“Sweet pea, it’s Brian.”
Callie sat bolt upright in bed, no longer half asleep, her heart thundering in her chest. Well, Well, Mr. Benson, how nice that you should give me a ring-a-ling. He sure sounded fine for someone who’d been attacked by vicious, killer tumbleweeds. Callie remained calm. “Hey. Are you okay?” Beautifully done, Callie Winston. Uttered as though you’ve nary a care in the fucking world that this man didn’t call you for—not two—no, not three—but five God-awful, panic-riddled days.
“Did I wake you?”
“It’s okay. I needed to get up anyway.” Because honestly, Brian, I have nothing better to do than wait around for you to call me. So really, it was time for me to get up and begin the same damn cycle I’ve completed, not one—not two—but, five damn days in a row.
“I’m sorry. Wanna go back to bed and I’ll call you later?” he asked, his voice held concern.
The fuck you will! I want answers and I want them now. “No, it’s okay. How are you?” No, Cal, it’s where the fuck have you been? Who gives a shit if he was fine and just didn’t bother to utilize his phone privileges? Now it’s all about the redemption, baby. Make him atone, dammit.
Brian sighed. “I’m okay, tired, but okay. I was in Iraq and I couldn’t call you—couldn’t even send an e-mail. They cut off all communication when they debrief me.”
Yeah, Brian had been debriefed alright. Some chick was busy taking off his briefs was more like it. “Iraq? Can you make it there in five days and back and actually have time to be debriefed?” Call me cynical, but helllloooo. I only look brain-dead because of my sexy lips—however, you really have to watch my bedroom eyes, they see everything.
His laugh was fatigued. “It ain’t easy, I can tell ya that. It’s two days of flying back and forth, literally. I’m whooped.”
Oh. Well, then. Today was day six since Brian had last called. A sleep muddled Callie did the math and for the first time in six days took a deep, cleansing breath. “I was worried about you. I’m glad you’re okay.”
Brian’s voice sounded weary when he said, “I’m sorry. Sometimes it happens without warning and something goes down that I have to deal with. I’m sorry I couldn’t call you. I should have e-mailed you, but I wasn’t thinking clearly in all that rush.”
“It’s okay. I knew what kind of job you had when I met you, Brian, really.” Yeah, really, Brian it was just fucking dandy, her inner liar taunted her. Just tell him you were worried sick and hurling yourself from your office window occurred to you on more than one occasion, for Christ’s sake. No, she couldn’t do that. Callie wouldn’t do that. Going to Iraq was part of his job. Period, and she wasn’t going to sound like some insecure, freaked out, clingy woman—regardless of the fact that she was. She’d keep that in her “no fucking way am I sharing” box.
Brian sighed tiredly—as though maybe he’d actually worried Callie was angry. “I missed you, sweet pea.”
That was all Callie needed to hear for everything to be okay again. The tension in her body released and her intestines uncoiled. How completely pathetic. “I missed you too, Brian.”
“Yeah? Good, cuz I figured you were going to be pretty angry.”
How could she be angry about his job? Her resentment and frustration over the past few days disappeared like thin puffs of smoke. “It’s your job, Brian. Just promise me if mine ever whisks me off to do a column on like native Pygmies who need someone to interview them and I can’t call you, you won’t be angry.”
He laughed into the phone, deep and low. “Promise. So what have you been up to? How’s the column coming?”
Callie smiled. Damn this man for making her feel like he cared about her life. “It’s fine and so am I. You sound beat. So go get some sleep and call me when you feel less like you’re going to fall over at any minute, okay?”
“You’re alright, sweet pea, you know that?”
Yeah, she was the wealth of magnanimity. “Well, yeah, I’m alright and don’t you forget it, mercenary man. Now go get some sleep.”
“I won’t ever forget it, Callie. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Okay,” Callie agreed.
“Alright, bye, sweet pea.”
“Byyyye,” she whispered into the phone and heard his now familiar chuckle as she hung up.
Later.
He’d call her later.
She really needed to pin Brian down on his version of later.
