Flirting With Forever by Gwyn Cready (new books to read TXT) 📕

Even the thought of painting her head on one of his model’s bodies made him angrier than he thought possible, though if push came to shove he would have to do it.

She was achingly beautiful, of that there was no debate.

And he had seen the fire that ran in those veins. He found himself quite lost in the picture of her, as canty as a jade, lying before him, her breasts shifting with each movement

—

He took the stairs two at a time.

She might not be his, but for the next glorious hour it would be as if she were.

She was gone.

“Camil a?”

Silence.

He hurried to the other side of the fireplace. The space was empty.

“Great,” Cam said. “My hand has two bars’ worth of phone reception, but my mouth is in no-man’s-land.” She pul ed the phone in, and pushed the window again. It probably hadn’t been opened since the last time Isaac Newton visited.

It creaked and groaned, but at last gave way, enough way for Cam to thread her shoulder out and, with a little more effort, one of her breasts. “Sorry,” she said. “I know I’ve put you through a lot today.”

The window was on the second floor—a tal second floor

—and Cam got her first view of the world beyond the studio. Dozens of people in period dress—wel , contemporary dress to them, she supposed—fil ed the street. There were couples laughing, a group of young men shoving and talking, an obviously drunk woman retching on her shoes and four or five dogs fighting over a scrap of food—in short, just like a late-night strol down Craig Street in Pittsburgh.

She held up her phone and with three proud bars showing dialed Jeanne’s cel .

“Holy Christ!” Jeanne screamed. “Where are you?”

“You’re kinda not going to believe this.”

“You freakin’ blew out of here like Dorothy from Kansas.

There’s orange Crush everywhere.”

“Calm down. I’m okay. Wel , relatively.” Cam thought she heard a noise at the door and looked over her shoulder, but the noise stopped.

“Where are you?” Jeanne repeated.

“Okay, remember how I told you I was looking for a book on Amazon?”

“Omigod! You’re starting this story with book shopping on Amazon!”

“Jeanne, I found a book I needed there. I started to search inside. When I clicked ‘Surprise Me!’— poof! I disappeared.”

“But where are you?”

“In the sixteen hundreds.”

“In the sixteen hundreds where?”

“In the sixteen hundreds of the sixteen hundreds. Sixteen hundred.

One-six-oh-oh.

The

century.

You

know,

Shakespeare, Galileo, the Great London Fire—Oops.”

Cam wheeled around to check the candles in the room.

“You’re tel ing me you’re in a different century.”

“Yes.”

“I ain’t buying it. You’re hiding somewhere. Can you see me on the phone?”

“Jeanne, real y. I’m here. It’s London, sometime in the reign of Charles the Second.”

“Send me a picture.”

“I can.”

“I know you can. You do it al the time. I even got to share your joy when your Snuggie blanket arrived. Send one.”

“What are you, from Missouri? You could just try to believe me.”

“Two words: pic ture. ”

Muttering, Cam clicked on the camera and stretched her arm as far out as she could. “Can you stil hear me? I’m taking the picture.”

“Goody,” came the faint reply.

She angled the camera so the armor chest plate and stuffed boar were directly behind her. The sun had dipped below the horizon, but there was stil light in the sky.

Click.

“Did you hear that?” She pul ed the camera in and thumbed in Jeanne’s email. “It’s coming.”

Whoosh. The picture went.

“Hang on,” Jeanne said, and Cam heard the keyboard clicks. “Got it. Jesus. Are those cutouts for breasts?”

Cam turned to look at the armor breastplate. “Yes.”

“You’re not in the sixteen hundreds. You’re at the GLBT

Affinity Group’s Lascivious Costume Bal .”

“Jeanne, it’s like nirvana for a researcher,” Cam said excitedly. “The studio was fil ed with nude models when I landed. Peter spends half his time hiding the king’s mistresses from one another. Nel Gwyn thinks I have an excel ent eye for gowns. And I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out how the old breast-out-of-dress thing happens.”

“Now I know you’re lying.”

“Jeanne.”

“Gimme a break, huh. You’re asking me to believe you’re hanging around with, like, Marie Antoinette.”

“She was a French queen and a hundred years later, but I see your point. Nonetheless how else are you going to explain the orange Crush?”

There was a long pause. “I’l give you a temporary pass.

Very temporary.”

“Thank you. I feel better knowing someone believes