1-900-Lover

by Rhonda Nelson

  She’d twisted her long hair into a big, messy bun and had anchored it to the back of her head with a couple of chopsticks. Will frowned. At least, he supposed they were chopsticks, but hell who knew? He didn’t keep up with women’s hair fashions. All he knew was that he loved her hair. He let go an unsteady breath.

  Particularly when she was balancing on his dick, with her neck arched back where it brushed the tops of his thighs.

  Or when she leaned forward and kissed him, and it formed a veil around the side of his face.

  Or when it slithered coolly over his chest. A hell of an aphrodisiac, her hair, Will thought with a silent sigh.

  “Will?” Doris said, her exasperated tone indicating that she’d tried unsuccessfully to garner his attention. She twinkled her fingers in his face. “Will.”

  He blinked. “Er…sorry. Yes, Doris?”

  “I said that I’m in love with my garden, and—” her faded blue eyes twinkled with perceptive humor “—if I’m not sadly mistaken, you’re in love with someone in my garden,” she added with a wry smile.

  There was that phrase again, Will thought.

  In love.

  Truth be told, it had strolled in and out of his brain several times recently, at the most curious moments. Last week, he’d watched her accidentally smear dirt on her face while transplanting a begonia, and a wave of affection had hit him so hard a lump had inexplicably formed in his throat.

  Then today, he’d caught her chewing her nail, a thoughtful frown worrying her brow as she tried to figure out exactly where to place Doris’s patio set, and the same unnerving sensation had taken hold. Something warm and light had moved into his chest, pushed into his throat, forced him to swallow.

  It was the little things, Will realized now. Those small, insignificant little details that somehow added up until he knew he had the perfect person. The perfect partner.

  Will shot Doris a look, didn’t bother trying to deny it. He shrugged. “What can I say? She’s one helluva woman.”

  Doris readily agreed. “She’s fantastic, Will. She suits you. And she’s tremendously talented. I think she could bring some much-needed whimsy to your business. Not everybody likes traditional landscaping. Look at me,” she offered lightly, as though she hadn’t been the bane of his professional existence for three excruciating years. “I’m the perfect example.”

  Will muffled a snort, inclined his head. He shifted, pushed a hand through his hair.

  “What does your mother think about her?”

  “Mom loves her, thinks she’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

  Of course she would, Will thought, because just as he’d predicted his mother had taken one look at them together and deduced the obvious. She’d welcomed Rowan as part of the family without the smallest hesitation, and just yesterday he’d caught her on the phone with a friend who worked at Sylvia Gardens discussing available dates for the Chester-Hollings House, a popular wedding spot in downtown Jackson.

  Truth be told, he’d always imagined getting married at the botanical garden. It was gorgeous, a favorite haunt of his. He’d donated countless hours to helping maintain it. Cram-packed with hundreds of naturalized bulbs and perennials, azaleas, camellias and daylilies, the garden changed dramatically from season to season, and in certain grottos, from sunrise to sunset even. Hundreds of songbirds claimed sanctuary there, making it a gorgeous place to hold a wedding.

  Rowan strolled over to stand beside him, wiped a hand across her brow, inadvertently streaking dirt across her face. Unable to help himself, he smiled as affection welled within him, then slung an arm over her shoulder, and tugged her closer to him. “You’ve done a fantastic job,” he told her, making sure that she heard the admiration in his tone.

  In fact, in appreciation, he’d already planned a special celebration for the conclusion of Doris’s project. In addition to wining and dining her, great sex and hopefully more great sex, Will intended to ask her to come to work with him permanently. Doris was right. Rowan had a lot to offer and his company would undoubtedly flourish as a result of her expertise. Foster’s Landscape Design needed her, almost as desperately as he did.

  “Thanks,” Rowan murmured. Her assessing gaze scanned the yard and he had the privilege of watching pride slowly dawn in those gorgeous green eyes, watched her shoulders sag with the accomplishment of a job well done. She’d literally transformed Doris’s backyard and it had turned out so much better than either one of them had hoped for. One thing was for certain, his satisfaction-guaranteed record was definitely safe…even if his heart wasn’t.

