Sixty-Four

Shaking back her hair, Stephanie pulled her robe around her and stepped back into her bedroom from the bathroom.  The soak in the hot tub followed by a shower had done wonders for her sore, aching muscles.  It was Friday, the roof was finally done and she didn’t have to pick up her hammer again until Monday. 

She glanced down at her hands, they were sorely in need of a little pampering.  Even with the work gloves she sometimes wore, calluses had formed and her skin was dry.  She grabbed her tube of lotion from the dresser as she made her way across the room.  Settling on the window seat she worked a dollop of lotion into her hands and glanced out at the evening sky.  It had been another warm day and tomorrow promised more of the same.  She wondered if she would ever get used to the Southern California weather.  New York in April?  You could almost count on a snowstorm at any given moment.  It never really got warm there until late May, usually.

She put the tube of lotion back in her dresser and was just re-settling on the window seat when Nickelback’s Never Gonna Be Alone starting playing from her phone.  She had made it Richie’s ringtone almost immediately after she first heard the song.  

You're never gonna be alone
From this moment on, if you ever feel like letting go,
I won't let you fall...
You're never gonna be alone
I'll hold you 'til the hurt is gone.

Grabbing her phone from the night table, she settled back against the pillows on the window seat.  “Hey you.”

“Hey yourself, sweetheart.”  Damn if her sweet voice didn’t have him wishing his 30 days were done already.   Two more weeks to go he reminded himself.  “How are you this fine Friday night?”

She smiled.  He sounded so much more relaxed than when he first got there.  “I’m good.  Really good now.”

Richie stretched out his long legs and propped his feet up on the balcony railing.  This had become his favorite spot to have his nightly conversations with his girl.  Though they had missed last night’s.  They just couldn’t seem to connect at any time last night.  They would make up for it tonight.  He’d make sure of it.  “So what did you do that was fun and exciting today.  Or yesterday?”

She dropped her head forward and rolled it from shoulder to shoulder thinking about her day.  “Over the last two days I helped tear off and re-shingle a roof.” 

“That sounds neither fun nor exciting sweetheart.”  At least not to him, but he knew her “job” made her happy.

She laughed.  “It was and it wasn’t.  It’s been so damn hot that being up on the roof was like working in a sauna all day.  But I survived and did a darn fine job of laying shingles too.” 

“I’m sure you did.” 

When he didn’t say anything more she pressed on.  “I also got a call from Heather and ended up leaving early the other day to pick up Ava.  We have a date tomorrow,”

“Yeah?  That’s great.”  He knew this would be hard for her and he was glad she was making an effort.  “I’m glad you two are getting to know each other.  How was Heather on the phone with you?”  The one and only time his ex-wife and his girlfriend had talked was New Year’s Eve and that hadn’t gone well.

“After she got done railing at me for not answering my phone, she was fine.”  She sighed quietly.  “We’re never going to be BFF’s, but, hopefully, we can at least be civil toward each other.”

Richie chuckled quietly on the other end of the phone.  Heather wasn’t BFF’s with anyone.  “There’s a lot to be said for civility, sweetheart.” 

He pondered the stars for a moment, wishing he was there with her, looking at her while they talked instead of a twenty-minute car ride away.  It was time to shift the conversation away from the day-to-day mundane and toward something a lot more interesting.  “Sweetheart, tell me something.”

“What’s that, Rich?”

“What are you wearing right now?”

Stephanie sucked in a breath.  He had lowered his voice and it had taken on a husky overtone.  She waited a beat, her mind whirling, trying to catch up with the subject change.  “What?” 

“Sweetheart,” he nearly whispered.  “I asked you what you were wearing right now.”

Her nipples hardened and pressed against the pink silk.  “My robe.”

He closed his eyes, trying to picture her.  “The short pink one I like?”

She nodded “yeah.”  An idea came to her and she put the phone on speaker.

Click.

She took a picture of the side of one bare foot and ankle and sent it to him. 

Click.

The next shot was the inside of her knee and a little bit of thigh with a corner of the pink robe showing.

She continued to take pictures and send them until he finally said something.

“You’re killing me here, darlin’.”

She laughed quietly, almost evilly.  He only slipped and called her “darlin’” when he was well on his way to losing himself in the moment.  “Then you might not want to look at this next one.”

His whispered “fuck me” was music to her ears.

She lifted the phone one last time and snapped the last picture.  Hitting send, she waited.

It wasn’t long before she heard the swift intake of breath and another drawn out “fuck” whispered into the phone.  She looked at the last picture she had sent him.  She had cocked her head to one side so her hair had fallen over her shoulder and her robe had opened to expose the side of her breast.  You could see a hint of her chin and long, creamy neck and one long tendril of hair had curved around the hardened tip of her breast where it pressed against the silk of her robe.  She hadn’t blatantly exposed herself, but she thought it was a pretty sexy shot.

“So” she started since he hadn’t said anything.  “Do you like what I’m wearing?”

He shifted in the chair, glad he was wearing shorts and not jeans.  “You have no idea Sweetheart.”

“Tell me.”  She wanted, needed to know.

“My dick is so hard,” he growled, “you could use it to hammer nails.”   The chair creaked as he stood.  Stepping back inside he slid the door closed and locked it before crossing the room and making sure the other door was locked as well.  With the turn this conversation had taken, he didn’t want any inadvertent interruptions.

She shifted on the bench, pressing her thighs together to try to ease the ache his bold statement caused.  “If you were here” she whispered, “I could take care of that for you.”

“I have no doubt you could darlin’” he told her as he stretched out on the bed.  “But what about you?”

“Me?”  She wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to know.

He loosened the drawstring on his shorts and slipped his hand inside, stroking himself while he talked to her.  “I know your nipples are hard, I could see it in that last picture.  But what I really want to know is, are you wet for me?”

If she hadn’t already been dripping, she would be now.  His voice alone could almost get her off at this point.  “I am.”

“You know what I would do if I were there with you right now?”

She shook her head and held her breath, “what?”

He gripped himself tighter, stroked his rigid length harder.  “I’d spread you open and lick up every sweet drop.   Then, I’d start all over and make you give me more.”  Her swift intake of breath and the low groan kept him talking.

“Touch yourself darlin’.  Touch yourself like I would if I were there.”

She fumbled the phone switching it from her right hand to her left.  She could hardly think he had her so wound up.  Her hand slid down the front of herself, the thumbnail grazing a hard, tight nipple on its way.  She loosened the knot in the tie of the robe, letting it fall open.  Her fingers drifted lower, over her abdomen and down between her thighs. As she circled the taut nub of nerves, her head dropped back against the wall and she whimpered into the phone.  “Rich…”

“That’s the way darlin’.”  He could picture her spread out on the window seat, her robe open, her fingers dancing between her thighs.  He nearly came at the image he painted for himself.   Then he heard it.  That sexy purring moan she did when she was about to come.  He jacked himself harder, nearly ready to burst.  But not before she did.  “Use your fingers darlin’.  Fuck yourself for me.” 

She did what he told her.  She slipped two fingers inside herself, pumping and twisting until she couldn’t stand it anymore.  She called out to him as her release swamped her. It stole her breath and left her limp and panting. 

Listening to her get herself off for him had his balls tightening and his release rushed forward, coating his hand and his stomach almost before he realized what had happened. 

The phone line between them was quiet for long minutes, neither one able to talk, both trying to catch their breath.

“Sweetheart?”

“Rich?”

Stephanie sucked in a deep breath and blew it out.  “How many more days do you have out there?”

Richie reached for a tissue and smiled into the phone.  “Fifteen, sweetheart, fifteen.”