"I... I don't know what to say to that," she admitted after a long silence that had her pulling at a loose thread in the seam of her jeans.
"You believe me?" I asked.
"I don't think you would lie to me," she hedged, letting me know she wasn't fully there.
"Okay," I said, nodding, standing.
I moved over toward the front door, sliding the lock.
"What are you doing?" she asked, brows pinching as I moved back toward her side.
"Come on," I urged, reaching down to grab her hand, pulling her to her feet, getting a small grumble. "Just a couple feet," I promised her, pulling her through the office, bringing her through the door to my office, pressing her down into my chair. "You sit here," I suggested, swiveling her so that she looked at the back wall, facing away from the doorway. "And when that phone rings in ten seconds, answer it," I suggested.
"I, ah, why?" she asked, voice getting squeaky.
"Answer it, baby," I said, moving out into the hall, closing the door, taking a deep breath as I reached for my cell, dialing.
She let it ring three times, likely looking for the nerve to pick up, before she finally answered.
"Rush?" she asked, tone high-pitched. Nervous.
"Hello, Katherine," I said to her, leaning back against the wall in the hallway.
I couldn't see her, save for one of her arms on the rest of the chair.
Still.
She was there.
Close.
Reachable.
And, fuck, I wanted to reach out.
But I couldn't. Not that way. Not yet.
Instead, I let my voice dip low, the same smooth sound it always had on the phone with her all those long nights.
"Oh," she said, her breath rushing out. "This isn't..."
"How was your day?" I cut her off, not giving her room to feel weird about it. It wasn't weird. We'd done this dozens of other times. The only difference was, now we both knew who we were on the phone with.
"I, ah. It was okay," she said.
"Just okay?" I pressed.
"I think I made a new friend," she admitted.
"Yeah? What'd you two do?"
"She... she gave me a makeover."
"Yeah?" I asked.
"She said something about how it worked for Sandy," she added, snorting a little. "But that I could do better than Danny," she added, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
"How do you feel about the makeover?"
"It's... it's different. And I don't think I could ever figure out how she did the makeup myself, but I like it. I mean the shoes are awful. But I like it. She told me that she was going to make me see in the mirror what other people saw when they looked at me."
I felt a pang at that, at realizing how hard she must have been on herself, how much those assholes she went to school with had worked to shape her perception of herself.
"You're beautiful, baby," I told her. "Even without all that shit on your face. And the awful shoes," I added, getting a small giggle out of her. "So, what are you wearing?" I asked, trying to ignore the cheesiness of that line. Sometimes, you had to pull on the classics. Clothing talk, well, it led to other things. Things were classics for a reason.
"Ah, jeans," she said immediately. "And a top."
"Yeah? What kind of top?" I asked, feeling my lips quirk up.
"It's kind of like a, well, a corset," she admitted after a short pause.
"Hmm," I said, letting the sound rumble through my chest. "The kind where your hand can just slip down the top?" I asked, hearing the little in-drawn breath as she finally started to catch on.
"Rush.."
"No, baby, we're not in a rush," I cut her off. "We can go as slow as you want," I added. "Or as fast," I told her, already feeling my cock stirring, not sure how I was going to muster the self-control to stay where I was when she had her hand down her pants, when she was not only moaning through the phone at me, but one room away. "Back to that corset," I went on, knowing she needed the talking, the suggestions, that she never did any of the talking, any of the leading. "Can your hand just slide right inside the top?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"Think you can try for me?" I asked, taking a slow breath as the arm in the room across from me moved off the rest.
"Yeah," she told me, voice small.
"It slides right in?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Do you have anything on under it?" I asked, already knowing the answer, but we were working with the fantasy here.
"N-no."
"So I could slide my hand right down and close my hand around your breast?" I asked, hearing her breath catch slightly. "I could slip my thumb over your nipple?" I asked, closing my eyes, looking for some control. "Baby?"
"Yes," she admitted.