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I hummed. “Mmm, I’m good with that. Think Ally will mind?”
“Will I mind what?” She came up behind Craig and slipping her hands into his tee, lifting it off him and tossing it aside. I leaned down, licking his nipple and making him arch into my touch. With his hand holding my head against his chest, I nibbled on his skin as he thrust his hips.
“Fuck.” His whispered words were ragged. “You’ve got to stop, or I’m gonna come in my pants.
“Want a blow job?”
“God, yes. But not here.” He groaned, releasing my head. When he clambered off me, he stumbled, nearly falling over his own feet. Ally gripped him, steadying his balance until he righted himself while I lurched forward, grasping onto him too. He pressed the heel of his palm against the bulge in his pants, pushing his shaft down. “Later.” That one simple word was a cross between a promise and a plea. I had no idea when or where it would be though; we were about to head off on a two-day trip to the north-western paddock, ready to create our environmental sanctuary.
“Can I watch?” Ally winked and kissed Craig quickly before doing the same for me.
“You guys almost ready to leave?” Jono called from outside the shed as he sauntered in.
“Yeah, mate.” I stepped back from Ally and adjusted myself.
“Scottie’s got the tractor, and the trailer is already loaded with the tank and all the other equipment we need. We just need to hook it up to the ute.”
“The shovels were the last thing we needed, and they’re in there now.” Ally hopped in the ute, reversing it out of the shed.
The tank on the back of the trailer was big—oval-shaped—but shallow. The bore drilled into the Great Artesian Basin fed water into the cattle troughs, which in turn would drip into the tank we were fitting. The shallow watering hole would be low enough for the smaller native animals to drink from. The project, if it worked, would make the north-western paddock the beginning of an environmental reserve. Scottie wanted to close it down to help rehabilitate the desert from the impact of generations of cattle grazing on the land. Erosion and loss of topsoil would hopefully be slowed by reducing concentrated grazing and a regeneration of the ground cover, at the same time minimising compaction of the land. The science behind it was complex, and Scottie, Jono, and I had poured over reports from the CSIRO and information from agricultural advisory bodies.
Waru and Yindi had helped choose which bore to set the tank up at. Scottie had wanted to close off a paddock that contained land with cultural significance for their tribes. Helping their people stay connected with the land was another important thing he was trying to achieve. I respected the hell out of him for doing it too.
We got the trailer connected and the gates opened. It was going to be a bumpy ride, and a long one—four hours over paddocks going at a snail’s pace. The river feeding the billabong we’d swam at years earlier was dry. The billabong itself was just a hole in the ground with hard-packed dirt and a few quartz boulders lining the ledge on what used to be the deeper end. It had been devoid of water for almost as long as I’d known it as a watering hole. The drought had ravaged the land and all its animals. We were trying to make a difference, and while we all felt helpless at the loss of native wildlife, we were also struggling. Water availability was at an all-time low.
Finally pulling up to the bore, I slid out from between Craig and Ally. Back aching and my legs tight, I stretched, trying to loosen up. Den and Scottie were already walking the site, measuring out in strides where to place the tank and pipework. I went over to the trough, which would be feeding the tank, and peered inside. Dry as a bone. It didn’t surprise me at all, and it meant that the animals were wholly reliant on morning dew and the hardy vegetation for their water. No wonder they were struggling.
We worked as a team, levelling out the dirt, building a pad for the tank to sit on and heaving it into place. By the time we wrapped up, we were ready for a good feed, a cup of tea, and toasted marshmallows by the campfire Phoenix and Macca were building. Both were twitchy at the possibility of coming into contact with a snake—Macca didn’t have a great track record with them and Phoenix was just shit-scared, but they managed it without incident. Before we knew it, we were cleaning up, readying ourselves for a cup of Nan’s chilli beef and damper baked fresh in the coals.
