by June Gray
I squeezed at his fingers, feeling warmth spread throughout me, and inexplicably, I started to come again. I leaned against the tile wall when my legs buckled, Henry’s hand keeping me from crumbling to my knees.
When the last of my orgasm subsided, he turned off the water and reached for a towel then handed it to me.
“I don’t think I have any energy left for work,” I said, wondering how I was going to manage drying my hair let alone do anything else.
“That’s the point. You go to work early, get home late, and then do more work until nearly midnight.” He swept me off my feet and carried me to the bed. “Tonight, you deserve some rest.”
“I’m still wet,” I laughed, trying to sit up.
He held me down by the shoulders, a laugh playing in his eyes. “Then we shall have to dry you off, won’t we?” he said and swept his tongue along the length of my stomach, lapping up water droplets.
I grabbed the back of his head, too worn out to do anything but moan. “You’re going to give me death by orgasm.”
He looked up and grinned. “Can’t think of a better way to go.”
—
“Sherman.” The deep voice of my boss, Conor McDermott, echoed over the block of cubicles as he stood outside his office with his hands on his waist. “My office.”
Kari, a senior designer on my team, peered over the wall. “What did you do?”
“I have no clue.” I saved my file, straightened my blouse, and prepared myself for what was to come.
When I entered his glass-walled office, Conor was leaning against his desk, his hands folded across his chest. “Sit down, please.”
I perched on the curvy chair made out of one thin piece of wood, uncomfortably close to where Conor stood. The Irishman was in his midthirties and had dark auburn hair and lovely green eyes, which were currently fixed on my face.
“My last name is Logan now,” I said, trying to diffuse the tension. It was no secret that Conor was a ladies’ man with a natural charisma that made him seem flirty without trying. Being the CEO of Shake Design, he wore expensive suits but rarely shaved so that he was a compounding mixture of crispness and scruff, professionalism and impudence. It was no wonder women fell at his feet.
“I’m sorry, I forget sometimes,” he said with a slight Irish brogue. He crossed one foot over the other and regarded me for another few uncomfortable seconds.
I tried to hold his gaze but felt a little strange doing so, as if simply finding another man attractive was an act of adultery.
“Are you happy here?” he asked, a question that took several seconds to sink in.
“Yes, very.” I raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on you. You’ve been working really long hours, showing a lot of dedication to Go Big. I just wanted to make sure that you’re happy.” He gave me a roguish grin. “Basically, I want to make sure no other companies try to steal you away.”
I returned his smile. “I’m happy to hear that.”
“So what can I do to make your life easier?”
“Make the Go Big execs agree on everything from here on out?”
He chuckled. “I suspect nothing short of a miracle can do that.”
“Can I have one more designer on the team then?” I asked.
He let out a long breath through his nose. “I was afraid you’d say that. I can’t do that, however, as all of our designers are busy with other projects. But I will look into hiring a freelancer.”
I shrugged. “How about a slushee machine for the break room?” I joked.
“That I can probably arrange,” he said with a deep laugh.
“How about giving us all the entire week of Thanksgiving off?”
“Now you’re just pushing your luck.”
I shrugged. “Worth a try.”
Still smiling, he stood up and motioned to the door. “Well, if there’s anything else you need—within reason—my door is always open.”
“Thank you, I will keep that in mind,” I said, walking past him and catching a whiff of his expensive cologne.
“Elsie,” he said with a smile that could have held a thousand meanings. “I’m glad you’re on my team.”
“Me too,” I said quickly and walked out, feeling a little out of sorts. When I got back to my desk, my phone immediately rang.
“Psst,” Kari said into the other line. I stood up to look over the cubicle wall and found Kari holding the phone against her ear and using a hand to cover her mouth. “What did Sex on a Stick want?” she whispered, winking up at me.
I snickered. “Nothing. Just making sure I was content here.”
“So he didn’t bend you over his desk and spank you for not getting those mock-ups done to perfection?”
I sat back down, stifling a surprised laugh. Kari and I had spent many hours together in the past several months and had become good friends. One thing I really loved about her was her unabashed love for erotic romance novels, one about a troubled billionaire in particular. “You are a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen,” I said in a low voice. “Conor is not Christian Grey.”
“But he could be,” Kari said, giggling. “You never know what he’s like behind office doors.”
“He’s got glass walls.”
“So he’s an exhibitionist too.”
“You’re crazy.”
“You love it.”
“You’re projecting your fantasies onto a mere mortal.”
“Give me one night with him and I’ll turn him into a god.”
“You’re nuts.” I wished her luck with her plans of seduction and hung up, still laughing to myself even after I went back to work.
—
That night, Henry was already starting dinner when I walked in the house.
I kicked off my shoes and washed my hands at the sink before standing on my toes to give him a kiss. I pulled away, noticing the redness around his eyes. “What happened?” I asked as I started to chop the bell peppers by the cutting board.
