Raphael's Captive

Chapter 22

"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.