Something to Talk About (16 page)

“I’m afraid I can’t, sweetie. I have to get home and let out poor Dora. But I brought you a little somethin’ for a snack. I put it in the warmer in the oven.”

Maizy pouted. “I like it better when you’re here. You make the house smell like flowers.”

“Don’t you mean cookies?” Em teased, and he found himself smiling because Maizy was smiling.

Yeah. He liked it better when Em was here, too.

* * *

“I’m not sure I like this.”

“Like what?” Em feigned cute from the new air mattress in the guesthouse. Totally naked, totally comfortable, totally ready for round two of Jax and Em: Sex in the Guesthouse.

“This,” Jax said.

Em rose up on her elbows, the mattress sloshing and moving with her. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s threatening my manhood.” He held the threat up between two fingers and dangled it over her naked belly.

“Why, Jax Hawthorne,” she cooed, fighting a giggle at his look of distaste. “I didn’t think anything could threaten your manhood. What kind of manhood do you have?”

He crawled up along the bed, making her laugh harder at his unsteady movements. “Something called the Annihilator doesn’t sound at all threatening to your manhood?”

Em fell back, unable to hold herself up anymore due to her fit of laughter. “Never! My manhood is very secure.”

Jax dropped the vibrator next to her and captured her lips, inhaling her sigh. “We’ve made love one time and already you’re turning to devices called the Annihilator to spice things up? Is this the seven-hour itch? We could be in for trouble.”

Em ran her hands over his shoulders, a shudder of breath escaping her lips when he kissed her like that. “It could have been the twelve-inch variety. Never forget, things could always be worse.”

He cupped her breast, flicking a finger over her nipple, making her sigh and squirm and leaving her slick and achy. “So you’ve really never used a vibrator?”

“Are we here to talk about my lack of expertise or are we here to end my lack of expertise?” Jax was kissing her jaw, her neck, sweeping his tongue over her collarbone, making it increasingly hard to focus.

He worked his way back up over her shoulder until he was at her ear. “Why did Louella do something so crappy to you on Founders’ Day?”

Em stiffened. He’d come to her rescue tonight at the school. She knew he had. He’d offered her his arm as a way to poke at Louella. But why?
Never you mind, Emmaline. He was just bein’ gracious. Gentlemen do that.

After all, he’d been a witness to her ultimate humiliation. Maybe he was just one of those people who took a stand on behalf of a good victim. “Louella Palmer is a sure way to throw a bucket o’ cold water on this.”

He nibbled at her earlobe, softening her again. “She’s pretty mean. I was just wondering why all that mean is directed at you. You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to. If it’s too
personal.
”

That information could definitely be considered too personal if it weren’t for the fact that she’d be savin’ his life. Someone had to warn Jax about that viper Louella... It might as well be her. “She’s angry at me for siding with Dixie when she came back to town, swearin’ she was a new woman. Again.”

Jax used his free hand to stroke the curve of her hip. “Again? She’s been a new woman more than once?”

Em closed her eyes and sighed when her nipples scraped his chest. “It’s a long story, but it’s the real reason Louella hates Dixie. I was once a black sheep Mag, aka their whipping boy. Only allowed to enter the palace when my services were needed. Until I decided my services were no longer up for the occasional grab. When Landon appointed me mediator to that crazy phone-sex contest between Dixie and Caine, I had two choices. I could be driven straight out of my mind by keepin’ Louella informed of Dixie’s dealings, or I could refuse to be used as a pawn. I refused the position of pawn.”

For the first time in her life, she didn’t care if Louella and the Mags were angry with her. Maybe it had been the first signs of her finally finding her backbone, or maybe it was just that she couldn’t bear to do wrong by Landon, but she’d stuck to her guns back then, infuriating Louella.

Jax’s fingers skated over her belly, making her inhale with anticipation. “So she put a pretty personal picture of your ex-husband up at a town gathering just because you wouldn’t be her inside edge?”

Men would never understand the machinations of small-town life and the women who lived it. Sometimes, she didn’t understand it, either. “That’s not the only reason, no. Even though Louella and I were never really friends in the true sense of the word, she didn’t like that I took to defending Dixie. Somehow, in her twisted head, I think she figured she was the lesser of two evils, and because she’d done less hateful things to me than Dixie, I’d choose her.”

