Before We Say Goodbye

by JN Welsh

  Ten minutes later, they found the swimming hole and even in the dark, white foam from the small waterfall cascaded off the rocks. It was a sight to behold.

  "You did it!" she yelped.

  "My reward?" Nigel leaned down and tapped his cheek with his index finger.

  "How about this?" She took off her pants, tank top, and headlamp, and then pulled her tankini top over her head and slid out of the bottoms. Naked and sizzling from his evaluation, and under the harsh light of Nigel's headlamp, she twisted her locks and wrapped it atop her head until the heavy bun stayed in place.

  Nigel reached out to her until his knuckles gently grazed her nipples. Her breath hitched in her throat. The feather light caresses aroused her so fast that wetness sloshed between her legs from her flaming desire.

  She snaked her hands around his neck and kissed him thoroughly, then broke from him and hurried into the swimming hole. The chilly water was icy against her hot skin and even hotter center. Nigel shed his clothes and headlamp as well and joined her. The moon above then lit their immediate surroundings and the stars provided romantic ambiance. He swam over to her.

  "It's perfect." He disappeared underwater and broke through the surface, inches from her, shaking water from his head. "You're perfect, Olive."

  "I'm not, Nigel. That's too much pressure." She glided through the water. "I fuck up everything."

  "Cookie, I'm complimenting you." He laughed. "What do you say?"

  She splashed his cheeky ass. "Thank you."

  He splashed her back before pulling her against him. "You okay with what happened with us?"

  "Umm...I'm naked with you in a swimming hole with your dick poking me in the stomach. I think I'm pretty okay with it."

  Nigel laughed out loud with his contagious chuckle. The genuine display filled her with joy.

  "I suppose you're right." He swam her to the side against one of the boulders. "I don't want to rush you into doing anything—"

  "So you don't want to me to open my legs, right now?" she teased.

  Nigel stuttered unable to find his voice.

  "Okay," she said.

  Nigel's face contorted. Beads of water nestled in his beard, reflecting light from the glimmering moon. "I didn't say—"

  "No barriers, remember?" She reminded him as much as herself.

  "I do." He kissed her shoulder. "Being close to you like this reminds me of the time we went to the hot springs in the Sierras."

  "Yosemite," she mused. "Oh and the sequoias. Those trees are so life giving."

  "I'm talking about making love to you in the hot springs and you bring up big trees," he laughed. "They were extraordinary, don't get me wrong, but I'd enjoyed being buried inside you more than awing at big trees."

  "I remember every time you've ever made love to me, Nigel." Honesty poured out of her. "Drunk, stoned, or sober."

  The tender kiss he laid on her brought her back to a time when kisses like this were customary. She'd taken his kisses for granted and now wondered if she'd have them again as she once did as part of everyday life, in the Godwin home.

  "Cookie," he called softly. "I'm right here.”

  "Are you reading my mind?"

  "No," he kissed her lips. "I've kissed you plenty of times to know when you're with me," he tapped her temple, "and when you're overthinking."

  Water from his hand trickled over her eye and she blinked it away.

  "I can't help thinking about the future. Us," she said.

  "We have a lifetime to worry about the future. Right now" –he pried her legs open with his— "let me give you something else to think about."

  A lifetime, she thought and shivered.

  "You're cold?" he asked.

  "I'm okay." A chill rippled through her again. "Maybe a little."

  "Let's go back." He pulled her with him to a more accessible exit.

  "But..." She wanted him to continue despite the cold.

  "When you shiver, I want to know that it's not because you're cold, but because I'm the one touching you."

  Back at camp, Olive ate chocolate cake.

  He joined her, noshing on munchies courtesy of their friends. When they arrived back at their campsite, Olive traded in her harem pants and tank top for a light blue sarong so that her clothes dried by morning. She moaned softly as she licked frosting off of her finger and the chains on his desire and longing broke free. He was tired of calloused hands from jerking himself off and craved the warmth of Olive's bosom and the way she entangled her body in his before she slept.

