“I’m Marquez though, aren’t I?” I say, shrugging off my jacket and slinging it over a chair before hastening over to the balcony doors to open them. Fresh air scented with the fragrance of freshly mown grass hits my face, and I sigh happily and stretch. “That’s better.” I turn only to stand still, caught in his fixed stare. “You okay?” I ask.

He jerks and looks slightly awkward. “Yes, I’m fine,” he says hurriedly.

“Okay.” I wander over to the table where the room service info is. “I’m going to order some food.”

“You’ve just had a meal.”

I fix him with a hard stare. “Zeb, that wasn’t a meal, it was an amuse-bouche in four fucking courses. That wouldn’t have filled me when I was ten, let alone now.” I look down at the menu and smile contentedly. “I’m having a burger and chips. What do you want?”

He stares at me for a second. “Eating a huge meal after what we’ve just eaten is guaranteed to give you heartburn.” I gaze at him and deploy the big eyes, and he sighs. “Okay, I’ll have a salad.”

I make a moue of disgust, and he shakes his head. “I’m going to get changed,” he says, moving towards the wardrobe. I place the order on the phone while watching him open the doors and look at the neat row of his clothes hanging inside. I look guiltily at my suitcase which hasn’t been unpacked yet. Instead I’d dug through it earlier and now it looks like a very small bomb went off in it, strewing clothes around the vicinity with abandon.

Zeb takes his jacket off and hangs it neatly in the wardrobe, and I watch idly as he takes off his tie and coils it into a drawer before unbuttoning his shirt. Then I watch not so idly as the hairy planes of his chest appear. He’s muscled and the skin glows golden in the low lamplight. I think what I like best is that he’s not perfect. He doesn’t have a perfect six pack. He’s muscled but it lacks the definition of the gym junkies I’ve slept with lately. He looks more real somehow and all the more desirable for that. I study the way his trousers hang loosely from his narrow hips and the way the skin shines soft and warm there.