So she’d been on a date for this research, but she hadn’t kissed him. Good. The world was as it should be as far as Brian was concerned. He was likely to kill the asshole she’d gone out with if he’d kissed her. “You’re a dangerous woman, Callie.”
“LOLLOL. Me? C’mon. I couldn’t be dangerous if someone paid me to be. Why am I dangerous?”
“Because I like you and it’s not dangerous at all for me now that I think about it. It’s dangerous for you.” He highlighted the word you and clicked send. Talking to Callie had him glued to the damn laptop. He hated to type, even more he was slow at it and his spelling sucked, but he didn’t want to let go of this connection he felt with her. He wanted the opportunity to cultivate it and he’d do that in whatever way she felt comfortable with.
“I’m not afraid of you, Brian.”
Callie’s words glowed brightly on the screen and shifted Brian’s heart. No, Callie loved people too much to fear him, but she would come to fear him as he moved in closer. When this changed from a fun, flirtatious instant message to a real life meeting that Brian fully intended to inspire, Callie would be afraid because she’d been hurt. It was in every word she typed, but he was going to move in anyway, because he wanted Callie. “Good, because you have nothing to be afraid of. You’ll know that soon enough.”
“Huh?” she typed back.
Shit, he’d jumped too fast again. Get a grip, Benson. Slow down and quit freakin’ her out. “As we get to know each other, you’ll see you have nothing to be afraid of. What you see is what you get. I’m not scary at all, but I do want to know all about you.” Good save, Brian.
“You want to get to know me? Why?”
Well, there was the lips thing, Brian thought with a stupid grin, but it was so much more. It was whatever drove him to e-mail her in the first place and he had no definition for it. He felt it and it grew stronger as they chatted. “Who wouldn’t want to get to know you, Callie? You’re pretty interesting.”
“Maybe I just represent the mundane to you? I live a much different life than you do, Brian. It’s sort of simplistic. I work, I eat, I go to bed and I get back up and do it all over again. You haven’t had that in a long time. I think you’d grow bored…”
Ah, now that was a typical response to his job. There was nothing exciting about what he did. There was nothing exciting about killing people. His job didn’t define him, it might drive him, but it wasn’t all he was. “My job is something I do out of a sense of right and wrong, but that’s not all there is to me, Callie. You’re not boring at all and I do have a gentler side…”
“Oh! I didn’t mean to insult you. I’m sorry. I just meant that I do the nine-to-five thing and you…well, you save people.”
Save people? No one put his job in those terms, but Callie, who saw something good in everything he suspected, had just gained his respect for looking at his world in a totally different perspective. Brian had been accused of many things as a mercenary, but no one said he saved anything, except money in a big, fat account. Brian smiled as he looked at those eyes on his computer screen, dark and full of life, her smile so damn sweet it pricked his gut. “I’m not insulted at all, Callie and what you do represents something important. You entertain people, you make them smile. That’s important too. Reminding people that life still can make you laugh is a gift.”
“Well, I’m not terribly gifted, more like lucky is all. Humor is fluff. I’ve been accused of that in my time as a columnist, because I don’t tackle the darker side of life, but in my opinion nothing can be right if you can’t laugh.”
Brian shifted on the bed and fluffed his pillows behind him as he thought about that. Hell, if that wasn’t the truth. Callie made him smile. She made him forget that sometimes in the broader scheme of things, some lives became disposable. All life was precious to Brian and sometimes in preserving that very life he had to make choices he hated. “Yeah, I agree and I laugh a lot, because I couldn’t do this day in day out if I didn’t.”
“Well, thanks for saying I’m not silly and vacuous. Ya gotta laugh about botox treatments. I’m sorry, but having fat injected into any part of my body just can’t ever be right. LOL.”
Who needed botox when she had lips like that? Brian chuckled. “I’d love to read some of your stuff. Would you mind?”
“If you promise to laugh with me and not at me, then okay. I write for California Hip under the pen name. Casey Curtis.”
“I promise I won’t laugh at you. So you like your job?”
