‘That business of not exercising too soon after eating is nothing but an old wives’ tail, and well you know it. I think you’re just fishing for excuses. Like the fact you don’t happen to have a swimsuit either,’ Ford replied with a wry grin, staring down at her from what now seemed an enormous height. Laughing at her, scoffing at her, she thought.
‘Well, do you?’ she retorted, only to realise what a terribly silly question that was, given the circumstances. All he really needed to do was shed his T-shirt and boots, if it came to that; for her actually to swim was just slightly more complicated.
She looked up, met his eyes, and could have killed him for the way he laughed down at her, for the way he raised one dark eyebrow as he shook his head. And then, unreasoningly, she reached up to grasp the hand he extended and allowed herself to be lifted to her feet, felt his free hand coil around her waist.
‘You’re a funny girl, Saunders,’ he said, bending to whisper the words into her ear, turning her against him, holding her far too close.
And, before she could even think, he calmly tipped them both into the icy waters of the pool, laughing wildly as they landed with a mighty splash.
The suddenness and the chill took Saunders’ breath away. She was thoroughly submerged for only a second or two, but was gasping when she surfaced, still locked in Ford’s embrace, and still gasping when he gripped her waist and hoisted her up to sit on the rock edging the pool, with her hair plastered down over her eyes and water streaming everywhere.
As she struggled to drag the hair back from her eyes, with fingers numb from surprise more than the cold water, Ford slid out of the water like an otter, and was sitting there with the most amazing grin on his face when she finally managed to see.
‘Are you right out of your mind?" she cried, damp hair in one hand and her sunglasses, having miraculously survived the ordeal, waving in the other. ‘Oh … Ford — the hat!’
Even as she spoke, the towelling cap was swirling in a small side-eddy, clearly en route in a continued journey down the stream as it revolved towards where the foot of the pool narrowed to dive over a narrow outcropping of rock.
Saunders could feel the goose bumps rising like hives all over her, but the chill didn’t seem to bother her companion, who laughed as he slid back into the water and smoothly stroked his way over to retrieve the cap at the last possible instant.
He returned to float beside Saunders’ feet, tossing the cap on to the rock shelf beside her, and then adroitly slipped off his boots and tossed them, too, up on to dry rock.
‘It’s not as cold as it seems at first,’ he said with a deceptive grin, reaching up as if to drag her back into the icy water with him.
Saunders squealed and tried to twist herself completely on to the rock shelf, but she was too late. Ford had one hand round her ankle and seemed set for a tug of war she could only lose. When she kicked out with her free leg, he reached up to grab that one too, and laughed at her frantic attempts to free herself.
"Don’t be such a sissy,’ he said, reaching to remove her sodden shoes and toss them up beside his own. And then he somehow managed to manoeuvre himself so that he was resting with his arms across her thighs, his head tipped back so that he could laugh up into her eyes. It was a strangely intimate position, made more so when he casually turned to lay his lips against her tummy where the saturated tank-top had ridden up.
After the icy immersion his lips had an unusual warmth, as did the arms that now encircled her hips and the chest that burned like fire against her upper thighs.
‘Stop that.’ But she didn’t really mean it; even as she spoke her fingers were entwining themselves in his damp, rumpled hair, touching — at first tentatively and then with growing urgency — at where the sun was already drying his muscular neck and shoulders.
‘Stop.’ she said again. But now his lips were moving along her tummy, trailing sensation in their wake. And his fingers were now beneath the tank-top, stroking her bare back just where the base of her spine was lost in the swelling of her hips. Those fingers moved in a gentle, rhythmic, circular motion, tantalising, mesmerising.
Stop … oh … stop. But only her mind cried out now. Ford had shifted his position, so that now his lips could reach the soft portions of her upper thighs, plundering, looting, destroying whatever good intentions still existed. Not many.
