She felt herself go limp into his strong arms, her back still up against the bank, her ankles hooked together behind his back; Kyle, however, was still thrusting up into her, his eyes closed, his mouth devouring her nipples, her neck. As soon as the inner walls of her vagina had loosened their hold on his cock he had begun to speed up his movements, eager to take his share of orgasm. Though her own orgasm had spiked to completion, she continued to feel ripples of pleasure pulsing through her as the thick head of his cock hit that spot inside of her that was now raw with awakened nerve endings.

Kyle knew his way around a woman's body, that was for sure; he was at least 15 years older than her, and she imagined that before and after his wife he had had plenty of takers. She imagined him doing this with Miss Terri then stopped herself—it was already overwhelming enough that an entire church congregation was right around the bend from where her student's father was fucking her brains out. The father of her missing student, the ostensible reason for calling this man back into her life and now, back into her body. Her face burned with shame and embarrassment, not least because she didn't want him to stop, not ever.

He was making deep guttural sounds now, his eyes open and unfocused as they looked down at her and also through her ... or into the deepest parts of her. He was feeling her now more than seeing her, feeling the warm, soft depths of her encasing his frantic cock. And then a curse fell from his lips and he was exploding inside her, his strokes long and slow now, his face twisted into a look of ... her heart flipped inside her ribcage as she recognized the emotions playing across Kyle Walker's face as he emptied his cock inside her:

Triumph.

Possessiveness.

And need.

No, she thought to herself. No, I don't belong to you. I can't belong to you.

Instead of saying any of that out loud, however, she put her arms around his neck, pulled his head down to her chest as securely as possible, and arched her back and bit her own arm to stop herself from shrieking as her body defied her and came to climax once more.

***

Afterwards, he had nuzzled and kissed her all over while they remained entwined in the water, his cock still inside her, refusing to soften even after its release. They had listened to the singing as it began to falter and float away with the current and the breeze, the baptisms completed, God's wayward lambs reunited with their shepherd. There had been the distant murmuring of the church goers as they gathered themselves to depart their place of holy ritual and return to the world of the profane.

Speaking of profane, she thought, at least they had screwed each other downriver from the baptisms.

Later, when she said as much to Kyle while they spread out on her towel so the late afternoon sun could warm and dry them, he had shaken his head in disagreement and then pulled her toward him so that her head lay on his chest and she could hear his beating heart. For a minute or so he said nothing, and she allowed herself to be lulled by the rhythmic movement of his breathing.

Just as her eyes were drooping closed and the world around her disintegrating into a blur of scattered light he nudged her back to consciousness.

"There's nothing wrong about what we did in the eyes of the Lord, Courtney," he said. The deep, sonorous sound of his voice created a vibration that tickled her cheek where it met his chest. She lightly touched the side of his throat to better feel his words.

"Nothing at all to be ashamed of," he continued.

"Well," she said, "Maybe not for you and your Lord, but I bet their Lord would beg to differ."

She could sense, rather than see him smile.

"It's all one and the same Lord. And He definitely made you specifically to be taken by me. There's no two ways about it."

It was her turn to smile.

"No two ways huh? So it's fate then."

"Yes ma'am. From the first moment I laid eyes on you, I knew it had to happen."

She snorted at that.

"You mean when you came to fix my air conditioner and had to kick your way through the dust bunnies and old newspapers?"

He laughed at that, a low, lazy laugh that made her thing of Cam again. She swatted away the thought, more from impatience than from embarrassment. She tended to be a lot more relaxed after multiple orgasms, and she was determined not to let anything pull her away from this brief respite in the present.

"That wasn't the first time I laid eyes on you Courtney."

"Really?" she said, and raised her head to get a look at his face. Oh God, she thought, so he had shown up for a parent-teacher conference, and somehow she had forgotten all about him.

"Yes ma'am," he said, his smile mischievous. "You don't remember?"

She flashed him an apologetic grimace.

"Of course, I'm so sorry, of course," she rambled. "It's just we so many parents within the space of two days, it becomes a blur—"

He was laughing again, this time at her and her obvious discomfort. When, she briefly wondered, would she stop being so damn easy to tease?

He pushed her head back down onto her chest and ran his fingertips up and down her left arm, which was draped across his flat, muscled stomach.

"Never fear Miss Park, we never officially met. Cam stopped letting me attend parent-teacher conferences long before you were his teacher. Said as long as he kept his grades up it was none of my business how he went about it doing it."

She allowed her eyes to close and inhaled deeply, greedy for his scent.

"That sounds like something Cam would say," she murmured. She was half asleep now, or she never would have said that out loud. But mostly she didn't care. Kyle Walker's body felt so warm and firm underneath her, and the intoxicating citrus smells from the cedar tree was mixing with the sharp, heady aroma of his skin. Her day of dramatic revelations and unexpected liaisons was finally catching up with her, and the way he was stroking her arm, from her neck all the way down to the back of her hand, it was like a lullaby of touch. She promised herself she would ask him about the first time he had seen her later, after she had rested her eyes for a few minutes. Probably an awards ceremony in the gym or something.

And so she slept, and the only dreams she had were full of sunlight, water, and the distant sound of children laughing.

***

She awoke with a start and scrambled to sit up. Kyle Walker was gone, and her phone was beeping. She fumbled for it where it lay next to her on the towel, as though Cam's father had morphed into it while she slept. It was an alarm, set for 6:00 p.m., which meant she had been sleeping for at least two hours, probably longer. She shut it off.

Still half asleep she groggily tried to remember setting the alarm, and then wondered if she had dreamt the whole day, like Alice and her trip to Wonderland. Hadn't Alice fallen asleep next to a river as well?

She shivered. The sunlight had moved on, leaving behind the shadows of early evening, but the sun wouldn't set for at least another hour or so. The crickets and the frogs were taking over already, however, and the birds were noisily chirping their evening commentary to each other as they settled in for the night.

"Jesus," she grumbled to herself. "Whoever said the country is quiet never lived in Texas, that's for sure."

She suddenly felt very alone and vulnerable. Assuming she hadn't dreamt Kyle Walker's appearance earlier, how could he have just disappeared on her like that? She clambered to her feet, eager to be back in her car and on her way home, or what passed for her home now. No, it was home, she thought, and then realized she had moved too quickly and a wave of dizziness pushed her down to her knees.

Ah yes, dizziness. She remembered that fun little symptom from her last pregnancy.

As she sat there attempting to regain her equilibrium—her physical if not her mental—she noticed she had gotten a text. She punched it open.

Sorry I had to go Courtney, duty calls. Didn't want to wake you so I set the alarm on your phone. Give me a call when you can. Kyle

She sighed. At least he hadn't completely abandoned her. And it was true, she had definitely needed that nap.

She tried standing up again, careful this time to place her hand on the trunk of the cedar tree for balance. As she gathered up her few belongings and kicked her way back to the parking lot through the overgrown footpath she remembered what Miss Terri had said about Kyle Walker during their high speed car ride to catch her flight at the San Antonio airport.

"Kyle Walker is a good man," Madysen's mom had said, holding a lit cigarette out the driver's side window. "One of the best. But he's an outdoor cat, not an indoor cat. And that's something most women can't accept about him."