13. Tarryn #2
Another knock. "I thought perhaps you'd like to join me for a nightcap. Strategy discussion for tomorrow's presentation."
Jackson finally moves, but instead of retreating to his room, he slides silently into the bathroom, closing the door with barely a click. I wrap the robe tightly around myself, take a deep breath, and compose my features into what I hope resembles sleepy confusion rather than interrupted arousal.
When I open the door, Christine stands in perfectly pressed evening wear, not a hair out of place despite the late hour. Her eyes immediately scan the room behind me, cataloging details with predatory efficiency.
"Christine," I say, forcing a yawn that's only partly fake—though exhaustion isn't what had me breathless moments ago. "Is everything alright?"
"Perfect," she replies. "I thought we might discuss tomorrow's client approach over drinks. The bar is still open."
I tighten the robe's belt, hyperaware of Jackson hiding just feet away. "I was actually about to turn in. Long day, and tomorrow's presentation needs my full attention."
Her eyes narrow slightly, gaze drifting to the two whiskey glasses on the nightstand. I see the exact moment she registers them, something calculating flickering across her features.
"Having company?" she asks, head tilting with false casualness.
"Just a nightcap to help me sleep," I reply smoothly. "Room service brought two by mistake."
She doesn't believe me—that much is clear from her expression—but she lacks concrete evidence to press further. "Have you seen Hayes this evening? I stopped by his room, but there was no answer."
I shrug with carefully practiced nonchalance. "No idea. Probably in the hotel bar?"
Christine's smile doesn't reach her eyes. "Perhaps. Well, don't let me keep you from your… rest."
The meaningful pause speaks volumes. She knows something's happening but can't prove it. Yet.
"Good night, Christine," I say firmly, already closing the door. "See you at breakfast."
I wait until her footsteps fade down the hallway before I exhale, shoulders slumping with relief. The bathroom door opens, revealing Jackson with an expression caught between amusement and lingering desire.
"That was close," he says, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "Think she bought it?"
"Not for a second," I reply, leaning against the closed door. "But she can't prove anything."
He crosses to me in two long strides, hands framing my face with startling tenderness. "Does it matter if she suspects? We're both adults. We can?—"
"It matters," I interrupt, though my body betrays me by leaning into his touch. "You know it does. The promotion, our careers?—"
"I know." He sighs, pressing his forehead against mine. "You're right. We should be more careful."
The regret in his voice mirrors the ache building in my chest. We stand there for a long moment, breathing the same air, neither willing to pull away first.
"I should go," he finally says, though his hands still cup my face like I'm something infinitely precious. "Before she comes back with reinforcements."
I nod, but everything in me screams to ask him to stay. "Probably wise."
His kiss is gentle now, tinged with something deeper.
When he pulls away, reluctance evident in every line of his body, I find myself cataloging details with almost desperate intensity—the exact blue of his eyes in this light, the slight curl of hair at his nape, the defined muscles shifting beneath skin I'd been exploring minutes earlier.
He moves toward the connecting door, completely comfortable in his nakedness, offering me one final view of broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips and the perfect curve of his ass that has me second-guessing staying strong.
"Sweet dreams, Counselor," he says, throwing a devastating smile over his shoulder before disappearing into his own room.
I stand frozen, desire and frustration warring beneath my skin. The whiskey glasses remain on the nightstand, twin reminders of what almost happened. With a sigh, I reach for mine, draining it in one burning swallow.
We're playing an increasingly dangerous game, with stakes higher than either of us anticipated. Christine is watching, waiting for exactly this kind of slipup. Yet as I slide between cool sheets, alone but still carrying the ghost of Jackson's touch on my skin, I can't bring myself to regret it.
The storm that’s been teasing the last few hours finally breaks as we pull onto the highway, rain pelting the windshield in angry sheets.
We've been silent since leaving the resort, the space between us heavy with unspoken words and the echo of last night's interrupted passion.
We had expected Miguel to join us on the drive back, but after getting pulled into a deeper discussion with one of the others, he told us to go on without him.
