She doesn't hesitate. Kicks off her boots, peels her socks, wades straight in to the knee. The cold hits her and she makes a short, involuntary sound of surprise. She looks back at me on the bank with water swirling around her calves and her eyes bright from the cold.
"It's freezing," she says like this is excellent news.
"Always is."
Lara looks at me for a moment. Then she reaches for the hem of her shirt and pulls it over her head in one clean motion, and drops it on the bank.
I freeze.
She reaches back and unclasps her bra and sets it down without ceremony, like she's done this a thousand times, like the river and the cottonwoods and I are all equally unremarkable witnesses. She's just — herself. Completely and without apology.
And she is extraordinary.
Full breasts, the generous curve of her waist flaring out to wide hips, her belly soft and round, her thighs heavy and strong. A body that is entirely, unapologetically itself. I've spent fifteen years photographing the natural world and I know beauty that doesn't ask permission when I'm looking at it.
I'm looking at it.
She wades in deeper, the water rising up the backs of her thighs, over the full curve of her hips, swallowing her waist, and she tips her head back and closes her eyes and the afternoon sun lands full on her face and her bare shoulders and the soft weight of her chest above the waterline.
I pull my shirt off. Step out of my boots. Wade in.
The cold is immediate but it doesn’t calm the fire that has been ignited in me.
Lara opens her eyes when she hears me moving toward her. She watches me cross the distance between us without looking away. When I reach her, I put my hands on her waist under the surface and she's warm where I touch her, warmer than the water. I feel the soft give of her hips under my palms.
She tips her chin up.
"Shaw," she says.
I pull her in and kiss her.
She makes a sound against my mouth and her arms come up around my neck. The river runs cold around us as the full weightof her presses against me, and I think:I have been patient my whole life and I have never wanted anything the way I want this.
We get out of the water.
The bank is warm from the afternoon sun, sheltered by the cottonwoods, private in the way outdoor places should be, with the world entirely present and entirely indifferent.
I spread my shirt on the grass. She pulls me down.
I hold myself above her and look. She lets me. Chin slightly raised, dark eyes steady on mine, comfortable under my gaze the way she's comfortable in everything, warm and bare in the afternoon light.
"You're gorgeous," I tell her. Low. Direct.
"I know," she says. Then, quieter: "But, you can tell me again." She giggles.
I get my mouth on her throat first to feel her pulse, the warmth the sun's left in her skin and work my way down. Her breasts are heavy and full in my hands, and I take my time. Tongue first, then teeth, then my thumb working her nipple until she makes a sound that isn't a word, and her back comes off the grass. I do the same to the other side. She gets her hand in my hair and holds on.
"Shaw."
I keep going. I press my mouth to her stomach, open-mouthed, slow, and she doesn't pull back. She arches up into it. Her fingers tighten in my hair and her hips tilt toward me. I take that as the invitation it is.
I put my mouth on her pussy and she exhales and her thighs spread wider. I learn her the way I learn everything worth knowing: by paying close attention. What makes her hips move. What makes her go still and grip the grass. Where the pressure needs to be, how steady, how long. She guides me with her handwhen I'm close and doesn't apologize for it, which is exactly right.
"Right there," she says. "Don't stop."
She's loud. She scatters the birds from the cottonwoods above us and I don't stop, don't slow, until her thighs lock around my head and she comes with my name in her mouth and her whole body shaking hard against me.
I stay with her through every second of it.
