Page 15 of Taste

I didn’t know where Christensen had gone. It was barely past midnight, so he probably wasn’t in bed yet. The light in his office was still on, but then Malik tended to use it at night, so that was no indicator. I fielded a string of texts from an acquaintance hosting an impromptu storm night at the club he owned, and I cursed myself for not coming up with the same idea. I could have sold a month’s worth of alcohol to our stranded guests, bringing in well-needed revenue alongside a good pat on the back. I had no idea where all my brilliant ideas had gone, my mind sinking fast as I’d laughed at some incident Malik was retelling, not taking in a single word of what he’d actually said.

It wasn’t that I was looking for him; I just needed to calm my frazzled nerves, put myself back together until I had to face the less-than-five-hour prison sentence of sharing a room with him, the one he had so carelessly offered me. It wouldn’t be the restful sleep my body needed; it would be a shitty night of tossing and turning, while he huffed and puffed before we both combusted in a cloud of profanities, him snarling in his sharp, northern dialect, me mouthing off like a petulant child.

I tried my best to breathe deep and slow as I skulked around the back offices, which were comfortably deserted and surprisingly tidy after the evening we’d had. Coffee cups were stacked in the small break room, where laundry bags full of wet rags festered in a corner, but at least they were neatly stacked in waterproof bags. The reservation area was bathed in darkness with only the small lights from the modems and servers blinking every now and then and the air smelt of burnt coffee and sour milk. Like a thief in the night, I slipped into the storage cupboard and helped myself to a toothbrush, deciding that shaving would be overkill. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone, which was as well. Beard-growing wasn’t a skill my body had mastered, but I looked good with a bit of stubble.

There was no way I was ready to head up to that room, and I was definitely not showering up there. I refused to lay myself that bare or allow him the satisfaction of me trying to make small talk while he shot tiny daggers of displeasure at me from his perfectly formed mouth. I could feel them already, like needle sticks in my skin. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him, yet here I was, trapped like an animal in a cage, wandering aimlessly and hoping to find one last job to drain the residual energy from my battered body and mind.

My master key slid through the slot in the lift key reader, and I pressed35. Pool and Spa.

I’d done this before—had a cheeky swim in the middle of the night, letting my body release some pent-up steam and my mind relax in the salt water. The hotel pool closed overnight, so there would be no one there now, and the showers were good and strong, the towels always clean and fluffy. And anyway, the people who ran the spa loved me, so I could get away with most things. Like using their essential oil soaps and leaving a dirty towel or two in the changing rooms after hours.

I stripped down to my underwear, letting my clothes fall carelessly on the tiled floor before finally taking the time to properly clean the wound on my hand. I wasn’t trim or muscular, but where in my youth I’d been naturally slim with a good build, I now sported more roundness and the beginning of a pair of love handles on my hips. I’d been eating more lately and seemed more stable in my head, which was a small but no doubt temporary relief. I wasn’t back to myself, still treading a thin line of medicated calm.

My eyes were drawn to the once-treasured tattoos adorning my chest and arms, stupid things I had thought were brave and clever as a young man, which now made me smile and shake my head in hopeless admiration for the immature child I had been back then.

I had grown up with a mother who adored me and a father who held me up on his shoulders and told me I was amazing. It had never occurred to me to question their love or their motives. We’d been family, solid and strong, holding each other tight. My parents’ sudden divorce had hit like a thunderbolt, ripping my life to shreds and sinking me into a hole of despair, something I had struggled to recover from ever since because I wasn’t that amazing, or else my dad wouldn’t have discarded our substandard little family for a brand-new one. He’d not even come back for his things, just bought a new house and what seemed like a new life with the perfect new wife and children to fit his new car and set of shiny new golf clubs. Life had moved on, and I had lived mine hard and fast after that, leaving no time to stop and reflect. No time to let myself think too much of the consequences. I had to protect myself from the lie of true love and repeating the hell my mum, my sister and I had gone through.

We’d lost our home, swapping it for a small bedsit. I’d been yanked out of my school into a rough new one. I had loved and lost, yet I still tried to live like my mum had once taught me, grasping every moment and turning it into something worth remembering. I just didn’t understand how I had let myself steer off track. Somehow, I had grown this new strange fucked-up fear, become timid in my emotions, all because of the twat who threw his weight around the reception desk and pushed all my buttons, one at a time, until my head felt like it would explode.

