Brian cocked an eyebrow at her. “This would be where I ask the question I get the feeling everyone asks. Are you going to write about me?” he asked with a cocky grin.
Callie giggled and wiped her mouth with the napkin. “And this would be the part where I tell you—only if you’re interesting enough.”
Brian leaned forward and kissed her. “So are you saying I’m not interesting enough?” he teased.
“Answer the question,” Callie demanded with a light tone.
Brian shrugged his broad shoulders. “There isn’t much to tell, really. I told you about the stripper. I’ve only contacted one woman besides you.”
Callie snorted. “I’m not sure if I’m flattered by that. Me and a stripper—we’re poles apart, I think. Pardon the pun.”
“Well, I never contacted her, she contacted me and the one woman I did contact had some definite issues. I can’t even remember what made me contact her. I think she liked gumbo or something. I didn’t look as closely at her as I did you…”
“Why did you join an online site in the first place? It makes no sense to me.”
“What about it doesn’t make sense?”
Callie grew instantly self-conscious. Cuz you’re hot? No, that was not coming out of her big mouth—not like that. “You’re an attractive man, Brian. Surely there are dates in Arizona to be had that aren’t found online.”
“I’m sure there are. I don’t know because I don’t spend much time finding out. I’m gone a lot and truthfully, this online thing was a joke after some drinking with a buddy of mine. I wasn’t seriously looking for love or even like.”
Callie shook her head knowingly. “I knew it! I knew it couldn’t have been a serious attempt at finding a date. You’ve been on the site for how long?”
“A year, I think. Why?”
“Do you get a lot of e-mail?” I’m just wondering and all. I mean I’d really like to know how many twenty-five-year-old strippers I have to get in line behind…
“I get some. Almost all of it I ignore. Do you get a lot of e-mail?”
Hah! She had him there. “I did get some, yes,” Callie answered vaguely.
“What’s some?” his tone was a smidge darker than it had been a moment ago and it confused Callie.
She popped a French fry in her mouth. “Define what some means to you.”
“Define it?”
“Yeah. Some to some people is nothing to others. Define some.”
Brian shrugged. “Well, for example, on average I get about twenty a month.”
Oh. Huh. “Well, women are far less aggressive than men, I suppose.”
“So how many did you get in a month?” Brian pushed and Callie couldn’t figure out why it seemed to matter to him.
“Ya want honest here, mercenary man?”
“Yep.” He nodded, waiting as he chewed on his burger.
“A hundred.”
Brian’s mouth fell open and Callie leaned forward, pushing it gently shut with a chuckle. It did seem like a lot… ”A hundred in a month?”
“No, actually it was in eight hours, maybe ten. I can’t remember,” Callie said nonchalantly, enjoying his reaction. Now who’s a babe?
Brian’s face turned hard, his jaw clamped together as he spoke through his teeth. “Jesus! I told you, you were hot and you didn’t believe me? Do you believe the other hundred guys?”
She rolled her eyes and set the container with her leftover fries on the nightstand. “Yeah. I totally believe the guy who offered me ten grand to marry him because he thought my eyes held mysteries he wanted to unlock. I never once questioned the guy who said my lips were juicy and not in a mil would I have thought twice about the man who wanted to buy me an island. They’re all a bunch of men with ophthalmology issues who have nothing better to do than e-mail women they think they can bamboozle. I’d bet loads of women get e-mail just like I did. They probably get far more. It’s nothing special. It’s one of the bigger sites and popular on the net is all. There are hundreds and thousands of profiles.”
Brian’s face returned to its usual boyish demeanor. “So what made you answer my e-mail out of one hundred?”
Silly man…because you were hotter than Texas in July. “I didn’t just answer yours…I answered a whole bunch—mostly out of courtesy and I didn’t join the site for the reasons you did. I was sober and I was researching…”
“So you e-mailed with everyone the way you e-mailed with me?” Brian asked, his eyes narrowing again and the muscles in his jaw twitched.
