Читать книгу Virtually Perfect - Samantha Hunter - Страница 10

RAINE DASHED THROUGH her apartment door and almost dropped the pizza she’d grabbed on the way home. She was giddy with nerves. She didn’t want to think about why the change in her decision to talk to Rider tonight had such an effect on her mood. After all, she was just going to talk to him. If anything didn’t hit her right, she would call it quits and that would be that. She would remain in control of the situation.

Forgetting the pizza on the entry table, she made a beeline to her computer and logged on. Connection time was slow, and she jittered on the sofa, wiggling her fingers in the air over the keys, going crazy waiting for the screen to tell her she was ready to go. “C’mon, c’mon!… There, good!”

A few quick keystrokes and she was in. She looked at the list of players logged in, and his name was not there. Damn!

She fell back against the cushions, closed her eyes, and let out a frustrated breath. It was only seven; it was early yet. She thought about the pizza, but wasn’t hungry now. She put a hand over her eyes. Was she crazy? Maybe it was better this way; maybe she had made the wrong decision. This could be her reprieve. Then she peeked through two fingers and sneaked a look at the screen, smiling widely.

“Wake up, hot stuff. You beat me here. Your e-mail made my day.” I kiss you warmly.

Raine watched the cursor blink, and felt as she typed that every line was rewriting her life in ways she couldn’t even imagine. She hoped it was for the better.

I kiss you back.” You’re pretty easy to please.”

“Generally. But you seem particularly good at it.”

Raine held her breath, and typed, before she could change her mind.

“We need to talk more about what we want out of this whole thing.”

“Well, how can we know until we meet? Maybe nothing, maybe we end up married with five kids, who knows?”

Raine felt her jaw tense, and responded bluntly.

“You see, that’s it, Rider. I don’t want a house and five kids. I don’t want anyone pushing me. That is why I‘m not sure this is a good idea.”

“Okay, well, I wasn’t proposing marriage there, just saying that we can’t possibly know what we want, or what this will be.”

Raine pressed on, screwing up the courage to say what she really meant.

“Yes, we can—we can say what we want it to be, we can say what we will do, and what we won’t—what things are possible, and what things are not. So there are no unreasonable expectations, and no one gets hurt.”

“Okay, not getting hurt is good. So you want rules?”

“I suppose…sort of. Yes.”

“What rules do you want?”

Raine considered, and typed slowly.

“All right. First of all, maybe both or either of us may not be interested right away. At that point, maybe we have a nice dinner and part ways.”

“Okay, I’d say that’s a given.”

“And if we do like each other, if we are just as attracted as we are here, we can just let it be what it is—it doesn’t have to get weighed down with all the emotional baggage, promises of forever.”

“Nilla, are you saying you only want to have a no-strings relationship?”

“Are you saying that you wouldn’t be interested in that?”

Jack sat back and thought. What was she offering him? No-strings sex if they hit it off? Or was she saying it could never lead to anything else? Something itched at the back of his mind, and he turned cautious.

“Nilla, are you married? Or involved in some way that would keep you from having a committed relationship with me?”

“Oh no…no! Geez, Rider, do you think women can’t pursue simple, uncomplicated lives? I am just saying, you and I can avoid messy emotional entanglements. Because we have met here, and we have already shared so much…I just think we should be clear about our expectations.”

Jack considered that. He wasn’t in love with her, he knew that. But he was intrigued by her, and he thought there was more than sex going on between them. Less than love, more than sex. Something in between. That seemed to be what she wanted. He wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He wasn’t looking for commitment, either, though he was open to the possibilities.

“I think I understand. We can see if we are even attracted to each other, and go from there, gorgeous.”

“You don’t know if I am gorgeous or not. I could look like a frog.”

That had crossed his mind. He didn’t think so, but no matter what reptile, bird or fish she might resemble, if she could do half the things to him in real life that she could online, it would be worth finding out.

“Mmm. I like frogs. Especially their legs. Very tasty.”

“Well, then, I suppose we have to talk about this, set something up?”

