Holding My Breath

by A. M. Hartnett

  Just enough time to simmer off the last of her tension. She’d boiled herself alive while he was in 203 doing God-knows-what to that woman, until she’d just burned out.

  Calm had settled about an hour ago, uncanny and far too reasonable to be anything but a danger to both herself and to Quinn, but there it was.

  Once the night auditor arrived, she followed in his wake and found a text from Quinn on her phone.

  Park under walkway.

  She went onto the street and around the corner. She spotted him immediately. He sat on a park bench smoking a joint. He stood as she approached, then took a long drag to go with the long look he gave her.

  ‘Look at Mr Sauce-On-The-Side standing out in the cold and smoking a fat one,’ she teased, and glanced around as she took the seat he had vacated. He held out the joint, and she shook her head. ‘Only on Canada Day for me. Is this some sort of ritual for you? Like how sometimes I take my bra off and eat a spoonful of Nutella at the end of the day?’

  ‘Do you really do that?’

  ‘Of course. You should try it.’

  ‘I’ll pass. I can never just stop at one spoonful. And, yes, this is a bit of a ritual. Usually I go home first and get into the tub, throw one of my shows up on my iPad, then I light up and soak.’ He pointed up at the high-rise on the other side of the park. ‘My condo is up there.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s why you appear and disappear like a puff of smoke.’ She craned her neck and looked up. ‘Is that where we’re going?’

  ‘We could if you’d like, but I thought you might be more comfortable at your place.’

  She wasn’t sure how to feel as she thought about Quinn in her little house. It wasn’t as if she felt any loyalty to the marriage she’d had in her house, but the idea of letting anyone else into her home always made her itch. Even visits from friends and family couldn’t end quickly enough. She’d turned into the damn cat. When it came to visitors, her enjoyment of a visit only lasted for a few laughs, and then guests became intruders.

  Still, she’d never had anyone with the charisma of Quinn in her house before. She wondered how he would fit into her life away from the hotel, and so she decided to be bold.

  ‘I live in Newmarket.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Yeah. If you’re up for a bit of a drive to get back into the city, you can see how the other side lives.’

  ‘Good. We spend a couple of hours at that wine bar a few blocks away, then we can hit the road.’ He took one last puff, then crushed the joint under his toe. His expression was serious when he spoke next. ‘If you don’t want to, I’ll understand.’

  For a moment they just regarded one another, and Molly discovered that some of the acrimony she had felt earlier had left a residue.

  ‘I can’t say I’ll always want to,’ she admitted, ‘and I can’t guarantee I won’t go funny, but I’ll try to remember this is only for a few weeks. I’ll pretend you’re a fireman or something, and when I start to think about you up there with another woman, I’ll force myself to get worked up over the idea of you risking life and limb instead.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘I’m not quite sure how to take you picturing me burning to a crisp.’

  Molly laughed and held out her hand, and he took it. It didn’t seem as important as it had yesterday that she keep this a secret and hidden from her co-workers.

  ‘I did try,’ he told her, slipping her hand in his warm pocket. ‘I hoped you would be gone by six and I wanted to see you tonight, so I sweet-talked my way into an earlier appointment.’

  ‘It’s fine, Quinn,’ she said, and stood on her toes so their mouths lined up.

  The kiss was inviting and affectionate. She tasted weed and toothpaste, and smelled the generic hotel soap.

  The bar was just a few blocks away, and soon they were tucked into a bench by the window.

  ‘You don’t need that,’ he told her as she picked up the menu, then plucked it out of her hand. ‘I’ll order for us.’

  ‘I was wondering if you were as much of an alpha outside the bedroom. Ordering for me? That settles it.’

  ‘I’m not being alpha, I’m being a snob. I want you to try something and I don’t want you turning your nose up at it until you’ve given it a chance.’

  ‘Like I said …’

  ‘Shut up, Molly.’

  If she hadn’t been driving she would have liked a sampler, but she was happy with the charcuterie, cheese and breadboard he ordered. Her lone drink came in the form of port, which she cringed at when it was placed in front of her along with a plate of chocolate goat’s milk fudge and truffles. He watched her face as she tried the combination, then gloated when her taste buds adjusted and her eyes rolled heavenward.

