Something to Talk About (17 page)

“Was that an uncle I heard from up there, Em?” Jax taunted, drawing the smooth length in and out, positioning it at a place inside her she didn’t even know existed.

Her heels dug into the mattress, she clenched her teeth, beads of sweat formed on her forehead, but she wanted. Oh, heaven forgive, she wanted more. Her chest rose and fell, the winding, twisting heat between her legs grew, but she answered, “Not even close.”

Jax twisted the vibrator as he plunged it into her and licked her in one long pass. He flattened his tongue out, scraping it along her swollen clit until she saw stars and colors from behind her eyelids.

She didn’t have a second left in her, not another moment of this unmerciful torture left. The stretch of the vibrator inside her, buzzing and setting her on fire combined with Jax’s hot, wet tongue sent her right over the edge before she had a chance to grab hold.

Her nipples went tight and painfully hard, her muscles contracted around the width of the vibrator as she thrust her hips downward onto it, driving, feeling, needing every last drop of this orgasm.

Shudders racked her body, goose bumps skittered along her arms as she came until she slumped back, boneless and weak.

Jax withdrew the vibrator and the buzzing instantly stopped. Her eyes popped open to find Jax setting the Annihilator on a plastic crate.

Instead of grabbing a condom like she thought he would, he moved her over on the bed and got in next to her, pulling up the scratchy army blanket to her chin and tucking her next to him.

His actions perplexed Em. Wasn’t it his turn? “We’re not done, are we?” she half joked, half really wondered. Fair was, after all, fair.

Jax’s chin rested on the top of her head in a pause she didn’t quite understand, but then he said, “Just for the moment.”

As Em lay there, held tight in his arms, their bodies curled together, she tried not to read anything into the odd look in Jax’s eyes just before he’d climbed in beside her and pulled the blanket up under her chin.

She tried not to worry he was mad about the Annihilator. She tried not to love lying here with him like this. She tried to figure out what he needed right at this moment. Then she tried to figure out how she was going to stop trying to figure everything out and try to remember she wasn’t supposed to care how he felt other than in a bed.

Her insides just weren’t cooperating.

But she was really, really trying.

Really.

Fourteen

J
ax scrubbed his hand over his face, lobbing his pen at the desk. The chirp of the office phones had become background noise to him. The scenarios played out beyond his office walls nothing more than white noise.

He was growing used to being here at Call Girls. He liked working for Dixie and Caine. He liked the women who worked here, and he really liked knowing Em would be here every day. Avoiding the hell out of him, refusing to look at him, lifting her cute nose the other way when he came into the room, but here just the same.

Em, Em, Em.

He was never going to get a damn thing done like this.

Especially not after the other night.

Maybe he should just call it off. Maybe it was stupid to think he could keep doing this and keep her unimportant—at a distance.

Now wasn’t the time to get involved with anyone. Not with Maizy to consider. She was supposed to be his only focus, but Em was eating that promise to himself alive. At first, he’d liked that Em didn’t want to ask him a million questions. That meant he didn’t have to come up with answers for them. He wasn’t ready to explain the parts of his life involving Maizy.

Yet, he was asking Em questions because he was interested—because he liked her—because he couldn’t stop insinuating her image into the life he’d once pictured for himself.

Maizy didn’t help, either. She’d informed him, after seeing her at the school, she liked Miss Em. She was pretty, and she wore red lipstick, and in Maizy’s book, that equaled idol status.

The other day at the school, when he’d thought Reece was there, he’d panicked, but when he saw Maizy with Em, he knew everything was all right. That Em would look out for her—keep her from harm.

After seeing the way Maizy looked at Em, with that admiration little girls have for their older counterparts, he knew she’d be good for Maizy.

But she didn’t want to be good for anyone but herself and her sons—and he thought he didn’t want that, either.

He didn’t. Then the other night, she’d blown him away. There was nothing special about it he could pinpoint. He thought it was cute that she’d never used a vibrator, cuter that she wanted to try one with him. That’s what she was in this for, right? To experience new things.

As long as they were within his parameters, he was happy to oblige.

Until that one moment, that single second when he’d caught Em watching him between her legs. That brief flicker of a moment where her eyes darkened and she became aware of something—that
something
between them. It existed. It pulled him, touched him, made him just as aware.

He’d needed a minute to process it. Let it sit.

It was still sitting three days later. Three long days where they couldn’t get together because she had the boys and he had a huge glitch in this damn security program he was convinced no one could solve but Harper.

“You forgot your lunch,” Gage said from the doorway to his office. He threw a bag labeled Madge’s down in front of him and pulled out a chair. “Figured I’d eat with you so you wouldn’t be lonely.”

He didn’t want to eat. He wanted to see Em. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he pulled out the deli-wrapped sandwich from the bag.

