Jack looked at her, almost incredulous. “You’re kidding.”
Chastity shook her head. “Not a bit.”
Now it was Jack’s turn to shake his head. “I don’t believe it.”
She grinned at him. “Well believe it. You don’t have a choice, anyhow.”
“That’s too bad,” he said.
“Isn’t it, though?”
Jack shrugged. “I suppose. Then again, who am I to blame you for getting some sort of enjoyment out of this freak show?”
“It is not a freak show, Jack.”
“Oh it isn’t?” he asked. “Then why the treatment? There are easier ways to test products, you know.”
“Sure there are, but some products need a different kind of testing. Not everything can be done to perfection in a lab, you know.”
“I suppose,” Jack admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I have to like this.”
Her smile suddenly adopted a predatory leer. “Well, get used to it. We still have four days left.”
He grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”
A laugh. “Oh trust me… I’m going to remind you a lot, especially when I think it’ll be funny.”
Jack buried his head in his hands. “And of all the pretty girls at school, I had to be stuck with the one who gets off on this.” She smacked him. “Hey!”
“That’s what you get for being a compulsive liar,” she said.
“One of these days I’m going to hit you back.”
“Bull. You would never, ever hurt me,” she said, the last statement accompanying a warming of her expression and a sparkle in her eyes.
“Not ever?” he asked lamely.
She smiled. “Not ever,” she repeated, her voice almost a whisper. Very suddenly Jack was aware of the fact that their lips were no great distance apart, the fragrance of her hair was being wafted into his nostrils by some inexplicable air current, there was an element of desire in her eyes—
He nervously cleared his throat, and just like that the moment was gone. Chastity’s expression wore what could easily be described as openness, but Jack was very suddenly and keenly aware that in her eyes a door had been shut, and before that moment, he hadn’t been aware that it existed, or even of the fact that it was unlocked, as if waiting for someone to come in. The sparkle was there, but not nearly so lustrous as it had been a mere heartbeat earlier.
Very privately he wondered if the opportunity would ever arise again. And the instant he wondered that, he was curious as to what, precisely that opportunity was. Unbeknownst to him, Chastity was wondering the same thing, but it was accompanied by a most infinite hope that whatever it was might come again.