Free Something to Talk About by Dakota Cassidy Page A

necessary, Jax. Really. I’m happy to help with anything that will make such a charming little girl smile. And tomorrow night’s fine. I’ll ask Aunt Dixie and the girls to babysit.”
    “Well, you have to eat, right? I definitely have to eat. I won’t get out of here much before the dinner hour anyway.”
    How would she ever eat with Jax across a table from her when she almost couldn’t breathe around him? But she found herself agreeing. “Okay. Tomorrow after work. See you then.”
    “Thanks, Emmaline. Maizy and I appreciate it.”
    “Anytime,” she managed, like spending an evening with him was going to be effortless and breezy. She even squeezed out another smile before she made one more clumsy break for Marybell’s office.
    Rounding that hazardous corner again, she slipped inside Marybell’s office, shut the door, and leaned back against it, still clinging to her magic screwdriver.
    It’s just dinner and some paint, Em. Breathe.
    But it was dinner and some paint with him. Him.
    The him.
    The effects of Jax, after spending only ten minutes in his presence, left her body tingly and hot all over. Breathless, shaky and dizzy, too.
    What would an entire evening and a meal bring?
    An Em bonfire?
    * * *
    “You’re going where?”
    “To dinner with a gorgeous woman.” Jax smiled to himself. His off-the-cuff request of Em had been genius. Since he’d met her at Caine’s a week ago, and agreed to take the freelance work, he couldn’t think of anything else but seeing Em again.
    Not good. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want all the sticky, mostly messy end result of a relationship. Especially with a woman who had as many battle scars as she had. He’d been to a war once, and he’d just barely gotten out alive.
    Though, she’d been damned elusive this week, seemed their paths almost never crossed while he’d set himself up in the office Caine and Dixie had appointed him. So when the opportunity finally presented itself today, and she was so close it was all he could do not to haul her up against him just to see what it felt like to have all that soft, feminine woman against him, he’d done the next best thing.
    Asked her to help him pick paint colors while he silently berated himself for even opening the door just a crack to being around her more than at the office.
    Dumb ass.
    But everything, from the swell of her hips in her tight-fitting, yet somehow modest skirt, to the slope of her breasts, perfectly shaped beneath the black, figure-hugging sweater she wore, made his damn mouth water.
    The small pearl buttons, running from the edge of her sweater right up to just under her chin, had him spending the time after she left fantasizing about how fast he could pluck them open and reveal what was beneath.
    The scent she wore, pears, sunshine—a combination that, when recalled, made him wonder if every inch of her smelled like that.
    And her lips. Jesus. Her lips. Soft, plump, red, just begging to have his mouth on them, nipping them, and it took more restraint than he’d like to admit to keep himself in his office while she stood so close to him he could see her pupils dilating.
    Stir her cute Southern drawl into the pot and the way she drew out his name a little longer than everyone else, and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about her.
    Tag poked his head over his brother’s shoulder, his eyes finding Jax’s in the crooked bathroom mirror. “Wait. You have a real date? With a real woman? Or one of the blow-up variety?”
    Jax smoothed some aftershave over his jaw and grinned at his brother’s reflection. One that wasn’t as haunted or pained these days. “Like you’d know the difference? And it’s not a date.”
    Tag punched him in the shoulder and smiled, his eyes lighter than Jax had seen them in a long time. “So who’s this gorgeous woman?”
    “Emmaline Amos.” Just saying her name made his gut tighten, bringing to mind those red, red lips of hers. Double shit.
    “The one with