Holding My Breath

by A. M. Hartnett

  ‘The water is losing the fizz. We can add more hot, or we can get out.’

  There was no answer. Molly splashed out of the tub and he followed. They didn’t bother drying themselves or each other: Quinn laid out two bath towels across the bed and, as Molly sprawled on top of them, he quickly put on another condom.

  ‘Tell me about the naughtiest thing you’ve done,’ he said huskily as he mounted her. ‘Or did you already tell me?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think I’ve done it yet.’

  That rascal of a smile appeared as he pushed up onto his arms. ‘No pressure, huh? I guess I’ve got an inventory to make.’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. She locked her hands at the back of his neck and her ankles at the small of his back. ‘Soon.’

  Like they had never parted, never got out of bed, he rode her at a teeth-chattering pace. He pumped into her pussy until she was thing once more, boneless and shrieking until he clamped his hand over her mouth and she was left sputtering against his fingers in response to his mocking accusations.

  Even when he rolled her on top, he was still master over her body, still egging her on while he used his fingers on her clit.

  ‘I think you want the whole hotel to hear you and know it’s you getting off in here,’ he said quickly and breathlessly. ‘That gets you off, doesn’t it?’

  She could only hold on and take it, nodding when he demanded it and shaking her head, her desperate expression hidden by her hair, when he threatened to stop.

  When he finally relented and went passive beneath her, Molly turned feral, riding him as hard as he had ridden her until he surged between her legs. Though still struggling against the aftermath of her final orgasm, she leaned forward and pressed both hands over his mouth to stem the flow of moans and filthy words that were as loud as hers had been.

  ‘I wasn’t really that loud, was I?’ he teased once she was draped over his damp chest. ‘You just covered my mouth to be smart, didn’t you?’

  ‘No, you really were that loud. Someone would have called security.’

  ‘It’s a good thing we have each other to make sure that doesn’t happen.’ He skittered his fingers down her back and up again. ‘I’m so tired, but my brain is so awake.’

  She lifted her head and was met with a sleepy smile. ‘Mine, too. Anything else you want to know about me?’

  ‘Everything,’ he said softly, warming her to her toes. ‘You can start with what you want to eat. Is it too late to order in?’

  ‘God, I forgot I was hungry again until you mentioned it. I’ll do it.’

  She called out from her phone to a place she had on speed dial, and by the time the food arrived they had both showered – separately – and were wrapped in fuzzy robes.

  ‘Why are you retiring?’ she asked once they were stuffing their faces and watching a sci-fi show on television.

  ‘Isn’t it everyone’s dream to retire at forty? I’ve got that beat by four years.’ He shoved a forkful of deep-fried chicken in his mouth, then chewed thoughtfully. ‘I can’t keep this up for ever – or keep it up, if you want to get technical.’

  ‘I don’t see how that’s a problem,’ she teased.

  He chuckled. ‘It’s like any other job, I suppose. You get tired of it. I thought about going two more years to make it an even twenty and make it ceremonial by buying myself a gold watch, but I think I’m done. I don’t need to do it any longer, and so why should I?’

  ‘What will you do for money?’

  ‘Live off of what I’ve already made,’ he replied so slyly that her interest went to red level immediately.

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking, how much …’

  ‘You know how much I make. Multiply that by three, then multiply that by eighteen years – and remember, I used to do this every night of the week for just a little less.’

  ‘I’m terrible with math,’ she said and reached for her phone. She pulled up the calculator app, pumped in the numbers and then felt light-headed. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I pay taxes via some creative accounting and do a little splurging, but I spend most of my time working out or fucking around on the computer. My condo was paid for about five years ago, so really everything I make goes into the bank, where it starts to work for me.’

  She set her phone aside and pulled the Styrofoam container of food closer to her. ‘I’m in the wrong line of work.’

  ‘You said the other day that you’re not looking forward to the changes to this place. What will you do?’