“Yeah, I like it, with the exception of all of the twenty-something’s who want my job.” She paused for a moment and then typed, “Now would be the time to mention you’re younger than me!”
So? Brian didn’t have any hang-ups about Callie’s age, it was two years—not two decades and even if it were, Brian still didn’t think it would matter now. ”Yep, just a little. Two years.”
“So why are you on a date site scopin’ older chicks? LOL. You should be checking out the under thirty crowd.”
Well, the answer was simple, because they weren’t Callie. “Age is irrelevant to me. It has nothing to do with your age. It has to do with you.”
“Well, I’m flattered, then. Thank you, Brian. I don’t feel nearly as average as I did now that I’ve talked to you.”
Callie would never see how totally exceptional she was. It was what made her that much more appealing to him, that she had no clue the kind of warmth she was spreading simply by existing. “Have you ever wanted to write anything other than the column? Like a book?”
“I’ve dabbled in a book, yes, a romance novel, in fact. Everyone who writes wants to write something other than what they’re writing, I think. I’m a romantic at heart.”
“What is romance to you, Callie? What makes you feel special? Loved, wanted, desired? What’s your fantasy?”
Now there was a long pause and he wasn’t sure if she was really giving it some thought, or he’d touched on something that Callie hadn’t given much thought to in quite some time. Or she’d freaked on him and was flying the coop. But the instant message box said she was typing again. Brian’s fingers throbbed. He didn’t type much, but he wouldn’t have left the computer screen if the President himself showed up and ordered him back to Iraq personally.
“Wow. I don’t know that anyone has asked me that, well, except my last date and that was too weird. Anyhow, romance, to me anyway, doesn’t have to be about wine and candles. Sometimes it’s just sharing a pizza in bed, or listening to the rain while you cuddle and I don’t know that I have a fantasy per se.”
Brian had one and it was growing as he spoke with Callie. “I like your view on romance, because you’re right, it isn’t about going all out, it’s just about being together. I have a fantasy. Want to hear it?” He hoped she did, he’d omit including her in it for now.
“I always want to hear what you have to say. I don’t know why, but I do…”
Come to papa…Brian was winning and grinning like a smug ass over it. “I love the Mayan ruins. It’s something I’d like to explore someday with someone…they have altars…” And he could picture Callie on one of those, naked and writhing beneath him. His cock throbbed against his shorts, hard and insistent.
“Whew, that’s quite a visual if you mean what I think you mean. Is it hot in here or is it just me? LOL.”
Oh, it was hot alright and Brian had a gut instinct that when he met Callie it would only grow hotter. “It’s a little steamy, yeah…ahem, LOL.”
“Sorry, let’s try to be less steamy…” Callie typed.
Brian smiled. “Nah, I like it just like this. Keep it comin’. You still haven’t told me what makes you feel special.”
“I don’t know. It’s been so long I can’t remember. A back rub? LOL. I dunno…”
No, Callie didn’t know, not yet, but she would, Brian thought. “Do you like foot rubs?”
“Yeah, I love to have one when my pedicurist paints my toe nails.”
Shit, Brian’s
groin tightened further. There was nothing sexier than toes that were polished and in a pair of sandals. “I love feet, especially when the toes attached to them are painted. I’d rub your feet for you…”
“Ooooh, you just made me sigh again. I haven’t ever had a foot rub by anyone other than my pedicurist.”
“Well, I’m pretty good at it. Maybe someday I’ll show you.” Someday soon…count on it, Callie.
“I think I’d like that…”
Brian smiled again. “In the hayloft or the Mayan temple?”
“LOL. Let’s live adventurously, how about both? You bring the poncho liner?”
“Only if you bring the pillow.”
“Deal.”
“It could be very romantic, eh?”
“Yeah, romantic would be nice…”
Callie had a weak spot for romance, whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not and Brian wanted to know every last one of her fantasies. Every last one of her romantic notions so he could set about making them happen. “Romance and intimacy should be a part of everyone’s life. It should leave you sighing afterward.”
