by Margaret Way
He walked across the sand. "There are many like this in the region. Much more spectacular falls like Jim Jim which can only be viewed from a helicopter in the Wet."
"Thank you so much for bringing me." She gazed across table topped rocky outcrops where water swirled and eddied in a series of small crystal clear pools to the deeply furrowed cliff face of the escarpment. It glowed a bright orange in the sunlight with stria of white, yellow and black ochres. Foaming white waters cascaded across the summit and tumbled into the cool palm fringed lagoon below. "I consider it a real privilege to see this. I couldn't possibly have found it on my own."
The peace and the quiet of the place was remarkable; apart from the song of the falling waters and the clear, far carrying call of the birds.
"So, you want a swim?" He glanced at her expressive face, aware the heat had got to her. Despite that, her joyful responses were giving him immense pleasure. City girl she might be but she had a natural deep feeling for this ancient land. "Do you need to change?"
She shook her head. "I've come prepared. Where can we leave our packs?"
"Over there." He pointed to the widest section of sand, scattered with boulders so polished they glittered in the sun.
"Lovely!" Her heart beat speeded up. This was too fabulous to believe in. To be here in this paradise with him. Quite alone. She was lightheaded with the excitement of it.
A minute more, she saw the long muscles of his sleek darkly tanned back. The narrowed waist. His jeans came away and she saw his strong straight legs, then the taut low line of his swimming briefs. She was half hypnotised by his male beauty. He was a beautiful sexy man. She coloured and felt something like static electricity pass through her body.
"Well?" He glanced back at her with an arched brow.
Her blush deepened, her heart racing as it did whenever he appeared. "I won't tell you," she said. "You're vain enough already."
"Now that's funny."
"You must know what you look like."
"Men don't spend their time staring into mirrors."
"Some men do. I know a guy who can't pass a mirror without checking himself out."
"God!" he said with droll disdain.
"So, let me get undressed." Suddenly overcome by shyness she waved him away.
He rolled his aqua eyes heavenwards. "I've already seen you in a bikini that wasn't a bit less revealing than necessary. I've seen your bra top through your shirt."
"This is a more cover-up version," she said, begin-
ning to unbutton her shirt. "You're not going to spring any crocs on me, are you? Because I'll freak out."
"You and me both!" He flicked a derisive smile at her and started to move off. "Don't keep me waiting:
Swiftly she started peeling off her cotton jeans. She couldn't be that close to him. Not all day, without something happening.
They waded into the water that quickly became deep underfoot. It was surprisingly cold considering the heat of the sun was full on it. Samantha sucked in her breath and began splashing water over her face and head so it began streaming water.
"Oh this is what I wanted!" she explained, turning her face up to the golden dazzling sun. "I'm going to swim across to the waterfall, okay?"
"Go for it!"
They both dived together, stroking strongly. It was a marvellous, exhilarating sensation being in the water after the long, hot trek. They swam together towards the falls that up close pounded rather than tumbled into the lagoon. Then they were right inside it, treading water. Samantha laughed with sheer bliss, reaching up to cup the sparkling water in her hands.
"Wonderful!" she shouted from the depths of her exalted state. She felt the energy of the cascading waters crackling deep inside her.
"You can say that again!" He was savouring this just as much as she was, his pleasure in their swim increased many times over by having her with him.
For almost an hour, they sported like a couple of dolphins, gliding through the opal waters, lying on their backs so they could look up at the waterfall. The beneficial effect of the water was acting like a powerful therapy on Samantha's tired limbs. She felt reinvigorated, engulfed in physical and mental pleasure. She had the most wonderful of companions. So in harmony with her surroundings, she began to sing, a lovely old ballad she had learned long ago with the school choir, her voice soaring, pure and true.
He applauded thinking her voice had reached his heart, chasing away all the shadows, lighting up the darkest place in his soul. He couldn't remember when he had had such pleasure in a song, the lilting voice. Even the birds had joined in the chorus.
The song over she was calling to him. "Fancy having this in your backyard!" She threw up her arms, staring up at the illuminated cliff face.
The sky was cloudless; the deepest blue. They might have been alone in the garden of Eden complete with waterfall and deep lagoon.
Finally because they were hungry, they made for the shore, the sandy beach a pristine gold carpeted here and there with some kind of aquatic plant with frilly little yellow flowers in bloom.
Samantha pulled the pins from her hair, shook it out, then combed it away from her face with her fingers.
"You've had enough sun, you know," he warned, his muscles rippling as he ran a towel briefly over his body.
She replied with a languorous wave of her hand. "I'm wearing sunblock: '
His slanted over her. "No arguments. Sunblock is not enough. We'll eat over there in the shade."
"Okay, boss." She'd brought with her a length of gauze, bright purple printed with huge white hibiscus which she tied sarong like around her waist. It wasn't much of a cover-up, but it would have to do.
