Chapter 5
Trey heard the door click closed and swallowed hard. He looked around the hallway. It was empty except for Ricardo, busily doing some sort of housekeeping a few doors down. When he saw Trey leave 12359, a funny look came over his face. His mouth fell open, and his brows furrowed slightly. If Trey didn’t know better, he would have bet it was disbelief stamped on Ricardo’s features.
Suddenly incredibly aware of his erection, Trey stuck his hands in his pockets and backed toward his cabin door, grinning awkwardly.
Fortunately for him, once Ricardo had recognized who and from where he was entering the hall, he’d staunchly turned his back on and pretended adamantly not to notice Trey. In his current state, that suited Trey just fine.
Without a word, Trey fed his card into the reader on his door and scrambled to get it open as quickly as possible.
Finally on the other side of the door, he closed it with a long shaking exhale, leaning his head back against the cold metal. He groaned as he took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes and the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. He’d made a mistake.
At Jenn’s mention of a condom, he’d panicked. If he’d been thinking at all, he just would have gone along with it. What would it have hurt to just have sex with a condom, even if the condom was unnecessary? Absolutely nothing, that’s what.
If he had any sense at all, he’d go right back over there right now and finish making love to her. Operation be damned, he should just go finish making love to the woman who was obviously happy to have him.
He groaned again, running his hand backward through his hair in exasperation. His guilt had gotten the better of him. It always did. He hated feeling like he was keeping secrets. Surprises were one thing. Secrets were another, entirely. Surprises were secrets with expiration dates. Secrets were just lies of omission gone rancid.
Surprises… Trey reached out and slid the closet door to one side, exposing the small valuables safe secured to the shelf inside. Punching in the four digit code he’d chosen (Jenn’s birthday), he pulled back the door at the audible click of the locks disengaging.
Taking a deep breath, he reached inside and removed a black velvet bag. Undoing the closure at the top, he reached in with two fingers and delicately brought out the object inside.
It had cost him just over $1,000, which he thought was a fair price. He’d felt satisfied with his purchase.
Now, looking down at the piece of skillfully crafted metal in his hand, he wasn’t sure even its effects would be enough to fix the damage he’d just caused. He’d really stepped in it with this one.
The rapid, hard knock on the door confirmed his worst fears.
“Just a sec!” he called, racing to get the object back in the bag and returned to the safe.
The safe beeped loudly when he locked it again. He grimaced. What are the chances that Jenn didn’t hear that on the other side of the door?
He turned and pulled the door open, putting what he thought was an easy smile on his face.
Jenn entered without a word, still buttoning her romper. When she looked pointedly at the safe in the closet, Trey fought to keep the worry from his face.
“What was that?” Jenn asked quietly, when she’d finished with her buttons. Trey couldn’t help but notice that she’d done up all but the last two this time, instead of three.
“Not a fan? I thought it might be fun to leave with a little anticipation.” Trey tried to smooth over the blunder, but even he knew the excuse was a few bricks short of a full load in covering the rupture he’d just caused in their relationship.
Jenn stared, then began what Trey referred to as her “attack” pacing. She always paced like this when she had more pent up frustration in her head than she could get out in a single moment.
Throughout the merger, she’d spent hours like this on the phone in her office. Nearly every time he’d found reasons to go by her office during those three months, this was her state. It did not bode well for the looming conversation.
“Anticipation?”
Uh-oh. She was using her “Chief Operations Officer” voice, and not the “we just exceeded our fiscal goals, bonuses are coming” one, either. More like the “we just came up $10,000 short in our Petty Cash funds, firings are coming” one. He’d observed her use both over the years. This was unmistakably the latter.
“No, anticipation is the promise of good things yet to come. This felt more like the breach of a contract already in action.” To her credit, Trey watched Jenn stop pacing, put her hand on her chest, and take a number of deep, steadying breaths with her eyes closed. She’s so sexy when she’s regulating.
Her eyes snapped open, and he instantly regretted the smile that had come to his lips.
“I’m trying really hard to understand why you would do what you just did,” she continued. She was still using her COO voice, but he knew far better than to say so at the moment. “Please, help me understand.”
She turned to look at him, and he could almost see the executive shield slip away fractionally. “Did I say something? Do something?” She was searching his face now, and his stomach clenched in regret. She was really having a hard time with his leaving. “Is anything wrong?”
