Chapter Sixteen
‘Mary, you fucking legend! How amazing was that?’ Jimmy yelled as I was gasping for air.
Freezing. Freezing.
‘Holy—’ I couldn’t speak. ‘Shit!’
I took a stroke through the water and clambered back to the rocks, the whole adventure having lasted less than five seconds. Around me was laughter and screaming and splashes and people scrambling for clothes.
I stepped, gasping and dripping and shaking, back towards Abel, who was grinning at me.
‘Jesus Christ!’ I reached for my clothes. ‘How do I get dry? Fuck, I didn’t think this through!’
‘I know.’ He was laughing like the whole thing was utterly delightful. ‘It’s so beautiful.’
‘Shut up!’ I was laughing too. Scrambling. I tried to dry the water off my legs with my tights but they didn’t absorb any. ‘Ugh! This doesn’t work!’ Around me, I could see others doing the same sort of thing.
I heard his low-bellied chuckle.
‘Enjoying this, are you?’ I asked between unsuccessful swipes at my skin.
‘Immeasurably,’ he said, resting back on his hands and looking up at me.
‘What am I supposed to do now?’ I hissed. This was why I didn’t do spontaneous things like jump into winter river water in the dark.
‘Just keep standing there in your underwear having a tantrum,’ he said. ‘It’s the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.’
‘You are so unhelpful!’ I used my hands to try to flick the water off my body and onto his face. His gorgeous, smiling face. He seemed completely unfazed, just continued staring at me like I was award-winningly entertaining.
‘I blame you for this, Abel,’ I growled, hopping on one leg while trying to get my sticky body into the tight leggings. ‘Next time you’re not watching, I’ll push your whole giant man-self straight into that river.’
The leg just wouldn’t go in. I was like a crazy woman trying to reclothe myself. And I was losing balance. I steadied myself on his shoulder.
‘Need a hand there?’ He was outright laughing at me now.
‘No, Abel.’
‘Really?’
I’d regained my balance and was now trying to get leg number two into the leggings. This was so goddamn ridiculous. Was anyone else having this much trouble?
‘Is it rude if I watch?’ He didn’t look like he was going to stop watching, even if I said it was.
‘You’re enjoying this a lot, aren’t you?’
‘It’s the best thing that’s happened all day. All year, maybe.’
Finally, my pants were on and I was using all my physical skills to drag them up my legs so that my butt wasn’t quite so outrageously exposed.
‘Where’s my top?’ I couldn’t see the rest of my clothes anywhere. I was standing in front of Abel Sutherland in running tights and a bra. A non-boring bra. A bra that had lace along the edge and was thin enough that my very cold nipples were standing to attention like fucking soldiers.
And Abel was just leaning back on his hands and enjoying the entertainment.
‘No idea.’
‘Abel,’ I scolded, much to his delight. He seemed to enjoy seeing me pissed off.
‘I didn’t take it!’ His laugh sounded a little high-pitched after I poked his thigh with my toe. ‘I’d love to take your clothes away, honestly, but I didn’t think it was appropriate. For now.’
It was just as well everyone else was making too much of their own noise to hear our conversation.
Finally, I spotted my top hiding in the shadow of a rock and pulled it clumsily over my head. Then I fed my cold hands into my jacket and pulled it tight across my chest. ‘Oh my God, that was so stupid,’ I puffed.
‘Did it feel good?’
‘What? Standing in my underwear, freezing cold, while you laughed at me? No.’
‘Shame. I enjoyed it all so very much. What about the water?’
I’d almost forgotten the water. ‘Yeah. Okay, the water felt amazing. And awful. Amazingly awful.’
I hugged my knees to my chest and sat beside him. ‘Why didn’t you go in, Mr Adventure Man?’
‘I thought I’d have more fun watching you,’ he said.
‘Oh. And did you?’
‘Best ever.’ He reached his arm around me and pulled me tight to his side.
And even with my wet underpants soaking me from the inside out, my hair cold and dripping on my neck, my feet dirty and sticky in my shoes – it felt amazing.
I felt amazing.
When it was finally my turn in the shower, I was so excited by the anticipation of hot water on my body, I was practically rejoicing.
When the water started running lukewarm, I thought it was about to get properly hot, so I got my whole body under the shower head.
But then the fleeting warmth disappeared and it got colder.
And colder. And colder. I yelped as the temperature plummeted to the realm of the river water.