“So what’s new, big brother?” Gage’s eyes pinned his over a ham and cheese with onions.

“Nothing.”

“How’s Emmaline?” he whispered her name and batted his eyes in the worst reproduction of a woman Jax had ever seen.

Jax shrugged like it didn’t matter how she was. “Dunno.”

“Well, I hope you find out soon so you’ll stop being such an asshole.”

“I’m not being an asshole.”

“Yeah, you are. Who flips out over a wet bath mat like that? You miss her, so you’re cranky. No big deal.”

He bit into his sandwich and considered. Okay, maybe he’d gone a little overboard by throwing the bath mat in the garbage to make a point, but it wasn’t because he missed seeing Em.

It was because he was sick and tired of getting out of the shower only to find Tag had drip-dried on the damn thing without even bothering to pick it up. “It was a soggy mess on the floor. Who gets out of the shower soaking wet like that?”

Gage shrugged his shoulders. “Isn’t that what a bath mat’s for? To protect the floor when you get out of the shower wet?”

“I don’t miss her.”
Yes, you do.

Gage dropped his sandwich on the surface of the desk and wiped his mouth with the paper napkin. “Look, whatever, okay? You keep telling yourself this is just you know what. But you’d better get some more you know what soon, or we’re firing you as head of the household—because you’ve been an ass.”

“It can’t be more than you know what.” Shit. Now he’d said it out loud. That meant it held meaning. It meant he was mulling.

“Why can’t it, Jax? Why does everything have to be so complicated with you?”

“Because she doesn’t want it to be any more than that, and neither do I.”

“And you can’t convince her that’s a stupid decision?”

“I don’t want to convince her of anything. I have too much on my plate. Reece showing up for one.”

“So you really think that was her at the school?”

He’d put everyone on red alert since that day. Maizy was to leave from school with no one but a Hawthorne. Ever. “I know it was damn well her. What I don’t know is why she’s skulking around Plum Orchard, showing up at Maizy’s school, calling my number, but not returning my calls. I’ll tell you this, she better stay the hell away from Maizy.”

“I agree. So what does Reece have to do with Emmaline?”

“Nothing.”

Gage rumpled up his sandwich wrapper and shot it into the garbage can. He leaned forward, his face hard with anger, his words icy. “You know what, fuck you! You don’t have to talk to me about it, keep it all to yourself, whatever. But I’m going to lay it on the line for you because I’m sick of you using the kid.”

Jax’s eyes widened. “I’m not using my kid.”

Gage made a face. “Yes, you are. Maizy isn’t the answer to your redemption, dumb ass. If you make her your only reason for living because you think you have to fix what happened, you’re gonna be one lonely man someday. Maizy’s going to run out of the house screaming the second she can, just to get away from your overprotective crap.”

Jax held up a hand to shut Gage up.

But Gage didn’t want to be shut up. “She’s not learning about healthy relationships—she’s learning how to carry grudges and isolate herself. You’re a pretty good father now, Jax, but this bullshit you’ve been carrying around since she was born is just that.
Bullshit
. So someday, when you’re a lonely asshole, and Maizy hates your guts because you smothered the shit out of her and maybe kept her from having another female in her life who loves her like you do, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Jax didn’t even have the time to react before Gage was shoving back his chair, tipping it over with an angry grunt and blowing out of his office.

He gripped the edge of the desk until his knuckles were white. If he let go, he’d get up, drive home and knock the shit out of Gage. He couldn’t see for the anger—a red, ugly haze where he was smashing Gage’s face against the wall.

“Jax?”

Em put her hand on his, soft, questioning—everything Em. “Is everything all right?”

Jax snatched his hand away, driving back his chair with a shove so hard it hit the wall. He came around the desk and dragged her to him, simultaneously closing and locking the door to his office. “I am now.” He hauled her against him, lifting her off her feet until she wrapped her legs around his waist.

“Tell me to stop and I will,” he ground out, his cock so hard, all he could think about was being inside her.

Her eyes were wide, but they stared straight at him—blue—full of questions—but perfect, so fucking perfect. “Don’t stop,” she whispered, like she didn’t know what she was getting herself into, but was willing to take the ride anyway.

Jax yanked her skirt up over her hips, grateful for her wispy panties—they made it easier to rip them and drop them on the floor. He walked backward until she was up against the wall, until his hand was in her wet-hot pussy, touching, sliding, thumbing her clit.

Her gasp, that little sound she made that was a hitch of breath and a shudder, drove him crazy.

Em’s arms went around his neck, her lips, soft and full, crashed against his, her chest pumped hard, pushing her breasts against his shirt. “Condom?”

“Wallet,” he rasped, letting her wiggle her fingers into his back pocket and pull it out. She dropped it between them and he fumbled for it, managing to locate it while Em busied herself with his belt buckle and zipper.

