God, she wished.
It took her a good five rings before she snatched up the cordless.
Chesny’s brassy tone came over the phone. “Don’t you ever answer your phone?”
“You know I don’t. What’s up?”
“You sound crabby.”
She sank onto the bed and sighed. “Maybe because I’m reading this letter from a hunky soldier that’s dripping sex and someone called and interrupted me.” She said the words before she could stop herself. Oh, shit.
“Oh, ho, ho! You’ve been holding out. What hunk soldier?”
“Crap.”
“Crap what?”
“I’m not sure I want to tell you. You’ll make some smart ass remark when you learn who it is.”
“No I won’t.”
“I know you. Of course you will.”
Chesny’s wicked laugh came through the line. “Just tell me before I kick your lily white ass.”
“You can try,” Eve said.
“Come on.” Chesny drew out the last word in a plea.
“Not right now.”
“Brat.”
“That’s my middle name. Eve Brat Carmichael.” She sighed again, wishing she could banish Sean from her thoughts for at least a moment.
“Fine.” Cutlery rattled in the background. “Did you make reservations at Male Call?”
Eve slapped her forehead. “No, I forgot.”
“Damn, girl, you are hopeless. Never mind, lazy,” Chesny said as her Sheltie yapped in the background. “I’ll make the reservations.”
Eve closed her eyes. “I can picture it now.”
“What?”
“Exactly how my birthday is going to play out. We’ll arrive at the club and all these sequined women will push for good seats so they can slip a dollar into a guy’s jock strap.”
“These guys don’t wear jock straps.”
“You know what I mean. Butt floss. G-strings. V-strings. Whatever. Then dozens of semi-nude men parade across a stage, gyrating, dancing to a techno pop beat. That’s not really sexy to me.”
Chesny groaned. “What’s not to like? They have muscles, they’re strong, they know how to wiggle their assets.”
Eve stood and wandered out of the bedroom into her kitchen to fetch a diet cola she hadn’t finished earlier. She sipped and listened to her friend’s rave review until she interrupted with, “Oh, yeah, they’re gorgeous all right. Waxed hairless, polished, oiled and generally slick-looking all the way around. Real exciting.”
“Damn it, girl, you’re no fun.”
“So sue me.” She injected a smile into her voice. “I’ll call later. Right now I’m…”
“Yeah?”
“Too preoccupied.” She wandered around the kitchen.
“By what?”
“It’s a long story I’ve been keeping from you.”
“Sounds like you want to confess.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Spill it. Chesny loves to provide therapy to the lovelorn.”
“I’m not lovelorn.”
“Not a problem. I have an answer for everything.”
“Okay. It’s…” She swallowed hard. “You remember that geek at my work?”
“Which one?”
She took another swig of cola, then headed into her living room to flop on the sage green chenille couch. “The software engineer. Sean O’Callahan.”
“That Sean? Well, he’s pretty…uh…interesting.”
Eve rolled her gaze to the ceiling and decided to ignore her snide insinuation that Sean was nothing to look at. “About six months ago he shipped off to Iraq. I told him, on impulse, that I’d write him while he was there. Anyway, I’ve been writing him, and it’s getting…heavy.”
Chesny chuckled. “Aha. That’s the soldier you were talking about before?”
“The very one.”
“Getting hot? Or hot and heavy?”
“Well, maybe not heavy. It’s…our letters are explicit.” She gave her friend more information, but left out finer details of the correspondence.
“Wow. So that’s why you aren’t interested in other half naked men,” Chesny said. “Sean already has you panting after him.”
Eve grimaced. Panting sounded so undignified, but that’s what it was, really.
Eve placed her drink on a coaster on the coffee table and stared at the floor. “Maybe.”
“Hmm. Do you think Sean feels the same about you?”
“He hasn’t told me to piss off. He’s the one who initially started the erotic tone. Sort of.”
“Uh-huh.”
