling his approval, running a large hand over the top of her head with affection. “This is Miss Emmaline. Say hello, huh?”
“Hi,” she murmured, shy, adorable in a fairy princess dress with pink sparkles on the bell-shaped skirt.
“It’s nice to meet you, Maizy. I’m Em. I work with your dad.”
Maizy looked to Jax. “Is this the lady you’re gonna ask to help make the house nice?”
Em’s eyes flew to Jax’s. Had she heard that right? She’d just asked him to have sex with her, and he was going to ask her to help him renovate?
Yes. Of course that was what had just happened. Jax was keeping things aboveboard and clean, and she was rolling around in the mud.
“Yep. She’s the lady I was going to ask to help us with the house.”
Facepalm.
Before Jax had the chance to explain his answer, Dixie and LaDawn were there, all coy smiles and sweet, round eyes.
Dixie strolled up to them, her hands behind her back, her eyebrow raised in that playful way she had. “Y’all gonna come mingle with the rest of us, or do you just want me to drop off a platter of weenies in a blanket and a bottle of wine here in your corner and let you two talk amongst yourselves?”
A wave of dizzy embarrassment washed over Em. Had they been that obvious?
“Yes,” LaDawn answered her question with a whisper in her ear, her throaty tone teasing. She glanced down at Maizy then, holding out her hand to her. “Are you Ms. Maizy? Why, as I live and breath, it’s really you in the flesh, isn’t it?”
Maizy, instantly drawn to LaDawn and all the shiny, colorful things she encompassed, grinned. “You know me?”
LaDawn bobbed her overly blond head. “Your daddy told me all about you over a pizza in our lunchroom. Said you were the apple of his eye. But you don’t look like an apple to me. You look like a little girl with hair the color of a sunset.”
Maizy giggled and took LaDawn’s hand, holding it up to the light as LaDawn drew her away. “You have pretty nails. I like glitter, but Daddy says it makes too much of a mess, and it’s hard to clean up.”
“Well, maybe someday, if we can get your daddy’s permission, we’ll have a girls’ day. You and me, Dixie, Miss Em, Miss Catherine and Marybell, too, and we’ll paint up your nails with some glitter, okay?”
Maizy, entranced by the offer, strolled off with LaDawn, leaving the three of them standing in the corner.
Dixie latched on to Em’s arm while still smiling at Jax. “Can I get you to give me a hand with a couple of things in the kitchen? I need some cookin’ advice,” Dixie prodded with the girlfriend signal in her eyes. The one that said “quit makin’ an ass of yourself, Emmaline Amos.”
Jax’s smile was amused. “Excuse me, ladies. I’m gonna go dig up some of those cocktail shrimp. Em? It was nice talking to you.” He tipped an imaginary hat with a smile and sauntered off toward the buffet table Sanjeev had arranged.
The words nice talking to you, as though they’d just chatted weather and the stock market, penetrated her devil-may-care lover-in-the-afternoon attitude. Slow and lazy, her blatant question began to seep in.
The second Em watched Jax’s broad back retreat out of earshot, Dixie pulled her toward the kitchen. “I don’t want to pry—”
Em winced. “But you will.”
Dixie’s eyes flashed bright, her eyes so wide her eyelashes touched her eyebrows. “Yes. Yes, I will. When the whole room hears my best friend ask a man if he wants to have sex with her, I’m pryin’.”
Her bravado’s bubble burst, splattering her shame all over Dixie’s beautiful chrome-and-granite kitchen. “Everyone heard?”
“Okay, not everyone. Just me, and Marybell, who’s now over there hidin’ in a huddle like some cornered animal at the pound. I’m worried—about her and about your flappy lips.”
Em’s eyes scanned the room, looking for Marybell’s trademark spikes of hair. She was leaning against the side of the impossibly beautiful hutch Landon had made specifically to hold his mother’s china—almost as if she hoped to melt into it and disappear. She held a wineglass of burgundy liquid in front of her face and a plate of toast points and cheese in the other.
Marybell wasn’t prone to large crowds of Plum Orchardians. They judged her like they judged no other because of her outrageous makeup and choice of hairstyles, but she dealt, and she did it often in light of her friendship with Dixie and Caine.
In the midst of her misery, it struck Em odd that Marybell, far less chatty than the rest of them, was exceptionally quiet lately. Her heart tightened. Something was wrong, and she’d been so wrapped up in her dirty thoughts, she’d overlooked her friend.
Em began to pull away from Dixie, forgetting she was due a lecture on what not to say at a dinner party.