Ford’s strong hands manipulated Saunders as if she were a puppet, a doll. If he had wished to pull her into the water, to make love to her under the water, he would have faced no real resistance. Nor did he when he slid away, just far enough to tip her on her side, so that she lay on the waterside rock, her mouth captured by his own as her head was cradled in his left arm and his other hand was free to explore her body as a guide for his lips in future.
And the future was now! His fingers trailed across her throat, down through the soft hollows below her collarbones, across the still wet tank-top and the bra that her body now wished she hadn’t worn. His lips followed, guided as much by the writhing of her own body as by his fingers. The wet clothing was little hindrance to her erect, turgid nipples, even less to the sensitivity of her breasts.
His moth-wing touch was all-encompassing; his kisses and his fingers flowed like soothing water over her calves, her knees, in delicious currents along the softness of her inner thighs. She writhed to ease the task of fingers that undipped her bra, that lifted the tank-top to release her swollen breasts to his lips.
There was a momentary hesitation as he slid from the water in a single, fluid action, only to lie beside her, the entire damp length of him cool and then hot against her body as their limbs entwined.
Somehow, then, their lovemaking took on a timeless quality, as if they were drugged by the sun’s heat, the stronger heat from their own enraptured bodies. Saunders’ hands roamed of their own volition along the muscular planes of Ford’s body, slithering beneath the damp T-shirt, easing their way up his thighs, revelling in their effect on the firm evidence of his need.
But what few clothes they wore were an enhancement rather than a hindrance, and gradually Saunders sensed that, despite his needs, Ford was actually in some semblance of control; he was guiding her, guiding himself, orchestrating their desires, their reactions.
‘Look at me,’ he whispered, and stilled his eager, roaming hands from their journey along her ribcage until she had to open her eyes, had to meet and absorb and understand the expression in those black, black eyes only inches away from her own.
‘You’re beautiful … so beautiful,’ he said, and now his voice was more than a whisper as his kiss followed the words, his tongue probing, searching with her own, as his fingers searched, as his strong masculinity searched against her groin.
‘I want you so much.’
What was stopping him? she wondered. Certainly not her! She was beyond stopping, beyond thinking; she could only react to his kisses, to his touch, to the way he felt beneath her fingers, against her skin.
Saunders opened her eyes again, aware of his kisses on her throat, on her breasts. Opened them to see the sky above filled with flowing, billowing white clouds, to see the plumes of spray being whipped away from the cliff where the waters plunged down. Opened them to see…
And then, to hear! And the sound of that whistle, not birdsong, but a distinctly, obviously human whistle, brought her head around to where she could see, far above, the crest of the ridge above the fall, the grey rock now capped with colourful, moving figures; human figures.
Ford’s weight shifted above her. Had he heard it too? But his lips didn’t stop their exploration, moving enticingly along her tummy, then higher. She ignored them, her eyes fixed on the ridge-top as her arms worked free, her hands moved down against the bulk of his chest. All the magic was gone now. Her entire attention was focused not on Ford, not on her reaction to his caresses, but on the embarrassment that flooded like ice over everything.
‘Stop,’ she said. Or tried to. She was never sure if the word had emerged audibly or not
. Didn’t care. Didn’t care, either, that he hadn’t seemed to hear her, that he hadn’t also heard the whistle, could not see the waving arms as one observer pointed out to another the performance below — their performance.
‘Stop, damn it!’
But she didn’t wait, now, to see if he’d heard. She didn’t know and didn’t care. Her arms were in place between them, her position was right. She shoved, forcing the heels of her hands against his chest and pushing as hard as she could.
There was an instant when she heard his cry of astonishment, but it was overshadowed quickly by the roar of even greater surprise as his body struck the chilly water and submerged with a mighty splash.
Saunders was already scrambling to her feet, fingers flying to adjust her still damp clothing, when Ford’s head emerged from the water. He was thrashing his way to the edge, beginning to clamber out, when the wave of cheers and clapping and the shrieks of encouragement flowed down from the heights in a humiliating tide.
