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

“Wel , I don’t usual y work with models, but in this case—”

“How about me?”

“What?”

“Me. How about me?” She lifted herself onto the table and crossed her legs. Her hair was as straight and shiny as and crossed her legs. Her hair was as straight and shiny as a slice of onyx.

“I, uh …”

His cel phone buzzed. It was Cam. He held up a finger and stepped into the hal . “Where are you, dol ?”

“At a restaurant in Regent Square. With Mr. Bal . We just sat down.”

“Oh God. Not another fuzzy navel night.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not driving. What are you doing?”

“You know. Meeting with a potential buyer.”

“Cool. See you soon—wel , maybe not soon, exactly.”

He laughed. “Take your time.”

He walked back into the studio. Anastasia was naked, perched effortlessly on heels that seemed to be an extension of her body. The glossy black triangle below her waist looked like a smal , hibernating animal. She walked to the bed and lay on her stomach, her lovely tight ass flexing as she crossed her ankles above it. Her breasts, boyish and firm, were visible behind her bent arm.

She looked at him through long, thick lashes. “Perhaps we should start like this.”

29

“He’s here,” Jeanne said over the phone.

“Who’s here?” Cam held up a finger to Bal and excused herself from the restaurant’s booth.

“Peter Lely.”

Her chest made a vigorous thump. “What do you mean

‘here’?”

“I mean here. In the museum. Whatever you did on your way back from Shakespeare land, you forgot to lock the barn door, and now a very large, very oddly dressed cow is walking around the admin wing.”

“Holy cripes! Stop him!” She ran out the door for the privacy of the sidewalk.

“Honey, I’m doing everything I can. He’s in the men’s room now.”

“Hiding?”

“Changing.”

Cam’s stomach felt like the Boston Marathoners were running through it. “You’ve got to make him go back.”

“Tried it. The man’s got no interest in going back. He wants you.”

Oh Christ! “I can’t.”

“According to him, you’ve got two choices. Either meet with him now or he comes back to the museum tomorrow to talk with ‘your master’ and goes from there to the

‘gentleman who prints your books.’”

When worlds col ide. Cam tried to speak but no words came.

“Where’s Jacket?” Jeanne demanded.

“Meeting with a potential buyer.”

“I’m stowing the guy at your place, then. Get your ass over there.”

30

Peter gazed down at the thick boots, the stiff, formfitting brown breeks and the odd tan shirt with half sleeves and its owner’s name sewn over the pocket. “Rusty,” he said again.

“I told you, he’s a maintenance man.” Jeanne turned the wheel of the horseless vehicle she cal ed a “car.” “He works with the boiler and pipes. That sort of thing.”

“In that line of work, such a name does not instil much confidence.”

“Look, you’re lucky he’s always had a thing for me.

Otherwise you’d be wearing Linda Armstrong’s spare pair of running shorts and a Rage Against the Machine T-shirt.”

Nothing after “Armstrong” had made the slightest sense, though it sounded as if the clothes he’d been given were better than what he might have had. He looked at them again. He had always taken great pride in his clothes and frequented the finest tailors in London. But despite the exquisite workmanship of the seams, everything else on the shirt and breeches seemed utilitarian and plain. There were no ribbons, no lace, no dash of color, no delicacy of design.

And the sharp, intricate teeth of the device holding his breeks closed were more than a little disconcerting. But he liked the boots. Sturdy and comfortable, they reminded him of his days as a lad in Westphalia, conquering the Soest hil s with his friends.

“How much longer?”

Jeanne gave him a look. “It’s rush hour.”

Peter marveled at the name given the stately pace at which they were proceeding. He could have covered the same ground on a horse in half the time. Nonetheless he took the opportunity to drink in his fil of the new world.

Peter had known the future would look different. Everyone in the Afterlife had the sort of general understanding of what existed one acquired from hearing reports by the Guild, but it was quite different to see it al laid out in such a frighteningly crowded