Something to Talk About (10 page)

“And why not?”

Could she explain why not without sounding like she just wanted to sleep around for the sake of quenching her lust for sex? But Dixie would worm it out of her any old way.

So she just said it. “Because I don’t want to get involved with anyone. Not now. Not so soon after the humiliation of Clifton leavin’ me. I think I’d just like to...make the business. No flowers or fancy dinners or anything but...well, you know.”

“Oh.”

Em’s mouth fell open. “Oh? What kind of an answer is that?”

Dixie sipped at her coffee—meaning, she was weighing her words. “I’m just wonderin’ if you’re cut out for sneakin’ around in cars.”

“Jeeps.” Just the way she remembered Jax’s husky voice saying it made her shiver.

Dixie’s glare was impatient. “Whatever. So you’re telling me you want nothing more than a sexual relationship with him?”

“Yes.” The admission exploded from her throat.

She was going to do it. She was going to ask the only person she knew who understood men and their brains. Well, mostly. “I want to ask you something, but I want to do it without recrimination, especially from the devil’s favorite playmate. I’m asking you a very sensitive, very private question, you being my person.”

“I’m getting whiplash, honey. Why don’t you just tell me what’s really going on—what’s really eatin’ at you, and I’ll try to help in the best way the devil’s favorite playmate knows how.”

Jax had to be the most experienced man she’d ever met, even if she hadn’t met many. Or made love with many. Or even if she’d only made love with not so many. Okay, just one and a quick grope from Delroy Green at a football game.

If last night was any indication, Jax knew things she wanted to know. He did things she wanted to do again. If she could just get past the disapproval in her head, give herself permission to explore...

Em smoothed the edge of her bathrobe, licking her lips nervously. “Do you think Jax is the kind of man who’d just like to fool around? You know, without feelin’ like he has to buy me dinner or take me to the movies?”

Dixie’s eyes were confused for a brief moment before they gleamed. “Well, you can ask him at dinner tonight at the big house. He’s coming, by the way.”

“You didn’t...”

“Oh, no. I didn’t. I would have if Caine hadn’t beaten me to it, but did I personally hand him the invitation? Innocent.”

How would she ever look him in the eye after sprawling across him like a Sealy in a Jeep last night?

A Jeep.

* * *

“So are you going to call that bitch back?” Tag pressed, unlacing his work boots and kicking them off.

Jax knocked his brother in the shoulder with the heel of his hand. “Don’t call her that, Tag. Maizy’s right in the other room. Jesus.”

Tag’s hard face turned to granite under the new recessed lighting he’d just installed in the kitchen. “Well, it’s what she damn well is. I’m just callin’ it like I see it. She hasn’t bothered with Maizy for five years and ten months of her life. What’s so damn important now?”

Jax scrubbed his jaw with his hand. He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. “I don’t know.”

His jaw hurt from clenching it. When he hadn’t been trying to sweep the message from Reece under the carpet labeled “refuse to acknowledge” today, he’d been thinking about Em and last night. Why now? On both the Reece and Em fronts? It was like the good and bad colliding at exactly the wrong moment.

Add to that, it pissed him off that he was being such a pussy about facing his biggest nightmare. Reece.

Tag, the latest owning-your-crap-out-loud convert, said it for him. “You don’t want to know.”

Anger, more that his brother was right than anything else, made Jax return with rapid fire. “Oh, save your AA bullshit for someone who needs it, huh? No. No, I don’t want to know. Is it okay by you, preacher man, if I keep it to myself until I can process it? Or do I have to slice my gut open and throw my spleen on a table in some church where they serve you shitty coffee and tell you to take it one day at a time in order to earn my chip like you did?”

Shit. The minute he said the words, he regretted them. He was bagging on his brother for using the only device that had helped him begin to fix himself.

He regrouped, gripping the edge of his shiny new center island. “That was uncalled for. I’m sorry, but we have to face the fact that Reece does have rights—”

Tag shoved the ladder left from installing the lights out of the way. It clattered to the ground with a noisy bang. “Nah. Forget it. You have a right to still be angry with me, brother. But Reece? She has no goddamn rights, Jax. She gave all of them up when she skipped off to wherever the fu—”

“Bad word alert, Uncle Tag!” Gage yelled, flying around the freshly framed kitchen doorway, Maizy bouncing on his back.

He backed up to the center island and deposited her on the top of it while she giggled. She gave them all a solemn look, her chocolate eyes smiling. “It’s okay. I know all the bad words, Uncle Gage. I hear Uncle Tag say them every day when he’s working on stuff. He says the
F
word a bunch.”

Jax narrowed his eyes at his brother before scooping Maizy up. “So, are you ready for the party, Cinderella?”

Maizy nodded, but her nose wrinkled. “I’m not Cinderella, Daddy. I’m Belle from
Beauty and the Beast.
Grandpa Givens says Cinderella just wanted a boyfriend, but Belle wanted a whole library. I think he said that’s smarter than just wanting a boyfriend.”