  Capturing her wrist, he massaged her palm and brought her hand to his mouth. He placed the pad of her index finger onto his tongue, closed his lips around the tip, and sucked her slender finger deeper into his mouth. The sweet, biting taste of chocolate and Olive in his mouth was the ultimate aphrodisiac. Not that he needed any assistance.

  She gasped, her eyelids heavy with desire as she watched him. “Mmm. That feels so good.”

  He groaned and opened his legs as he scooted closer to her. His eyes locked with hers guiding them down to his rising dick against his damp shorts, begging her to touch him.

  He prompted her by sliding another of her fingers into his mouth, tenderly laving her index and middle finger with his tongue. His wife licked her lips and moaned as she brought her free hand to his face and caressed his cheek. She smoothed her palm over his chest and down to the muscle demanding her attention. Shivers rippled through him even though her warm hand caressed him through his shorts. After bathing her fingers, he kissed her palm, and then placed it on his neck. His other hand brought her head to his.

  "Nigel," her words were thick, weighty, "what are we doing?" He was dizzy from the steady strokes she teased his cock with.

  Her breath was hot against his lips. He'd been this close and closer to her countless times but somehow this felt new. They were falling in love with the newer versions of themselves.

  "I'm making love to my wife and you" –his tongue travelled across her lower lip— "are making love to your husband." His mouth seized her lips, his nasal breathing audible. Olive hooked her arms around his neck and straddled him in a tantric position.

  Nigel squeezed her waist tightly, never wanting to let her go but he did as he worked to undo his pants. Olive lifted her sarong, and with no time to fuss with getting off him and stripping off her bathing suit, stretched her damp tankini bottom aside and pulled him into her.

  "Olive, baby." She felt good like he'd remembered and he almost wept in her chest. Her hips rocked to slide him in and out of her.

  Though she held her tankini to the side the material still scratched against his shaft. He might be chafe in the morning but right now his only concern was diving deeper into Olive and the healing salve of her arousal. His wife was wet for him. She wanted him.

  "I can't." Olive got up off of his throbbing cock, leaving him wet and cold. Stunned, he just sat there.

  Olive untied her sarong and grabbed hold of her tankini bottom, sliding them down her luscious legs. She shed her top as well. Now naked, with the exception of the sarong covering her shoulders, she straddled him. She leaned in to kiss him and stopped, evaluating his expression. "What is it?"

  "I thought you didn't...that you wanted to stop." Relief softened his tense muscles. They'd been intimate before the swimming hole, but still the possibility of rejection from his wife was a real thing for him.

  She pushed him onto his back and yanked his shorts off. She leaned over him, her locks, a beautiful coconut and lavender smelling curtain around them. This was his favorite part.

  "No, my love." She guiding him back into her and moaned. "I don't want this to stop. I want you."

  Her words, the ones he'd longed to hear, had the same effect on him as if she'd told him Santa Claus was real. She'd claimed him as hers, again. His chest rose and fell out of rhythm. He seized her hips and tilted his pelvis to go deeper. "You feel so damn good."

  He kissed her deeply as he glided inside of her. He thought he'd
die from pleasure. Time on all dimensions stopped as he inhaled her scent, and the warmth of her pussy rocked him to the core. How had he gone this long without feeling her this way?

  He clapped her ass and explored until his search found the wetness dripping from her opening onto his cock. He wet his fingers and played at her sphincter until she backed up to suck more of him into her tightness.

  "You want more, cookie?" He kissed her wildly. "Take more."

  Olive groaned, riding him with abandon. "Oh, God, Nigel! I'm shaking." Breathless, she massaged her breast and pinched her nipples with trembling hands as her hips continued to torment his cock. He used his unoccupied hand to join her breast play. He captured one of her bouncing mounds and devoured her nipple.

  "You're going to come for me right fucking now, Olive." He nibbled and sucked on her dark, tight areola, milking her love. "Yes?"

