Ciji Ware by A Light on the Veranda

Author:A Light on the Veranda [Veranda, A Light on the]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-05-30T02:28:23+00:00

Chapter 16

Sim stood nude in the middle of Bailey Gibbs’s guest quarters with Daphne Duvallon—similarly unclad—not five feet away behind a shower curtain. He quickly donned his cotton bathrobe and ordered himself not to stare at her slender silhouette moving behind the drape as the sound of cascading water ceased and a slender arm appeared reaching for a towel folded on a nearby stool.

“Here’s some Bactine,” he announced. “Shall I hand it to you? It should stop the itching.”

“That’d be great. Thanks. I wish I’d brought a change of clothes,” she fretted. “Even if you shook mine outdoors to a fare-thee-well, I hate the thought of—”

“Want to borrow a shirt and some drawstring pants?” Sim intervened. “They’ll be pretty big, but you could roll up the legs.”

There was a long pause, and then he heard a brief “Good idea. Thanks.”

Sim rummaged through a duffel bag stowed beside his bed and found a pair of cotton sailing pants and a lightweight button-down dress shirt he hadn’t worn since he’d arrived in Mississippi. “Stick out your arm again.”

A moist hand, wrist, and forearm poked through the shower curtain and retrieved the donated articles. He noted the blunt nails and callused fingertips, slightly incongruous on such slender hands. Daphne Duvallon might be the daughter of a Southern belle, he thought, and schooled in the manners of a debutante, but she was no magnolia. She’d been a trooper despite the swarm of hungry mosquitoes.

“I’ll be right out,” she said. “Just give me a sec to—”

“Take your time,” he interrupted. Then he heard Daphne giggling. “Way too big?” he asked.

“Way, way too big, but nice and clean,” she said, still laughing. “No one but you will see me between here and Bluff House, anyway, so what the hey?”

The heightened intimacy developing between them was becoming highly erotic. Here he was, stark naked under his robe while Daphne, only a few feet from where he stood, was struggling to make herself presentable in his outsize clothing.

“Don’t laugh, okay?” she called.

“Promise.”

When she pulled back the curtain, his breath caught in his throat.

Her golden curls were piled on top of her head with a tortoise shell clip she must have retrieved from her purse. A few tendrils lay against a cheek flushed pink from the heat of the shower. She’d rolled up both the shirtsleeves and the pants legs, transforming the makeshift clothes into a set of stylish loungewear. Her long legs—and breasts, obviously minus her bra—prompted all sorts of uncensored yearnings.

Fresh-faced and smiling, she looked about eighteen years old.

“Actually…” he observed slowly, “you look great.”

“Mmmm,” she said, smelling her arm as she padded into the room in bare feet. “I loved that soap. What is it? Lemon something?”

“Verbena. Found it in France and always carry a bar wherever I go. Makes me feel civilized when my surroundings aren’t.” He noticed her take in the sight of his robe and bare feet and then lower her eyes self-consciously.

“Your turn,” she mumbled. “I’ll drown myself in some more of this anti-itch stuff while you take your shower.

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