She forgot the sting of humiliation during their engagement party, when Louella Palmer, microphone in hand, had, instead of reading a lovely speech about their courtship, declared Dixie had a sexually transmitted disease, and she had the test results to prove it. All while the entire population of five hundred and fifty-six people in Plum Orchard, Georgia, were given a front row seat to her humiliation.
She forgot the words of harsh reality he’d flung at her when Louella let Caine hear the voice mail Dixie had left her, crowing her victory. I’m not some damn race horse, Dixie!
She forgot how desperately she’d wanted Caine to really believe she’d changed since her high school days, and how easily she’d slipped back into that mean-girl role because she could never resist the chance to win—at everything.
She forgot how much she’d hurt Louella by pursuing Caine in the first place. She forgot how in the end, even after her apology, she realized it would always be like this. She would always be Dixie Davis, untrustworthy mean girl to him, and he’d always be fine, upstanding, kind-to-small-children-and-puppies Caine Donovan.
She forgot that back on that dreadful day, he’d been right, and she’d been wrong.
Dixie forgot all of that when the crown of his heated cock rested at her entrance, and her hips lifted, inviting him in. She forgot everything but the all-consuming desire tearing at her—a need that had to be sated or she’d die from the want of him.
Nine years of memories resurfaced in a tidal wave of reality.
Dixie let her hips slide downward in slow increments, sucking him deeper into her body until Caine drove upward with such force she wobbled in the strength of his arms, wincing when the pleasure-pain of his powerful entry stretched her. Each ripple of his abs pressed into her. Her nipples grew agonizingly tight, scraping against his smooth chest.
He angled his hips and pushed upward again. The violent thrust of his cock, wide and thick, only heightened her need. The sweat accumulating between them allowed for a slippery glide of skin on skin.
Dixie’s clit raked against the flat plane of his abdomen as he took another possessive thrust, growling what sounded like surprise. “Has it been a while, Dixie? You’re so damn tight and hot, so fuckably hot...” Caine’s lips curved into her ear then, nipping her lobe and preventing her from striking back with an answer.
Caine’s response was a heavy chuckle. “Some things never change, do they, Dixie?” he asked, driving into her slick entrance again, filling the emptiness inside her until she melted fully into him.
Harsh air escaped their lungs, full of rasp, heaving and choppy. Caine jammed his hands under her, cupping her ass, trailing his finger between her cheeks, forcing her to use his body as leverage to rise up and crash downward again.
Their rhythmic thrusts were madness; stroke for stroke, Dixie grew wetter, hotter until there was no sound but that of their bodies connecting.
Dixie’s fingers went to his lips, pressing them to the fullness of his mouth to suppress his words, the fear of them slipping from his throat sliced through her haze of need.
She couldn’t hear the words he used to speak.
Wouldn’t.
Caine reached for her nape, digging his fingers into the flesh of it. “So good, Dixie—so sweet,” he said from a clenched jaw, tensing and flexing.
Dixie didn’t know if her response was to Caine’s words or the incessant throb of her wish to be pushed over the edge—hard. And at that moment, she didn’t care. She contracted around him, welcoming the intense fire burning her from the inside out, allowing it to be the only feeling in existence.
She rocked hard against the tightly corded muscles of Caine, accepting his last plunge into her wet depths. Her orgasm exploded, ripping through her, eliciting a hoarse cry of completion.
They slumped together, their chests crashing, the sheen of their sweat mingling.
A scrape against the outside of the door and a low growl had them both scrambling. Caine pulled out of her with haste, but she didn’t have time to mourn the loss before she heard Em’s voice. “What is it, Mona? Or are you Lisa? Isn’t it enough that you woke me? Stop scratching at the door, or you’ll wake the entire house, young lady!”
Still shaken, Dixie slid down Caine’s body, dragging her T-shirt with her. Her underwear. Where was her underwear? Panic seized her.
She heard Caine zip up just before he reached over her head and began banging on the door. “Em! We’re in here!”