“No, Brian Benson I did not! I e-mailed with men who didn’t come across as potential serial killers. I went out on a couple of dates and, I’ll have you know, almost all of the men who e-mailed me got a response, except the whack-jobs. I didn’t really leave room for them to want to continue to e-mail with me.” She gave Brian a sheepish look, hiding behind the curtain of her hair. “I have a sharp tongue sometimes,” Callie admitted, “and some e-mails were just too hard to resist not answering with a slick comment. The e-mails I answered seriously were from men who came off as genuine. I looked for variety in the men I went out with so I’d have varied outlooks on this dating thing. They had different likes and dislikes—philosophies etcetera.”
Brian shook his head and ran his hands over her thighs, sending a familiar chill along Callie’s arms. “Still doesn’t answer my question. Why did you answer my e-mail?”
Callie twisted the poncho liner in her fingers nervously. You called me awesome and no one has ever used that word to describe me… ”You were nice and you could construct a sentence that had nothing to do with my lips…” and you made me wild with lust… ”Why did you contact me?”
“Your juicy lips…” Brian said on a chuckle as he pulled her to him and kissed said juicy lips. Callie wrapped her arms around his neck and let Brian pull her to his lap, straddling his legs with hers and resting her head on his shoulder. “Do you really want to know why I contacted you, Callie?”
Callie nodded her head rather than answer.
Brian stroked her back and said, “It’s what a hundred other men have said before me, but it was your eyes. I stared at your picture all day long before I sent that e-mail. Yes, you’re beautiful, whether you’ll acknowledge that or not, and your profile was funny, but it was your eyes. They made me nuts. I saw a whole bunch of stuff in them I can’t quite explain. As we talked and I got to know you—you had me, hook line and sinker. The more I talked to you, the more I wanted to know about you. I looked forward to our phone calls all day long and when we had to hang up, I couldn’t wait to talk to you again the next day.”
Callie bit her lip and simply nodded. Jesus, she wanted to believe him… Instead she made a joke. “What is it that my eyes are saying anyway? I don’t get it,” she said against his shoulder.
“They say a whole lot more than you’re willing to share with me…” Brian let that sentence hang in the air between them, waiting, she supposed for her to respond, but she didn’t know what to say. Brian was right and maybe he knew more than she’d like him to. Her cheeks burned from the idea and it reminded Callie of something. If she was going to keep her head on about this, she’d better keep a tighter rein on her eyes, or whatever the hell was sending this message she was so unaware of. Sure as shit nothing was going to be spouting from her juicy lips.
Brian chuckled, a low, all-knowing chuckle. “You’ll learn it’s okay to talk to me soon, sweet pea. I contacted you because just looking at your picture made me feel a connection I’ve never shared with anyone in my lifetime. How’s that for deep?”
Callie swallowed hard and answered flippantly. “As an ocean…”
His hands moved over her spine in a gentle massage as he kissed the top of her head. “That’s me. How do you feel about my job, Callie? I know it scares you. It scares all the women in my life—mainly my mother, but would you want to continue a relationship with me while I was in Iraq?”
At this point Callie would continue a relationship with him if it were b
eyond the grave—if she could only believe this would go further than the Motel Six and she didn’t know how to ask if it would and how they might go about that. “I’ve never known anyone quite like you, Brian,” was what she managed.
“Yeah me and a hundred other guys,” Brian remarked sarcastically.
Callie pinched his shoulder and sat up to look at him. “Well, I have news for you. I didn’t sleep with all one hundred. That, Mr. Benson, makes you far superior.”
“I think I’m glad to hear that.”
“It was only seven-hundred or so…” Callie smiled prettily at him, batting her eyelashes.
“Oh, good. I feel so much more special now,” he said as he kissed her soundly, the conversation of Iraq forgotten as their kiss deepened and Brian pushed her back on the bed, pressing her into the mattress with his heavy weight.