Chapter 13
A week later Callie scrubbed her toilet with a vengeance only Mr. Clean could apply to such a task, flushing it with a satisfactory grunt.
She was frustrated.
Sexually that is.
She and Brian had resumed their nightly phone calls and the more they talked—the more their attraction solidified. It had become more real than if they’d actually seen each other on physical dates.
One more phone call like the one she’d had last night with Brian Benson and Callie was going to have to find one of those battery-operated thingamajigs. What the hell did Katherine call it? BOB. Yes, that was it!
Battery operated boyfriend.
Callie was going to get in her car, drive to the local BOB store and choose a boyfriend. Katherine had told her about the assorted varieties and colors—she said they were for those nasty “in between” relationship times. She would select a pretty color—like pink—or blue. Ooooh, maybe camouflage in honor of mercenary man and then she was going to drive right back home and slap some double A’s into it and go BOB wild.
Did they use double A’s?
BOB—meet, Callie.
Callie—meet, BOB.
Hey, hot stuff—wanna?
Those were her choices, either that or simply curl up into the fetal position and let hormonal death occur.
Horny. Callie was horny, and who wouldn’t be after a phone call with Brian that could have melted kryptonite?
Callie gulped at the familiar flood of heat that didn’t just make her cheeks flame.
Leaning against the cool tile on her small bathroom wall, Callie tried her best not to hyperventilate. Closing her eyes, she did her best not to think of Brian naked.
Or of Brian seeing her naked. That potentially could ruin any erotic dream.
What did one do when they were beyond hot and bothered and well on their way to a towering inferno?
They had sex.
For the first time in Callie’s life she wanted to have sex a whole helluva lot more than she wanted to watch The Love Boat. How had this happened? She really liked The Love Boat…
Brian’s seductive words rang in her ears. She could hear them as if he were speaking them to her this very moment. Callie replayed the tape in her head of their phone conversation last night, as she slid to the floor and rested her head on her knees. Brian left her that weak with the mere memory of his words. The phone call had been vivid and crystal clear…
“You know what I was thinking, Callie?” He’d said.
“What were you thinking, Mr. Benson?” she’d asked, demure and not at all hesitant. Callie always wanted to hear what Brian was thinking.
“I was thinking that I wish you could be here next to me.”
Callie’s heart thumped in her chest. Me too, Brian, me too… ”And what would you do with me if I were there, Mr. Benson,” she teased into the phone. Her voice had grown husky as her thoughts strayed to bedroom games and carnal images.
“Do you really want me to tell you?” he asked, gently persuasive.
Callie realized she did. “Yeah… I do…” Her heart banged against the wall of her chest as she agreed to whatever was next.
“It’s pretty graphic…” Brian whispered, enticingly, secretively.
A sharp thread of heat taunted Callie’s dormant libido, she was tempted beyond rational thought. Brian’s voice held her captive and now she wanted to hear the words. She might be too timid to say them too, but Callie wanted to hear them. “Tell me,” she coaxed.
“I want you to crawl into be
d naked with me. I want to feel your skin on mine, soft and hot. I want you to curl up behind me and spoon with me before I roll over and kiss you.”
Callie moaned, just barely detectable, but her moan was that of yearning, longing to experience the warmth of Brian’s body near hers. She wanted that too, so much she didn’t quite know how to think of it. “I want that too, Brian…”
“I want to hold you close to me Callie, and when you look at me, I want you to know that I want you. Just you… I want to touch you everywhere.”
Callie shuddered, pressing her pillow between her knees in an effort to thwart the heat that pooled between her thighs. Nothing could have stopped her from asking the next question, not her lack of verbal skills, not God himself. “Where do you—” her voice hitched, “where do you want to tou—ch me?”
“Where do you want me to touch you, Callie?” Brian queried, hushed and thickly laced with simmering sensuality.
Callie’s throat was dry and she closed her eyes, her breathing labored as she let the visual of his hands on her roam freely. “My breasts…” she let slip out before she could stop it.
Brian hissed into the phone and replied, “They’re soft and full. I want to taste them.”