Traffic slows to a crawl, a sea of red brake lights stretching ahead of us. I watch rain trace patterns down my window, each drop racing another in zigzag paths that mirror the chaotic thoughts tumbling through my mind.
"We should talk about what happened," Jackson says finally, his voice low but clear above the rhythmic swish of the wipers.
Heat blooms across my skin at the mere mention of "what happened" as if our desperate joining could be reduced to such a clinical phrase.
My body still bears the evidence of his touch—a slight tenderness between my thighs, a faint mark on my breast where his mouth had been particularly enthusiastic.
Traffic inches forward, then stops again. Rain drums against the roof, creating a cocoon of white noise that feels oddly intimate, as if we're suspended in a private bubble apart from the world.
"I don't regret it," I confess, the words escaping before I can catch them. "What happened between us. I should—God knows it complicates everything—but I don't."
Jackson's expression softens, the corner of his mouth lifting in a smile that makes my heart stutter against my ribs. "I don't either." His hand slides across the console to rest on my thigh. "But I understand your concerns."
"Christine is looking for any ammunition to use against us," I say, voice dropping lower.
"So what do we do?" he asks, the question surprisingly pragmatic. "Pretend nothing happened? Try to forget how perfectly we fit together? How your body responded to mine?"
His words send a flush of heat cascading through me, images from the other night flashing vividly behind my eyes—his mouth on my neck, my breasts, between my thighs, my back arching as he pushed inside me, the way his muscles tensed beneath my palms as he moved.
"We can't just?—"
"What if we had an arrangement?" Jackson interrupts, his eyes briefly meeting mine before returning to the road.
"An arrangement?" I repeat, the word feeling strange in my mouth, clinical and cold against the heat building between us.
"Clear boundaries," he continues, voice measured, reasonable. "Absolute professional distance during office hours. No personal conversations at work, no lingering glances, nothing that could give Christine leverage."
I blink, surprised by the pragmatic approach—so unlike the passionate, impulsive boy I'd known in high school. "And outside work?"
The smile that curves his lips sends heat spiraling through my core. "Outside work, you’re mine.”
"You'd be satisfied with that?" I ask, skepticism edging my voice. "Secret meetings and stolen moments?"
His laugh is low, rich with suggestion. "I didn't say I'd be satisfied, Counselor. I said I would agree to it."
"And if one of us wants more?" I challenge, though the thought of "more" with Jackson awakens a longing I've been denying since our paths crossed again.
"Then we renegotiate," he answers immediately, confidently. "Like any good contract."
The absurdity of it hits me—treating desire like a business transaction, passion like a clause to be revised. Yet there's something undeniably arousing about his methodical approach, the controlled restraint that hints at what might happen when that control finally breaks.
"This would be a terrible idea in court," I say, my legal mind fighting a losing battle against the liquid heat rushing through my veins. "Too many ambiguities, too much room for misinterpretation."
"Then we'll have to be exceptionally clear," he counters, his voice dropping to that register that turns my insides to molten lava. "Explicit consent. Detailed parameters. Specific definitions of what constitutes professional versus personal interactions."
Each word feels like a caress, his analytical breakdown of our potential arrangement somehow more seductive than any flowery declaration could be. This is the language we both speak—contracts, terms, precisely worded agreements, twisted into something illicit, forbidden.
"And termination clauses?" I ask, my voice barely audible over the hum of the car engine. "If one party wishes to end the arrangement?"
His hand covers mine, warm and steady. "Full disclosure. Mutual respect. No professional repercussions."
The technical discussion of our arrangement feels like foreplay—each term negotiated, each parameter established building a tension that coils tighter with every word.
We're creating a framework to contain something that feels fundamentally uncontainable, attempting to impose structure on pure chemistry.
"Okay," I say finally, the single word carrying the weight of a much more complex agreement. "Professional at work, personal outside. No mixed signals, no blurred lines."
His hand squeezes mine. "I believe we established the other night that I'm very good at following explicit instructions," he says, voice dropping again.
The memory floods back instantly, me whispering exactly what I wanted, where I needed his touch, how hard, how fast, and him complying with devastating precision, bringing me to the edge again and again until I begged for release.