"Feeling a bit better?" he asked. He had pulled on his jeans but left his darkly tanned torso bare.
"I feel great," she said, a little huskily, suspended between exhilaration and trepidation in equal measure. They couldn't have been more alone. She dropped her eyes to his backpack. "What have you got there?"
"Fruit," he clipped off, partly because he, too, was on a fine knife's edge. "Apples, bananas, some sandwiches Joe made for us wrapped in a cold pack. Couple of cokes, likewise. A packet of biscuits and a slab of chocolate in with the sandwiches."
"A feast in other words." Her pulses were beating like moths around a light. They were moving towards something momentous. She couldn't step back from it. She kept her eyes down, hoping her lashes veiled the sexual excitement that throbbed through her in waves.
A long swathe of her drying hair fell across her face. Pure copper. Her cheeks had the colour of peaches. Her mouth looked luscious. Had she looked up at that moment she would have seen him openly desirous. The driving need to make love to her had grown into an obsession, but from long habit Ross retained some control. He opened out the packed sandwiches, then pushed them towards her along with a crisp, red apple.
"I think I'll start on the apple first," she said, unaware the upward sweep of her glance was burning through all his defences. She bit into the crisp flesh with her small perfect teeth.
"Delicious!"
The shocking thing was the force of his need for her. The muscles of his arms were quivering with emotion. A trickle of apple juice dribbled down her chin and she brushed her creamy skin with the back of her hand.
That set him off. He moved as swiftly and powerfully as a big cat, reaching for her, one hand at the back of her head, the other grasping her around the waist. "You know this has been coming. Eve with the apple."
Her heart shook at the expression in his eyes. Their colour was a shock of pleasure every time she looked into them. She had no thought of protest even if she could have induced him to release her. She had fantasised about this. Now it was actually happening.
"My God, look at you," he groaned, her hair on fire in the dappled sunlight. "You're as beautiful as an angel."
Playing the angel was totally beyond her. "I'm a woman Ross. I don't want to be an angel." Angels didn't have desire moving in a rippling motion right through
their body. Angels were chaste, far removed from earthly passions. She stared up at him, letting him draw her more fully into his arms. Her body was trembling, locked in a spasm of excitement as he gathered her in.
She couldn't speak. Instead she buried her face against his neck, aware of the wonderful male scent of him, the warmth of his skin, as she gently gripped his lean hips.
"Show your face to me." He nudged up her chin, with his thumb beneath, desperate to find her mouth; feel her lips give under the weight of his. Above all he wanted her to feel as he did.
His heart seemed to slip from behind his rib cage. He bent over her as she clung to him, kissing her for a long time, tasting, tongueing, exploring. That lovely soft, full mouth. Two minutes, three, four? Who was counting? It was ravishing beyond belief, mouth upon mouth, breath on breath. It was a form of expression that gave him heart-stopping pleasure yet soon it wasn't enough. It seemed to him they mated perfectly as though they had prior knowledge of each other. How was that possible? There wasn't the slightest brush of awkwardness, but instant magic as though their bodies and perhaps their souls were familiars in perfect accord.
Soon he drew back to stare at her, asking what he desperately wanted to know. "How far can I go, Samantha?" There was a hint of desperation in his voice. His hands stroked and slid across her skin hungrily, though he was still walking a tight rope. God only knew if he could regain full control. Maybe he would have to retreat to the tingling waters of the lagoon.
Samantha was shaking so much she couldn't get a word out. Her hair had tumbled to frame her impassioned face. She wasn't a virgin. Her first taste of sex at seventeen had been no wild adventure, just an odd disappointment with a boy she had known all her life. A nice boy who thought she had been as transported as himself.
"What if I never see you again after we leave this place?" she asked with a hint of melancholy.
"Maybe I won't let you go." His hands clenched on her shoulders. "I'll lock you up in the homestead. I'll never let you go back to the city."
"I must know what it is you want of me?"
"Your trust," he said ardently. "We can learn together." Powerless not to, he disengaged her bra top, hearing the catch snap with a faint twang. Her small perfect breasts were revealed. Creamy roses with a wine-red centre.
He lowered his head to her, his heart pounding so hard he might have had a raging beast caged inside of him.
Samantha bit so hard into her bottom lip she almost drew blood, arching her back as he took her budded nipple into his mouth. Ripple after ripple of sensation was rushing into her groin. She could have wept with the force of it. "Be gentle, Ross," she begged, excitement worryingly swamping her.
"Is it against the rules for me to suckle your breasts?" Shivers of pleasure were running over his whole body. He might have been some love-starved fool wanting more and more of her. He needed to explore her beautiful woman's body, her naked, flesh, her secret places. He was almost beyond thinking now. There was nothing but sensation.
"How can I say no to you," she muttered, turning her head this way and that, her eyes tightly closed so she could shut in the ecstasy of his caresses. "But then you know that."
