“I’m great now that I’m talking to you. How was your day?”
If Callie could only tell him about her date with John the coupon king, she’d beg him to save her from the knuckleheads of the world. “It was okay. How about yours?” Callie curled up on her bed and snuggled her favorite pillow, wallowing in the sound of his voice as he told her about what his day entailed. As Callie listened to Brain talk, she wandered out into the kitchen and flipped on her porch light to check her mail. A white package was sticking out of the top of her mailbox. Opening the door, she flipped the lid open and pulled it out. When she saw the label, she squealed. “Oh!”
“What?” Brian asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing, I’m sorry. I was checking my mail and when I saw what I got it made me happy, that’s all.”
“What did you get that makes you that excited?”
Callie blushed and sighed. “My stuff from Victoria’s Secret. I know, I know, you’re gonna laugh at me, but all I can say is my heart skips a beat when something I’ve ordered comes in.”
Brian’s voice became husky, “What did you order?”
Um, stuff…girlie stuff that no one but me will ever see. “Um…”
“C’mon,” he coaxed, “tell me. I wanna know.”
“Well, panties and more thigh-high nylons as if I really needed anymore of those,” Callie giggled, giving not a single thought to the fact that she was discussing her underwear.
“Ahem, I just had a visual,” he chuckled.
The words shot out of Callie’s mouth before she could suck them back in. “Of what?” she wondered innocently.
“Are you sure you wanna to know?”
Callie flopped back on her bed and said, “Yes. I wanna know.”
“It was of you in those thigh-highs.”
Oh.
Oh, oh, oh.
Callie’s mouth was instantly dry. “Of me? I didn’t mean to—well, I wasn’t thinking you would say…” What the fuck was she thinking he would say?
Brian laughed, low and gravelly. “I’m going to tell you something truthfully, Callie, you do stuff to me that no other woman ever has.”
Like? Callie didn’t say anything for a moment and then her words came out in a rush, reminding Brian that she was just average. “It’s not really all that exciting—I mean me in my—my—thigh-highs. I’m pretty average, Brian.”
“You know what, sweet pea? You remind me of that a lot and I’m not sure why, but I’m gonna remind you again that there’s nothing average about you and the visual I have of you in those thigh-highs is anything but average.”
“Well, quit creating visuals that don’t exist, Mr. Benson. I really am average. I’m not fat and I’m not skinny—very middle of the road,” she teased softly. Yes, that described Callie. Middle of the road. On the road to middle-aged in the middle of the road.
“No, Callie, you’re not middle of the anything and the idea of you in those thigh-highs is making me nuts right now.”
Nuts…no one had ever expressed these thoughts to her before. Not like this and it sent a rush of heat between her legs, leaving her panties damp. “I think I can’t breathe,” she said quite honestly, breathlessly. “No one has ever said anything like that to me—before…”
“Then I’ll be the first to tell you that just the thought of you—it doesn’t even have to be the thought of you in thigh-high nylons—makes me hot as hell and I’m not ashamed to tell you, Callie.”
Callie stopped thinking about anything but the sound of Brian’s voice and the tumultuous wave of awareness that swept over her, sinfully forbidden, carnally sweet.
“And if you want to know all of the things I think about, I’d be happy to tell you.” Brian’s voice was intoxicating, pulling Callie into a cocoon of sexuality that wrapped around her and insulated her from everything but the strong pull of desire.
Callie licked her lips and whispered, “Tell me…”
“All of it?” he questioned softly in her ear.
“Y—yes.”
Brian’s’ voice grew softer still, lulling her with his slow, southern drawl, “When I look at your picture, Callie I can almost taste your lips, soft and sweet. The thought of them on mine makes me so hard I can’t think straight. I want to hear you say my name when I make you come because your voice makes me harder still. That’s all it takes, Callie, just hearing your voice over the phone, sexy and low, and I’m hard. I want to see those silky pajamas you talked about. I want to take them off of you and feel your skin against mine. I want to slide your panties off and run my tongue over every inch of your skin. I want to touch you everywhere and I want you to touch me back. I want to know every single thing that turns you on. I want to hear what my body does to yours. When I look at your picture and I see your eyes, I want to know what they’ll look like when I’m inside of you.”