Callie responded by clutching her pillow with shaky fingers. “God, Brian…”
“What do you have on, Callie?”
Callie smiled the smile of the feminine, the wicked. “My black silk pajamas, with the leopard cuffs.”
She heard Brian’s sharp intake of breath in her ear. “Panties?”
“Yes…”
“What kind, Callie,” his question was almost a demand for facts and it made Callie tingle all over.
“Black lace, French cut.”
“Ahhh, I can feel the lace beneath my fingertips as I slip beneath them.”
And Callie could almost feel his fingertips as he did, heated, gentle, insistent, urgent. She shuddered and found her back arching to reach the invisible fingers that stroked her.
Callie’s intake of breath was sharp, resonant in her darkened bedroom as she lay on her bed with the phone pressed to her ear, unable to speak.
“I want to taste every inch of you, every last soft inch.”
Groaning, Callie let her eyes slide closed, allowing Brian’s voice to lull her as she drifted on a sea of writhing sensuality.
“I’d slide your panties off, Callie, slowly, letting my hand graze your pussy as I take your nipple in my mouth and suck it, rolling it on my tongue.”
Callie’s body arched into Brian’s words—into an invisible mouth that seared her, though it didn’t exist.
“I’d slide my fingers over your belly, drifting downward…slipping my finger inside you, caressing your clit as I kiss my way along your skin. I want to taste you so badly, Callie. I want to slide my tongue along your pussy, kiss you as you press against me, begging for more.”
Her hips rose in response to the tongue that existed only in her imagination as her nipples tightened, aching and hot.
Brian’s words became labored as he continued, pulling her toward the vortex of his carnal, forbidden words. “I want to make you come, Callie. I want to lick you until you do. I want to smell you, savor you. I want you to come over and over. I want you wet and slick, hot when I sit between your legs. I want you to wrap your legs around my waist and invite me to fuck you.”
Callie’s legs fell open, as if Brian were between them, poised, ready to plunge into her. Her hands itched to cling to his shoulders as he drove into her, hard, unyielding and thick.
“Can you feel me, Callie? Can you feel how hard I am as I slip between the lips of your pussy? I can…you’re wet and warm and your breasts against my chest are driving me crazy. Can you feel my cock as I drive into you for the first time? Jesus, Callie—you’re so tight. I could stay in you forever…”
She gasped as Brian said the words—as she imagined his rock-hard shaft entering her, delving into her, wet, hot, thick. Callie squeezed her legs together at the image, vivid and palpable.
Brian’s sigh was frustrated, mingled with need, thick and heavy and it took Callie’s breath away as he relayed his desires to her. “I want to touch you, Callie—so much I can almost feel you. I want to see what you’re wearing instead of imagine it. I want to see you, be near you, smell this cucumber-melon spray you wear. I want to watch you when you talk to me. I want so many things and it’s frustrating the hell out of me. I think of nothing but you day and night.”
Those words brought Callie back to reality. She too, thought of nothing but Brian. What worried her was that his interest in her would burn red-hot, then fizzle once the excitement of this wore off, and it scared her. She didn’t want to be toyed with. Callie didn’t play and these last two months on the phone with him had held her riveted—enthralled—captivated—she wasn’t playing.
What would happen when this all ended?
Brian’s voice cut into her tumultuous thoughts, soothing her, making her forget her worries. “Callie your voice does things to me that I can’t define. It soothes me, it makes me hard as a rock, it makes me smile and those aren’t things I’ve ever told anyone because they aren’t things I’ve ever thought or felt with anyone else.”
Callie couldn’t breathe if the paramedics showed up and hooked her up to life support, but she had to say something—anything so he would know she felt the same way. “Brian—You—leave me breathless and—and…I want to believe what you say,” Callie stumbled for a moment, stricken with panic, her words became sludge trying to sift through a sieve. “I’ve never known anyone like you, Brian. I—hearing your voice has an effect on me too—that I can’t—can’t…” Christ! Maybe she could just type him a nice long e-mail and share with him how her panties were all atwitter over him and his smooth, dulcet tones.
