Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Avery Jane
Jesus, Avery Jane! How many times are you gonna remind this man of all the wrong he’s done? Pretty sure he’s quite aware.
“Sorry,” I said, pulling on his hand and dragging him with me as I continued walking.
“You know about Stu?” he asked.
“’Course I do. I’ve met him a few times.”
Dixon pulled my hand this time and turned me. There was so much hope in his eyes. “You have? What’s he like?”
“He’s… delightful. Funny and caring. He and his mom came into the shop once when I was teeterin’ on a ladder and hangin’ up my strands of flowers on the back wall. I dropped my hammer and a box of nails, and Stu crouched down and picked up every last one.
“Sometimes I see them all walkin’ downtown, and he always waves to me and smiles.”
The matching smile dawning on Dixon’s face was so beautiful that I wanted to reach up and touch my fingers to his lips so I could feel his happiness.
Looking up at him, I said, “He’s a storyteller, like you.”
Staring into my soul, Dixon whispered, “He is?”
“Yeah.”
“What kinds of stories?”
“Well, he’s only personally told me one about the fish in the lake by his house and all the silly stuff they get up to, but my friend Everlea has a son, and sometimes the boys play together at the park.
Her son’s a few years older than Stu, I think, but Everlea says Stu can jibber jabber with the best of them. She says he’s a hoot.”
“God. I’ve missed so much. What else?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but that’s all I’ve got. He comes into the store with his da—I mean your brother every now and again, and he always gives me a hug.”
“It’s okay,” Dixon said. “Bax is Stu’s dad. All I am is his DNA donor. I didn’t raise my kid. I didn’t hold him when he was scared or couldn’t sleep. He thinks I’m his uncle.”
“But you’re back now. You’ll make it right, won’t you?”
As a rush of warm, slow wind caressed us, he shrugged. “I want to, but I’m not sure I know how. I can’t take Stu away from Bax. I won’t do anything to hurt my son, but then how can I be a dad to him? He can’t have two dads.”
“Why not? I think he’d be lucky to have two devoted dads who love him like crazy. I wished my whole life for a dad, but two? That’d be like winnin’ the lottery. There’s gotta be a way for all of you to coexist and love Stu together.”
“Maybe,” Dixon mumbled in a gruff voice that told me he wasn’t so sure he believed me, but then he tilted his head, and the look on his face turned wistful. “You’re still a ball of light to my dark, you know that?”
“I am?” I asked as I watched him lick his lips.
“Yeah, and I wanna kiss you right now.”
That admission had my eyes rising to meet his gaze. He leaned down and tucked my hair behind my ear, letting his other hand cup my jaw.
“That okay?”
I couldn’t speak, so I nodded slowly, thinking for years I’d imagined what his lips would feel like on mine, and now I would know. Those years between us didn’t matter. The bruises on his soul, and on mine, didn’t matter.
I needed him to kiss me like I’d never needed anything in my life.
“Please,” I breathed, and his hair brushed over his shoulders and tickled my chin as he pulled me closer. I closed my eyes and pressed up on my toes until I felt his soft, wet skin on mine, and when my knees went weak, he wrapped his arms around my back and held me up.
Expecting simple lip-on-lip action, I was utterly surprised when his tongue swept into my mouth. He tilted his head and really kissed me, and butterflies began to flutter deep inside.
Suddenly, I was fifteen again, and he was my ex-best friend, the one I watched every day at lunch with his friends, talking about rodeos and hunting.
But he was also the same guy I’d noticed sneaking off to hide in the back of the gym when he was having a bad day, the one I’d wanted to comfort but didn’t know how.
“AJ,” he groaned, bringing me back to the present, “you taste like heaven.”
A moan was my only response as he kissed me harder, pulling my body against his. His hands snaked through my hair, his fingers molding to the shape of me, and he held me there, trapped in his embrace with no escape.
But the last thing I wanted was to get away from him. I felt his erection under his jeans, pressing against my belly, and tried to pull him closer, too, with my hands on his arms so I could better feel the desire he felt for me.
Kissing him and wanting him felt a little dangerous.
I knew he’d lived a harder life than me, had been in jail, and was an addict.
But I also knew his soul. He and I had been connected since childhood, so I didn’t need him to tell me he was sober.
I knew it in my heart, and I knew he was fighting like hell to be a good man.
“Stop,” he whispered. “You have to stop this. I don’t think I can.” His mouth moved to my neck, and he licked and groaned and tucked his nose in my hair while his hands moved lower down my back.
“I don’t wanna stop.”
“We have to,” he murmured, rubbing himself against me now, not trying at all to hide his desire.
Sex had been seriously lacking in my life.
I hadn’t been with a man since Cody, which meant I hadn’t been properly screwed in way too long, maybe ever, and now that the image of Dixon and me tangled up under my bed sheets had worked its way beneath my skin, I wanted to be properly fucked.
Damn if I couldn’t imagine the kind of hard, angsty fucking Dixon would give me.
“Come home with me,” I breathed against his lips, feeling their wet warmth and trying not to rut myself against him. “We can help each other sleep.”
“No.”
Taking two steps back, he disentangled our bodies, and a grave look grew in his eyes. “You don’t want me, AJ. I’m no good for you.”
“Wait. What? You just kissed me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was a mistake.”
A mistake?
A surge of anger and a whole boatload of humiliation had me stumbling backward, and I caught my heel on the edge of the sidewalk. Dixon reached out for me, but I pushed his hands away and regained my balance on my own.
“How dare you say that to me, Dixon Lee?”
“Wait, AJ, I didn’t mean—”
“No,” I said, turning to storm away. “I don’t care what you meant. That hurt. I’ve spent way too long hurtin’ over you. I’m not doin’ it anymore.”
“AJ, please wait. Don’t go. Let me explain.”
“No. Screw you, Dixon. I’ve waited my whole life to experience a kiss like that with you. You don’t get to offer that to me and then rip it away.”
“Your whole life?” he said to my back, but I was halfway to the Darbys’ already.
Waving my hand in the air, I called back, “Don’t come to my shop for shitty bouquets anymore. Get them at the Food Mart like every other stupid man from now on.”
“AJ. Wait!”
When lights began to flicker on in houses along the street, I picked up my pace. If Mama and Gran learned that I was the cause of the late-night commotion, I’d never hear the end of it.
And besides, when I turned the corner and peeked back at where Dixon had just been standing, he was gone.