Sunday 12:07 a.m.  The farm, pool house

Just being outside the confined space of the sauna was enough to give Russell and Samantha the breathing room they both needed to get a handle on their runaway emotions.  This time.  Flushed and laughing like children, they raided the pool house fridge.  Russell handed her a bottle of water and grabbed one for himself, wondering if it wouldn't be a better idea to pour the thing over his head than to drink it down.  He could certainly use a good dousing right about now.  Despite his promise to keep his hands off Samantha, he'd been a hair's breadth from taking her in the sauna.  He knew women.  Well.  There was no mistaking her desire, or for that matter, his body's reaction to it. 

Russell was just about to drop himself heavily into one of the cushy lounge chairs when Sam's voice stopped him.

"Hey, is this one of those, what are they called--cold plunges?"  Samantha was looking at a small pool set into the floor in one corner of the pool house.  It was about the size of a small hot tub and maybe waist deep.  The tile work edging it was beautiful, done in tones of muted green and watery cobalt.  It was surrounded by a low half-wall and various assorted plants making it very private and serene.   

"Yeah.  I had it put in a couple of years back.  Mum and Terry swear by the bloody thing."  He shook his head in bemusement.  Dunk himself in frigid, icy water?  Voluntarily?  Hell, no.     

Sam's smile grew.  "And what do you think of it, Crowe?"

He came over to stand beside her, arms crossed and his lips pursed in flagrant distaste.  "I think any man who wants to dip his knackers in that thing is fucking insane."

Her full-throated laugh rang out.  That was just like Russell.  Ask his opinion and get the flat out truth, unvarnished and delivered with his usual cheek.  "Come on, you've never even tried it?  Not once?  How on Earth can you have a pool in your own home and never have tried it out?"   

He pinned her with an amused look.  "Have you felt the water?"  He gave a mock shiver.  "A man would need to tie a string around his good bits just to find them again when he climbed back out."  Even though he was overheated from the sauna, he had no desire to subject himself to that.  No way.  His preferred form of self torture was mental rather than physical... and it usually involved a lot of pointed introspection and great quantities of alcohol.

Sam shook her head.  Lord!  Men and their 'bits'.  She knelt to trail her fingers in the cold water and he took the moment to observe - and appreciate - the way the deep crimson of her suit set off the creamy skin of her curvy little backside.  His tongue peeped out to wet his bottom lip and he all but groaned when she hooked a finger in the elastic edging of her suit and adjusted it where it had been riding up so deliciously.  It made him want to get behind her on his knees and slip his hand into her bottoms as he pulled her back against him.  Or maybe he would grab the crotch of her suit in his fingers and pull it up tight against her first.  Tease her a bit before he slipped his fingers inside...

His fingers twitched.  So did his cock.  Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck.  He cursed his wayward imagination, fighting the slow pulsing arousal in the pit of his belly.  She'd only bent to test the water, not to invite him to buggery.  At that thought, a whole slew of other crudely erotic images flashed in his brain.  He wondered if she was the kind of girl who'd go for that.  And what did it say about him that he hoped she was?  He wet his lips again and tasted salt.  He even thought he could smell her over the chlorine.  Christ, this was intollerable.      

Blissfully unaware of his dirty little thoughts, Sam rolled her eyes and smirked as she rose and playfully flicked her wet fingers at him.  She wiggled her eyebrows and pointed to the pool.  "Come on...  I dare you."

That got his attention.  Hmm... Now that could be interesting indeed.  He certainly wasn't above using a bit of leverage to get what he wanted.  "And what would I get if I did it?"  It would have to be something damn good to entice him into stepping so much as a foot into the blasted thing.  He lifted his chin.  It certainly wouldn't be the first time he'd made a fool of himself for-- thankfully, her next words interrupted him before he'd finished that thought. 

"Well, what do you want?"  Samantha hadn't intended the comment to sound so sexual in nature, but it did and she blushed profusely.  For a brief moment that intense heat crackled wildly between them again before Russell looked away from her, breaking the spell.  It was a long moment before he answered.  

His eyes swung back to her and he grinned.  "If, and I do mean IF, I do it... I want you to call me Russ or Russell.  No more 'Crowe'."  He knew how hard that would be for her, and he'd been dying to hear his name from her lips for weeks now.  That was worth risking frostbitten knackers.  Definitely.

Samantha thought it over and finally nodded.  "Okay, deal."

"And you go first."  

"What?  No way!  That's two things."

He chuckled.  Well, it had been worth a shot.  "So, what do you want then?"  Under his breath he hummed the theme song to the commercial she had earlier.  'Almond Joy has nuts, Mounds don't...' 

