Author: Akiko

← Back

I took the whisky. She cracked hers open, poured both into the hotel tumblers and handed me one. Our fingers touched. She didn’t move hers away.

“To booking errors,” she said.

“To booking errors.”

We sat on the end of the bed, a respectable foot apart, and talked. About my day, which made her wince. About hers, which had involved a spa, a bottle of prosecco and Rosie flirting with a lifeguard. She worked in architecture, she said, drew car parks for a living and dreamed about libraries. She laughed easily. She kept forgetting to hold the towel.

The second little bottle came out of the minibar. Then a third. The foot between us became six inches, then nothing. Her bare shoulder rested against my arm. She smelled of hotel shampoo and something warmer underneath.

“Can I tell you something?” she said quietly. “I’ve been wondering for about ten minutes whether you’re going to kiss me.”

So I did. Slow at first. Her mouth tasted of whisky. Her hand came up and curled into my shirt, and the towel slid loose and fell into her lap, and she didn’t pick it up.

Then a knock. Not on the corridor door. On the connecting door to 716.

“Pree?” A woman’s voice, giggly and loud. “Are you up? I’ve brought crisps. And gossip. Let me in.”

Priya pressed her forehead to mine and groaned. “Rosie,” she whispered. “Your call.”

→ I ask her to keep the connecting door shut tonight

→ I tell her to let Rosie in

← Back

“Thanks,” I told Rosie, “but I’d better wait.”

She pouted, shrugged, and drifted back to the bar. “Your loss, lobby man.”

It took forty minutes to reach the front of the queue. By then the flustered receptionist had gone off shift and been replaced by the night manager, a tall woman with short silver-blonde hair and a name badge that said ESME. Thirty-three at most, calm as a lake, the only person in the building who seemed to know what she was doing.

She looked at my booking, looked at her screen and sighed.

“Mr Byrne. I am so sorry. Somebody’s double-booked 714 and we are completely full.” She tapped a few keys. “I have one room left. It’s the penthouse suite. It’s not technically available because the bathroom’s being retiled. But the bed’s fine and so is the view.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Good.” She slid a key across the desk. Then she hesitated. “The bar’s closed, but I’m on until six and I’ve got a kettle in the back office, if you want a cup of tea before you go up. You look like you need it more than I do.”

The lobby was empty now. Rain against the big front windows. She had very grey eyes and she was smiling, just a little.

I looked at the key. Then at her.

→ I take the key, go to bed and sort it all out at checkout

→ I stay for a cup of tea with the night manager

← Back

Rosie’s room was a bomb site. Dresses on every surface, a hair straightener on the desk, three pairs of heels by the door. She kicked off her shoes, dropped onto the bed and patted it.

“Sit. Drink. Talk to me, lobby man.”

I sat. She poured two vodkas from the minibar, mixed them with a can of something orange and handed me one. Then she leaned back on her elbows and the slit in her dress fell all the way open, showing a long pale thigh and the edge of black lace.

“So,” she said. “On a scale of one to ten, how naked was Priya?”

“Nine. There was a towel.”

“Ha! Good for her.” She clinked my glass. “She needs some excitement. She’s been single for a year and she’s driving me mad.”

Through the connecting door I could hear a television. Priya, on the other side, a wall away.

Rosie talked. Her job in recruitment, her ex who’d moved to Dubai, the lifeguard at the spa. She talked fast and laughed loud, and every few minutes she touched me: my arm, my knee, my chest. She was nursing the same drink the whole time, I noticed, sharp-eyed and completely clear-headed under all the noise.

Then she put her glass down, slid her hand up my thigh and pulled me down onto the bed beside her. Her mouth found mine, hot and confident.

“I’m not drunk, before you ask,” she murmured against my lips. “I know exactly what I’m doing. Do you?”

Her fingers were on my belt. But through the wall I could still hear Priya’s television, and I couldn’t quite stop thinking about a towel and a crooked smile.

→ I let her pull me into bed

→ I admit it is Priya I keep thinking about

← Back

I took the room. It was the right thing to do. She’d been in a towel with a stranger for half an hour; she deserved her room back.

The porter brought up a key for 417. Priya walked me to the door with the towel clutched to her chest.

“For the record,” she said, “you could have stayed.”

“For the record, I’m now regretting it.”

