Jax used his free hand to stroke the curve of her hip. “Again? She’s been a new woman more than once?”
Em closed her eyes and sighed when her nipples scraped his chest. “It’s a long story, but it’s the real reason Louella hates Dixie. I was once a black sheep Mag, aka their whipping boy. Only allowed to enter the palace when my services were needed. Until I decided my services were no longer up for the occasional grab. When Landon appointed me mediator to that crazy phone-sex contest between Dixie and Caine, I had two choices. I could be driven straight out of my mind by keepin’ Louella informed of Dixie’s dealings, or I could refuse to be used as a pawn. I refused the position of pawn.”
For the first time in her life, she didn’t care if Louella and the Mags were angry with her. Maybe it had been the first signs of her finally finding her backbone, or maybe it was just that she couldn’t bear to do wrong by Landon, but she’d stuck to her guns back then, infuriating Louella.
Jax’s fingers skated over her belly, making her inhale with anticipation. “So she put a pretty personal picture of your ex-husband up at a town gathering just because you wouldn’t be her inside edge?”
Men would never understand the machinations of small-town life and the women who lived it. Sometimes, she didn’t understand it, either. “That’s not the only reason, no. Even though Louella and I were never really friends in the true sense of the word, she didn’t like that I took to defending Dixie. Somehow, in her twisted head, I think she figured she was the lesser of two evils, and because she’d done less hateful things to me than Dixie, I’d choose her.”
Jax frowned. “Dixie did hateful things to you? But she’s your best friend.”
“She was horrible to me in high school. But we’ve long since gotten past it. I admit, when she first came back to town, I was just tryin’ to remain respectful to Landon’s last wishes, and I was skeptical she’d changed. But she had. She really had.”
“So Louella was jealous of your new relationship with Dixie, and she lashed out. Jesus.”
“Something like that. She still hated Dixie for stealing Caine right out from under her nose. So she found a way to hurt both of us by sneakin’ that picture of Clifton into the mix of the slide show on Founders’ Day. She knew I’d immediately blame Dixie because of Dixie’s past and all the horrible pranks she played on me. Dixie was the only person aside from Marybell I’d told about Clifton. I knew it wasn’t Marybell. She almost never talks to anyone outside of us unless it’s to scare them off with her infamous snarl. I didn’t even consider her. I jumped to conclusions because of me and Dixie’s jaded past, and well, you know the rest of the story.”
“I get the impression Louella wants Call Girls gone.”
“You get the right impression. She’s begun a petition to rid the PO of all our sinnin’, last I heard. Says it’s sullyin’ our reputation and hurtin’ tourism. But that night... That was dedicated to her pure jealousy over Dixie.”
He ran a finger down the tip of her nose. “It was a pretty horrible night, wasn’t it?”
Em shrugged as if that were no longer an open wound—as if her children weren’t still fending off the horrible taunts that night had brought about.
She didn’t want Jax’s pity or to remember the first night she’d met him. She wanted this. Them naked. “But it’s over now. I’m just givin’ you some background on Louella Palmer, should you choose to take up with her.” Inner Em gasped. Did you really just say that out loud? Take up with her? That’s fishin’, Em.
“I’m not taking up with anyone, remember? That’s why we’re doing this,” he teased, pulling her closer.
Relaxing into him, she agreed, “Exactly. So let’s focus on why we’re here.”
Jax flicked the vibrator to the on position, holding it up, the gleam in his eye wicked and full of the devil. “Your wish is my command. You want this Terminator on high or low?”
“The Annihilator,” she corrected, giggling again just hearing him say the name. “And I don’t know. I’ve never used one before. Have you?” The first thing she’d done when Jax had agreed to this was hunt for the vibrator Dixie and the girls had given her when she’d signed her divorce papers and declared men were dead to her forever.
She’d hidden it away in one of her old trunks in her walk-in closet and never looked back until the other night when she’d remembered a phone call Marybell had taken with a man who wanted her to pretend she was using a vibrator.