Holding My Breath. AM Hartnett

against her panties was from remembering it. After filling Scot’s bowl, she delved into the fridge-freezer and pulled out a frosted bottle of vodka.

      It was fire and ice as it went down, and just what she needed. There was a time when she used to add a splash of soda and juice, but since her marriage failed and two had become one, she took her liquor neat.

      In fact, the last time she’d diluted her liquor was the same night she last had sex. It had been her anniversary, and she and Aaron had returned from an uncomfortable dinner. As he’d showered, she’d gulped down a screwdriver – her second – and resigned herself to the inevitability of sex that night. She was sure that Aaron was as unenthusiastic as she was, but when they’d got into bed together he was hard. Less than a minute of foreplay preceded sex that not even lubricant could make bearable. When it was over he had slept, and Molly took herself downstairs. Sore between her legs, her soul dried and brittle, she’d poured herself another drink and wiped away tears that squeezed out from behind her eyelids like acid.

      It was an episode she tended to dwell over when she’d had a bad day and needed a drink. She’d sit at the kitchen table and sip, brimming with resentment at Aaron for not making an effort to make her come. As the vodka soaked into her brain, she’d drag up all of his faults, sexual and otherwise, before turning to hers until she passed out drunk.

      Not tonight. Tonight, something wonderful and electric ran thick through her veins.

      She leaned against the island and thought of Quinn’s tongue gliding between her pussy lips. For as long as she’d live, she’d never forget it.

      She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth as her thoughts turned to how unabashedly he’d watched her while she sucked him, like he’d needed to forge the same connection she craved, in order to get off.

      Was it always like that for him? Was it a part of the package? Flick a switch and he’d turn on all that virility that made a woman feel like fucking her was the best goddamn thing to ever happen to him?

      She didn’t want to think about it. Not with the bite of her drink mingling with the lethargy he’d left her with and creating a delectable potion in her blood. She left the bottle to perspire on the tiles and pulled her dress over her head as she went barefoot down the hall.

      An odd feeling struck her just before she reached the bathroom. She halted and turned, stomach churning and hands turning cold as she reached out. The knob on the spare-room door was old and loose and rattled when she wrapped her hand around it.

      Every so often, usually on a Saturday morning when a long weekend stretched bland and empty before her, she’d get it into her head that she’d replace the whole door and sometimes would even make it to the hardware store. Wandering the aisles, she’d be dazzled by paint chips and crown moulding and think about what she could do with the room inside if she could hold onto that ambition that crept in. Yet she always left the hardware store empty-handed and weak-kneed.

      It had been weeks since she’d stood before this door like this, but only hours since she’d thought about it. Usually its presence rushed at her towards the end of the day when her feet began to ache and her thoughts would turn to home, and the room would linger.

      She’d last thought about it as she rode the elevator up to the honeymoon suite, and then Quinn had wiped her life’s entire residue away. She hadn’t thought about the room at all.

      Molly reached up and with her index finger traced the shape of the rubber-duck sticker on the outside of the door. Guilt about having forgotten about the room made her arm tingle and threaten to go numb. Rather than welcome it like she usually did, she took a step back and squared her shoulders.

      ‘Not today,’ she said almost cheerfully.

      Not today, she repeated in her head as she ventured into the bathroom. Not on a day when a man as wicked as Quinn had awakened that part of herself she never thought she’d see again.

      Today she was going to be that woman whose knees were a little burned from the carpet and whose thigh muscles gave an aching whimper with every step, and who was immensely proud of both.

      It was that woman who emerged from the bathroom in her kimono, still damp and leaving small puddles as she made her way back to the foyer. She collected her purse from where she’d dropped it by the door and pulled out her phone, then returned to the sofa.

      One didn’t simply pick Quinn out of the adult personals. The night she’d called Nick into her office, she’d sat with her hands folded on the desk in front of her as he made the call. She’d read about websites dedicated to connecting with gigolos, but according to Nick this small network of men who worked the local hotels found their clients via referral. Front-desk clerks and bartenders kept names and earned their cuts, more affiliates than pimps. They made the calls and provided contact details. Quinn, Nick explained, wasn’t available at short notice. He had a list of clients he served several times a week, and he took on new ones at his discretion.

      A detailed message had been left on Quinn’s voicemail, and a few hours later, as Molly was settling into bed, he sent a text to his ‘prospective client’. The exchange had been short and businesslike. He named his price, noting that any special requests would cost extra. Particular fantasies could be sent via email. She texted back that she just wanted to sample the fixed menu, and a date and time was agreed upon.

      As the newscast on the television provided white noise just beyond her attention span, Molly scrolled back and forth through those messages. She’d been frustrated at the time of the exchange, but now she understood it. He was The Boss, the CEO of a very lucrative business, and the biggest fucking deal in his world, and he conducted himself as such.

      Was that why she had done what she had done? She couldn’t work it out, and she couldn’t stand not knowing why she had taken him up on his offer.

      But she didn’t have the same conviction that she should regard today as a one-off as she’d had when she left him in the room to clean himself up. The allure of meeting him again had become a constant burn that grew hotter and hotter every second she spent thinking about it.

      She rested her head against the sofa back and blew out a sigh. Eyes closed, she let herself slip back into that honeymoon suite. She tingled with the same anticipation she’d felt when she’d exposed that hard chest. She tasted the salt from his skin on her tongue and her mouth watered. The low timbre of his laugh penetrated her blood and made her breath quicken.

      She squeezed her fingers around the phone and clamped her knees together. The thought of him turned her on so much that she couldn’t imagine not getting another fix, and soon.

      It’s only for another month and change, she reasoned as she tapped the screen so that the keyboard popped up.

      A ticklish feeling raced through her, as powerful as the arousal she couldn’t and didn’t want to shake.

       I like you.

      His smile as he said it, the one that took over his whole face and made his eyes light up, was what made her want to take on what a select group of women had to pay for. Quinn overflowed with conceit, but was … pleasant, and she liked him right back.

      It was foolish, but Molly couldn’t help but feel that his interest was genuine. Sure, she’d agreed to give him until the new year, and his apparent eagerness to further their arrangement could have been self-preservation, but that option didn’t feel right to her.

      Maybe it was just wishful thinking from a woman who hadn’t had a lover, or even a truly good friend, in a long time, but she felt that something had truly sparked between them, and she was sure she wasn’t mistaken.

      The screen on her phone faded to black, and Molly found herself thinking about his hands and those scars that formed a crosshatch over his knuckles.

      They were far more proof of his manhood than his abilities in bed. Those scars, and the man they made him, were why she had been compelled to stay when she could have walked away. They no longer hinted at something rough and bestial, but perhaps something more complex than just a man whose