  All the while they made one long conversation. As soon as one stopped speaking, the other picked right up on the last syllable. They didn’t discuss work, neither hers nor his, but plucked topics out of the atmosphere. He was a mad David Bowie fan, an avid swimmer, kept a copy of Tarzan of the Apes in his emergency roadside kit ‘just in case I’m trapped under an avalanche and I can only read one more book in my life,’ and had a much younger half-sister he hadn’t known until he was 25 and spoke to once a month. Molly revealed her secret passion for romantic comedies with chauvinistic heroes she always hoped stayed chauvinistic and refused to change for the shrewish lady love, the fact that her entire house was furnished from Ikea, and how she’d caught her rail-thin cousin Frank giving himself a blowjob before an Easter dinner.

  Then came the quiet time, the last few nibbles of chocolate and sips of port, the hand-holding and resting of heads on shoulders, the sneaking of kisses and discreet petting where hands could be easily sheltered from watchful eyes.

  ‘Quinn, I’m exhausted,’ she told him after the waitress went away with a request for the bill. ‘I’m ready to go home and get into bed with you.’

  ‘You read my mind,’ he said, and drummed his fingers on the inside of her thigh. ‘That, and it’s just about closing time, so we’re about to be kicked out anyway.’

  The conversation on the drive was less animated but just as continuous. It was past midnight when Molly turned her car into her squat little driveway. After putting the car in park and killing the ignition, she left the headlights pointed at her rectangular living-room window and turned to her passenger.

  ‘I’ve never done this before,’ she said. ‘I’ve never brought a man home. Not to this home, anyway.’

  Quinn grinned and snapped her seatbelt free. ‘You’re having a hell of a week, aren’t you?’

  ‘It’s just … well, I might have a few moments when I look like a deer in the headlights or, God forbid, need to have a little cry.’

  ‘I’ll have to keep that from happening. I’ll just have to keep you occupied.’

  Molly wasn’t so sure his brand of distraction would keep her from momentary hysteria, but as he zigzagged his finger along her thigh and underneath her skirt, she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  She didn’t bother giving him the tour once they were inside, and a glance at him as he followed her into the kitchen indicated that he didn’t seem put out by her lack of manners.

  Scot was another matter. He crouched at the first sight of the unfamiliar human and hissed as Quinn bent down, but after a scratch between the ears the cat had a rapid change of heart and rubbed against Quinn’s legs as Molly filled the dish.

  The cat now occupied with his food, Quinn took a seat at the island counter as though he had done it a dozen times before, and folded his hands in front of him.

  ‘I need a drink,’ she announced, and went to the fridge-freezer for a bottle of rum she kept tucked behind the vodka. She took down two glasses, added ice, then splashed in the liquor. ‘Coke?’

  ‘No, just on the rocks.’

  She smiled as she added soda to her glass. ‘Tonight is the first time I’ve seen you actually drink alcohol. You always order in the bar, but you never drink. I always assumed it was to preve
nt any performance issues.’

  ‘I don’t usually have performance issues unless I’m over-tired,’ he said with a chuckle, and wrapped his big hand around the glass. ‘How long did you watch me before you decided it was time to give me a talking-to?’

  ‘I noticed you right from the start,’ she confessed and took a sip. After the stress of the evening she could have belted it back, but she didn’t want the rum to hit her stomach and create its own performance issue by coming up again. ‘It’s hard not to with your entrance. You’re too gorgeous to miss. Do you ever have women try and pick you up while you’re waiting for your client?’

  ‘I don’t wait long enough for the ones who try and get my attention to get their chance.’ He lifted his glass to his lips, and raised his brows. ‘I noticed you right from the start, as well. Probably before you noticed me. The first thing I noticed about you was your legs while you were stretching at your desk. The next time, you were coming off the elevator and I noticed your ass. It took me a couple of weeks to work my way up to your eyes.’