Eve fumbled for words. “I don’t feel anything. I mean, lust maybe but that’s about it.”
“Right. You’re working way too hard if you think that’s it. When is this guy coming home?”
Eve frowned as she slung her stocking feet onto the couch. “Good question. I’m worried because I usually get a letter really frequently. A couple a month or more.”
“Wow!” Chesney almost bellowed.
Eve held the phone away from her ear for a second. “I write him often, too. The letters are just getting more intriguing all the time.”
Chesny snorted. “I like that. Intriguing she says. Is that code for filled with descriptions of full-on fantastic sex?”
To Eve’s surprise, her cheeks filled with heat. “Getting there.”
“Ooohhh darlin’.”
“He sent me a letter with a photograph in it and he’s…well, let’s just say he’s not a geek anymore. He’s been working out. He’s not the skinny, dorky man I thought he was. He’s funnier and nicer than I gave him credit for. I can’t believe I didn’t pay more attention to him before. I feel like a complete idiot.”
“Sounds like he’s having a Mr. Darcy moment.”
Eve laughed. Chesny loved Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and Mr. Darcy was one of her favorite fictional male characters of all time.
“I think you’d like the picture. I think any woman with half a hormone would,” Eve said.
“That nice, eh?”
“That nice.”
“Well, break me off a piece of that.”
Eve laughed.
“Once a geek, always a geek. He sounds wonderful,” Chesny said. “Still, it sounds like you’re worried about something. Tell me.”
“It’s been three weeks since I got a letter from him. Human Resources hasn’t heard anything negative.”
“Oh, it’s probably nothing but a mail delay then.”
“Maybe.”
She wanted to believe that, but concern remained no matter how much she tried to brush it away.
Eve heard the clatter of little feet and Chesny’s husband’s voice.
“Sweetie, I gotta go,” Chesny said. “You just keep me informed will ya? I’m a little surprised you kept it from me.”
“I don’t tell you everything. What’s private is private.”
“You’re right. But why did you tell me now?”
“Because I’m worried about him, I guess.”
“He’ll be fine. I’ll talk to you tomorrow night and let you know when we’re meeting up for Male Call.”
They hung up, and when Eve crawled in bed that night, she hoped Sean’s next letter would arrive tomorrow.
Chapter 3
When Eve received Sean’s letter the next day, she didn’t make it all the way into the house before she ripped open the letter. She stood in the garage, her heart pounding as she unfolded the paper. The date read three weeks before the present.
* * *
Eve,
I’m writing this from a hospital bed.
* * *
Her breath sucked in and her purse thudded to the garage floor. She ignored it and continued reading.
* * *
Don’t worry. I’m okay. Just got a little flesh wound. EVIL GRIN. I always wanted to say that. No, seriously, it isn’t that big a deal. I was transferring from one base camp to another when our convoy was attacked. I was knocked out cold
and some shrapnel hit my right calf. But it was minor.
* * *
Don’t worry? Had the man lost his mind? Concern drilled her with spiked teeth. Well, at least she knew he was alive. Her stomach twisted as she paused in her letter reading. She stood in her garage, her designer purse on the concrete slab collecting dirt. She shivered with cold even though it was warm, and she’d feel better when she read the rest of the letter indoors.
She hurried to snatch up her purse, and once inside, she dumped it on the kitchen counter. She sank onto a breakfast barstool and continued reading.
* * *
You know that my time here is up soon anyway, right? I’ve been here six months and you could say timing is right—if there ever is a time to get wounded in battle. I’ll get a Purple Heart, but let me tell you, I could have skipped the fucked up path it took to arrive.
Enough of this shit. I’m looking over my shoulder wondering how much longer it’s going to be before I see you. Yeah, that’s right. I can’t wait. Look, I know I might be pushing something here, and if I’m going too fast, I’m sorry.
I gotta go. Damn nurses coming in to give me sponge bath again. Some of the guys in here love the sponge baths, but I keep wishing it were you giving me the bath. Hell, I could write a whole fantasy on that one alone.
