With anyone.
Shit. Callie smiled for the umpteenth time and said brightly, “Hang onto that thought, Mitch. I need to go the ladies room.” Grabbing her purse and scooting out of her seat, she searched frantically for a restroom sign.
She rooted around in her purse for her cell phone as she shouldered her way into the bathroom and headed for an empty stall. Callie found Katherine’s phone number with the speed of light on her cell phone and pressed call.
“Callie?”
“Help me,” she whispered into the phone.
“Did he touch you? I’ll freakin’ kill him—”
“No!” Callie interrupted, “he’s talking about how he feels me.”
“He, what?” Katherine thundered. “He’d better get used to feeling himself minus his balls!”
“No! No, he didn’t feel me. He said he feels me.”
“Well, ask him how he feels about my fist up his ass?”
“Stop, Kath! He said he feels a connection or something.”
“Tell him to connect this and back the fuck off!”
“Katherine, help me. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”
Katherine blew out a breath. “Oh, okay, so do you want him to feel you instead?”
“Arghh. No, I want to know how to leave without hurting his feelings.”
“Simple, you say, buh-bye.”
“C’mon, Kath. Help me be nice.”
“Okay, you go back out there and say, ‘wow, look at the time I have to go’. Fantasy Island is on.”
Callie started to laugh, despite her panic. “Kath, pleeeease.”
“Callie. You just tell him you have to go. That’s it. His feelings are going to be hurt no matter what you say if he’s feeling you and you’re not feeling him.”
Great. She was already a diva bitch—date one. Callie sighed. “Okay, Kath. Thanks.”
“Oh, and don’t forget to duck.”
Callie’s eyebrows rose. “Huh?”
“I said, duck, sweetie.”
“I don’t get what you mean?”
“He’s going to want to kiss you. Duck.”
Oh, hell…Callie’s shoulders sagged. “How do I avoid that?”
“Duck,” Katherine said again.
Callie tried to imagine Mitch’s lips on hers. Oh, no. Not. Nu-uh. She was ducking. “I’ll duck.”
“Good girl. Bye.”
Callie clicked her phone off and shoved it back in her purse. She stopped at the mirror and fluffed her hair. She didn’t know why it mattered if she was having a good hair day. She wanted to look good when she ducked. Her cheeks were flushed and her lipstick was fading. Time to call it a night. Just like the big girls do.
Callie straightened her shoulders and went back out to Mitch to tell him she didn’t “feel him” like he felt her. There was no connection—no chemistry—not even a little biology. Nada.
Mitch rose as she came to stand by the edge of the table. “Everything okay?”
“Oh, everything’s fine. I’m just tired, So I’m afraid I’ll have to go now.” Good, that was good. She was leaving and ducking.
“So soon?” Mitch’s frown was quickly hidden with a tight smile.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the time. I have to walk my dog.” Thank God for Aston.
Mitch’s eyes held hers far longer than Callie was comfortable with. She averted her own to dig in her purse for her keys, but Mitch jumped up and said, “I’ll walk you to your car.”
Just grand. “No, Mitch, you stay and enjoy the coffee. I’ll be fine.”
Mitch shrugged into his jacket. “No way. No date of mine is going to her car alone.”
Fab-u-lous. Callie nodded and sprinted to the door with a time an Olympic runner would cry in shame over. She scanned the parking lot with her eyes and located her car, stepping off the curb and walking briskly toward it.
Shoot, Mitch had long legs, he was right behind her, cupping her elbow and following her as closely as possible. When they reached her car, Callie turned to him and offered her hand and again, Mitch took it and pulled her close, hugging her hard.
“I had a great time, Callie,” he mumbled into her hair.
Callie thumped him on the back. “It was nice, Mitch, thanks for the coffee.”
“So?”
Um… ”So, what?”
“So, do you think we connected?”
Jesus… ”I—I—like you, Mitch and I’d love to have a friendly cup of coffee again sometime.”
