Page 29 of Call Me Anytime
“Okay, look,” he says, his voice steady but somehow soothing, in a way that makes me want to lean into him. “This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to take a beat so you can get yourself together, and then I’m going to go back in there with you, and I’m going to coach you through a call.”
“Excuse me?” I blink. “You’re going to do what?”
He chuckles softly, shaking his head and clearing his throat. “Yeah. I know. It’s going to be awkward as hell, and we’re going to have a few stumbles, but I’m a very talented man, Hannah. And I do what it takes to make a situation work.”
Shane guffaws, and Dom holds up a middle finger over his shoulder as his only answer.
“We’re going to get through this,” he encourages me. The way his smile quirks at the corner pulls my attention, and for a second, I can’t look away. “And you’re going to get through your shit too. You’re tough. A hell of a lot tougher than I’d be if I was facing what you are.”
“You think so?” I search his handsome face for a sign of bullshit, but I don’t find anything except a genuine and tender smile.
“Oh yeah,” Dom says, his confidence clear. “You’re doing your best, and you’re doing it with the best tools at your disposal right now.” He shrugs. “Let’s work with what we’ve got, okay?”
“Okay.” Maybe I can do this. “Do you have any suggestions I should start with on my calls? I mean, what are you hearing from me that’s tipping you off?”
“Probably could stop with the slow-motion words.” His face is open and friendly.
“And the rhyming,” Shane chimes in from behind, making my ears heat.
“Let me get this straight.” I raise my eyebrows in outright shock and embarrassment. “Not only have I been talking in rhyme, but I’ve also been doing it in slow motion?”
“You also threw in a children’s fairy-tale book or two,” Shane updates me, and my jaw gapes.
“Children’s fairy tales?”
“Little Red Riding Hood,” Shane clarifies, his mouth settling into an expression that somehow manages to showcase a cringe and a smile at the same time.
I look at Dom. “I quotedLittle Red Riding Hood?”
Dom nods, a grimace making his bright-white teeth show briefly. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Oh my God.” I groan and run a hand down my face. “What am I doing? Blacking out? How can I be this bad at phone sex?”
“Hey, don’t sweat it.” Dom grabs my shoulder and rocks me soothingly back and forth. “You just need to relax,” he encourages me. “Sex with a guy is a really simple thing. It doesn’t need to be flowery. Just stick to the facts, you know?”
“The facts?” I question.
“The basics.” Dom shrugs one nonchalant shoulder. “Boobs, butt, balls, and some good ol’ p in the v. I’m guessing that’s all you really need, and the guys, freaks that they are, will do the rest.”
“The sex basics?”
“Uh-huh,” Dom agrees, sliding the door open with a quick shift of his body and then stepping onto the sidewalk to hold out a hand toward me. “What do you say, Ruby Cocklover? Wanna get back in there?”
Less than I want to do literally anything else. But I guess that doesn’t matter.
It’s showtime.
And now, Detective Dunn is going to be sitting right next to me ... helping me with my calls.
Good grief.
12
Dominic
3:30 p.m.
Straightening the extra headset Hannah and I borrowed from Monica as she left for her college classes, I click my pen into the active and ready position and lean over the notebook in front of us. Hannah nervously tugs her bottom lip between her teeth as she stares at the phone, and it’s ... distracting. Her innocence is endearing, and I wish we weren’t here, doing this, where it’s nearly impossible to protect it.