Jax shook his head at the conversations between Grandpa Givens and his daughter. He chuckled at her. “Grandpa Givens gives good advice. Besides, I’d never let you live in some ugly castle with a beast just so you can have a library. I’ll buy you a library instead.”

“And I’ll help build it, squirt,” Gage assured her.

“So, you go eat some fancy food for me tonight, okay? You need all the good food you can get,” Tag teased, his face transforming from dark to light when centering his gaze on his niece—he and Jax’s disagreement all but set back on the shelf to be taken down and fought out another time.

Jax tickled her ribs. “We gotta go or we’re gonna be late.”

Tag dropped a quick kiss on her forehead before grabbing the ladder. “Yeah. You don’t want Daddy to miss his chance to ask that pretty Em if she’ll help him with the house, do you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he dragged the ladder up over his shoulder, giving one last disgusted look at Jax before leaving the kitchen.

Jax sighed. Reece was a still-bleeding, open wound between the two of them—for all of them, but especially between he and Tag. Tag had hated her on sight, from the second she’d sat down at the table in that pub almost seven years ago. He’d driven home that dislike like it was his mission after she’d screwed Jax over.

Maizy pulled on the end of Jax’s shirt, reminding him she was all that mattered. “What’s fancy food, Daddy?”

“Wow. We’ve really slacked off in the foodie department, haven’t we, kiddo? At least we taught you manners. Fancy food is food that doesn’t come from a box in the freezer,” Gage joked, lightly pinching her nose.

Jax looked down at his daughter, smoothing her wiry curls, and straightened her headband with the red feathers and fake rhinestones in the shape of a unicorn—her all-time favorite mythical creature.

His heart began that rapid staccato of painful beating—the one that always happened when he let his worst Reece fear surface. The one he pounded down into the ground every time it rose up like the ugly weeds out in that garden Em said he had somewhere under the brush. Jesus, he loved her. “Not icky fish sticks?”

“Are there really going to be pretty ladies there?”

His mood instantly lightened. Well, there’d be at least one. She was the only one he saw. Jax grinned down at his kid. “I sure hope so.”

He damn well did. All day, while he’d pushed Reece’s reasons for calling to the back of his mind, he’d devised ways to put him and Em together—a lot.

Then he’d kicked himself for hatching stupid plots to get her in the same vicinity as him.

After her reaction to last night, she was probably freaked out. She’d avoid him and he’d avoid her, and that was probably better.

Last night had been way out of her comfort zone. She’d all but said it herself. Truth be told, it was a little out of his, too. He’d never found himself so instantaneously attracted to a woman that he was willing to forgo everything just to run his tongue over her lips.

He’d gotten pushy because of it—let his lack of female companionship lately take the reins. But since Harper’s death, since he’d witnessed the havoc unspoken words could wreak on your life, he’d promised himself he was going to live more honestly. For himself and as an example to Maizy. No more holding back. He was going to chalk last night up to that.

Hindsight said maybe his words were a little too honest, and he was going to pay for it tonight at Caine and Dixie’s dinner party. He didn’t want Em to get the wrong impression about where he stood on the single front, and she didn’t come across as the kind of woman who was comfortable with a physical relationship.

There’d be awkward Em silence tonight, for sure.

Despite his firm stance on no dating, he still smiled because the awkward silence would be Em’s.

He gave Maizy one last squeeze. “Let’s get going, kiddo.”

She held her arms out to Gage and gave him a Maizy hug, whispering in his ear, “Say good-night, Gracie.”

Jax’s heart shifted hard in his chest just like it always did when she used the words he’d taught her almost from birth.

Jake’s words. He was why those words were so important.

Maizy was the biggest reason he had to avoid all these feelings cropping up for Em. Everything was for her. No outsiders allowed. Nothing would detract him from fixing what he’d broken and couldn’t ever fix.

Gage tweaked her cheek and murmured against her hair, “Good night, Gracie.”

Eight

“C
lifton Junior, please don’t snatch,” Em corrected, placing a hand over his smaller one to prevent him from knocking over the shiny silver platter Sanjeev held in order to nab a weenie in a blanket. “We’re guests in Aunt Dixie and Uncle Caine’s home. They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make this night fun. Please appreciate that effort and put your best manners forward.”

Sanjeev, always crisp and fresh in a white kurta, his midnight-black hair stark against the backdrop of the material, held a hand up, but Em frowned his protest away. No. No more allowing Clifton to take advantage.

Ugh. A year ago, Clifton was the sweetest boy on the planet. Considerate, loving, a snuggler.

Today, at the ripe old age of eight, he was sullen, troubled and moody, nothing like the gooey dose of sunshine that had once greeted her every morning.

Clifton shot her his “every disobedient thing I do is because you’re the worst mother ever” expression and rolled his wide blue eyes.

