“And what is your mission today, Agent Caine?”
His mission, should he choose to accept it, was to throttle a hot babe. “Where is she, Sanjeev?”
He followed Sanjeev’s serene eyes toward the back of the house, lined with ceiling-high windows and heavy hunter-green and ivory drapes made of silk.
Just beyond lay the second pool Landon owned. A sprawling Olympic-size square of sapphire-blue water surrounded by various shades of blue, clay and green mosaic tiles.
In the middle of it, down in the shallow end, right near the stone fountain of a naked man spouting water from his genitals, sat Dixie on the luxury liner of floats with a fruity drink in the cupholder. Lolling the day away, while she sunned and dreamed up new endearments to label her many phone-sex callers.
Her red hair was wrapped into a loose ball on the top of her head, exposing the nape of her long neck. The sunlight danced on the soft swell of her breasts, clad in a surprisingly modest, yet incredibly hot, chocolate-brown bathing suit.
Sanjeev placed a cool hand on Caine’s arm. “A warning. I will not have wet feet in this house. I’ve just spit-shined the floor with my own saliva. Keep your battle of the sexes out of doors, please.”
Caine barked a sarcastic laugh. “No worries there, friend. I’m going to drown her all nice and neat right there in the pool. No fuss, no muss.”
“There will be no unsightly yellow police tape marring my view of the freshly vacuumed pool, Caine Donovan. Understood?”
“You suck the fun out of everything, Sanjeev. Buzzkill!” he called over his shoulder, jogging down the steps leading to the sunken living room and past Landon’s collection of Buddha statues. He pushed open the wide French doors and exploded out into the pool area.
“Dixie! Get out of the damn pool. Now!” His roar of a demand echoed off the white pillars surrounding the cabana area, but still she didn’t budge.
The water sparkled with the heat of the late afternoon sun while Dixie floated on it as though she didn’t have a care in the world, twisting a stray strand of her hair around her finger like she’d always done when she was deep in Plum Orchard domination thought.
And she was blatantly ignoring him.
Caine narrowed his eyes until her temptingly curvy body became a blur of smudged lines. The hell she was going to get away with this—not as long as he was in the game.
He set his laptop at the end of the pool farthest from Dixie, scanning the area through the thick imported palm trees and assorted fringe of grassy plants. The incessant heat of the sun beat down on his head, pissing him off.
Shit, it was hot. Gritting his teeth, Caine stomped over to the tented blue-and-green cabana where, under Sanjeev’s instruction, Landon kept an array of toys for the assorted children who attended free swimming lessons in the pool each week.
Mona and Lisa lay in the shade of a lounge chair, lifting their heads at his entry. He pressed a finger to his mouth and dug in his pocket for the treats he always kept with him in case he came across the chance to indulge them when Dixie wasn’t looking.
Mona settled back instantly while Lisa’s soft eyes shone with gratitude when he held out the Snausages. He gave them each a quick pat on the head as they licked his palm clean and whispered, “Be very quiet, girls. I’m hunting a cheater...er, your mommy.”
He scanned the area under the tent, locating the enormous red tub that would hold his weapon. Popping the top open, his eyes landed on the first colorful gun he could find, still full of water. Nice. He scooped it up, kicking his shoes off and shrugging out of his shirt and pants.
Lining up the mark of his prey with the red tip and a vindictive smile of satisfaction, he broke into a run, and howled, “Cannonball!” just as his finger pulled the trigger.
Caine doused the top of Dixie’s head with the super soaker. The stream of water made an arc of perfection as the waves his body created hitting the water shook the float. It wobbled until she toppled over with a scream of surprise.
He smiled with deeper satisfaction when the remnants of her frosty drink spread out in globs of orange bubbles along the surface of the pool.
So did her casualty-of-war iPod with the earbuds still attached.
Well, damn. She hadn’t been ignoring him at all. But Caine consoled himself with the notion that it wasn’t as if she didn’t deserve it anyway. She was right back to doing what she did best. Manipulating the rules of the game and cheating.