“I guess for starters, what is your real name, Nilla?”

“Let’s not share too much here—we can find out names and those kinds of details when we meet. Tell me what you’ll wear, so I can recognize you. We can meet at a restaurant or something. Plus, I may bring a friend, if you don’t mind.”

Jack felt a stab of disappointment, but realized she was going by the book, and he was glad for it. It was smarter not to share names just yet or share any physical details about herself. Anyone could easily locate you that way, or simply go about prying into your life.

“Sounds good. I’m thirty-four, about six foot, one-ninety, and I’ll wear jeans, a brown leather jacket and a Red Sox cap. That’s pretty much what I wear everywhere. Friends are fine. Maybe I’ll bring one, too. Your turn.”

Raine stared at the screen and felt her mouth go dry, her imagination filling in the rest of the details. So far, this was sounding very, very good. And he hadn’t balked at meeting in a public place, or with friends—that was a good sign. Then she laughed.

“Okay, well. I just turned thirty-two last month. I don’t know what I’ll be wearing, but I’ll put a rose in my hair, so you’ll know me that way.”

“When? Make it soon.”

Raine smiled at the sexual intensity he could communicate in so few words, and began to feel a deep sense of anticipation soak into her, right to the bone.

“Yes, soon. But I don’t even know where you live. Red Sox cap? Are you in the northeast?”

“Yep, live north of Boston. On the coast, just below Gloucester.”

Raine practically fell over in shock. They were neighbors! She’d figured he was in the same time zone because they were always online at the same times, but she hadn’t thought he would be that close. That could end up being either a very good—or a very bad—thing. For now she would go with it being good.

“Hey, looks like we’re neighbors. I live in Salem, a bit of a drive, but not too far.”

“Less than an hour’s drive. I commute to work every day, so that is no problem at all. I can leave now, be there by ten.”

Raine felt her heart pound and almost told him to come.

“Tempting as that is, I think we should wait. But this makes it more convenient, at least. I’m glad. I thought you might be far away.”

“It wouldn’t matter. I would come anyway.”

Raine shivered and took the leap.

“How about this Saturday night, seven, at the bar in La Luna, on Pickering Wharf. It’s a nice place but not too formal. Great food, if nothing else works out.”

“Okay. Let’s make it six—we’ll have a drink before dinner.”

Raine watched the words travel across the screen and could hardly believe it. They were going to meet, to really meet. In person. For real.

I stare into your luscious brown eyes. “Okay. So, in three days we’ll know.”

I pull you close to me. “It seems like forever. Are you sure you don’t want me to drive up tonight?”

I run my fingers through your hair. “No, I am sorely tempted, but this is probably a better idea. And remember, it is just dinner—we can opt out at any time.”

Jack knew it was the right thing, though he was so hot for her he could barely imagine not touching her, or making some of what they had shared a reality. But she was providing an out for him, too. Just in case. And when he got there, if things were good, who knew what could happen? He had a feeling about this; he was willing to just go with it.

“Agreed. Just dinner—unless you beg me to go back to your place and engage in illicit activities.”

“You never know. Maybe it will be you doing the begging.”

Jack smiled. Desire raced through his blood and flowed through his fingers out into the words.

“I’d beg for you, Nilla, you can count on it. I’d like to drop to my knees in front of you, kiss your feet, taste the skin on the back of your knee, and then work my way up, slowly, taste you, run my tongue over you until you come with my mouth on you, until we are both begging. And that’s only the beginning.”

“Um, I am not sure this is a good idea….”

Raine swallowed, and tried to focus as her breath became shallow. The hunger she had been feeling for weeks was suddenly a little frightening. This wasn’t a game anymore; it was real. He was real. They were going to sit across a table from one another and have dinner and talk, and all that while they would both be remembering the secrets that had passed between them. She closed her eyes and tried to settle herself.

“Why not?”

“I don’t think we should really discuss this, considering…”

“Nilla, tell me how you feel, how your body feels right now….”