  “I was just telling Will here that he should consider—”

  “—taking you to lunch,” Will finished with a telling glare at Doris. Damn. Couldn’t he have a single secret? He nudged her toward his truck. “You are hungry, right?”

  Her eyes twinkled. “I could eat. I’m in the mood for something…salty but sweet,” she finished, her voice loaded with innuendo.

  Will knew exactly what she was talking about and the mere knowledge engulfed his loins in a flash-fire of heat. The image of her lips wrapped around his rod, sucking him until he came hard materialized behind his lids, instantly pushing his dick up behind his zipper.

  Will let go a stuttering breath. “I think a trip to the pool hall’s in order.”

  Rowan grinned and her eyes twinkled with equal amounts of heat and humor. “Ah…another psychic deduction.”

  “I’M NOT SO SURE about this,” Rowan said hesitantly as Will fastened a blindfold over her eyes.

  “What’s there not to be sure of? You trust me, don’t you?”

  Implicitly, Rowan thought. She truly did. Didn’t even have to think about it.

  The past couple of weeks with Will had been the most memorable—most pleasurable—of her life. Simply being with him, feeling him unexpectedly sliding his hand into hers, or a tender kiss on her cheek, not to mention those more intimate moments—feeling him inside her, the frantic race for release when nothing existed beyond the exquisite sensation of their joined bodies—had to be the most incredible thing a girl could ever ask for. Did she trust him? Oh, she more than trusted him.

  At some point, and she didn’t know when precisely, she’d fallen head over heels in love with him.

  The idea was singularly terrifying and if she didn’t suspect that he felt every bit as strongly for her, she’d have undoubtedly headed for higher ground already. But there was something inexplicably sweet about the way he looked at her, a softer emotion she so desperately wanted to trust, to believe in.

  Unfortunately, there was a small part of her that couldn’t quite surrender to the feeling, and that part kept her from doing the one thing she knew he wanted her to do—spend the night. The issue would probably come up again this evening, and though she knew Will wouldn’t press her, she dreaded it all the same.

  She knew that he didn’t understand her reluctance, knew that he’d compromised by coming and spending the night with her, but Rowan also knew that one night in this old farmhouse would be all it took for her to be firmly—irrevocably—attached to him and that happily ever after dream that had become brighter and brighter with every moment that she spent with him.

  His house had felt curiously like home from the instant she’d walked in the door—hell, she’d started redecorating within sixty seconds of crossing the threshold—and every additional minute spent under his roof, in his yard—with him—made her want it all the more keenly. She had to hang on to some sort of perspective and the only way she knew to maintain that was to go home and climb into her own bed. Crazy? Delusional? Insane? All of the above, but she didn’t know what else to do.

  She let him make love to her, she relished every second that they spent together, then she went home and stepped back into reality—a lonely bed and phone sex.

  Quite honestly, she could face the lonely bed more easily than she could face her 1-900-line. Keeping that up had gotten increasingly harder. It had always been a quick way to make a b
uck, had never been anything more than a job, but now that she had some firsthand experience with the genuine article… Well, suffice it to say the very idea of pretending made her ill. And though she’d managed to avoid answering his questions about it, Rowan knew that he assumed that she’d quit. She’d made it a point to hide it from him, which she knew in her heart of hearts was wrong. Anything that she couldn’t share didn’t belong in their relationship. Which was why she’d called the phone company today and arranged to have the line disconnected at the end of the month. It was paid for until then.

  Did she need the money? Yes. She could list a dozen plausible reasons why she could keep it, but only one reason to let it go—Will—and that one was enough. If she didn’t get called back to school in the fall, then she’d simply find something else. Rowan smiled. Last she heard there was an opening at the Bag-A-Bargain. She’d rather work there for less money than have this funky sense of dishonesty hovering between them.

  “Ah, I see that smile,” Will told her. “I knew you’d come around. Careful now, watch your step.” Will led her down a pair of steps and the sweet scent of roses instantly assailed her senses. So they were in his rose garden. Interesting.

