“What are you wearing?” the words came out much more sexual than he had intended.

“What?” she giggled against the phone. “Cole Masten, I am not doing this with you.”

A giggle. That was new. He liked it. He ran his fingers down the length of himself, then wrapped his hand around it, squeezing his cock firmly. “I’m asking purely out of concern for Cocky. He’s never seen a naked woman before. I worry about his poultry hormones.”

“His poultry hormones?” her words were no longer muffled. She had probably rolled over. On her back. Her eyes staring up at him. “You don’t have to worry about Cocky. I’m not naked.”

“Oh.” He dragged his fist from the base of his dick to the head, his grip firm, an exhale of frustration over the day escaping. He should hang up the phone. Jack off and go to bed.

“I’m wearing underwear.”

His grip tightened, his cock now fully hard, sticking up and out of his hand. “Summer,” he groaned. He thought of her, stretched out in his bed, the covers kicked off, how she had looked in those tiny cotton panties. “And a tank top?” he asked.

“No.” she sighed out the response, hesitation in her next words. “I was hot.”

He pushed on the base of his dick, worried for an adolescent moment that he might nut right there. Was this actually happening? This conversation? This direction?

“I should go to bed,” she whispered out the sentence.

“No.” He closed his eyes and slid deeper in the chair, his feet spreading, his head falling back on the chair. “You shouldn’t.”

“This is wrong.”

“Summer.” The words were a painful distraction from the ache in his hand, and he slid his thumb over the head, a stream of pre-come leaking out, his eyes watching it. “My cock is rock hard, and all I can think of is you in my bed right now. Please don’t torture me by hanging up the phone.”

Her breath catching was the most beautiful sound in the world. “You’re thinking about me?”

“I’ve been thinking about you all day. I wish I were next to you. I wish you could reach over and feel me right now.”

“I’ve never done this, Cole. I don’t even know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. Just… touch yourself.” He closed his eyes and pushed against the floor, tightening his legs and working his hand up and down. “Have you ever touched yourself?”

“I’ve been single for three years,” she said tartly. “Bringing myself to orgasm is not a new thing.”

He laughed despite himself. “God, I’d love to fill up that smart mouth with my cock.”

“I wish… that morning…” He held his breath while he waited on her to complete the sentence.

“I wish you had done it. Had flipped me over and put your mouth on me.” There was the sound of sheets, and then her voice was clear again. “I’ve thought about that so much.”

Put your mouth on me. I’ve thought about that so much. Cole had been with countless women, Nadia one of the dirtiest talkers on the planet, but there was nothing as erotic as when this woman opened her mouth and spoke. Each shy admission was another bullet into the tissue paper of his self-control, and he cursed her name as his hips ground into the leather seat. “Tomorrow night,” he groaned, holding onto the chair with one hand while he jerked himself off with the other. “Stay at my house. The minute I get off that plane I will drive there, pin you down on my bed, and worship your pussy. I won’t stop until my mouth is imprinted on your mind and your taste is my fucking middle name.”

There was a small sound, a whimper that came from her mouth and found its way to his cock, and he yanked his hand away, gripping the chair’s arm and trying to stop, trying not to…

It didn’t stop. His cock twitched on its own, erect and fully upright, his come squirting once, twice, six fucking times before it settled down, his breath huffing out, the phone, held against his shoulder, falling down to his lap. His hands fumbled as he grabbed it, holding it back to his ear, gasping her name as the final shudders of his orgasm tingled through him.

His heart broke when he listened to her, her orgasm following so close behind his, her breath hard, his name soft, and he could picture her, twisting against the sheets, back arching, and he was almost hard again by the time she quieted, a long stretch of nothing on the phone line between them. He didn’t mind. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t consider what just happened and what it meant for everything else.

“Goodnight, Cole.” Her voice was quiet, and he needed a lifetime more of Summer to know what it meant—if this was post-orgasm sleepy Summer or weirded-out, awkward Summer or upset-about-to-cry Summer. He didn’t just need it. He wanted it. And that didn’t make sense.

He frowned into the phone and worked over the right thing to say, the right question to ask but the line clicked off and she was gone.

CHAPTER 75

His sheets smelled like him. I pushed the phone’s cradle over, to the far edge of the walnut side table, and considered lifting it back off the receiver. Letting the dial tone die and suffering through the beep beep beep madness until it ended. But that was a little egotistic, thinking he’d call back. And if I took the phone off the hook, then I’d never know if he did try to call back. I left the ticking time bomb on the edge of the table and rolled back into place, his sheets hot against my sweaty skin. Having orgasms did that to me. Amped up my personal temperature, the blood thrumming through my veins, making me hot—and not in the sexual sense, but in the literal, I-have-to-rip-off-these-clothes-before-I-die, sense.

I blinked up at the ceiling and sorted through my feelings. I already regretted what had just happened. I’ve been thinking about you all day. That was what he had said. He hadn’t meant it; it had been a tool in his belt—one he had used to perfection. I had taken that line and let it untie every loose knot of resistance. I rolled onto my stomach with an aggravated huff of air. So stupid of me. I didn’t need Cole to have an orgasm. I should have hung up with the first sign of flirtation and brought myself there without showing him my cards. Because that was what I’d done, right? Let him see how deeply, despite my hatred, he affected me? I skipped back through and tried to remember the things I had said in the weak moments of my surrender.

“I wish you had done it. Had flipped me over and put your mouth on me.”

Oh, right. That landmine. Why did I say that? And then… his response… had he actually meant that? That he wanted me to wait for him to arrive back in Quincy and he would… oh God. I covered my face with my hands, my legs twisting together in a wasted attempt at non-arousal.

I couldn’t do it. Absolutely not. That… that had been a mistake. One weak moment in the middle of the night. I would tell him that when he returned. But not at his house. On set, in a safe location, where there was no chance whatsoever that temptation might hit.

Yes. A plan. I burrowed my face into his pillow and—like a crazy stalker—inhaled deeply. I had lied to him on the phone; I didn’t try the downstairs bedroom first. I went in there, messed up the sheets a little bit, then scampered up the stairs, anxious to explore whatever secrets his bedroom might hold. I’d been disappointed. No secret love letters tucked under his mattress, no porn stacked by the DVD player. His clothes were neatly hung in the closet and folded in the drawers. It was almost boring. I had undressed and slid under his sheets, the dark gray set different than the Kirklands’, the material thick and expensive. I’d hugged one of his pillows to my chest and fallen asleep thinking of our kiss. Of the way he had tasted, of his fingers in my hair.