Brian chuckled into the phone, the sound was deep and rich, like butter pecan ice cream with thick, warm butterscotch on top. “It’s okay, sweet pea. I can do all of the talking for a while. There will come a time when you’ll want to tell me all on your own.”
Callie sighed, breathy and long as she curled up around her pillow on her bed.
“I can’t get you out of my head and I don’t even want to anymore. I just want you, Callie.”
Callie’s breath came in rapid bursts as did her fear. “You’ve only seen my pictures, Brian…you can’t know that’s how it would really be—like it’s been on the phone.” Callie had never experienced a man’s desire for her that was this vivid, this tangible and it robbed her of her breath.
“No, Callie. I do know. I’ve never gotten to know anyone this way. It may have advantages other relationships don’t because we’re forced to learn about each other over the phone and it doesn’t allow for the normal distractions, but I do know how I feel about you. I’ve never found another woman as interesting as you. Yes, your picture was what drew me to you. It’s what drew many men to you, Callie, whether you’ll admit it or not. Your eyes make me crazy and yeah, your lips do it for me too, but that isn’t all of it, sweet pea. Not by a long shot and each time I talk to you, the second I get off the phone I want to get right back on it. I want to hear about your day, I want to know all of the things that happened. I want to sit on the couch with you and watch a movie or just watch the news. I want to eat a meal with you. I want to spoon with you every night and yes, I want to make love to you.”
Oh, Jesus… Brian was so good at expressing these things to her. The very things she’d thought about a million times almost since they’d met. “I—I think…about all of those things too, Brian.”
“Then it’s time we do something about that, Callie.”
Closing her eyes, Callie placed her hand over her heart to slow the throb in her chest. “Like what?” her whisper was barely audible.
“It’s time we meet.”
Meet Brian? Oh, God. And ruin this? Ruin this illusion he had that she was like some vixen, all sultry and wicked? Fuck no, she didn’t want that! Mercenary that he was, he’d pick out
every last one of her insecurities, not to mention actually see her thighs. Nooooo, this was no good.
“Callie?”
She ran a hand over her eyes, grainy and tired from a long day and pent up sexual frustration. “But—you might be disappointed, Brian. I mean, you’ve seen my face, but not—not the rest of me. I’ve seen all of you.”
“I told you from the beginning, none of that matters, Callie. If you were two-hundred pounds I wouldn’t care. It isn’t just about what you look like anymore. It’s about what you make me feel as a man. It’s about what you make me think.”
What Brian said was true. He’d never asked for another picture of her, he’d never pressured her to tell him what her body looked like. She was weakening… “You must have a picture in your mind Brian, and I may not live up to that. I know my thighs won’t,” she joked to make up for her insecurities.
His chuckle sizzled in her ear. “Yes, ma’am I have a picture of you in my mind and in it your thighs are just fine. I haven’t been able to get rid of it since I met you, but it’s accurate I’d bet and even if it isn’t—I’m past caring.”
This man, whose words transfixed her, whose voice soothed and excited her all at once, whose thoughts mirrored hers…he wanted to meet her and Callie couldn’t deny what Brian stirred in her. She couldn’t deny she wanted to meet him too. Callie only wished she could meet Brian Benson with someone else’s body. “O—okay. Then let’s meet.” Whew. There it was out in the open. She’d hoped he’d ask someday and now that he had she was playing the honesty game too. She wanted to meet Brian Benson—even if it meant ending up a disappointment for him.
“How about I come and stay for a couple of days in a hotel this weekend? No obligation, Callie. If we meet and you decide that I’m not what you expected—you just have to say the word.”
Yeah, like he wouldn’t be what she expected. It could happen. Brian might just take a really good picture. A really good picture. “I don’t think you have to worry about my end of it, Brian, but the same goes for you. If I’m not what you anticipated, we can just hang out or something. Have dinner or whatever.” I’ll just slink back to my cave if that happens, she thought. No fuss, no muss. Easy cheesy Japanesie.
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