She laughed, kissed me quickly on the cheek and closed the door.

Room 417 was smaller, at the back, overlooking the bins. I showered, finally. I lay on the bed in the hotel robe, flicking channels, wide awake and replaying every second of the last half hour. The towel. The thigh. The way she’d looked at me over her glass.

At twenty to one there was a knock on my door.

Soft. Two taps. Then a voice I already knew.

“Liam? It’s Priya. I, um. You left your phone charger in my room.”

I looked at my phone, plugged into my own charger, sitting on the bedside table. Then I looked at the door.

“Also,” she said, quieter, “I might have used that as an excuse.”

I got up. My heart was going hard. Through the spyhole I could see her in the corridor, a hotel robe belted loosely over what was very obviously nothing at all, her hair down now, a charger cable dangling from one hand.

I had a choice. And I’d spent my whole life making the sensible one.

→ I open the door

→ I stay quiet and pretend to be asleep

← Back

I picked the phone back up. “Actually, don’t worry about it. I’ll sort something out with the guest. Thanks.”

I put it down. Priya was staring at me with her mouth slightly open.

“Did you just turn down a room?”

“I did something impulsive.” I sat back in the chair. “First time. How am I doing?”

“Badly. You’ve got nowhere to sleep.” But she was smiling, slow and pleased, and she patted the bed beside her. “Come here, then. Impulsive man.”

I sat on the edge of the bed. She shuffled closer and leaned against my shoulder, and I could feel the heat of her skin through my shirt. She smelled of soap and gin.

“Here are the rules,” she said. “I’m on holiday. I’m single. I’ve had two gins and I’m not drunk. And I think you’re very handsome in a tired sort of way.” She traced a fingertip along my jaw. “So I’m going to kiss you now, and you’re going to let me decide how far it goes. Deal?”

“Deal.”

She kissed me. Soft, then hungrier. Her hand undid my shirt buttons one by one and slid inside, nails dragging lightly down my chest. The towel slipped and she let it, pressing her bare breasts against me.

Then she pulled back, flushed, eyes bright, and reached for the room service menu on the bedside table.

“I’m also starving,” she said. “Is that unsexy?”

→ I tell her to forget food and let her set the pace

→ I order room service for both of us

← Back

“Give me a minute,” I said, my voice a bit strangled. “I’ll be out in a minute. Then we can talk about it like grown-ups.”

A pause. Then she laughed. “Fair. Very sensible.” I heard the door click shut.

I stood under the water for a long time, half of me congratulating myself and the other half calling me an idiot.

When I came out in a towel, she’d turned the lights down and was in bed in a black vest top, on the far side, the covers pulled up. She’d made a little wall of pillows down the middle.

“Your half,” she said, patting the other side. “Reception can sort it in the morning. I’m too tired to fight anyone.”

So I got in. In my boxers, on my side of the pillow wall, staring at the ceiling and listening to her breathe in the dark.

“Liam,” she said after a while.

“Yeah?”

“That was a very gentlemanly thing you did. In the shower.”

“Thanks.”

“I hated it.” I heard the smile in her voice. Then the rustle of a pillow being moved. “This wall’s stupid.”

Her hand found my stomach under the covers. Warm, unhurried. It rested there, then slid lower, fingertips tracing along the waistband of my boxers. My cock pushed up against the cotton to meet her.

“Is this alright?” she whispered.

Her hand was right there. And her face was right there too, inches from mine on the pillow.

→ I lie back and let her hand keep wandering

→ I roll over and kiss her

← Back

I slid the screen open.

She stepped in under the water with me, and for a second we just looked at each other. She was gorgeous. Small and soft and curved, brown skin shining wet, dark nipples already hard, a neat little strip of black hair between her thighs. She looked down at my cock, standing up hard and eager between us, and raised her eyebrows.

“Well,” she said. “That’s a yes.”

She kissed me. The water poured over both of us. Her body slid against mine, slick and hot, her tits pressing into my chest, and I ran my hands down her back and over her arse and pulled her closer. She moaned into my mouth.

Then she took the hotel shower gel off the shelf, squeezed a handful and started to wash me. My chest. My stomach. Lower. Her soapy hand closed around my cock and stroked it slowly from root to tip, twisting a little at the head, and my knees nearly went.

“Christ, Priya.”