Callie gripped her sheets with a clenched fist as her breath came in choppy gasps for air. She had no words for Brian, it seemed she never did, but she wanted those things too, more than she’d ever wanted any other man—and it was only a phone call.
“Would you let me do those things, Callie? If we were together now? Would you let me show you how much I want you?”
Callie ran her tongue over her lips, dry and desperate to feel Brian’s against them. “Yes, Brian…I don’t know why this is happening, but yes…”
“It’s happening because we’re connected, Callie. I don’t know why and I don’t know how. I only know that someday we’ll make love and when we do it’ll be nothing like either of us has ever experienced.”
Callie was silent because there were no words. To literally feel this man against her, near her was insane, but Callie could feel him or as close as one could when several hundred miles separated them.
“Did I scare you, Callie? That’s not what I want to do. I don’t ever want you to be afraid of me. I always want you to tell me whatever it is that you want, but I never want to scare you with my words. I’m not ashamed to say them, but I know they scare you.”
Her chest tightened in fear because she couldn’t explain what she wanted, but there was one thing Callie did know, she would never be afraid of Brian. “No, Brian…I’m not afraid of you. I’m just not very good at what seems to come so easily for you, but I want you to know that…that I feel it too…”
“Why is that? That you have so much trouble expressing yourself,” he prodded her with a gentle nudge.
Callie shook her head wordlessly. For so long she’d stifled her need to communicate with Frank that it became a wall she just couldn’t climb over. She froze up, the words she wanted to share stayed lodged somewhere between her brain and her mouth. Callie hadn’t always been like this, but over time, when if saying the wrong thing meant Frank blowing up, or leaving, Callie learned to keep a tight seal on her thoughts and that’s where they stayed. Sealed up where they refused to dislodge. “I don’t know, Brian. I just freeze up and there are boundaries I have—while maybe all in my head—they’re very real to me and I can’t cross them. It’s the best way I know how to explain it.”
“But you can write them. Huh?”
“Yeah, I can.”
“Well you know what, sweet pea?”
“What?”
“Don’t worry about it. I promise you, there’ll come a time when you’ll be able to again, and I want to be the first person to hear it.”
Callie smiled. “You just want to hear me talk dirty to you.”
Brian laughed, “Yep and now that you’ve gotten me all hot and bothered I’m going to take a shower—a cold one and you’re going to go to bed.”
“Okay, Brian. Night. Sweet dreams.”
“Only of you. I’ll call you tomorrow. Bye, Callie.”
Callie said goodbye and again, Brian chuckled as he hung up, warming Callie’s insides which were already smokin’ hot to begin with.
As she ran through Brian’s words in her head, Callie tingled from head to toe. Brian had wicked thoughts about her.
Her?
She was turning into quite the diva these days.
Holy vixen in the making.
Chapter 11
Katherine picked at her salad as she and Callie talked about work over lunch. Tyler had been in checking on Callie’s progress and she smiled smugly at him and showed him her Heavenly Hook Ups inbox. Never one for praise, Tyler cocked an arrogant eyebrow at her and reminded her to stay on budget.
She and Katherine were busily calling him names behind his back when Callie’s inbox chirped with a new message.
It was from Brian. She sighed, then grinned, clicking it open.
To: [email protected]
From: BrianSOF
Subject: Hey, sweet pea
I was thinking about you just now and I thought I’d tell you that. Talk to you tonight.
Brian
Their nightly phone calls were beginning to be a reason for Callie to look forward to going home every night. They filled her evening hours with conversations like she’d never experienced. They filled her loins with a couple too.
Another sigh escaped her lips and Katherine honed in on it.
“What is that about, miss?” Katherine wiped her lips, careful not to smudge her lipstick.
“What?” Callie said distractedly.
“That Marilyn Monroe sigh.”