Shit – the hot water had run out completely. This was a disaster. I turned the tap off and shivered as I towelled the drops off my skin. Thank God for a towel but – Jesus. I needed warmth and my body seemed no longer capable of making its own.
When I got back to the cabin, Abel was already in his bed, lying on his front, hunched up on his forearms. He had the brown notebook in front of him but closed it before I caught a glimpse of its contents.
I’d changed into my pyjamas but was still shivering.
‘You look cold,’ he said with a frown. ‘Mary, your lips are blue.’
‘N-n-no hot water,’ I said through chattering teeth.
‘No hot water?’
‘M-m-must have b-b-been used up b-by everyone else.’ I pulled back my blankets and hopped between the sheets, squeezing my hands between my legs and trying to create warmth. Where did warmth come from anyway? What was warmth? Could I create it? Apparently not.
Abel was still frowning at me. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’ll b-b-be f-f-fine.’ I shuddered again and tried to bury myself deeper into the covers.
The swim had been a terrible idea. What was I thinking? Middle of winter, freezing cold water – literally, it must have been less than five degrees – night time, all to end up with damp clothes over wet underwear. A spectacularly stupid idea.
‘Come here.’
‘Hmm?’ I could hear him, but I couldn’t see him: my head was almost entirely under the blanket, my hair cold and making my pillow wet. Awful.
‘Come here,’ he repeated.
I inched the covers down a fraction so my eyes peered above.
He was beckoning me into his bed. My brain scrambled to make sense of the situation, but I wasn’t thinking very clearly at all.
My frontal lobe functions seemed to be switching off entirely and I was consumed by sensation.
Awful sensation. Freezing sensation. Must. Get.
Warm. And he did look warm over there. All pink-cheeked and soft in his thermal top.
I could almost feel the heat emanating from him all the way across the room.
Before my executive thoughts could tell me all the reasons why hopping into Abel Sutherland’s bed was not a good idea, my primitive self had made other plans and I was pulling back my covers and crossing the gap between our two tiny beds.
He lifted his blanket and swept me in with one pull of his arm and suddenly I was in a cocoon of warmth: amazing, otherworldly, delicious. It was heaven. Enough to write poetry about.
I groaned. An involuntary sound of absolute pleasure.
I felt the rumble of his chuckle.
‘Better?’
His voice was right in my ear, close enough that I could feel the tickle of his breath.
‘Mmm, like a dream I could never come up with,’ I muttered.
His arm was wrapped around my middle, pulling my spine against his front.
I could feel the heat of his body through his thermal top, hotter where his hand rested on my belly.
I was still operating on pure instinct, pure sensation, as I wriggled deeper into him.
My hips found the sweet firmness of his.
And, as if in response, he pulled me closer and deeper into him until it seemed we were millimetres from melting right into one another.
I couldn’t ever remember feeling so utterly held and cared for.
Even with Felix, cuddles had been different, an invariable prelude to sex.
And after sex, he’d roll away and so would I.
He always told me I tossed and turned too much for him to be able to fall asleep.
I was always more comfortable without the tangle of limbs anyway.
But right now felt entirely different. Abel’s body found all the right places.
His left arm cradled my neck like a soft, muscly pillow while his right arm pulled me close and tight, his hand fanned across the skin of my exposed belly – big, warm, delicious.
His legs twined with mine in some way that I couldn’t even describe, but felt like it was the configuration that our legs had been solely designed for.
I couldn’t think of anything else, so intoxicating was the sensation.
‘You feel so nice,’ I murmured. Thought to speech. Zero filter. Zero pre- or post-reflection.
‘Good.’
His arms squeezed me tighter and I let myself take a lungful of him. I recognised his smell now and it spoke directly to my brain, saying: masculine, trustworthy, comforting, gorgeous. Heady and indulgent.
And as I warmed up, my survival instincts shifted, so a different part of my primitive brain was being activated, the one that was responding in a very visceral way to the feeling of his hand on my stomach.
His hand was broad enough to almost span my whole front and it seemed to melt the organs beneath.
Slowly, all my focus was drawn to that hand and the corresponding experience low in my belly, charging into my groin – my groin, which was pushed against him.
Abel.
Gorgeous, wonderful Abel.
I wriggled deeper into the resistance behind me and I found pressure. Pressure that felt shocking and heady and full of fire. I barely caught a whimper escaping my throat.
‘You okay?’ he whispered in my ear.
‘Mmm-hmm.’ I couldn’t speak for fear I’d give away the shameful way my body was behaving.
‘Sorry,’ he said, almost bashfully. ‘Ignore that.’