“Mm.” She watched my face while she did it. “Twenty-seven years old and I’ve never done this in a shower. Always fancied it.”

She rinsed the soap off me under the water, very thoroughly. Then she sank down onto her knees on the tiles, looked up at me through the spray and ran her tongue slowly along the underside of my cock.

The bed was ten feet away through the door. And I was already very, very close.

→ I let her keep going, right there on her knees

→ I pull her up and carry her to the bed

← Back

“Let her in,” I said. “It’s her holiday too.”

Priya gave me a look I couldn’t quite read, pulled the towel back round herself and unlocked the connecting door.

Rosie came through it like a weather system. Blonde, curvy, twenty-nine, barefoot in a green satin slip with a bag of crisps in one hand and a bottle of rose in the other. She stopped dead when she saw me.

“Well,” she said. “Hello.”

“Booking error,” Priya said. “He’s Liam. He’s harmless.”

“He doesn’t look harmless.” Rosie sat down on the bed right beside me, close enough that her thigh pressed mine, and poured rose into my empty whisky glass. “He looks like he was about to get very lucky before I barged in.”

Priya went red. I went redder.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Rosie said. “We’ve shared everything since we were eleven. Clothes. Flats. Hangovers.” She leaned across me to steal one of Priya’s crisps, her breasts brushing my arm, and stayed there a beat too long. “Not men, though. Never tried that one.”

The room went very quiet.

Priya looked at Rosie. Rosie looked at Priya. Something passed between them that had clearly been discussed before, probably in the spa, probably after prosecco.

“Well,” Priya said slowly, “it is a holiday.”

Rosie’s hand was on my knee. Priya’s hand was on my other knee. And both of them were looking at me.

→ I tell them yes, both of them

→ I admit it’s Rosie I can’t stop looking at

← Back

I shook my head, very slightly. Priya smiled against my mouth.

“Rosie,” she called, without taking her eyes off me. “I’m asleep. Go to bed. Tell me everything at breakfast.”

A pause. Then, muffled through the door: “You’re not asleep. You’re never asleep at midnight.” Another pause, longer. “Oh my God. Is there a man in there?”

“Goodnight, Rosie.”

“Use protection! There’s some in my washbag, I’ll leave it by the door!” A rustle, a thud, a cackle, and the sound of Rosie’s own door closing on her side.

Priya buried her face in my neck, shaking with laughter. “I am so sorry. She’s the worst.”

“She sounds great.”

“She is great. She’s also the worst.” She lifted her head. The laughter was still in her eyes but something else was there too now, darker and slower. The towel was gone. She was naked in my lap, warm and still damp, her nipples tight and dark, and she took my hand and put it on her breast like she was showing me where something was kept.

“I want this,” she said. “Just so we’re clear. I’ve wanted it since you held up that stupid key card.”

I kissed her throat. She arched into me with a sigh.

Then she glanced past my shoulder at the balcony doors, the city lights glittering beyond the glass. “Or,” she said, with a wicked little look, “we could take this outside. Seventh floor. Nobody can see.”

→ I lay her down on the bed and take my time

→ I follow her out onto the balcony

← Back

“I’d love a cup of tea,” I said.

Esme’s office behind reception was tiny, with a kettle, two mugs and a CCTV screen showing an empty lobby. She made the tea strong, the way I like it, and we sat knee to knee on two office chairs and talked.

She was thirty-three. She’d run hotels in Lisbon and Edinburgh and had been here two years. She liked the night shift because nobody shouted at her after three. She’d read every book in the lost property cupboard.

The tea went cold. We kept talking.

At half past three she put her mug down and looked at me for a long moment.

“I’m not allowed to do this,” she said, “so I’m only going to do it once.”

She leaned in and kissed me. Slow, warm, tasting of tea. Her hand rested on my chest. Mine found her waist. It went on long enough that the CCTV screen started beeping because nobody had touched the keyboard.

She pulled back, flushed, and smoothed down her uniform.

“Go to bed, Mr Byrne,” she said. “I’ve got a building to run.”

I slept in the penthouse alone, with a stupid smile on my face.

At checkout she’d gone off shift. But the bill came in an envelope, and on the back, in neat handwriting, was a phone number and four words.

Day off next Thursday.

Ending 16 of 16: The Night Manager. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning