Something to Talk About Read online

  And then she was softer, her shoulders relaxing in a downward slope. Though her eyes strayed everywhere but his face. “Look at me, Em.” He tried to keep the demand soft, but it was using up what little self-control he had.

  Em was just as attracted to him as he was to her. Whatever was holding her back, it wasn’t lack of sparks. He might have been out of the game for a while, but he knew chemistry. “I’m going to kiss you. Question is, do I have your permission or are you going to pretend you don’t really want me to? Because I won’t, if you don’t want me to. Your move,” he coaxed with a grin.

  Her lashes lowered to brush her cheeks, thick and full. They were like the fourth or fifth thing on his list of what he liked about her. Right behind the demure but sexy as hell clothes she wore, and her waist. He liked that, too. The way it pinched sharply inward before it sloped into the curve of her hip—hips that swished with an enticing rhythm—and made him smile.

  “So, that kiss?”

  Jax didn’t wait long after Em gave a slight nod. Pulling her head to his, he inhaled her sigh, breathed in her scent, traced the outline of her lips with his tongue before putting his mouth on hers.

  He didn’t move. He just wanted to feel them against his own. Memorize them, taste them. Hot rushes of blood coursed through his veins when Em let him take the lead with a tremble and the surrender of her mouth.

  Just this connection, this contact, and Jax was on fire. He had to hold back, control the need he’d been fighting with all night or he was going to scare her off.

  But when he felt Em melt into him, reach for more of him by scrunching either side of his jacket in her fists, sigh again into his mouth, that damn predatory streak welled up in his chest. Made him grip the steering wheel with one hand to keep himself in check.

  He slanted his mouth over hers, letting his tongue glide into the heat held behind the object of his fixation.

  When Em’s fingers clenched his hair, Jax gave up on restraint with a growl and instead focused on getting her closer. His fingers went to the armrest between them, lifting it up, grunting his pleasure when Em helped him, her fingers gripping his forearm.

  Then he was pulling her willing body to his, adjusting the setting on his seat, positioning her to straddle his lap.

  Em’s arms went around his neck, her lips never leaving his, her soft tongue sliding along his in hot passes designed to make him harder than a rock. With leverage on her side, she wedged herself into his lap, her long legs draping on either side of his hips.

  His hands found the small of her back through her winter sweater with the ruffles that framed her face, gliding over the swell of her hip, all the while, his hard-on driving at the seam of his jeans.

  “We’re in a car,” she husked out between hungry pulls on his lips.

  He silenced her with more hungry drawing, suckling the soft flesh of her bottom lip until she let one of those heady moans escape from her throat, gritty and breathless.

  Em pulled away enough to allow words to flow more freely from her mouth. “A car...”

  He knew this wasn’t Emmaline’s bag—getting raunchy in a car in someone’s driveway. Just by observing her all this week, he knew.

  Emmaline Amos was a lady. At all costs, the perception of her reputation should remain sterling. And he was fucking that all up with his dirty thoughts. He saw the war she was having in her mind with her body. It was in the way she tried to stop kissing him by pulling back, filling the void between their lips with words, only to seek his mouth again.

  He brushed her crooked red beret away from her eyebrow. “It’s a Jeep. But that’s just me being picky.”

  Again, she dipped her head back down, her liquid eyes glazed with moonlight and doubt. “This is crazy.” More protests, more driving him insane with the press of her breasts against his chest, enhancing that insanity when she inhaled with a ragged breath.

  “Jeeps? I think Jeeps are conservative. Crazy would be a Smart Car.” Jax draped his hand over the top of her hip, using the heel of his hand to keep himself from latching on to her ass and grinding against her.

  But Em did the grinding for him. Hard, pressed together grinding.

  His cock scraped against the seam of his jeans in a painful pulsing response to her pussy, just a slip of a dress and a pair of panties away.

  She used the heels of her hands to lever herself upward a little, her chest rising and falling. “Not Jeeps. Making out in a car.”

