CHAPTER FOUR
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:23 PM
subject: You
I keep thinking about what happened on your street. Can’t stop worrying about you. Are you okay?
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:24 PM
subject: Me
Mostly. How are you?
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:25 PM
subject: Not my favorite day that’s for sure
Been better . . .
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:26 PM
subject: Wish I could change that
I hate the thought of you having a bad day. I want you to be happy.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:27 PM
subject: I’m not unhappy
I’m just worried about you. I feel like an ass. Like I just left you there on the street.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:29 PM
subject: You’re not, but you have a nice ass :)
I’m a big girl. I made it home safely. But it’s sweet you were worried.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:31 PM
subject: Sweet? Me?
I still am worried. Is Stevie bugging you?
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:32 PM
subject: Soooo sweet . . . strong, confident, sexy too
He’s fine. It will all be fine soon enough. Let’s talk about something else. I came up with a new cocktail tonight.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:33 PM
subject: Mixing it up
Tell me about it.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:34 PM
subject: Delish on your lips . . .
It’s lemonade, vodka and champagne.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:35 PM
subject: That describes you . . .
Sounds like something I’d never touch but that will be beloved by your bar goers.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:36 PM
subject: Love your innuendo
It is already. The gal I run the bar with served a ton tonight. Said it was a big hit. Everyone was happy-buzzed too.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:37 PM
subject: Double entendres too
Sounds like a perfect state of existence. Can I have one of those too? The happy-buzz, that is.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:37 PM
subject: Named it for you
I call it The Heist. What did you do tonight? If you were on a date, please just tell me you played with kittens at a rescue shelter or something instead.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:39 PM
subject: No p-ssy tonight
I saw a play. My favorite kind of storyline. (And thank you for the name. Maybe I will taste it sometime)
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:41 PM
subject: Keep it that way!
The kind with a plot twist?
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:42 PM
subject: Good memory
Yes. Call me impressed.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:44 PM
subject: You are on my mind
I remember everything about you . . . So . . . is today getting better for you?
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:46 PM
subject: Yes. Since 20 minutes ago
Now it is.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:48 PM
subject: What was your favorite day ever?
Tell me a favorite memory from when you were younger. Pumpkin patch visit as a boy in Vegas? Lettering in varsity football? Prom? I bet you were prom king.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:49 PM
subject: I was not . . .
But I looked good in a blue ruffly tux.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:50 PM
subject: Pictures please
Dying to see THAT.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:51 PM
subject: Lawyers don’t send pictures
I know better than to send self-incriminating evidence.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:53 PM
subject: Damn that lawyer photo clause
I will just have to imagine you in your tux, and even though you were probably an insanely hot teenage boy, I suppose I really should be perving on you as a man. An insanely hot man. And you probably look insanely hot in a tux.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 8:55 PM
subject: Tux fetish?
I suspect any tux I wore would look best with your hands on the buttons.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 11:56 PM
subject: You fetish
Unbuttoning them.
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 9:02 PM
subject: Dangerous ground
We shouldn’t be doing this . . .
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 3, 12:04 AM
subject: Say the word
Do you want me to stop?
from: [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: May 2, 9:05 PM
subject: Don’t stop
No . . .
He told himself he was safe from her web of lies and brand of hurt by the three thousand miles that separated them. As long as he stayed a continent away, he’d be okay. So when her name flashed across the screen with the enticing words—incoming call—he answered immediately.
“Hello.”
“Hi,” she said in a sleep-sexy purr.
“Are you in bed?”
“Only place I like to be when I’m talking to you,” she said, and he loved knowing what she looked like all stretched out on her bed. Like an invitation. A beautiful f*cking invitation for him with those long, strong legs, her curvy hips, her beautiful breasts, and that gorgeous red hair spread out on the covers.
“I bet you’re wearing something sexy. Some little lingerie or bra-and-panty set,” he said, keeping the talk to sexiness because he couldn’t handle anything more right now.
“Do you want to know?”
“I want you to paint the image in my eye.”
“I have on my bare legs.”
A bolt of heat shot through his body, as he pictured her. “I like it when you wear those.”
“And I hope you’re not disappointed, but I don’t have on a bra.”
An appreciative growl escaped his throat. “Mmm. That is an excellent look on you. You do bra-lessness well. And now I’m picturing those naked shoulders of yours, kissing you all over, nibbling on your collarbone.”
“Biting down,” she said, continuing their imaginary travels.
“You taste so good, Julia. So sweet. Your skin is so damn sweet all over,” he said, and the memory of her taste rushed back to him, blasting into him like a collision of senses in his memory. Her collarbone, the fruity smell of her hair from whatever shampoo she used, so much more enticing than any other woman’s, the smell of her legs when she’d stepped out of the bath. And most of all, the scent of her arousal. The way he could tell just from inhaling her how he’d turned her on.
“Don’t you want to know what else I’m wearing?” she offered, her voice as naughty as could be.
He stretched out on his own bed, and parked his free hand behind his head. He was so hard right now from picturing her, but he had to restrain himself because he knew he couldn’t have her. But maybe this kind of teasing would be enough to get her out of his system. He knew this was trouble, he’d been there before, but this woman allured him like no other. She was a sexy drug and he wanted another hit.
“I do want to know,” he said, his voice a low rumble.
“Hold on a sec,” she said, and he heard a scatter of movement on her end. Then her voice again. “Go see.”
