Page 36 of Riggs
“Yes, don’t leave me just yet.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, smoothing a hand over her dark curls. I keep moving slowly inside her as my cock hardens. “I’m not going anywhere,” I say again, letting her know I'm nowhere near done with her body tonight.
This time we go slower, our bodies fitting together like missing puzzle pieces. Our pace is slow, unhurried, as our eyes watch each other in the soft moonlight spilling in through the windows.
I’ve never slow-fucked before, and now I see what all the hype is about. It’s like we’re learning each other on a whole other level.
“You feel so good wrapped around my cock,” I tell her when her back bows off the bed and another orgasm takes control of her.
She smiles, her cheeks flushed and pink. “Everything you do to me feels so,sogood.”
I don’t know if it’s pride or love that washes over me, making my chest ache and my own orgasm slam through me… but whatever it is… I never want the feeling to go away.
12
Vanessa
By morning the storm has rinsed the sky clean. Santa Fe smells like wet adobe and coffee, and for the first time in days I wake up without bracing for impact. Riggs is at the tiny table by the window, sleeves pushed up, scribbling a little route sketch on a hotel notepad like a boy drawing racetracks. There’s a brown paper sack between us with two breakfast burritos inside.
“Road,” he says, looking up with that quiet yes in his eyes, and it feels like the kind of invitation you don’t get on the internet—no RSVP, justcome with me.
We’re back in the silver Outback by eight, phones zipped into the Faraday pouch between us like sleeping snakes. When he starts the engine, Motown spills out—Rae’s revenge playlist, probably—and he doesn’t change it. We hum through “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” while the town falls away in our rearview and the road unspools toward blue distance.
I tuck one foot under me and unwrap my burrito. “Confession,” I say around a blissful mouthful. “I love being off-grid. I didn’t know how loud everything was until it got quiet.”
He checks the mirror, then me. “Quiet’s underrated,” he says. “You hear what matters.”
“What do you hear?” I ask, because I want in.
“Your stomach being happy,” he deadpans. He waits a beat. “Also, the rear quarter-panel vibrating at sixty-eight. We’ll be fine.”
“Romance,” I say solemnly, and he huffs a laugh—the kind that’s mostly breath and still somehow hits me like a shot of espresso.
We climb out of town and into country that looks like Camille could have painted this. Soft hills, cotton-candy clouds, and long fences with the occasional bored cow. Riggs drives like he does everything—steady, aware, absolutely present. His hand finds mine without either of us making a thing of it, and the simple fact of our fingers laced over the gear shift is…everything.
“I could get used to this,” I admit, watching a hawk fly high in the sky. “Windows down. No itinerary. Just—us.”
His thumb strokes the back of my hand once. “I already am,” he whispers.
My breath catches at his implication, and I don’t want to get too ahead of myself.
Breathe, Vanessa.
We stop at a roadside stand that sells piñon, turquoise bracelets, and pecans in brown paper bags scribbled with prices. The woman behind the table calls memijaand calls Riggshandsomeand I buy both a bracelet and a pound of sugared pecans because I’m weak. Riggs picks jerky and a bottle of water with the label half-peeled, then asks the woman if the camera in the corner actually works.
“Sometimes,” she says. “When my grandson remembers.” Her eyes crinkle when she looks between us. “Honeymoon?”
“Recon,” Riggs says, too fast.
“Vacation,” I say, at the same time, and the woman laughs like we’re both cute and wrong.
Back on the road, we invent games. He teaches meSpot the Exit—counting egress points without looking like you’re counting—and I teach himStory Time—picking a passing car and inventing a life for the strangers inside it. He’s surprisingly good at mine.
“Two kids sleeping under those blankets,” he says, pointing with his chin at a minivan, “and a beagle named Sprocket. Parents haven’t talked about anything but snacks since Tucumcari. They’re happy.”
“You can tell happiness from this far?” I tease.
“Doesn’t lean as much,” he says, and glances at me like he’s not talking about driving anymore.