Ford caught it halfway out of the water. He looked at the ridge, with its scalp-lock of spectators, looked at Saunders, who was crouched, red-faced and angry, as she fumbled for her shoes and hissed at him in the most potent curses she knew.
She had risen to her feet, was facing him with only a few feet separating them. He was looking back and forth, his dark eyes flashing from Saunders to the cheering audience on the ridge and back again, and she could see his mouth twitching, could see the devils laughing behind his eyes. She closed her eyes momentarily in disbelief as he waved, opened them again to see him execute a sweeping theatrical bow, heard the now thunderous applause.
And when he bowed for the second time she rushed at him without warning, her mind numbed with amazement at his sheer audacity.
She struck him just as he straightened up, caught him with her hands and her shoulder, overbalanced herself, felt his fingers close on her wrist, but didn’t care as this time both of them plunged into the pool.
He still held her wrist when they surfaced, but released her in mute obedience to her hiss of command, and with the sinuous grace of an otter he flowed up on to the rock and stood, reaching down to help her out. And he was still laughing!
Saunders flung back her head, dipping her hair to take it away from her face. And, as she did so, the sheer absurdity of it all struck her, so that when she emerged again her own snarl had magically turned to a grin.
‘If you take another bow, I shall kill you,’ she growled as Ford lifted her to stand beside him on the rocks. ‘I may do so anyway.’
‘No, your turn, I think,’ he said, ignoring the last part of her remark. ‘And probably a curtsy would be more appropriate, if I may suggest it.’
Whereupon he took the fingers of one hand in his own, led her round to face the cliff-top, and waved for silence before he balanced her as she dipped in a curtsy that, she thought, was every bit as flamboyant as his bow.
And the audience loved it.
CHAPTER TEN
‘It really was not all that funny.’
Saunders’ sense of humour had evaporated somewhat during the long climb back from the gorge, and Ford’s occasional chuckle as they drove was starting to get on her nerves.
Bad enough to have been sprung by that party of student rock-climbers, worse to have been forced to climb the precarious track past youthful smiles and knowing glances, however friendly, sympathetic and even envious.
Emotional reaction had begun to set in when she began the climb, walking ahead of Ford and thus the first to encounter their descending audience. Saunders had felt exposed, more vulnerable than she could ever remember, and it had only been marginally gratifying to receive the approving looks sent her by the male members of the climbing group. The girls had been a somewhat different story; almost without exception they had looked first at Ford, then shot very impressed, very approving glances at Saunders as they passed. One girl had given her a definite thumbs-up signal, and another had mouthed a discreet, ‘Good one!’ as she’d stepped aside to give Saunders room.
Not one of the party, she thought, would have been past nineteen, but it had been all too clear that not one had been in the slightest misled about the unusual sighting their expedition had turned up.
‘OK,’ said Ford, glancing across the vehicle at her with eyes that said he lied, ‘it wasn’t, as such, all that funny. But what else could you do but laugh? It’s certainly not something I’d want to cry about.’
‘How about simply not becoming the centre of attention in the first place?’ Saunders retorted. Then her mind went back to the night of the Mahoneys’ party and she added ruefully, ‘Or is that one of your chief claims to fame — public displays of lust?’
‘That’s a low blow, Saunders,’ Ford replied, is it my fault you’re so completely irresistible that I can’t help kissing you?’
‘Well, it certainly isn’t mine! You make it sound as if I go about just blatantly encouraging you,’ she said, only to recoil hastily as he snapped back quickly.
‘Well, you do!’
‘I do no such thing.’
‘Of course you do. I’ve already told you you’re irresistible. I just can’t help myself; I look at you and I want to take you in my arms and kiss you and…’
‘And you’re absolutely shameless.’ she said.
Ford seemed taken aback by that remark; he drove in silence for a moment, not taking his eyes from the road ahead, but in her side vision Saunders could see his jaw muscles working, and even fancied she could hear his teeth grinding.
