Long Ball(3)

My hands never leave the small of her back after we dance. She pulls me around for carnival rides and games, corn dogs and more colas, and back to meet her friends for the late night fireworks. I don’t know what happened to Carter and Franklin, and I really don’t care. I have never felt so carefree, so happy, than in this afternoon with her. Everything felt effortless and perfect.

“You’re going to take me home, right?” Her brilliant blue eyes flash up at me as a shower of blue sparks lights up the sky.

I smile, even though I never really stopped, and say, “Of course.”

“Good.” She nestles against me for the rest of the show.

I don’t take her home. I don’t want the night to end. Instead, I drive us out into the middle of nowhere, in the middle of all the corn fields, and park my truck right along the side of the road. The fair is only half a mile away, but it feels like there’s no one for an eternity, and the stars overhead are the second brightest things I’ve ever seen. The first are her eyes.

“When I’m lonely, I like to look at the stars.”

She doesn’t say anything, but squeezes my hand. I hate breaking that contact, no matter how brief it is, so I make it as quick as I can. I grab the blanket I keep stashed in the backseat and throw it over the bed of my truck. We hop in and stretch out so there’s nothing but us and the stars and George Strait playing through the windows.

It’s the perfect American date, full of the simple joys I enjoyed at home, but with freedom and beer and gorgeous blonde girls in cowboy boots. I almost wish I brought my dog to round out the image.

“It’s like you planned this or something, killer,” she teases.

I’m grateful she can’t see me blush. “I actually like to come out here by myself a lot. The constellations are a little different, but the stars are just as bright here as they were back home. For a little while, it’s like I never left.”

She leans up and brushes her lips against my jawline, surprising me. My whole body runs hot and cold and I stay very still, in case she didn’t mean to do that and regretted it. I don’t want her to stop, but I also don’t want her to run away out of embarrassment or something.

She doesn’t move, so I tighten my grip around her and rest my cheek against her head. This is like something out of a movie. This is something I never want to end. She tangles her fingers in mine and lets out a little sigh.

“Am I ever going to know your name?” I ask.

“Maybe one day.”

“Tonight?”

“Definitely not tonight.”

“Why not?”

“Everything feels so perfect right now. Why ruin it?”

I can’t argue with that, so I don’t. George’s Carrying Your Love with Me comes on and I sing it softly, rubbing my hand along her arm. Her fingers dance across my chest. It takes another song for me to work up the courage to kiss her, but when I do, fireworks may as well be exploding across the sky as Proud to Be an American is blaring in the background.

My whole body runs hot and cold as I take her in my arms and kiss her. Her lips are soft, her mouth sweet, and she’s hesitant and giving all at once. She’s everything a kiss should be. She’s everything a woman should be, and the ache in my heart and in my pants would let up.

“Wow,” she murmurs against my mouth, as we pause to breathe and accept the reality of what just happened.

Only hours ago, I tricked her into stumbling over my boots just to say hello, and now her legs are entwined with mine, in the bed of my truck, with no one around but the stars in the sky and George on the radio. My fingers are looped in her belt loops and in her hair, and I have no desire to remove them.

Her blue eyes are haunting in the dark, so intense as I feel her prying, trying to figure me out in the dark. My pants strain as an aching erection that I’ve been trying to stave off all day comes roaring to life. All I want is the taste of her. All of her. She is everything I ever wanted in this big, foreign country and the thought of losing her is as sharp and painful as a knife to the side.

Her leg drags across my hip and erection and I hear her breath catch. She can’t see my cheeks burn with lust and fire, but I know she can feel how badly I want her. She bites her lip, runs her fingers up and down across my chest but always stops at my belt buckle.

Finally, she says, “You surprise me.”

Softly, I say, “You are everything I ever wanted.”

She crashes into me, our tongues hungry and our lips desperate. I toy with the buttons on her shorts for just a moment, and as soon as I move my hands away, she pushes them back. An invitation.

My abuelito’s voice fills my brain. “Jamie, when a lady tells you to enter, you only have to say no if she’s had too much to drink. A drunk lay is a disrespectful lay. You wait until morning and ravish her then. With women, you must always be polite.”

My lady told me to enter, and there is no alcohol on her breath, so it would be wrong for me to decline. And, as gentlemanly as I try to be, my cock is so hard it could explode. It’s been, well, a very long time since I’ve been carnally entwined and it’s all I can think about: her curves, her scent, her taste, the swell of her breasts against my chest.

I tug on her shirt and she undoes my buttons and in a flash, we are naked beneath the stars, our lips like magnets. She wraps her legs around my waist as I find her opening, her breath hot and desperate in my ear. I want to fill every inch of her. I toy with her opening and a chorus of moans spill out of her lips. A reminder to slow down and enjoy this beautiful girl above me. So I carefully roll her over and run my hands over her soft body. Every place I touch erupts in goosebumps and moans.