Free The Color of Secrets by Lindsay Ashford Page B

wasn’t a complete lie.
    “Is that all?” He reached for the field glasses, and Eva watched his mouth slide into a smile. “Well,” he said, “I don’t think they’re going to be too bothered about what we’re up to right now . . . ”
    Eva almost snatched the binoculars from his hand. “They’re not . . . !”
    “Don’t worry—they’re just necking.”
    She flopped down with relief. Closing her eyes, she could hear nothing but the sweet, distant call of skylarks. The scent of earth and ripening wheat mingled with the scent of him. This is all there is . . . The words echoed in her mind. Without opening her eyes, she let go of her dress, allowing it to slide away from her breasts. She undid the rest of the buttons. The fabric slithered to the ground as she leaned across to undo his. She took off all his clothes, her hands working slowly and deliberately. For a moment they lay still, marveling at the strangeness of their limbs intertwined.
    “You sure?” he whispered.
    “Yes,” she said, shutting out the nagging voices in her head as her fingers slid down the smooth slope of his chest. “I’m sure.”
    He cupped her breasts in his hands, kissing them before moving down her body. She had never known kisses like these. His breath and the flicker of his tongue made her shiver and cry out with delight. She felt his hand move across her leg to where his jacket lay, heard the rustle of cellophane. And then in one swift movement he was on top of her and inside her. She clung to him, oblivious of the coarse stalks of wheat rasping her naked back as she writhed beneath him. Her eyes were shut tight, but as she climaxed a rainbow of color exploded inside her head. She heard him moan with pleasure, felt him shudder and then settle against her breasts, his skin as wet as hers.
    When she opened her eyes, all she could see was the sky, clear and blue, stretching endlessly above them. She felt as if he had turned her body inside out, found her soul and set it free.

Chapter 8
    S EPTEMBER 1943
    A cold wind tugged at Eva’s jacket as she picked her way past a line of women queuing for tangerines. The name of the fruit, scrawled on a makeshift cardboard sign, conjured the smell of the night before. As they had danced together by torchlight, the spiced orange scent of him had rubbed into her skin. She’d asked him how he always managed to smell so delicious. He had hung his head, embarrassed by the compliment. He seemed to have no vanity; no idea how good-looking he was. After much coaxing he had confessed that the scent of oranges came from a bottle of oil he used on his hair. All his friends used it, he said, because it made their hair look more European.
    Then he had stroked her long auburn curls and told her they had drawn him to her that first night at the Civic Hall. “I thought you looked like Rita Hayworth.” He smiled. “But when I got a bit closer, I realized you’re even prettier than she is.”
    Eva smiled at the memory of it. To anyone else it would sound like a lame attempt at flattery, but the way he’d said it, his eyes misty with longing, had made her feel very special. She forgot about her rough hands and her aching back when she was with him. She didn’t care about having to skulk about town, hiding in the darkness of the cinema; didn’t feel the slightest bit envious, waving Dilys off for a dance at the Civic Hall while she waited for Bill on the steps of the air-raid shelter.
    Last week he had surprised her. Coming out of the station after work she’d spotted him waiting for her by the ticket office. She’d dropped her head, fumbling in her bag, telling the others she’d forgotten something. Ten minutes later they were making love, urgent and frantic on a bed of soft grass behind the railway embankment. They had been so desperate for each other that neither had remembered the army-issue condoms in his pocket.
    As she hurried along the street, she caught her breath, her head reeling at