She opened her mouth to speak again, but clearly decided against it, choosing instead to sit and give him space. She’d come a long way since he’d first seen her in action. The Jenn of yesteryear would have come into the room verbally swinging, and wouldn’t have stopped until there was a literal or metaphorical knockout, whichever happened first.
“I—,” he started and stopped, not sure what he was even about to say. She stared at him, biting her lip and visibly putting in so much effort to simply listening. She’d clenched her hands into fists, nails into her palms, the skin of her hands turned white with pressure.
“It’s just—,”
Her mouth fell open slightly, as if she could force the words out of his mouth by opening her own.
Trey reached for her hands. She needed to feel that nothing was wrong. He took her hands, cold, bloodless, and pitted from where her nails had pressed into the palms. He brushed the backs with his thumbs.
“I’m fine. We’re fine.”
Jenn relaxed visibly, but only marginally. She could sense that there was still a “but” coming. Her fingers tightened around his.
“It’s just been a really long time, and I want the first time to be really special.”
Jenn stared at him. “Trey, we are on a ship in the middle of the ocean, on our way to Mexico, with no responsibilities and no work to do for the first time in God knows how long. It doesn’t get much more exceptional than this, dude. Not at our stage of life.”
He smiled and chuckled slightly. She always did have an ear for understatement.
He took a deep breath. There wouldn’t be a better time than this to share the news with her.
“I…,” He blew the breath out, giving her hands a gentle squeeze to steady them from shaking.
“Trey, you’re scaring me,” Jenn said.
“I got a vasectomy!”
It wasn’t quite a shout, but it definitely wasn’t the cool, collected revelation that he’d hoped for. He watched Jenn’s eyes blink, then widen as she registered what he’d said.
“Oh!” she whispered. “Okay—,” Jenn was nodding, relief rearranging the features on her face. Then her eyebrows furrowed again. “Hang on, so you decided to have this done right before your best chance to have uninterrupted, noisy, uninhibited sex?” She laughed. “Weird timing.”
“No, I had it done back in, like January. Right after the New Year.”
Jenn’s face went cloudy again. Trey reeled her hands back in, afraid that she’d go dark.
“Oh. Clear back in January?”
Trey nodded.
“Then I don’t get it. Was there a complication or something?” She glanced down at his pants, where his erection had been painfully obvious just a short time ago. “There’s obviously nothing wrong with your boners.”
Trey laughed.
“No, I’m serious, what is it then? What’s wrong?”
Trey studied her face.
“Are you mad?”
It was Jenn’s turn to laugh. “Am I mad? I mean, I feel more than a little stupid, maybe.” She locked eyes with him again. “But, you’re okay? Everything went okay? Nothing, like broken or horribly scarred or anything?”
Trey shook his head slightly, the corners of his mouth lifting again.
“Then I seriously don’t get it!” Jenn pulled her hands from Trey’s and pushed him playfully. “Why are we not still across the hall, balls deep and screaming each other’s names?”
Trey rubbed his chest where she’d shoved him, pretending it had hurt. “I panicked! When you started talking about condoms, all I could think about was, ‘I don’t have to wear a condom anymore, but she doesn’t know that. I don’t want to wear a condom, but I have to wear a condom, cause I haven’t told her yet, and…”
“Trey! Enough about the condom! Quit being so awkward.” Jenn reached up, gripped his ears, and pulled his face down to her. She kissed him hard on the lips, the sort of kiss that makes it clear the conversation is over.
When she finally let him go, Trey stood back up, looking into her eyes. “So you’re not mad?”
Jenn’s eyes glinted mischievously. “I’m a woman who only got to finish once when she’d fully intended to finish a minimum of three times with a partner for the first time in months. I’m the very definition of sexually frustrated at the moment.” She smiled. “But I’ve made it this long. I suppose I can view what we just did as a fantastic appetizer. But not tonight. I don’t think I could handle that much up and down in a single evening.” She pointed a finger up at his face mock threateningly. “But tomorrow night, you’re all mine, until I say we’re done. Agreed?”
Trey grinned. “Sounds fantastic.”
Jenn dropped her hands from his shoulders, running them down his chest and belly, then down to his crotch. She gave his now-flaccid cock a gentle squeeze. When it swelled responsively, she shook her head in mock disbelief. Trey shivered. Jenn turned and looked up over her shoulder at him, maintaining firm eye contact with him while she rubbed her rear against the tightening front of his pants; Trey groaned.
“Now who’s cruel?” he asked.
“Tough break, kid,” Jenn said, unsympathetic. “Let’s get out of here. I’m starving.”