Free Edge of Paradise by Dorothy Vernon Page A

I’d come back for you when you’d had your shower. Well, I have.’ Doubtless he saw the way her eyes turned to the keyless communicating door, because then he said, ‘We also share the same balcony. I came in that way. Cozy, isn’t it?’
    She was glad she had taken the precaution of putting on her bathrobe before coming out of the bathroom. All the same, she wished there were a little more of it. The neckline was all right, but she would have preferred it to be longer and was conscious of the amount of leg it exposed.
    She expected him to make some comment about her legs, he’d certainly had a good enough look at them, but his eyes flicked over to the book on the bedside table, his book, and it prompted him to say, ‘You’ve got a hot taste in bedtime reading.’
    â€˜You should know,’ she said, more than a little puzzled by his comment.
    In case he thought she was a fan of his it would have been honest to admit that it was the only book of his she’d ever bought, but her slight hesitation lost her the opportunity to speak up.
    â€˜Have you ever been to the tropics before?’ he asked abruptly.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜That’s what I thought. That’s why I wanted to hurry you out of the bathroom. Dawn is the best time to be up and about on a tropical island, but the sunset is the most spectacular sight you’ll ever see. Your first tropical sunset is an experience you’ll never forget. I quite envy you. I’m glad I’m here to share the moment with you.’
    He held out his hand to her and her own went into it without hesitation. He led her out to the balcony, putting her in front of his lean frame, resting his hands lightly, not in a distracting way, on her shoulders.
    He was right. It was magnificent. Dramatic and beautiful. And the colors—pinks and blues and mauves. So incredible. It began with bits of bluish pink turning into blood-red splashes which quickly changed to mauve. Mauve and purple swaths draped the clouds and slid across the horizon. When it was over, and it was quite dark, the afterglow remained in her heart. She stood, absolutely motionless, savoring it in silent homage.
    The hands on her shoulders tightened their grip, turning her fully ’round into his arms. She was conscious of his fingers dealing with the tightly secured knot on the sash of her bathrobe, the sensation of air circulating ’round her body as the robe loosened from her waist. Her heart was palpitating wildly. She had never been so close to a man, so scantily clothed—because beneath the bathrobe there was only her—in the whole of her life. It wasn’t right. But on this night that was surely made for lovers, how could it not be right?
    His hand touched her trembling mouth before sliding along her shoulder and across her back.
    She must speak up or it would be too late. Somehow, summoning up a superhuman effort, she found her voice, hoping its aching reluctance didn’t betray her true desire. ‘I’m hungry, Paul.’
    â€˜So am I, but not for food.’
    â€˜I couldn’t eat on the plane.’
    â€˜Later—we’ll eat later.’
    â€˜Later I’ll be asleep,’ she said, using her weariness to prevent something happening which she wanted desperately at this moment, but which she knew she would regret when she was her normal self again.
    She had said the right thing. It secured her immediate release.
    â€˜I’m being inconsiderate again. Run along and get dressed and then we’ll go down to the dining room. I’ll wait for you in the sitting room.’
    But once he’d gone, and she was back in her room again, she didn’t fly into action. She stood awhile, clutching her bathrobe more closely ’round her, waiting for the trembling in her limbs to subside and the ache of longing to diminish.
    The intimacies, the pat on her bottom and the audacious way he had unfastened her bathrobe