  Jax put his hands around her wrists and caressed the width of them. “A Jeep.”

  She gathered handfuls of his jacket, leaning her forehead against his, huffing out sharp breaths, sinking deeper into him. “Is there really a difference?”

  Jax lifted his hips and hissed his appreciation. “Is it because we’re not in the confines of some dark room where I wouldn’t be able to see your lips do that thing where they tremble just before you plant them on mine?”

  More evasive eyeballing before pretty Em whispered, “Ye...yes.”

  “Then I’m glad we’re in a Jeep. Because I wanna see. As much as you’ll let me.”

  If glowing in the dark were humanly possible, Em achieved it by flushing red. So Em wasn’t used to having someone lavish her with the proper attention a woman like her deserved? He’d be happy to be the first.

  Knock it off, Hawthorne. Last you said, this wasn’t a date—now you want to reassure her she’s sexy? What next?

  “You want me to show you how much I wanna see it?” His fingers stopped roaming over her hip. If she said no, he was going to have a helluva night alone in the shower—but he wanted to earn her trust—not scare the shit out of her.

  Earning her trust isn’t how you “don’t” date, buddy. You say thanks for dinner, see you at the office. Not how can I make you feel more secure while I rip your clothes off?

  He ignored the flash of red flags and tugged on her lips with his mouth. “You okay?”

  She was shy again. Torn. Pulling away, leaning in. “Yes,” she exhaled the word, blowing it across his mouth with her warm breath—shivering.

  Jax didn’t hold much back this time, splaying his hand over her back and crushing her against him until she made a soft sound. Her curves seeped into his like caramel over an ice-cream sundae, sticky sweet and hot.

  He let his hand travel along her spine, smiling when she reacted to his touch by tightening her muscles in rigid increments.

  He dropped the seat and slid it back, giving Em full access to spread out on top of him. Her surprised gasp when their bodies met lengthwise filled Jax’s ears as he began to peel her sweater off her shoulder.

  * * *

  The Lord will punish your wanton ways, Emmaline. Ladies do not fornicate in cars.

  Jeep. It’s a Jeep, Mother.

  You say tomato, I say no fornicating in anything with wheels. This will be frowned upon.

  Em was too stupid drunk with hot need to care what her mother or anyone else would think. When was the last time that had happened?

  Never. She’d never been so totally unaware of everything around her when she was making love. She’d never been swept up. She’d never been so carried away the only thing she did hear was the throb of her pulse. Feel the throb of a man beneath her.

  Jax shrugged her sweater from her shoulder, tugging at the end of the sleeve to pull it off her arm while her mother’s voice became a distant buzz, clearly masked by her shrieking hormones.

  Each touch of Jax’s hands, each slip of his tongue into her mouth stoked the dormant part of her that wanted to forget propriety—forget she didn’t do things like this. Not once in her life had she even made out in a car, let alone allowed a man to slide his hand along her bare thigh until...

  Her gasp echoed in the small space.

  “You like that there,” Jax murmured, but he wasn’t really aski
ng. He was only echoing what her body was screaming at his.

  Yes. She loved the caress of his touch along the backs of her thighs, thought maybe it was what she’d always been living for and was now, after all this time, forced to openly admit it.

  Fingers, long and thick, glided over her skin, teasing, pushing, easing away, kneading. Over and over until he skimmed the outline of her panties where her hip met thigh.

  Em tensed, mewled a small sound she’d never heard come from her mouth before, but Jax muffled it with his lips.

  Mercy, his mouth. Soft and hard in the same breath. Commanding, domineering, gentle with just a hint of the taste of the beer he’d had at dinner. More adjectives than her mind could parse—or even cared to.

  His fingers slowed, her frustration mounted. She clung to his jacket in fistfuls of leather, afraid to let her hands touch anything else on his body, anything that would encourage him to continue. Yet, wanting—wanting to climb inside him—devour him.