Mitch’s arms fell away from her as he backed up. His face was slack and his eyes were dull under the parking lot lamp. “Okay, Callie. It’s what I figured, anyway. Thanks again.”
Someone’s self-esteem jar was half empty. Dammit all. “I’m sorry, Mitch.” Callie felt like shit, plain and simple. She couldn’t make herself feel something she didn’t.
“Nah, it’s okay. Take care, Callie,” he said as he headed in the other direction, his shoulders slumped and his stride slow.
Callie beeped her car and slid into the seat, turning the key in the ignition with a slow hand.
For fucks sake, this sucked.
As she drove home Callie replayed her date in her mind and decided Mitch belonged in the “trying too hard” file. He was sweet and needy and Callie was caught off guard by his direct approach. Mitch was rushing to find a soul mate, skipping past the getting to know you part.
Pulling into her garage, she saw that the time was seven o’ clock. You party girl, you. Callie was defeated, deflated and all of that after only one date. Mitch’s sad smile stuck in her mind’s eye and it wouldn’t let go.
Aston greeted her with a slow shuffle and flopped at her feet as she peeled her coat off and headed straight to her bedroom to change. Aston followed closely behind, sighing as she shed her clothes and changed into her nightgown.
Her heart felt bruised and sore over Mitch and quite frankly, it sucked, but she had a job to do and she’d have to set this experience aside in favor of the bigger picture. Mitch deserved someone who would love him totally and Callie just wasn’t that girl, but she hoped he found her soon.
Callie flipped her computer on with a heavy heart and settled in her office chair. Last count she still had quite a few e-mails to go and the thought depressed her right now. Callie didn’t want to hurt anyone, she knew that kind of hurt and even in her most angry of moments she didn’t want to inflict any kind of angst. Mitch was hungry for something she just couldn’t feed him. It was something she never expected to happen so quickly, this connection thing Mitch talked about.
Love at first sight just didn’t exist as far as Callie was concerned. It was better termed lust at first site. To know someone was to love them, faults and all. You didn’t know anyone if you’d just met them. Sometimes you didn’t know them if you were married to them for ten years either, she mused.
Logging onto the site, Callie moaned out loud. Aston responded with a grumble, puffing his cheeks out. “Look, Aston, I have fifty more e-mails! Okay, it’s early. I’m going to answer every damn one of these and get it over with,” she said to the empty room. Determined to do that she started at the top of her inbox and began to work her way down.
To: Writer66
From: Leftcoastlover
Subject: Can’t stop thinking about you
Hi Writer66,
I don’t want to sound goofy, but your lips look juicy. I just had to tell you that. I can’t stop thinking about you. E-mail me so we can write a love story.
LCL
Juicy? Juicy? Callie sat for a moment too astonished to type. And then, she responded before she could stop herself.
To: Leftcoastlover
Subject: Re: Can’t stop thinking about you
Tell me, LCL, what about that doesn’t sound goofy to you?
Ripe as a summer peach in sunny California,
Juicy lips AKA Writer66
Juicy lips. Callie caught a glimpse of her reflection in her flat screen computer and crossed her eyes a
t it. She did not have juicy lips and she didn’t even want to venture to guess what it would be like to go out with a guy who thought she did. Callie didn’t even care if she offended him with her reply.
Next weirdo, please.
To: Writer66
From: Thefridge240
Subject: Hello Angel
Dear Writer66,
You are simply the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen! Your eyes are gorgeous, dark and filled with mysteries I want to unlock. I am very intuitive and know you are a great catch! I believe in love. I am a professional businessman who owns a computer consulting company and support dental clients in the Minnesota area. I am a graduate student working on my Masters Degree in Information Systems and computers and have a very promising future. I am willing to invest in you because I know a winner when I see one.
God told me to join this dating service because he knew I’d find you…I know great distances hinder us, but I am willing to invest in you because I know a winner when I see one. My motto is a quitter never wins and a winner never quits.
