Campaigning for Christopher Read Online Free Page A

eyes shut quickly, then opening them again. Damn, he shouldn’t have had that last whiskey, or at least he should have sipped it.
    “ Right word,” he corrected her.
    She licked her lips as her eyes traveled leisurely over his face. “Need . . . like air? Like water? Like salt? Like health care?”
    He felt himself sway lightly and braced his second hand against the door, trapping her as a bead of sweat wound its way down the side of his face. “Yeah. L-like those things.”
    “Like equality? Like compassion? Like . . .”
    “Sex,” he blurted out, but his voice sounded slurred and slow, and he cringed inside at how crass the word sounded, thrown out there so uncouthly. The goddess, however, didn’t seem to mind.
    “Sex,” she repeated, staring at his lips for a moment before raising her eyes to his. Her eyes were hard but somehow satisfied. “That’s what a girl like me is good for, right? Of course that’s what you want.”
    “Of course that’s what I want,” he parroted in a murmur, feeling light-headed, trying to keep up with the conversation, but feeling it slip away from him as another bead of sweat followed the first.
    “Isn’t this your sister’s vineyard?”
    “Not my ssssssister.” He shook his head, and the movement felt heavy and slow, and the world spun. Clenching his eyes shut, he said, “My brother’s . . . ffffffiancée.”
    “Mmm,” she murmured, the sound catlike and sexy, and he opened his eyes to find two of her. Frustrated, he blinked several times, concentrating on her eyes, until there was only one of her again.
    “Where do they live?”
    Where does who live? What are we talking about? he wondered. Oh, right. Margaret and Cam. They live here.
    “Cottage.”
    “Sounds cozy,” she purred.
    “Wha’s your . . . mame?” he asked her.
    “Is the cottage close?”
    “Hmm.” He turned his neck, swaying slightly as he looked at the dark, brambled path that skirted around the reception tent and led to the woods. “Short . . . uh . . . wwwwalk.”
    She leaned forward and whispered in his ear, her low voice filling his head with filthy fucking thoughts. “Take me.”
    Take me. Damn.
    Christopher clenched his eyes shut again. Her words blew his mind, but his whole body was feeling hot and sluggish and sloppy. And somewhere—deep in the back of his head—a tiny, drowned-out voice was telling him to be careful, to beware. But in her enormous black eyes, he saw the twinkle of the thousands of white lights roped around the tent behind them, and it was enough of a distraction to silence the warning.
    “Your eyes are . . . like the nnnnnight sky. The . . . uuuuuniverse. The . . . hhhhheavens . . .,” he murmured, leaning so close to her, he could feel the heat thrown from her body, could smell the clean, woodsy scent rising from her pores. “. . . and a . . . a million . . . starssssss.”
    For a moment—for just a split, solitary second—she flinched, her forehead creasing and eyebrows pinching together as she stared back at him. But then her tricky, pussy-cat smile returned, and she wrapped her hands around his wrists, pulling them gently from the door, and lacing her fingers through his.
    “Take me to the cottage,” she said, tugging him into the nearby darkness, her words slightly garbled and very far away. “Just tell me which way to go.”
    “Past the shhhhhhhhheds,” he said, surprised that he was moving. Where was he, again? He wasn’t sure. But it was very dark, and he was holding someone’s hand, walking a little bit behind her. Who was she? Did it matter? He could hear her footsteps, crunching on dry leaves and twigs. Where were they going? His lips were thick and fat as he mumbled, “Brammmmmmbled.”
    “Past the sheds and down the brambled path,” she repeated softly, like she was talking to herself, not to him.
    His feet weighed a thousand pounds, though somehow they kept up with hers. A blur of shed whooshed past them as they would if he was on a bullet