The sky stretched around them in a sheet of black midnight, the dim light from the half moon casting dull shadows that stretched longer as the hours passed. Rhia had been monitoring the hours by watching a cactus a few feet away, the night time shadow lengthening as time dragged.

The crunch of the gravel behind her, and then the sound of one last, long inhale told her that Dean had finished his cigarette. This fact was confirmed when he came back around the front of the truck and leaned up against the grille next to her.

Silence, with nothing but the sounds of the desert. It was all consuming and engulfing, and it seemed it had gotten to them too. Not even the sound of a coyote far, far in the distance broke the silence. Instead, it oddly added to it, bringing home to Rhia how far away they were from that place.

“Did you know the Indians called the full moon in March, the crow moon?” Dean asked Rhia in a husky voice. She was relieved to hear him speak.

“I didn’t know that,” she answered. She turned to her right to look at him and saw that half his face was illuminated softly by the moonlight, his long and strong Roman nose casting a shadow on his face. Perhaps if she watched his nose close enough she could pass the hours by? Rhia smiled and let out a soft laugh. Dean gave her a side eye but did not ask what the joke was. Rhia shuffled closer into him and rested her head on his leather jacket-clad shoulder. “Why do the Indians call the March moon the crow?” she eventually asked.

“As winter ends,” he said, resting his cheek against her soft hair. “The crow lets out a caw, to say goodbye to the cold weather.”

“That’s beautiful,” breathed Rhia. “I love you,” she said. She held her breath on a pause, waiting for Dean’s response. This was the first time she had vocalized her feelings for him, and though she had known for months how she felt, and how he felt, because she knew that he too loved her, they had never told each other, preferring to show and express their love in other ways, where words failed them. At this moment though, she knew for certain she loved him.

“I love you,” he said. Rhia lifted her head from Dean’s shoulder to look at him and smile, the new waves of emotions and feelings absorbing her. The love she had for him had always gently flowed at the shores of her heart and mind, but now those gentle waves on the shore grew bigger, stronger. A tide of love, she felt inside her. She was glad she had finally said it.

Dean slid off the truck and held out a hand for Rhia to do the same. “C’mon,” he said.   “Let’s get going.” And so they drove. They drove for a few hours until the half moon started to fade and the dawn was just beginning to break, the black of the sky mellowing out into a navy blue, and then eventually a gun-metal shade as the sun made its escape for the horizon. Dean pulled the truck to a stop and stared ahead of him, at the expanse of the desert.

So many empty spaces out here, Rhia thought. It felt oddly lonelier to her now that it was slowly nearing daybreak, rather than at the darkest point of the night in the middle of the desert. She wondered all of a sudden if they were lost. Thinking back, she hadn’t seen Dean check a map at all. “Are we lost?” she asked.

“No,” replied Dean. “We’re not.” He opened the door of the truck while the engine gently ticked over, giving what sounded like one last heave of life before going quiet for good. He lit yet another cigarette and took a deep puff from it, feeling calmed by its presence. He kicked absently at a small rock with the toe of his snakeskin boot, which now was covered in a light layer of desert dust. It felt a fitting tribute to wearing his snakeskin boots out here, though he had wondered if he’d offended the desert Gods by doing so.  

“Dean?” Rhia asked, flinging the door of the truck shut. It broke the silence of the desert and to her, only amplified how lonely it was out here, and how alone they both were. Why did she, all of a sudden, feel like she was losing him? They had been so close only hours earlier, and now he seemed different. It was the desert, she decided. It had a hold on him that he couldn’t shake, and that she didn’t understand. She didn’t want to understand, she realized. It was who he was. She smiled and felt the tide of love gently sweep back into shore, where before, only a minute ago, it had ebbed.

Dean turned and saw Rhia standing there in front of the truck, looking concerned. He exhaled and let out the smoke from his cigarette, threw it to the ground and then stood on it, scuffing it out and rubbing it into the coarse desert sand and tiny rocks, making it part of the desert forever. From the corner of his eye, he saw a tiny reptile of some description scuttle speedily from out behind a large rock and into the deeper desert, a forest of cacti lain out before him.

Dean approached Rhia and took her hand, gently pushing her back so her ass bumped into the front of the truck. He swiped the pad of his thumb over the soft skin of her hands and knuckles. She looked down at their joined hands and then up at him and smiled. Their lips locked in a passionate kiss. She could taste vague ash and smoke from his cigarette moments ago. With his tongue he parted her lips wider, invading her warm mouth, feeling the tops of her teeth as he swept his tongue around her mouth.

Rhia moaned and grabbed a handful of Dean’s hair, rubbing her crotch against his, feeling her panties getting wet, and his cock getting harder, through layers upon layers of fabric. They moved quickly and with urgency, lifting shirts up, freeing breasts, unbuckling well-worn jeans, finding, feeling, groping. A hand around Dean’s member, she started to slowly massage it, moving her hand up and down. His mouth was connected to a taut nipple, licking and biting, gripping the nub in between front teeth and pulling. They both moaned.

Dean found Rhia’s wetness after pulling her denim shorts down and pushing her underwear aside, running two fingers up and down her slit before pushing inside of her. She gasped and her grip of Dean’s cock tightened momentarily. He grew harder. Deftly, and with expert precision, his fingers moved in and out of her pussy, grazing over top, and bumping into, her g-spot. She bit her lip and stroked his cock faster, mimicking his own actions, mirroring the speed of his fingers inside her, on his cock.

