“Say what?”
I can hear the smirk in his voice, the level of amusement I’m providing thick in his tone. It annoys me that he doesn’t take me seriously. That he thinks my life is some kind of charmed existence that doesn’t have a lot of substance.
He’s never said that, not to my face, anyway. I see it hidden in the depths of his sapphire-colored eyes sometimes.
He doesn’t have a problem with the volunteer work I do. He just thinks I should be doing something else, something that matters specifically to me. That pushes me. That drives me. And I don’t know how I feel about that.
“Don’t laugh at me, Dominic Hughes,” I warn.
“Or what, Camilla Landry? What will you do?”
I pause. “I don’t know.”
He just laughs harder. “I’m not laughing at you, babe. I’m laughing at how your sweet little voice tries so hard to break into a roar soon as you’re mad, but it can’t quite get there.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Then what are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“No, you do know,” he goads. “I hit a nerve. Say it, Cam. Tell me how you really feel.”
“You didn’t hit a nerve—”
“One of these days, you’re going to blow the fuck up, and I’m going to laugh my ass off.”
“What if I blow up at you?” I tease. “You won’t be laughing then.”
“Yeah, I will, and I can’t wait to see it. You’re all prim and proper, and then—boom! Here she comes.”
“I wish I was coming,” I hint, kicking off my shoes. “My body is so tight. I could use a good workout.”
A low rumble rolls through the line. The gravelly sound floods my veins like the lit end of a stick of dynamite. The fire scorches, burning up the fuse as it hits the center of my thighs. “Dom,” I whisper, clenching my legs together. “Stop it.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t have to.”
The line might be quiet, but it’s not still. It’s filled with an anticipation, a feeling that one of us might jump to action. With bated breath, I stare at the shaker of cinnamon on the counter that I forgot to put away at breakfast and wait for his next move.
“If I didn’t have to get up so damn early in the morning and head up north for a job, I’d be on my way over,” he promises.
“What would you do when you got here?”
It’s a loaded question, one that will only make it harder that he’s not here tonight. Not that he would be here all night anyway. He doesn’t sleep here. He won’t. He’ll come over, but I always wake up in my bed alone.
“I’d hope you’d be wearing that yellow silk robe that isn’t long enough to cover your ass,” he says, a grit to his voice that’s as smooth as it is rough. It reminds me of his hands—soft enough to caress, yet coarse enough to cause my body to fire on all cylinders. “I’d find you standing in the kitchen, watching porn on your phone.”
“No, you wouldn’t!” I giggle. “I don’t watch porn on my phone.”
“This is my little fantasy,” he teases. “Don’t interrupt.”
“Fine. Continue on,” I say, propping one leg up on a neighboring chair.
“I’d walk in behind you and almost lose it when I see you with your hand between your legs. Your head would fall back just a little as you moan like you do when you’re turned on. I’d wrap your hair, still wet from a shower, around my fist and tug your head back just a little more so I can bury my face in the crook of your neck.”
The whimper that passes my lips isn’t intentional, but I couldn’t deny it if I wanted to. The thought of his hands on my skin, his breath against my cheek, his cock rock hard and long against the small of my back, has me shifting in my seat.