by Brandy Blake
Slowly they came back to themselves, their hearts slowing, their eyes opening anew, and they laid back together in the deep pillows, gazing at one another as they found their way through the enormity of change between them.
He took her in his arms and held her close to him, kissing her softly on the lips, and then on the forehead, and after a while they fell asleep together, nestled against one another in harmony and comforting bliss.
Chapter4
Raina and Michael had more fun than even she could have imagined as they enjoyed Vancouver together. They explored the fun shops, sea themed restaurants, pretty sailboats, and the enormous public market on Granville Island. They went through Chinatown and found excellent dim sum, biked through Stanley Park and along the sea wall there, and went out for cocktails in Yaletown and Gastown.
She did the business that she needed to take care of, and while she was in her meetings, he explored some of the city on his own, meeting up with her for a sushi dinner Thursday night and a seafood dinner on Friday night. On Saturday, she took him out on a whale watching cruise and they spent the day touring the San Juan Islands and watching orca and humpback whales, as well as Steller sea lions, harbor seals, Dall’s porpoises, and bald eagles. There was no end of wildlife and rugged breathtaking coastline for them to explore and enjoy.
On Sunday morning, they walked through the serenely beautiful Nitobi Japanese Garden and then they walked through the treetops of the forest at the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Sunday evening, they went to the airport tired and blissful, holding hands and grinning at each other, having shared an incredible five days together.
Every night had found them impassioned, and they embraced one another, fulfilling so many of their desires and finding enormous release and pleasure with each other. Every day they discovered more about one another that intrigued them, and at every moment, Raina did not regret taking the leap to have Michael in her life.
He was far from regret, too, and when they got back to San Francisco, they said goodbye at the airport with a lingering embrace and a long sweet kiss. When she got home, she showered and went to bed, exhausted but blissfully happy, and just before she turned her phone off for the night, she saw that he had texted her.
‘Missing you already…’ he wrote, and she grinned and texted him back.
‘Missing you too. Sweet dreams.’ She sent it, and turned her phone off, ready for sweet dreams of her own.
* * *
Willow was practically sitting at Raina’s desk the next morning when Raina arrived, pleased to find that Willow had come bearing gifts. There was a hot coffee waiting for Raina from their favorite café just around the corner. Willow grinned at her.
“I brought steaming bribery. Now talk. How did the weekend go?” She looked giddy, and Raina couldn’t help but laugh gently at her.
“Okay! Okay. I should have known when I told you that Michael was going with me that I wasn’t going to get very far on my return without you insisting on details.”
She took a seat behind her desk and reached for the coffee, which had cooled to drinking temperature.
She closed her eyes and savored the flavor of her delicious brew before setting the cup down and smiling at her assistant, who was fairly perched at the edge of her seat.
“I met him at the airport and he was ready to go. My god… you should have seen him. He looked like Indiana Jones, standing there in his hat and jacket. I half expected him to have a lasso in his backpack.” She chuckled at the memory.
“Anyway, we had a great time. We did a lot of fun things; I showed him the city and the Capilano rainforest, and we went on a whale watching cruise down to the San Juan Islands.” She lowered her eyes to the coffee in front of her and slowly lifted the cup to her lips as she tried to hide the smile that spread over her face.
Willow looked positively frustrated. “Well? And? What did you two get up to when you weren’t out being tourists?” She placed her fingertips at the edge of Raina’s desk, staring at her boss with wide expectant eyes.
Raina laughed softly. “We consummated the relationship. A lot. He was incredible. I’ve never been kissed so much by one person in my life. I wish I could have had more of him, but it just didn’t happen as much as I would have liked it to. That’s alright, we’ve got lots of time ahead of us. It’ll happen a lot more… I hope. He seemed to enjoy it.”
Willow grinned and sighed happily, leaning back in her chair. “That’s all I need to know. I’m so glad that you got away and that you had a long weekend like that. Wow. That’s so good.” She stood up with a dreamy smile on her face and walked out of the office, closing the door behind her.
Warmth flooded Raina’s cheeks and she shook her head as she took another sip of her coffee and went to work.
A few hours into her day, she heard her phone buzz, and she looked down at it and saw that she had gotten a text from Michael.
‘Thinking of you…’ it read.
She grinned and bit her lower lip as she felt happiness expand in her chest. She swiped her finger over the keyboard on her screen and texted him back.
‘Thinking of you too.’ She added a smiley face and sent it off.
A few minutes later, there was another text from him. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.
She hesitated only a moment before deciding not to hold much back from him. He was her lover, after all. ‘My mind is on things that could melt this phone,’ she answered, and sent it off with a soft giggle.