  The ripple of his abs beneath her when he reached over with his free hand and turned the key in the ignition to the off position elicited another gasp from her.

  Everything about his body screamed in control, powerful. From nowhere, she wondered what a man like Jax would be like out of control. What he’d be like if she did to him what he was doing to her.

  Her shiver brought his free arm back around her again, allowing her to burrow closer, bury her nose in his neck. His scent left her weak—it was man and fallen Georgia leaves and some more man and it left heat whooshing through her veins.

  Jax tilted her chin up, stroked the flesh of her lower lip, capturing it with his teeth, a new sensation to her, unfamiliar and sexy—a tweak of pain soothed with the rasp of his tongue.

  Her manners were all but forgotten—her everything was all but forgotten when Jax wiggled a finger inside the edge of her panties, letting it rest there so she could adjust to the feel of him.

  It wasn’t a long adjustment period before Em could no longer stand the wait. She wasn’t prim and proper Emmaline tonight. Tonight she was possessed by some demon—some part of her that was going to take what she wanted no matter the gossip that would surely ensue. No matter the cost to her stellar reputation.

  Her hips became someone else’s when she rolled against the hard length of his finger, coaxing Jax, daring him to hurry up and touch her.

  Touch her now.

  Jax smiled beneath her lips, a slight tilt upward of arrogance maybe, before he stroked downward, spreading her wide, using another finger to tease her, torment the tight bud at her core until her heart tried to push its way out of her chest.

  Pricks of fire teased her belly, turning into flames, licking at her, forcing her to push against Jax’s fingers, whimper against his delicious mouth when he did the one last thing she knew would send her over an edge. An edge she was unfamiliar with—unsure of, but one Em dared to teeter on anyway.

  His finger slid into her with hot, wet ease—so easily, she gasped, shuddered, saw stars, brilliant splashes of light. She didn’t know what else to do but cling to him, relish his big hands on her, moan when he used his other hand to push up her dress and find her breast.

  Jax cupped it, thumbed it through the material of her bra until that agonizing slow burn was stealing bits of her sanity, pushing its way along her veins, screaming to find relief.

  He drove deeper, stroking, thrusting in long pulls, while his musky scent filled her nose. All of her senses were on board Train Jax, every single one engaged in ways she hadn’t known existed.

  Suddenly, it was too much—too soon—too everything. Her brain said retreat. It was dangerous to want anything this much—to want anyone this much. But her body said “eff your brain, Emmaline Amos” and fell into the dark cauldron of her boiling hormones.

  When she fell, it was hard. She rode Jax’s hand, heard his grunt of satisfaction at her slippery descent, pressed so deeply into him, surely the seat would crash through the floorboards of her Jeep.

  Everything, his hard thighs under her, his wide chest making her feel small and delicate, his thick fingers thrusting into her, became a heady aphrodisiac. The last roll of her hips, the last bit of air she was able to suck in before she came was a blur.

  There was nothing but the sharply sweet victory of total completion when each nerve in her body hummed and the rush of her pulse roared in her ears.

  She knew she screamed. Buried her face in Jax’s yummy-smelling neck until she made the snap decision to pretend she did things like this all the time.

  Em’s fingers fumbled to reach between them so Jax would know this wasn’t just about her despite how she’d just behaved.

  “I don’t think you’re ready for that just yet,” he grumbled in her ear. He wrapped his hand around her wrist and brought it up under his chin, rubbing her skin against the stubble.

  “Because you’re too much man for little ole me to handle?” The words growled from her throat, sounding sated and still not like her voice at all.

  His laughter vibrated in her chest, rumbly and sexy. “Hah! I doubt there’s much you can’t handle. I meant emotionally.”

  She used the heels of her hands on his shoulders to lever herself upward. “Now you’re my emotional compass?”

  He smiled, sort of rakish and smug. “You were worried about making out in a car, Em.”

