Chapter 7
SEVEN
CALLUM
She didn’t call me, but she did email through proposed travel details and another extortionate invoice. I read the email, scowled, and picked up the phone.
Her voice was slightly breathless, but still full of snark. “Let me guess. You want to make some changes?”
“You didn’t call me when you got home, Deena,” I chided.
“No,” she agreed. “I decided that our relationship has grown murky, and I should put up some professional boundaries.”
“I see.” I stood up and walked to the windows lining the wall of my office to shake off some of the twisting need growing in my stomach. I wanted to throw her over my knee and punish her for her impertinence. “Your date didn’t walk you to your door?”
“See, that right there?” Deena said. “That’s inappropriate. We’re business associates, Mr. Frost.”
“What if I like it when you fight with me?”
“I would encourage you to explore that in therapy.”
I huffed a laugh. “No one else pushes back the way you do. Today, of all days, I need that, sweetheart.” I clamped my lips shut, because I’d said too much.
The leash had slipped, and I’d given away more than I wanted.
Bracing myself for a cutting remark, I gritted my teeth and glared at the cold night outside.
She was quiet for a beat. When she spoke again, her voice was different. Softer. “Is everything okay?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed them with my thumb and forefinger. I would have preferred snark and derision. I would have preferred she hang up on me.
But that wasn’t really true, was it?
Everything was fine, and everything was terrible. But how could I explain that? Why would I explain that? Better to put up walls and keep everyone out. Make sure I was in control of every outcome, so I could guard against disaster.
Except I couldn’t control everything, could I? I couldn’t control Erica’s cancer. I couldn’t control Lila’s safety every moment of the day. I couldn’t control Deena.
Maybe that was why I found myself telling her the truth. “My sister’s sick. Breast cancer.”
“Oh,” Deena said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not—” I bit off the sentence, not sure what I was trying to say.
My heart thumped strangely, and my office felt empty and echoing.
I was alone in the world, responsible for my sister, my niece, my employees, my future…
the weight of it felt particularly heavy today.
And Deena was Deena. Unflappable and stubborn and addictive.
It felt good to tell her something that I wouldn’t tell anyone else.
“She’s doing well,” I finally finished. “Her bloodwork is good. It’s just…”
“There are no guarantees,” Deena finished quietly.
“Exactly.”
“Bet that drives you nuts,” she added, a sardonic note dancing at the edge of her tone.
I walked to the small bar cart and dropped a couple of ice cubes in a glass. “And what’s that supposed to mean, Ms. Brand?”
“Back to last names,” she mused. “Here I thought you were starting to like me.”
I was starting to feel a lot of things for her—things I didn’t want to admit to her and definitely not to myself. But hearing her voice eased some of the tension that had plagued me all day. “You haven’t answered the question.”
“I was merely suggesting that a man such as yourself—”
“Expand on that, Brand. What’s a man such as myself?”
“A man who expects things done a certain way. A man who likes when people do as they’re told.”
I hummed, smiling down into my glass as I poured a couple of fingers of brandy. “I do enjoy when people do as they’re told, Deena. I’d like you to do as you were told, for once.”
She blatantly ignored the suggestiveness lacing my voice and cut to the heart of my problem.
“Right. So it must have driven you crazy to deal with the uncertainty and the lack of control that comes with serious illness.” The teasing tone left her voice, but it wasn’t replaced with pity. Only understanding.
Her empathy wrapped around me like a warm blanket.
The reality of my sister’s situation came rushing back, but it didn’t feel as all-encompassing and hopeless as it had just an hour ago.
Deena’s voice on the other end of the line had dragged me out of the depths of my darkness.
I wished she were here so I could inhale the scent of her perfume and feel the curve of her waist. I wanted to tell her more, like how hard I’d worked to get where I was, and how crazy it made me that she refused to work for me.
I wanted to tell her about my childhood and my fears, just to hear her humming in my ear again.
I’d lost my damn mind.
Desperate to get away from that writhing mass of emotion, I changed the subject. “What are you wearing?”
“Frost—”
“I’m just curious about what someone wears on a date with a podcaster.”
Her laugh was low and rueful. “Stop it. I wish I’d never told you that.”
So did I, because the last remnants of the burning, white-hot jealousy that had speared me when she told me she was on a date were still sitting like hot coals in my stomach.
But prodding them felt better than thinking about my family.
“Describe your shoes to me.” Had she worn heels on her date?
So another man could admire her legs, touch her waist, dream about her ass?
So another man could picture her splayed out on his bed? So another man could make her come?
“You are such a weirdo. If you’re happy with the travel arrangements I sent through—”
“Deena,” I cajoled. “Set work aside and talk to me.” I slumped down into an armchair and looked at the city. She was out there, somewhere, moving around her apartment while she stayed on the phone with me. I took a sip of my drink, relishing the burn as it went down.
Her sigh was quiet, but I heard it. A tiny capitulation that gave me the biggest thrill I’d felt since the first time she walked into my office. “I wore heels,” she admitted, “but I’ve taken them off. They were black satin with a peep toe. They kill my feet, and I wish I hadn’t worn them.”
