Chapter 23- Stranger Danger

"Checkmate." Tami beamed proudly as she stopped the timer, indicating that she had won yet another battle of chess.

Raphael squinted his eyes, as he playfully glared at her. It was quite obvious that Tami had a competitive spirit, but it was far more than he anticipated.

"You cheated," he accused, inching closer to her.

She giggled. "I didn’t."

"You did. What's your secret? Why do you keep winning?"

"Because I'm good." She shrugged, reigning innocence. "It's not my fault you suck."

Raphael growled playfully before launching at her. She squirmed and tried to run away, but he tackled her to the warm sand of the empty beach, sending her in a giggling mess as he tickled the life out of her.

Their bodies knocked over the chess pieces as Raphael continued to torture her with his fingers. Her belly cramped from all the laughing as she continued to fight for freedom, but he wasn't letting up.

"Admit it. You cheated," he challenged as he furiously glided his fingers over her bare stomach.

"I-I didn’t," she said through laughs as she kicked and pinched at him. Still, it granted her no freedom.

"You did," he insisted as he tickled her harder.

"Okay okay I did!" Tami was out of breath from all the laughing when Raphael finally let her go. It took a while for her to recover, but when she did, Raphael was only smirking at her.

"See. I knew you weren’t that good," he boasted and Tami grabbed a bottle of water from her basket as she threw daggers at him with her eyes. She took five large gulps, never letting her glare fall from him as she placed the water beside her.

"I didn’t cheat. But I only said that so that I could be free of you."

"If you say so." He shrugged with a ghost smirk, loving that he could get a rise out of her this easily.

They sat in silence for a while as Raphael checked his emails from his phone. He promised that he wasn’t going to work today, but he couldn’t help himself.

A certain email had him frowning a bit, and he quickly glanced beside him to see what Tami was doing. She was picking up the pieces from where they were scattered, so he had just enough time to check what the email said.

Another issue from his general manager. He sighed. It was like the man didn’t know how to do his job. Yes, Raphael was the owner of the business, but the general manager had a role. However, he brought even the smallest issues to Raphael that he should've been able to fix on his own.

Deciding he wouldn't ruin Tami's day, he quickly sent a reply telling him to deal with it.

"Everything okay?" Tami asked after seeing the frown on Raphael’s face. He quickly locked the phone and smiled at her.

"Everything is perfect mi nena," he mumbled as he leant down to capture her mouth in a kiss. He massaged her lips slowly with his, appreciating how she immediately accepted and reacted to him.

Tami sighed in delight as he reached up to cup his cheek and he instinctively pulled on her hair to elevate her head, so that he could get more of her.

Soon enough, they were out of breath and gazing at each other greedily, and Raphael was ready to call it quits and take her home right now. But the day had just started and he promised her a beach day, not beach hour.

Besides, if they couldn’t enjoy times like thesw with each other without it always leading to sex, they were only developing a 'lustship' not a 'relationship'. Lust eventually withers, but love is forever.

"Have I ever told you how beautiful your eyes shine when I kiss you?" Raphael said in almost as whisper as he gazed lovingly at her.

Tami giggled. "No. But it's something I could get used to."

"Already done," he mumbled as he dipped his head to kiss her again, but the blaring sound of his ringtone interrupted him. He declined the call without even looking who it was, since he knew it was either work or Mrs. Garcia. And Mrs. Garcia was gone to visit her family, so he knew it wasn’t her.

He continued kissing Tami slowly but his phone rang again, and again, and again.

"Just take it." Tami sighed as she pulled away. But Raphael being the stubborn man he is, shook his head in refusal.

"They can wait."

"But they won't stop," she insisted as she grabbed the phone and waved it in front of his face.

Just as he thought. The general freaking manager. How is this man twice his age?

With a sigh, he took the phone from her and gazed at her apologetically.

"It's okay. It's only a call," Tami assured him, quickly pecking his lips before he took the call.

He ventured a couple feet away into the open beach as he spoke on the phone. Tami giggled ever so often when he would pinch the bridge of his nose, then bark something to the person on the line.

She couldn’t help but admire how sexy he looked with his toned chest and arms that were naked from all clothes, glistening in the hot sun as it beat down on him. His beach shorts hung dangerously low on his waist, and even though he was facing the open sea, she could see the brush of the wind through his short hair as he held the phone to his ear.

She couldn’t help herself. She had to snap a picture, and that she did.

He looked like a model and he wasn’t even trying. Tami took multiple without him even noticing, and then she took a moment to look at each one. The empty beach as a background gave the pictures a perfect touch, and she quickly turned so her back was facing him, and took a selfie of herself with him in the background.

Perfect.

Smiling widely at the picture as if it was a million dollars, she saved it as her screensaver as she popped a grape in her mouth.

The cool morning filled her with tranquilly as she watched the gentle water crash on the coast as the waves rolled in.

After being with Raphael for almost a month, Tami never realized that she hadn’t been to the beach, and she was literally obsessed with beaches.

However she remembered that they didn’t go out much, as they were still trying to keep her in hiding until she went home. So normal things that couples do like going out on a dinner date, going to petting zoos and accompanying each other to grocery shopping simply had to wait. But Raphael never made her grow bored or feel like she's missing out.

