To: Gabe Foster

From: Dylan Mitchell

 

One Week Later

I sigh and slump slightly before flicking the key card into the slot outside my hotel room in Amsterdam. The light turns green, and I walk in and lean against the door with a relieved sigh. It has been a truly fucking awful week, only topped by the last two days in Verbier which had been hellish.

We’d walked in silence back to the chalet the night of the skiing lesson, with the tension simmering between us. At one point, I’d slipped on some ice and he’d grabbed me, holding me close enough to see how dark his eyes had gone before shoving me away as if I had Ebola. That had been the last time I’d been close enough to touch him.

He’d conducted our work time in the chalet after this as if I was in another room. He was distant and cool, and when I’d met his eyes, it was like ice had flowed over him. There were no more cosy working sessions while the others went out. Instead, he’d gone out with them, leaving me alone to do what I wanted.

It had hurt to find out he’d told Fletcher that he couldn’t ski. Fletcher had immediately booked lessons for him, which was probably something I should have done in the first place.

I’d taken to walking out by myself or skiing solo, taking the cable car up to the top of the mountain. I’d seen them all once when I was drinking a hot chocolate, prior to skiing back down. They’d been sitting out at a table with a fantastic view and the sun shining down on them. They’d looked rich and sleek, and more than one eye had been on the group, but I doubted anyone else watching Gabe slide a hand into Fletcher’s hair and kiss him would have flinched the way that I did. I had put down my drink and left, and that night I hadn’t gone to dinner. Instead, I had sat in the kitchen with the rest of the staff. He hadn’t sent for me.

The situation hadn’t improved when we got back, but it did ease somewhat because Gabe had vanished to help one of the other departments with a case, leaving me alone to finalise the arrangements for the conference.

It had always been customary for me to go with Gabe when he was giving lectures, as he needed my organisational help, and more often my social skills to get him out of whatever situation his high-handedness had got him into. However, for the whole week I’d half expected him to tell me that he didn’t need me this time, but he’d said nothing.

He had, however, for the first time in our history taken an earlier flight on his own, telling me coolly that he was meeting friends for drinks in Amsterdam. I’d nodded numbly and tried hard to enjoy the luxury of business class on my own, but it was difficult when I was used to his acerbic commentary.

I shake my head. Enough malingering. I look up for the first time at my room and gasp. Surely there has to have been a mistake, because I’m in one of the nicest rooms I’ve ever seen. I look around. Strike that, I’m in a suite. It’s decorated sumptuously with black and gold wallpaper, and has tall windows through which I can see lines of trees swaying in the breeze. The French oak bed is huge and made up with pristine, white bed linens, and through one door I can see a lounge area with purple, velvet sofas and a large, flat screen TV. Through another I can see a bathroom with an unusual copper, free standing tub under a Velux window. The whole suite looks like a set in a play.

I lean over to look out of the window at the charming, gabled houses lining the canal, and the water sparkling in the evening sunshine. A young couple wanders past, hand in hand and laughing with their heads together, and I feel a pang of envy that I immediately force to one side.

I look around and sigh. Okay, lovely as this room is, it’s time for me to man up to the mistake. I grab the card and make my way out, and back to the elevator. The hotel is truly gorgeous, combining luxury with a boutique feel, and I’m not surprised that Gabe always stays here when he’s in Amsterdam. 

The elevator doors open and I make my way over to the reception desk, which is really just an antique, shiny walnut table only just large enough to hold the sleek console. Practical it isn’t. Behind it sits a dark-haired woman dressed in the hotel uniform.

“Hello,” I smile. “I’ve just checked in for the conference, and I think you might have made a mistake with the room that I’ve been given.”

She looks immediately distressed, as if I’ve announced that there’s a dead body in my room. “Oh dear, I’m so sorry. Is there something wrong with the room?”

“Oh God, no,” I laugh, running my hands through my hair. “It’s just far too nice for me. I was expecting a standard single room, and instead I’ve been given a suite.”

She takes my name and taps busily away on the sleek keyboard in front of her, staring intently at the monitor before shaking her head. “Oh no, Mr Mitchell, there’s no mistake. Mr Foster rang up a week ago and changed the previous booking to include that suite specifically for you.”

“Not for himself?” I check, my heart hammering slightly.

“No, definitely not. Mr Foster is in the Jansen Suite, where he always stays when he’s with us.” She smiles happily. “Can I do anything else for you? Would you like a selection of newspapers delivered in the morning, or to have breakfast in your room?”