Don’t write me again—
* * *
The phone rang, and her heart about rammed into her throat. She jerked and dropped the letter as she reached for the cordless phone near the counter.
“Yes,” she said a bit harshly.
“Well, you don’t have to snap my head off,” Chesny said.
Eve sighed, staring at the letter and wanting to read more of what he had to say. “Sorry. I just got a letter from Sean.”
“Cool. Isn’t that cool? You were worried just the other day.”
“Yes, but he was wounded in battle.”
“What?”
“Not badly. But his letter was rushed and what if he’s cooling things off? What if I let myself get all worked up over this guy and he sees this as all play? I mean, I’m not serious about him or anything—”
“Bull hockey. Otherwise you wouldn’t be rambling on about him like this. If he’s cooling off, just let him rest under your boot like lint on the street, girl. He’s not worth it. Switching to another topic a moment, I have just the thing to perk you up.”
Eve didn’t want to ask.
“You’re not gonna ask, are you?” Chesny said.
“Nope.”
Chesny sighed loudly. “Okay. I’ll tell. I’ve made reservations for tomorrow night at Male Call. And I guarantee you’ll have the best thirtieth birthday you’ve ever experienced.”
Eve grinned. “Um, as far as I know, I’ve never had a thirtieth birthday before, and I don’t plan on having another. Besides, I think one session with Male Call will be enough.”
Chesny’s laugh echoed over the phone. “Maybe. I have a feeling you’ll be coming back for more.”
“Right.”
“Damn it, since when did you become so freakin’ glum?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Yeah, you are. You just don’t want to admit it.”
Eve groaned. “Just slit my wrists now and be done with it.”
“That bad? Are you thinking about Sean?”
“The verdict is still out.”
“You are truly hopeless, girl.”
“Okay, maybe I won’t slit my wrists. I’ll start a lonely hearts club for women who got frisky by letter and were burned by lust.”
“Come on! You’re doing that—what did you call it a while back? Catastrophic thinking? You’re reading too much into his letters because you’ve discovered he’s an A-number one hunk. And as Claudia says, ‘you’re gaggin’ for a shag’. He’s probably needing a good humping, too, and he likes you so the progression is natural.”
“Chesny, you make it sounds like animals in the wild.”
“Well, it can be like that sometimes.”
Eve wouldn’t know. With a wild sense of complete mortification, she realized she’d never had break-down-the-mattress, headboard-rattling sex. Nope, her sexual encounters over the years had been tame and well, not all that satisfying.
Eve burst out laughing. “Chesny, you are a life saver. Maybe you’re right. I need to get a sex life and drain off this energy.”
Chesny made one of her loud whoops into the phone. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
They signed off a short time later with promises made on where and how and when to meet at Male Call the next night.
Eagerly, Eve returned to the letter and reread the last few lines.
* * *
Don’t write me back, because I hope to be back in the U.S. in the next few weeks. If you send a letter to Iraq, it’ll probably end up in some grimy soldier’s hands. Can’t have that.
Sean
* * *
Relief pooled low in her stomach, warmth that removed some of her earlier apprehension that he didn’t want to talk with her anymore.
She paced the living room for far too long, wondering if a visit to the club tomorrow night would remove her worry about Sean.
From the date on his later, he might be about ready to come back to the U.S.
Right now.
“Yeah, baby!” Chesny cheered as the first set of dancers parted the curtains on the stage and strutted their stuff. “Oh, yeah, baby,” Chesny clapped her hands. “Bring it!”
Eve couldn’t help laughing and almost choked on her merlot. Catcalls rang out, whistling and yells for action. But the men strutting forward were fully dressed. A firefighter in turnout gear, a police officer, an astronaut and a cowboy. For the last thirty minutes Evi and Chesny had enjoyed watching a plethora of semi good-looking men.
Eve hadn’t thought of Sean in a whole fifteen minutes.