  ‘Move to another hotel, here or somewhere else. I have nothing tying me down.’

  ‘I gathered you didn’t have children, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’

  Molly shook her head as she shooed the nasty imp of regret out of her mind. ‘That’s not for me.’

  ‘You’re still young.’

  She met his gaze. ‘It’s not for me.’

  He didn’t look away, but she saw the retreat on his face. It was clear he saw the subtle warning she had given him.

  ‘Not to open old wounds, but about your marriage …’

  He let the question hang cautiously, but she had no qualms in answering it.

  ‘We were a horrible match. Things seemed to be going the way they should at first, so we got married. Then we spent three years living in a bubble, each pretending that the other was something they weren’t. Bubbles burst, and when ours did we ignored it up until we couldn’t ignore it any more. We started sleeping in separate bedrooms under the guise of different schedules – he worked seven to three and had to be up at five, and I sometimes didn’t get home until midnight – but it wasn’t that. We just started to get apathetic about one another, and by the time he moved out we just flat out didn’t like one another. We started divorce proceedings the next day.’

  ‘And you’re still in the midst of them.’

  ‘I want the house,’ she said, making no effort to disguise her bitterness. ‘He wants to sell it. I told him he could have everything else, every other penny we had, but he wants everything split down the middle. I think Aaron believes if we don’t do it that way, I’ll come back at him and try to get more. I don’t want anything, not the savings, not his pension, nothing. I just want the house.’

  Quinn raised his shoulder. ‘There are other houses.’

  ‘It’s my home,’ she insisted. ‘I won’t give it up. I don’t have the money to buy him out, but, like I said, he can have everything else. I just have to talk him into it before a judge makes the call for us.’

  ‘You could make a good chunk of money in six months, if you were so inclined – which you aren’t,’ he added when he saw the appalled look she gave him. ‘I thought I would offer.’

  ‘Thanks, but no matter what you call me in bed, it’s not for me. I couldn’t do what you do for money.’

  He set his food aside and rolled up onto his ass, hugging his knees close to him. The pose struck her as adorable. His hair, free from gel after his shower, had dried into messy waves around his head, and it took some resistance not to run her fingers through it.

  ‘I’m oddly relieved,’ he said, his smile turning an exhausted shade of naughty. ‘Call me a hypocrite, but I’d rather have you to myself.’

  ‘No sharing for you?’ she threw out saucily, then laughed as he groaned and tipped his head back.

  ‘You’d better stop. The idea of watching you suck off another man while I finger you might be one that sticks with me.’

  She gathered up her container and his and slid them outside the door for the porter to pick up. They brushed their teeth side by side in the sink, then went around the suite putting out the lights. She shimmied out of her robe and joined Quinn, who was already naked, in bed.

  She cuddled into him, her full belly and the flickering television lulling her. ‘Do you have male clients?’

  ‘Rarely,’ he said, extinguishing the bedside lamp. ‘I don’t do men unless they come as a part of a couple, and I’ve only ever worked alone for the last
five years. Those two men you were with, did they have sex with each other or just you?’

  ‘Just me. I think that deep down they were curious, but too chicken to put it out there.’

  He swept his arm around her. ‘If you ever wanted to repeat history, I could put something together.’

  ‘I really did give you ideas, didn’t I?’

  ‘You have no idea.’ He took the remote and aimed it at the television. In the strobe of white light as he surfed through channels, Molly caught sight of something against his white skin.

  She reached out, then realised at once that perhaps this was his boundary. But Quinn turned his wrist so she could see the scar.

  Casually but quietly, he said, ‘Things weren’t always so good.’

  He let her run her thumb across the mark, as patient as a cat whose tail was being pulled by a toddler, and waited.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Molly said, and tucked her hand back against his chest.

  ‘Don’t be. They’re no different than my other battle scars.’

