One further question haunted him: If I don't find Nora or Trent, what am I going to do?
He'd have to go to the boat and leave without them.
"Loren," a peep of a voice seemed to seep through trees.
"Nora!" he replied. He wasn't sure which direction.
'Oh God, I think I broke my leg…"
Not Nora's voice-
He stepped a few yards off the trail and saw her, lying sprawled in the thicket.
Annabelle.
Loren stared down, gun poised.
She lay naked, inclined on her elbows. When she tried to lean up farther, she groaned. But what Loren noticed first and foremost was this: She looks… normal.
She winced through obvious discomfort when she looked more closely at him. "What's wrong with you? Why are you pointing that gun at me?"
"I-" He didn't lower it. He saw no ova on her, and no-yellowed-skin like the girl in the boat.
No sign of infection.
But… that worm…
"Put that gun away and help me!"
"You-you must be infected," he finally choked out. "You have to be."
"Don't be an idiot, Loren!" she snapped. "Do I look infected?"
Loren eyed the robust breasts and healthy, tan belly. Actually, he considered, you don't. "But that wormTrent and I saw it. It was dozens of feet long, Annabelle, and it lifted you up into the trees."
"Tell me about it!" she griped in her normal voice. "That goddamned thing was trying to go down my throat, but once it got a whiff of this"-she held up her wrist, showing her plastic repellent bracelet-"it gagged and dropped me. I must've fallen twenty feet!"
Loren's brain ticked. He had no choice but to doubt what she claimed; it didn't jibe with the science. Those bracelets, as well as the bug repellent they'd been using, were only strong enough to discourage small insects with microscopic sensory pores that would easily be overloaded by the small traces of chlordane and diethylbased irritants. But a twenty- or thirty-foot worm? It would be like killing a wild boar with a mousetrap.
Then again… bug spray killed the ova and smaller worms, he remembered. And as a matter of fact, I haven't been infected, and neither has Nora or Trentand we all used bug repellent and the bracelets.
"Loren! Just when I was really starting to like you, and now you're really pissing me off! Would you stop being a chicken and come over here and help me!"
He knew what Nora would do; she'd help her. Plus, if anything, Annabelle looked one hundred percent as healthy as she had earlier. The trickle of remnant attraction assailed him as well, even under these conditions. Any real man would feel the same thing. Her raw beauty lay before him, and she was in pain: the ultimate damsel in distress…
Loren put the gun away and went to her. "You said you broke your leg?"
She ground her teeth. "I think so, when I fell out of the tree-my right leg. It hurts so much."
Loren placed his hands on the warm leg, felt for signs of fracture. "I think you lucked out," he said, trying very hard not to steal a glance at her breasts. "There's no swelling, and I don't feel any bone fragments under the skin. You probably jolted the cartilage in the knee and hip, though, and that's going to hurt fora while. Let me help you up, see if you can walk."
She groaned again, head arched back, as he got her to her feet.
"Can you put any weight on your leg?"
She clung to him with one arm, and gingerly stepped forward. "Yes-damn! It hurts, but I think I can walk."
"Good. Let's take it slow."
At least Loren had some direction now, but… Jesus, I've got to move fast. Got to get Annabelle to the boat, then find Nora and Trent and get THEM to the boat. And then get out of here… AFTER I get rid of this bomb in my pocket!
They limped along down the trail. This was going to take a while. The bomb ticking away in his pocket only reminded him further of how little time he had to get everything done. And…
How powerful IS this bomb? the worst dread kept forcing him to think. Loren didn't need that question distracting him, and a distraction he needed even less was Annabelle's warm, curvaceous body pressing right against him. One big breast kept rubbing his side, and every time he cast a tiny glance down…
Oh, man…
During one such glance, he could swear her nipples were erecting, which hardly made sense given the situation. Stop looking at her, you pervert! he yelled at himself.
He didn't see the kudzu vine crooked out from the base of a palm tree. His foot hooked it, and-
Flump!
They both fell.
"Shit! I'm sorry," Loren bumbled. "Are you all right?"
Annabelle lay atop him, her luscious, hot weight pressing him down. He expected that the fall had hurt her leg, but she made no protest. Her face opposed his, strands of blond hair falling to either side of his neck. It looked like she was about to say something, but then her eyes bloomed… and her lips lowered to his.
The shock stiffened every muscle in Loren's body. He felt agog at what was happening. Her tongue traced his lips, delved into his mouth, then slipped down to his ear where she whispered, "I've been hot for you since the day we got here…"
More shock on Loren's part, and more stiffening, especially about the groin. I can't believe it, came the thought through so much hot fog. I'm finally making out with her…
At last he relaxed and slipped his arms around the small of her back. Her bare legs spread wider, her groin grinding down. Her breathing issued as a series of wanton pants and gasps. She raised herself on her hands then, and hitched herself up.
To a guy like Loren, the mother lode had arrived.
The two perfect orbs of her breasts were now level with his face. Then she positioned herself more precisely, and a swollen nipple began to brush across his lips.
"Suck it," she whispered. "Hard. Real hard…"
The instant Loren obliged, Annabelle moaned.
The way her bare hips were grinding down, Loren wouldn't last long. Her warm body encompassed him: She was a cocoon of his most erotic dreams. She traded her nipples back and forth, "Harder." And then one hand slid down, caged his crotch through the meager swim trunks, and squeezed.
"Take these off and fuck me," came the next desperate whisper. "I can't stand it anymore. I've got to have you in me…"
Just hearing her say that almost spent him. This would be tough. Even if he got that far, how long would he last?
Only a few of his closest friends knew his secret: that he was indeed a virgin. He'd told Nora some contrary jive because-well, it seemed the right thing to do, not to mention that he had the hots for her, and not to mention that she was his boss.
But… this?
No one would believe him, and he didn't care.
Cringing, he was about to pull the gun out of his waistband and push his trunks down when the situation's true gravity slapped him in the face:
Wait a minute! I've got an alien bomb I've got to get rid of, two people to find, and a boat to get on…
I don't have time to have sex!
"Annabelle… we can't do this now. There's some stuff you don't know…"
The wanton desperation on her face… changed.
Suddenly her face turned blank, like a sleepwalker's…
She sat upright, still straddling his groin. When he looked now, it seemed that her belly was swollen, and…
Ooooooooooh no…
Her skin seemed to be tinged with the faintest offyellow streaks overlain by tiny red spots…
"Get off me!" he shouted, shoving up at her.
Very softly, she said, "I'm going to sit on your face and feed you my worms…"
Her fists were suddenly in his hair, holding him down. She kneed herself higher, trying to position her groin over his mouth…
Loren almost fainted when he glimpsed several narrow wormheads peeking out of the folds of her sex.