Dark Advent by Brian Hodge Read Free Book Online Page A

turned the car from the blacktop onto a bumpier, dustier road, and the vibrations grew rougher. Lilly sat up and asked if it was the road leading to the lake.
    “Yeah. Listen…would you like to stop there a while? I know this little drive that runs close to the far shore.”
    “Whatever. Sure. I’d like that.”
    Jason felt his heart quicken, felt himself grow warmer within. He pulled onto a dirt path that cut between two trees and led into shadows and gloom. Low branches scraped from all sides. He finally found a clearing of sorts, with an unobstructed view of the lake, waves lapping gently against the shoreline several yards away. They could see all the way across to the beach on the opposite side.
    Jason turned toward Lilly, suddenly caught in bright moonlight breaking through a cloud cover. Her face looked very young, with flawless skin and huge eyes. The face of a seductive child.
    Why am I here? he suddenly wondered. This isn’t my style. He’d never gone out to a bar and ended the evening by picking someone up. And even if that had been his intention tonight, he no longer needed to go parking, not with an entire apartment at his disposal. And why her, for that matter? They were traveling two different roads. By the light of day he wouldn’t have wanted anything beyond a conversation after the first five minutes of knowing her.
    But it was dark now. Daylight was years away.
    “You come here often?” she asked, and they both broke up. He didn’t answer. He just reached for her.
    They climbed into the back seat. She pressed her mouth to his, probing with a swirling tongue as he tasted cherry lip gloss, groping with her hands. She was eager. And beneath him, she was frantic. Afterward, she dozed against the side of the car while Jason sat staring out at the lake. Rippling water shimmered silvery-black, and he could hear two aluminum cans clinking as the waves slapped them repeatedly together.
    I guess I got what I wanted, he thought, but there was no joy in it, no victory. He’d done nothing to brag about. As he watched her dozing face, there came a moment when he felt like brushing stray strands of hair from her cheek and perhaps kissing it, but the moment passed. He recognized the reason. It wasn’t love, it wasn’t even affection. It was more in the realm of pity. Okay, so he’d gotten what he was after, but he doubted she had. At least not in the long run. He couldn’t see her running back to her friends later tonight or tomorrow and giving them a blow-by-blow description of this little tryst, bestowing him with a huge cock for an even better story. He couldn’t see that happening at all. More likely she’d sit by a telephone hoping it would ring.
    At last he grew uncomfortable sitting on the vinyl seat, and pulled his clothes on. It woke Lilly up, and she did the same. She was quiet on the way back into town, saying little beyond telling him where she lived. Once he looked over at her, and she was again slumped into the seat, her arms crossed and her head thrown back. She looked as if she hadn’t budged since the trip out.
    At last Jason found her house. He almost let loose a sigh of relief.
    Lilly opened the door, then turned back to him. Her eyes were wide, and a thin, lopsided smile crossed her lips. “Will, uh…you be calling me next week, or sometime?”
    Jason nodded, unable to bring himself to do otherwise. “Sure. Sure, I’ll do that.”
    “Well…I had a good time tonight. Thanks.” She leaned over, gave him a quick kiss, another taste of cherry lip gloss. “Bye.”
    “’Night.”
    She hopped out, lightly shut the door. He waited until she disappeared inside the house. Chivalry wasn’t totallydead yet. He geared up the car and pulled away, and a block later cranked up the stereo to drown out his thoughts.
    But he remembered the last time he’d been to the Night Life, talking with Kelly. The man had been right; you couldn’t live in the past.
    Wasn’t even such a good idea to go