The Traveling Vampire Show

mistake about it: she jerked like a startled little girl. Suddenly feeling protective of her, I raised my arms and wrapped them around her back.

“You okay?” I asked.

She nodded, her cheek sliding against my face. “How about you?” she asked.

“Guess I’m okay.”

“Am I crushing you?”

“Nah.”

“Maybe we’d better stay here for a few minutes. Give the crowd a chance to clear out.”

I almost told her that I wanted to get up and check on Rusty... but then I remembered my last glimpse of him in the lightning flash. It made me feel a little sick.

Valeria obviously wasn’t a vampire, after all. Just a beautiful woman with a very strange and dangerous job. And she hadn’t been playing ’possum, after all. She’d been stunned or out cold.

You don’t do things to someone in that condition.

You just don’t.

Not even if she’s gorgeous and naked and pretends to be a vampire.

I knew Rusty was always horny, always making crude remarks, always talking (when Slim wasn’t around) about how much he’d like to “do it” to this or that girl. Or “jump her bones” or “give her a taste of the one-eyed monster” or so on. Maybe it shouldn’t have been a shock to catch him doing that to Valeria.

But it was.

How did he even know how?

The way he’d been going at her, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe he’d had some previous experience.

No. He would’ve bragged about it.

Unless the girl was ...

From somewhere behind the bleachers came a scream. Looking back toward Janks Field, all I could see was a pale glow given off by headlights. I was too high in the stands for a view of the ground or even the vehicles.

“Glad we’re not mixed up in that,” Lee said.

“Yeah.”

“How you doing?”

“Fine.”

“You’re not squished yet?”

“Nah. I’m okay.”

“You make a pretty good mattress.”

“Thanks.”

“Maybe a little lumpy here and there.” She squirmed as if looking for a more comfortable position.

All of a sudden, I was acutely aware of being flat on my back with Lee on top of me.

Through her soaked, clinging shirt, my hands felt her back—and no bra straps. Her breasts were mashed against my chest. The way her belly touched mine, I could feel each breath she took. Her groin was tight against my crotch. Though we were thigh to thigh, her legs were slightly apart and squeezing mine together as if to hold herself in place.

I started to get a boner.

Squirming, I pushed at Lee. “We’d better get up.”

“I’ll try.”

She reached up to the bench with her right hand, pulled at it, shoved at my shoulder with her other hand, unclenched her thighs and managed to sit up on me, straddling my hips, her legs dangling off the sides.

If anything, this position was worse for me. Didn’t she realize what she was sitting on?

Didn’t she care?

Maybe she liked it.

Lightning flashed.

Lee flinched again.

For just a moment, through the slanting streaks of silver rain, I saw her sitting upright on top of me with her head turned toward the arena. Her soaked hair was flat against her head. Her face, shiny as oil, streamed with water. So did her bare arms. Her drenched shirt was half unbuttoned. It adhered to her body and took on the shapes of her breasts. Her stiff nipples pushed out the clinging fabric.

I saw all this in the starkness of the lightning, a glare that probably lasted no more than a second but seemed to go on much longer. And just before the darkness returned, I saw Lee’s jaw drop open.

“Oh, my God^!” she gasped.