‘I do hope," he said finally, his voice calm but flat, ‘that you aren’t going to tell me you’re ashamed at people seeing you being kissed. Because I’m certainly not, Saunders, and you ought to know that. There is nothing shameful about it!’
Now it was Saunders’ turn to pause; the conversation had taken a turn she didn’t much like. It had never been her intention to insult Ford, and now it seemed she might have.
‘I wasn’t suggesting you should be ashamed,’ she finally said. ‘And I wasn’t saying that I am, either. Just that it’s a bit … disconcerting, I guess, to have an audience every time you do it.’
His laugh was genuine, but somehow not encouraging. Nor was the way he suddenly yanked at the steering-wheel and spun the old Land Rover to a halt on the wide gravel shoulder of the road.
His left arm snaked out to surround her shoulders, drawing her in close to him. His right hand reached out to cradle her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes.
‘Right!’ he said. ‘Now, I want you to look ahead up the road, and then look back, and then admit that there isn’t a vehicle in sight and we haven’t seen one — not a single one — in twenty minutes. OK?’
Saunders did as she was asked, admitting only to herself that she was far more conscious just at that moment of the texture of his cheek as her head moved past it, of the clean, strong line of his muscular neck.
‘Admit it!’
‘All right, I admit it,’ she sighed, her lips already half prepared for his kiss, only her stubborn nature remotely opposed to it. She didn’t want to look at the road in either direction; she wanted to look at his eyes, to see the wanting, the needing, the emotions she needed to see there.
‘And don’t kiss with your eyes open,’ he said, after a lifetime in which his own eyes had played as strong a role as his lips, his delicate fingertips.
Saunders backed away fractionally, just enough to let her mouth move.
‘But why not? You do. How else would you be able to…’
‘Because it makes me think you’re looking for the audience,’ he said, it’s OK for me, because I’m only looking at you.’
‘But I—’
He stopped that argument with his mouth, not a particularly difficult task. And this time Saunders kept her eyes shut.
This kiss, perhaps because of her eyes being closed, was different from the one before. Deeper, more intimate, infinitely more satisfying. Saunders gave herself over to the wonder of it, to the way Ford
’s lips moulded to her own, to the touch of his fingers on her cheek, her throat, to the touch of her own fingers in the crisp hair at his nape.
None of which, she thought a moment later, was any excuse for not hearing the approaching logging truck until it was sweeping past them in a cloud of dust, shaking the old Land Rover with the thunder of its passage, and saluting their kiss with a long, sneering blast of its air-horn!
‘There, you see?’ cried Ford as she reared back in surprise, breaking free of his arms. ‘All I have to do is kiss you and an audience is provided, but I’m damned if you can accuse me of it being my fault.’
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t mine,’ she retorted, but it was too late, already the laughter was building in his black eyes, and it was, like the intimacy of his kisses, so totally contagious that she couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t maintain her anger even if she’d wanted to.
‘Well, whose fault was it, then?’ he demanded, that generous, mobile mouth already curving into the start of his laughter.
Laughter she could only share when each of them pointed at the other and cried, simultaneously, without having planned it, ‘Yours!’
They were still chuckling a few minutes later when Ford slowed for the tiny old tin-mining community of Royal George, pointing to where a small river flowed almost through the backyards of the town.
‘You get the occasional beryl crystal just there,’ he said, ‘and there’s topaz and rock crystal in the river gravels too. From here north, right to the coast, is a paradise if you happen to be serious about fossicking.’
‘Which I gather you are?’
‘Lord, no! For me it’s just a minor hobby, a logical offshoot of my profession, that’s all. If I was serious about it, I’d be up a creek somewhere, up to my knees in icy water, with a gold-pan or a gem-sieve in my hands. And I’d have been there since dawn or before, let me tell you. A really serious fossicker wouldn’t be caught dead taking the time to kiss a pretty girl on a country road in a place like this and in weather like this. Maybe in a howling blizzard, or something, but otherwise…’
An Irresistible Flirtation Page 13
