stop the bus!
She was not prepared for this! Nothing in thirty-two years prepared her for this onslaught of what she wanted to do, which was completely in conflict with what she didn’t know if she even could do.
He was asking her to share something wildly new, and for her, something incredibly daring. It had been easy online. This was different. Way different. She closed her eyes, and couldn’t think of a single way to respond. He spoke again.
“It’s all right—we’ll go at whatever pace you want. It’s just that you are driving me crazy. The sound of your voice.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“Nilla, don’t you know? You turn me inside out.” The words ground out of him and shocked her—frustration, desire, and control that came across clearly in his voice made Raine feel a bit faint. “Just hearing your voice has me close to coming, all I would have to do is touch myself. God, Nilla, tell me you want me to.”
Raine squeezed her eyes shut and almost dropped the phone, fumbling to catch it, and wished she had bought the speakerphone she had seen on sale a few weeks earlier. She was in a sexual twilight zone, nothing was real, and everything seemed to be magnified, every touch, every sound, every thought.
She pictured him as he existed in her imagination, sitting on the other end of the phone, needing her, wanting her. Fear and feminine power warred in her mind, and in her heart. She took a deep breath, and she let herself slide out of reality.
“Yes. Yes, Rider, I want you to touch yourself, to make yourself come. I want to help you, to be part of it.”
Jack slid one hand under the thick cotton of his robe, and let his head fall back on the chair as he slid his fingers over his swollen penis, rubbing his thumb over the dew that had accumulated at the head. He squeezed, sucking in a sharp breath, slowing himself down before it was all over too fast.
“Tell me, Nilla, talk to me…I’m aching for you….”
Raine turned off her light and quickly slid out of her clothes. She didn’t—wouldn’t—think about this. She just wanted to experience this moment of absolute letting go. She slipped back on her bed, not needing the covers. Her body was white hot and ready to go. She felt awkward as she spoke, but just said what she felt.
“I’m naked, Rider, I took my clothes off, and I’m on top of my covers, thinking of you and what you are doing. I wish I was touching you. I wish I could wrap my hands around you. Slide my mouth over you. I want to taste you.”
She heard no words in response, just a masculine groan of appreciation. Still a little unsure, but encouraged, she continued.
“I’m touching my knee, running my fingers over the hollows in the back. The skin there is smooth, and so amazingly sensitive…up the inside of my thigh…I’m so hot, Rider, I’m wet already…just thinking about you, what you are doing….”
“Jesus, Nilla, I want you, baby, please, I need this, don’t stop….”
“Tell me what you want, Rider, tell me where you want me to touch, where you would touch me.”
“Lick your fingers, make them wet, then run them over your stomach. Think of me kissing you there.”
She did as he said, and arched up toward the little paths of fire that danced along her skin, imagining his touch.
The small, kittenish sigh that traveled across the line made him smile, and he refocused, running his hand over himself slowly, imagining her hands, and what they were doing, what he could make them do.
“Nilla, cup your breasts, your beautiful breasts. Are they aroused?”
“Oh yes, Rider…oh, that feels so good. I want to come…come with me….”
“Hey, not so fast,” he purred into the phone, gaining control from her loss of it. “We have time…roll over on your stomach, Nilla.”
Almost drowning in swells of excitement, she mindlessly rolled over, and set the phone on the bed. She rested her head on the receiver, freeing her hands.
“There, Nilla?”
“Mmm, hmm.”
“Good…the blankets are so soft, so warm from the heat of your body. Imagine me, Nilla, behind you—I want to rub myself on you, slide my cock along where you’re melting for me. Do that, Nilla, touch yourself there, and think of me pushing inside, sliding into your heat. I’m so hard, so damned hard for you. I wish I could be inside you, Nilla.”
He was quickly losing the ability to talk at all, spurred on by her increasingly passionate sighs and moans. He heard her chanting his name into the phone, and pumped himself harder, faster, feeling the blood pool in his lower stomach, his body going taut as he neared the edge.
“Nilla, now…stay with me…I’m almost there, Nilla!”
She had never been so gloriously lost in her life, consumed by the voice on the phone, the hands on her body that barely seemed to be her own. She could only think of him, his voice, his hands, somehow at once bringing himself, and her, to pleasure, and she slid her fingers inside herself, finding the sensitive spot she knew would send her over, her cries filling the room and traveling over the line to touch him on the other side.
“Rider, yes…oooooh! Oh, God…”
Jack nearly dropped the phone as he listened to her give in to the throes, his taut body bowing as he fell sharply into his own release.
Raine smiled, listening to his guttural, animal sounds, wishing she could see his face right at the most intimate moment. She basked in hearing him lost in his own orgasm as the pulsing warmth of hers receded. Lying in the darkness, spent, her heart pounding against the softness of the cover, she murmured gentle encouragements, just sounds. His breath was still labored, then slowed; he was saying her name into the phone over and over again. Her body cooled, and she pulled the covers up over her, turning onto her back. She couldn’t stop smiling.
“Rider?”
“Mmm. Nilla. Not quite back yet, sweetheart.”
She smiled, and kicked her feet on the bed a little, feeling amazing and powerful and feminine. Her body felt wired and relaxed simultaneously, and she couldn’t believe she had just had phone sex—really, really amazing phone sex. She laughed delightedly, making him smile.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing… I just feel so incredible. That was so much fun—I have never done that before.”
“Me neither. You inspire me.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t meet, maybe we should just do this.”
“No way, Nilla—no way are you getting out of this. Not now.”
Jack lay back, eyes closed. His body was a mass of conflict, at once sated and yet begging for more—for her, for real. Three more days.
“Yeah. And if this thing works out, Nilla, as they say, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
4
RAINE WATCHED Gwen crease her forehead as she studied the tarot cards she’d laid out in front of her on the table. Gwen had arrived at the door to drag her out for lunch. Gwen’s hair was freshly colored with purple highlights and glitter eye shadow to match. Raine was just happy the Goth days were over; she preferred Gwen colorful and upbeat.
They sat in high-backed booth seats at a favorite diner overlooking Salem’s pedestrian mall, soup bowls and coffee cups pushed to the side while Gwen turned out cards. Raine looked out the partially fogged window, watching people scurrying in and out of shops, rushing to get their Christmas shopping done.
Everything was decorated and cheerful. The sun shone brightly off the snow, almost blinding her with the glare. She was meeting Rider tonight, and the brightness of the