by Rye Hart
I stretched my arm out to find my cell phone, so I could see what time it was. Instead of finding my phone, I knocked a piece of paper off the table.
I bent over and picked it up, scanning the words written on the paper. As quickly as the joy from last night had ignited, it faded.
Please don’t tell anyone. I’m not ready for the questions yet.
I was a pariah, a secret to be held. I was ready to tell everyone and spend the week with her, showing her exactly the kind of man I could be. But I couldn’t blame her. It was clear how Ana felt about me judging from last night, no matter how much she wanted to bang my best friend. The last thing Chanel wanted to field was questions from that feisty woman, especially when she was on a ship and couldn’t get away.
I understood it, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.
I tore up the note and flushed it down the toilet. I looked at myself in the mirror, glancing at the welts on my chest. Chanel had been obsessed with it last night, biting it and suckling it, pulling groans from my throat. She paid my body all the attention in the world, and I fucking loved it.
I wondered if I could get her to do it again.
I grabbed the itinerary off the bathroom sink and leaned against the counter. There was a brunch for everyone going on right now, but I wasn’t hungry. I had a feeling Chanel didn’t want to see me anyway, so not going meant less of a chance of us running into one another. But, the ship had plenty of things I could do. It had a casino and a game room, a card lounge and a piano bar. There was the entire open deck that had pools and hot tubs and waterslides and shit. Plus, there was a floor with a gym, a full spa, and some steam rooms.
Unfortunately, a steam room meant exposing my chest, and that meant questions. So, the casino it was.
“Hey, Rhett,” Tommy said. “You in there? I gotta piss.”
“I’m about to hop in the shower. Hold on,” I said.
“Hurry up. I really gotta go.”
I turned on the shower and hopped in as Tommy came into the room. I washed myself off quickly and reached for a towel, wrapping it around my waist. I pulled on a shirt I found on the floor before I stepped out of the bathroom. The last thing I needed was Tommy asking questions, but when I found him pulling on clothes himself, I grimaced.
“What?” he asked.
“You're not going to shower after your nastiness with Ana last night?” I asked.
“Oh shit, do I have stories for you. And no. I plan on hitting up the hot tubs and shit. I’ll shower after that,” he said. “Where are you heading?”
“The casino. I figured you’d go with me,” I said.
“Oh, the casino. I could shower really quick if you want me to.”
“Nah. It makes sense, in a gross way. I’ll slip on my bathing suit and a shirt and head with you after we’re done losing our money,” I said.
The two of us got ready and headed down to the casino. We hit up a few machines and played a couple of card games, and I didn’t see Chanel anywhere. Even though Tommy lost two hundred bucks, I came away with sixty dollars. I figured it would be good tip money for when I eventually went to take advantage of the spa services they had.
I wasn’t into pedicures and shit, but a nice massage never hurt anyone.
“Okay, I’m over losing money. You ready to hit the deck and go scout out some women?” Tommy asked.
“Ready whenever you are,” I said.
I wasn’t in the mood to scout out anything, but I was keeping an eye out for Chanel. It did me no good to sit in my room and brood about the fact that I was a secret. I should’ve been used to that kind of shit. SEALs were always a secret. No one saw us coming, no one saw us leaving, and if they did, we never left them standing.
But this was different.
I didn’t want this to be a secret.
We walked around the pool as Tommy looked at the lovely ladies laying out. He was like some macho idiot from all those mobster movies, the guy who wasn’t cool but acted like he was. I rolled my eyes as women gave him nasty looks, chuckling to myself whenever they turned him down. He was going to get himself into proper trouble with someone on this ship, and I was going to be right here taking all of it in.
We wrapped around the ship and headed for the hot tub. It was massive and sat right next to the pool on the open deck. There were women lounging around and bartenders running drinks everywhere. It was a chaotic mess of coursing sexual energy.
As my eyes scanned the crowd, I found her.
Chanel. Lounging around. In a string bikini.
Holy shit, she fucking looked phenomenal. Her toned calves and her thick thighs rolled up into a flat stomach and a slim waist. Her breasts were moving with every breath she took, and her porcelain skin had the faintest kiss of a tan. Her brown hair was piled high on her head, and she was slicked down with suntan lotion, her body glistening like it had last night with all the sweat I pulled from her pores.
My eyes raked up and down her curves as memories of last night came flooding back. She’d told me I had given her the first real orgasm she had ever experienced since our first time. I remembered how her legs shook around my head, how her lips had begged me for more, how her hands had clawed at my hair, wanting me closer as her pussy throbbed around my lips. I had rolled three separate orgasms over her body last night, leaving her covered in sweat and still panting for more.
How in the world could she be ashamed of something like that?
Memories of the letter I’d found that morning knocked the wind from my lungs. I turned my eyes away from her, turning my back to all of it. I thought I’d wanted to see her, but now I didn’t. I couldn’t control my cock, I couldn't control my emotions, and I couldn’t control her. I couldn’t make her want me like I wanted her. I couldn’t make her see that this was nothing to be ashamed of.
“I’m gonna go check out that piano bar,” I said.