“You’ve made me sigh a lot tonight, Brian…”
Hold onto your painted toes, because it’s only just beginning… ”I’m glad, Callie. Wow, look at the time. It’s five thirty in the morning, my time. LOL.”
“OMG! I didn’t even realize. You do realize that we’ve been chatting since ten last night, don’t you?”
“I had no idea. It flew by, but I’d bet you’re tired.”
“Now that I actually see the time I am, but I wasn’t thinking much about it until now.”
Brian needed to make sure she’d hook up with him again, later today if he could swing it. He wanted to call Callie, but as much as he wanted to hear her voice, he’d wait another day or so. “Well, you go to bed. Good thing it’s Sunday morning. Will you meet me here again tomorrow night, or should I say tonight?”
“Yeah, I’d like that.”
We have confirmation. “Okay, tell you what. You go spoon with that pillow of yours and I’ll instant message you tomorrow around eight in the evening. How’s that?”
“That’d be great, Brian. I’ll see you then.”
“Cool. Night Callie, sweet dreams.”
“Night, Brian, you too…”
See you in them…
Brian set his laptop down, reluctant to turn it off and lose the image of Callie’s picture. He went to take a cold shower with Callie’s eyes blurring his vision, her words sometimes light, sometimes insightful, dancing in his head, and his cock saluting her.
* * * *
Callie woke tingling, smiling, on fricken’ fire and all because of an instant message with a man that she’d known but seven hours or so. Sighing for the hundredth time in a matter of hours, Callie hugged her pillow and closed her eyes. It didn’t matter that she’d never met Brian. He did something to her insides. He made her heart flutter like a damn hummingbird’s wings. He left her breathless with his thoughts, he left her breathless period and the explanation was no longer necessary. It just was.
And Brian was a mercenary.
Got that, Cal? He goes far away for long periods of time and could quite possibly be killed in a remarkably short period of time.
Like dead.
D-e-a-d.
Oh, God, what was she thinking? Callie didn’t join this date site to find a real date…just a sorta one. Brian was the most unlikely “hook-up” she could ever have encountered. What the hell was wrong with a nice CPA?
A mercenary.
Maybe Brian was lying? Some men did that, especially if they thought they could get away with it because the chances were unlikely you’d ever meet each other. He probably really worked at Wal-Mart in the paint department.
But that was a very real picture of him in Iraq, or at least somewhere dusty and sandy, where guns were necessary.
Callie scooted out of bed and went to brush her teeth, then take Aston out. Maybe she’d just gotten carried away and she’d never hear from him again. Seriously, how long could a guy keep up a lie like that?
“C’mon, Aston, let’s go take a walk. Mommy needs to clear her head.” Aston gave her the look of death. It was late and she was off schedule. Callie brushed her teeth and changed into some jeans, catching sight of her toes as she slid into them. Brian had said he liked polished toes.
Ugh. Brian, Brian, Brian, she mocked her thoughts. Callie was a sucker. She just knew it. No one but naïve, sheltered Callie would fall for this. Katherine sure as hell wouldn’t.
Katherine! She needed to call her. Grabbing her cell phone, Callie dialed her up as she hooked the leash onto Aston’s collar and pulled him toward the door.
“Callie? Where the fuck have you been? Did you sleep with that—that Mitch? What did I tell you about not sleeping with anyone on the first date? I tried calling you all last night and you’d better have a good answer as to where you were!”
“Kath! Relax, would you. I’m sorry. I turned off the cell phone and no, I wouldn’t sleep with Mitch. He was nice, he just wasn’t for me. Besides I’m not in this for me, Kath. I’m in it for my column.”
Katherine sighed long into the phone. “Thank God. Jesus, I was worried about you. I would have come over there and dug your ass out, but I was otherwise entertained.”
Callie snickered. “You were so worried about me you went off and had sex? How come you can sleep with anybody you choose and I have to get a permission slip to do the nasty?”
“Sweetie, because you don’t do the nasty. You make love, with your heart and soul and I don’t want some Rico Suave to talk you into something and take advantage of you.”