She’d wanted to fuck him. She’d planned on it—and then she’d walked out when I called. My heart thumped. “And your hair?”
“What’s going on here? What are we doing right now?”
“I’m trying to paint a picture in my mind.”
“From the guy who keeps trying to get me to work for him,” she muttered.
“I’ve given up on that,” I answered. “I’ll settle for this.”
Her breath grew heavier, and I heard the rustle of cloth. I closed my eyes and took another sip. She was sitting or lying down. If I were there, I’d press her knees apart and run my hands up the insides of her thighs. I’d drink down her shivers and her sighs like they were my sustenance.
“My hair is down. I curled it.”
Another lance of jealousy speared through me. I’d never seen her hair down. I hummed, imagining how it would feel to wrap those strands around my fist and tug. How it would feel to hear her sigh and gasp.
“My dress is black. It’s simple, hits below my knee, and has a slit that shows off my thigh.
” Her voice was a quiet murmur, but I heard the hitch in her voice on the last word.
She inhaled, short and sharp, then spoke again in a steadier voice.
“I wore it with a leather jacket I thrifted years ago.”
“And under the dress?” I asked, voice so low I was surprised she could hear it.
Her breathing sped up, and I heard her swallow. “This is so wrong,” she whispered. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
My heart rattled, and I set my glass of brandy aside to press the heel of my palm against my throbbing cock. “I know.” My voice was a hard rasp.
“I can never work with you again if we do. I’ll have to strike you off my client list.”
If someone had told me even an hour ago that I’d sacrifice the best travel coordinator I’d ever worked with for a few minutes of phone sex, I would have laughed. Of course I would never do that. Nothing got in the way of my business, because it was the only area of my life where I truly thrived.
But Deena sounded breathless and needy, and she was the exact drug I needed to get my fix. “When’s the last time you touched yourself, Deena?” My voice changed and deepened, and when her breath gusted, I knew she liked it.
And I couldn’t lie; I liked it too. I liked the thought of this willful, obstinate woman giving in to me. I liked the thought of her alone, in her apartment, clenching her legs together because my voice drove her mad. Touching herself when I commanded her to. Coming when I gave her permission.
“Tell me.”
“Today,” she whispered. “Before my date.”
“Were you planning on sleeping with him?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“The truth, sweetheart.”
“Yes. Until I met him. Then I changed my mind.”
“Are you touching yourself now?”
She was quiet for a beat, then whispered, “Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me how you’re touching yourself.”
More rapid breaths. I pressed my palm against my cock as my blood thundered in my ears. Then, quietly, Deena said, “Over my panties. I’m lying on my back in my bed.”
“You wish I was there with you?”
“No. Yes. No.”
I chuckled, closing my eyes. “Slip your fingers into your underwear and tell me how wet you are.”
I could taste her embarrassment on my tongue, feel the way she resisted. Then there was a rustle. A heavy breath. A rush went through me; she was giving in.
I was so hard it ached all the way down to my knees.
Her voice sent another pulse through me. “Wet enough to—to slide inside.”
“Good girl,” I murmured, and I heard the catch in her breath at my words.
Another piece of the puzzle that was Deena fell into place, and I hummed.
She was stubborn and bratty and couldn’t help talking back—but she also liked being praised.
Liked being told how perfect and good and sweet she was. And she was perfect and good and sweet.
“I’ve been wanting you since the moment I saw you,” I admitted. “Since you walked in and made a fool of me. Wish I could lick the taste of you off your fingers.”
“Cal—”
“Keep touching yourself and think about how hard you make me. How much I want you, Deena. Want to feed you my cock while you hum for me.”
“And what makes you think I’d do that for you?” she asked. She was trying to sound tough—but she was panting.
“Because I’ll tell you to get on your knees and suck, sweetheart, and it’ll feel so good to obey. And I’ll tell you how perfect your mouth feels and how crazy you make me. I’ll wrap my fingers in that beautiful, wild hair of yours, and I’ll make you feel how much I want you.”
She whimpered. I clenched my fingers around my length, closing my eyes.
“Are you close, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Next time you go on a date with another man, you’ll be thinking of me.”
It wasn’t a question, but she answered anyway. “Yes.”
“And when I tell you to call me when you get home, you will.”
Her sigh was pure release. “Yes.”
“Come now, Deena. Let me hear the pretty noises you make when you’re wishing my cock was inside you.”
She did—and they were better than I could have expected. She moaned my name, desperate and needy and perfect. I exhaled, lightheaded, my hand still gripped around my cock through the fabric of my clothes.
Her breaths were hard and fast. If she were here, I’d thrust inside her and let her ride me to another orgasm.
I’d make her work for it, because she was a woman who didn’t give in easily.
I’d fuck her until she was mine. Until she forgot she hated me.
Until the only words she knew were yes and please and more. If she were here—
“Oh. My. God.” Deena’s voice shook. And then the line went dead.