All In (The Blackstone Affair, Part 2) by Raine Miller

people
meant when they said they cried because they were so happy.

7
    “ Go ahead and pick
out the one you like for today,” I told her. Brynne grinned from my
wardrobe door and then disappeared back into it.
    “Well, I love the purple ones, but I think
today we’ll go with this one,” she announced as she emerged with a
blue tie in her hand. She sauntered up to me and draped the silk
around my neck. “It matches your eyes and I love the color of your
eyes.”
    I love when you say the word love in reference to anything about me .
    I watched her expression as she worked on
knotting my tie, biting just the corner of her luscious, bottom lip
in concentration; loving her attentions and not loving the fact
that she had obviously practiced on somebody else. She had stood
right up against some other bloke and tied his tie for him. I knew
it. I tried not to envision that it was morning when she performed
this service for the cocksucker and that she’d not spent the
previous night sucking said cocksucker’s cock. I was such a jealous
bastard now. I’d never been jealous with any of the girls I’d dated
before, but then again, Brynne was not just a girl to me. Brynne
was the girl. My girl.
    “I love that you’re here doing this for me,”
I told her.
    “I am too.” She smiled up at me for an
instant before returning to the task at hand.
    There was so much more I wanted to say but I
didn’t. Pushing her never worked out, and I’d learned my lesson in
that regard, but still it was hard to take things slow. I didn’t
want slow with Brynne. I wanted fast and intense and all the time. Thank Christ I didn’t say that aloud.
    “What’s your day look like, Miss Bennett?” I
asked instead.
    “I’m having a lunch meeting with colleagues
from the university. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I have to
start thinking about getting that work visa and there could be
something in this for me. Like a conservancy appointment at a major
London museum.” She finished my tie and patted it. “There. You look
very spiffy in your blue tie, Mr. Blackstone.” She held her lips up
to mine with her eyes closed.
    I kissed her with just the tiniest peck on
her puckered lips. She opened her eyes and narrowed them, looking a
tad disappointed. “Expecting something more were you?” I loved
teasing her and making her laugh.
    She fronted like she didn’t care. “Meh,” she
said with a shrug, “Your kisses are…passable I suppose. I can do
without.”
    I laughed at the expression on her face and
tickled her in the side. “It’s a good thing you conserve paintings,
my darling, because you can’t lie worth shit.”
    She shrieked at the tickling and tried to
get away.
    I snaked my arms around her and hauled her
against me. “No escape for you,” I muttered against her lips.
    “What if I don’t want to escape?” she asked
against mine.
    “That works too,” I answered with real kiss.
I went slow and thorough, enjoying this early morning moment
together before we had to go to our jobs. She melted into me so
sweetly I had to remember we both had work and there was no time to
take her back to bed now. The nice part was that we would be here
at the end of the day again, and I could make good on my very vivid
imagination.
    I got to kiss her goodbye a few more times
before we went our separate ways: waiting at the lifts, in the
parking garage up against the Rover, and when I dropped her off at
the Rothvale. Such are the benefits of having somebody you want to
be with so madly in your life. Again, I am a lucky, lucky man. At
least I am smart enough to realize it.
    ♥
    I went through the front entrance today
after parking because I wanted to buy every major US newspaper and
have them scoured for any small thing. They’d be crammed with
political mudslinging by now, but the full bore fight between
candidates was a ways off yet. Presidential elections were held the
beginning of November in the US, so five months more of publicity.
I felt a