I pause, my hand stilling on my cock. “I should probably tell you something.”
“Now? Really?”
“I’ve been listening to your audiobooks,” I blurt out. “The romance ones. For months.”
Dead silence on the other end of the line.
“Goldie?”
“You’ve been listening to me narrate romance novels?” Her voice is strangled, like she can’t decide if she’s mortified or amused.
“That’s how I knew I loved your voice. When I talked to you at the rink. I’d been falling asleep to you reading love scenes for weeks.”
“Oh my god.” I can hear rustling, like she’s sitting up in bed. “Which ones?”
“Pretty much all of them. ‘Midnight in Monterey,’ ‘The Duke’s Desire,’ that pirate one with the really explicit sword fighting metaphors...”
“You listened to ‘Passion on the High Seas’?” Her voice cracks slightly. “I can barely get through that one without laughing. The dialogue is so ridiculous.”
“Your delivery sells it completely. Especially that scene in the captain’s cabin with the?—”
“STOP.” But she’s laughing now. “Oh god, this is so embarrassing. No wonder you’re so good at dirty talk. You’ve been getting a masterclass.”
“Is that weird? That I was listening to you before we met?”
“It’s...” She pauses, considering. “Actually kind of hot. In a really strange way. All those nights I was in my studio, recording love scenes, and you were somewhere listening...”
“Getting completely obsessed with your voice,” I admit. “Having dreams about what you looked like, what you’d sound like saying my name instead of reading someone else’s words.”
“And now?”
“Now I get to hear you say my name for real. And it’s so much better than anything I imagined.”
“Show me how much better,” she says, her voice dropping back to that husky tone that drives me crazy. “FaceTime me.”
“The kids?—”
“Are asleep. Come on, let me see you.”
A moment later, my phone lights up with an incoming video call. When I answer, the sight that greets me almost stops my heart. She’s propped against the headboard, wearing my jersey like she said, but it’s pushed up around her waist. One hand holds the phone, the other is between her legs.
“Fuck,” I breathe. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Tell me what you’d do if you were here. Use that voice you learned from listening to me.”
“I’d start exactly where you are now,” I say, my own hand moving under my boxers. “But I’d take my time. Make you wait for it.”
She follows my directions, her movements becoming more deliberate as I talk her through it, using every technique I learned from months of listening to her bring fictional lovers to life. The irony isn’t lost on me—she taught me how to do this without even knowing it.
“I wish you were here,” she gasps, her hips starting to move against her hand.
“I am here. Look at me, Goldie. Let me watch you fall apart.”
When she comes, saying my name like a prayer, I follow her over the edge, both of us breathing hard and satisfied despite the distance between us.
“Better?” she asks afterward, once we’ve both caught our breath.
“Much better. But I still can’t wait to get home.”