Callie allowed herself to be swept away, forgetting the Iraq question. Brian was caught up in this and maybe he hadn’t given it enough thought. He needed to do that before he made any decisions that might be considered irrational when this was done.
Callie needed to do that too, before she fell for what could be the line of the millennium.
“Tell me about your job, Brian. What made you want to be a mercenary?”
Brian rolled to his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “I don’t know if anyone really wants to be a mercenary when they start out. I was a trained sniper in the military and when I got out an American company contacted me because they knew about me. At the time the adventure of it all was exciting and I don’t mean the killing. I mean the locations, the travel. I kill people for hire, Callie—some find that pretty distasteful.”
Callie looked at his eyes, so serious and knew that no matter what anyone might say about a mercenary, this mercenary had more than money as a motivation. “I know what you do, Brian and I know you receive compensation for it. What I want to know is, how do you deal with it? Is it hard to live with the death?”
His nod was curt. “Yep, sometimes, but I do it because I never want my loved ones unprotected, and in my younger days, I felt like I could take on that task single-handedly. Now I know that it’s a monumental effort on many levels and no one man can accomplish it alone. I hate that people die as a result of war, but there are those who don’t want to see peace, and those that do suffer for it. That’s why I do it.”
Callie looked down at the bed and away from Brian. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. You have a lot of compassion too and I know that. I—well, I—”
“Don’t be sorry, sweet pea. I have no trouble explaining why I do what I do and I’m not ashamed of what I do for a living. It’s not something most people look at the way you do. It’s almost like you really understand my motivation and that means a lot to me.”
Callie nodded. “I think I do. When you told me about the children over there, I knew you couldn’t be all bad.”
Brian’s soft chuckle made her look up, his smile was almost wistful. “Yeah, I’ve met some really great people in this.”
“What will you do when you can’t do this anymore?” Callie wondered how long a body could stand up to so much abuse. Brian had many scars from more things than Callie could bear to think about. Her heart clenched in a tight fist of fear when she thought about the likelihood that death stalked Brian far more than the average accountant.
Brian ran his finger down her nose. “I can do some consulting from right here in the states, maybe Homeland security. I’ll figure it out when the time comes,” he assured her.
When the time comes… ”You’re like no other man I’ve ever met, Brian Benson,” Callie commented for lack of a better thought to share.
Brian leaned forward and kissed her with a tenderness that hurt her heart. “You remember that, Callie Winston.”
Chapter 19
Callie stepped out of the shower and toweled off. Her muscles were pleasantly sore and her thoughts were of nothing but tomorrow when Brian would go home.
One day left…
She knew it had to come to an end and berating herself for the swirl of fear over it wasn’t going to help, but she’d lost her focus now.
Each moment she spent with Brian, each second that passed she was in deeper, like quicksand pulling her under. Last night, as he slept beside her, Callie allowed herself to briefly look beyond the Motel Six and into the future. How could they possibly maintain a relationship when he lived in Arizona and spent six months at a pop in Iraq? Phone calls, e-mails?
Could she live with the fact that Brian might be killed?
Oh, God…now more than ever, the mere thought was unthinkable—even in her overactive imagination that created scenarios in a matter of seconds, she couldn’t bear it…
Callie leaned against the wall and took a deep breath, letting the images in her mind pass—they were so inconceivable.
Life had been so much safer when all her world had consisted of was a night filled with Love Boat reruns, but thinking about going back to that—back to nights filled without Brian’s phone calls in them was sucking the life out of her, leaving her feeling hollow and empty.
If she could only ask where this was going, but then she’d have to hear the answer and Callie didn’t know if she wanted to. Brian’s words might be simple for the average woman to understand—even believe, but to Callie everything had a hidden meaning—an ulterior motive.
Some things were better left unsaid—some things were better left unasked.
The door popped open, startling Callie as Brian poked his head in and smiled at her. “You took a shower without me?” he teased as he pushed into the small space and she turned to face him.
“You were sleeping like a baby. I didn’t want to wake you,” Callie said with a grin.