She pushed his pants down over his hips, taking his boxer-briefs with it, and then her fingers were circling his length, grasping it and twisting her hand up and down until he had to make her stop before he came right there.

No. He wanted to be in her wet pussy, drive into her hard, so he’d drive her out of his head.
“Enough,”
he demanded, shoving her hands away and replacing them with the condom while she clung to his shoulders and waist.

“Hold on to me,” was all he could manage from his tightly clenched jaw with the tip of his cock so close to all that heat.

Em did as instructed, putting her arms around his neck, still looking him square in the eye. But she wasn’t asking questions now. Now she had the same look in her eyes he imagined he had in his—like they were going into battle and the first one to come won.

Christ, she was so damn sexy, Jax didn’t think anymore, he reacted by driving upward, jarring her slender body with the force of his first stroke. He tightened his stance, planting his feet firmly on the floor and drove into her hard again.

So damn tight, Em was tight and wet and she fit his cock like a hot glove, surrounding him with her slickness.

Jax cupped her ass with one hand and slammed a palm against the wall with the other in order to get the proper leverage. Em responded by tightening her legs around his waist, squeezing him so tight, he’d come in a split second if he wasn’t getting better at keeping his focus.

Which was to fuck her ruthless, remind himself this was just some sex with a hot woman. Her soft whimper meant she was close—he knew it now—craved the sound slipping from her throat.

Upward again, a tighter thrust into all that silken pussy he just wanted to lose himself in. Over and over until Em hissed in his ear, circled her hips one last time before she gasped and stiffened.

Her eyes were closed now, her head falling back against the wall, her creamy white throat a long column he pressed his lips against when he came, too. The sting of it, the sharpness of it tightened his chest, made his muscles curve and flex like an archer’s bow.

Jax sagged against Em while he came to terms with what he’d just done, cradling her, smoothing his hands over her back, striving to catch his breath.

Damn. He’d been rough. He’d taken his crap out on her.

“Did we just have angry sex?” she asked, her lips against his neck.

Jax’s head popped up to see her smiling. “Yeah, but I wasn’t angry with you. I shouldn’t have—”

Em’s fingers went to his lips and she shook her head. “No. Don’t explain,
please
. Now I can check another thing off my list.”

“Your list?”

“Uh-huh. I’ve never had angry sex before.
That
was incredible.”

Now he shook his head. This woman. He’d just taken his bad day out on her and she was checking things off her sexual to-do list? “I was wrong to—”

Her fingers were back on his lips. “No. Not another word. I don’t know why you were angry, but it doesn’t matter. And it’s not like you forced me, Jax. You did ask. I said yes,” she said, her grin smug and impish at the same time.

“You’ve never had angry sex?”

Her eyes squinted while she thought about his question. Jesus, she was adorable. “I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve been angry, yes. But it wasn’t in the heat of the moment. The argument was usually long done and I was just holding a secret grudge. So, no. I’ve never had angry sex like that. That was passionate, and spontaneous, and awesome.”

He wanted to tell her he’d have angry sex with her anytime she wanted. He wanted to tell her how much he’d missed her. Instead, he smoothed the back of her hair down. “So that means you’ve never had makeup sex, either.”

“Nope.”

“Well, then. Wanna fight?” he joked, kissing her irresistible lips

Realization hit her as the voices of the other women and the sounds of the office began to filter back between them, and Em was all business. “What have you made me do?”

He gave her his best guilty look, reaching behind her to pick a paint chip from her hair. “But you just said I didn’t make you.”

She slapped at his chest, pushing at him to let her down. “You know what I mean, Jax Hawthorne. We’re at work! How am I ever going to get out of here with an office full of people out there? Oh, gravy. What if they
heard
us, you sex maniac?”

He loved when she went all bossy and professional on him. He kissed the tip of her nose while pulling up his pants. “You’re right. I’m a disgusting heathen. I’ll create a distraction, you slip out, okay?”

Despite the fact that she was clearly annoyed with him, she giggled, smoothing her skirt back down over her thighs. She waved a finger under his nose, her eyes glittering and playful. “It better be good, Mr. Hawthorne. If someone’s out there, you’d better give the best, red-carpet-worthy performance of your life. Now go. And hurry up—I have a Skype meeting with our accountant.”

Jax grabbed her finger and brought it to his lips. “So, tonight?”

She rolled her eyes while she slipped her lost shoe on. “Tonight, what?”

“Makeup sex. You’re angry with me now. We have to make up, right? Isn’t that on your list?”

She stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss on his lips. “Fine, fine. Tonight. Now hurry!”

He chuckled to himself when he popped the door open. Mostly because he’d gotten his way. A quick scan of the hall said it was all good. Turning back to her, he said, “Coast is clear.”

She gave him one last warning glance that said it better be, and slipped past him out into the hall, leaving the scent of pears in his nose.