Dare (The Dare Trilogy) (7 page)

“What?” Janey’s eyes went wide. “You mean there’s more?”

Dianne leaned across and whispered in Janey’s ear the additional details involved with Cam’s private parts.

“Oh my
God!” Janey sat back in shock. “I’m really surprised you can walk.” Her eyes narrowed. “You jammy bitch!”

Dianne frowned at this. “You didn’t do so badly by the sound of things. Come on, it’s your turn to spill the beans.”

To Dianne’s surprise, Janey blushed. “Jesus, Janey! Was it that mad?”

“You wouldn’t believe it! After your fracas with Cam
—that is his name, isn’t it? Well, after you’d given him the cold shoulder, I thought there was no chance we’d see any action. Boy! How wrong I was. By the time we got back to the hotel it was me, the drummer and the keyboard player. The bassist, he’s a bit of an awkward sod, but I think he was more into sucking up to Darius...” At this, Janey frowned.

“What is it?” Dianne asked.

“He’s... well, he’s a bit creepy, isn’t he?”

“Who, the bass player? I don’t know
—I didn’t get chance to speak to him much.”

“No, not him. Darius. He wanted me and the other girl who’d joined us to get down and start, well, you know, doing it on the floor in front of everyone else.” Janey shuddered a little at the thought.

“Well, I suppose it is rock and roll and all that.” Dianne couldn’t resist a smile at the thought.

“I
guess so, though it’s not my thing. Anyway, she got off with some other woman—the one with long, black hair.” Dianne nodded to indicate she knew the person Janey was talking about. “After that, it wasn’t long till we left for the hotel, though I’d have happily swapped my two for that Cam. I mean... they’re nice enough lads, but he’s
gorgeous
.”

“Yeah, well,” Dianne mumbled, suddenly embarrassed at the feelings she was experiencing. “He’s not bad...”

“Not bad? Not
bad
! You need your head seeing to. He’s the best-looking guy you’ve ever been with, and he plays guitar just the way you like it.”

“Nearly the way I like it,” Dianne corrected.

“Oh, buggeration, miss-prickly-pants! Anyway, are you going to see him again? When he gets back?”

Dianne paused for a moment, considering the empty cup in front of her. “Actually,” she said at last, “he’s asked me to go with him.”

“What, on tour? Well, now I am jealous!” Janey’s eyes were blazing with a mixture of jealousy, as she said, but also admiration. “So why aren’t you back home packing?”

“Well, you know,” Dianne mumbled. “It’s all so sudden, and there’s work, and I can’t leave Magnus all alone.”

“What the hell has work got to do with it? We both have dead-end nine-to-five jobs that we don’t give a stuff about, and I can take care of your cat for as long as you need.”

Dianne sighed. “Yeah, but it’s all so... sudden.”

“Bloody hell! Do I have to come over there and knock some sense into you? What are you being such a coward about? Come on, Dianne! Dare to live a little!”

By the time she had left Janey after a tube trip back home, Dianne was feeling somewhat annoyed with her friend. Janey had not been able to let things lie, but needled at Dianne constantly. It was easy for her to say, Dianne thought as she unlocked the door to her flat. She wasn’t the one proposing to jack in her job and travel across Europe with a complete stranger
—and a group of associates who could be reckless in a whole number of ways that Dianne shuddered to even consider.

“Hello, Magnus,” she cooed as she unlocked the door to her flat. The apartment itself was small and pokey and her ginger tomcat was the best thing about it: he used the cat flap liberally to come and go, and Dianne had the suspicion that Magnus was equally liberal with his favours among all her neighbours
—few of whom she knew directly. Picking him up, she pressed her face to his warm fur and carried him through to the kitchen.

The place smelt somewhat musty: she’d complained to the landlord about the smell that she suspected indicated rot somewhere, but he’d never done anything about it. The only times he ever visited all he did was leer at her. Dianne would have minded less if her feminine charms actually had some success in getting him to complete some basic maintenance tasks, but she suspected that all he did after he came around was go home and masturbate over some weird fantasy of her
—a thought that made her shudder.

She repressed that as she opened up a cupboard and found a packet of food for her cat. “I’m so sorry, Magnus,” she told him as he purred and rubbed himself against her. “I shouldn’t have left you for so long, should I. And to think that I was even considering leaving you for a month.”

She stopped at this and, frustrated at seeing food so close and yet so far away, Magnus clawed her hand, making her squeal. Feeding him, she shook her head.

And yet, as she left the kitchen and made her way to the bathroom, pulling off her top and skirt as she went so that she was in her bra and knickers, she realised with a shock that she
had
been considering it. Subconsciously, she had been weighing up the possibilities of following Cam as he and the rest of Black Ark went on tour through Europe.

Pausing by her bedroom, she threw her clothes on the bed, glancing disconsolately at the guitar and keyboard propped up in one corner of the cramped room. Normally, the thought of making music was her greatest pleasure, but
tonight it frustrated her for some reason. As she no longer brought guys back to her flat, the place had become somewhat dishevelled (though it wasn’t actually dirty—she was careless, not a slattern), and the whole apartment was getting on her nerves today.

In the bathroom she turned on the hot water and, as it began to fill the bath, she unhooked her bra. Her breasts felt heavy and slightly painful, not so much because Cam had mauled them (though he had taken a huge amount of pleasure in them
—pleasure that, for once, Dianne, had equally enjoyed) as because her own orgasms had made them swell and ache again and again. Indeed, her own body ached. Smiling at memories of the night and morning, she stripped completely naked and climbed into the bath.