I’m not a serial killer and I love ice cream. I know you’ll love eating some with me.
I have a full plate, my life is very busy, but you are a buffet I just can’t resist!
Jason
God better quit talking to Jason, or he’d better start listening more closely to his Rice Krispies. Jason’s approach was rather like the WWF. Winners never quit and quitters never win? Bulldoze your prospective dates was more like it.
Whoa, he was huge, Callie noted from his profile. My, hell, he was more than twice her size. His motto, quite frankly, frightened her. Inspiration struck in the form of a wisecrack as Callie shipped back an e-mail to Jason.
To: Thefridge240
Subject: Re: Hello Angel
Dear Jason,
I’m on a diet.
Starving herself to death in sunny California,
Writer66
Callie rolled her head on her neck and moaned. She was over a week into this and already she could understand why people were so skeptical about online date sites. She wondered briefly if other women got this kind of e-mail. How the hell could you tell if someone’s intent was genuine when they called you a buffet? If only he’d mentioned her thighs, they were a veritable smorgasbord.
Callie focused again on her task at hand. Answer as many e-mails as she possibly could tonight when the subject line Awesome flickered past her as she scrolled her inbox with her mouse.
Her stomach did the Riverdance. Brian had responded again and so was she, responding that was, with a nervous anticipation and a giddy thrill. Callie found she couldn’t wait to open his e-mail. She glanced at his picture, thinking that each time she saw it he was more handsome than the last.
Oy.
To: Writer66
From: Brian_SOF
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Awesome
Hey Callie,
It’s nice to have a name to put with the face. No, I’m not in Iraq right now, but I do spend a lot of time there. I had a small injury so I came home early.
I’m glad you wrote back. Tell me about your life. Tell me something no one knows about you and I’ll tell you something back.
Brian
He’d been hurt? Callie’s stomach revolted and she didn’t even think about why. She just needed to know what had happened and what “small injury” meant in Brian’s world. Callie responded without thought. It just seemed natural to inquire about how he’d been hurt and if he was alright now.
To: Brian_SOF
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awesome
Oh, Brian! What’s a small injury and are you alright now?
Let’s see…something no one knows about me? I’m a girlie-girl at heart. I love all things Victoria’s Secret and I really can use power tools.
Your turn.
Callie
Callie clicked send without hesitation, and then slapped her forehead. Had she just told him her passion for silky nightwear? Well, who the hell did she think she was? All good girls knew it wasn’t appropriate to talk about what you slept in with perfect strangers. Leaning forward, Callie put her head in her hands and moaned for the third time that night. But then, she remembered that it was just a little harmless flirting and it was only e-mail…
Her inbox sounded with the tinkle of another e-mail five minutes later and Callie looked up, then smiled. It was Brian again. Her heart rate sped and her hands couldn’t get to her mouse fast enough.
She was an idiot. It was an e-mail, not the second coming…
To: Writer66
From: Brian_SOF
Subject: Victoria’s Secret?
Callie’s stomach sank. She’d revealed too much. He thought she was as slut. Of course she was a slut. She clicked open the e-mail with reluctance edged with fear over possibly seeing the word hussy in the text of Brian’s reply.
Hey again Callie,
The injury was small by even a chicken’s standards. I’m fine now and all recuperated.
I like that you can admit you’re, as you called it, a girlie-girl. There aren’t that many women I’d consider feminine these days and Victoria’s Secret rates high on my list of very feminine things.
Okay, now for my deep, dark secret. I’ve read romance novels for lack of anything else that I can get my hands on overseas. It beats nothing and they’re not too bad. LOL
Your serve.
Brian
Callie grinned and felt the rush of heat course over her cheeks. Brian thought she was feminine…she sighed, despite how lame it might seem to someone who got compliments like this on a daily basis and then, she tried to think of something interesting about herself that she could e-mail back. She was rather boring, all of her Victoria’s Secrets aside. Her thoughts strayed to what it would be like to wear something girlie for Brian.
Whoa. What the hell was that about?