Cheaters deserved to go down. In big, brilliantly blue pools, with cannonball-like splashes and squirt guns.
Dixie’s arms flapped wildly as she struggled to rise to the surface, giving Caine enough time to ditch the evidence and swim back to grab his laptop.
Hair plastered to her face, she pushed it out of her eyes—eyes that shone bright like angry chips in ice blue.
He loomed at the edge of the pool by the steps, arms crossed at his chest, waiting.
And three, two, one... “Caine Donovan!” she bellowed at him when her vision was free of hair and dripping water. Adorably wet, her bathing suit clung to every enticing spot on her body. He grinned.
As a response, she lobbed her soaked iPod at him, hitting his shoulder with the pink square. “You’ve ruined it! What the hell was that about?”
She dragged her body through the water to the shallow end where he sat on a step. As her rounded hips sliced the rippling waves, Caine had to force himself to avert his eyes and focus on the pool’s intricately woven deck.
He flipped his laptop open and pointed to her new tagline for Mistress Taboo. “What the hell is that? Care to explain, Mistress Taboo?”
Dixie’s eyes focused on the screen for a moment, then she snickered, squeezing the bun of hair on top of her head free of excess water. “Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that. That got you three hundred hits today alone.” He emphasized again by tapping his finger against the screen where it now read: “The Mistress of Taboo Subjects—No Woman Trouble Too Small—No Problem Too Big. Let me help you solve all of your female mysteries.”
Mistress of Taboo Subjects, his damn eyeballs. This wasn’t therapy. It was phone sex. This woman and her way of bending a set of rules should be bottled and sold.
“Catchy, right?” she curtsied and shot him her infamously flirtatious, over the shoulder smile.
“Cheating, right?” he ground out even as his tongue ached to lick the beads of water between her rounded breasts. Look away, Caine.
Dixie waggled a pink-tipped finger at him in admonishment and teased, “Oh, no, no, no, Candy Caine. I didn’t cheat at all. Nowhere in Landon’s rules did it say I had to actually do the talkin’ dirty to the clients. I made it my duty to check with Hank first. And he says, Landon’s rules only claim I had to acquire the most new clients to win. And look,” she purred, pointing to the screen as the counter dinged another hit. “More acquirin’. Hmmm.”
Caine fastened his eyes on her face in order to keep his focus off her luscious legs. Not that it made much of a difference. It was either ogle her legs or witness the smug look of satisfaction in her eyes, both of which left him hotter than hell. “So, you plan to win by being some sort of sex/dating guru to lonely men who need a guide on how to properly get a woman into bed?”
She grinned, the cute dimples on either side of her face making an appearance. “Guilty.”
Dixie reached up to tug the ribbon holding her matted hair, yanking it free and shaking it out with a scrub of her fingers so it fell around her shoulders in wet waves. She shrugged her shoulders in the way she used to when she was using indifference as her weapon of choice. The more indifferent she was, the harder the poor soul Dixie was indifferent to tried to get her attention.
It made his hands itch to haul her from the pool and show her all about indifference.
Caine slammed the laptop shut and shook his head.
“I should have known you’d find a way around it. You couldn’t dirty talk your way out of a paper bag.”
“Well,” she said, “I guess I don’t have to worry about that, now do I, master impressionist?”
“At least we were on a level playing field then.”
“Level, how? You can be a hundred different men. I’m but one woman.”
Yeah. One. Hah! “So what you’re saying is, you’re not enough?”
Her eyes, full of fight one minute, shuttered, and he didn’t like what he saw in them. “No truer words,” she muttered before squaring her shoulders. “What I’m saying is, I don’t offer the variety you do. Who wouldn’t want to talk to the famous Denzel Washington instead of some nobody like Dixie Davis? I had to find something that would catch a man’s attention.”
And that was fair.
And he didn’t like that it was fair. Screw fair.
Moving off the step, Caine moved in closer until they were chest to chest, planting his hands on his hips. “I’m going to beat you, Dixie, no matter what kind of con you pull. Only I plan to do it fair and square.”