  “Tell me again what we’re doing,” Rowan asked, intrigued.

  “We’re playing a kinky little game I like to call Name That Smell. It involves a little light bondage and for every scent you correctly name, you get a reward.” He drew her to a stop and let go a deep breath. “But first you have to get naked.”

  Rowan laughed out loud. “Light bondage? I don’t remember agreeing to bondage.”

  “Oh, but you did. This afternoon when we were in the bathroom at Grady’s again, I distinctly remember you telling me that I could have anything I wanted if I would just hurry up and fu—”

  “Right,” Rowan interrupted him, her face flushing with remembered heat and humiliation. She couldn’t believe she’d said that, couldn’t believe that he’d had her so damned desperate that she’d agreed to give him anything he wanted so long as he’d simply fill her up, put her out of her misery.

  Though she couldn’t see him, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was grinning from ear to ear. “You’re enjoying this entirely too much, Will.”

  He laughed. “What?” he asked innocently. “You were the one who said—”

  “I know what I said,” she interrupted. “I’m here and I’m ready.”

  “Willing, maybe,” Will qualified. She felt him sidle closer to her, felt his fingers tug at the hem of her shirt. “But I don’t know about ready. Luckily, I can help you with that.”

  A laugh stuttered out of her. “Oh, I’ll just bet you can.”

  “Now, onto that naked part I told you about.” She felt him move in behind her, draw her shirt up over her head. Her bare back landed again his bare chest, pushing a sizzling sigh from between her lips.

  Rowan gasped. “When did you get naked?”

  “I’ve been shedding clothes all the way out here.” He paused. “In fact, I should probably go pick them up and put them in the hamper.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Rowan growled with a laugh.

  Will chuckled, the wretch. “You’re right.” His hands slid up over her sides, came around and cupped her breasts through her bra. She sagged against him, let her head fall back on his shoulder. An erotic little thrill moved through her. Curiously, the blindfold heightened her other senses. The feel of his skin, the perfumed scent in the air. He popped the closure, freeing her nipples to the night, to his warm, skilled touch, then thumbed her, pulling another pleased sigh from between her smiling lips. “I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he told her, his voice husky with desire. “Thinking about the moonlight against your naked skin and the scent of roses while I love you.”

  His hands slid down her belly, unfastened her shorts and ever so slowly, pushed them over her hips. Her wet panties swiftly followed. “God, you’re beautiful. I know I’ve told you before, but I just can’t say it enough. I look at you and…and sometimes I can’t breathe.”

  Her heart warmed at the sincere compliment, along with other areas of her body. “I know that feeling,” she told him. “It happens to me quite frequently when I look at you as well.” And it did. He, too, was beautiful, just in a different way.

  Will threaded his fingers through hers, tugged her deeper into his garden room, then helped her lie down on what she could only assume was a mattress…covered with rose petals. A smile inexplicably formed on her lips. A warm wall of hard male flesh moved into place beside her.

  “Trite, I know,” he whispered, sliding a petal slowly down her belly. “But it’s always been a fantasy of mine.”

  Hers, too, and she didn’t care that it was trite. He’d done it for her, which made it incredibly special. “Mine, too,” Rowan confessed. She rolled toward him, slid her arm around his waist and licked the hollow of his throat. “I’m…touched.”

  “Not nearly as much as you’re about to be,” Will warned with a sexy chuckle. “Which brings me to the light bondage point of our evening.” She felt him move, evidently reaching for something, and the next instant, a vine of some sort looped around one of her wrists.

  Rowan gasped. “What are you doing?”

  “Weren’t you listening? I’m tying you up. Your hands are…distracting. I want to touch you. Lick you. Kiss you. And you have to lie back and take it.”

  Oh, well, in that case… Rowan offered her other wrist up and chuckled. “Am I supposed to argue?”

  “A token protest would be nice.”

  “Will, please,” Rowan pleaded, stifling a laugh. “Please don’t lick me, kiss me, worship me and make me lie back and take it. It’s a torture I can’t bear.”

