Miri lifted her hand and placed it on his arm. He took the camera away from his face, lowering it in front of his chest and watching her. Waiting for her to speak.
“Rafa?” she whispered.
“Yes?”
“What’s going to happen after this?” Her chest heaved, scared to put herself out there. “After we leave here, I mean. Between me and you. Will I ever see you again?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“We’re not just caught up in the moment again, are we?”
He pulled her closer so their bodies were flush against each other. His dark brown eyes searched her own as his thumb swept over her lips, pulling her bottom lip open and seemingly sucking all the air from her body.
“Pringles, I was never caught up in the moment,” he said. “You’ve had me captivated from the second you opened your mouth and fanned out your goods.” He winked.
“Oh yeah? Well,” she said, waving her hands in display, “how about now?”
Rafa dove toward her mouth, taking her body fully in his hands. Their kiss was raw. Full of emotions begging to be let go. Their tongues tangled together, continuing what they’d started the night before.
She could sink into his warmth. Let his tenderness envelop her. Lie in his arms until the sun came up, talking and laughing all night as she fell deeper into her infatuation.
Miri’s hand trailed down his pants, making its way to his dick, his erection threatening to burst through his cargos. She applied pressure as she massaged him from the outside of his pants. Tight and firm, with a combination of long, slow strokes and gentle squeezes. All while she rubbed her own crotch against his thigh.
“Fuck, Miri…” he moaned, wetting his lips as he kept his eyes closed and tilted his head back.
She twisted the button on his pants, unzipped the fly, and slid her hand beneath the waistband of his boxers. Squeezing his erection. Pumping it in her grasp. She then guided his hand, palm against her stomach, and slowly he let his hand skim against her skin, down to the wetness between her legs. She moaned as he massaged her slippery clit with his fingers. The pressure increasing in her core as both of their hands moved faster.
He leaned in to kiss her. Miri tilted her head up to him as she closed the gap between them, when something caught her eye behind him.
“Wait! What’s that?” she asked, swiftly moving from his grasp and letting his lips hang in midair. He swallowed his groan as she climbed off the stone table toward the rock wall surrounding them. There was something notched into the wall. Something she hadn’t seen all those days out in the field.
“What is it?” he asked, eventually sidling up next to her with his hands in his pockets.
He let his gaze follow hers, looking up and down at the rock face. He couldn’t see it.
But Miri saw something. She carefully brushed away the dirt from the stone in front of her at chest level near the end of the wall, uncovering a circular indentation in the stone with an unusual pattern of half-inch-long pieces of stone sticking out. The pattern was too perfect. Too rigid. This wasn’t the work of nature.
This was the work of humans.
“Do you see this?” she asked. Her fingers glided delicately over the indentations. Feeling the pattern. Studying the angles. “I need my bag!” She jumped up and ran to the other side of the table for her things before rushing back.
She kneeled on the ground, then pulled out an excavation brush and the medallion, still wrapped in fabric. Carefully, she brushed out the dirt from the marking in the wall, taking her time as Rafa stood behind her watching. After every couple of swipes, she blew onto the spot to get rid of any loose dirt. Once it was free of remaining grime and without taking her eyes off the wall, she unwrapped the cloth, revealing the medallion.
“Where did you get that?” Rafa asked, unable to take his eyes off the medallion.
“Corrie sent it to me.”
“When? How?”
But Miri didn’t answer, too fixated on the wall. She lifted the medallion, holding it near the spot she’d excavated in the stone. Holding the piece as if it was the holy grail, Miri took a few steps forward then cautiously placed the medallion into the stone, turning the pendant until it fit into the rock like the perfect piece of a puzzle.
“Oh. My. God,” Miri said, standing frozen in front of therock. “You know what this means, don’t you?” she asked, pointing at the medallion.
He stared at the medallion stuck in the rock. With the pattern on the back and how it fit into the rock, the carvings of the temple and moon weren’t facing upward. Instead, they were turned to the right.
“No, I don’t know what this means,” he said, lifting his hand to rub the back of his head.
“It means thisisthe mesa de pedra. This proves we were right all along!”