The bloodstain came out of my trousers with some cold water and soap, and I shook them and hung them up to dry on the heated rail on the side. I congratulated myself on my skills, again thanking my restaurant career for allowing me to learn all those useful little tricks. I could get stains out of anything, and my wound was fine. I’d had more stitches than I cared to remember, and I was grateful for all my digits still being firmly attached to my hands, sparing a smile at the thought of Ben, who would forever show off his missing fingertips and the scars from knife wounds and burns on his arms and hands. The guy was a god running a kitchen but a disaster when it came to going anywhere near anything with sharp edges.

The pool wasn’t big enough for a swan dive, so I just slid in from the side wearing only my boxers, letting my head sink fully under the water. I floated for a few minutes on my back, hoping the stress would evaporate into the warmth. It didn’t. Of course.

Instead, I thought of Finn Christensen. Thought of the way his neck stretched when he looked at me over his shoulder. When he thought I wasn’t looking right back at him. Of the way he moved when he walked. I closed my eyes and imagined his body, naked. I knew he had some ink on his skin, dark shapes on his chest that sometimes shone through the fabric of his shirts. My mind played tricks on me again, and before I knew it, I felt my skin start to tingle.

I remembered him holding me down. Fucking into my mouth, making me choke on his length. I could almost feel his fingers in my hair, tugging hard as my body recalled the taste of him, filling my mouth with saliva and sending my all my blood to the last place I needed it to be. The thoughts that filled my head at night, when I stroked myself to a shuddering climax, all revolved around Finn Christensen, usually involving his cock in my mouth and his voice demanding me to let him have his way with me. Use me. Fuck my mouth while my hands were helplessly tied behind my back, and my knees would ache from the strain of letting him own me, use me and almost abuse me until I would spill into the sheets and whimper his name into the nothingness of my bedroom. It was no good. Especially not here in the pool where the risk of being seen with a boner would do me no favours. None at all.

So, I swam. Length after length of aggressive strokes, until my arms ached and my breaths were short and fast. I stopped in the middle of the pool and flicked my head back to get the water out of my eyes.

“Whoa. Take it easy with the splashing.” The voice startled me to the point that I almost swore as my heart attempted to box its way out of my chest.

He was sitting on his haunches at the edge of the pool, still in his suit and tie, immaculate as always, not a hair out of place. His fingers trailed aimlessly in the warm water.

“Give a guy some warning if you’re going to scare the shit out of him. And anyway, the spa’s closed, mate.” I winked, hoping he would take it for what it was. A joke.

I wasn’t supposed to be here. Staff were not allowed to use the facilities after hours. Officially, staff were not allowed to use the facilities, full stop. But as he knew only too well, following rules had never been my strong suit.

“Quinton,” he almost pleaded with me, a tiny twinkle of amusement in his voice.

“Christensen,” I pleaded back, swimming slowly towards him. I hoped he knew what he was doing, because I sure didn’t. My mind was scooting off at a hundred miles an hour again, bursting with ideas, none of them good. None of them were sensible or mature.

“Get out of the fucking pool before security check the cameras. I can’t be arsed with filling in reports after the night we’ve had. Especially reports about senior staff members breaching protocol.”

He couldn’t be fucking serious. But then he could. He could be an arse if he wanted to be, particularly when I was treading on thin ice. Or, in fact, treading water.

So, I did what I did. Because I was, and always would be, a fucking idiot.

I grabbed his tie, and with a swift flick of my hand, I had him off-balance, and Finn Christensen tumbled head first into the pool.

FINN

“FUCKING HELL, YOU ARSEHOLE!” My eyes stung from the salt-and-chlorine-infused water and my suit clung to me as I clumsily treaded water. I couldn’t believe he’d done it! He was clearly as insane as everyone said he was.

He was laughing. Of course he was. Laughing that brilliant laugh and reaching out to grab my hand so he could pull me towards the edge of the pool.

“I know how to swim,” I protested and batted at him like the child I was.

“It’s not easy when you’re wearing a suit,” he said, smiling at me from beneath his wet fringe and looking…I hated that I admitted it…ethereally perfect. Beautiful. Gorgeous in all that skin and water. A droplet sparkled on his top lip, and I wanted to kiss it off—just one more thing that made my rage crank another degree closer to boiling point.

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