I move slowly and deeply thrusting into her.
I have her in the bed of my truck under a red sky and she is mine under my hand. I press and I curl and I press and Icurl, and I bring my thumb up onto her clit, and I work the two together at the rhythm I know now is her rhythm, and she puts both hands on the front of my coat and grips. The wool hat slides back. Her hair comes loose. Her mouth opens and closes. She is moaning loudly and deliciously as I fuck her.
"Don't stop." Her voice is hoarse.
“I won’t,” I promise her.
“You feel so good,” she gasps. Her words are stilted and her breathing quick.
I feel her cunt tighten around my fingers.
“Come for me, baby,” I growl as I fuck her.
She comes against my hand under the open sky.
She comes quietly. She comes with her mouth on the side of my jaw and her teeth in the cloth of my collar and her hand fisted in my coat. She comes the way a woman comes who has been afraid all her life of being heard, and I let her come the way she comes, and I do not ask her to be loud.
I hold her through it.
I hold her with my fingers still inside, my thumb still on her, my mouth at her temple, my body over hers, the wool blanket scratching at the back of her thighs, the red sky going purple at the edge.
She breathes.
I breathe.
The hawk is gone. The sun is gone. There is a band of orange over the ridge and above it the sky is a deep violet and a single star is up.
"Max."
"Yes."
"Don't move yet."
"No."
I do not move.
I keep my hand where it is. I keep my body where it is. I keep my mouth at her temple. The wind moves the tops of the pines. The single star is up. There is a band of orange over the ridge and above it the sky is a deep violet, and the violet is going darker.
She is warm and perfect under me.
She is warm and breathing slow and her hand is still fisted in my coat, and her mouth is still at my jaw, and I am thinking about the woman named Elise Warren who is going to interview me in four days, and I am thinking about the cabin and the brass key and the bandage on the hand that is gripping my coat, and the all-of-it is in the truck bed with me under the open sky, and the all-of-it does not move me.
The all-of-it does not move me.
That is the sentence.
I love Evangeline.
That is another sentence.
She turns her face up to mine. Her cheek is cold and her mouth is warm and her eyes catch the last of the orange off the ridge.
"Max."
"Yes."
"Stay a minute."
