Paradise Lust Read Online Free PDF Page A

pose, she caught Ajuni’s eye. A sly smile played over his lips, and she thought that one eye gave her an almost imperceptible wink.
    When they moved from bow back into child’s pose, she was able to glance outside once more. Danny was gone.
     
    After afternoon lectures that day, Adele went for a long walk. She couldn’t shake the strange energy she’d felt during the entire asana sequence. There was a buzz in the air, an agitation of energy that was almost…arousing. The best way to describe it was as if her entire body were being tickled lightly be a feather. The thought crept into her head that it all stemmed from the simple knowledge of Danny’s presence on the island, but she dismissed that notion out of hand.
    Leaving the yoga hut, her mat strapped across her back, she wandered aimlessly and far. She would walk her way to calmness.
    She wandered up the sloping drive, away from the resort’s thatched-roofed “lobby,” passing the small warungs on her right and hilly fields on her left, cows grazing lazily in the fading afternoon sun, the sparkling ocean behind them. She walked past the one other hotel on this corner of Bali, took the narrow, rocky path that veered away from the main road and down a steep grade, through a grassy ravine, and back up, past a wild grove of untamed and unnamed thorny flowers, around a sea-sprayed outcropping of black rock, to a hidden beach where everything was hushed, even the waves—tumultuous and powerful on all other stretches of the beach, here they rolled slowly and serenely in, gently sheathing the smooth, packed sand with their glistening water.
    An hour or more must have elapsed, and the sun was now falling quickly toward the horizon. The hypnotic trance of her stroll broke as she became aware of the dusky light all around her. She turned back and began to retrace her path, quickly this time. It would be dark soon, and she didn’t want to be stranded in a cow field with no shoes come nightfall.
    Just where the small side path rejoined the main road, she felt a fat droplet of warm rain hit her shoulder. She looked up and saw a collection of dark, unfriendly clouds that had been nowhere in sight just ten minutes before. The lobby hut was in sight, but a good hundred yards or so away, and her own cabin another quarter mile past that, and already she felt another splat on her arm, then another, then a fourth.
    She picked up her pace, trotting gingerly across the roughly paved road. The hotness of the pavement on her bare feet became more pronounced as the rain cooled the air. Within moments, the entire sky had become a deep purple-gray, and she could hear the sweeping whoosh of a torrent of rain being unleashed from the sky. Breaking into a full sprint, she glanced over her shoulder to see a wall of rain racing toward her, a solid sheet advancing.
    “Eeeek!” She heard herself shrieking like a teenage girl, then erupted in laughter. Her chestnut hair had come out of its loose bun and tumbled down her neck. The yoga mat thumped against her back—she couldn’t even remember now why she’d brought it with her. Her light pink tank top was plastered against her belly and back, clinging to the yellow sports bra underneath. Remembering that she’d worn black shorts that day—she’d been thisclose to a pair of white flowy pants—she looked up to the sky in gratitude and laughed again.
    Rounding the final curve before the boundary of the resort, she careened past the lobby hut and off the slate path, onto the grass. The rain-glossed grass was slick, and her mud-covered feet slid out from under her. She leaned dangerously backward, flailing her arms to regain her center, and just managed to bring herself back up to standing.
    Panting, hands on her thighs, she stood still in the blanketing raindrops and took a few deep breaths. As she lifted her eyes, she almost fell backward once more—there was someone watching her. Not thirty feet away, nothing more than a dark silhouette in