Summer Down Under (25 page)

They were struggling to keep the bikes
moving. The bikes started to slide around unpredictably, and Sam,
being very inexperienced, was having trouble keeping hers upright.
Eventually, it got to a point where they could ride the bikes no
further.

Daniel stopped in front of her and lowered
his motorbike to the ground. The sanctuary of the house was still
off in the distance.

“What do we do?” Sam cried over the deafening
sound of the thunder, which now seemed like it was directly above
them. Daniel lifted Sam off her bike and grabbed hold of her
hand.

“Run!” he shouted, dragging her towards the
house.

Adrenaline coursed through Sam’s veins,
enabling her to keep up with Daniel, much to her surprise. The
ground was so slippery by now that she couldn’t understand how she
was able to keep herself vertical.

She could see the house up ahead, but it was
still a fair distance away, especially on foot. Thunder and
lightning crashed around them. Sam’s fascination with it was
quickly replaced by fear and a respect for something so
powerful.

The rain was beating hard on their bodies. It
was so heavy she could hardly see through it. Her face stung as she
forced herself onwards. The air had turned very cold since the
storm arrived. Being soaked through to the skin, the soggy jillaroo
was feeling chilled to the bone.

After what seemed like a marathon, they
finally reached the edge of the homestead.

“We should be okay here,” Daniel shouted over
the sound of the rain and thunder. He stopped, allowing them to
rest for a moment. “There’s a lightning pole over there so it
should hit that if it’s going to make contact anywhere near.”

Sam couldn’t say anything. She bent over
bracing her hands on her knees. Her lungs burned with the exertion
of trying to get to safety. She could feel every rasping breath as
it heaved in and out of her lungs.

“Come on,” Daniel said, grabbing hold of one
of Sam’s wrists. “We still have to get inside.”

He dragged her protesting body around the
corner of the fence surrounding the house, but the mud was slicker
there and Daniel’s feet went out from underneath him. He still had
a tight grip on Sam’s hand and took her crashing to the ground next
to him. She hit the mud with a splat.

Sam lay on the soggy ground catching her
breath. After a moment, she pushed herself up onto her elbows and
looked over at Daniel lying supine in the sludge. Sam sat up and
pulled her hands from the brown goop, shaking them out to the sides
like she was flinging off something noxious.

“Eeeww,” she groaned as she looked down at
her clothes. “I’m covered in mud.”

Daniel lifted his head and looked over at
her. His eyes raked over her body before he dropped his head back
and started laughing.

“It is
not
funny,” she chastised as
his laughter increased in intensity.

Sam got on all fours and crawled over to
where he was now sitting up in the mud, still laughing at her. “If
you think it’s so funny,” she said with glee as she picked up a
sloshy handful of mud, “take that.”

Her aim was true. The gooey missile collided
with his chest making a wonderful sound. Bits of mud splashed up
and hit him in the face. Sam fell into a fit of giggles.

He stopped laughing. The jovial expression he
wore being replaced with a look that screamed ‘oh, really?’ He
started to stand up with a menacing look creeping into his
eyes.

Uh-oh, Sam thought. That’s not good.

As Daniel got to his knees, he reached down,
picked up two handfuls of mud, never once taking his eyes from his
adversary.

“Don’t you dare!” Sam squealed, eyes wide as
she tried to turn over and get out of his way. The comprehension of
what he was about to do firing her into action.

Too late. He pulled the collar of her shirt
out and poured the mud down her neck, then patted her on the back.
Sam’s back arched as she felt the slimy consistency sliding down
her spine.

“Oh, you did not just do that.” She turned
around, glaring at him with her best ‘you’ve done it now’.

Picking up another couple of handfuls of mud,
she grabbed the front of his shirt before he had a chance to move
and poured the mud down his front.

Within minutes, they were having a
fully-fledged mud fight. Slipping and sliding while they wrestled
about on the ground like a couple of kids. Every inch of their
bodies was covered in the stuff. When they finally wore themselves
out, they fell back, panting. Sam was flat out, spread-eagled on
her back.

“Truce!” she cried.