Jax frowned. “Dixie did hateful things to you? But she’s your best friend.”

“She was horrible to me in high school. But we’ve long since gotten past it. I admit, when she first came back to town, I was just tryin’ to remain respectful to Landon’s last wishes, and I was skeptical she’d changed. But she had. She really had.”

“So Louella was jealous of your new relationship with Dixie, and she lashed out. Jesus.”

“Something like that. She still hated Dixie for stealing Caine right out from under her nose. So she found a way to hurt both of us by sneakin’ that picture of Clifton into the mix of the slide show on Founders’ Day. She knew I’d immediately blame Dixie because of Dixie’s past and all the horrible pranks she played on me. Dixie was the only person aside from Marybell I’d told about Clifton. I knew it wasn’t Marybell. She almost never talks to anyone outside of us unless it’s to scare them off with her infamous snarl. I didn’t even consider her. I jumped to conclusions because of me and Dixie’s jaded past, and well, you know the rest of the story.”

“I get the impression Louella wants Call Girls gone.”

“You get the right impression. She’s begun a petition to rid the PO of all our sinnin’, last I heard. Says it’s sullyin’ our reputation and hurtin’ tourism. But that night... That was dedicated to her pure jealousy over Dixie.”

He ran a finger down the tip of her nose. “It was a pretty horrible night, wasn’t it?”

Em shrugged as if that were no longer an open wound—as if her children weren’t still fending off the horrible taunts that night had brought about.

She didn’t want Jax’s pity or to remember the first night she’d met him. She wanted this. Them naked. “But it’s over now. I’m just givin’ you some background on Louella Palmer, should you choose to take up with her.” Inner Em gasped.
Did you really just say that out loud? Take up with her? That’s fishin’, Em.

“I’m not taking up with anyone, remember? That’s why we’re doing this,” he teased, pulling her closer.

Relaxing into him, she agreed, “Exactly. So let’s focus on why we’re here.”

Jax flicked the vibrator to the on position, holding it up, the gleam in his eye wicked and full of the devil. “Your wish is my command. You want this Terminator on high or low?”

“The Annihilator,” she corrected, giggling again just hearing him say the name. “And I don’t know. I’ve never used one before. Have you?” The first thing she’d done when Jax had agreed to this was hunt for the vibrator Dixie and the girls had given her when she’d signed her divorce papers and declared men were dead to her forever.

She’d hidden it away in one of her old trunks in her walk-in closet and never looked back until the other night when she’d remembered a phone call Marybell had taken with a man who wanted her to pretend she was using a vibrator.

If she’d listened to her mother, all sexual paraphernalia came from the devil’s personal toy box and was distributed by his filthy minions. End her curious, fifteen-year-old questions about them after she’d overheard a Magnolia talking about her vibrator back in eleventh grade chemistry class. Her mother had squashed all open conversation about sex all her life.

What she knew, or whatever misconceptions she might have about sex with anyone but your husband were from the internet or late-night TV and, these days, the conversations she heard the girls having with clients. Being as it was her mother who’d decreed all sex toys vile and sinful, made it the first thing Em wanted to discover.

“Wait. Was that too personal?” Did she want to know if Jax had used sex toys with another woman? Yes. No. Strike that from the record.

“Not too personal. And yep. I’m familiar.”

When would she learn to shut up? She didn’t want visuals of Jax with other women when they were in bed—even if they were remaining detached while in the bed. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. I just read it heightens the sexual arousal between a man and a woman. So I thought in the interest of new adventures...”

Jax swiped his tongue over her breast all while the vibrator buzzed in her ears. “I gotta admit, it’s a little hot. Not as hot as me, mind you, but it’s hot to watch.”

He was going to watch, and it didn’t even make her blink an eye. It turned her on—gave her that achy tingle in her belly—a tingle of anticipation, making this one of the best decisions she’d ever made.

