“So, what do you want? A straight orgasm, or the works?”
Will pressed the telephone receiver more tightly to his ear, blood pooling in his loins. This woman was going to be the death of him. “Wha—whatever you think is best.”
“Okay,” Rowan replied. “I’m really glad you called. I’ve been lonely, lying here in this big old bed.”
Her voice was husky, rife with the promise of a wet dream. Suddenly Will didn’t want Rowan playing this phone-sex-operator role—he wanted her to participate, to sigh and moan for real. To be as turned on as he was…
Will pitched his voice lower to match hers. Payback was going to be sweet. “Lonely, huh? Maybe I can do something about that. What if I were to kiss the sweet curve of your neck, trace my fingers over your breasts…?”
A sharp gasp on the other end told Will he’d made his point. “Then I’d kiss my way down your belly, hook your legs over my shoulders and taste you,” he continued. “And once you’d melted, I’d slide into your heat, over and over, until you came again.” His breathing grew ragged, snapping under the strain of their sexy wordplay.
“Can you feel me there, Rowan?” he whispered. “Can you feel me?”
Dear Reader,
Like many of my ideas, the creative nudge behind this book came from a trip to my hairdresser’s. (Honestly, so many ideas have come out of that shop, I’ve begun to wonder if my muse isn’t addicted to hair chemicals, color foils and bleach.) Anyway, I picked up a magazine and read an article about an unemployed woman who turned to phone sex to make ends meet, and while the color lifted from my ever-darkening hair, the creative juices started flowing.
When budget cuts put high school teacher Rowan Crosswhite out of her job, she comes up with an ingenious way to make ends meet—she installs her own 1-900 phone sex line. It’s safe, it’s harmless and most important, it’s profitable. And when Will Foster comes onto the scene, it becomes deliciously wicked fun.
I hope you enjoy the heat, humor and heart in Rowan and Will’s story. For more information about past and upcoming books, be sure to check out my Web site, www.booksbyRhondaNelson.com.
Happy reading,
Rhonda Nelson
1-900-Lover
Rhonda Nelson
This one’s for you, Granny. For panty-hose wigs and Martian hats, paper dolls and peanut butter sandwiches.
For countless hours of undivided attention, tight hugs, fishing trips and sewing lessons. For invaluable advice, unwavering support and unconditional love.
You’re the best, and I love you dearly.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
1
“WHAT AM I WEARING?” Rowan Crosswhite echoed into the phone, her voice artfully pitched to a breathy sultry purr. Grimacing, she used the hem of her T-shirt and her frayed denim cutoffs to clean the majority of the potting soil from her hands, then took up her watering can. “I’m wearing a black leather bustier, fishnet hose and stiletto heels.”
The fabricated description lacked originality, yes, but thus far in her experience in the phone sex business, she’d learned that any imaginative effort she put into her descriptions wasn’t appreciated. So why bother?
When Rowan had first considered selling phone sex, she’d worried about being appropriately creative, about fabricating a believable performance for the men who dialed her number. She’d even called a couple of 1-900 numbers for research purposes because being prepared was the keystone to any successful venture, and her near-manic obsession with doing everything to the absolute best of her ability—even something as seedy as being a phone sex operator—had prevented her from doing otherwise.
The research had been a wasted effort and she’d worried needlessly about conjuring a suitable performance.
In fact, ironically, she’d learned the less said the better. Rowan rolled her eyes. Hell, all she really had to do was gasp, wince and moan—easy to do, particularly when one was, say, cleaning the toilet or weeding a flower bed—and the guys, thank God, took care of the rest. One of the many advantages of phone sex.
And, surprisingly, there were many.
First of all—most importantly—it was safe. There was no risk of abuse or disease, and if a guy freaked her out, all she had to do was sever the connection and block the number. She mentally shrugged. Simple enough. Furthermore, and equally important given her recent unfortunate circumstances, it was lucrative. At $3.99 a minute, where the average call hovered around the twelve-minute mark, that was roughly $240 an hour. Her lips twitched. Considerably more than her previous job as a high-school science teacher.
Just a year shy of tenure, Rowan had been one of the unlucky souls left unemployed by deep state budget cuts. Her boss at Middleton High had promised that as soon as the funds were available, she’d be under contract again.
Regrettably, until then, more panting, moaning and wincing would be in order—and the more dramatic the better—otherwise she’d ultimately starve and, much to the detriment of her heavily padded thighs, she liked food entirely too much to go hungry.
Since she’d been paying off student loans and attending night school to get her master’s degree, Rowan had been caught with a grand total of $633 in savings, even less in checking and nothing—aside from a 1962 Chevrolet Corvette that had belonged to her father, and for which she would prostitute herself in the literal sense to keep if need be—of any value to sell.
She did substitute teaching when she could, but that income hadn’t been enough, or even dependable, for that matter. Then she’d read an article about a woman who, in similar circumstances, had morphed herself into a phone sex entrepreneur, and the rest had been history. She’d weighed the advantages and disadvantages, deemed it a good temporary choice, then installed her line and invested in a good mobile headset.
This freed up her hands and allowed her to do the things that she really loved—gardening, stained glass and metal-working. Tinkering, according to her father. Her shoulders sagged with disappointment. Initially, she’d tried to make ends meet by selling her garden art, but unfortunately—and this thoroughly baffled her—no one seemed to get her style. Rowan cast a glance around her eclectic garden—whimsical metalwork, stained-glass whirligigs, antique roses, bulbs and vines—and swallowed a despondent sigh. Screw ’em, she thought, the tasteless traditional cads. She was an artiste. Her garden thrived and made her happy, which when one really thought about it, was all that mattered anyway.
A stuttered breath hissed across the line, cut through her musings. “Wh—what about your panties? What do they look like?”
Rowan glanced at her watch. She’d had this guy on the phone for eight minutes. Time