Callie knew Katherine was right. She couldn’t just sleep with someone for the physical release of it. Callie needed some sort of emotional attachment, exclusivity. Not that anyone wanted to sleep with her just for the sheer pleasure of physical anything. Ah, well. “Well, no one took advantage of me, so quit sweating it. I’m fine.”
“You sound tired, honey. Are you okay?”
Aston tugged Callie toward a nice patch of green and Callie grunted. “Yeah, I was up late is all.”
Katherine paused for a moment and asked, “What were you doing?”
Callie wasn’t at all inclined to share her experience with Brian, but Katherine would interrogate her until she did. “I was instant messaging…”
“With?”
“A guy.”
“A guy…”
“Yeah. A guy.”
“And this guy’s name is?”
Callie flushed and sighed. “Brian.”
“Brian? Nice, solid name. And what does Brian do for a living?”
Oh, no. No, no, no flippin’ way was she telling Katherine he was a mercenary. “Um, he works.”
“Doing what, honey bunch?” Katherine’s tone came off like she was prodding a two-year-old.
Callie tugged Aston back to her front door. “Stuff…”
“What kind of stuff?”
“He works in Iraq.”
“Um, this is where I, as a good friend, say, are you fricken’ nuts? What does he do in Iraq? Does he live there?”
“No. He works for an American company. He’s originally from Mississippi. Right now he’s in Arizona.”
“Okay, so he’s an American?”
“Yes,” Callie said hesitantly.
“Is he cute?”
Whew, they’d moved onto Brian’s physical assessments and that meant that Katherine could now be easily distracted. Callie smiled, was he cute? Was oxygen essential to one’s brain? “Yeah, he is.”
“What am I hearing in your voice here, Cal? It’s all breathy and you’re sighing. Spit it out.”
Callie unhooked Aston’s leash and hung it up on the hook in her laundry room as she tried to formulate something that would appease Katherine without letting her know what she was really feeling. “He’s just very nice. Maybe I’ll interview him by phone by something.”
“Oh, well then, g
ood.” Katherine’s tone changed to business mode. Anything that would help sell magazines made Katherine’s panties wet. “Go get ‘em, tiger. Anything to bring up circulation. Alright, hot stuff, I’ll let you go fix something. Isn’t that what you do on Sundays?”
Callie headed straight to her computer, driven by the force that was known as Brian. Let’s see, she only had another eight hours until she was supposed to meet him here. God, this was lame. “Yeah, I do, but I think today I’m going to try and research some stuff for the article. I’m too tired to break out a power tool.”
“Okay, you do that. I’m going to go wake up whatshisname and send him packing. Bye, sweetie.”
Callie chuckled as she hung up. She envied Katherine sometimes, her easy attitude about her sexuality. Callie couldn’t even imagine waking up next to someone she’d labeled whatshisname.
She’d forgotten to turn off her computer last night and the instant message box was still staring her down. Scrolling her mouse over it she cringed as she reviewed her conversation with Brian.
Had she told Brian she’d kiss him? Well, it was true—she would—slut that she was. It was far too easy to be brutally honest in written words for someone like her. Oh, crap, she’d said plenty last night, fallen right into mercenary man’s hands. Sigh…did she really say she was sighing? Of all the girlie things she could do. But she had been sighing and smiling and tingling from head to toe.
Whatever. She wasn’t hurting anyone by taking a moment’s pleasure for herself, even if it was probably all just one big pile of bullshit.
Callie reread Brian’s words. Was it bullshit? Her bullshit-ometer was always off kilter. She’d never been able to tell when Frank was yanking her crank. How could she possibly be held responsible if she’d read Brian wrong?
It was simple. Callie wanted to believe Brian was real. She wanted that more than anything else she’d wanted in a long list of wants and she had no rhyme or reason for it. His words were sometimes playful, sometimes serious and the combination of them made Callie swoon. There’d been a time or ten last night when she thought she might fall off her chair for the dizzy, heady, sensations Brian’s words evoked. Brian made her think about the things she wanted in life and then he set about making her feel them.
Sexy Lips 66 Page 8