  He raised his arm again, and the room went dark. Molly suddenly felt so cold. She dragged the blanket up to her shoulders, and was happily tucked in with his strong arm around her.

  ‘I get it. You know, with my marriage falling apart and all that, I’ve had days when I couldn’t get out of bed.’

  He shook her with his low laughter. ‘Well, that settles it. We’re meant to be, the gigolo and the chambermaid.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘And how are you doing tonight, Mr Montgomery?’

  Molly greeted her guest, a regular, with a smile, but she was sure the friendly gesture wasn’t reflected in her eyes. It was half past six and she was about as angry as she could get. She should have been on the road no later than six o’clock, but one of her clerks had called in sick and, though the night auditor had agreed to come in an hour early, it would still leave Molly covering the desk until ten o’clock.

  She wanted out of this hotel before Quinn arrived for his Wednesday-night appointment.

  The morning after had been lovely. Her alarm beeped on her phone and roused her at seven thirty. She’d spent the first few waking minutes admiring the man in bed with her. Either he’d thrown off the covers in the night or she’d taken them from him, and he was stretched out naked next to her. Once out of the bed, she admired the view from all sides, then regretfully went to the shower. At the last minute before she left, she pressed a kiss to his pectoral and left the ruby-red outline of her mouth. A text came a couple of hours later with a photo attached of the mark, accompanied by the message ‘Good morning to you 2’.

  The image of her mark upon him dropped into her consciousness and remained for the rest of the day, and in its wake always came the rush of blood between her legs and the light-headedness that went with it as she relived what it felt like to be draped over his lap, or on her knees with him plugging her from behind, or what at the time had seemed like an endless bout of fucking.

  At mid-morning, she took the opportunity to close her eyes and think about the other marks she had left on the chest he revealed to her, and the scarlet streaks her nails had etched upon him while she straddled him. It made her feverish, and she hung her head back with a groan.

  That’s when it hit her: some other woman would see the marks Molly had made on him, perhaps remark upon them, become wet as she followed the tracks with her nails.

  Her fever evaporated and jealousy took over.

  Molly spent the rest of the day gnawing on it like an old piece of chewing gum. Whenever she tried to spit it out, it nearly choked her. It made her feel foolish. After all, she had known, walking into this, what he was and what he did for money, and she had strutted on through with eyes wide open.

  With the arrangement between them banished, what was left now was an affair.

  She was having an affair with a man who slept with other women for money, and like those who had come before her she had been bitten by greed that threatened to transform itself into insecurity.

  As soon as she was back in her office she pulled down the calendar on her wall and wrote little numbers in the corner of each square to mark the time between that day’s date and the new year, but her plan to be out of the building on the nights Quinn worked had quickly fallen apart because of her absent employee.

  Now, checking in Mr Montgomery, she looked sideways at the clock on the reception computer and ground her teeth.

  ‘A little snow coming down out there,’ he said as he handed over his credit card, and offered her a smile that, unlike hers, was genuine and interested.

  He was quite a dish and normally she would have broken her leg trying to get to the desk to check him in, but tonight his flirty grin only irritated her.

  His words, however, inspired the hope that maybe the weather would turn nasty in spite of the forecast, which predicted only flurries. She wanted weather bad enough to keep Quinn away.

  He’s fucking loaded, she thought. Why does he need to do this for a few more months?

  She slapped down the nasty little voice and handed Mr Montgomery his key card, and as she recited what she had heard on the radio about the weather she saw over his shoulder a figure enter the hotel and her insides crumbled to bits.

  He never arrived earlier than ten o’clock. Never. And yet there he was, sex on legs, striding towards the reception desk.

  ‘It could be worse,’ Mr Montgomery was saying as he tapped his key into his wallet. ‘I could be on the road in a blizzard. Instead I get to sit by the window and watch the snow over a beer. I might even be festive and do an Irish coffee.’