  It was her eyes he focused on as he took a slow drink, and it was his lips her attention honed in on as he drew his tongue across them. Without the island between them, Molly would have chased the trajectory of his tongue with her own, taking in the taste of rum on his lips and then the heat of his mouth.

  Instead she kicked her shoes onto the floor and thumbed the first couple of buttons of her blouse.

  Quinn cocked his head. ‘Is this some kind of seduction?’

  ‘I’ve decided to leave the seductions up to you. The last time I tried to bring my A-game, you buried me with yours and your little bag of tricks.’

  She grasped the clip at the back of her head and shook her hair free, warming as his gaze continued to appreciate down to the shadow where her shirt split open. She waited for the hot shiver to finish its dance across her shoulders and down her spine before she raised her glass.

  ‘So I’m going to take a big drink of this, and then I’m going to ask you how your day at work was.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to know?’

  ‘No, I’m not sure, but I’m still going to ask.’

  ‘Then, cheers.’ Quinn raised his glass and so did she.

  They held onto each other’s gaze as they drank. Molly was the one to look away when she placed the glass on the tiled surface before her.

  ‘It was a challenge,’ he began. ‘It always is, those rare times when I’d rather be somewhere else. I wasn’t in the mood to start with, and it got worse after I spoke to you at the desk. I almost backed out. I went into the bathroom and gave myself a pep-talk. It was only once I saw the look on her face when she’d seen what you’d done to my back that I really got into it.’

  ‘I wondered about that,’ she said quietly. She was tempted to tell him to stop, but at the same time she desperately wanted to know the effect she’d had on his activities this evening.

  ‘At first, she took it as a challenge. She assumed it was another client who had done it to me and wanted to know who it was. Some of these women travel in circles, you see. I let her believe it was one of her friends, and she got this hungry look on her face like she just found out that someone had gotten a bigger diamond. She wanted to match those marks. I wouldn’t let her. I told her it was bad for business, but that I’d make it up to her.’

  He drained his glass and smirked at her. ‘What got me going was thinking of how you’d react to it. I imagined you’d get this smug look on your face, and at the same time you’d go a little red from embarrassment. You’d tell her exactly what I was doing to you that made you put those marks on me, and you didn’t appreciate another woman trying to fuck up your artistry … but you’re generous.’

  His gaze dropped to her glass, and so did hers, just as the liquid dribbled over the lip and onto the tiles. She cursed and made for the kitchen counter.

  ‘Leave it,’ he said as she stood at the sink.

  Molly’s brain was scrambled, circuitry twisted and sparking with the mismatch of the practical – wiping up the spill – and the fantasy he’d weaved for her.

  After carrying the glass stupidly around the kitchen, she set it on the table and covered her eyes. ‘You are a piece of work.’

  ‘Do you want me to continue?’

  ‘No,’ she said before he had even finished speaking, then laughed behind her fingers. ‘No, and yes. I don’t know.’

  ‘If you’re going to be wishy-washy, I’ll make your mind up for you. Where was I?’

  ‘Generous.’

  ‘That’s right. How generous you are, because in spite of that other woman trying to step on your toes, you’d let me eat her pussy. You’d let me do it if you got to sit back and watch.’

  Molly bit her lip and let the thrill of his words sizzle through her. ‘Why would I do that, when I can have you all to myself?’

  ‘Because it makes you horny, just like listening to me talk about it is getting you horny right now.’ He paused, bit his lip and gave a low rumble as he looked down her body. ‘Come over here so I can play with you while I tell you the rest.’

  She went to him and slipped her arms over his broad shoulders, but he barred her from hopping into his lap. Instead, he splayed his hands on her, one on her ass and the other on her belly.

  ‘Get undressed for me.’

  ‘I have a bedroom and a bed with lots of room to get adventurous.’

  He shook his head and tugged her blouse from her skirt. ‘I’ll see it soon enough. I just want to see how turned on you are while I’m telling stories. Strip down for me now like you did the last time we were together. Then I’ll keep talking.’

  Molly shimmied out of her skirt without leaving his orbit. He moved his hands only when she needed him to, and once she was down to bra and bikinis he guided her hands onto his shoulders and pulled her closer.