“Ladies, we have a special treat for our birthday girl, Eve Carmichael. She’s sitting right in the front row. Stand up and take a bow, Eve.”
Cringing, her face flushed, Eve stood and took a quick bow as the audience clapped. She sank into her chair and glared at Chesny. “That was your idea, wasn’t it?”
Chesny’s smile was unrepentant. “You betcha.” Her black hair was tousled in long spirals along her face, her cocoa skin glowing with health. Tonight she wore a conservative suit, while Eve had stopped by the house and dressed in her clingy black dress.
The announcer on stage cleared his throat. “Ladies, now that we’ve hailed the birthday girl, we dedicate this next dance to her. And above all, one man wishes to dedicate this entire dance to Eve.”
She frowned, wondering what insane birthday stunt Chesny had cooked up.
“Tonight, we also have a Native American, a pilot, a lineman, and best of all, a soldier from the United States Army.”
Eve swallowed hard at the mention of the soldier. Hell, Sean would swallow his tongue first before he ever paraded across the stage like—
As the last man filed out, she was totally stunned.
There, standing in all his semi-naked glory, was the most gorgeous military man she’d ever seen. His close-cropped blond hair emphasized his piercingly direct Caribbean blue eyes. He wore a pair of desert battle dress uniform pants and desert boots. And his torso. Holy meat on a stick. Broad shoulders, gorgeous and powerful arms, a flat, six-pack stomach. And a generous, though not overwhelming dusting of dark blond hair over his chest and down his stomach to disappear in his waistband.
As the music thumped, the beat sensual and promising wild sexual pleasures, her heartbeat joined the rhythm, finding an equally delicious sensuality pulsing and building over her body. The guy dressed as a soldier wasn’t just playing a soldier. She knew him. He was the genuine article.
Sean in the living flesh.
She couldn’t believe it. Her mouth dropped open.
And he smiled right at her, his grin warm, sexy, and crooked with mischief. Her brain tried twice to wrap around the concept. Afte
r all, he shouldn’t be here. He should be in a hospital in Iraq. Instead, he started to dance along with the other guys, his hip movements slow, seductive. Though she knew it wasn’t possible, the next few moments passed in slow motion. His hands smoothed over his short hair, then down over his pecs and the rippling muscles in his stomach. Unlike the other dancers, who wore tear-away pants, she doubted he planned to strip to his underwear. When his hands went to his hips, her attention fixed on his package, an area of his body she’d never given thought to until they’d started their letters. Her gaze snapped up to his, and he grinned again.
He was…stunning.
His hands went behind his head and helped display the fine condition of his body. With everything inside her, she longed to stroke him, touch that firm flesh. Erotic visions floated into her head. She couldn’t shove her lustful thoughts aside and didn’t want to. Her gaze touched him everywhere, enjoying the way his muscles flexed, bunched, moved to the sweet sounds of music. His hips rotated, initiating a bump and grind that spoke of unadulterated, X-rated sex. The ladies went wild. Chesny hooted, whistled and urged him onward. Eve couldn’t blush, could only watch with growing fascination as her body responded in the deepest core.
Whenever her eyes met Sean’s intense gaze, she saw curiosity, happiness, and animal awareness. Something primeval moved between them that even their letters couldn’t top. Her body clenched and ached as she imagined sliding her body along his and her fingers exploring Sean’s rock hard body. Her nipples tightened and tingled against her bra.
By the time the dancers finished the set and left the stage, she was flushed, excited. Too eager to be with Sean and express her relief at seeing him unharmed.
Instead of returning backstage, Sean jumped down and landed in front of her table. She gasped, watching his muscles ripple and surge, a demonstration of pure animal prowess that sent surges of pulsating desire straight through her pussy. She was wet between the legs already, made her nipples tighten more and her heartbeat pound.
“Hi,” he said a little breathlessly as he sat in an empty chair next to her and leaned in close. “This seat taken?”
Male Call Page 3