Callie rolled her eyes at the Marilyn Monroe reference, thinking she’d had the same thought not long ago where Brian Benson was concerned. “Nothing,” she said reluctantly.
“Bullshit. Nothing you don’t sigh over. It’s when it’s something you sigh. So give me the scoop.” Katherine’s blue eyes were inquisitive and single minded.
Callie shrugged. “It’s just an e-mail. No big deal.”
“From whom?”
She shifted her eyes back to her computer monitor. Brian, Brian, freakin’ Brian Benson! Damn it all. “Brian…”
Katherine’s eyes were now aglow with the light of the hunt. Callie being the prey she had in mind. “Brian who?”
“Benson…”
“That’s a huge help, lamb chop. Where is he from?”
“Arizona…”
“Really? When were you last in Arizona, Miss Tumbleweed?”
“Never.”
Katherine nodded her head. “Exactly. Spill.”
“He’s just someone I met.”
“Where?”
“What is this, the Gestapo? Jesus, Katherine.”
“No, this is Katherine the always watching Callie’s ass. Spill it,” she said as she came to stand behind Callie’s office chair and look at her computer.
Callie wasn’t quick enough to click her inbox closed.
“Ahhh, wait, Brian…I think I recall you mentioning him. He works in Iraq, right?”
“So?”
“So what are you doing with him and how did you meet him?”
Callie sighed. You couldn’t hide from Katherine. “I met him on Heavenly Hook Ups.”
“That date site you’re researching?”
“Sorta…”
“Okay, tell me everything. That you haven’t told me everything is a clear indication this has meaning and save the bullshit about it being research. Mitch was research, Brian is a whole different ball of wax from the sounds of that sigh. Now, tell me.”
Callie didn’t want to share Brian yet. Not until she knew where this was going. If it was going…but telling Katherine meant she had someone to bounce her fears off of. “We began by e-mailing and then he called me and we’ve been talking a lot.” A lot was an understatement.
“Lemme see a picture of him.”
“Oh, alright. No comments, hear me?” Callie insisted as she clicked on her files and brought up the picture of Brian from the site.
Katherine gasped. “He has a gun. A big gun. Is he in the military?”
“Yes, he has a gun and no, he’s not in the military.”
Katherine looked closer at her computer and her expression softened. “Wow, he’s a hottie. Now explain the gun.”
“Um. He’s a mercenary.” Callie winced as she said the word. She could hear Katherine before word one came out of her mouth. Leave it to Callie Winston, to find of all things, a mercenary. A nice, quiet dentist was just out of the question.
“A mercenary.”
“Yep.”
“Like the kind that kill people.”
“Are there any other kind?”
“Don’t be a smart ass, Cal.”
“Okay.”
“Callie! How did this happen? He’s a mer—cen—ary!”
Callie nodded and wrinkled her nose. “I know. So what? I understand why he does what he does.”
Katherine rubbed her fingers together. “Money, baby. That’s why he does it. So he can have a big fat account in the Cayman Islands.”
“No, Kath. It isn’t just the money. As a matter of fact, I don’t know that it’s the money at all. It’s got to do with his sense of what’s right and just. It’s about people, Katherine, not just money.”
“Yeah. I’m sure it is. Look you’d better watch yourself,” Katherine warned tightly.
“Why?” Callie yelled. “He doesn’t whack housewives for a living, Katherine!”
Katherine rolled her eyes. “Oh, fine. Okay, I’ll give him that and he’d better not be thinking about whacking you or I’ll kick his mercenary ass from here till Sunday.”
Callie smiled at her friend’s overprotective tendencies as she turned and said, “Katherine? Who’s getting a little nuts here?”
“You have to admit, darling, it’s a scary job.” Katherine shivered and ran her hands over her arms.
Yeah. Callie could admit that. It was a very scary job and if she continued in the vein she was, it was something she’d have to consider. For now, she and Brian weren’t doing anything but talking on the phone. Yes, that was it, talking—they were just talking. Sorta intense like. “Yes, Kath, it’s scary.”