God, he really was too much.  Sam grinned.  "Ok, Crowe," she emphasized the name, knowing how it goaded him.  "I want two tickets to the next U.S. Grunt's show."  Her eyes twinkled.  "Good ones."

"I don't know if there is such a thing," he chuckled and then shrugged.  "Front and center it is, love.  Close enough to see my face when I muck up the words.  How's that?"  His smile was infectious.  "Deal?"

"Deal."

"And you still go first."

Sam giggled.  He was such a boy.  "Fine, you big weenie.  I'll go first."  Samantha turned toward the pool and was surprised to see Russell turn away, heading off towards the table where he'd left his clothes.  "Wearing a footy shirt isn't going to make the water any warmer, Crowe," she teased.

Rooting around for a moment, he plucked something green from the messy pile and waved it at her with a smirk.  "I'm getting my damn jocks, woman, unless you'd rather I dropped this towel and took the plunge in the nick?"  He turned to her, unmentionables in hand, waiting for her response with his eyebrows raised, smug as the very devil. 

Sam's eyes widened.  "You- you..." she sputtered.  "All this time..."  Samantha was floored.  All this time she thought he'd had shorts on under that towel.  Her mouth went dry and her face heated as she realized he'd been naked with her for the better part of an hour almost every night for the last three weeks.   

Russell looked her up and down and grinned.  "Yup.  Thought so."  With a giggle, he disappeared into the bathroom and emerged a minute later wearing a pair of dark green boxer briefs.  Samantha swallowed hard.  He might be a little thicker through the middle than he usually was on film, but his lightly furred thighs were hard and muscular and the snug material did little to hide the rest of his impressive body.  He was still sweaty from the sauna and the briefs were snug.  It was a revealing combination. 

Plumped from the heat and the lingering blood rush of his recent erotic thoughts, the distinctive lump of his hastily arranged genitals bounced crudely with each step he took.  Aware she was looking, and being the bit of the peacock he knew he could be, he slung the towel over his shoulder, preening a bit for her before indelicately rearranging the indecent bulge with a practiced hand and a low dirty laugh.

Her eyes widened at his outrageous behavior but to her credit, Samantha recovered smoothly, dropping her own towel as she grabbed the handrail by the pool.  "Well, that's one question half the women in the world would like answered."  Her eyes snapped playfully.  He gave her an unreadable look.  "Boxers or briefs," she clarified.

Russell rolled his eyes, nonplussed.  "What the hell is it with women and that question?"  He'd never understood why anyone wanted to know the answer to that.  It was fucking underwear for God's sake. 

Sam's foot paused just above the water.  "The more details you have, the better the fantasy is, I guess."

He snorted.  "It's not much of a fucking fantasy if I'm wearing clothes, now is it?"  His tone was surly.  

Samantha chose not to answer that dangerously loaded question.  It was obviously a touchy subject with him and he was getting defensive.  She wondered how he could be so silly one minute and turn on a dime to be so prickly the next.  He must have driven his mother nuts growing up.  Hell, he probably still did.  He drove her nuts too.  But she liked it.  Maybe she was just a masochist at heart?  Or maybe she was in danger of losing her heart?  Sam shook those thoughts away.   

Russell crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her.  "So, baby, what kind of panties do you wear?"  He hadn't said it because he wanted an answer, hell, he'd rather find that out for himself at some point later on.  He'd said it so she'd know what it felt like to be asked such a personal question in such an impersonal manner.

Sam gasped as the crass question caught her off guard and she splashed heavily into the pool, thankfully regaining her balance before she slipped all the way under.  As it was, the water came to her waist and it was so cold it stole her breath.  "Hey!"

He hooted with unabashed glee.  Mr. Playful was back again.  "Oh, no.  I don't think so, sweetheart."  He shook his head when she moved to climb out.  "That doesn't count.  All the way under, love, head and everything."  He noticed her teeth were starting to chatter.  His black mood was greatly improved by the sight of her sputtering about in the icy water.  The fact that her nipples were hard only made a good thing that much better.  "Better hurry," he teased, leveling his gaze at her chest.  "That water looks mighty cold."  He knew he shouldn't have said that, but he just couldn't help himself.  Was there a man alive who didn't find the sight of a hard nipple under thin damp cloth arousing?       

"B-bite m-me, Crowe," she hissed.  Samantha closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she bent her legs and slipped below the surface of the water.  She popped back up again a second later, purposefully flinging a spray of water in his direction as she pushed her hair back from her face and climbed out of the pool as quickly as she could.  The shock of so much icy water made it impossible to do little more than dance from foot to foot going, "Oh, oh, oh!"  He was watching her little dance; bent over, hands on his knees, laughing so hard he had to wipe the tears from his eyes. 

