“Would you?”
This time, he was better prepared for her no-nonsense volley. “Do you play tennis?”
“God, no. What’s the point of doing all that running and never getting anywhere?”
“But you ran track in school?”
“Cross-country,” she corrected. “I’ve never been good at staying inside the lines.”
“I can believe that,” he said. She laughed, and his dick perked up and took notice. “You’re awfully good at this.”
“At what?” she asked, all innocence.
“Keeping the conversation moving, never lighting for very long on one subject. Particularly not when the subject is you.”
He’d swear it wasn’t possible, but her voice dropped even deeper. “Oh, you’re wrong. I’m my favorite subject. Ask me anything.”
Emboldened by her straightforward play, he drove straight to the goal. “What do you do about it?”
“About what?” Her voice rose on a coy note, letting him know she wasn’t the least bit confused by his line of questioning.
“You said my voice makes you hot. When we hang up, do you…handle things?”
“Sometimes I don’t wait until we hang up.”
Zero to one hundred in a split second, he was feeling turbo-charged. “Christ almighty, woman.”
“You asked.”
She lobbed those two little words back at him. A chance and a dare. Now, after weeks of keeping things friendly, comfortable, and strictly aboveboard, she was changing the game and challenging him to play along. Without allowing himself a chance to think better of his actions, he opened the knot on his towel and tossed the now-stifling terry cloth open wide. Blessed cool gusted from the vent above the bed, but the conditioned air offered little relief. Every ounce of restraint he’d cultivated dried up. His body pulsed as if he hadn’t jerked himself raw nearly every night since he’d left her. He was melting down at the core, and he was helpless to resist.
“Millie.”
Her soft sigh wafted through the phone. “You know, I’ve always hated my name.”
He swallowed hard, trying to come up with enough spit to form at least one more syllable. “Why?” he managed to croak.
“Well, it’s not exactly sexy,” she said with a husky laugh. “I’m named after my grandmother. Not much of a surprise. Aren’t too many women my age called Millicent.”
“I like your name. It suits you.”
This time, her laughter carried a sharp edge. “Wow. I know I’m a little older than you, but I’m not that old.”
“You aren’t old at all.” Whoa. The comment didn’t come out sounding like the compliment he intended. He took a breath and tried again. “I mean it suits your personality—a sharpshooter who’s not afraid to be flirty.”
“Like Annie Oakley.”
“Like you,” he retorted. “All woman. And a little all-knowing.”
He could almost hear the smile in her voice. “You mean Cassandra?”
“Stop trying to distract me.”
“As I said, you can ask me anything you want.” The unmistakable sound of bedsheets rustling sent his heart rate soaring, but her breathy chuckle kicked down the last of his defenses. “Make sure you ask me in your superhot voice though. Oh, and say my name. A lot,” she added as if he’d need the extra coaching. “I like the way you say it.”
“Do you want me, Millie?”
“I think we both already know the answer.”
“No deflecting,” he admonished. “I want to hear you say you do.”
“You’ve heard me say so before. I like you. I want you. When you come back with those precious divorce papers in hand, I’m going to do things to you. I’m gonna make you cross-eyed.”
“You’re a big talker.”
“The biggest,” she boasted. “Now, ask what you really want to ask.”
“Are you touching yourself?”
“Of course.” She panted softly. “Are you?”
Her unabashed answer coupled with the hitch in her voice turned his dick hard as titanium. He wrapped his hand around the stiff length and groaned out loud. “God, I haven’t let myself. Not while we were talking.” He ran his palm lightly over the head of his cock, then gave himself a hard stroke. “I wanted to, but I didn’t want to make things…weird.”
“But you are now,” she coaxed.
“Yes.”
He hissed the word, torn between pleasure and the strange impulse to deny himself, just to prove he could withstand the force of wanting her.
“You remember when you were telling me about going to Greece?”
His stroke faltered. For the love of everything holy, he had no idea why she would bring this up now. Closing his eyes, he moved his hand faster, setting the ruthless pace he liked. “Yes, I remember telling you about Greece.”
“I came when you were telling me about the lagoon,” she whispered. “I kept picturing you swimming. The clear turquoise water. White sand. You, brown as a nut and bare naked. All long and lean and…wet.”
“Jesus.” He gritted his teeth and slowed his strokes as he searched his lust-hazed memory. “I never told you I swam naked.”
“Hey, my fantasy. I want you naked, I get you naked.”
He’d also told her about the day he’d tried to outswim his grief over the end of his career, and she winnowed it down to him frolicking naked in the ocean. “Swimming naked. That’s what you took from that story?”
“I understood the larger picture, but I have to admit, the image stuck with me.”
“I was. I did.” Frustrated by his stammering, he cleared his throat and tried again. “I did swim naked.”
“Were you alone?”
“Yes.”
The shush of fabric brushing over the phone muffled her voice. “Too bad. I was hoping for pictures.”
Her brassy response coaxed another laugh out of him. One night, he’d keep count, but not tonight. Tonight, after weeks of toeing the imaginary line, they were jumping right over it. “I know this might be hard to believe, given my ex-wife’s tendency toward exhibitionism, but I’ve always been a pretty private person.”
“Skinny-dipping in the Greek isles aside,” she interrupted.
Ignoring the bait, he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’m also pretty low tech. I think I’ve taken maybe a dozen pictures with a phone in my whole life.” He paused, watching his hand glide over his stiff dick as