He groaned harshly, lifting his head. "I would never take a defenceless woman against her will. I would never hurt you, Samantha. I speak of trust."
She opened her eyes then to discover a stricken look on his taut handsome face. "Trust there is, but you don't love me."
So why was this the greatest rapture he had ever known? "How can I love you when you won't let me?" he accused her.
"But I love you!" The words were ripped from her like a rending of flesh. Once said, would she live to regret them?
His face took on a daunting expression. "You don't mean that," he said flatly as though she'd been making a joke instead of declaring her heart.
Something painful heaved in her chest. "Does my loving you make you feel trapped?"
His gaze was turbulent. "If you made a commitment to me I'd never let you go. I don't know if you fully realise that."
"You're worried I might want to go?" she asked incredulously.
His eyes brooded on her highly charged face. "Why wouldn't I worry," he countered in a sombre voice. "This could all be an adventure for you. Great for a time but could you possibly settle into my kind of life?"
"Some things you can't entirely know, Ross. Life itself is a gamble."
"As far as marriage is concerned, no gamble," he told her bluntly. "Marriage is for life."
"So you're thinking more of an affair?" she asked emotionally, aching at that brooding expression.
"Does what we're doing mean so little to you?" he demanded. "I want you so much I just could damn myself forever. Ah, what's the use!" He hauled her to him, crushing her soft breasts against the hard muscled wall of his chest, revelling in the physical contact. A man would do anything for this.
"Don't turn against me," she begged.
"I think that's impossible," he said in a near despairing voice. He made one last effort to keep control, something inside of him continuing to fight her woman magic. "Is it a safe time for you or could I make you pregnant?" He stared down at her, eyes intent.
He could make me pregnant any time she thought wildly. She ached to one day give him a child. Children. Children who would all have his startlingly beautiful eyes. "It's a safe time," she Hushed. Was any time completely safe? But the clamouring that beset her were too powerful to be denied. She threw up her glowing head, meeting his steady, questioningg gaze. "I'm in love with you, Ross Sunderland, and no other man will do."
His emotions overflowed. "Say it again," he ordered, holding her captive for a moment before laying her on the rug. Her beauty filled his eyes. He looked at the tantalising triangle of blue lycra, all that was left to cover her naked body from his gaze.
"Dare I?" she whispered, transfixed by his expression which seemed to her to be beyond desire.
For answer he began to kiss her, his upper body curved over her, listening to her little moans as he moved lower and lower, the tip of his tongue savouring the silky texture of her skin.
"You're so beautiful," he whispered reverently and lifted her so he could remove the last remnant of clothing that separated her from his loving mouth and his hands.
After hours of driving around in search of potential sites David might want to capture, then more hours filming under a sapphire-blue sky, suddenly they came across some remarkably shaped rocky outcrops too low to be called hills. The surrounding savannah was covered in waving waist high dark golden grasses and beyond that a pocket of luxuriant tropical vegetation, an irresistible oasis.
"We can take a rest here," Joe said, looking across at David. They had taken it in turns to do the driving. Now Joe was at the wheel.
"A cup of tea would go down well," David smiled, each man easy in the other's company.
It was the bloke in the back who set off the alarm bells in the highly perceptive Joe. Something's wrong with him, Joe thought, listening to the warning voices in his head. Made a big deal out of the least little thing. Jealous of Ross, of course. Wanted the young woman, Samantha. Take a lot more than that fella could offer to win such a woman.
He found a parking spot in the shadow of a crouching sandstone monument and cut the engine. "I'll get the billy going," he said.
"Thanks, Joe," David said gratefully. "I can't give you high enough marks for looking after us."
"Long as you're happy," Joe showed his dazzling white teeth in a smile.
"How are you holding up, Isabelle?" David opened the rear door and helped her out, while
Matt exited the other door in a somewhat stony silence, wandering off.
"Let's say I'm fine and hope to be for many, many years," she answered lightly, not daring to raise her head to him. The very last thing she had been expecting after the terrible trauma of Blair's death was to find another man-and such a man! The look of him, the sound of him, his laughter and the warmth of his deep voice-his kindne
ss and his gentlemanly gestures. All this she found powerfully attractive. She might have dreamed him up so intense were her feelings. When he was driving she had sat up front beside him, torn between a kind of euphoria and despair that she could feel this way. There was a price to be paid for forbidden longings. The improbable had happened, she thought with fatalistic acceptance. She had fallen headlong in love with a man who was almost a stranger. But how could he be a stranger, when he seemed to know things about her she wouldn't even admit to herself.
A faint melancholy descended on her which David remarked with a clutch of the heart. He could sense she was upset about something and he found himself wanting to rock her tenderly in his arms. The rumours had been utterly wrong. This beautiful young woman was in mourning. She wouldn't thank him for any action on his part that could be interpreted as intimate. Intimacy couldn't happen even if she had such a dangerous fascination for him. At such a turning point in her life she needed her own space.