Jax’s dark head was there all of a sudden, nodding his agreement. “Mom’s right, you know. But I kinda get it. If weenies in a blanket are at stake, I might get grabby, too.”

Enter the dreaded awkward. To-die-for awkward, no doubt. Whisper-husky-voiced awkward, check. Deliciously dressed in a navy fitted shirt and tight jeans awkward, check-check. But still awkward.

“Evenin’, Emmaline. This must be Clifton Junior?” Jax stuck out his hand at Clifton, all five fingers of magic, and waited.

The slow climb of red her cheeks were growing accustomed to wearing when Jax was around began its rise. He took up all the space in the room, leaving her feeling like simply lifting her hand was an attempt to defy gravity.

She nudged Clifton, who poked his hand out like he was thrusting his chubby fingers into a pot of boiling water. “Clifton, this is Mr. Hawthorne. Please say hello.”

Jax took her son’s hand, swallowing it whole, and shook it briskly. “You can call me Jax if it’s okay with your mom.”

Clifton, ever unimpressed, looked to Em with his haughty disdain before pulling his hand away. Knowing he should acknowledge an adult, he was deciding in his little mind whether to defy her openly. It was a choice he made frequently.

Thankfully, at this moment, one where she was so fragile, if someone blew on her, she’d shatter into a million pieces, Clifton chose obedience. “Nice to meet you, Jax.”

Jax’s face spread into a grin. “Same here.”

Clifton popped the weenie in a blanket in his mouth and took off toward the vast area in the great room where Sanjeev had set up all sorts of activities for her boys and Maizy.

“No running with food in your mouth, mister!” she called after him, for which he promptly ignored her and dived into the pool of balls in the middle of the room.

“At that stage where everything you say is a reason to roll his eyes and make gagging noises?” Jax asked, moving closer to her, sending prickly beads of awareness along her forearms.

Hypersensitive to Jax’s presence and his accurate evaluation of Clifton, her sigh was forlorn. “That’s me. The most disgusting person on earth.”

“Totally bogus assessment. If only he could see what I see.”

If only she could find a potted plant to hide behind or some fresh dirt to dig a hole for herself, maybe. He’d seen all right. Plenty. There was that thick silence he’d been talking about.

From the corner of her downcast eyes, Em saw him rock back on his feet, putting his hands in his jeans’ pockets. “So here we are at awkward.”

All day long, while she’d waged a full-on war of anticipation and dread about seeing him again, she’d mentally practiced her “I’ll take a lover in the afternoon” theory.

So big deal. He’d done some amazing things to her body. Plenty of people did amazing things to each other’s bodies all the time, took showers, parted ways and never saw each other again.

One-night stands happened all the time. It wasn’t anything new or original. So what?
But you’ve never had a one-night stand, Em
. Could what happened even be classified as a one-night stand when you never made it past third base?

Was it third base, anyway?

And then she’d seen him arrive at the big house. Enormous man, strutting toward the grand entryway with his long legs, and her resolve to behave as though nothing earth-shattering had happened between them melted like butter in a cast-iron pan.

Jax made her feel things she’d never felt before. He evoked words from her lips she’d never used before. Her head was spinning, and it felt good, and bad, forbidden and alluring and frightening.

She loved it, hated it, wanted it, didn’t want it.

Now add in the tone of Jax’s voice, amused and teasing, and it tripped her ever-sensitive trigger. That he could joke about her discomfort made her angry. This wasn’t funny. Her embarrassment wasn’t something to poke her through the bars of her humiliation with.

She finally looked directly up at him, fought not to get sucked in by the heart-stopping way his eyes crinkled up around the edges when he was amused. “Is this funny to you?”

Now he was looking down at her, his eyes warm and smiling. “Not at all. I’m just pointing out we’re going through an awkward phase.”

“You’d better not be. Making fun of me, that is.” There it was. Stern teacher’s voice.

“Can I say something?”

“Can I stop you?”

“After last night, seems I have no censor. So, it isn’t looking good.” He’d managed to somehow maneuver her toward a corner, using his big frame as a coaxing method. The shelter that frame gave her almost stole her breath.

And that made her angry. Why should the shelter of a
man
make her feel safe? Wasn’t her own shelter good enough?

But then he smiled crookedly, and Em’s anger evaporated, replaced by a slight tilt upward of her lips—lips she had to clamp down on to keep from showing her cards. Her inability to control her mood swings left her little room to judge someone else’s behavior. “Then fire away.”

Jax stared down at her. Oh, those eyes. So expressive and intense, searching hers. “First, because I can’t seem to stop myself, I like that stern teacher’s voice you use. It’s pretty hot. I know, I know, too much too soon. But there it is. Second, I don’t like that you’re uncomfortable with me after last night. Third, I don’t like that we’re going through an awkward phase because of last night.”

“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.