"T-towel!"  She managed to get out, glaring at him.  

He picked up her towel and shot her a naughty look.  "What's the magic word?"

"Castration," she growled.  

That set him off again into another fit of giggles, but he threw the towel to her anyway, a little disappointed to see her creamy skin, now tinged a lovely pink from the cold, hidden away yet again.  Sam rubbed herself vigorously and wrapped the towel around her waist while she squeezed the icy water from her hair.  Russell grinned.  Her teeth had stopped chattering, but her nipples were still hard, clearly visible under her thin bikini.  His mouth watered.  He felt his cock twitch in response and fought the urge to cover the slow swelling with his hand.  No, it was better not to draw any attention to that portion of his anatomy.  God above, he needed this dunking more and more with each passing minute.

Moving to the pool, and careful to keep his back to her, he put his hand on the railing and prepared to take the plunge, literally.  He had no intention of standing waist deep in the water for half a minute first like she had.  In and out.  That was his plan.  He took a deep breath.  Now or never, mate- 

"Crowe?"  He froze, perched on the edge, toes dangling just above the choppy surface of the pool.  "I never did answer that question of yours.  Fair is fair, after all."

"What?"  He looked over his shoulder at her, irritated by her distraction.  He hadn't been paying much attention to her, preferring to focus all his energy on getting this horrid experience over with as quick as humanly as possible.

"Hello?  Underwear?"

That got his attention.  Perhaps a little too much of his attention.  He wobbled.  

Her eyes flashed.  "I do like a lacy thong... when I wear any at all."  

Oh, pride, thy name is Crowe!  With a yelp, he slipped into the pool, splashing a great deal of water in every direction.  "OH, BUGGER IT!"  He shouted.  He'd been in no danger of hurting himself, but his instinctive reaction had been to stand up to get as much of himself as possible out of the freezing water.  Unfortunately, his first dunking had only been neck deep.  He was going to have to dunk himself again.  He knew she'd never let him off that easy.  He could feel his scrotum tightening as his balls lodged themselves somewhere in the vicinity of his throat.  Russell turned his face to the ceiling, shouted, "FUCK!" at the top of his lungs and dunked himself soundly.  Christ, it was so bitterly cold that it fucking ached!  He had the sudden, overwhelming urge to grab his bollocks and give them a tug, just to be sure they hadn't disappeared entirely. 

He burst from the water flinging droplets in every direction like a big wet dog and was up and out of the pool before Samantha had even got a grip on her first bout of laughter.  Russell hopped around a bit like she had; cursing colorfully as he quickly dried himself with a towel.  If his underwear had been indecent before, they were alarmingly indecent now, tight and half transparent from the water.  Normally, he'd have flaunted it for all it was worth just to watch her blush... but even his swaggering bravado wasn't immune to a man's normal physical response to having his poor, innocent genitals accosted by a frigid dunking, not once but twice!  He snuck a quick peek downward under the guise of a vigorous toweling and shook his head in amusement.  Pretty pathetic showing, mate!  Definitely no need to show off that frozen little marble bag....    

Surprisingly, once he'd rubbed away the icy water, he felt a rush of invigorating warmth.  Well, screw that.  Terry could keep his icy dunkings.  A nice, hard fuck gave you the same kind of delicious liquid warmth... without the nasty shock, or the danger of freezing one's bollocks off.  Russell quickly wrapped his towel around his middle, glaring at Sam who still hadn't stopped laughing.  His skin was cool to the touch, but he felt all warm and tingly underneath... though God knew it would probably be a week before his good bits would be in full working order again.  He doubted he could get it up right now if he tried.  That was some damned cold water.  

He scowled playfully and wagged his finger at her.  "That wasn't nice, Sam."

"Maybe not."  She laughed again.  "But it sure was fun."  She ignored his teasing, sooky pout.  "Come on, it's not as if you needed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or anything.  The water's barely four feet deep."  She sidestepped the towel he snapped in her direction and stuck her tongue out at him. 

Well, he might not have needed mouth-to-mouth, but it was entirely possible mouth-to-something-else resuscitation might be in order.  That 'something' gave a little twitch as he contemplated the idea of Sam's mouth on him.  Now that would warm him up just fine.  He shivered as he imagined the warm, wet sucking heat of her mouth.....  Aw, fuck.  His body twitched again.  Hmm... Maybe things were working a bit better than he'd originally thought.  Russell grinned as he watched Samantha give herself one last toweling before she quickly pulled her dry shirt and jeans over her damp suit.  "What's the matter, love?  Water a little too cold for your delicate Yank constitution?"  He made no effort to control his amusement.  She was getting dressed pretty damn quickly while he was experiencing a surge of rosy warmth.      

