Kjell laughed again, the sound filling the cabin and warming her chest. It was a glorious sound. Even back at university, she’d not heard it that often and she delighted in hearing it now. Almost enough to give in to his plans. But not quite.
‘You’ll love it.’
‘There is nothing to love about running through a blizzard to a hole in the ice and plunging into literally freezing water. It’s dangerous.’
‘It’s not. I’ll be there the whole time. I’ll go first, if that makes you feel any better.’
‘So what happens after?’
‘We come back and shower.’
‘There isn’t even enough hot water for two of us, Kjell!’
‘I’ve had the generator on and by the time we’re back there’ll be enough hot water for a whole platoon.’
‘Well, good. You and the platoon can make use of it. Because I’mnevergoing to do that.’
An hour later, adrenaline buzzed her body and hazed her eyes and for the first time in days it had nothing to do with arousal and everything to do with fear. She couldnotbelieve that he’d convinced her to do this. He’d left her while he’d found the best place to enter the freezing lake and bashed a hole through the thick icy surface.
‘Kjell,’ she said, shaking her head and backing away, ‘I really can’t do this.’
‘Of course you can. But it’s important that you do as I do and what I tell you to do.’ His tone was level, even and confident. And reasonable. So reasonable that it wasunreasonable! Her heart was pounding in her chest and her palms kept closing instinctively, as if desperately trying to hold onto something that wasn’t there.
She nodded, even though she had no intention of actually following him out to the lake at the bottom of the snow-covered slope and... Her mind stopped short as if trying to protect itself and she couldn’t help but laugh at the bubble of hysteria building in her chest.
Dressed in her thermal layers, she was looking out at the lake, which she could now see properly for the first time since the snow had let up. Kjell had promised her the snow would return, the heavy winter storm not quite done with them yet, but here in the blessed calm of the eye of the storm they had a finite amount of time. Time to get to the lake, strip off their clothes while deepening their breathing and facing the cold before plunging into impossibly icy depths. Kjell had staked a rope ladder to the snow-covered bank and she knew it was for her comfort because he’d never need such a thing. The sudden shocking imagined vision of Kjell hauling himself naked from the freezing lake was nearly enough to tempt her into doing as he asked.
And it must have been in a daze of desire that Kjell took her hand and led her out of the cabin because, when she inhaled, the dramatically low temperature stung her lungs and shocked her back into the present, where Kjell was leading her down towards the frozen lake.
‘Breathe, Freya,’ he ordered, and she did as he asked, and he looked at her with a knowing smile that was as much a taunt as it was reassuring. ‘Would I do anything to risk hurting you?’ he asked.
Her answer was instantaneous. ‘No.’
‘And you trust me?’
‘Yes.’ The response was as instinctive as breathing.
‘Move your legs and arms like a warm-up before exercise and deepen your breath.’
Self-consciously, she followed his directions and let her eyes take in the majesty of the surroundings. Rich forest green poked through the white snow, visible through the break in the storm. Deepening her breath, she tasted ice and pine and wildness. All things she would associate with Kjell for ever. Her heart began to slow, but not by much. Especially when Kjell pulled his thermal top over his head and she bit her lip, caging her tongue to stop it from sweeping her lips in delight.
‘You scared of it?’ he asked, as if unaware of the effect he was having on her right now.
She reluctantly shifted her gaze from the perfection of his chest to the dark, forbidding blackness stark against the snow-covered layer of ice above it. For a moment she wondered if he’d read her mind, asking if she was scared of the feelings building in her hard and fast for a man who, if she stepped down, she could actually have.
‘Yes,’ she answered, mentally referring to both her feelings and the ice. She didn’t have to try to deepen her breath this time, but she slowed it before it could hitch and speed up.
‘To face it you need to change the way you think about it. To not see it as a threat, but as an experience. An experience that won’t be awful, but incredible.’
His breathing was louder than hers, his wide arms sweeping back and forth, his deep inhalations flaring his nose and just copying his actions was enough to cause adrenaline to rush around her body, for her head to feel light with excitement and challenge. With something that was earthy and elemental and animalistic. Nothing else mattered but them and the frigid water ready to test them, to push them. To see this terrifying blackness not as something to be feared but as something she could overcome was incredible.
Kjell’s words were hypnotic, calling to something fierce within her, the sister of yesterday’s rage and hurt, but this time more determined, exhilarating. Something that revelled at being on the brink of an act both terrifying and suddenly absolutely necessary to her. She needed to do this. She felt it in her soul and as strongly as she needed her next breath. And Kjell smiled as if sensing that change in her.
‘Do you want to go first?’
She nodded, unable to open her jaw, it was clenched in fear and determination.
‘Breathe. Relax into it. Be bold and brave and you will conquer it.’