Everything they did together at his house was far better than what Tami would've experienced if they went out.

Still, Raphael knew of this beach and due to its location, barely anyone ever comes here. So he thought it would’ve been the perfect place to take her and it was only a few miles away from his house to the south. They could literally see his mansion sitting on the coast from where they were at the beach.

It was all so wonderful.

Feeling very much pumped to do so, Tami grabbed her phone again and recorded her daily log, since she had no time to do so this morning.

***

Day 29

Can you believe it? Only twenty-nine days, and I am already whipped. We still have another month to go, and I can't wait to spend every passing second of it with Raphael.

Yes, he has trapped my heart with no intent of returning it. Twenty nine days never felt so long. But I wouldn’t take back a moment of it.

Today I am at the beach--my favorite place in the world to be. It is so beautiful and peaceful, and it is only me and Raphael here. I got a few seconds to record my log, since he's busy on a work call. I know it should've bothered me, but oddly it doesn’t.

I admire how he does things, especially his business. I can't wait to see where this life takes us. Maybe I will stop these logs at the end of this month, which is only two days away, since my logs are all repetitive now.

What started off as a complaint book to use against Raphael, turned into a love story of the relationship we're building. All I know is, I am ready to see here it goes.

He's coming back now. I'll record tomorrow again.

***

"Has everything been sorted?" Tami asked innocently as she tucked her phone away. Raphael still didn’t know of her logs, and she planned to read them to him one day.

One day.

"Nothing to worry about." He shrugged, and Tami could see that he was being genuine. He didn’t hide things from her, and she liked that.

When something went bad in his business, he would tell her about it instead of keeping all the baggage to himself.

Tami liked that he told her things. It had always been like that, even when they were kids.

"Do you remember that time at camp, when I got caught climbing the mango tree?" Tami chuckled lightly at the memory as Raphael’s eyes lit up at the moment.

"Yes. The director told you that if you did it again, they'd send you home."

"But I wanted that mango so bad," she continued. "So you climbed it for me and got caught too, but by then you had already picked the fruit and was coming down."

"And then I fell because I didn’t know the first thing about climbing trees." Raphael busted out in beautiful laughter, and Tami followed in suit. At the moment it was a sad day, but now it was both cute and hilarious. "It didn’t matter though, because you got the fruit you wanted."

"And it was hella delicious too." She sighed in delight at the memory.

He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her to his chest as she snuggled against him under the large beach umbrella.

"When we were sent to the punishment room, you told me that you'd risk climbing any tree no matter how high or how much trouble you'd get in, as long as it would make me happy. I can't believe I tucked all these memories away," she mumbled with a small simper on her lips.

Raphael pressed a kiss to her forehead before speaking again. "And I still mean every word."

Her heart leapt in pure ecstasy as she squeezed her eyes shut. How could one man make her feel this way?

"I love you Raphael," she whispered, and Raphael froze at the soft words. It was the first she ever said it out loud to him and it granted him the most wonderful feeling ever.

"I love you too Tamika. You are my light." His arms grew tighter around her as they appreciated each other's company and embrace.

It were moments like these that made Tami wish she could stay here forever, on paradise island with the man she loved. But she knew she'd have to face reality soon. Still, it was good to appreciate these little moments.

They were so caught up in each other that they didn’t even realise that someone else was on the beach.

Raphael was the first to notice as the young man jogged closer to them. His tensed muscles alerted Tami too, and she followed his gaze to the man that had been running in their direction. He had earphones in his ears as well as exercise clothes.

However, despite the man's focused state, it wasn’t hard to notice that other people were on the usually empty beach. And when his eyes found Tami, he suddenly frowned.

Discarding his earphones, he jogged over to the couple and Raphael’s grip on Tami only grew tighter.

"I'm sorry for intruding," the man said, his eyes never leaving Tami. "But I believe..." It seemed like he didn’t know where he saw her before, and Tami wanted it to stay that way.

"No you don’t know me," she countered, trying to sound polite, but her voice came out more like 'go away please'.

The man's face lit up and his eyes widened in realization as he started to pull out his phone.

"It's you! You're missing."

"Does she look missing?" Raphael snapped, suddenly more annoyed by the man.

He shook his head as started to dial a number, but Tami was at her feet and grabbing his phone in a heartbeat. "Listen to me buddy, you are going to go away and forget you ever saw me. If I was missing, I wouldn’t be here now would I? Now scram."

Tami acknowledged that this was so unlike her. She was normally silent and gentle when it came to people. But he had set her off on the wrong foot. If he should make a call about her now, that would make her lose a whole month with Raphael. It was quite selfish of her considering her family, but she simply wasn’t ready.

The man looked stunned, but eventually nodded and left as if he hadn’t seen them.

"Damn. You're a feisty little one, aren't you? I had it covered you know?" Raphael smirked, loving how she took charge.

She shrugged. "Let's just enjoy the rest of our day okay? No more distractions," she mumbled, taking his lips in hers again.

But oddly, a nudge in her stomach told her that the trouble that was awaiting her at home had snuck into her paradise island and just found a way to blossom.