  Fair. “But I did it.”

  “Total chore?”

  She rolled her eyes with exaggeration, tucking her chin into her shoulder in a sudden bid to pull off the Dixie flirt. “Ugh. Horrendous. Couldn’t you tell?”

  Cupping the back of her head, Jax pulled her tighter to him. “I’m saying this all wrong.”

  “You’re not winning any wordsmith awards.”

  “What if I said I wasn’t ready?”

  What if? Or what if you’re just a gentleman? One of those nearly extinct beings that takes pity on a woman and her deprived libido, but wants nothing in return. “Right. Because I’m far more woman than a man like you can handle.”

  “That might not be far off the mark. And some truth here, it’s been a long time for me. But what I meant was, I have no condoms, and seeing as you don’t make it a habit to make out in cars—”

  “Jeeps.”

  “Jeeps. I figured you wouldn’t have any on hand, either.”

  Smart and Dreamy McSteamy. Did his perfection know no bounds? “You’re noble and wise.”

  Now he growled, tightening his hold on her, the rigid line of his cock burning between her thighs. “Make no mistake, if I’d had that condom, I can’t promise you wouldn’t be naked with me buried inside you right now. All night long if I could manage it in such cramped quarters. I’m hornier than I think I’ve ever been for any woman, Emmaline Amos.”

  Gulping. She was suddenly speechless and gulping. No one had ever used words like that with her before. They made her shaky—uncomfortable, but the good kind of uncomfortable.

  Jax read her body language with ease. “No one’s ever said that to you before, have they?”

  Everything became too much again. Too big, too loud, too honest. She began to pull away as reality set in.

  But Jax wasn’t letting her off so easy; he drew her back in by flattening his palm on her butt. “Jesus. Okay then, I’ll be the first. You’re damn hot, damn irresistible, too.”

  “I don’t know if irresistible is the right word. But I can tell you I’m not myself.” No. She sure wasn’t. One minute she was shy and all worship-y like he was some sex god, the next she was lusty and flirty like she was the sex goddess.

  Jax’s eyes teased, but his words were direct. He curled a finger under her chin and nipped the corner of her mouth. “You want to run away and hide, don’t you?”

  Yes. No. Yes. She couldn’t think when his mouth was near hers. “And never see you
again.”

  “That’s going to prove difficult, seeing as we work in the same office.”

  She began grasping at straws, pulling away, straightening, putting back on her Em-face. “It’s only temporary. You’re not a permanent employee.”

  “Neener, neener, neener.”

  “What?”

  “I’m making fun of your playground move. You know, pull my hair and run away?”

  Em winced, her shoulders sagging. “Childish, right?”

  He shrugged, his muscles rippling beneath her hands. “Defense mechanism. Totally understand. You feel exposed, vulnerable.”

  Which reminded her... “I think I have to go home.”

  “I think you’re going to overthink this when you get home.”

  You bet she was. She was going to think so hard they’d see the smoke clear over in Johnsonville. “I think you’re right.”

  “Damn. That means we’re going to be awkward at the office, doesn’t it? Avoid each other in the halls—suck in our stomachs so we don’t brush against each other when we’re in the kitchen?”

  “You have to suck in your stomach? Preposterous.”

  “Reactive. You know, make yourself small to avoid contact. So, is that where we’re headed?”

  “Count on it.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t think I can help it.”

  “Try.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like you, and I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

  “I really have to go home.”

  “Not until you promise not to be awkward at work.”

  “We just had almost sex. Awkward is a given.”

  “Not if you try. Don’t make me take your keys from you until you promise you’ll at least try not to be awkward.”

  “Promise.”

  He clucked his tongue and shook his head, but his eyes teased hers. “Lies.”

  “Guilty.”

  A sharp rap of knuckles on the Jeep’s window sent her into a heart-thumping panic. Em scrambled to push her dress down, horrified at the mere thought they’d been caught fooling around in a car.