Two hours at the motel were all Cash could take. He left the others with the impression that he was going to take a nap, caught a cab to the railway station.
At ten p.m. he finally admitted his folly to himself. He was just working on an ulcer. At the motel, at least, he could share the waiting with friends.
But he had this damned overpowering urge to
It almost conned him into a solo recon of the local Groloch establishment.
For once terror did him a favor. It stopped him.
By sheer chance, as his taxi pulled away, he glimpsed someone through a Windless window. The man was crossing the waiting room, toward the rest rooms, at a trot.
'Damn!' Norm growled. 'That Malone is stubborn.' He hoped the man's bladder was choking him. Serve him right, hiding, spying on people.
He didn't get upset. There wasn't a thing he could do about it.
He went looking for Frank right away. The bartender told him that Segasture had gone to bed. Tran had turned in too. 'Hell, it's still too early. Mix me a rum and Coke in a water glass. Two shots. No ice.'
Maybe it was just as well. He wouldn't have to take any crap about sneaking off.
He went through three drinks before announcing, 'I might as well sack out too. Ain't nothing else to do.' He was dog-tired, but not really sleepy. Too keyed up.
He was about to become more keyed up.
He stepped into his room and ass deep into a 'situation.'
Beth was in his bed. She had fallen asleep while reading.
She didn't have a stitch on beneath that sheet. One bare, large, dark-nippled breast peeked out at him.
'So this is why she came.' He closed the door gently, quietly seated himself in the room's one chair. His knees missed brushing the bed by a scant half inch.
As nervous as she was, how could she have fallen asleep? She should have been too scared to think.
Maybe she had reached the point of emotional exhaustion.
His thoughts went round and round, pecking at the situation from a hundred angles.
It boiled down to a choice between
God, she looked good.
A half hour passed. The alcohol gradually caught up. He felt on the verge of collapse. He had to get to bed.
He would have to disturb her or stay awake.
He didn't want to endure the inevitable confrontation.
God damn it, it was his bed.
A disinterested fraction of his mind observed, with amusement, that, whenever he began to relax, he reacted in healthy male fashion. The resulting tension invariably caused a detumescence.
He rose, stripped to his shorts, switched the light off, slid into bed.
Beth wakened instantly, sat upright. 'Norm? I'm sorry. I don't know why-'
'Shut up. Lay down. Shut up,' he said again. He pulled her toward him, cuddling spoon fashion. She remained stiff, but her skin was smooth, soft, warm. She shivered, tried to pull away. 'Lay still. And go back to sleep.'
They didn't drift off quickly. There was too much tension, too much waiting for someone to make an advance. But the forced silence gradually sapped the fury of the emotional storm.
Cash slept, but awakened with the dawn.
Beth snored fitfully beside him, sprawled on her back. Obviously she was used to sleeping alone.
Cash touched himself. He had one of those throbbing morning erections that a cat couldn't scratch.
He lifted himself onto one elbow, eased the sheet off the bed.
'Nice,' he whispered.
She really did have a dynamite body.
His heart hammered. He shook all over. It was like the first time ever all over again.
He was going to do it.
He bent to one of those magnificent breasts.
• • •
Frank came pounding on the door shortly after ten. 'Hey. Norm. Come on. Get up.'
They came out of bed grabbing for clothes.