There was a scuffle of dog paws scraping on the floor, and Em’s gasp before the familiar sound of the jiggling doorknob drowned out everything else.
Dixie didn’t have time to regret. She didn’t have time to be grateful she’d never missed a day of her birth control pills. She didn’t have time to clean up.
She didn’t have time to despise her body’s blatant betrayal just because Caine had whipped out one of his best assets and had driven her mad with it.
She didn’t even have time to see the look on Em’s face when the light from the bathroom spilled into the dark closet, so damn invasive and harshly bright when she and Caine stumbled out together in a tangle of limbs and rumpled nightwear.
Dixie shielded her watery eyes, gulping in the cool air as Mona pawed at her leg with a whimper, and Caine’s hand went to her spine to right her.
She swatted him away, angry with herself—angry with him—damn angry.
The silence that greeted them when her eyes fully adjusted was a mixture of two things: surprise and shock.
Em, wrapped in a blue terry-cloth robe, finally mumbled, “Mercy.”
Lord, please have.
Em’s gaze was pensive. She twisted one of the pink curlers in her hair. “I want to ask. Should I ask?” She shook her head, her brow furrowed. “No. I won’t ask. It’s ill-mannered.”
Caine, smooth and composed as always, patted Em on the back with a casual hand and a charming grin as though they hadn’t just made torrid love inside a locked closet. “We just got locked in while we were looking for extra pillows.” He turned his back to them and reached into the interior of the closet, pulling out a fluffy pillow and tucking it under his arm. “See? Thanks, Em, and g’night, ladies,” he called in Paul Hogan’s Australian lilt before jamming a hand into the pocket of his shorts and strolling out of the room.
Dixie sagged against the wall in relief like the dirty whore she was. That they didn’t have to discuss the whys and wherefores of what had just gone on was a blessing.
Em plucked at her hair, her smile devilish. “Snookie bump?”
Dixie caught a glimpse of her hair in the mirror and cringed, running her hands over the ends that stuck up in every direction. Her ponytail was smashed upward in a crazy likeness to the ultra popular bump. That’s because you bumped—hard—against a linen closet door—with a man you tell yourself you despise more than you despise collard greens, Dixie Davis. It’s the sex-bump. Wear it well, for it’s your new tramp-stamp.
Dixie cracked her knuckles while Em waited for an answer with a smug grin. “We got stuck in the stupid closet while we were looking for some pillows. The lock’s clearly broken, and so is the spring on the door. So, long lost court-appointed mediator, maybe you could make a note to have Sanjeev fix that, huh? Now, I’m going to bed.” She harrumphed, turning on her heel to make an indignant exit.
“Hey, Dixie?” Em yelled.
“I’m going to bed, Emmaliiiine,” she bellowed back, yanking at the ridiculously lavish comforter and climbing in, hoping her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.
“That’s lovely,” Em said, sweeping through the bedroom. “I remember how you always told us your beauty rest was important. You know, like the time all of us cheerleaders, and me, a lowly alternate, stayed up late sewing the costume for the football team’s mascot while you got your eight hours of much needed rest?”
&n
bsp; Dixie dragged the covers over her head and huffed in exasperation. Yes. She’d done that. Yes. She’d been a dreadful excuse for a human being. Yes. Did no one ever let go? It had been twenty years. “Okay, Em. I get it. Mean girl in the house. How many more nails do you have left to hammer into my coffin anyway? Is there a daily quota you have to meet?”
Em giggled. “Before you snuggle into that fine linen, I’d take a look at what Mona’s chewing on right this second. It looks suspiciously like somethin’ you wouldn’t find in a linen closet. Niiight, Dixie!”
She cocked her ears, noting the snarfing sounds her bulldogs made when they were eating something.
Dixie threw the covers off and hung off the side of the bed.
Mona stilled all motion. Her beautifully soulful brown eyes stared back up at Dixie’s.
Guilt. There was guilt in those big brown eyes. There was probably guilt in hers, too. For she and Caine had been caught red-handed by Em, fornicating. So much fornication.
Dixie reached down and tapped Mona on the nose with narrowed eyes. “Give Mommy back her underwear right this second, young lady!”
