Talk Dirty to Me

“Really,” Dixie drawled, her Southern lilt reappearing. She leaned forward toward Hank, her gaze captivating his, her body language, a glowing halo of sexy. Just like the old Dixie.

Caine relaxed a little. Nothing had changed. It was just another ploy.

She let her eyelashes flutter to her cheeks in that coy way that made his pulse thrash. “And did Landon have a name all picked out for Mr. Donovan, too? It would only be fair.” She smiled at Hank—the smile that was both flirtatious and subtle, one she’d used often to get almost anything she wanted back in high school. One she’d used on him.

One you fell for, dummy.

Caine eyed Hank’s reaction, at first taken aback. Really, who wasn’t when Dixie poured on the charm? But it was only a momentary lapse before he read her playful tone. “How well you knew him. In fact, he did, Ms. Davis.”

Caine gritted his teeth, bracing himself. Damn you, Landon. I hope you’re getting your pound of flesh up there.

Dixie cocked her eyebrow upward in smug anticipation. “You have Mistress Leather’s full attention,” she cooed, using her husky-honey voice to encourage Hank to spill. She swung her crossed leg and waited, smoothing her hand down along her calf to her ankle before pointing her toes.

Jesus.

Hank looked to Caine. “Landon’s suggestion was Candy Cane, with a play on Caine, but he was also partial to Boom-Boom LaRue.”

How do ya like that for some boom, Boom-Boom?

Three

Caine gripped the arms of his uncomfortable chair. Damn her, after ten years, for not only still being so sexy it made his teeth grind together, but for possessing the ability to suck any man—even staid Hank Cotton, into her vortex of charm.

Boom-Boom. The hell, Landon?

Why wasn’t he getting the hell up, forfeiting everything to Dixie, and going back home to Miami? He could reevaluate his life anywhere in the world. It didn’t have to be here. He didn’t need the money. He didn’t want the money. He wanted Dixie to go home and Landon alive so he could take him back out.

Worse, why was she still stirring things up in him better left unstirred? Just the brief glimpse of her with Em today at the funeral home dragged him right back to their short but tumultuous engagement.

When they’d both come home ten years ago, and she no longer felt like his kid sister, their constant sibling antagonism turned to something much bigger than he’d ever thought possible. When he’d stupidly believed Dixie wasn’t the reckless, cruel, entitled kid he’d left behind.

He mentally dug in his heels while she sat in her chair, daring him with her flashing eyes to come play the game. Not a chance she was going to sucker him again. Which brought him back to the same thought as he watched Dixie watch him. Why wasn’t he hauling ass outta here?

“What’s the matter, Caine Donovan? Are you afraid I’ll beat you just like I did when you bet I couldn’t spit watermelon seeds farther than you?” Dixie pointed to her pink-lipsticked lips, full and pouty-smug. “That’s right—this mouth beat you by almost eight inches.”

Caine made a fist of his hand, flexing and unflexing the tense muscles to keep her from seeing she was getting under his skin. “Your mouth was as deceptive as the rest of you. And you stood on a chair, Dixie. Hardly fair.”

Dixie tilted her chin toward her shoulder, letting it nestle in her long red hair, gifting him that smoldering eye thing she used to do, knowing damn well it made him crazy. “Why, where in the rules for watermelon seed spittin’ did it say I couldn’t use a chair, Caine?”

Caine’s jaw tightened to a hard line, shifting and grinding. Resist. “I don’t need Landon’s phone-sex company, or the money it makes. No matter how much.”

No amount of money was worth being around Dixie again. No amount of money was worth the constant reminder that he was an asshole who couldn’t tell the difference between the real thing, and the fake Dixie thing.

Yet. Here you sit.

* * *

Dixie rose to her feet, hurling her large handbag over her shoulder. That settled that. “Good for you, Richie Rich. Unfortunately, I do.” Wow, did she. After her drive here to Plum Orchard, her checking account was nothing but the kind of change you find in the cushions of your couch.

She needed the money. But did she need it enough to become a phone-sex operator?

Weren’t you the one organizing an ad for your kidneys on Craigslist just three short hours ago?

But what if she didn’t want to play Mistress Leather to dirty old men and oversexed college boys as a way to get herself out of this mess?

What if? What if you want to live the rest of your life never making the things you’ve done wrong right? What if you just sweep it under the carpet like you’ve always done? What if you just skip this part, the hard part, and fix something else you’ve broken instead? Something smaller, less difficult, maybe?

No. She didn’t have to do this. She could skulk back off to Chicago and continue to lick her wounds in her studio apartment with the peeling pink paint, a stove that had only one working burner, a shower that dripped exactly two drops of water per minute, and a punk neighbor who sold pharmaceuticals for someone named Dime.

