Alison Kelly - Man About The House

‘Sure we can...’ He fished out the penlight he’d tucked in his back pocket. ‘We did all the time as kids.’

‘Presumably you were somewhat smaller then,’ she said, her gaze running pointedly over him. ‘The only way you’d get in there now would be flat on your belly.’

‘You got it.’

Watching her mentally assimilate this was a fascinating exercise. A tiny ‘V’ formed between her perfectly arched eyebrows as she flicked her gaze back to the cave’s entrance; a moment later she started to worry her bottom lip with her teeth.

‘Is it safe?’ she asked, without looking at him.

‘Rock-solid.’ he said glibly, then added, ‘High tide is hours away.’

He dropped onto his knees beside her. ‘When we were kids we used to have time trials to see who could get in and out quickest. The record was less than five minutes.’

‘Did you hold it?’

‘Yep!’ He grinned. ‘Until my mate Jason broke it. The sub-five time is his. How’s the hangover?’

‘Shh!’ She scowled. ‘I’m hoping if I ignore it it’ll go away.’

He laughed. ‘So how do you want to do this; you want me to lead?’

‘Who said I wanted to do it at all?’

‘No one.’ He grinned again. ‘But you have very expressive eyes, Jo, and right now they’re practically sparking with anticipation.’

A faint flush hinted at her being pleased by his comment, but she produced a wry smile. ‘How do you know it’s not fear?’

‘Gut instinct,’ he responded, privately acknowledging there was a fair bit of sparking going on inside him too. Except in his case he ruefully suspected it owed itself more to Joanna’s face being within easy kissing distance rather than the thrill of reliving a boyhood escapade. Damn, but she was beautiful! And yet amazingly she seemed completely unaware of the fact. Too bad he wasn’t.

‘Brett...I asked you a question?’

Yes, she had. He knew because he’d watched her mouth move. Trouble was, what he’d been imagining those lush little lips saying had deafened him to what they’d actually said. There was probably only one chance in a zillion that a reply of, You bet I want to make love to you! wouldn’t catch her off guard.

‘Sorry, what did you say?’ he asked, downshifting his hormones to a lower gear.

‘Once we’re in there,’ she said, pulling a stretchy band from around her wrist and hastily securing her hair into a ponytail at the top of her head, ‘how long will it take us to get to the other side?’

‘There is no “other side”.’

He watched her mull this over, then again check out what from where they were appeared to be only a narrow tunnel. ‘So you’re saying we crawl in forwards and then have to come out backwards?’

He shook his head. ‘After thirty metres or so the tunnel opens up into a huge cave.’

‘So we come out the way we went in?’

He nodded.

‘What’s in the cave?’

‘Nothing.’

Joanna’s excited grin created contradictory feelings within him. Most women would have questioned the point in undertaking an exercise which offered no real rewards, and perversely he now half wished Joanna would throw a hissy fit at the whole idea and refuse to take part on the grounds of putting her fingernails at risk. But it seemed Joanna Ford’s shy-sexy persona hid a streak of adventure. Discovering she possessed yet another quality the women in his past had lacked was as bothering as it was pleasing. It had him sensing he’d put himself between a rock and hard place even before he’d eased onto his stomach and prepared to snake his way into the damp darkness of the tidal cave.

There was a noticeable but not dramatic drop in temperature within the rock tunnel; the air held the distinct smell of salt and the hard sand-crusted surface beneath his body was still damp from the last high tide. Clasping the flashlight in his right hand, Brett snaked his way forward on his elbows and forearms without once having a problem with the tunnel’s vertical clearance. Although width-wise it was an occasional squeeze.

‘Don’t you dare get stuck,’ a muttered voice warned from behind him in one such instance.

‘No worries,’ he assured her. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Fine. Just keep going and try not to kick me in the face with those size twelves you’re wearing.’

Grinning, he continued to edge forward. ‘Almost there. By the way, if you’re close enough to read the sizing on the soles of my shoes in this light, you better back off a bit. The floor of the main cave is about a half metre or more below this. I’ll have to lower myself down onto my hands to get in there...if you’re too close you might get caught by a stray boot.’

‘All right.’

When the tunnel finally did open up, the dim, dank surrounds filled Brett with a wave of nostalgia, making him chuckle.

A hand clamped around his right ankle. ‘Er, Brett... you’re not getting claustrophobic and hysterical on me, are you?’

The cautiously voiced question added to his amusement. ‘Nope. Just appreciating some old memories.’

‘So how come you’ve stopped moving?’

‘Because I’m at the cave.’

‘Already! Really?’ The excitement dripping from her voice magnified his own. He wasn’t game to examine why.

‘Just stay where you are till I get right in, okay?’

‘Okay.’

As testament to his increased height since he’d last been down here as a seventeen-year-old, his arms reached the cave floor without being fully extended. He released the flashlight, which rolled a little, throwing patterns of light and shadow on the dark crusty walls, and ‘walked’ his palms until he could get his feet to the floor. Standing, he turned in a small circle to survey his surroundings.

Structurally nothing had noticeably changed in the almost two decades since his last visit, but it irked him that more recent visitors had found it necessary to make the underground trek armed with spray cans. Unfortunately the absence of skeletal remains suggested the vandals who’d scrawled ‘RAP RULES’ in fluorescent yellow on the walls hadn’t perished from inhaling paint fumes in a confined space.

‘Brett! Are you all right?’

‘Yeah,’ he responded, dusting his gritty hands across the back of his jeans before crouching again at the entrance of the tunnel. ‘You can come on through now.’

Joanna’s mouth was pursed in concentration as she wormed her way to the end, but by the time she poked her head through at the end it was split into a megawatt grin. ‘Hi, there! Just passing; thought I’d drop in...’ She looked at the distance to the cave floor. ‘Drop being exactly the word.’

Instinctively Brett took a hold of her forearms. ‘It’s okay, I’ve got you. Just ease out slowly.’

‘Gotcha,’ she said, obeying his instructions, although Brett was pretty sure he hadn’t said anything about putting her hands on his shoulders, nor about sliding them around his neck as she emerged further. But, reluctant to look a gift horse in the mouth, and needing to keep his equilibrium, he started inching his feet backwards. Unfortunately Joanna moved forward a fraction too far, at the same time tumbling him first onto his backside, then his back, before landing on top of him with an ‘Oomph!’

Joanna’s startled ‘Dam!’ was considerably tamer than the four-letter word which burst from him, although he wasn’t sure whether her furious blush of embarrassment was caused by his swearing, her part in causing the fall or the suggestive intimacy of how they’d landed. She was stretched between the ‘V’ of his bent legs, with her belly and breasts pressed tight against him as a result of his arms protectively tightening around her mid-tumble. And it had been a purely protective action, he assured himself.

Within seconds, though, she rallied herself. ‘Oh, Lord, I’m so sorry!’ she gushed. ‘It’s all my fault. Are you okay?’

Oh, yeah, it was her fault, all right. And he’d be just dandy once she stopped squirming and wriggling her body against his and the stupid voice inside him stopped chanting, This is your chance; kiss her, kiss her...

‘Brett... Are you going to be able to get up?’

He gave a dry, humourless laugh. ‘There’s no indication that’s going to be a problem. Although it’s a bit hard with you lying all over me.’ And getting a damn sight harder by the second! he added silently.

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