“But we’re just getting started,” Tommy said.
“I need a drink. Deal with it.”
“There are bartenders out here, man. What’s up?” he asked.
“Just … I’ll be back. Find your woman for the night, and I’ll be back.”
I left the area and made my way back to our room. I was so fucking turned on that I had to take a cold shower. I got into the elevator and readjusted myself, pulling my growing girth up against my body. The more I tried to not think about her, the more the thoughts flooded my mind. I imagined pulling her oiled-up body right onto my lap while her tits jumped in my face.
I rode up to the sixth floor, and my hands were shaking. I barged into our room and slammed the door behind me, throwing my clothes to the floor. I turned on the cold water and stepped into the stream, trying to calm my body down.
My cock was aching, and I needed it to stop.
The cold water drove shivers over my skin as the heat coursing through my body came to a halt. Even though my cock was dwindling, my mind was still fantasizing about taking her from behind and smacking that luscious ass of hers. I allowed the cold water to drip over my trembling muscles as I thought about her pussy and how mistreated it had been over the years, how I could pull her to unimaginable heights with the skills I had now. I’d bet she was tight, virginal tight like she had been all those years ago. I thought about sliding into her, her juices slicking my cock as my lips swallowed her groans.
“Holy fuck,” I said breathlessly. “Come on.”
My body wasn’t letting up as I backed out of the cold stream of water. If a cold shower wasn’t going to do it, then there was only one other option. I reached for the hot water and switched it over, allowing the steam to fill up the bathroom as I breathed in deep. I allowed her presence to take me over. I allowed myself to get pulled back into her gravitational field. I wrapped my hand around my dripping cock as it grew back to life, and I imagined fucking her against the windows of the balcony as we both gazed out over the water.
I came with a force that left me dizzy as my cum shot out against the shower wall. I sank
to my ass in the shower, allowing the hot water to beat down on my chest. I looked down and saw the marks she had left behind, marks that threw me back to the passion we’d experienced last night.
She was ashamed of me.
And the bitch of it was, I couldn't blame her.
Chapter 7
Chanel
The itinerary for the ten-year reunion was pretty basic. Lunches were spent doing whatever we wanted, but brunches and dinners were spent in a dining hall that was set aside for our class. When I’d attended the brunch that morning to take more pictures, I noticed that not a lot of people were there. Maybe half of the attending class had shown up for it, and there wasn’t much to photograph. Everyone there looked like they were still nursing hangovers, and I figured the ones who didn’t show up were still sleeping theirs off. Ana and I had decided it was a bust, so we grabbed a small bite to eat and took our mimosas to go.
We were going to spend the day exploring the ship.
But exploring turned into laying out, and soon Ana was lathering me up with tanning oil. She kept ordering drinks as we lay out in the sun on the open deck. She was mindlessly rattling on about her evening with Tommy, which only served to remind me of my evening with Rhett.
Neither of the guys had been at brunch, but it didn’t shock me that they weren’t. I knew I was worn out from the acrobatics Rhett had put me through, and by the way Ana talked about her night, it sounded like Tommy had every right to be exhausted as well. But as Ana continued to talk about their escapades, something else sprang to my mind.
What if Rhett hadn’t come because of my note?
I had no idea if he had found it, but I began to wonder if I had been a jerk for asking that of him. I wasn’t ready to field any of the questions or listen to Ana chew my ear off for anything, but was it right of me to tell him to keep things a secret? It wasn’t like it would come as a shock to anyone. It was clear who had slept with who last night as people cozied up to one another at the brunch this morning, and no one seemed upset or ashamed of their actions.
I wasn’t ashamed either, but I also wasn’t ready to admit how much I’d enjoyed it.
If I did, then I had to entertain the idea that something was blossoming between us. After everything Rhett had admitted, from missing me to keeping tabs on me, I felt myself falling back into him again, the man who had broken my heart and left me crying on a slab of sidewalk. I wasn’t sure where any of this was going to go, and the whole point of this trip was for me to get my confidence back and to wipe my slate clean and move forward with my life.
That wasn’t going to happen if I was fucking my past.
He’d said prom night was an accident, and he had been ashamed of himself. And I wanted to believe him. A part of me did believe him. That trusting part of me had taken over last night and allowed him to get closer than I had ever intended him to be. Yes, the orgasms were mind-blowing, and yes, it was wonderful to be with a real man again. But it wasn’t worth all of this.
The sun beat down on my body all day as I fell in and out of sleep. I moved to the shade to cool my skin down as people splashed in the pool and relaxed in the hot tub. This was the type of cruise I needed, the kind where no one bothered me, no one talked to me, and no one expected anything of me. I didn’t have to listen to explanations or dredge up my past. I didn’t have to fight between wanting Rhett and keeping him at arm’s length. The only thing I had to worry about was making sure my tit didn’t flop out of my bikini top as I shifted to tan my back.
But then, a familiar voice rumbled at my side.
“Well, if it isn’t Chanel Mathews.”
