What To Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection Part Two (230 page)

Filling the two flutes, he climbed back on the bed and handed me one. Raising his glass in a toast he said, “Here is to our journey together. If you are open to the idea I proposed earlier of course.”

Raising my glass to his, I stared into his eyes. “I was quite nervous about this evening, right up until the moment my dress hit the floor and you gasped out loud. You have a way about you that puts me totally at ease. You also managed to take me to heights of pleasure tonight that I have never felt before. I know I have led a fairly sheltered life, but I honestly had no idea that sex could feel like that. I’m not saying I am totally comfortable with entirely giving up control, but I am more than willing to continue on our journey and see where it leads us.”

His resulting smile seemed to radiate from his entire body and light up the room as I leaned forward to kiss him.

P
ropped up against the headboard, sipping champagne, nibbling on dark chocolate and talking about our jobs, I felt completely at ease with our casual nudity. That in itself was definitely a bit unusual for me. My ex either fell asleep immediately or jumped straight in the shower after our lovemaking, almost as if he were ashamed of his body, or mine.

My gaze fell upon Mark’s now flaccid penis, lying limp against his thigh. Hard to believe just how much larger it got when aroused, although my still tingling ass would remember it for quite some time. Mark noticed my gaze and smiled, his own eyes passing over my body often and appreciatively.

As we talked, we managed to demolish quite a bit of his thoughtfully prepared feast. Clearing the remnants of our late night snack, we cuddled on the bed, my head on his chest and our bodies lightly pressed against one another.

Entirely comfortable in his arms I could feel my eyelids start to get heavy. Between the long work week, two glasses of champagne, anxiety over our impending date and several truly mind blowing orgasms, I could feel myself drifting off.

“Mark,” I murmured softly as sleep started to overtake me, “thank you.”

My last coherent thought was “how am I going to go two weeks before seeing this man again?”

I
am not a morning person. Even on the best of days my staff knows to steer clear of me until well after the caffeine has kicked in. Monday mornings in particular I truly believe were invented by sadistic demons in one of Dante’s lower circles of hell.

So why on
this
Monday morning, before my second cup of coffee was finished, was I sitting in my office with a smile from ear to ear?

From Friday evening until now my emotions rode quite the roller coaster of unbelievable highs and unexpected lows. The weekend started with pleasures outside of my previous realm of experience and left me feeling quite content to fall asleep naked and warm snuggled into Mark’s chest.

I awoke early Saturday morning to a full bladder and an arm draped across my body from behind. I had that half-second moment where I was not fully awake and aware of whose arm that could possibly be.

Mark must have been having a really good dream or re-enacting the previous evening in his sleep, because I could feel him swelling against my bottom once again. Slowly and gently prying his left hand from my breast, I slid out from under his arm and made my way into the bathroom. I could not help but smile at my tousled hair in the mirror. I certainly enjoyed the actions of the previous evening that led to it looking this way.

After draining two glasses of champagne and other assorted fluids from a surprisingly high number of orifices, I crept back to the bed. Standing there naked, I watched Mark sleep peacefully for a few moments as I weighed climbing back into bed versus slipping into my dress and out the door.

It seems strange, and almost a little selfish to admit, but I really wanted to sneak out and be alone to savor the memories from the previous night. Despite how well the previous evening had gone, I think I was hesitant to cast the light of day upon our most unusual dalliance.

Feeling a bit like the proverbial heel, I quietly slipped my dress over my head and stuffed the bra and panties into my small handbag. I jotted a quick note on a pad of paper by the phone:

Mark,

Please forgive me for not waking you or saying goodbye this morning. Falling asleep in your arms last night (and everything that came before it) was truly amazing. You made me feel things I have never felt in my life. I hope you understand me wanting to be alone with my thoughts this morning. I look forward to our next alphabetical adventure, as soon as I can sit down comfortably again – of course.

Summer

Picking up my pumps, I left the lace blindfold folded neatly on the note and slipped out the door.

Smoothing out the dress that spent less time on me than it did on the hotel room floor, I rode the elevator down and mentally prepared myself for the
walk of shame
across the hotel lobby. Of course no one even noticed, nor cared, as a different clerk was on duty than the night before. I smiled inwardly as I still managed to turn his head, disheveled appearance and all. Then I remembered that my bra and panties were in the little bag in my hand instead of underneath the little black dress that clung to me like a second skin. The clerk was getting quite a show to go with his early morning coffee.

G
etting into my car, I pulled out my cell phone and sent a quick text message to my best friend Julie.

Headed home. Warm, safe and happy. We’ll talk more later. Shine!

I had sent her a quick email the previous evening with details about where I was going to be and the hotel room number, just in case. I trusted Mark or else I would not have gone to his hotel room alone, but I still hedged my bets a little. Julie knew that unless I called or texted her by 10:00am, she was to start making phone calls. Perhaps that would have been too little too late, but it made me feel better to some degree about stepping so far out of my comfort zone. We really got into the whole clandestine aspect and included a code word at the end of the message, just in case she doubted it was really me. The word
shine
was kind of a play on my first name, as in summer sunshine. A bit silly I guess, but it was the best we could come up with after three bottles of wine a couple of nights ago.

Initially through my first meeting with Mark and the subsequent website wooing, I had intentionally kept what was transpiring from Julie. Looking back I really don’t know if I was expecting that she would find fault with my choices or that she would be encouraging me to go. I was on such a precipice that I think subconsciously I did not want anyone, not even my best friend, to sway me one way or another.

I finally decided after agreeing to give up control to Mark that I should let someone I trusted know what I was doing, even if it was only to have someplace for the search party to start looking.

Over white wine and Chinese food late one night, after Julie wrestled her brood into bed and her husband immersed himself in some sporting event, I laid out for her what had happened since my first email from Mark.

She laughed out loud at my description of outrage after Mark left me sitting in that hotel bar, despite the thong and low-cut top. She sprinted to get her laptop so I could bring up the website Mark had set up for me and show it to her, although the only thing on it currently was his last message about the hotel and the blindfold.

Since Julie knew me better than anyone, she was shocked to hear that I was willingly giving up control to Mark, or at all for that matter. She started to speak, thought better of it and drained her wine glass instead. Glancing at the living room where her husband sprawled out snoring, she laughed and said, “I’m tempted to call my mother-in-law and ask her how she likes the sudden deep freeze down there in Hell.”

“I’m equal parts nervous, excited, scared and thrilled for you,” she said. “And perhaps even a little envious.”

Her comment took me by surprise for a moment. I had always envied her stability, family and close relationship with her husband. I suppose her comment only goes to show that things are not always as rosy on the other side of the glass as they appear.

We laughed and plotted as we killed a third bottle of wine. She made me promise to tell her the details about where and when I was meeting Mark and tried to extract a further promise of “full orgasmic disclosure.”

I told her I would consider it, but as she knew already, I was not one to discuss my feelings or my personal life very easily. Then again, being as closed off emotionally as I had been during my marriage did not seem to have paid much in the way of positive dividends.

P
icturing an old pair of sweats and a steaming cup of Earl Grey tea awaiting me, I drove slowly through the early morning rain toward home. My mind drifted as I replayed the previous evening in my head. Mark had been a pleasant surprise to me – confident, sexy, funny and in control. He conducted my passion and played the strings of my desire like a symphonic scientist. As I thought about his hot breath, first on the back of my neck and then later on my inner thighs, my nipples pulsed in time with the windshield wipers. Given that at least one of those nipples was being held closely only a short time ago, I mentally berated myself for removing it from Mark’s grasp.