“We were pepper sprayed at school today,” he said, pouring oil into the wok. “We stood there one by one and got sprayed in the face. It was . . . not fun.”
I looked down at the ingredients on the counter. “So you didn’t get enough peppers? You wanted to eat them for dinner too?”
He shrugged. “Next week we get Tasered.”
“Where? In the balls?”
He coughed. “Let’s hope not. Ugh, that sounds like the worst pain known to man.”
“Then we can have Rocky Mountain oysters that night,” I teased, jabbing him in the side.
“You’re sick,” he said, pulling me in for a noogie and making a mess of my hair.
“Stop that,” I said and held up a sliver of pepper. “I’ll spray you again if you’re not careful.”
He held his hands up in defeat. “I surrender.”
The good mood continued on into dinner as we talked about our days while eating chicken stir-fry. I knew it wouldn’t always be like this, that once he became a LEO—law enforcement officer—our times together would be unpredictable at best. So I held on to the moment, completely immersing myself in the simple joy of being with the love of my life, and I tried to avoid thinking about the future.
—
Henry and I didn’t go back to California for Thanksgiving. Instead, we spent a fair amount of the day in bed, snuggling while watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on television. There was something romantic about spending the first holidays alone together as newlyweds and starting our own traditions in our new home.
“How long until we eat?” Henry asked, his arm around me.
I stretched my limbs, straightening my toes and fingers. “The turkey’s not even done thawing yet. And we haven’t cooked anything else.”
“But. I’m. So. Hun
gry,” he said, grabbing his stomach for effect.
I laughed at his theatrics and pinched at his side, unable to find an ounce of fat anywhere. “Poor baby, starving on Thanksgiving.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” he said. “Remember that Thanksgiving when we went skiing and Jason forgot to make restaurant reservations?”
I nodded, feeling a sudden rush of emotion at the mention of my brother and that time long ago before death and heartache had touched our lives. Jason, Henry, and I had all gone to Vail, Colorado, to spend the holiday weekend skiing. Without dinner reservations, we had ended up going to the grocery store and buying bread and sliced turkey, eating the sandwiches in our hotel room instead.
“How could I forget? Jason poured jarred gravy on his sandwich thinking it would taste good. It was nasty but he ended up eating that sandwich anyway,” I said, laughing as the memory of my brother filled me with warmth.
“I tried it. It wasn’t so bad,” Henry said. “Though it would have been better if we’d had a microwave to warm it up in.”
“No way. It was gross.”
“That was a fun vacation,” he said, his voice taking on a wistful tone.
“Yeah it was.” I sighed. “I miss him.”
Henry cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the television, only grunting out a soft, “Yeah.” But despite his nonchalant attitude, I knew he still missed his best friend. He and my older brother, Jason, had grown up together; they had gone through ROTC, college, and even the Air Force together. Jason was a part of Henry as much as he was a part of me, and even now, nearly six years after Jason’s death, his memory was like a phantom limb, a daily reminder of the person we’d loved and lost.
Sharing the death of a brother—whether he was by blood or by bond—bound Henry and me together, made certain that we were always linked by that common loss.
Determined not to keep dwelling on the past, I slid out of bed and pulled on some yoga pants and a T-shirt, and twisted my hair up into a bun. “Come on, let’s get cooking.”
He was pulling on a pair of gray Air Force sweat pants when the phone rang. He read the name on the caller ID before answering. “Hello?”
I raised my eyebrows at him, trying to decipher by Henry’s tone if the caller was my mom, or maybe Julie, the woman my brother had intended to marry.
“Bergen!” Henry said, his voice taking on the brash tone he used with his male friends. “What the hell are you up to, man?”
Satisfied the call wasn’t for me, I went downstairs to start preparing the food. Several minutes later, Henry followed. “That was my old buddy Bergen. We were stationed together in Korea,” he said, standing by the counter and snapping the green beans with his fingers.
I slipped my hand inside the turkey, reaching around for the elusive giblet packet. “Where the hell is it?” I mumbled, grimacing from the cold, clammy things I was touching.
“Is it wrong that I find your turkey fisting incredibly hot?”
“You should see what I can do with a duck,” I grumbled, my fingers making contact with something plastic.
“Please tell me it rhymes with ‘cluck.’”
I came up with the plastic package and threw it into the sink. “What’s Bergen up to today?” I asked, placing the small turkey inside the pan and rubbing two entire packets of French-onion-soup mix all over it, a trick I’d learned from my mom.
“He’s driving through Denver on the way to Colorado Springs. Do we have enough food for another person?”
“Oh definitely,” I said, helping him with the green beans once the turkey was in the oven. “You want to invite him over for dinner?”
He grinned sheepishly. “Already did,” he said and crunched on a green bean.
—
Several hours later, the doorbell rang while I was still getting ready. I could hear Henry greeting his friend downstairs, their deep, masculine voices echoing through the house.
I hurriedly dressed then applied my makeup. I looked at myself in the mirror, trying to decide what to do with my hair, but laziness won out so I just pinned it up and left a few tendrils down. “Good enough,” I said and went to meet our guest.