Turning to face her computer, she managed to type just a few sentences into an email before she heard her phone buzz again, and she grinned and giggled again, knowing that it was another message from him. She wondered if she had been too forward, and her heart skipped a beat as she picked her phone up and looked at it.
‘Please tell me…’ he coaxed.
Drawing in a long slow breath to steady herself, she texted him back. ‘Thinking of our first night when it snowed on the beach and the fireplace was going.’ She closed her eyes as ripples of pleasure and desire swept through her just at the thought of him being inside of her, holding her, and kissing her.
She sent the text and told herself that she was going to focus on work and not spend the morning sending naughty texts back and forth with him.
Determined though she was, he texted her back and she couldn’t wait to read it. ‘I’m getting hard for you just thinking about it…’ he wrote. ‘You’re such a pleasant distraction.’
A small gasp escaped her and she tried to steel herself. She had work to do. So much work to do. She couldn’t spend all morning going back and forth with him, and she knew it. She told herself that she couldn’t.
She set her phone down and tried to focus on her work. She told herself she would answer him after she got through part of what she was working on. He didn’t want to wait. He sent another text a few minutes later.
‘Wishing you were here kissing me right now. I can almost feel you…’ He was shameless.
With a quiet groan, she chewed on her lip again and decided to text him back. ‘I wish we were back at the house in Vancouver… I’d love to spend the morning sleeping in with you, wide awake.’
She sent the message off, meaning it, and then she found herself thinking about their time at the house by the sea, and wishing that they were there that morning, losing themselves in each other. Work had definitely lost its luster, compared to what he wouldn’t quit talking with her about.
He sent another text, and she began to feel her body stirring. She answered him back. So it went, all throughout the day, though there were times where the texting slowed to every twenty minutes or half hour as each of them reached points when they couldn’t send messages.
She was completely distracted with him the entire day, and that evening when she asked him if they could see each other, he told her that he wasn’t able to get away, but that he would be thinking of her all that night. He sent her a photo of him bare-chested, just out of the shower, standing in front of a ste
amy mirror that had been wiped clear in just a few places, while the parts below his waist were masked by steam. He told her he hoped that his photo would tide her over until he was able to see her again. She promised him that it would, though she would much rather have had him in her bed that night.
Raina turned her phone off finally, much later that night than she usually kept it on, wondering if she was going to hear from him. Wondering what he was doing. Thinking breathlessly of the memories they had made, and all the sensual suggestions and fantasies he had sent to her that day and night. She finally fell asleep, though not without some difficulty. She longed for him in a way that was totally unfamiliar to her; wishing that she could feel him against her, inside her, needing him viscerally, and having nothing but a cold pillow to cling to as she made herself fall asleep.
When she woke the next morning, there was a text waiting for her from him. He told her that he was thinking about her, just as he had said the day before, and it made her heart swell and her body sigh. She woke up thinking of him, too.
Raina showered and tried to think logically about what was going on, telling herself that it was all moving much too fast and that they had no business getting so involved so quickly. It was just supposed to be an affair. It wasn’t anything more than that, and neither one of them wanted it to be anything more than that. She promised herself that she was going to work that day and not focus on him at all.
Then she stepped out of the shower and saw her body in the reflection of the steamy mirror, and the image he had sent to her the night before came back to her, and her body was flooded with a warm ache for him, wishing that he was there, and that they could get lost in each other’s arms.
She dressed and tried to tell herself to cool it, to act like a carefree woman who was just enjoying a younger lover. She did her best to ignore the phone and concentrate on driving to work and sitting at her desk facing her computer.
She lasted two hours, and he texted her again, telling her that he couldn’t stop thinking of the way her skin felt on his. She was sunk. She couldn’t help texting him back, and even as she did it, she knew that she had to be careful about getting in too far over her head. He was beautiful and sexy, irresistible and slightly addicting, and she was going to have to try her best to keep a level head about him. She told herself that she could do it, and still have a good time at the same time. She was in control, and she was going to remain that way, all while letting herself enjoy the naughtiness and pure hot sweet sexuality that was a force of nature between them.
Raina called Aaron and asked him if he would meet her for dinner and he was glad to. They settled on a Thai place that they both loved. She was waiting for him when he arrived and she grinned with pure happiness when she saw him, hugging him tight before they sat down and ordered their drinks.
“You look lovely, as always,” he said, nodding to the buttercream colored dress she was wearing.
She smiled at him.
“Thank you! You look good, too. I was just going to tell you that,” she replied, glancing over his button up shirt and pants.