Raine tried to think, and quell the heat pounding through her bloodstream. She wanted to back off, and knew she should, but sheer desire weakened her. She knew what she wanted, and reached down for the courage to ask him for it.

“Rider, your number. Give me your number.”

“What?”

“Your phone number, Rider, tell me. I’ll call you. I need to…hear you.”

Jack was shocked speechless as he contemplated her request. No, not a request, a demand. The idea of actually talking to her stole his breath, and he didn’t bother thinking about it, but just responded.

“Oh, yeah, sweetheart, yes. Here.”

Jack typed in his cell phone number.

“I’ll call you in a little while. I just want to shower and change out of my work clothes.”

Work clothes? He smiled knowingly, pure masculine satisfaction pooling in his heart. She had come directly to find him. He acknowledged her message, and signed off.

His house was suddenly incredibly still and quiet, and he could hear his own heart pounding. The wind howled outside the windows, and minutes slowed down as if he was drugged, the feeling of waiting for the phone to ring weighing down on him. God, she had taken him by surprise.

She was changing. She was taking a shower. He closed his eyes and imagined the hot water running over her naked, soft skin. Then she would put on…what? His imagination nearly drove him mad. By the time the phone rang, he had imagined her in everything from black dominatrix leather to pink lace—and then in nothing at all. His mind went still. He pressed the talk button, and was relieved to discover his voice actually worked.

“Nilla.”

Raine thought for sure she would pass out just hearing him say her name—well, her screen name, but the same difference. Low and smooth, it slid over her like hot lava, and she tried to sound calm in response.

“Hey, Rider.”

Her voice was like whiskey, hot and golden. He closed his eyes and let it ease over him for a moment before speaking again.

“It’s much like I imagined it would be.”

“What’s that?”

“Your voice.” He settled more comfortably into the chair, and smiled into the phone. “When we talked online, some times I imagined I could hear you, but the real thing is a million times better.”

Raine smiled. “It is. I love hearing you too.” She took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. “This is pretty intense.”

“Something tells me it’s about to get even more intense, Nilla.”

Raine felt weird being called by her pseudonym, and almost caved to the temptation to tell him her real name, but held back. That could wait. For now, this was good. She laughed, and almost didn’t recognize the husky, sexy sound of her own voice.

“Could be.”

“Um, Nilla, not to be too cliché, but exactly what did you change into?”

She laughed. “Rider, are you actually asking me what I am wearing?”

He laughed, too, a warm, husky, sexy laugh.

“You bet I am. You can’t leave a guy hanging like that and not expect him to go half-mad with wondering. Tell me, Nilla.”

Raine looked down, and nervously smoothed her hand up and down over her thigh.

“It’s no big deal…usually when I get home from work I shower and change into my comfortable clothes.”

“Tell me about them.”

Raine smiled, and shook her head. This was crazy. She had thought calling him might add the edge of reality and stem the passion that was quickly getting out of control online.

She couldn’t have been more wrong. Voice to voice, they were spontaneously combusting. She took a breath, and spoke, feeling a little silly, but pressed on anyway, remembering that Nilla would have no problem responding to this request.

“Flannel pajama shorts and a top. Cushy socks. Not exactly Victoria’s Secret, but soft, warm, and comfortable.”

Jack chuckled, intrigued by the thought of her cuddled in flannel, the cotton sliding against warm, soft skin, clean and smelling of soap and powder. The slight edge of shyness that came through her voice made him want to break through, to make her lose control and tell him what he wanted to hear.

“I wish I could smell you. I want to slide my hands along your skin, touching you. I want to know what secrets you are keeping under that flannel.”

Raine felt rather than saw the flush work its way over her body, his voice setting off pins and needles of passion on her skin. She tried to speak normally, but her breath caught, betraying her response.

“Rider, I think we should just talk, we probably shouldn’t…”

She could almost see his naughty grin as he spoke. “That’s what makes it so much fun, Nilla. Forget the shoulds and shouldn’ts for a minute. Just relax. It’s just me—Rider. Do something for me?”

“What?”

“Touch yourself—and tell me what you feel.”

Okay, 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.”