Lying there, luxuriating in the water, more and more memories of Cam flooded her mind
—his broad shoulders, his handsome face, and that cock... oh, that cock! At the thought of it, Dianne’s pussy actively hurt and though she was tempted to pleasure herself just one more time, even touching herself caused her legs to twitch in delightful pain. Instead, she lay back in the bath and replayed the night over and over again.

By the time she had completed her bath, she was feeling even more despondent. Was that it? She asked herself as she dried her body with a towel. Was it just a one night stand, never to be repeated? Dianne took great pleasure in being the sort of woman who didn’t need a man
—who was doing just fine by herself, and thank you for asking. But, she realised rather sadly, she had never met a man like Cam.

Going through to the small living room, the towel wrapped around her torso, she let Magnus climb onto her lap and stroked him absent-mindedly, her mobile phone beside her. After a while of enjoying the purring cat, she lifted up her phone and called Janey.

“Can you look after Magnus?” she asked.

“Oh,
hello Di. Sure. Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

“You know what I’m thinking. I just need to know Magnus’ll be okay.”

“He’ll be fine! Go on. I’m as jealous as hell, but you need to do what you’ve gotta do!”

“Okay, thanks. That’s what I just needed to know. Bye.”

The conversation had been short and succinct, but Dianne was too deep in thought to talk to Janey. Indeed, as she fussed Magnus, the phone dead in her other hand, she stared at it very nervously. What if everything she’d been told that morning was bullshit? Hell, did he even know her name?

After several fruitless minutes going through this again and again, she decided there was only one way to find out.

“Yo!” The voice was laid back, informal—and very familiar.

“Cam? Can you talk?”

“Dianne!” (Well, that was one question answered at least.) “Sure, sure. What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much... I was just wondering... this morning, you said about coming on tour with you, hitching along for the ride and all that.”

“Yeah, I remember,” his voice was cautious all of a sudden.

“Well, I’d like to know if the offer still stands.”

There was an explosion of noise on the other end of the line and Dianne wondered what it was until she realised he had literally let out his breath in a whoop. “You’re kidding me, right?” he said. “Of course! It’ll be great!”

“Okay, okay,” she said as he began to rush into a huge conversation. There was a strange feeling in her stomach and she couldn’t work out if it was dread or excitement.

“You won’t regret this—I’m telling you. It’ll be great.” All Cam’s attempts to remain cool had fallen apart so that he sounded more like a kid let loose in a proverbial candy store.

“I hope you’re right about that,” she answered somewhat grimly. “So, where will we meet? Back at the hotel?”

“Nah, we’ve left there. We had to pick up some more stuff for the trip—we’ll be driving down to Dover tomorrow and catching the ferry across to Calais. With any luck, the night after that we’ll be playing in Paris.”

Despite her reservations, excitement was beginning to gain the upper hand over dread and some of Cam’s enthusiasm was rubbing off on her. “That is great. Okay, where shall we meet?”

Cam gave her an address in north London, not so very far from where she was staying. “Can you make it this afternoon?” he asked.

“I’ve just got a couple of things to do first,” she said. “But I’ll be there in the morning, I promise.”

As she hung up, it was only then that Dianne realised she was actually telling the truth: she
would
be there. Until that moment the decision had hung in the balance, but as she looked around her tiny flat, she understood that she had weighed up what life had given her so far and found it wanting.

“Here goes for nothing,” she told herself. As she dialled one final number, this for work, her nerves spiked suddenly. Was she doing the right thing? This was her last chance. Part of her brain shrieked as the phone rang out, shouting at her to stop before it was too late. Instead she held on as a familiar and much-detested voice answered on the other end.

“Alice,” she said, trying to keep herself as calm as possible, “there’s something I need to tell you...”

Joining Cam and his band mates had not quite been what Dianne was expecting. As she caught the tube south of the river early that morning, a large bag slung over her shoulder with what she hoped would be enough clothes for the duration, she had visions of a plush liner coach to carry the members of Black Ark onwards to their every whim.

What she found was a mini bus being packed with amps, instruments and other equipment by the band members themselves.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” She recognised the bass player from two nights previously, a thick mop of dark brown hair almost covering his eyes so that it was hard to tell where his eyebrows ended and his hairline started. He would have been handsome in his own way, but for the contemptuous way he held his mouth as he stared at her.

“I told you, Dan, she’s coming with us.” Cam shook his head in annoyance and then dropped the stack he had been manhandling into the back of the van so that he could come across to Dianne and kiss her.

“Well it’s going to make it a fucking tight fit, that’s all that I can say,” Dan grumbled in his Mancunian accent, picking up his bass guitar and almost flinging it next to an amp.

“Cosy, more like.” The drummer came and stood next to Cam, reaching out a hand as he did so. “I’m Tony,” he said with a smile, his voice rolling with broad, northern Irish tones. Although considerably smaller than Cam, he held himself with a cheeky confidence, no doubt aided by his powerful if compact physique. As he spoke, Dianne noticed that he wasn’t staring at her but instead looking over her shoulder, something which caused her to frown.

Seeing her expression, Tony gave a sheepish grin. “Ah, I was just wondering if you’d come on your own.”

Dianne looked perplexed for a moment then, when she realised what he was talking about, she laughed out loud. “I’m afraid Janey didn’t join me.”

For a second, Tony looked genuinely disappointed but quickly covered it up. “Probably for the best, eh? This old heap of shit probably would break down if we crammed any more people in it. Still, she was good for a laugh, was Janey.”

“Is that all she was good for?” Dianne asked, one eyebrow raised.

Tony leaned in conspiratorially: “Well, just between you and me, she was a right dirty bitch—and I mean that as a compliment in the highest possible terms.”

“I’ll be sure to tell her next time we speak.” Something about Tony’s smile and the glint in his eye made Dianne laugh rather than take offence at his words while Cam shook his head at his friend’s remarks.