Seven
Caine paced the length of Hank Cotton’s short driveway, listening to the wooden sign announcing his law practice flap in the thick breeze. He glanced upward to the darkening sky. A purple cloud with fat black lines and puffy gray hues settled directly over the sharp peaks of the well-maintained mint-green-and-white Victorian, where Hank’s office was housed.
A storm was brewing, bringing with it the perfect setting for what he was about to do.
Stay here in Plum Orchard instead of going back to Miami where he knew damned well he should go. He’d come here thinking this was a good time to reassess his career, grab a break from his hectic life in Miami. He was burnt out, bored, lacking—lacking something he just couldn’t figure out.
Plum Orchard, home, was the perfect place to do it. Now, with the messed-up mix of emotions he was feeling after last night, he knew he should go.
Yet, here he was.
Jamming a hand into the pocket of his jeans, he fingered his phone with the text he’d found from Landon bright and early this morning, and narrowed his eyes. Bawk-bawk-bawk, Candy Caine! it read in Landon’s typically comedic voice.
Translation—his best friend was razzing him from the great beyond, daring him to give in to the worst label one man could give another. Chicken-shit. He didn’t even bother to wonder how Landon had set up timed-release texts before his death. He was too caught up in how the hell he’d survive being around Dixie for two months.
“Damn you, you son of a bitch,” he muttered, still madder than a coon cornered in a barn. Landon knew the two of them well, and he’d sure as hell known that throwing down the chance to whoop Dixie’s pretty backside was like last night in the linen closet. A temptation Caine couldn’t resist.
To leave Plum Orchard now would be as good as admitting he couldn’t beat Dixie. Admitting he couldn’t beat Dixie was akin to he-man suicide in this off-the-wall imaginary competition they’d created through the years.
Ridiculous? Absolutely. Shouldn’t he be long past their childhood rivalries? Wasn’t he enough of a man to take the high road?
No. Because when he veered off to the high road, it wouldn’t be long before Dixie’d come along on her pretty pink Schwinn with the matching woven basket, honk the horn with the stupid frilly purple streamers at him and kick dust up in his face to remind him who’d won this round of Donovan versus Davis.
The memory made Caine smile—a smile he didn’t even bother to fight. There were plenty of good memories involved with their legendary rivalry.
Those were the memories that had shaped his childhood. They mingled with the familiar scent of magnolias in his mother’s carefully tended yard, bag after bag of pork rinds and six-packs of Dr. Pepper.
And Dixie.
No matter where he went, whom he dated, Dixie had always been the one woman he couldn’t exorcise. Last night, locked in that closet, her luscious body open and willing, had turned what Caine hoped was nothing more than an idealized memory of her into his worst nightmare come true.
Dixie Davis still had the ability to get to him, burrow under his skin until she was so deeply rooted, he didn’t know where she left off and he began. Nothing about that had changed.
Not the long talks he’d had with himself about how he was romanticizing the ghost of their relationship, forgetting the bad and remembering only the good. Not even the bottle of Jack he’d indulged in when he’d learned Landon had passed and he knew he’d have to see Dixie again after all these years had been able to talk him out of the realization that her presence in his life wasn’t ever going to let him have any peace.
From the moment he’d seen her at old man Tate’s funeral home, her wide, blue eyes puffy and red from crying, her long hair sexily tousled and now a faded red, the soft curve of her full lips chapped from her familiar habit of tugging at them, that voice in his head told him to get the hell out of Georgia. Because she’d never looked sexier. The years they’d been apart had been kind to her—even in grief.
Knowing he was able to see past her weary exterior and still find the woman he’d have once given a major organ up for was a sure sign it was time to hightail it out of here.
“But you’re not gonna let me, are you, you interfering pain in the ass?”
Caine, my friend, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. This thing between you and Dixie, this imaginary fight to the death at all costs, is like the chance to travel back in time and watch a half-naked, Russell Crowe–ish prisoner do battle with skilled, equally as half-naked gladiators. Not gonna happen on this watch, pal. It’s too delicious.