  The lord of suspense, she named him as he kissed her. It wasn’t enough to fuck her and get her off. He had to build that charge in her blood. A tongue that evaded hers, fingers that tugged at her bra straps to loosen the cups but didn’t stroke her the way she ached to be stroked, that flat palm pressed against her ass serving as a reminder of the pleasure-pain that had sparked from her skin when he’d spanked her.

  And then he took it away. She was starting to get used to it, but when he withdrew and nudged her a little apart from him she still felt like she’d had the rug pulled out from under her. He disoriented her, and at the same time he kept her grounded.

  As he slipped his fingers inside her panties, Molly grasped his collar. ‘Go on. Tell me why I’d want to watch first.’

  Quinn smiled as he pinched her clit between two fingers, then laughed when the pulse made her tremble from head to toe.

  ‘It’s not that you like to watch. I don’t think that’s your kink. What would get you off is knowing that I’d be thinking of you the whole time. That’s what’s getting you hot right now. Push your panties down for me, angel.’

  She obeyed, grateful as he propped her on one knee. Her legs had begun to wobble and the balls of her feet to ache from rocking in tune with the perfect cadence of his fingers.

  ‘Do you get hard when you work?’ she asked as his attention narrowed on the wet folds he had exposed.

  ‘Obviously.’ A smile curved his mouth as he glanced up at her. ‘It’s not hard to get an erection, or have an orgasm. The work comes in giving one, though tonight, thinking about you is what got me hot – imagining you watching me suck and lick her, your legs parted and your cunt as swollen and wet as it is now.’

  ‘Did you fuck her?’

  ‘She sucked me off.’

  His gaze returning between her legs, he twitched his finger on the underside of her clit. The action chased away the unease that his frank admission brought from her, and she was left with a breathless feeling that could only be described as perverted. In her mind, she put herself on the throne where he had placed her in his fantasy, watching from the sidelines as another woman swallowed hi
s cock.

  She placed her hand over his to guide him. ‘Did you come in her mouth?’

  ‘On her face, but if she was half as good at deep-throating me as you I would have come on her tits and pretended it was you.’

  Oh, such a wicked reminder flashed into her mind as she pushed his fingers back and forth over slick flesh.

  ‘Are we done talking?’ he asked, looking at her as he pushed into her. ‘You know I love teasing you, but if my dick gets any harder I could punch a hole in the countertop. I need to be inside you.’

  ‘I agree, you need to be inside me, but we’re not done talking. Can you …’

  He wasted no time unseating her and plucking a condom from his pocket. He wrapped his dick, and with one hand on her hip he used the other to cork her with the tip.

  Molly eased down, moaning as he slid over the sweet spot, and drew his hand back between her legs.

  ‘I want to hear more. I don’t want to hear about the vanilla stuff, the lonely socialites and businesswomen who need a spank. I want to hear something that’ll really turn me on and keep me turned on all night.’

  ‘I could write a book,’ he murmured, his mouth against her shoulder. ‘Narrow it down. What do you want to hear about?’

  ‘A threesome.’ She grasped his thighs for leverage and leaned forward, and wasn’t sure if his long, low moan was from the way she squeezed around him or the sight of his length emerging from the wet shelter of her cunt.

  ‘Men or women, or both?’

  She closed her eyes and held her breath, tongue pressed to her teeth as each scenario played in her head. The gentle rhythm of his fingers around her clit became urgent with his breathless laughter as he lifted and pushed into her again.

  ‘How about a foursome? The time I was flown to God-knows-where to play a part?’

  ‘By who?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know,’ he teased. He slid his hand from her hip to her back and pushed until she was poised away from him.

  ‘I thought I had a face you could trust.’

  ‘Work those hips for me and I’ll tell you my bank account number,’ he said, laughing through a moan. ‘He heard about my talents through a mutual acquaintance. I had to sign a confidentiality agreement. I thought I was going to have to open a vein and sign in my own blood. I signed, I went on a private jet and I congratulated myself on being some prize buck for hire. But when I got there … you would have loved it.’