and try this.”
Georgia applied the new color, then frowned. “It’s bright.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She twisted Georgia sideways, then unbuttoned her white shirt until the little pink bow on her bra was exposed. “Do you have to wear the bra?”
“Yes!” Bare skin under thin white cotton? Oi.
“Okay, okay.” Toni pulled out Georgia’s shirttail and tied the front ends high enough to expose her navel. “There. You just need to loosen up. I’m sure all Rob needs is a signal.”
She looked back to her reflection and pursed her mouth. “You think?”
Toni dotted the cranberry lipstick onto Georgia’s cheeks, then blended the color with her thumb. Someday her friend would make a wonderfully smothering mother. “Definitely. Do something to shake him up a little. You know, show up at his place wearing nothing but a belt or something like that.”
Georgia chewed on her lip. “And what if he turns me down?”
Toni shrugged. “It’ll be his loss and then you’ll know where you stand. But trust me, he won’t turn you down.”
Her friend had a knack for making things seem so black-and-white. And even as her tongue formed more words of protest, Georgia stared at her new wanton image in the mirror and warmed to the possibilities. She’d worked her way through college and three years of post-graduate work. Every day she handled life-threatening situations at the hospital. So why would she be worried about making a pass at a man she’d been dating for several months? Maybe because it was safer to let him go on thinking she was Miss Modesty than to risk unleashing the passion that boiled beneath the surface. She didn’t want to come across as some kind of…well, any of those names her mother had called her father’s string of faceless girlfriends.
“Come on,” Toni said, snuffing out her cigarette. “Let’s buy Stacey a table dance—I saw her eyeing the pirate. Besides,” she added with a wink, “we have some planning to do.”
Georgia followed her friend, rubbing the headache forming just behind her ear. While most people had a conscience, her conscience had a conscience—a something that reined in her urges, and kept her on her best behavior.
She swallowed. At least so far.
GEORGIA SLIPPED INSIDE her apartment door and swatted at the light switch. Still buzzing slightly from her last drink, she kicked off her shoes next to the couch and glanced at her new phone contraption, but the message light wasn’t blinking. How flattering. She removed the portable phone from the base and headed for the bedroom, not the slightest bit sleepy. In fact, her pulse kicked higher with every step.
Over the past few hours, she’d thought about Toni’s advice and allowed herself to be carried along on the crest of the erogenous wave rolling through the strip club. She’d decided her friend was right—Rob was waiting for her to make a move. So, during a shared cab ride home, Toni had settled upon the least threatening, yet highly erotic option: phone sex.
Despite that phone sex was a favored fantasy of hers, Georgia felt obligated to protest on behalf of the upstanding girl she was purported to be. Besides, she didn’t know how to do it.
Toni had pshawed. “What’s to know? You talk, you moan, you hang up.”
“But how do I ask him if he wants to?”
“Don’t ask, just do.”
And if Rob were totally offended, Georgia reasoned, she could always move to the Midwest and change her name.
Moving slowly in the dark, she slipped out of her shoes. Could she pull it off? The fact that she’d never participated in phone sex before only heightened her anticipation. Her chest rose and fell more rapidly, her breasts tingled, her thighs grew moist.
She turned on a lamp, then dimmed the illumination to bathe her Verdigris iron bed and the mustard-colored comforter. After stepping out of her jeans and folding them over the padded seat of her vanity table, Georgia sat on the edge of the bed and sank her crimson-tipped toes into a green hooked rug she’d made when she was fifteen—a lifetime ago. At that age she had fantasized of romance and physical bliss, never imagining one element without the other. She had thought by now she would’ve met a man who could provide a constant supply of both. Could Rob?
She sighed. Well, soon enough she would know if her fantasies would get him off, or scare him off.
Georgia glanced at the clock. One-thirty, Wednesday morning. Rob would be in deep REM sleep. Although if things went to plan, he’d be wide awake within a few seconds. Before she had time to reconsider, she slipped off her white cotton panties and left them lying on the rug. Her hands shook slightly as she held the phone and pushed the button to retrieve Rob’s preprogrammed number.
When his phone began to ring, warmth flooded her abdomen. After the third ring, she panicked and started to hang up, but before she could locate the darned Talk button, she heard his sleep-fuzzy voice come over the line.
“Hello?”
Her heart thudded so loudly she could barely hear him. “Hi, Rob, this is Georgia.”
“Hmm?”
“D-don’t talk,” she said, then leaned back against a pile of pillows and lowered her voice to what she hoped was a sexy tone. “Just listen.”
3
AFTER SIX YEARS on the police force, Officer Ken Medlock should have been used to late-night calls, but he still had trouble focusing on the voice at the other end of the line. He reached for the lamp on the nightstand, but remembered a split second after the sound of the hollow click that he’d forgotten to replace the burned-out bulb.
Did the woman say she was “Georgia”? His mind spun as he tried to place the name—a new dispatcher? Blinking seemed to help clear the cobwebs. One-thirty. Damn, the last time he’d looked at the clock had been less than an hour ago. His intermittent insomnia seemed to have grown worse as the temperature climbed—and now this interruption.
“Rob, I know it’s late, but I’ve been thinking about…us…all evening and I was wondering…that is…” The woman with the sultry voice inhaled and Ken opened his mouth to tell her she had the wrong number.
“I’m not wearing panties.”
His mouth snapped shut and his manhood stirred, proving at least one part of his body was processing information.
A small trembling laugh sounded. “I’ve always wondered if you were a boxer man or a brief man.”
What was the mystery woman’s intention? Engage in a little late-night dirty talk to entice this Rob guy to come over? “Boxer,” Ken blurted, then swallowed and leaned back onto his requisite three-pillow stack. Had he lost his mind? Or more appropriately, had he lost his shame?
“Mmm. Do you sleep in them?”
When I sleep. He couldn’t remember such a welcome interruption though—few of his dreams were this good. He might have thought his partner was playing another practical joke on him, but even Klone wouldn’t go this far. And the woman sounded so sincere, she had to be the real thing. His job required him