Brian flattened his body to hers, his eyes were intent and his cock was hard as he tugged the towel off her and kissed her before saying, “It should be a crime that’s punishable to not let me see you naked and soapy with that shower gel you use.”
“And how will you punish me for such an unspeakable act?” she taunted him.
Brian bracketed her legs and grinned, pressing Callie’s back against the wall of the small bathroom. The cool tile behind her spine shocked the heat of her skin.
Brian pressed into her, hard, hot, his breathing labored and raspy. The steam from the remnants of her shower rose in curls above his dark head as sweat gathered between them. “Look at me, Callie.”
Callie swallowed hard and glanced at Brian through hooded eyes. What began as playful had suddenly turned the corner to intense.
“I want you, Callie and I want you to look at me when I tell you that.”
Callie began to let her eyes slide closed, but Brian caught her chin between two fingers. “Look at me, Callie,” Brian demanded as he lifted her by her waist, wrapping her legs around his torso. “I want you,” he said again. His tone sharp, but soft at the same time. “Do you want me?”
“Yes,” Callie’s voice was gruff to her ears, tentative when she meant for it to be assuring.
Brian’s cock hovered near her entrance and Callie let her hips slide down, but Brian pulled back. “Then tell me, Callie.”
“I want you,” she said on a shaky breath of a whisper.
Brian shifted, allowing his cock to move in closer to her, rubbing it between the folds of her aching flesh, taunting her clit. “What do you want from me, Callie?” his words were urgent, seductive, challenging her to offer an answer.
Callie was mesmerized, paralyzed, hypnotized by Brian’s’ demand that she own up to this incredible passion she had for him and it was raw, naked, leaving her feeling exposed and vulnerable.
“You,” she uttered thickly.
“Tell me what you want me to do, Callie.”
“I—” Callie struggled for the words that damned her every time she tried to speak.
“Do you want to fuck, Callie?” Brian’s amber-brown eyes bore into Callie’s, intense, searing her, dark with an emotion that
transfixed her.
“Yes,” Callie said, summoning up courage as she did. “Yes, I want to fuck.”
Brian’s groan bounced off the tiles in the small bathroom, stinging Callie’s ears with its depth. “Who do you want to fuck, Callie?” he asked again, pulling her arms above her head and collaring her wrists together with his hand.
Her heart raced in her chest, slamming against her ribs, as she arched into the sultry words he spoke. Callie’s hips pushed against Brian’s, eager, needy for him to thrust into her. Brian’s nose was against hers. His hot breath fanned her face as he waited for her answer. Her nipples rubbed against the hair of his chest, hard and aching. “You…”
Brian hitched her thigh higher around his waist and teased her with his thick shaft. “Who am I, Callie?”
Oh, God, she couldn’t take much more of this. Callie wanted him in her with a desperation that bordered on manic, yet Brian needed to hear her say it and she warred with the words, thick and churning in her sexually charged, overloaded brain. Her voice cracked on its way out, “I want you, Brian.”
Brian nipped her jaw, his face damp with sweat. “I want you too, Callie,” he said fiercely as his lips seared the hollow of her throat. “Christ, I want you,” he said again before he drove into her, catching Callie by surprise with the delicious force of his cock, thick and hard he held himself still inside of her. Callie clenched her muscles, tightening them around him, eliciting a deep growl from his throat. Callie smiled in satisfaction and rolled her hips, enjoying the power she had for the moment.
Brian thrust again, this time with a slow slide. “Do you feel that, Callie? I’ve never been this hard for anyone. All you have to do is open your mouth and I’m hard.”
Thrusting again, he made Callie gasp, “Yes, I feel it,” she murmured on a raspy sigh, her hands curling into tight fists, pushing against the grip Brian still had on them. His hands found her ass, massaging it, skimming between the globes of flesh, dragging his fingers through her. Callie jerked against him as the rhythm between them picked up, becoming more anxious.
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