Free Take Me Higher by Roberta Latow Page B

her cheeks. For several minutes they lost themselves in each other. The world, with all its goodness and badness, its joys and its tragedies, vanished for them.
    He slipped his hands under the wide kimono sleeves of her black silk wraparound dress and caressed her arms; searched out her naked breasts and caressed them, felt the weight and the succulent roundness of them in his hands. His caress had nothing to do with lust only comfort and caring. She gave in to the sensation and the last tears she would ever shed for her father dried. Clear-eyed now, new life and passion began to flow through her once more. Being in James’s arms felt good, so very right. Only now did something more than carnal attraction come to light for them: the yearning to experience with each other sensual delight, wanting to come together in that special oneness they sensed was there for them. It was too marvellous and so for some time they just stood there in the garden enveloped in each other’s arms, healing themselves from the wounds life had inflicted upon them through the many years they had been apart.
    From the terrace Ira watched the scene being played out below in the garden until Syrah and James parted, spoke briefly and she walked swiftly away from him to break into a run towards the house.
    Ira was seeing a very different Syrah. There was the unmistakable look of love in her eyes and he seethed with jealousy. He had not wooed her for so many years to lose her now. He could thrash her for even allowing the possibility that he might.
    Diana, in the house, passed a window by chance and spotted Ira on the terrace below, watching Syrah. She saw him crunch an empty champagne flute in his hand. It splintered. He opened his hand and theshards fell on to the stones. There was a look of lust and anger on his face that told her everything. He wanted to be the man who held Syrah in his arms, for her to look at him as she had looked at that other man. Ira wanted Syrah! For how long had he lusted after her? Yet again she felt betrayed by Ira. Diana asked herself how she could possibly have missed the fact that the man she had loved so completely was infatuated with her best friend?
    She came away from the window and leaned against a wall. It was inevitable that questions about Ira and Syrah should be running through her mind. Hadn’t she always suspected that Syrah held a sexual attraction for Ira but blanked that possibility out of her mind? She had, over the years, learned to look and not see so many things in order to stay with him.
    Feeling even a residue of love for such a cad was excruciatingly painful for her. Especially since Ira claimed he still wanted her in his life. He insisted all Diana had come to terms with was what they were and were not to each other, adjust to it, and then they could live happily ever after. If there had been even the slightest chance she would give in to his wishes, this final betrayal had killed it. Her love for Ira was quite dead.
    On entering the house, Syrah was immediately caught up saying goodbye to several people who were leaving and tried to put all thoughts of James and what had happened in the garden out of her mind. How at a sad time like this could such a thing as falling in love happen to her? It was a kind of madness that she should love James, feel a passion for him she had not felt for any man since Keoki’s father. She wandered among the guests while waiting for him to return to the house and find her. But he didn’t return, and it was only minutes before she was due to be in the library. She felt suddenly shattered he had not come after her. Not the right time or the right place? That had been the only reason she had run away from him. Had he been sorry for what had passed between them? His wife and children were very good reasons for him to forget what had happened in the garden.
    Syrah was taking heart, feeling her spirits revive. She knew in the marrow of her bones that James felt the same way