My eyes fluttered open, and I saw him sitting there. Luke Thomas, the king of all nerds from our grade. I’d had several classes with him back in high school, Chemistry and Calculus, plus the physical education courses I’d taken. He’d even joined the swim team once, and we swam together for an entire year, taking our team to nationals and kicking ass in the relay races.
“Luke?” I asked. “Is that you?”
“It is,” he said as he knelt beside me. “At first, I didn’t think it was you. Until I saw your beautiful face peeking out from underneath your hat.”
“How have you been?” I asked.
I moved to sit up, but he placed his hand on my back. He eased me back down on the lounger I was lying on, but his hand lingered much longer than I thought it would. He sat down by my face and rubbed my back, smoothing more oil into my skin. “You missed a spot with the oil,” he said before quickly removing his hand.
“Thanks.”
“Anyway, life’s been much kinder than high school,” Luke said. “But you have seen a great deal of success. I loved your articles in The New York Times.”
“You read those?” I asked.
“Every single one,” he said.
He was still goofy and awkward after all these years, but I couldn’t be mean to him and tell him to get lost or something. We had established a sort-of friendship in high school.
It didn’t occur to me that he would’ve been someone who would’ve cared to know what I was doing after the fact.
“Will you be at the dinner tonight?” Luke asked.
“I think Ana and I are going, yes. We stopped by the brunch this morning, but not many people were there,” I said.
“Oh. Ana’s here?” he asked.
“She’s lying right next to me,” I said with a giggle.
“I don’t see anyone,” he said.
I looked over to where Ana was supposed to be tanning but found the lounger empty. I lifted myself up and looked around and then reached for my body wrap. Where the hell had this woman gone now? I stood and picked up my camera to go find her, but I felt a pressure come down on my arm.
“Where you headed to?” Luke asked.
“Sorry. I’ve got to go find Ana. I told her I would be her buddy for the cruise, and now she’s gone,” I said.
“Oh, I’m sure she’s having fun. Relax. I’ll get you a drink,” he said.
“You’ll be at the dinner tonight, right?”
“I will be.”
“Then I’ll see you tonight. We’ll talk then, okay? I’m sorry, but I’ve really got to find Ana.”
I pulled away from his grasp, and I could feel his eyes on me as I left. I had no intentions of tracking her down. She had probably found someone else to sleep with for the afternoon. I went back to my room and took a shower, settling in on the balcony with a snack until dinner. I wasn’t looking forward to it at all, especially after my encounter with Rhett. I was trying so hard not to get sucked back into him, but I just couldn’t seem to help myself.
Ana came stumbling in as I was getting ready for the dinner. She smelled like sex and was giggling like a schoolgirl. She patted my shoulder as I snickered at her, stifling my chuckles. I was glad she was having fun, even though her definition of fun was very different from mine.
“We going to this dinner?” Ana asked.
“We are. And I expect you to come with me and stay for at least an hour before you mosey off with someone else,” I said.
“Man, what’s with all the rules, Mom?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep your panties on for a bit at least. I fell asleep sun tanning and woke up to you gone. Not a cool move,” I said.
“Well, Tommy came by, and I just couldn’t resist.”
“Tommy came by?” I asked.
“Yep. And before you ask, no, Rhett was not with him.”
“I wasn’t going to ask,” I said.
“You’re a shit liar. Now come on. I’m starving.”
“Worked up an appetite, I see.”
“Stop being a dick and grab your camera. You wouldn’t want to miss any candid drunken pictures of our graduating class.”
“Heaven forbid,” I said, giggling.
The two of us walked into the dining hall and grabbed some more drinks. We made our way to a table that was closer to the middle of the room. I had a better vantage point for snapping pictures thi
s way, but my eyes were scanning the floor. I wanted to see if Tommy and Rhett would show up for dinner.
I needed to know if Rhett was okay.
“Do the two of you know what you would like to eat?”
I jumped at the waiter’s voice as Ana rattled off her order.
“Um, I’ll have the quail. That sounds delicious,” I said.
“It does. I’ll have what this beautiful lady is having.”
I tried to stifle a groan as his voice hit my ears. I whipped my gaze up toward him, taking in Luke’s shining eyes. He pulled out the chair next to me and sat down without even asking permission, and Ana was already giving him the stink eye.
“Ana,” Luke said. “You look wonderful tonight.”
“Luke,” she said. “You look like you could use a refresher course in manners.”
My eyes darted over toward the door, and I saw Rhett come in with Tommy. His eyes were scanning the floor like mine had been only moments before, but now I hoped he didn’t see me. Now, I cursed the fact that we were sitting in the middle of the floor. Everyone saw that Luke Thomas was sitting next to me, leaning a little too close and smiling a little too broadly.
My eyes connected with Rhett’s as I watched his expression fall.
This was not good. Between that note and this circumstance, I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking there was something brewing between Luke and me for the night, and that was not the case. I tried to scoot my chair away from Luke a bit as I pleaded with my eyes for Rhett to come over, but instead, he led Tommy away to a different table.
Shit. This wasn’t good.
“Isn’t that the douchebag that broke your heart?”
I whipped my head back around to Luke as I watched him follow my line of sight.
“Rhett something, right?” he asked.
