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"You’re getting courage confused with stupidity" He leaned forward and looked down "I shouldn’t have done that"

"It’s not that far down You’ll be fine"

"You have gone sley continued "Sunstroke? Heatstroke? That would explain this"

"Pussy," Juliette said

"Meow"

"You know you want to" Juliette gave hi of the sort I have no desire whatsoever to do this You are living in a drearavity does not exist I live in the real world I have been shot four times I have looked death in the face, shook his hand and said we have to stopto do this, you are as foolish as you are beautiful"

Juliette leaned over the edge of the cliff Kingsley followed her eyes fifty feet down to the blue-and-white water below

"I oing to followhis gaze back up to the sky The vien to the water had ’s fun," she said "And it’s not as hard as it seems You have to close your eyeslisten to the waves You hear that? That crash when they come in? That’s when you jump By the time you hit the water, the ill be on its way out away from the rocks"

"You’ve done this before?"

"I have"

"Many times?" he asked

"So many times"

"And you’ve never been killed?"

"I’d hardly be standing here talking to you if I had been," she said, still s They’d spent the past few days in his bed at the beach hut They’d hardly come up for air or water or food They’d survived on sex, thrived on it, feasted on each other and been sated But this ed him from bed, told him she had a surprise for him

It was a terrible surprise

"Mon roi," she said, wrapping her ar but a red bikini and a skirt around her hips festooned hite-and-red flowers And he had on nothing but his khaki pants rolled up to his calves "There is so I want to show you and I can’t show it to you unless we go down to the water And there’s only one way down to the water"

"Then hoe get back up again?"

"Maybe we don’t," she said "Maybe we stay down there forever"

"Because we’ve crashed against the rocks and died?"

"Because it’s Paradise And ould ever leave Paradise?"