“Then let’s start with low,” she managed, but it wasn’t easy with the way Jax hovered over her on his knees, his naked body, rippled with muscle, sharply drawn by the flicker of the candles he’d once more lit. She’d only seen small bits of him last night, but tonight, she’d seen all of him, drank him in like he was a bottle of the cheap wine she loved so much. And she hadn’t looked away then, either.

She’d also finally caught a glimpse of the word tattooed just beneath his left pec and found out it was a name. Maizy’s name, right beneath his heart. It was the little things about Jax that made it harder to remind herself she didn’t want any part of this man’s personal life.

He was a good father. His love for Maizy was undeniable. His fear today when he’d thought he’d lost her was proof of that. And now, his daughter’s name just beneath his heart, tattooed there forever? It made her swoon-y, and that was the hardest piece of Jax to fend off. The respect she had for him, her admiration of his raising a little girl without the aid of her mother.

“Low it is,” he grumbled in his scratchy-sexy voice just before he wrapped an arm around her waist and slid her upright, the cold of the guesthouse wall against her back harsh at first.

Jax propped pillows behind her then kissed her long and slow, his tongue scraping over her teeth before he pulled away and put his hand between her thighs, pushing them apart with gentle hands.

The brush of his fingers on her inner thigh made her shiver, the feel of his mouth as he kissed his way along one set her on fire.

Em’s fingers found the plaid flannel sheets beside her, twisting into the fabric as Jax tongued his way over the crease in her thigh, nudging it with his head until she let her leg fall back on the bed, bending at the knee. Exposed and vulnerable, her first instinct was to clamp her legs shut, but Jax’s words stopped her dead. “You’re so damn sexy, Em.”

Em gulped, warring with how hot his words made her and how forbidden this should feel. But it didn’t feel forbidden. It felt alive, and exciting, like a celebration of her sexuality. She’d never had this kind of attention in words as well as actions. Clifton had never told her she was sexy anywhere, but especially not in the confines of their bedroom.

She’d weep for all that she’d apparently missed if Jax wasn’t dipping his fingers between her aching folds, slipping them through her slickness in agonizing strokes.

Her stomach muscles tightened at the first sip of his lips around her clit. A slow draw, the flick of his tongue and then the cool night air on her flesh made her want everything all at once. His mouth made her dizzy, weak, as he teased the swollen bud.

The vibrator hummed in a distant sort of far-off way until he spread her flesh and drew it between her folds. Em moaned a sound, shuddered a breath at the suddenness of this new sensation.

Jax laid the tip of the vibrator alongside her clit, letting her adjust, moving with the stir of her hips and then his tongue moved against the swollen bud, too, and she thought she’d die of the pleasure.

Her gasp was loud and sharp with surprise, but the combination of his mouth on her and the hum of the vibrator had her silently begging for more.

Jax pulled away just as she touched the fringes of orgasm, making her open her eyes and look down at him with frustration. His head between her legs, his mouth so close to the most intimate place on her body was almost more than she thought she was capable of handling.

But she couldn’t look away. She didn’t want to look away, and when Jax asked, “Do you like that, Em?” she couldn’t answer, her throat too tight. Was this what two people did when they were in it just for the sex? Did they create still shots just like this, and when it was over, forget it ever happened—never to call to memory something this painfully incredible?

Fear she wouldn’t be able to let go of this—this amazing thing she was sharing with him—grabbed hold of her lungs. And then it subsided like the tide, it rushed back out and she found her balance again.

Her fingers threaded though his hair and she nodded. “It’s pretty great,” she managed in a rasp before she had to close her eyes and just succumb to the insane things he was doing to her body.

“You can always holler uncle,” he muttered on a thick chuckle, licking at her, moving the vibrator up and down.

“Never,” she wanted to scream, but somehow kept to a low whisper.

Jax poised at her entrance, the hum a delicious tease. “Never, huh?”

Her nipples tightened to hard points in anticipation, her hips lifted in an effort to encourage. “Never.”

“Never’s a long time, Em.” He said that strategically, she was sure, because it was just at that moment that he slipped the vibrator inside her and clamped his mouth over her clit.

“Oh!” This time she did scream, forcing her to put her knuckles in her mouth. Oh, God. She’d never survive this. Her blood would boil over, and she’d be found lifeless, albeit sated, right here in Jax’s guesthouse.