Death's Excellent Vacation - By Charlaine Harris & Toni L. P. Kelner Page 0,100

throat as the reality of the conversation struck him hard. Please, she’d said, and now that he reminded himself what she was pleading for, what she wanted from him, he could barely think. It could be the night of his life.

But he would never be able to enjoy the memory of it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Good night, Diana.”

As he reached out to return the phone to its cradle, his hand hesitated involuntarily for just a moment. But if she said anything more, he did not hear it. He hung up and laid his head back down with a mixture of relief and regret.

His arousal subsided and a peaceful sort of contentment filled him. Though he half expected the phone to ring, it did not. He closed his eyes and burrowed down into the bed. Sleep had fled, but only for a while, and soon enough it began to envelop him again.

“Tim.”

He came half awake, lost somewhere in a dream.

“Tim.”

Now he blinked and opened his eyes. In the darkness he reached out to search the rest of the huge hotel bed to make absolutely certain he was alone there. She sounded so close.

“Are you awake?”

She wasn’t in the room; her voice came through the thin wall, a lover’s whisper, though she must have been speaking up in order for him to hear her.

He considered replying but then thought better of it.

“Think of something you’ve always wanted to do but never dared to ask of a woman,” she said. “You don’t have to ask me. You could do whatever you want, and I won’t stop you. I won’t say no. Better than that, I’ll ask for more.”

Scenarios played out in his mind instantly, and once again she had him captivated.

“Please,” she said. “I need you.”

She began to tell him in great detail every little thing she would be willing to do, and have done to her, and how much she would enjoy it. How she would moan, even scream.

Then, at last, when he did not reply, she sighed.

“All right. I’ll just have to call room service. But you’re to blame for what happens.”

You’re to blame? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Tim pulled a pillow over his head to block out her voice, but it seemed she had surrendered at last. Yet still her promises echoed inside his head. He lay curled on his side, unable to make his erection go away, unable to deny his arousal, and yet filled with more sorrow and missing Jenny more than he had since the day he had lost her.

At some point he drifted off, temptation still burning in him.

A sharp rap at the door snapped him awake. His eyes burned and his head felt full of cotton. What little sleep he’d had tonight had been shallow and restless. In the blackness of the room he threw back the covers and started to climb out of bed.

Gotta be her. Crazy woman, Tim thought. I’ve got myself a stalker.

“Who is it?” Diana called.

Tim froze, brow furrowed. Had the knock been at his door or at hers? With the walls so thin, it was difficult to know.

A muffled voice replied. He heard Diana unlocking her door and, out of curiosity, pressed his ear to the wall again. The rattle of a room service cart was followed by a murmur of voices. Tim fancied he could smell food—a burger, maybe?

He glanced at the nightstand. In the pitch dark of his room he could barely make out the glow of the alarm clock, which he’d turned away from him. Now he felt his way onto the bed and crawled over to it, turning the clock around to read the time.

Room service at two thirteen A.M.? Did this hotel even have twenty-four-hour room service? Or had Diana persuaded someone to break the rules for her? Tim had a feeling Diana had spent her entire life tempting and cajoling and getting exactly the result she desired.

A spark of irritation ignited within him. Though he felt a now- familiar stirring at the thought of her, his frustration at this long night of broken sleep trumped any lingering arousal.

From next door he heard the sound of a door closing, and he assumed the room service guy had left. But a moment later the murmur of voices began again, both hers and a man’s, and then they moved nearer and he heard the creak of weight upon the bed.

“Trust me,” he heard Diana say, “this is going to be the best tip you’ve