The Space Between Us(101)
“Desperately,” I answered honestly.
“Oh, you’re desperate, are you?” His voice took on a flirty tone.
“Mm hmm.” I moaned a little, trying to bait him.
“Shit, Bit. Your voice is really sexy on the phone. I remember all those times we talked on the phone while I was away over the summers. I always had a hard-on talking to you.”
Hook, line, and sinker.
“Do you enjoy phone sex?” I rasped at him.
“No,” he said quickly.
“No?” I said, surprised and in my normal voice, all sexy raspiness gone. “What do you mean no? What kind of red-blooded, American man are you?”
“Don’t go getting all offended on me, Babe. I just like the real thing better. Phone sex is like teasing my cock. He gets all worked up expecting something soft and warm and all he gets is my hand. It’s mean.”
“Oh my God.” I laughed at his words – big, loud fits of laughter. I rolled on the bed until I was on my back, the laughter taking over my body. I cried from all the laughing. “You might be the only man on the planet to ever say that,” I cried as I wiped the tears from my face.
“Think about it. You’re sitting there, all alone in your hotel right now. I could use my voice to turn you on,” he said, his voice going soft and slow, dropping to a gravelly timbre. “I could tell you how much I wanted you, how badly I need to be inside of you. I could talk about my tongue flicking over your nipples, about my hands gripping your ass as I rubbed myself against you.”
I gulped at his words, swallowed any laughter that remained and replaced with panting breaths.
“I could talk about grabbing your hair, holding you in place, while I sank into you from behind, rocking you back and forth, hitting every spot you love that I remember.”
“Fuuuck…” I groaned, rolling to my side and squeezing my thighs together, trying to relieve some of the pressure that was pounding between my legs.
“Now tell me, Bit. Which sounds better right now?”
“Mmmm…” I mumbled in response.
“Your tiny fingers? Or my cock?”
“Shit.”
“That’s right. You want my cock. But I’m so far away.”
“You’re an ass.”
“Perhaps,” he said with a laugh. “But you love me.”
“Perhaps,” I said with a smile.
Chapter Sixteen
Charlie
After Asher and I hung up that night, I couldn’t keep my thoughts from my father and of what Asher tried to convince me. My mind fluttered to the letter my dad left for me, the letter he wrote to me before he died. I kept it in the top drawer of my dresser in my hotel room. I peeled myself off the bed and walked to the dresser, slowly pulling open the drawer. I moved aside the undergarments that I used to cover it, although, covering it was useless as I always knew it was there. It might as well have been smoking and red hot for how it seemed to burn in my mind. It pulsed. I was aware of it always. I reached for it, hand trembling, not sure if I was ready to read the last words my father had for me.
Slowly, I peeled back the lip of the envelope and saw a piece of paper with indentions all over it from the pen marks my father made. A small cry escaped me as I came to terms with the fact my father held this paper in his hands, wrote this for me. I was suddenly angry I didn’t read it sooner.
I pulled the paper out, opened it, and sat down in the big arm chair in the corner of the suite, curling my legs up under me, trying to get comfortable.
My Dear Charlie Bear,
Just the salutation reduced me to tears. I smiled through the sobs, remembering and loving the nickname my father had for me my entire life, no matter how old I was or how mad I made him.
The first thing I want to say to you is that I’m sorry. I know it will be hard for you to understand my decision to keep my illness from you and part of me is very sorry to put you in this situation. But there’s a bigger part of me, the Daddy part of me, that knows this was the least painful way to leave you. I watched you hold your mother’s hand while she was sick and I know what that did to both of you. I couldn’t put you through that again. Know that you were with me the entire time, and that I thought of you until the end. I never loved anyone the way I loved you, Charlie Bear, and I am so lucky that I got to be your father.
In time you will heal and the sadness will fade away. Trust me. I want you to move on from this and live a good life. I am not afraid to die, Charlie. I know that when I go I will get to see your momma and the two beautiful babies that neither of us got to meet. I will hug them and tell them how much their mother loves them, Charlie. Your mother and I will take care of them for you.
My hands came up to cover my face, the sobs ripping through me, a hurricane of sadness brewing inside my chest, the pressure threatening to tear me in two. The image in my head of my mother and father, each holding a baby, was enough to stop my breath. For just a moment, I didn’t want to breathe anymore. I wasn’t ready to die, but I wanted to hold my children. I wanted to hug my mother again, kiss my father’s cheek. I wasn’t envious of their deaths, just a little jealous that they didn’t have to feel the hurt anymore. I used my shirt to wipe away the tears and picked up the letter to continue reading.
Now I must move on to more important matters. One benefit of knowing you’re about to die is that you get to make one last request. This request holds far more weight than any request you made when you were healthy for some reason. I’m not going to question the logic, but I am going to take advantage of my situation and make one last dying request, a request on my deathbed, if you will.