Leo nodded and opened his eyes. The sun was close to setting. Anna unbuttoned the cuffs of his flannel shirt and helped him remove one arm at a time. He lifted his head and shoulders, his abs tightening to curl his torso off the ground enough that Anna could slide the shirt out from under him. This was the part of the intimacy dance where the chasm between the old and the new, between forgotten feelings and potential experiences, appeared. She’d crossed it once and would likely cross it again, but it continued to startle her with its intensity.
“I don’t really know how to give a massage, but I can manage a back rub, if you’re okay with me winging it,” she said.
Dusk and low flames. His bare skin looked good in this light. Anna almost missed his request for her to hand him the copy of Gaia’s book.
“Let me read you what she has to say about touch.” Leo held the book in one hand, away from his face, and rested his other hand on her forearm. He lifted it so his fingers barely skimmed the delicate hairs on her arm. “Touch can go from very light to very deep, where it feels like it is penetrating below the surface of the skin.” He squeezed right above the wrist. “That too much?”
Anna shook her head. “No. Feels good. Feels like you really mean to touch me.”
“She recommends we touch with purpose, whether we’re using the lightest touch, like a feather,” he said. Anna’s skin tingled as he trailed his fingers up her arm toward her inner elbow. “Or something more like a deep tissue massage.”
“Let me see that passage.” She reached for the book. There were long descriptions of different levels of touch and a helpful, bulleted chart. “She also recommends we be patient and precise, and that we keep it moving. I think I can manage all that. You ready?”
She put the book on the floor and turned to him.
Leo rolled to his chest in response.
“Hmm, to oil, or not to oil?”
He lifted his head and turned to face the fire, his voice muffled by the quilts. “I trust you.”
Anna poured warmed coconut oil into one palm, drizzled it into the other, and stroked both hands down either side of his spine. She moved onto her knees for better leverage and worked the oil into his skin in long strokes, using the heels of her palms, up and down. An extended sigh issued from the vicinity of Leo’s mouth. She continued, rubbing her hands in circular motions over the big muscles of his back, up his neck and over his shoulders, until he was oil-slicked and gleaming in the firelight.
What a difference a few days and a random encounter at an intimacy workshop could make. She sat back on her heels, admiring the man facedown between her thighs. His breathing had slowed to the pace of almost asleep, and every time she touched him, his bones hummed in response.
Five years.
No, longer, since she’d felt like…this.
A thick cord, threaded with memories of her two decades as Gary’s wife, gave a sharp tug, pulling her away from any drift toward comparing one man with the other. Her marriage, mostly happy and loving, was then. And this moment with Leo, was now. There would never be a going back, and all her days and months and years with her husband deserved to remain undiluted and well-remembered.
The waistband of Leo’s pants rode low on his hips. She refocused her attention, working her thumbs in small circles at the dimples just above the V shape of his sacrum and up the thick muscles on either side of his spine, all the way to the base of his neck.
She massaged one arm then the other and circled each palm with her thumbs, giving extra attention to the callused areas. When she was finished, she wiped her hands on one of the towels to remove the excess oil and rested a hand on the upward curve of Leo’s butt.
The darkened room held them in a comfortable embrace. Her hand rose and fell with her companion’s breath.
“I need to add another log to the fire,” she whispered.
Anna draped his flannel shirt over his back and shoulders before she opened the door and inserted the wood. Flames leapt to claim the fuel as Leo rolled over. He bent one knee and drew her hand to rest on his belly, right above the zipper to his jeans. The button at the top had come undone, tempting her to slide three fingers under the waistband of his briefs while she curled one finger into the hairs below his navel.
“What were you thinking about?” he asked.
“When? Just now?”
“When you were rubbing my back.”
“I was thinking that I could not have predicted there would be a handsome, half-dressed man in my living room less than two weeks after my birthday. I should turn fifty more often.”
Leo laughed, his belly tightening under her hand. “This wasn’t on my wish list for my sabbatical, but now that we’re here, there’s no way I’m not keeping Massage with Saffron in the top three.”
He half-closed his eyes and stretched. Silky skin and curly belly hair moved under her fingers. Leo squeezed and released her wrist, okaying her hold of the zipper pull and her indicated desire to draw the head to its base. When she went in search of more skin, and his growing erection, he stopped, placing her hand on top of the snug boxer briefs.
“I’m not ready for that kind of touch, not yet. But this is nice.” He offered an encouraging grin and pressed her hand to his rising erection.
Anna met his gaze, fighting to stay neutral about him declining her offer of a more erotic touch. Her mouth