Caine barked a laugh right there in the middle of Hank’s cobbled driveway when he thought back on that conversation they’d had after Dixie had pulled one of her stunts. He ignored the curious glances of Nanette Pruitt and her pack of nosy Plum Orchard seniors staring at him from across the street, out on their customary after-dinner stroll.
Damn. His eyes scanned the lay of the land with a desperate glance, spotting a sugar maple he could probably hide behind if he sprinted. The last thing he needed was a lecture from Nanette Pruitt, and no doubt, if word had leaked about Landon’s will, lecture she would.
“Caine Donovan!” she called out with a flap of a stark white handkerchief she held, crossing the street in her signature militant strut.
He halted all action. Caught, Donovan. If he were to turn his back on one of his mother’s oldest friends, she’d hear about it, and Jo-Lynne Donovan would make him pick his own switch for his whippin’.
Caine threw a smile on his face, the one he reserved for the old money of Miami real estate, and turned around.
Nanette stopped dead in front of him, the rolls of her neck lavish with her customary pearls. Her modest sundress decorated with swirly flowers in yellow and blue floated in the humid breeze just below knees that matched her neck.
Behind her trailed her faithful comrades in piety, Essie Guthrie, Kitty Palmer and Blanche Carter. He noted the absence of Bunny Taylor who, last he’d heard from his mother, was visiting her new granddaughter in Atlanta.
Nanette reached up with a hand that was beginning to show the signs of age and pinched his cheeks. Just like she used to when she taught him history in the second grade. “Why, it’s our very own Caine Donovan. In the flesh, ladies, out in the middle of our brand-new lawyer’s driveway, talkin’ to himself. Have you come home to handle the riffraff that nuttier-than-a-pecan-pie Landon left out back in his guesthouse? May the good Lord rest and keep him.” She paused, raising her eyes heavenward in good Christian honor before continuing. “If anyone can take care of that lot of giggling Jezebels, it’s Plum Orchard High’s answer to Paul Newman, don’t you think, girls?” she called to the three women behind her as
though their spoken approval actually made a lick of difference.
Everyone in town knew Nanette didn’t need the endorsement of her cohorts. She’d long ago taken up residence on the throne of moral high ground and decency. “You were always a good boy. So what will you do to rid our charming town of those...those...”
“Ladies of the non-biblical persuasion was the title you decided on at last night’s meetin’ of the Senior Magnolias, Nanny,” Essie Guthrie offered with a nod of her pin-curled, fading brunette head and a wrinkle of her bulbous nose, smack full of distaste.
Caine mentally flung arrows at Landon. He was probably sitting on some cloud upstairs, sipping what he lovingly referred to as “champs” with his personal hero, Liberace, having a hearty laugh over the uproar he’d left behind.
But Landon poured some serious money into the town, and while the town didn’t necessarily love his lifestyle, they loved the money he dumped into improving it, hand over fist, and it kept them from openly making their displeasure known. But it had never stopped them from talking behind their hands about him or Dixie and Caine for accepting who Landon was.
Landon knew what they said, and he didn’t care. When Caine found himself bent out of shape over a snide comment from one of the Senior Magnolias, Landon had laughed at his raging. I don’t do what I do for Plum Orchard because I need the acceptance of a bunch of hypocrites. I don’t do it as a way to shut them up. I do it because this is my home, and I love my home. I love it more than I hate their ignorance.
So the ladies must at least have an inkling about Call Girls by now. But his salvation, for the moment anyway, was the hope they didn’t know everything.
He shaded his eyes when a stray band of sunlight shot through the thickening clouds. Gazing down at Nanette, he summoned something he could latch onto from his Sunday school days to keep their fake saintly wrath at bay. “Now, Miss Nanette, that’s not very neighborly of you, is it? What would Reverend Watson say? Wouldn’t he want you to welcome those who’ve strayed from the flock? Maybe make them some of your famous lemon meringue pie? Weren’t we always taught not to judge?”
Talk Dirty to Me Page 9