She absolutely could go right back to living just barely above the poverty level while she tried desperately to pay back money she’d charmed out of her mother’s connections. Money she’d promised to handle with care—promised in the way the old Dixie promised everything. Loosely—offhandedly—with little regard for anything but what she wanted.

No. This was a way to finally do something because it was right.

Still, the more she played with the idea in her mind, the easier it was becoming to convince herself she could do this.

If getting back on her feet meant spanking a chair with a fly swatter for effect while she whispered the words, “You must be punished for disobeying me,” into a phone, she’d do it. It was either that or starve at this point. Food won. Food and a warm place for Mona and Lisa, her twin bulldogs to sleep. “So, it’s settled? I win. You lose. Where do I sign, Hank?”

Hank gave Dixie another “Hank look” translating to “not so fast.” “Let’s not be hasty. You have twenty-four hours to think about it, Ms. Davis. Mr. Donovan, too. Landon insisted upon a waiting period of sorts. In the meantime, Landon has offered his house and staff at your full disposal—to the both of you—while you mull this opportunity over. He wanted you both to be comfortable while you considered his offer.”

She’d already had two years of broke since her restaurant had gone bust. Why waste time? Dixie shot her hand upward to avoid more naysaying. “I don’t even need twenty-four seconds. I’m in. Pass the pen.”

But Hank shook his head. “I’m sorry. Landon insisted that you both take the time to thoroughly think this through and get your affairs in order. He knew the two of you well, Miss Davis. His notes, and there were many, many notes—” Hank held up a stack of paper “—claim, on occasion, you’re quick to jump before you think. Especially if it comes to any sort of competition with—”

“With me,” Caine interjected with confidence, quite obviously pleased with himself.

Hank’s lips pursed at Caine’s interruption. He held up the ream of paper again and pointed to it with a short-clipped nail. “Yes. Landon did say that, but Ms. Davis wasn’t the only one he left remarks about. He also mentioned you’re quite easily baited by—” he looked down at the paper, shifting his glasses “—the lovely and irresistible Miss Davis. His words, right here.” He tapped the mountain of white again.

Dixie shot Caine a triumphant gaze. If there were notes to be had, she was grateful she wasn’t the only one worth noting.

Caine’s fingers flexed and cracked, signaling his legendary simmer.

“Thus,” Hank continued, “he asked that you both take a hard look at his proposition. Landon was quite aware you both have lives and jobs elsewhere.”

Well, one of them did.

“So please, each of you use the maximum time given, and we’ll meet back here tomorrow at six with your decisions. Now, Landon had all the locks changed on the big house just prior to his death. I’ll go get the set of keys he had made for each of you so you can settle in after such an emotionally trying day.” Hank rose, whisking out of the office on expensively clad feet, quite obviously relieved to get away from Landon’s tawdry business dealings.

Em rushed to stand next to Dixie, peering down at her with an expression of guilt. “Before you rush to callin’ me a traitor, yes, I was the one who had the keys made and called the locksmith to change the locks. But I maintain, I only knew Landon owned a phone-sex company and he was leaving it to you two to fight over. I thought Cat and the girls were going to show you the ropes temporarily. He left me a beautiful letter to thank me for facilitatin’ his...his passin’, but there was nothing about keeping Call Girls here permanently.”

Dixie’s smile was as ironic as her tired nod. She patted Em’s hand. “You don’t owe me an explanation, and either way, I’m not staying at the big house.” Not with Caine. Not knowing he’d sleep in one of the eight or so bedrooms—naked. He always slept naked.

A fleeting visual of his wide chest with a sprinkling of dark hair and thickly muscled thighs spread wide to reveal his most intimate body part shuttled through her mind’s eye unbidden. Dixie bit back an uncomfortable groan.

“But the big house is so nice with every luxury available. Butlers and maids and a full-time chef,” Em said, as though all those things in a gloriously opulent setting would make it easier to answer to the name Mistress Leather. “And bidets. He has bidets. Who can resist a bidet?”

Dixie pulled her purse closer to her side, running her fingers over the surface. She knew everything Landon had. Scratch that. Almost everything. “Yes, I know Landon has a bidet, and a slide in the pool, and a screening room, and a camel named Toe he couldn’t bear to part with when he left Turkey so he hired a zookeeper to care for him at the big house. He told everyone all the time what he had. I’m not interested in his possessions—just the predicament he’s left me in.”

Dixie breathed deeply, pushing air in and out of her lungs to assuage her anxiety. “I don’t want to stay at Landon’s, and I don’t care about the chef.”