“It's probably going to kill me to know that you're in the shower and to hear the water running and imagine what you're doing, but yeah, I want to keep the phone on.”
“This isn’t really phone sex, but it feels really intimate.” She started for the stairs.
“I know.”
She could have been imagining it since they were on the phone, but he sounded a little puzzled by the whole thing too.
“Why do you feel like you need to hear me shower? You think I need a babysitter?”
“Actually, I think that you take care of yourself pretty well, except when you’re really stressed about a big project. And I think you’ve been doing it for a long time. Probably since you were about sixteen and your world fell apart. I guess I want to let you know that there's someone here for you. I want to be the one who you know cares even if you are doing nothing more than eating peanut butter and jelly and taking a quick shower before bed. I want you to feel connected with somebody.” He paused. “And I want that somebody to be me.”
Rory stopped at the top of her stairs.
Holy shit.
That was, no doubt about it, the best thing anyone had ever said to her.
Several seconds stretched by but Drew didn't seem to feel the need to fill the silence. Maybe he knew she needed to process all of that. Or maybe he knew that she was just letting it soak into her like the warmth from a fire when she'd come in from a cold rainy night.
Finally, she said, “Would it be okay if I called you once in a while when you're back in Iowa?”
He let out a breath. “Any time. Day or night.”
She smiled. “I’m going to take you up on that.”
And for the first time she thought that maybe she'd been wrong about not being able to trust people who weren't around all the time. It seemed that Drew Ryan was potentially an exception to a number of rules.
“Are you getting in the shower?”
Suddenly feeling a shot of mischief to go along with the happiness he'd sent fizzing through her veins, she smiled. “There's definitely something about your deep voice rumbling in my ear that makes me want to take my clothes off, I’ll tell you that much.”
He gave a little groan. “Yeah, this is going to kill me a little bit, isn’t it?”
“We could hang up.”
“No. I'd rather be hard as a rock and connected to you than comfortable and not.”
“That probably shouldn't sound sweet, but it did.”
He chuckled softly.
She hit this button for speaker and set the phone on the counter. Then she started stripping.
“We should've made this a video call,” she said as she stepped out of her panties.
“Yeah, maybe we should have.” His voice was especially gruff now.
“Maybe you should take your clothes off too.” There was a long pause. Then she was ninety-nine percent sure she heard rustling. She grinned. “Are you doing it?”
“Yeah.”
Heat swirled through her body. “Oh my God. That's hot.”
“You think so?” He actually sounded slightly hesitant.
“Knowing that you're going to be touching yourself while I'm in the shower and we’re on the phone together? Yeah.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “You are going to touch yourself, aren’t you?”
“I already am.”
The heat in her belly shot straight between her legs. “I’m not going to be able to keep from touching myself. Though, I really preferred how you did it.”
His groan was not as soft this time. “Rory.”
“I'm just starting to think that maybe a long-distance thing with regular phone calls could be kind of fun.”
“Get in the shower. Get wet.”
“I'm already wet.”
“Rory.” Now he sounded like he was saying her name through gritted teeth.
She giggled, which a few hours ago she would not have thought possible.
She started the water, then turned on the shower and stepped into the tub. Her bathroom wasn't large, and she was sure that the phone was close enough that he could hear the water running. They didn’t need to talk through this part probably.
Rory closed her eyes as the hot water ran over her body and imagined Drew lying on a big king bed on white sheets, his sun-tanned skin and hard muscles standing out in sharp contrast. She imagined one of the huge hands that touched her so expertly, wrapped around the hard cock she'd felt pressing into her back. She soaped her body, paying extra attention to her nipples and between her legs. Then she dropped the soap and let her fingers continue working over her clit. It was still sensitive from Drew’s fingers and she imagined that it was his hand back in place. It didn't take her long to take herself up and over the edge again and as she thought about coming quietly, she discarded that idea immediately and cried out his name so that he could hear her over the phone.
She braced a hand on the shower wall and sucked in deep breaths as the water continued to rain over her. Then she heard his voice call out her name and she smiled even as heat cascaded through her.
She shut the water off and reached for the towel drying off and wrapping herself in the soft yellow terrycloth before reaching for the phone.
“I'm done,” she said softly.
“Yeah, me too.” He sounded a little breathless.
“I think the next time we do that, it's definitely a video call,” she told him.
“I'm in.”
Grinning, she made her way into her bedroom. She laid the phone on the bed as she pulled on her pajamas and slid between the sheets. “Okay, I'm in bed.”
“Okay, good night,” he said huskily.
“Wait.” She couldn’t stand the idea of letting him go just yet. Or maybe ever. But she quickly pushed that thought aside. This wasn't an “ever” situation and she needed to get a grip. Still, she didn't want to hang up yet. “Talk to me ’til I fall asleep.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Tell me about your childhood. Tell me about Appleby. And your parents and your farm, and everything.”
“You really want to know about all that?”
She really did. “You know all about me. Tell me about your mom and dad. And your brother you run the farm with.”
“Really pretty normal childhood,” he started. “It was just me and my brother, Dallas. But we had a bunch of cousins to grow up with that felt like siblings. Justin is just the one who wanted to go into business with us.
“We grew up climbing trees, playing outside, getting dirty, driving tractors and four wheelers. I've always loved animals and knew I wanted to work with them. I just always assumed that meant farming.”
Rory smiled and snuggled into her pillow, pulling her comforter up. This was an amazing way to fall asleep. “Keep going,” she told him softly.
“My mom’s a teacher, so she was always home after school with us and on weekends and holidays and in the summer. My dad farmed and when we were ready to take the farm over, he and mom moved into town and he started doing ag insurance. He still comes out and drives around the farm and will get on the tractor once in a while because he misses it, but he's really left it mostly to us.”