Bergen, a tall man with beautiful chocolate skin, a shaved head, and a bright smile stood up when I entered the room. “You must be the lovely Mrs. Logan,” he said, holding out a hand. “Henry has been talking about you for years.”
I smiled and returned the handshake. “And you must be the mysterious Mr. Bergen.”
“Major Jackson Bergen, ma’am.” He waited until I sat down before following suit.
“I’m glad you could make it, but if you call me ‘ma’am’ again, you’re not getting any pie.”
“Yes, sir,” he said with a tiny salute, the skin around his eyes crinkling as he smiled.
“At ease.” I grabbed Henry’s beer from the coffee table and took a sip.
“Hey now,” Henry said and touched his cold fingers to my neck in retaliation.
“Whipped,” Bergen coughed into his hand.
Henry laughed, leaning back into the couch and resting his arm across my shoulders. “I guess I am.”
Bergen smiled. “That’s good to hear, man.”
—
We ate our Thanksgiving meal at around four thirty p.m., passing serving dishes around the table wordlessly as we heaped food on our plates. Years of cooking with my mom had conditioned me to prepare more food than was necessary so we thankfully had enough to share with even a large man with an equally large appetite.
“So, Bergen,” I said after we’d been eating for several minutes. “What was Henry like at Osan?”
The two men exchanged a quick look that sent my spidey senses tingling. “He was a mess when he first got there,” Bergen said nonchalantly. “He was one depressing peckerhead, always talking about the meaning of life and finding oneself.”
“Ah, I wasn’t so bad,” Henry said, washing his food down with beer. “So anyway, what are you doing in Colorado Springs?”
Bergen took the hint and moved on, talking about his new job at NORAD, the U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command. I sat back and listened, chewing thoughtfully and watching Henry’s face as they exchanged stories. Something about the way he talked—carefully, with every word thought out—gave me the feeling that Henry was being extra cautious about what was being said.
There was something the man wasn’t telling me and I, being who I was, intended to find out what that was.
—
After dinner, Bergen and Henry cleaned up while I was banished to the living room for some R and R. I turned on the television and burrowed under a blanket on the couch in a pleasant state of drowsiness.
My eyes were starting to get heavy when I remembered something. With great effort, I pushed up off the couch to remind Henry to put the pie in the oven but the sound of their hushed conversation froze me where I stood around the corner.
“She doesn’t know about what happened at Osan,” Henry said in a low voice, almost inaudible under the sound of running water.
“You never told her?”
“No. It’s not exactly something you want to tell your wife, you know?”
I entered the kitchen, deciding that getting the answer directly from the horse’s mouth was a better alternative to eavesdropping. “What is this big secret?” I asked the two men, who were behind the sink with identical looks of busted written all over their faces.
Bergen took a deep breath. “I need to use the restroom,” he said and left the room, not bothering to slow down or ask for directions.
I folded my arms across my chest, staring down my husband even as he towered over me.
He scratched his forehead. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Then why are you keeping it from me?”
His jaw tightened and his eyes turned wary,
reminding me of that same stranger who came back from a six-month deployment to Afghanistan. “I’m not keeping it from you to hurt you, okay?” he said, his voice taking on a frustrated edge. “It has nothing to do with you.”
“Really, Henry?” I asked. I glanced down the hall to make sure our guest was still out of earshot. “This is how it’s going to be again?”
He ran a palm across his scalp, a nervous habit that persisted even without his long hair. “There are some things that I can’t tell you, Els.”
“Is it classified?”
He blinked a few times then said, “No.”
“Then why can’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s personal.”
“I’m your wife. I think I’ve earned personal.”
“There are some things between us that need to be kept secret.”
“Why? What’s the purpose of that?” I asked. “I tell you everything.”
He latched on to that subject with gusto. “Am I supposed to believe that you’ve told me every little thing about you, every shameful detail of your past?”
“Yes, for the most part.” I shook my head. “Anyway, this isn’t about me. This is about you keeping secrets again.”
He dodged around the counter and came toward me with an exasperated look. “Els, can we please just drop it for now and enjoy the rest of the day?” he asked, rubbing my arms.
“Why can’t you just tell me? Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than what my imagination can cook up.”
His eyebrows drew together as his eyes roamed over my face. “Yes, it can,” he said and left it at that.
—
Bergen stayed until late into the night. He and Henry pounded beer after beer while they exchanged stories, and by the time midnight rolled around it was clear Bergen wasn’t going to be driving anywhere. I offered him the guest bed and he accepted readily, if a little ungracefully, kicking off his shoes before stumbling face-first into the pillows.
Henry was usually a chatty and affectionate drunk, but he sensed my foreboding mood and didn’t try anything in bed. I turned away from him, the ball of frustration growing in my belly. How many times had he kept secrets from me only to have them blow up in his face? You’d think he’d have learned his lesson by now.