  She was wound up like a jack in the box seconds from popping open. "Yes, yes, yes," she panted over and over. "Nigel, yes!" Her powerful jerk vibrated through him as she let loose and the spasms that followed surged through both their bodies.

  His arrival was on the heels of hers. "Fuck," he cried into her chest, his arms ironclad around her. "Fuck, baby!"

  She lifted his head. They kissed as she still bucked over him and he emptied the last of his seed in her hot canal. They kissed until he softened inside her and continued until he was hard again. He flipped her back onto the sleeping bag, his tongue buried in her mouth. He possessed her again with hard fast strokes. Her loud muffled release, coupled with his and reverberating against their lips and cheeks, was music he never wanted to stop.

  The dazed expression on her face spoke volumes.

  "I don't know where we were just then, but I'd gladly go back." He kissed her swollen lips, down her neck and across her chest.

  "Merlin's pants!" Olive sighed.

  His humor bellowed. When their kids started to get old enough to understand curse words, "Merlin's pants" was one of her defaults. “Come, let's warm up."

  They slid inside the sleeping bag, sex sticky and sweaty.

  "Jeez, cookie. Your feet are as cold as frozen TV dinners," he teased. He would know, but hoped TV dinners would soon be a thing of the past.

  "Oh hush." Olive steadily rubbed the top her feet against the pads of his. She faced him and intertwined her body with his like a pretzel, molding into him like memory foam.

  "It's true. You're freezing." He tightened his arms and legs around her. Her cold nose buried into his neck. "Tonight was nice," he said.

  "Which part? The sex, the talking, the smoking?"

  He lifted her face to meet the shadowed glimmer in his eyes. "All of it, cookie. We've always had this wild attraction but we've been best friends since Kool-Aid."

  "Kool-Aid," Olive laughed.

  "It wasn't until months later that you told me why you responded to my very simple hello at Ferret’s party with 'Hey Kool-Aid?' I remember thinking, ‘this girl is weird. Cute but weird or tripping on something.’" He pulled her closer. "Kool-Aid? What the fuck? I was drinking beer. In a beer bottle."

  "As soon as I saw you Nigel, I was like, this dude is like Kool-Aid. Red, sweet and addictive."

  "Trust me. It was never my intention to fall asleep in the sun without sunscreen. That burn was so bad. But I wanted to go to Ferret's party."

  "And meet hot chicks," Olive stated.

  "You still liked me even though I was literally lobster red."

  "I did."

  "Mission accomplished. I met and married my hot chic." He kissed her forehead.

  Their comfortable laughter was followed by a long bout of warm silence.

  Her breathing slowed and her slumbering body weighted heavy against his. He gazed at the stars content with having reunited this way with his wife. She had taken a chance and opened up to him again even with the uncertainty of how things would end. Guilt gnawed at his insides, threatening to ruin what they'd just shared. He didn't know how he was going to do it, but he had to tell her. If they were going to move forward it would have to be with a clean and honest slate. The jig was up. He had to confess.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As the water fell over her body, Olive remembered every moment she and Nigel shared at the campsite. They had a great night, but she noticed that though he'd been attentive this morning, he was possessed by thought. She didn't get the feeling that he'd had any regrets, but rather struggled to say what was obviously on his mind.

  She sighed. Before she had wanted out and now she prayed that it wasn’t too late for her and Nigel.

  She dressed. Nigel, having showered before her, donned linen pants and a loose fitting button down light blue shirt as he waited for her.

  "All camp grime clean," she declared.

  He half smiled.

  She folded her arms across her chest. "Okay, something’s up. What is it, Nigel?"

  "We'll talk later. I'm hungry for something other than camp snacks and so are you. I can hear your stomach from here." He rose to his feet.

  She was reluctant to move knowing there was something he'd wanted to tell her.

  "Come on, cookie. I promise we'll talk."

  "All right." She gathered her locks and braided them to one side so that it sat on her shoulder and rested in front of her body. She adjusted her multi-colored chevron striped maxi dress and slipped on her sandals.

  "You look beautiful," his words cut through the silence in the room.

