At No Time || Bruno Mars

68

Trystan did not think she had lied in a bed more comfortable than the one at Ron's residence. Even when Raina had crept into her room sometime during the night, still nervous at being alone in such a big space, Trystan had helped her into the bed and fallen back asleep seconds after Raina snuggled next to her beneath the comforter.

She did not set an alarm on her phone, but her internal clock had her awakening a little after seven in the morning. The sun was just rising, making its appearance through the V shapes of mountain spaces. Streams of light touched inside the room, and she contemplated fruitlessly for a moment about staying in bed all day before she sat up and yawned.

Raina was still sound asleep beside her, half her face hidden in one of the soft pillows. Trystan leaned down and kissed her cheek before stretching and getting out of the bed. She went inside her suitcase to pull out her lavender oil and prayer beads made of Apache Tears and went over to the broad windows.

Kneeling where the sun settled nicely against the pale carpet, she rubbed the lavender into her hands and clutched the beads before saying her morning prayer, asking for help with Peter and their daughter. She wished he was not so nervous, that he would approach Raina without minimal qualms, but his apprehensiveness had been her fault. Wishfully thinking, she wanted herself and Peter to work out, too.

There was no other man on Earth she wanted but him, and she would like to think he thought the same of her, but there were damages she knew she could not repair, and only his hands could do the fixing if he wished to mend her mistakes for his own sake.

Saying all she had to say for that moment, she collected the beads and put them back into her suitcase and grabbed out some toiletries before heading into the bathroom.

Even though the entire home was comfortable, she was ecstatic to find out the tile in the bathroom was heated. Warmth layered her body as she disrobed. For a moment, she was uncomfortable with the wide window at the end of the bathroom, but then was comforted by the idea that she was too high up and there were too many trees blocking it for anyone to be able to look in.

She stepped into the shower and was glad to realize that she only had to wait a couple of seconds for it to get to her preferred temperature.

Squeezing soap onto her loofah, she let the hot water and suds envelope her body. She closed her eyes, the waterfall pleasant and the light scent of lavender from her hands relaxing her. As she scrubbed herself, her mind wandered, thinking all the things it typically did when she was alone, and this time many of which were about Peter, and what Peter had seen when they had taken showers together.

She did not often fantasize about their sexual affairs—there was too much else to worry about—so she tucked away the intruding thoughts and directed her attention on things that mattered more than Peter pleasing her. But there were some occasions when those infringing thoughts pushed through, willing her to remember all the times they had satisfied one another.

She recalled their very first time, sneaking about like teenagers, and then the second, where she had been granted a kind of pleasure she had never known before with his face between her legs, then all the times in Greece where their Raina had begun to brew, to the most recent time where she felt she had never—and could never—have a better relation with anyone else.

She thought of how he was able to touch her as if his hands had been molded just for her body, how he kissed her as if she were made of thornless roses, how he loved her as if it were the best experience.

But her eyes opened and she settled from her exultation when she realized she might have just ruined that. There was no telling with Peter, as mysterious as he could be, what the future obtained. It was not enough his forehead or cheek kisses; they had been genuine but only mannerly. She did not know if he still wanted to love her in that same way, and she shut off the water before her mind plummeted further into her doubts.