Dave “Ridge” Carson

Somewhere between El Paso and Tucson, I found my soul under the bright stars of the Southwest.

Looking up, I drink her in. Meadow hates when I stare at her, but beauty like hers is rare. Her chin dips down, and she kisses my cheek, trailing more toward my ear where she whispers, “You feel so good inside me.”

“You have it all wrong. You make me feel good inside you.” I capture her lips on the edge of a laugh and kiss her while she continues to rock on top of my lap.

The sound of our bodies, our skin slick against each other becomes part of the hum of the desert outside the car. A night wind whistles through the cracked open window as the temperatures continue to fall well after sunset. We couldn’t wait—not for a hotel or a rest stop. When her hand dipped to my pants and she rubbed over me, causing my body to react, I pulled over.

Time is our enemy. There’s never enough of it when I’m with her. Every time I’m with her, I want to drain every ounce of life from the seconds, minutes, few short hours we get to be with each other.

My gaze rolls over the bottom of her jaw as her head tilts back, her mouth open, her bare breasts in front of me. I want to hold her still, hold her here, right the fuck here on top of me.

I run my hands over her body as I make love to the woman who’s become an addiction of mine. I breathe better, easier when I’m with her. The music of our bodies together is the only melody I hear. She’s become my friend.

My lover.

My muse.

Lifting up, she eases back down and then lifts again, gripping my shoulders and digging her nails into my skin. The pain is pleasure when doled out in provocative ways. “Dave,” she whispers on the end of a purr. No other name has been uttered in pure ecstasy like the way she says mine.

I hold her by the hips in the back seat of the SUV taking in the full view. “Hey,” I say.

She comes back to me, her eyes open, her soul exposed in such a vulnerable way, setting my heart on fire. “Hey.” She smiles, and I hold her still again, wanting this to last forever while equally wanting to rush the release.

A few sips of the wine we’ve been drinking straight from the bottle make her eyes sparkle. Caught between want and need, her smile is even until the corners, which curve up. It’s a smile that both hurts and heals my heart when it appears. “Don’t leave.”

Leaning down, she kisses my forehead, my nose, my mouth. With her lips against mine, she whispers, “I have to go.”

I’ve been careful about making plans with her for so long that the words feel foreign to me even now when this feels more intimate than any other time before. Every time with her is like this—better than the last. “I want you to stay.”

I fell for the free-spirited beauty long before we left Austin. But like all who are meant to soar, she can’t be caged by antiquated notions of romance. Meadow Fellowes has been clear about what we are or ever could be—nothing serious. But sometimes, when she looks at me, I see more hidden in the emerald pools of her eyes. I understand the yearning. She says, “My flight is tomorrow night.”

We’ve been so good at keeping it casual, but nothing serious means we’re fucking because we want to have sex. This isn’t fucking, just like we’re not casual, not to me. “Can you change it? Give us another week. Another day. Give us a chance.”

Leaning down, she kisses me and then sits back up. With her palms on my chest, she holds her smile. “I am. By leaving.” Her eyes close, and she starts moving on top of me again.

So I grip her a little tighter, holding her while I can. I meet every one of her pushes with a thrust of my own. As she comes back to me, the lids are half-mast, but her gaze is fixed on me. She whispers, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking how good this feels. Just us. Alone. In the desert, making love, having sex, fucking. All of it. All of you. You feel so good to me. Maybe we should be more to each other.”

“You’re more than you know,” she purrs softly and then leans back as if our connection is too much before she starts a slow gyrate. God, she feels amazing. A hand rubs over my chest, and this time, my eyes meet hers, coming back from the hazy edge of release. “We’re not those people.”

“What people are those?”

“The kind of people who make plans.”

Our bodies glide together as I say, “We’ve made plans before.”

“Spur-of-the-moment plans. Those don’t count.”

“They count.” They fucking count. I want to argue, but my mind clouds as our bodies move of their own volition. My eyes dip closed, and I swim in the moment, buried deep inside her.

We fall, tipping over that line that keeps us safe and the one that will end us—heart, body, and soul. It’s where I prefer to be with her. If only we could stay in this place longer than it takes for our breathing to recover.

My heart calms, and my breathing steadies. Meadow slides down with me still inside her and rests her head on my shoulder. Her fingers toy with the hairs on my chest before a kiss is placed on my neck. “Six months,” she says. “I’ll be back in six months.”

I tighten my arms around her. I don’t care that my body’s too big for this back seat or that we’re covered in sweat. All that matters is that I have her in my arms for a short time, and I intend to savor every second until she boards that plane.