The desert was no longer silent. Instead, it was filled with the sounds of life, love, and sex. The early morning desert air, which was now a pale blue, was filled with moans, groans and swear words, the urgency of two bodies needing to touch each other.

“Tell me when you’re gonna cum,” Dean told Rhia, groaning as he felt a hand tug and play with his balls.

“Oh yes,” he heard Rhia say. Whether it was a reply to his statement or just uttered because of his handy work, he didn’t know. Frankly, he didn’t care.

Dean’s balls felt heavy in her hand, the short tufty bits of pubic hair almost tickling her as she rubbed them gently, giving them a bit of tug and a pull every now and then. As his fingers burrowed deeper inside her, she moved her hand back and continued to jack him, relishing the feeling of how hard he was, but also, how soft the skin felt. She also relished how slick his cock was becoming with pre-cum, his tip seemingly leaking fluid.

Dean knew Rhia’s tells by now. He knew how to read her. Knew all the little tell-tale signs that came together to equal one big sure sign, which was her orgasm. Her breathing came in short, rapid pants as if she were having to tear the air out of her lungs. Her face would start to redden and whatever body part of his was inside her, be it tongue, fingers or cock, her pussy would pulse and dance around him.

“Oh God,” he heard her say, crying to the sex deity above. “Oh God,” she said again. A few moments later, as her breathing started to get shorter and quicker, God was replaced with fuck. He looked at Rhia’s face and saw it start to turn that delightful shade of red that warned of an impending release. Red for a warning sign, he imagined. Wet roads ahead. Slippery when wet. The floodgates will open. These thoughts amused him.

He was going to try and push this to the very edge, he decided then and there, while her hand was still working his cock, the grip of her hand loosening, then tightening, loosening, then tightening, much like what his own fingers were feeling inside of her.

“N-n-n-nooooooooooowwwwwwww,” he heard Rhia yell. With speed and agility, he didn’t think he actually could muster, Dean pulled sodden fingers from Rhia, moved her hand off his cock, pulled his pants down further and pushed into her waiting pussy with his hard cock.

The early morning desert sun was already starting to beat down on them, as Dean fucked Rhia for all he had, his cock pistoning in and out of her, feeling her pussy pulse around his shaft. His hands were braced on the hood of the car, the metal starting to heat up. His jeans feel further down his legs with the fluid motion of his thrusts, his pants gathering and bunching at the knee. Desert sunburned legs would not be a good look, he quickly thought, but he made no effort to stop fucking and try and fumble with his pants.

Rhia’s taut nipples were warmed under the sun, and her earlier thought of passing time by looking at the cactus returned when she wondered if eventually, she’d be able to see how much time passed by the shadow of her nipples. Dean’s chest brushed hers, their nipples colliding and rubbing momentarily. She kissed Dean, to try and force their nipples to touch once more. Feeling two sets of hard nubs rub against each other was enough to do it. Rhia started to cum.

Her pussy squeezed tighter on his cock, squeezing for long seconds at a time, letting up for what felt like short seconds, and then squeezing down again. “Geez Ree,” moaned Dean, but he saw that she was a million miles away in orgasmic bliss. Heck, she could have been on a different planet for all Dean knew, in orgasmic orbit. It was a journey he would soon be undertaking himself, he could feel it. Soon he’d been shooting out into the semen stratosphere.

“When I say so…" Dean said, in between harsh breaths and groans. “Pull my cock out and jack it so I cum... shit!” Rhia nodded her head and clenched her pussy in response.

If she could feel his balls from this position, Rhia imagined they’d be starting to pull up tighter, ready to release and shoot his cum. If she could be teasing from this position, and press and probe a finger across his ass, Rhia imagined he’d be pulsing and getting tighter back there. The thought of a teasing finger, combined with the thought of Dean’s ass, bought an almost evil grin to her lips.

Dean’s pumps of his cock were steady, assured strokes, from a lover who was confident in his skill, but not arrogant or overly cocky. He knew what to do and when, and how to use it. He supposed all those years of mindless, teenage masturbation had prepared him for being sexually active. He was certainly active now, sexually, as he looked down and watched his cock thrust in and out of Rhia. It felt, and looked like, that each dip of his cock into her depths made it slicker.

“Rhia… Get ready…” panted Dean. He counted. Stroke one, he was close. Stroke two, he was closer. Stroke three, he was closest. “Now!” he said urgently. Rhia grabbed Dean’s cock at the base, her hand nestled in his pubic hair, and pulled him out of her, feeling a distinct sense of emptiness in her pussy. With her left hand, she jacked him fast, the wetness from her pussy helping her hand glide along his shaft.

Dean counted. Stroke one, he was close. Stroke two of Rhia’s hand, he was closer. Stroke three, he was closest. White cum erupted from the tip of his cock, landing on the dark red metal of the car. Another stream hit Rhia’s inner thigh. The rest of the cum splattered onto Dean’s boots and the hot, hard, rocky desert sand. If this had been an art class, and cum was the chosen medium, he could have given Jackson Pollack a run for his money. Dean looked down at the cum on the desert floor. In almost no time at all, it had dried into the early morning desert sand. Dean stood on the glob of cum and worked it to the ground, rubbing it into the coarse sand and tiny rocks, making it part of the desert forever.