Talk Dirty to Me. Dakota Cassidy

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