“I have more,” she breathed, fighting to hold a thought while sensations rushed through her in wave after wave.
“You want more, huh?” Rick said. “How’s this?” He pressed his thumb to her clit, which electrified her so much that she cried out. More fantasies was what she meant, and she had to explain it, but it was almost impossible to speak with his thumb stroking her, sending aching waves of pleasure along her nerves, making her ride him helplessly faster and faster as her entire body strove for release.
“Yes, more,” she panted out. “You finding me alone in my studio and tying my wrists…”
“Tying your…wrists?” He was clearly struggling to understand her words. He thrust up into her, meeting her downward stroke with wonderful force.
“Rick, help me…with my fantasies,” she managed to say. “Make them real.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, filling her, claiming her, reaching up into her, deep and demanding. She wasn’t sure he had even grasped what she meant.
There was something in his face, a feeling, a need she met when they made love this way. She wished she could photograph him, catch this expression. And then she caught it—the double image she strove for in her photographs. There was Rick’s desire, his drive to have her and to please her—that was obvious—but beneath that was…loneliness.
Rick was lonely. And, furthermore, so was she. She felt her soul rise up to say, “Me, too,” the connection an arrow shooting through them both, pinning them together. And she wanted more than anything to make him happy, to be with him, to let him make her happy, too.
But that was too much. And way too soon. They were making love, enjoying their physical connection, nothing more. She closed her eyes and focused on what was real—her body rocking on his, in the open air, his thumb stroking her higher and higher, bringing that delicious rush of release ever closer.
Feel this. Feel him. This was what she wanted. To share this pleasure, this driving urge, this mind-blowing burst of ecstasy. Not to settle in, lock on to one man. She pushed away the impulse, but it rang in her like the finest crystal goblet tapped to capture silent attention.
Rick called out her name, thrust upward and released himself inside her, pushing her into climax, too. She cried out, her voice sharp in the quiet meadow, rolling on the breeze like the sensations washing through her, wave after wave, until finally she collapsed onto Rick’s chest.
He held her and their hearts banged at each other through ribs and muscle and skin, both of them breathing hard.
Samantha relaxed into an easy peace on top of Rick, who stroked her back, soft and slow. She wanted a picture of this—something to hang on to forever as a memory—but she couldn’t move a muscle.
“I bet we’ve got a frame or two left,” Rick said, as if he’d read her mind. She felt him extend a hand, grab the camera and hold it above their bodies. She wiggled into his armpit and he angled the lens to catch them just to the collarbone.
She imagined the proof sheets of this day—sun-kissed desert vistas, rising red cliffs, the creek from all angles, the wildlife they’d captured, Rick’s snap of her mud-streaked face and now the two of them together. Stalking the wild climax. Forever proof of their lovemaking in the woods.
She cuddled into him, comfortable and so happy. Then she noticed her leg itched. Then the itch moved. She leaned up to check and found ants crawling on her legs and his. “Ants!” she said and brushed them off her shins and Rick’s thighs.
“I can fix that,” he said, rising to swing her into his arms and stride toward the creek.
“What are you doing?”
He only grinned and kept walking.
“Don’t you dare. It’ll be too—” Before she could say cold, icy water brushed her bare bottom and Rick was up to his thighs in the creek. She squealed.
“It’ll feel good in a second.” He stepped into a deep spot and they both went under. The water went from frigid to brisk to mellow in the five seconds it took to reach the bottom and thrust up from the rocky creek bed.
Breaking the surface, Samantha threw herself onto her back to float, the sun deliciously warm on her water-chilled face.
For a few minutes, they floated and played, splashing each other and holding on tight, until they wearied and scrambled onto a flat boulder together to let the sun soothe their chill-bumped skin.
It was lovely and lazy on the warm sandstone. After a bit, Samantha rose on her elbow to look down at Rick, who lay with his eyes closed looking gorgeous—a sun-bronzed god sent to earth to pleasure women. Well, one particular woman. Water gleamed on his skin and clear diamonds of it were suspended in his chest hair.