  "Thank you. You too," she hummed.

  "I look beautiful?" he teased.

  She smiled. "Handsome, natural, rugged. Beautiful." She scratched her fingers through his beard.

  He seized her wrists and pulled her to him, nervous energy in his kiss.

  She was going to inquire again, but his eyes pleaded with her and she sighed. "Let's go eat."

  "You guys look well." Flor noticed the difference between she and Nigel before Olive was even able to sit down.

  "Thanks." Olive blushed and Flor nudged her arm.

  Riley gave Nigel the 'ol 'you got some' head nod.

  "Your afterglow is everything," Flor whispered to her.

  Gracie bustled out from the kitchen and stood close to their table. "Brunch is ready. We have all of the trimmings so help yourself. There is so much more." There were other patrons waiting to be fed, but Olive knew that Gracie had an affinity for their group.

  "Thanks Gracie," Riley said.

  They moseyed over to the buffet and plied their plates with food. When Flor sat back down, Olive noticed that her friend eyed and then pocketed her phone, and Riley though somewhat upbeat, was not his normally upbeat self.

  Halfway through their meal, Flor shifted in her seat. Olive knew she was loading something up.

  "So," Flor began. "As you know, Jim has been privy to the information housed in the app."

  "Yeah?" Nigel chewed harder than normal.

  Riley continued where Flor left off. "Well, he messaged us and said that you've met the requirements of your agreement. You guys can return home. Jim can start divorce proceeding, now. You both can meet him in his office on Monday and discuss moving forward."

  Olive put her fork down. She was sick. This was happening. She and Nigel had run out of time and this adventure together was at an end. With Nigel's nervous behavior, she wasn't sure what the end actually looked like.

  Nigel also stopped eating and sat back in his seat.

  "We were right to tell you, weren't we?" Flor asked.

  Olive nodded because that was all she was able to muster under the circumstances. Her sensibilities were even more on edge when she found Flor, Nigel and Riley in some trifecta stare down.

  Nigel took her hand, his stare penetrating her so deep she got chills. "Walk with me, cookie."

  They'd walked for about five minutes down a small trail overlooking Turtle Rock. The wind wouldn't quit and the ocean crashed louder than normal, mimicking the tornado swirling inside him. He was out of time and had to tell Olive the truth.


  He felt Olive's stress by how she clamped down on his hand.

  "Do you remember the last time we were together before this trip?" Nigel asked. The memory stung like lemon juice on a paper cut. The event had prompted their separation.

  "Yes. After that night when we...that sex was so raw and I knew that we were both clinging to our marriage vow."

  "It was missing the love that made it special. When it was over I left the house and drove around for hours until I'd finally broken down. I've been lost without my connection with you, Olive."

  "Me, too. I wanted us back. I just didn't know what to do because I didn't want us to keep hurting each other.” Olive finally addressed the tears dripping from her chin. “I know that we had to do this divorce list to move forward with Jim. But you didn't want to dissolve the agreement. Why Nigel? Do you still want us?”

  “I do want us, Olive.”

  She smiled at him and he was filled with dread and excitement at the thought of confessing to her. She would be hell-fire when she found out but he hoped they'd rekindled their love enough to put the pieces back together.

  "I knew," he blurted.

  Olive rubbernecked. "What did you know?"

  "I agreed to separated because I knew that it would activate the non-monetary agreement. I knew that we had to do this trip before we could file for divorce. I knew it would force us to spend time together. Force us to confront the problems in our marriage, and separate us from the kids so that we wouldn’t use them as an excuse or distraction."

  Olive was frozen solid and stared at him for a long time. "You did this on purpose?"

  He stood his ground. "Yes. I did this for us, Olive. We were in desperate times. Desperate measures were required."

  She was again mute.

  He pressed forward. "I'm not sorry and I'd do it again because I'd do anything to save our marriage."

  Emotions passed over her face, none of which he could pinpoint. Of all the things he thought he’d feel in this moment, helplessness wasn’t one of them. His heart raced as he waited for her to say anything.