Truthfully, while Sam had enjoyed the cold plunge, she had a much smaller frame than he did and that combined with the heavy wet tangle of hair at her back had chilled her faster than she had expected.  He looked plenty warm though, the bastard!  His cheeks were ruddy and under his twinkling eyes, his smile was wide and teasing.  She tried not to look at the little glittering droplets of water as they ran in rivulets from his hair, down over his impressive chest to wet the towel wrapped at his waist.     

Sam snickered.  "Hey, I watched you come out of that water too, you know.  From what I saw-" she hesitated just long enough for him to get her drift, "It looked like I wasn't the only one who was... affected... by the cold."  Oh, yes.  Things had most definitely NOT been the same size they'd been before he'd gotten such a thorough dunking.  She hummed the little commercial ditty again under her breath for good measure.  'Almond Joy has nuts... Mounds don't...'

Russell choked on his laughter.  "Remember what I told you--don't poke the animals unless you're prepared for them to bite back."  He flashed her a toothy grin and pulled his shirt over his head as she slipped on her shoes. 

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that maybe she liked to be bitten, but her insides were fluttery enough already.  He'd been surly and charming and flirtatious tonight.  And there was no mistaking the erection he'd had while he was stroking her palms in the sauna.  The man was as confusing as he was intriguing.  What the hell was going on in his mind?  Confused, cold, and more than a little aroused, Sam thought it best to just say goodnight.  Maybe this whole evening had been a fluke.  While their usual evening chats were intimate and engaging, they'd never thrown sparks off each other like they had tonight. 

Wrapping her towel around her shoulders to keep her wet hair from making her shirt damp, Sam looked over at him.  Footy shirt on and towel still around his waist, he was hunting around for his second sock.  "It's under the table," she offered helpfully, swallowing a smile as he squatted to retrieve it, grumbling under his breath.  Men and their socks.  Sam swallowed a laugh.  Now there was a picture--the famous Mr. Crowe sussing about under the table for his lost sock.  "I'll see you tomorrow," she called quietly, heading for the door.

He was up in a second, and after her the next.  He caught her at the door and wrapped his strong fingers around her slender wrist.  Not painfully, but Sam knew the only way she'd ever get free is if he chose to let her go.  The heat was back, flaring wildly between them once more.  This time, he didn't look away.  

"Don't you have something else you want to say to me, love?"  His eyes burned into hers as he drew her nearer.  His big, warm body was very close.  Samantha could feel his breath on her cheek.  Her heart was thumping so wildly in her chest she wondered if he could hear it. 

"S-Something else?"  She stammered.  What could he possibly....?  Oh.  OHHHhhhh!  Right.  Okay.  It was making sense now.   

Russell saw the understanding flare in her eyes and smiled.  "I'm waiting."

She hesitated half a second, feeling nervous and fluttery.  "Goodnight...... Russell."  There was just a hint of color high on her cheeks and her voice was very soft.  His thumb stroked the shivery bit of delicate skin on the inside of her wrist.

"Russ," he urged, holding her eyes with his.  "Say it."  It was not a question.  

Oh, God.  Her insides were melting.  "Goodnight...  Russ."  Her blush deepened and her voice got softer still.  Almost a whisper.  Husky.  Sexy.           

Sweet God in heaven.  It was every bit as good as he thought it would be.  While he usually sought the company of strong, intelligent women, he also preferred women who weren't so assertive or insecure they felt the need to challenge him on every last thing.  There were times when he fancied a bit of aggressive behavior in his partners, but there were also times, like tonight, when he wanted their submission.  Hers was perfect.  Just the right blend of delicate femininity and sensual grace.  She'd lowered her chin just a little as she'd said it, eyes demurely on the floor for a brief moment before they met his again, steady and warm. 

It made him feel good.  Powerful.  While he had no desire to dominate his partners, he did have very strong ideas about men and women's roles.  He knew he could be a bit of a chauvinistic bastard, but that was who he was and he damn sure wouldn't apologize for it.  Put simply, he was a masculine man and he enjoyed feminine women.  He also knew with the right woman, that give and take of carnal power could be incredibly erotic. 

Russell stared in her eyes a long moment before leaning in and whispering in her ear, "G'night, Samantha.  Sweet dreams."  Russell knew his own power.  He used that low, dulcet tone he knew from experience made women shiver.  She did, and he smiled into her hair as he pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek and turned her loose, grinning from ear to ear as he grabbed his jeans and disappeared into the bathroom without another word.