“Are you sure he’s telling you the truth?”
Callie scoffed, “Don’t you think that would be kind of hard to fake with pictures like that?” Callie pointed to the screen.
Katherine’s face lightened. “Okay, so it’s dusty and barren. It would be hard to fake. You’re probably right,” Katherine conceded with an unwilling tone. “Forgive my skepticism, but you have to admit it’s a rather unusual job. What attracted you to someone like this, Cal and what happened to this is just a column?”
Callie had no words for why Brian appealed to her on so many levels. He was so much of so many things she couldn’t begin to define it. “I don’t know, Kath. I met him quite by accident. It just happened in the midst of all of this research. I can’t explain why his e-mail affected me and the others didn’t. Brian just is. He’s funny and smart and genuine, I think. I want to think that anyway. I can’t describe it and I know, being a writer, those words should come easily, but they don’t. He makes me feel like I’m the only woman in the world and look at his picture, Katherine. Who wouldn’t find him attractive?”
Katherine nodded her agreement. “Yeah, he’s hot alright and he’s doing something for you I never saw happen with Frank—he can’t be all bad, I suppose.”
Callie’s smile was melancholy when she answered Katherine. “No. Frank never made me feel this way, not even once. Brian expresses himself in a way I’ve never before experienced. He just says what he feels and if it’s true, it’s refreshing. You know I’m not good with words. I can’t always tell you how I feel verbally, but I can on paper.”
Katherine snorted. “Yeah, that was a helluva birthday card last year. Had me sobbing like a baby. So he talks to you, really talks to you?”
“Umm hmmm. I think so, anyway, either that or he’s the best damn bullshit artist I’ve ever met. He’s the total package—he’s all the lingo that seems so popular in the dating scene today. I’ve connected on every level with him. Brian talks about everything, holds nothing back. The words are—are—sometimes intense and sometimes playful and he knows exa
ctly when to fill in the blanks for me.” Callie shook her head, “I can’t—”
“Explain it,” Katherine provided. “I see that. He has you a little verklempt, this mercenary. He’s also very lucky to have you—or whatever it is you two are doing. Does he know that, Callie? How rare a woman you are? How funny and warm and wonderful you are?”
Callie looked down at her folded hands. Compliments weren’t something she accepted well, maybe because those words weren’t what she felt on the inside. “I’m not all of those things, Katherine. I’m scarred and afraid and well… afraid. All of these things I’m feeling right now are scaring the shit out of me. It’s so intense. I didn’t feel like this with Frank, Katherine and I was married to him for ten years. If Frank didn’t see those things, then you just see me with rose colored glasses.”
Katherine knelt in front of Callie and gripped her hands in her own. “No, honey. I see you the way everyone else sees you—it’s only you who doesn’t see it. Frank was a pig. He didn’t see anything because you can’t when you’re so damn selfish you look at your own reflection in your silverware. Frank couldn’t appreciate you because he appreciates him and nothing else. You’re a wonderful woman, Cal. You couldn’t be my friend if you weren’t. I don’t have friends who aren’t and you deserve the best things life has to offer. This Brian better appreciate that, though it kind of sounds like he already does.” Katherine said begrudgingly as she stood up and looked at Brian’s picture again. “He is lickable, so maybe I can forgive his profession as long as he doesn’t hurt you.”
“He sure is…” Callie’s voice trailed off and her thoughts strayed right back to where they always did when she thought of Brian.
Booty, booty, booty.
Katherine chuckled. “I’m actually happy to see you this wrapped up in someone. I wasn’t sure if you’d ever give anyone else a chance. It’s kinda cute, honey bunny. So you guys haven’t met I take it? This is all just from phone calls?”
Callie nodded her head and bit the end of her pen. “Just from phone calls and some e-mail and an instant message or two. He lives in Arizona. He’s originally from Mississippi.”
“Oooh, a farm boy. Bet he knows a thing or two about hay.” Katherine grinned wickedly at her and snickered.
Sexy Lips 66 Page 14