Those two words shot straight to his groin, and he was fighting a losing battle with resistance when he scrolled to his screen, and thumbed open his text message to find a picture. A flash of white lace, a glimpse of her hipbone, and then her hand just barely dipped into the waistband of her panties. Suggesting what she was about to do if things continued.
Did he want them to?
No. And yes. And no. And yes. But as he tried to retain the reasons for hanging up, they all fell to dust when she whispered, “I’m touching myself and I’m thinking of you.”
He groaned, unbidden. Everything in him craved her. Needed her. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She didn’t answer right away, only breathed once, a low, sexy moan. In the span of those seconds, images flashed before him—her tied up to his bed, her bent over his desk, handcuffed to his balcony. Him pleasuring her, owning her body.
“Kissing you,” she whispered, and his blood stilled because he’d been expecting something dirtier from her sexy mouth.
“Yeah? You like that?”
“I wouldn’t like any of the other things if I didn’t like kissing you first,” she said, a gasp escaping her.
“What do you like about the way I kiss you?”
“Everything. Every single thing. Your lips are soft, and your stubble is rough, and you know exactly how to kiss me and make me melt for you,” she said, and something about her voice was different this time; needier, hungrier.
“I love it when you melt into my arms,” he said. “When I first see you and first kiss you.”
“And it’s like lightning or electricity or something,” she said, and her breathing intensified.
“Like we can’t get enough of each other, and can’t stop kissing,” he said, and a shudder wracked his body. “Tell me where your hand is now.”
“Between my legs. Moving faster,” she said, and let out a sexy cry that sent heat waves throughout his bones and blood.
“Are you writhing there on your bed?”
“Yes.”
“With your legs wide open?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice rising higher, and he could tell she was getting closer. “Are you touching yourself, Clay?”
“No,” he said, though he was sure he’d need to handcuff his wrists any second to keep from grabbing his erection.
“Please,” she said, her voice a delicious beg. That beg unwound him. It reached deep into his dirty mind and made him want to do everything with her, for her, to her.
“Please what?”
“Please touch yourself,” she moaned, and he pictured her rocking her hips into her hand. With that image burned in front of his eyes, her voice in his ear, he knew it wouldn’t take long. A few quick strokes, and he’d be there.
“Why do you want me to?”
“I like picturing you touching yourself. I like the image of your big, strong hand wrapped around your cock. Stroking yourself. Thinking of me.”
“Yeah? That gets you hot?” His hands were trembling. He wanted so badly to give in to this moment with her.
“So hot. Anything you do turns me on. Don’t you get that?”
“I think you just want to break me down. And make me think of you.”
“But you already are, aren’t you?”
“I already am,” he admitted.
“Then come with me.”
“What makes you think I’m going to come?”
“Because I know you. You will when you hear me in about thirty seconds,” she said, and words fell away. She’d been reduced to moans and cries and pants, and there was no f*cking way he could resist. It was either a cold shower for the rest of the whole night, or taking matters into his own hands. So he did, and it didn’t take long for him to join her, pleasure rippling through every single vein as she cried out his name and he came hard and fast.
A minute later, after he’d washed his hands and returned to the dark of the bedroom, she spoke. “I wish I were there wearing your clothes right now.”
He laughed. “That’s what you want to be doing? Because I’d like to be f*cking you if you were here.”
“Well, that too. But then I’d put on your shirt.”
“You like that, don’t you?”
“I know you do too,” she said.
“I do. Seeing you in my shirt and your heels is my kryptonite.”
“Oh, is that it? That’s your kryptonite?”
“Or maybe it’s just that you are,” he whispered, admitting more than he wanted to.
“I think the same could be said here.”
There was a pause, and though they were three thousand miles apart, the silence was heady. He was in a drugged-out state tonight. This woman was his pill, and closeness with her was what he craved most even as he feared she would destroy his heart. Smash it to a million tiny pieces and eat it for lunch. But he had a built-in barrier in distance, and with no trips to San Francisco on his immediate calendar he saw nothing wrong with this temporary moment of relief from the pressure inside of him from wanting her. They couldn’t be together in any meaningful way, and he couldn’t get hurt if he didn’t actually see her. Right? Right, he answered for himself.
“What are we doing, Julia?” he asked, and he was sure she could hear the longing in his tone, but he didn’t care. There was no need to hide it after they’d just broken down and pleasured themselves together.
“I wish I knew,” she said, her voice wistful and full of yearning. “I really wish I knew.”
He heaved a sigh, trying to sort out his thoughts, but his brain was a mixed-up mess and he didn’t know how to untangle all the threads. Or if he wanted to remain tangled up with her instead.
“What are you going to do when we hang up?” he asked, changing direction.
“Read a book.”
“What are you reading these days?”
“A crazy story about a guy who treks across Antarctica.”
“That does sound crazy.”
“Yeah. He’s kind of hallucinating and talking to penguins right now,” she said with a small laugh.
“Can you blame him? I have to imagine if you’re stuck in the polar ice cap that talking to penguins might be a rare source of comfort.”
“As long as he doesn’t eat the penguins I’ll keep reading it.”
“Here’s to no penguin meals in the books we read.”
“What will you do?”
“I suspect I will fall fast asleep and dream of a beautiful redhead on the other side of the country.”
“She would like that dream very much,” she said in a sweet voice, the kind that worked its way beneath all the hard edges in him, and settled deep in his heart. “Will I talk to you again soon?”
He took a fueling breath, and put his armor back on, steeling himself. “I don’t know the answer to that.”