I shake my head. “No, that’s fine, thank you. I have an appointment with Lars de Vries in a few minutes to finalise the details for Mr Foster’s speech, but I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”

I step away from the desk as she smiles her goodbye, her smile wide and white. My brain is whirring. Why did Gabe book me in a suite? He’s never done that before. That’s not to say he’s a skinflint, because I always travel very well when I’m with him. He’s a generous boss, unlike some of the other partners who believe that their assistants should stay in rooms at which a dog would turn its nose up. One of the Grinchy old gits had once even made his assistant stay over the other side of town from him. She’d had to travel across town every day at an early hour just to be ready for him, and he had kept her late, giving no thought to her safety in going back to her room.

However, travelling well with Gabe doesn’t usually mean a suite. A thought comes to mind that maybe he’s making up for the accommodation in Verbier, but I dismiss it immediately. Much as I hate it, I don’t think I come into his thoughts that much, or at all.

A tingle on the back of my neck makes me turn with a sense of inevitability, and I watch as Gabe walks into the foyer. He’s dressed casually in dark jeans, a garnet-red jumper and Vans, and he looks amazing with the tan still on his olive skin from the time away.

However, my attention is fixed on the man that he’s with. Stunningly beautiful, he’s willowy thin with dark-red hair. Dressed in tight, black jeans and a black jumper, he’s clinging to Gabe’s hand with his body nestled close to him, and possession stamped all over him.

From the safety of my spot behind a pillar, I watch them with a pain in my chest. I know Gabe and Fletcher aren’t faithful to each other. I’ve had enough evidence over the years to prove that. But to see this hurts, because I know now that when he pulled back from me in Verbier, it wasn’t because he couldn’t do anything. It was because he didn’t want to. He didn’t want me, and all the distance since then has been his way of telling me this. Maybe he’s being kind and letting me grab the hint, rather than being blunt, but my face still burns.

A wild thought comes to me that maybe he and Fletcher have discussed me. Maybe he told Fletcher I have a crush on him. I feel mortification and hurt, but also inside me a tiny ember of anger catches light, because what the fuck is wrong with me? Yes, I believe in monogamy and being faithful, but that doesn’t make me a dinosaur, and it doesn’t mean that I think people who do the opposite are wrong. I believe in live and let live, but maybe they think I’m provincial and naive. I know Fletcher does, so maybe Gabe does too.

I take one last, long look at the two of them standing at the desk, with Gabe’s hand resting familiarly on the redhead’s arse. Then I make myself turn away, grateful that they haven’t seen me mooning in the corner. I’m going to go back to my fancy suite and order the most expensive and fattening items on the room service menu, and then I’m going to drink my way through the minibar, and charge it all to Gabe.

It’s at this point, with the luck known only to me, that I hear my name being shouted over the foyer. I close my eyes, and open them in time to see Gabe instantly stiffen and turn his head around looking for me. I sigh and turn to see a man coming towards me. He’s tall and slender, standing at about six foot. His dark hair is worn sleek to his head, and he has very blue eyes in an angular, good looking face.

“It is Mr Mitchell, isn’t it?” he asks in beautifully accented English.

I force a smile, aware in the corner of my eye that Gabe is approaching, and dragging his protesting date along with him. “That’s me. Are you Mr de Vries?”

“I am, but it’s Lars, please.” I put out my hand and he takes it, holding it a second longer than normal. I see his eyes flick down my body, before sliding back to mine as he smiles. The whole smooth move takes only seconds and impresses the fuck out of me.

I raise my eyebrow and smile politely. “It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for marking out the time so we can go over the arrangements for tomorrow.”

He shakes his head. “Not at all. It’s a pleasure. Mr Foster is a very valued customer of the hotel, and I know that we want to see him happy.”

The anger coils in me. “Do we really?” I say morosely, and he looks askance at me, before turning as Gabe walks up to us.

Up close he looks tired, with huge, dark circles under his eyes, and to my knowledgeable eye, he looks a bit ragged. It’s the way he always looks when there’s a problem at work, and his busy mind is working to untangle it. Maybe I’m the problem I think grimly. He’s probably working out how to hand me my severance package.

“Ah, Mr Foster,” Lars says politely, holding out his hand to Gabe to shake. “It’s a pleasure, sir.”

Gabe’s date huffs slightly like a spoilt child, and I roll my eyes. Why he always goes for such high maintenance men is beyond me, as he’s congenitally incapable of delivering any social niceties.

I look up in time to see that Gabe has caught my eye roll, and from the look of him he isn’t happy. My thoughts shift to seeing him wrapped around the ginger, and for just a second, inevitably move to that night and his lips against mine. My spine stiffens. Fuck him I think defiantly.