Dixie clamped her fingers together, making the shape of a duck’s bill. With a snapping gesture, she opened and closed them under his nose. “Blah, blah, blah, Golden Boy. I don’t know why you’re surprised. This is what you expected of me, isn’t it? To find that one, teeny-tiny loophole that would make you want to tear your hair out because I thought of it first? Again.”
He snatched her wrist, bringing it to his chest, forcing her body to lurch forward until they were hip to hip. The taut pull of his boxer-briefs told him he was playing with fire, but his anger with her and her silly games he just couldn’t resist playing, would damn well trump his hard-on. “What happened to the new and improved Dixie? I thought she was all sunshine and lollipops these days. Miss Honesty and Light.”
Dixie’s eyes clouded over, but only for mere seconds before they were full of fire again. “She’s fighting for her life, and to make a living. You don’t need to make a living. You have one. In Miami.”
“But it’s so good to be home.”
Her lightly tanned throat worked a visible gulp. “I’m glad it’s good for somebody. For others, it’s an effort just to watch out for pointy objects.”
Show no mercy, Donovan. “Nobody to blame but yourself for that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, thank heaven if I happen to forget, you’re never far away for the remindin’. If I need someone to pass judgment on me or call me a liar, worry not, I have you on speed dial. You know what this is, Donovan? You’re just jealous that my Mistress Taboo numbers are beating Candy Caine’s, even with your stupid Patrick Stewart impressions.”
Captain Jean-Luc was popular, damn it. And judgmental? Hold the phone. How was the truth a judgment? Whatever. He wasn’t falling for her reformed act again or the recent nagging feeling he was riding his grudge too hard.
Caine hardened his expression, not only to remind Dixie he wasn’t falling for it, but as a reminder to himself. “And you’re just reaching here. How can you possibly give advice to anyone about anything when it comes to relationships, sexual or otherwise?”
“Maybe I’ve learned a thing or two about them since we broke up.”
Her voice was smaller than he found spiteful comfort in, forcing him to pause. Dixie played coy and sultry as if she’d been tutored by a skilled madam, but weak and vulnerable? Never.
Stand your ground, Caine. Do not believe. The hot babe with the mind-numbing body and breasts that fit with ease and precision in your hands is good at this game. You must be better. “And what have you learned, Dixie Davis?”
Instead of fighting the clasp Caine had on her wrist, Dixie moved in closer to him, letting their bodies almost touch. The smell of her perfume, something soft and peachy, made his nostrils flare.
The fruity scent of the drink she’d been sipping was still on her lips. She traced a circle around his nipple, making it pucker. “I’ve learned that you, for all your goody-two-shoes, holier-than-thou, impossibly high expectations, are not the only fish in the sea. There are some men in the world who’ll cut a girl a break when she makes one stupid mistake on her road to salvation.”
“Really? How many of those have you been through before you got it right on the way to salvation?”
Dixie’s chin lifted defensively. “Oh, I’ve got it right now. And just in time, too, so don’t you worry.”
“Does this ‘just in time’ have a name?”
A flash of her smug smile almost made him forget her breasts pressed against his chest. “Jealous?”
“Actually, I was hoping to get the poor guy’s number so I can do him a solid and warn him off you. Maybe save him from the fall.”
“Walker loves me just the way that I am. Faults and all.”
Caine’s ears perked. “Walker?”
“Yes, Walker. His name’s Walker.”
“Where does saint Walker hail from, and why isn’t the entire town of Plum Orchard talking about Dixie’s new beau?”
Her eyes strayed to a point just beyond his shoulder before returning to his, full of conviction. “He lives in Chicago, and he’s wonderful and kind, and no one knows about him yet. I’d like to keep it that way for now. At least until I have the opportunity to throw it in Louella’s face when she’s throwing you in mine.”
Now that was the Dixie he knew—but wait. “Louella’s throwing me in your face?” That statement puzzled him.
Her lips clamped shut before she said, “Forget I mentioned it. All you need to know, Candy Caine, is that Walker and I are an item now. As in, I’m all his and he’s all mine.”
How interesting. “And how does this Walker feel about you hooking up with me?”
Dixie’s tongue darted out over her lips. “We hadn’t committed as of that point. But all this...tension...with you was what made me decide to make the final leap.”
Caine’s eyebrow rose with amusement. “I made you decide to commit to Walker? Does he know that?”
“Yep... Well, not yet, but he will know everything as soon as I tell him. And I mean I’m committing fully—unequivocally—forever. Maybe even marriage committed.”
Caine wrapped an arm around the curve of her waist, lifting her from the water until Dixie had no choice but to look him directly in the eye. He smiled at her before capturing her lips, kissing her until she relaxed against him, pliant and soft. Until her fingers dug into the skin of his flesh and her soft moan, one he recognized as a sign of her will breaking, slipped from her throat.
He pulled back with a sudden jolt, taking pleasure in her pink cheeks, noting she still had a small trail of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
The surprise on her face was only matched by the defiance in her eyes. He smiled again. “Dixie?”
“What?” Her voice, hoarse and thick, was one of many things that turned him on about Dixie— especially when it was as a result of his lips on hers.
“Send me an invitation.”
“For?”
“Your nuptials to Walker,” he said with a chuckle, before dropping her into the pool with a resounding splash and the sounds of her screeching protests at his back.
* * *
Dixie stomped out of the pool, grabbing her towel, and chucking her ruined iPod on a lounge chair. She’d done such a great job of avoiding Caine for an entire two-week stretch. Hiding in the shadows of the various potted plants Landon had scattered about the house. Ducking into doors when she heard his footsteps or his voice.
Eating her dinner microwaved so they wouldn’t be tempted to use the sharp dinner knives as tools for killing.
Walking Mona and Lisa on the south side of the house instead of the north where Toe spent his days and Caine often spent time with Landon’s very friendly camel, had all been in the e
ffort to stay as far away from temptation as possible.
All of her covert operations had proven successful until today. In the meantime, she’d hatched this new plan to become her callers’ advisor rather than their playmate. Her ridiculous attempts to talk them into having phone sex with her had become a joke— especially to LaDawn, who lorded her numbers at their first weekly meeting over everyone as if she’d invented phone sex.
But when Dan had called back two days after their first encounter to tell her he’d finally gotten up the nerve to ask JoAnne out on a date, the seed his call had planted sprouted wings. Even if it wasn’t conventional phone sex, it worked.
Dan had left her a glowing review on the Call Girls main site, and since then, her numbers had jumped from dismal to decidedly less pathetic.
Dixie’d double-checked the rules with Hank to be one hundred percent sure she wasn’t breaking any part of her contract. Despite what Caine thought, she wanted to win this fair and square. After adding a disclaimer on her website about her lack of training or certification in the hallowed halls of therapy, she’d begun to average four calls a night.
Since her meeting with Hank and Dan’s recommendation, word had begun to spread about Mistress Taboo, and she’d gone a little bit viral. Something she was extremely proud of.
But now she’d dragged Walker into it. She hadn’t heard from him since that first phone call. Though whether he liked it or not—or knew it or not—he was officially her fictional boyfriend.
His voice had made an impact on her, one she couldn’t quite define—or was maybe a little afraid to define. Yet Walker had clearly lingered in her subconscious if the way she’d thrown his name at Caine was any indication. The upside to Walker? Being so full of all that integrity, maybe now that Caine thought Dixie was spoken for, he’d keep his inconceivably delicious body to himself.
Being back here where she’d created so much damage was easier to navigate when Caine wasn’t in the mix. It was easier to focus on keeping her promises to herself when he wasn’t around to pass judgment on her every move with his angry eyes.
Though, each time they came in contact physically was another time she died a little more inside. Her body’s reaction to him meant plainly she was weak. Worse, in a desperate moment or two, she almost didn’t care that Caine didn’t like her. She just wanted him to make love to her with his signature relentlessly forceful passion.
Talk Dirty to Me Page 17
