Laugh by Mary Ann Rivers

her soft sex, scraped his nails down her thighs to feel the skin rough up into shivers despite the heat.
    He wanted to hold her face, open her like he had opened her below, and so he did, her neck and jaw soft and small under his hands. He used the same thumb he had swirled into her to draw her chin down, and they met in their next kiss tongues first.
    Her lips were so hot, he could feel every place where they moved against his mouth.
    Her hands found the bottom of his T-shirt, and slid along his sweat and skin, and then curled into the muscles of his chest, pulling hair, the sting breaking just a little sweet tension in his cock so that he could feel a dark, wet pulse of precome seep out. It made him shudder. It made him deepen their kiss.
    He reached under that nothing blouse until he felt the top edge of her bra cup, and then lifted her heavybreast out, used the sweat that had gathered in the soft crease underneath to lubricate his fingers against her nipple.
    Smiled against her mouth when she shook a little with that, and her kiss slowed to a near stop.
    “Sam—” She kissed the corner of his mouth, brushed her hands over his chest, so softly; he leaned in, to increase the pressure of her touch.
    He tested how much pinch she liked against her nipple, and she moaned.
    She pushed at his chest.
    “Wait.”
    She had that serious, serene look about her. But it was better, it was improved, because she also looked wild-eyed and bitten. He leaned in to kiss the spot on her upper lip where a cupid’s bow would be on lips less full.
    He thought about how far away naked was from love.
    “Here’s the thing, Sam.” He closed his eyes. Fought her pushing hands and put his arms around her, squeezing her to him until her arms relaxed and she brought them around his waist.
    He turned his face into her neck.
    Kept his eyes closed while he held her and waited for her to ruin it.
    Ruin what he wanted right now, this summer, these summer days, hot and urgent.
    Waited for her to tell him why there couldn’t just be this pleasure. Held her tighter.
    Tighter still.

Chapter Five
    Nina ran her fingers through Sam’s bright hair.
    There was dried yolk over her cuticles and knuckles, dirt under her fingernails and ground into old calluses, tattoos of her labor.
    There were so many shades of red and gold in his hair that as she sifted through it, his head pressed against her shoulder, his breath hard and hot over her breastbone, it looked like painted water, except the shades were fire and gilt.
    It was beautiful, he was beautiful, of course, if a little hard-edged, like he was made of the burlap-wrapped rebar she staked her plants with, instead of bone and meat.
    He was warm, though, and he somehow fit every tight muscle of his body into a curve of hers.
    Her body was still humming from his hands, his fingers, the way he lifted and spread her, touched and rubbed through her, her muscles still shaking under her skin, her skin still damp in places, stuck to his.
    Dios
, the way he looked at her.
    She squeezed him now, just to feel him squeeze back.
    She’d stopped him, she’d stopped him, their mouths tasting, his hands on her breasts, rubbing, working her nipples in such a sweet and focused way, nothing but the awareness of their bodies, she’d stopped him, gone from movement and heat to this, just the hum, just their arms and breath.
    In the north shade of the chicken house, away from the hot sun of the late July afternoon, he yielded against her body, even if he wasn’t soft. It was as if he wanted her to hold him, which she was, her legs still around his hips, one arm around his shoulders, one hand in his hair, but he had her around the middle almost as if she would hike him up like a child and settle him against the crook of her neck.
    She didn’t know what to do, so she kept her fingers in his hair, holding the short hanks of it one way, and then another in the dim shade to see what color they would