Forgetting her erratic behavior, she shrugged Dixie off and made her way toward her friend.
Tugging on Marybell’s arm, she gave her a nudge with her shoulder. “What’re you doin’ over here hidin’ like you’re trying to become one with the furniture?”
Marybell’s eyes instantly went to her plate and the shiny, studded leather wristband she wore. “You know how I am with crowds.”
She did. She knew MB only showed up at these events because she loved Dixie, but lately, there was something.... Something else. Marybell wasn’t the open book LaDawn was; they didn’t know a lot about where she came from or really anything about her. But they’d all bonded over their love of Landon, so most times, it almost didn’t matter.
Except for right now. “I’m gonna be a Nosy Nellie, because the mother in me hears a faint alarm bell ringin’. Is there something bothering you, MB? Something I can help with? Because you know, I’m always here if there’s something you need to get off your chest.”
Marybell shook her head. “Nothing more than the usual ‘I don’t belong here’ syndrome.” Then she added on a smile to her words, one that didn’t ring true to Em.
Em wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You do so belong here. You belong here because I say you do. Got that, MB? You. Belong.”
Marybell paused for a moment, her makeup-masked face making it hard to read her emotions. “You know what, Em. If ever there was a place I thought I belonged, it’s here. I appreciate y’all. I don’t say that much, but I mean it.”
She didn’t want gratitude, she wanted MB to talk to her, let her in. But for now, or until Marybell deemed otherwise, it would have to be enough. She gave her a tight squeeze. “You just remember we appreciate you, too. Got that?”
Marybell nodded and grinned, the uncertainty in her eyes gone for the moment. “Gotten.”
* * *
Jax sipped at his tumbler of whiskey, looking past Caine’s shoulder to watch Em as she made her way across the room toward Marybell, concern on her face.
The swish of her ass held his focus, swaying and shifting beneath the clingy red dress, her long legs making quick work of the distance between her and her friend.
He caught Caine’s eyes following his, catching him watching Em. He put his focus back where it belonged.
Caine thumped him on the shoulder with a cackle. “You’re showing all your cards, buddy. Every last one.”
Jax eyed him, his grin sly. “Just appreciatin’ a good-looking woman, is all.”
“That thing over in the corner was intense. I’m just wonderin’ how it happened so soon. Haven’t seen you interested in anyone in a long time. Not sure if I should be glad or worried you’re jumping in with both feet after such a dry spell.”
“You sound like Tag and Gage.”
Caine swirled the amber liquid in the glass he held, his gaze as direct as he was. “Tag and Gage are smart. How’s Tag, anyway? How is he really?”
Jax flashed back to the conversation he’d had with Tag tonight and the shitty things he’d said. Fuck. He shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t understand his brother anymore—or this journey he kept saying he was on. He only knew he wanted the old Tag back.
Maybe that’s where this would all lead—the road back to the old Tag. “Healing. That’s what he says anyway.”
But was he healing or merely surviving? Tag was tough as nails, but this past couple of years had been a shitpile of crap. Some of it his fault. A fault he had to live with forever. Sometimes he felt like Tag was just using all the right catch phrases, going through the motions while he tried to convince himself he was all right.
Caine’s eyes were sympathetic. Jax knew he got it. Caine got loss. “Time. I know that’s the cliché answer, but it’s the only truth.”
Time. Everyone said time would heal Tag. Ease his guilt, pacify his broken life, comfort his lost soul, but everyone wasn’t living with what he was living with. “Heals all wounds, right?” he agreed.
“Tell him we’re probably going to have some expansion work for him over at Call Girls, would you? See if he’s interested?”
Tag could use the work. Not just for the money he refused to let Jax loan him, but for the good it would do his spirit.
Tag and rebuilding something were like mac and cheese. They went together. “I’ll do that. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the consideration.”
“How are your parents? Are they still driving around in that motor home, lighthouse hunting?”
Jax smiled. In their retirement, his mom and dad had gone off to live the life of their dreams, traveling from state to state at their leisure, visiting historic lighthouses. They’d offered to come and help with Maizy when Harper died, but as far as he was concerned, they’d done their time raising three boys. They deserved their retirement.
“I get a postcard at least once a month with a picture of a lighthouse they’ve been to.” His eyes strayed again to Em as she laughed and smiled with Marybell.
Caine used two fingers and pointed at his face. “Eyes on me, pal. You have stray dog all over your face.”
He probably did. For the first time in a six-pack of years or so, he was having trouble focusing on anything but Em. “Sorry.”
Something to Talk About Page 12