Oh, man. This was uncharted territory and Brian wouldn’t want to see her in anything girlie anyway. However, she was feeling flirty, or she supposed that’s what this was. This light, easy banter, playing at cute and coy. It was easy on a computer screen because words were easy for Callie, on paper anyhow. Brian couldn’t see her and what she lacked in actual presence, she made up for in words. Words were her arrows, her hook, her safe zone.
To: Brian_SOF
Subject: RE: Victoria’s Secret
Romance novels, eh? Can’t say I know many men who willingly admit to reading them, but I understand your predicament.
Bubble baths…Sigh, I love bubble baths. It’s one of my favorite indulgences. Oh, and I’ve had a favorite pillow of mine since I was twenty that I still sleep with.
You owe me two…
Callie
Chapter 4
Brian Benson stared at the picture of Writer66 and leaned forward over his laptop. Christ, she was beautiful, in a way he’d never considered anyone else before her. Writer66 didn’t have the harder planes to her face or the weathered look some acquired in their later thirties. She was soft and ultra-feminine, a true beauty in the most surreal of ways to him. Brian fought the urge to reach out and touch her picture on the screen. Her lips curved into a smile meant to be sweet, but came off enticing and sultry, wicked and demure. Glossy lips that incited his vivid imagination…
Her eyes… They were big and dark, almond shaped, long lashed and they screamed at him to answer her. He was trained to read a person’s eyes and what he saw in hers said more in one picture than he’d seen looking into the eyes of someone he’d known all of his life. Brian couldn’t tell her that or she’d think he was some kind of a freak, but he was going to find some way to do it anyway.
Writer66 had kept him awake for three nights now. When Brian closed his eyes, her eyes floated behind his eyelids. They spoke volumes. She was smart, smarter than she gave herself credit for, he’d bet.
Writer66 had been hurt too. It was in the gentle, yet innocent gaze she looked into the camera with. It was hesitant, yet still willing. Those eyes that w
ere dark brown, probably even black, like rich, creamy chocolate, filled with intensity and yearning. Brian wanted to know what she yearned for. Who had hurt her and why? He wanted to talk to her, listen to her thoughts on anything and everything and he had no explanation for it. He didn’t want one. He just wanted to find out more about her. It was what drove him to e-mail her back with the smallest of invitation and he’d keep e-mailing her if she kept responding and maybe, even if she didn’t.
Brian had joined Heavenly Hook Ups late one night a year or so ago as a joke, while he and a buddy of his drank too much JD and Coke on leave. Brian wasn’t interested in hooking up with anyone at the time and he wasn’t when he’d first seen the eyes of Writer66. He scanned the profiles from time to time on the site, but he’d only contacted one other person and to call her the second coming of the exorcist was being kind. She sure as hell didn’t affect him the way Writer66 did.
Yet, Brian had seen Writer66’s picture, read her profile and just knew he wanted her. She only had the one picture, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about her body, or what it looked like. Her eyes, open and warm, were what dragged his fingers to the keyboard to type out an e-mail to her as fast as he could.
Brian wondered if her hair was long, he couldn’t tell clearly from the picture, but then, it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was finding out about what was behind those sinfully dark expressive eyes. Eyes that made his cock hard and his heart feel something again after a very long time of feeling nothing but empty. He didn’t know what they made him feel, but he wanted to.
Brian’s cock stiffened as he imagined those eyes glazed with passion, smiling seductively at him in a Victoria’s Secret nightie after having taken a bubble bath.
Brian Benson didn’t feel much anymore. His work was hard and required detachment, a detachment he’d come to loathe, but learned to successfully deal with because it was necessary.
He killed people.
More people than he cared to remember. He killed them because they wanted to kill those who were innocent and all that was righteous wouldn’t allow him to not try and prevent that. Instead, he tried to equip these people with the tools they needed to have a stronger, freer country. Death was a part of his life in heaping helpings and lately, he was bone weary of the stench.
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