Lars is still talking, unaware that Gabe and I are now actively glaring at each other.

“Mr de Vries was just saying how we all live to make you happy.” My words break across the pleasantries like a gunshot.

“Some more than others,” he returns snidely.

“Yes, perhaps that’s because the others might have an inkling of your charming personality,” I say sweetly. Lars and the redhead are now watching us, with their heads moving from side to side like they’re at Wimbledon.

“Oh, really,” he drawls and shifts to an upright stance, losing the redhead’s hand in the process. “And which group do you find yourself in, Dylan?”

I smile with no warmth. “I’m wherever you put me, like an obedient pet. Just like all the men in your life. I jump when you say jump, just like Rover the happy, executive assistant.”

“Okay,” Gabe says sharply, gripping my arm and dragging me past the other men. “I just need to have a word with Mr Mitchell,” he tells the two men. “We’ll only be a couple of seconds.”

“My, my,” I say snippily. “Only a couple of seconds? That must be how you manage to fit in so many men all the time.” I cast a disparaging look at his groin. “Performance issues.”

“What the fuck is the matter with you?” he hisses, shoving me into a corner out of sight of the others.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with me. I’m just making sure you’re happy. You know I live to do that, so tell me are you happy?”

He glares helplessly at me for a second and then leans forward, grasping my arm. “If this is about Verbier -”

Heat travels down my arm. “Why the fuck would it be about that?” I hiss, grabbing my arm free. “That meant fuck all, didn’t it?”

We stare at each other for a minute, breaths coming fast in agitation, and just for a second, I think his gaze falls to my lips. Then his expression hardens, and he steps back. “Yes, fuck all,” he says coldly.

“Excellent,” I enunciate, clearly mocking him. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to the job of making sure that you have everything you need.”

“I don’t think even you can do that,” he says hollowly. I spin back to look at him, but he’s moving too, and I watch as he walks back to the other men who are looking anywhere but at each other. Grabbing the redhead’s hand, he says something to Lars who smiles, before moving his man towards the elevators.

When they get there, as the man is talking animatedly to him, his head shoots up and he sees me watching. Our eyes cling for a second, until with a cold smile, he breaks eye contact, bends down, and takes the redhead’s mouth in a long kiss.

Bile fills my mouth and I swallow hard, but I make sure my face is expressionless when Gabe comes up for air. Ignoring the man clutching him he immediately looks at me, and I make sure he sees me look him up and down dismissively, before moving away to where Lars is standing waiting patiently.

I give him a quick flicker of a smile. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Not at all. Is there something for you to sort out with Mr Foster? Anything you need to fix, because I can wait?”

I look back at the elevators. The two men have gone. “Nothing,” I say hollowly. “There’s nothing fixable here.”

***

The next afternoon I sit at the back of the crowd, listening to the closing lines of his speech while trying to read something on my Kindle. It’s futile, because every inch of me is trained on that deep, rich voice.

Somebody slips into the seat next to me, and I close my Kindle cover, looking over to see Lars smiling at me. “It has gone well?” he asks, leaning close so that he can whisper.

I nod. “As usual.”

“I was wondering …” He pauses. “You are in Amsterdam on your own, yes?” I nod. “Well, would you like to come out with my friends and me, to grab some dinner and visit a club?”

At that point, Gabe finishes, and everyone stands up to clap enthusiastically. The two of us automatically do the same, and I think hard. Gabe will more than likely be making his own arrangements with the redhead, and the thought of sitting lonely in my room with a meal for one doesn’t appeal to my pride. Fuck him, the new defiant me thinks. If he needs me for anything he’ll have to wait.

Everyone sits down, and the event organiser stands up to wrap up the event. I lean close and speak into Lars’s ear. “I’d love that. Thank you.”

He smiles, but I become aware that someone is staring at me. Craning my head discreetly I see Gabe sitting on the podium, his silver-grey eyes looking at how close Lars is sitting to me. He has a dark frown on his face.

Lars looks up following my gaze, and gives a mock shudder. “Ooh, your boss looks very cross, like he’s planning to murder someone.”

“Me, probably,” I say gloomily.

He smiles. “He is a tricky customer. Rather you than me.” I shrug, and he leans in and hugs me. “I’ll wait in the foyer for you. Is eight o’clock too early?”

I smile distractedly as I watch Gabe’s hand close in a tight fist. Something is annoying him. Maybe he’d had a tough time with questions when I’d nipped to the loo. “Yes, eight o’clock is fine,” I say slowly.