“Do you submit?” Daniel chuckled.

“Yes, yes. Anything you say. Just stop with
the mud.”

He leaned over, his head above Sam’s with a
smug expression on his face. He pushed her matted hair to either
side of her face.

“I never lose at mud fights,” he said with a
grin.

“Make a habit of them, do you?”

“No. This was my first. That’s why I am the
undefeated champion.”

“Really? Well, we’ll have to see about that,”
Sam said, moving over to grab another handful of mud.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Daniel said grabbing her
hands and pinning them above her head. “I’ve had enough mud, for
the time being.” He lowered his head and planted a kiss on her
lips, pulling away with an odd look on his face.

“You taste of dirt.”

“No shit, Sherlock. I’m covered in the stuff,
what did you expect?” She gave him her best smirk as a shiver
wracked her soggy body. “I’m also freezing. Can we go inside
now?”

“Come on,” he said getting up and offering
Sam his hand. He pulled her up off the ground.

“Crikey, look at us,” Sam gasped. “We’re
dripping mud. We can’t go in the house like this.”

Daniel looked them up and down and nodded in
agreement. It was still hammering down with rain.

“We could stand out here for a moment and let
the rain wash off the worst of it,” he suggested.

Sam didn’t want to stand out there any more
than she wanted a hole in the head, but she realized they couldn’t
go in the house as they were. The thought of having to mop the
floors wasn’t that appealing either. “I guess,” she conceded.

Daniel kept hold of Sam’s hands as they
walked up to the house, making every effort not to slip over again.
By the time they reached the entrance, the rain had washed the
worst of the mud from their saturated bodies.

Daniel opened the door for her and they
stepped onto the covered deck.

By this time, Sam’s jaw had taken on a mind
of its own and was completely beyond her control. Her mouth felt
like someone had just put one of those wind up chattering teeth
toys in it. Her teeth clattered against each other as she stepped
from one foot to the other wrapping her arms around her shivering
body in an effort to get warm.

“I-I’m fr-freezing.” Sam stammered.

Daniel was shivering, too.

“Come on,” he said with an urgent tone to his
voice. He grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the bathroom. “We
need to get warm fast and I know just the thing.”

Sam creased her brow as Daniel pulled her
into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

“In you get,” he said, gesturing towards the
steaming spray of water. “Clothes and all.”

Sam shot him a look that shouted ‘are you
mad?’. Then her eyebrows shot up to her forehead as she watched him
pull off his boots and socks and step under the cascading warm
water.

“Oh, this feels so good.” he murmured as the
steaming water flowed over his fully clothed body.

Sam took a step back towards the door.

“Sam, come on,” Daniel said as he watched her
still shivering by the bathroom door. “You’ll catch your death if
you don’t warm up quickly.”

She pulled in a deep breath and exhaled it
through a mouth that wouldn’t stop chattering. Crazy as she thought
he was, and with nerves that were tying knots in her stomach, she
couldn’t get away from the thought that it did look good. After a
moment’s more hesitation, she decided if you can’t beat them, join
them. Sam pulled off her muddy boots and socks and accepted the
hand Daniel was holding out for her. It enclosed around hers, safe
and sure. She stepped into the shower.

Daniel pulled the shower curtain closed and
wrapped his arms around her shivering body so that they were both
standing under the stream of wonderful hot water. He was right, it
did feel good. They stood for a few minutes, allowing their bodies
to warm up. She could feel the warmth seeping into her muscles
again. Before long, her teeth stopped chattering and the shivering
abated.

Daniel’s warm breath fanned over her ear.
“Shower with me,” he whispered.

Chills shot through Sam’s body, and, so help
her, she couldn’t stop the shivers from coming back.

Daniel lifted her chin gently between thumb
and forefinger until she met his intense gaze, which sent shivers
of a different kind hurtling down her back.

“You said you were most at ease in the
shower,” he continued softly. “Give me the chance to love you. To
prove how good it feels.”

“You remembered that?” Sam asked.

“I remember everything you tell me.” He
smiled, his eyes shining with anticipation.

Sam swallowed a lump the size of the
Tasmania, the implications of what he was asking flooding her
brain.

“I-I don’t think I can,” she stuttered,
feeling deflated and heavy-hearted. Her body ached to be touched by
him, it was crying out to be. But the fear of seeing anything but
approval in his eyes when she was standing naked and vulnerable
before him was terrifying her.

“Sam, I want to help you get over this fear
you have. To make you feel as beautiful as I see you. I figure the
best way to start is somewhere you feel most comfortable.” Daniel’s
voice was thick with emotion, his eyes filled with care and
kindness. “I promise I’ll stop if anything I do makes you
uncomfortable,” he added.

“Promise?” Sam asked nervously.

“Of course.”

Daniel wasn’t like her ex she told herself.
There was no comparison. This was the leap of faith she needed to
take and she knew it. If she couldn’t get past this
all-encompassing fear, she never stood a chance at experiencing
real love, the kind where you could trust your heart and soul to
someone who you knew without doubt would never see harm come to it.
Could she really deny herself that chance? Was her ex worth ruining
any possibility she may have of finding happiness, of feeling the
kindness and security a ‘real’ man could give her? No, he wasn’t.
Her mind whirled with emotion and fear. She looked into the eyes of
the man who promised this to her. She could see it in those
sparkling pools filled with nothing but kindness. She decided at
that moment she was willing to take the risk. Daniel had done
nothing but try to make her feel good. Had shown her nothing but
kindness. Why would he change now?

Sam’s mouth had gone very dry when she tried
to utter the word. It came out like she had just swallowed
sandpaper.

“Okay.”

The warm water continued to cascade over
their bodies, keeping them warm.

“I guess we need to get out of these wet
clothes, then.” Sam stated, her words shaky, her nerves on edge.
She was still not one hundred percent sure she was ready to go
through with it, but a part of her had to know what it felt like to
be loved, to be cherished. Wasn’t that something that everyone
deserved?

“Why don’t we try this?” Daniel suggested,
sensing Sam’s sheer terror at the feat that lay before her. “You
take a piece of my clothing off, and then I’ll take a piece of
yours. You have more on than I do, so I’ll be undressed first.”

That sounded fair. He was trying so hard to
make her feel at ease, and she appreciated it more than he knew.
Sam looked up at his handsome face and gave him a weak smile.

“Um, well, I guess I’ll take your shirt off
first,” she mumbled.

Daniel took a step back and opened his arms,
giving her full access to his clothing. She undid the uppermost
button, hesitated and looked up. Daniel’s eyes silently encouraged
her to go on. She knew she could stop at any time. Daniel had
promised her that control over the situation. Sam undid the rest of
his buttons in quick succession and pulled his shirt open revealing
the chiseled muscles of his chest and stomach that was hiding below
the sopping wet cotton.

A sigh of admiration escaped as she gazed at
the personification of beauty standing in front of her. Her fingers
flexed of their own accord. She had wanted to touch his chest that
day by the pool, and now she had full permission to do just that.
She ran her fingers upwards from the waistband of his jeans. Daniel
sucked in a gulp of air at her touch, she watched as his stomach
muscles rippled beneath the pads of her fingertips.

Her fingers worked their way slowly upwards
not wanting to miss a single, perfectly formed muscle. Sam looked
up to take in Daniel’s reaction to her touch. He had let his head
drop back and his eyes were closed. A look of sheer pleasure
plastered across his face. She smiled before returning to the task
at hand. She took her bottom lip between her teeth as she ran her
hands over his chest, her palms grazing his nipples as she carried
on upwards pushing his shirt up and over his shoulders.

Sam leaned forward as she pulled the material
that clung to his skin, down his back and off his arms. His chest
was right in front of her mouth, a hair’s breadth away. It was too
irresistible not to lean in a few millimeters closer and lay a row
of feather light kisses up from between his nipples to the hollow
of his throat. Daniel let out a slow carnal growl that seemed to
come from within the very depths of him. Sam smiled again, enjoying
her newly acquired
power
. Had she ever felt this much in
control? No, she had not.