  He chuckled, attached one wrist to the other. “Smart-ass.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who made the rules. I’m simply going to enjoy them. What are you tying me up with?” A vine of some sort, but she couldn’t tell which kind.

  “Ivy,” Will told her, finishing it up. “You’re lying in a bed of rose petals, bound with ivy, and completely at my mercy,” he added. His mouth latched onto her breast, effectively pulling the air from her lungs. “What have you got to say about that?”

  She laughed again. “Please don’t throw me in the brier patch.”

  She felt a bloom of some sort drift over her belly, do a lazy figure eight around the globes of her breasts and a sigh eddied out of her mouth. She melted into the mattress, fully prepared to take this scene to whatever level he wanted. “Ah,” Rowan sighed. “That feels nice.”

  “I’ve been thinking about doing this,” he confided, his voice a decadent rumble. “Thinking about painting your body with flowers.”

  A steady throb commenced between her legs. “How about painting my body with kisses?”

  “In time,” he murmured, dragging the bloom over her thigh, then behind the bend of her knee, over the top of her foot. The delicate flower made the return trek, brushed her curls, then her nether lips, and another sibilant sigh hissed past her lips as sensation bolted through her. Her nipples budded even tighter, tingled. He was priming her, Rowan realized, purposely dragging out the tension, dallying because he knew it drove her wild.

  “Will,” she murmured, a desperate tone in her voice that she recognized, knew he recognized as well.

  “Yes?” She heard the smile in his voice, the triumph.

  Rowan could have ranted and raved, could have cursed and begged—that’s what she’d done this afternoon, what had put her in this position in the first place. The sheer unadulterated truth had worked before—seemed to be the only way they could communicate—so she opted for honesty.

  “I need you.” A simple entreaty, the whole truth.

  He stilled, she could feel it, could feel the very atmosphere around them change. The night sounds became sharper, the scent keener, and her body literally vibrated with a need so intense, an emotion so true that she felt her eyes water behind the blindfold. She loved their sexy play,
loved every instant of every moment they’d been together. But tonight, she wanted something different. Wanted to strip down barriers and revel in honest lovemaking. Wanted to lend truth to an act that she knew she couldn’t share with another soul.

  She felt Will’s fingers at her wrists, felt the bonds give way and sag. Then, very gently, he pushed the blindfold away from her eyes. Will’s handsome face loomed instantly into view. The pad of his thumb skimmed her bottom lip and those gorgeous honey eyes were rife with emotion, with a quiet intensity and understanding that made her want to weep. “I need you, too.”

  She looped her hands around his neck and lowered her voice. “Then love me. Just love me.”

  “I do, Rowan,” he murmured softly.

  Then he did.

  14

  WILL DISCONNECTED, clipped his phone back onto his shorts, then hurriedly slid behind the wheel of his truck. It was a little late to be making sure that their reservations were a go, but Will hadn’t had time to check in with his mom. Things had been too crazy.

  They’d finished up in Doris’s yard today—she’d been thrilled, ecstatic, over the moon and this time the sentiment seemed to have stuck. She’d been beyond pleased with the way things had turned out, so much so that she’d added a sizable bonus to her already hefty check.

  Will looked forward to giving it to Rowan—she’d earned it, after all—and he planned to hand it over, then offer her a permanent job. He also knew he’d be asking her another significant question in the not-too-distant future as well.

  When she’d told him that she needed him the night before last, it was as though she’d inadvertently set the hook and reeled him in. He’d literally felt it—felt the bite, the jerk and the subsequent fall. He might have worried about it, too, had it not been for one thing.

  She’d spent the night.

  In his rose garden, under a blanket of stars and a hundred-year old quilt, utterly, deliciously naked, snuggled against him as though nothing else mattered in the world, so long as they could breathe the same air. And, though he couldn’t be completely certain because the idea that he’d fallen in love—had actually trusted someone enough to make that leap—had just about fried his brain, he grimly suspected that he’d told her that he loved her.