"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 07 - Pearl of Patmos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

a girl, Diana, could surely handle herself in the water.
There was a frothing explosion near him. She shot out of the water like a porpoise, in a rainbow of
spray, laughing at him. Water sequins sparkled as the sun caught her breasts. She splashed water at him,
treading easily, tossing her sodden hair behind her shoulders.
"This is marvelous. I haven't been in the water since I got back from the south ofFrance . I think I
must be part mermaid. I love the water so."
Blade, also treading water, kept his distance. He frowned. "I much prefer that you remain Diana.
From the pictures I have seen of mermaids there seems to be an essential part missing. And no merman
ever shouted, 'vive la difference.' In fact I have always felt sorry for mermenтАФthey must get some very
nasty shocks."
She moved a little closer to him. Her eyes widened and she caught her lower lip in her teeth. "You
know, Hercules, there is something about you. At first I thought you were just a big beautiful
muscle-bound oaf, but I was wrong about that."
"Hercules," Blade said smugly, "was always underrated."
"Be serious for a minute. I almost wish we weren't playing the game. So we could tell our real names
andтАФand maybe see each other again sometime."
"The times are out of joint," he said. Tomorrow he'd go through the computer into Dimension X. The
future, his private future, consisted of the hours between this moment and the time he sat down in the
chair in Lord L's laboratory. Beyond that there were no certainties. That he had always come back
meant nothing. The time would come when he, or, if his luck held, another man in his place would not
come back.
Diana moved a bit closer. "What does that mean? The times are out of joint? Don't you, wouldn't
you, want to see me again? If we could, I mean?"
Blade smiled at her. Stop the glooming. Hell! He had come back six times. He would come back this
time.
 "Hercules' mother raised no fools," he told her. "And itisonly a game, you know. Shall we stop
playing it and get to know each other?"
For a moment he was certain she would agree. The look in her eyes, colored a darker green and
warmed by the sapphire water, told him that. Then she shook her head. "No. We can't. I was just
thinking crazy for a moment. We're still playing the game."
Blade was put out. He ached for her. "Then let's get on with it." He was gruff. "That bird and bottle is
still waiting at my cottage."
Again she shook her head. "I think not. I've changed my mind about that."
Blade scowled, not altogether in jest. "I never read that Diana was a tease."
She laughed, eyes green slits, and splashed at him. "Oh, but she was! She was a terrible woman, in
many ways. Cruel, when she wanted to be. When she was angry. Didn't she change some poor man into
a stag and have her dogs tear him to pieces? Just because he watched her bathing?"
"I don't know." He sounded sulky, and was. The whole bit was becomingjejune. She was putting
him on, this strange little bitch from nowhere, and he had been cooperating all too readily in making a fool
of himself.
She moved closer. "Hercules is losing his temper," she gibed. "We don't want that. I suppose I had
better relax the rules a bit."
Her body was against his. She put her arms about his neck and her mouth close to his ear. Her
breasts, buoyant in the sea water, flattened against his chest.
She whispered in his ear. "Hercules may kiss Diana if he wishes."
"He wishes."
They clung together, half-floating, half-treading water, their mouths together. "Let's swim out a little
farther. Theremightbe someone watching from the cliffs."
Blade saw no point in this, but did not demur. At the moment he could not have cared less about
peepers. His massive body was crammed with lust for her. He towed her along, feeling her sleek wet