  ‘The dining room has a bit of a cosy special for a night like this,’ she said, turning her gaze back to him as the words came out automatically. ‘Lamb stew with crusty rolls made hot to order. You could have it sent to your room, if you’d like.’

  Quinn now stood off to the guest’s side, and Molly’s insides were ready to implode.

  ‘I’m feeling a little social tonight.’ Montgomery tucked his wallet into his coat and leaned forward, then lowered his voice. ‘I wouldn’t mind buying you dinner when you get off.’

  Her cheeks on fire, she looked up at him, but it wasn’t Mr Montgomery who got her attention. It was the tall, blurred figure on the periphery.

  ‘That’s very generous, but I’m going to have to decline – again, but thank you anyway.’ It was a wonder she got the words out as softly as she did, given that her throat felt like it had a ball of twine stuck in it.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said, then turned. To Quinn he gave a shrug and a chuckle. ‘I’ll just have to try again the next time I’m in town.’

  Quinn said nothing, but as Mr Montgomery and his luggage-on-wheels headed for the elevator, he called the other man a name under his breath.

  Molly straightened up, taking a deep breath as she did so, and offered Quinn the same false smile. ‘Good evening, sir. How can I help you?’

  Except for a slight twitch of his brows, Quinn was business as usual. ‘Would you please tell room 203 that her guest is waiting in the lounge?’

  For a moment, she couldn’t answer. She had dished it out, and he had dished it right back. She hadn’t meant to be malicious and she didn’t think he had either, but the exchange still felt bitter.

  ‘Certainly.’

  She picked up the phone and held the receiver to her ear, but her finger hovered over the intercom.

  He hadn’t moved away like he normally did.

  She looked up to see the beginnings of a smile teasing at the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Two-zero-three,’ he repeated, and leaned one arm on the counter just as Montgomery had done moments ago.

  ‘I know,’ she snapped breathlessly and jabbed the keypad.

  She held onto his gaze as she told the woman on the other line that her guest had arrived. Even after she had hung up and given him what she hoped was a triumphant look, he lingered.

  ‘Do you by any chance have a pen and a notepad I can use?’
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  ‘What?’

  He bent forward. ‘A. Pen. And. A. Notepad.’

  She slapped the two items on the counter before him, then tapped randomly at the computer as he scribbled.

  He tore off the top leaf and placed the pen on top of the pad.

  ‘Thank you –’ he made a show of peering at her nametag ‘– Miss Archer.’

  ‘You’re very welcome,’ she said through her teeth, and once he had moved on she let out the breath that had been trapped in her lungs. It only made her feel worse. Without the pressure came the headachy feeling she got when she needed a good scream or a good cry.

  She left the front desk and retreated to her office to stare at the calendar and the little black number marked on that day’s date. Sadly, it hadn’t transformed to zero during the exchange at the desk.

  She stayed in her office, door ajar. She didn’t want to watch him engage in his verbal intercourse with his client for the night, and thankfully no guests approached in the fifteen minutes she hid out. She managed to snag a few calls from her desk, but otherwise she was saved from having to experience the man she was sleeping with seduce another woman.

  Until he returned.

  He leaned over the front desk and waved to get her attention. As soon as he had it, he dropped something behind the desk, then moved on.

  Molly scooted out and discovered that he had left the slip of paper he had written on.

  Drinks at ten?

  The ping of the elevator doors opening rattled her. She didn’t look. Instead she tore the note in quarters and tossed it in the recycle basket at her feet, then rolled her eyes.

  Of course she could go to drinks at ten.

  She’d pull her hair out until then, and she might still be in a horrible mood when the time came, but she was compelled to go nonetheless.

  * * *

  He emerged from the elevators and put on his coat, giving her a quick look as he passed the front desk. She watched him go through the revolving doors, then stop under the shelter near the cabstand. He shook his head at an inquiring cabbie, tucked in his scarf and turned up his collar, then headed east.

  Molly checked the clock. He was ahead of her by nearly half an hour.