best thing in the world. Then I found something better.”
She snorted at this. “And I bet you say that to all the ladies.”
Instead of smiling as she expected he frowned, and for reasons she couldn’t quite explain she felt another ripple in her abdomen again. “No!” he said, again more serious than she had anticipated.
“Oh, go on, just a few of them,” she teased.
“If you insist,” he sighed and now finally smiled. “But only the ladyboys.”
“I knew it. You just had to be the sort of guy who’d be into chicks with dicks. The piercing —a dead giveaway: with that you just had to be gay.”
It was his turn to snort now. “Well, that says a lot about you. I guess the pre-ops are going a real treat. I mean, what size are those? Double D?”
“They’re only a C-cup—and all natural, thank you very much.” Dianne slapped him gently on his chest before kissing him. “But come on, a guy like you... you’re not going to expect me to believe that I’m the first girl whose jumped in your bed on tour.”
“Perhaps not, but you are the first I’d like to keep there.”
“My, such a charmer.” She lifted a hand to his chin and tickled him, but for some reason she couldn’t move her eyes from his.
“Do you believe in love at first sight?” he asked.
She wrinkled her nose at this. “No, though until last night I wouldn’t have believed in truly requited lust, either. You really are something, I’ll give you that.”
“As are you.” His eyes were not moving from her face, and Dianne felt strange inside.
“Yeah, well,” she replied at last. “You’ll soon be on the continent somewhere, and a couple of lays down the line you’ll have only the foggiest memory of who I am.”
He did not reply to this and, as he stared at her in silence for a long time, she thought she saw the strangest gleam in his eye.
“Come with me,” he said at last, very quietly.
“What?”
“Come with me, on tour.”
“You’re not serious.”
Gently easing his arm from beneath her, Cam rolled slightly onto his side, looking down at her. Suddenly, Dianne felt very naked and vulnerable beneath him. When they had been fucking like animals, she had not considered herself nearly as exposed as she did now.
“I am,” he said gently. “I’m deadly serious. It’s for a month—okay, maybe a little more. Get your passport and come with us. You’ll get to see Optima every night—and Black Ark of course, but I won’t kid myself about that just yet. You’ll also get to see some pretty interesting places and... who knows, perhaps you might enjoy my company a little more. What’s to lose?”
Words stuck in Dianne’s throat for a few seconds and, when she did manage to speak, the words that did emerge were not what she wished to say at all. “My job, my livelihood. Everything important to me.” She couldn’t believe what she was saying and part of her screamed out silently: No! It’s not that at all!
Cam shrugged, his eyes flickering away from hers to hide the pain that she glimpsed just for a second. “Okay, I guess it was a stupid idea. I guess we’ll just be passing ships in the night, and all that.”
He began to move and Dianne felt her heart lurch inside her chest. Grabbing hold of his arm, she stopped him getting out of the bed and he stared down at her, his eyes resting slightly to one side of her face so that he wouldn’t have to look directly at her. With her other hand, she stroked his cheek softly.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t... I don’t want you to be just a one night stand. It’s just... it’s just, sudden, you know?”
Now he did look at her directly, and she could see that she had wounded him in a small, unexpected way. His smile, however, was one of bravado.
“Yeah, like I said, it was a stupid idea. I dunno, I just wondered if you’d be the sort of girl who’d dare to take a chance like that.”
Bridling at this, Dianne let her hand drop
Richard Ellis Preston Jr.