A few hours later, I take a look at myself in the long, antique mirror near the door. I had a nap this afternoon and then had a long, hot shower, so I feel clean and rested. I’m dressed in my dark, skinny jeans with a hunter-green v-neck t-shirt. The v is deep and shows off quite a portion of my chest, which is tanned from Verbier. I slide my feet into my stone-coloured desert boots, and then grab my parka as it’s bloody freezing outside.

I’m more than ready for a meal and to go to a club. Maybe I’ll even find someone and have a good, hard fuck. That’s probably what the matter is with me at the moment. It’s been a bit of a dry spell.

I shake my head, grab my room card, and let myself out of the room only to jerk to a stop and stare at Gabe. He’s standing at my door and obviously preparing to knock.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, forgetting my anger for a second, which is probably a good idea as he’s still my boss.

He runs his eyes over me, and they seem to linger on my package cupped lovingly by the tight denim of my jeans. “I was coming to get you for dinner.”

“Sounds a wee bit cannibalistic. Are they not serving normal options on the menu then?” He regards me stonily. “Oh, bad luck anyway,” I make myself say cheerily. “I’ve been asked to go out and see Amsterdam. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Why?”

“Well, because I thought that you’d found your own company,” I say lamely.

“But I normally eat with you on these trips,” he says stubbornly, and I hold my hands out helplessly.

“It’s the boring dinner for the speakers. Be real, Gabe. You don’t need me to do anything for you tonight. It’s just a meal.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t want you to come to help me. I just thought we’d eat together like always.” For a second he looks sad, which has the effect of making me angry again, because for one brief moment, I was prepared to ditch Lars and go with Gabe, anything to make him happy. Grow a fucking backbone I tell myself. Man the fuck up and get on with your life.

I make myself smile. “Well, sorry, but I’ve already made plans.”

“Are you going out with Lars?” he interrupts, his voice tense. “He was sitting very close to you today.”

I stare at him. Anyone else would say he’s jealous, but he can’t be. He doesn’t want me and made that very clear in Verbier, but apparently he can’t bear anyone to try and have a nibble. Fuck him.

“Yes, him and some friends.” I look at my watch. “Well, I must be going. I should be meeting him about now. Have a good night, Gabe.”

I leave him standing outside my room, and I can feel his eyes watch me every step of the way. It’s harder than I would like to leave.

Lars’s friends prove to be nice. They’re artistic, and as he and I seem to be the only ones that work in the corporate world, they entertain themselves by taking the gentle piss out of us.

“I do not mind,” he shouts into my ear. “I have ambitions of my own, and what I do at the moment suits me.” We’re sitting thigh to thigh on a small sofa in a nightclub in the Rembrandtplein area. The large table in front of us is crammed with empty glasses and bottles, and we lost his friends to the dance floor half an hour ago. Lars however, seems content to sit and chat.

“You are very good-looking,” he says suddenly, trailing one long finger up my thigh to linger at my groin.

I sigh at my very uninterested crotch and smile weakly. “So are you.” The irony is that he looks gorgeous, especially dressed as he is now in all black.

His finger moves, running along my zipper. “But yet I think you are still not interested. It is Mr Foster, yes?”

I look up startled. “Oh, no I -”

He interrupts me. “It is very obvious, my friend, the intensity of emotion.”

I groan and throw my head back. “Shit, I have got to learn not to show my feelings on my face. My mum always says that I show what I’m feeling all over me.”

He looks surprised. “Oh, Dylan, I did not mean you, although yes, I can tell how much you like him. No, I meant Mr Foster.”

“Gabe,” I explode. “Jesus, you must be joking. Arnold Schwarzenegger has more of a range of emotions than Gabe.”

He smiles and shakes his head. “No joke. I saw it immediately. Mr Foster has very intense feelings for you. It is telegraphed all over his face, and when you came back to speak to me in the foyer yesterday he was watching very closely from the elevator.”

“No, he wasn’t. He was kissing the redhead.”

He shakes his head authoritatively. “Not really. I think that was done to rile you up, and maybe push you away. I do not know. I think Mr Foster is a very confusing man and hard to read, but I know one thing …” He looks at me. “When you hugged me to you this afternoon, he was watching, and his whole body said that he wanted to rip you away from me.”

I sigh. “I wish that was true,” I say sadly, something about Lars making me trust him. “But even if he felt something, we’re very wrong for each other. We don’t mesh.”

“Sometimes that makes the best relationships.” He shrugs. “Sometimes the worst.” He makes a face. “Who knows which one you will be?”

I smile. “Neither of those. We’re nothing.” I look at him. “I like you, and I’m sorry that you’ve had a wasted night.”