He did look good, and she didn’t want to say that she was surprised, but she was expecting him to look a little more downtrodden as he had looked when the divorce was brand new.
“So what’s going on with you this last week?” he asked, thanking the waiter for his beer as the waiter handed it to him and walked away.
She couldn’t stop the grin that grew wide on her face. Giggling and looking down at her hands before she could raise her eyes to meet his again, she leaned in closer to answer him.
“Well, you know you said you wanted me to find a guy to have an affair with…”
He watched her quietly and nodded. “Yes, and I meant that. You said you were with that guy Michael, right? How’s that going?”
She bit her lower lip slightly as she answered him. “It’s going really well. Actually, probably too good. He came with me to Vancouver for five days and we really hit it off. I loved it. We… took our relationship to the next level, and it’s just been getting hotter ever since. You were right. This was exactly what I needed. Thank you so much.”
He grinned back at her and even his two-day beard couldn’t hide the soft shade of pink that colored his cheeks. He looked down into his beer and chuckled softly. “That’s good. I’m glad to hear that it’s going well.”
Then he looked back up at her and reached for her hand. “I just don’t want you to be alone. I love you, and I want to see you happy. You’re my best friend. You’re family to me. You need to be taken care of, in all the ways, and at least this is taking care of you in some of the ways.”
Her smile faded just a little and she tilted her head and blinked at him. “What do you mean some of the ways?”
He shrugged. “Well, it’s sex, it’s not love, right? I mean, ideally I’d love to see you happy with all the bells and whistles, but at least you have some of your bases covered right now, right? So that’s good. That’s something. It’s not everything, but it’s definitely something, and I’m glad for you about that.”
She nodded in agreement, and raised her eyebrows slightly. “Yeah, you’re right about that. It isn’t everything, and by god it’s not going to be. He’s six years younger than me, and we’re just at the beginning here, so you’re absolutely right about it just being sex, but for right now, that’s all I have time for, and all that I want. So, he’s perfect for right now. Thank you for suggesting it in the first place. I never would have done this if it hadn’t been for you. I wouldn’t have even thought of it or considered it.”
He smiled and nodded, patting her hand. “As long as you’re taken care of. Just please be very careful, and use protection, and don’t get hurt.”
Raina smiled back at him reassuringly. “I am being careful, I’m definitely using protection, and I won’t get hurt by him. He may be as smooth as thirty-year-old scotch, but I don’t love him, and I’m not going to fall in love with him. This is all recreational fun, so there’s no chance that I’ll get hurt.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it,” Aaron told her as he turned his attention toward the menu. “I’m starving. Let’s order dinner and then I can bleed my sorrows to you about the divorce and everything that Cathy is putting me through right now. I need a shoulder to cry on.”
She almost laughed, a little, as she understood that he was masking his sorrow and anguish with humor, but she liked that he had tried to make light of a dark and difficult time, and she wanted to go along with him any way that they could, as long as it could be easier on him.
They talked together for a couple of hours over dinner, both of them discussing the ups and downs of the end of his marriage and the beginning of his new life, and the subject of her affair with Michael did not come back up again. They laughed and reminisced over memories of their college days and the fun times they had shared throughout their friendship, and they ran out of time before they ran out of things to talk about.
She went home feeling completely grateful for him, knowing that there is nothing in the world as precious and good as a best friend; one who you keep in your heart, always. She knew that he felt that way too, and that they were always going to have each other to rely on, no matter what.
When she got home, there were more hot texts from Michael, and though she answered them with sweet texts in return, she went to sleep feeling peaceful and happy, rather than longing for a man who was not sharing her bed with her, and her dreams were indeed sweet.
***
Raina and Michael could not find a time for most of that week to get together, and by Wednesday, she was missing him quite a bit. She determined that perhaps the easiest way to handle it would be to go out of town with him again.
The texting between them had kept up its nearly constant pace, most of it very hot and filled with innuendos or blatant desire and wishful thinking. It felt as though they were having an ongoing conversation, and part of it was actual conversation. She texted him about the idea of
going to Las Vegas together for a long weekend, from Friday morning to Sunday evening, and she was beyond thrilled when he said he would go with her.
She made the arrangements, and just as they had done when they went to Vancouver together, they met at the airport. She teased him slightly about going without the Indiana Jones hat for the second trip they were going away together on, because he showed up in a worn black leather jacket, button up shirt, jeans, and dark boots. He looked every inch a bad boy, rather than an adventurer, and she was more than glad to see him either way.
They embraced closely for a long moment, and she took his hand in hers as they sat down together.