He shakes his head. “It’s never wasted time when you meet a new friend. You will give me your number and we can text each other, and if you are in Amsterdam again I will take you out and show you more.”

I nod, giving him my number which he taps into his phone and then gives me his. He looks up, and the smile on his face turns thoughtful as he looks at something over my shoulder. “We are friends now, yes?” I nod. “Then I apologise in advance, Dylan.”

I open my mouth to ask what for, but he moves quickly, pulling me to him and fitting his mouth to mine. For a second I’m held immobile by shock, and he slides his tongue into my mouth, holding my hair in his hands. Before I can push him away, he sits back and smiles at someone behind me. “Hello Mr Foster, what a surprise to see you here.”

Shock holds me rigid for a second, and then I twist in my seat to find Gabe standing there with a look that could kill on his face. He’s dressed in black jeans and a long-sleeved, black shirt, which highlights the length of his body and the width of his broad shoulders. He looks angry and hot as hell, and my cock stirs when it wouldn’t even twitch at Lars’s kiss. I’m fucked.

Lars nods happily at something and stands up gracefully. “And now I will go and find my friends and dance. Dylan, I will see you again I know. Goodnight, Mr Foster.”

I smile weakly at him, and Gabe completely ignores him, focusing his attention instead on glaring at me. When he’s gone the silence grows, and the sound of the music swells between us. I watch Gabe’s hands open and close in fists. “What are you doing here?” I shout. “Did you know I was here?”

He shakes his head, and with that sudden, swift grace that is so much a part of him, he throws himself next to me in the space that Lars has just vacated. He stares at me. “I asked the woman at the desk where Lars had gone tonight, and she told me this was his usual haunt.”

“Why on earth would you do that?” I ask with mounting anger. “Were you fucking checking up on me, Gabe? Because I’ve got to be honest, you’ve got the whole dog in the manger situation going on with you at the moment.”

He’s breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling swiftly as he stares away as if thinking hard, and then I visibly see something snap in him. It must be his control, because in the next second he turns and brings my face to his. Holding my cheekbones, he looks into my eyes. “Shut the fuck up, Dylan,” he says harshly, and then he kisses me.

It isn’t a tentative kiss this time. Instead, it’s full of heat and a harsh, driving lust, as he takes my mouth, eating at it and groaning deep in his throat. I go under immediately. He stiffens for a second when I wrap my hands around the back of his head, and it occurs to me he’s expecting me to throw him off. Instead, I moan and bring him in deeper, sliding my tongue over his and into his mouth, where he meets it and suckles gently on it. One or both of us groan, and then we explode into action.

I sit up and move, and he meets me, bringing me over him until I’m straddling his lap in this dark corner of the club. The strobe lights flash behind my eyelids, and all around us is the driving beat of Layo & Bushwacka’s ‘Love Story’, but I pay no attention at all. My mind and body are now concentrated on his huge, hard cock, and how it feels against my own as I start to grind against him.

We kiss endlessly, lost to something I’ve never felt before. Previously I’ve always kept a part of myself back in these situations, always aware of who’s around, because gay men can’t afford to be unaware. Maybe it’s because it’s him and I feel safe, or maybe it’s because I’ve never known such an intense desire before, where I feel like I’ll die if he doesn’t come inside me. Whatever it is has me fumbling at the zipper on his jeans in seconds, and he’s helping me, arching his back to bring his groin nearer to me.

Then he stops and pulls back. His silver eyes have gone dark and heavy with desire, but awareness is returning.

“Not again,” I groan, but he shakes his head, taking my mouth again briefly with a harsh groan before pulling back.

“Not here,” he says, his voice wrecked. “I don’t want you here like this. Let me take you back to the hotel. I want you in my bed.”

“You’re not backing out?” I ask in amazement, and he shakes his head firmly.

He grabs my narrow hips, hauling me into him, and we both moan at the feel of the other’s hard cock. “I can’t,” he gasps urgently. “I can’t stop now, Dylan. I know all the arguments I’ve used in the past off by heart. You work for me, and I’m not what you’re looking for. But I can’t stop this anymore. I need to be inside you so badly, it’s all I can think about. Maybe we can fuck this feeling away.”

His words penetrate my daze, and I pull back. It almost sounds as if he resents wanting me. Then he grinds up into me and groans. “Come back with me please, Dylan. I need to fuck you so bad.”

I look down at him. I know deep inside me that this is going to end badly, but a bit of me feels it’s inevitable. I run my fingertips over his wickedly arched eyebrows. “Yes.”