Well Met With Merlot
Jul. 12th, 2022 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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vigorliTitle: Well Met With Merlot (1/3)
Author: Artemis Allen
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Richard Armitage/Orlando Bloom (mention of other partners)
Beta:silvan_lady; Thank you - so much for everything.
But I have tampered with it because I can’t leave well alone, so all mistakes are mine.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction.
Notes: Forgattodoro. Buon Compleanno
Word Count: 2,235
Parts 2 & 3 will be posted on subsequent days
Summary: Things are not always what they seem.
There has been some blatant begging and borrowing here and also some downright stealing.
So… sorry but… not sorry.
Part 1
Richard logged out and closed his laptop with a firm click; he was done for the evening. Even if his boss e-mailed or texted he would be justified in ignoring it, although he probably wouldn’t of course because he was committed, or stupid and also because he had no personal life. He waited a minute but his phone remained silent, maybe Ian had turned in for the evening too, he gave it a few more seconds while he glanced around the hotel lounge. It was a large open-plan area furnished with a mixture of tables and booths and illuminated only by muted ceiling lights and the candles still alight on the occupied tables. It was very quiet as only a few people remained providing a subdued hum of conversation but then it was past ten ‘o’clock so this was probably normal for a Sunday evening. The two women who had been sitting at the bar and whose occasional scrutiny he had felt but determinedly ignored, refusing to make eye contact, had left thank goodness. He wondered if they were here for the conference, one of them had looked familiar.
The conference, an annual professional event for firms like theirs which specialised in corporate law, was being organised by his company this year; well Ian’s company, Richard was the junior partner. It would start tomorrow and Ian would be arriving early the following morning to kick things off but Richard had been sent down today to check that everything in the venue adhered to the plan they’d agreed with the hotel when they’d booked their services last year. So yeah, fun day for him. The Sunday train journey from Leicester had taken half an hour longer than it would on any other day and he’d had to accompany an overeager duty manager on a tour of the conference rooms and the private dining facilities and then half-heartedly review the list of delegate room allocations; it all seemed fine to him. He was pretty sure that Ian’s right-hand woman would have been able to do this more efficiently and with significantly more good humour but Ian had insisted that since Cate would be holding the fort while he and Richard were away, it wasn’t fair to ask her to work on the Sunday as well. So, Richard, again the one with no life, was spending the day in London.
It hadn’t been all bad though. After he’d finished with the duty manager he’d exchanged his suit and tie for jeans and a casual shirt and slipped out to the BFI cinema just across the river from the hotel to catch a showing of Some Like It Hot,, one of his favourite films and then he had eaten a very decent dinner in the hotel restaurant; a meal that the company would be paying for and he hadn’t had to cook himself. He had brought his coffee through to the lounge and submitted his reassurances to Ian that everything was in order, checked the schedule for tomorrow and the notes for his own presentation on Tuesday and then caught up with his personal mail. But now he was off the clock and he thought he deserved a nightcap before he retired to his solitary room. Richard chuckled at this thought; his bedroom back home would also have been solitary but the décor was considerably more relaxing and his pale blue sheets definitely less starched.
He packed his laptop and his other papers into the messenger bag along with his reading glasses, then stretched out the kinks in his back and slumped gracelessly back into his chair with a sigh before turning his attention towards the bar. There had been two members of staff there when he’d first arrived, a guy and a girl, but now there was just the barman. Richard had noticed him of course; he was a good-looking kid, dark hair scraped into a stubby bun at the back of his skull, the faint moustache and hint of a beard were probably just downy fuzz. He’d watched slyly, only lifting his eyes fractionally above his laptop screen, as the guy mixed cocktails with an extravagant flourish and he’d heard him occasionally talking with the two women; not his words exactly but the low cadence of his voice and an infectious, almost seductive, chuckle; he wasn’t quite sure why the women had bothered looking over at him, maybe because the kid was too young for them. He was too young for Richard as well; maybe if he’d been ten years younger. Not that he’d been in the habit of hitting on baby-faced bartenders ten years ago; make that twenty years younger then. But in truth, after he and Lee had split last year he’d found he couldn’t really remember how one did manage a pick-up in a bar anymore; and perhaps the rules had changed.
He and Lee had actually met in a hotel bar not unlike this one but in Amsterdam almost fifteen years ago at a conference on international company law. He’d noticed Lee during the day and at dinner, it was difficult not to, he was vibrant, tall and strikingly attractive; but that first evening in the bar it was Lee who had approached Richard and engaged him in an animated discussion about the topics they’d covered that day; he’d almost managed to make corporate law sound wildly exciting. He turned out to be amusing and charming as well as clever and fucking sexy and they’d spent the night together. In fact, they spent every night together that week and at the end of the conference, they decided that, despite the fact they lived on opposite sides of the Atlantic, they were willing to give the whole relationship thing a shot. Somehow they made it work, and they kept on making it work even after they really should have let it go. Stubbornness maybe, unwillingness to admit things had changed, fear of the solitary life, on Richard’s part at least? But it eventually became too obvious to ignore and Lee again was the one who took the initiative. So, Richard had found himself about to turn forty-five and single again. He wasn’t out of the game though, he kept telling himself, just out of practice.
There had been a few dates over the last year; or rather he’d been mostly set up by friends. Cate was particularly committed to the cause; he didn’t recall her having had quite so many dinner parties in the past and he was amazed at the wide range of her acquaintances but then Cate was the friendly, outgoing sort and he was a reserved, grouchy hermit. She’d apparently assumed he didn’t want another lawyer, even an English one and so there had been a parade of what she considered to be suitable men; all of them tall, dark, good looking and in their late thirties or early forties; Richard thought she should really set up an agency. They had included a university lecturer, a radio presenter, a theatre director and even an astrophysicist from the National Space Centre. He’d been a fascinating dinner companion, although he'd made Richard feel guilty that he’d never visited a place that was literally on his doorstep, but he was much less fascinating in bed; it was more of a whimper than a big bang.
Cate was wrong though, he would be quite happy to have another lawyer in his life, and his bed. Lawyers were smart people and for him, brains were more important than looks; or at least equally important. And here he was at a conference with a hundred other lawyers, more than fifty per cent of them male; so he had packed some useful supplies in hopeful anticipation.
Anyway, for tonight, he decided he would settle for a glass of wine as a pleasurable end to his day, and hope for a more exciting encounter tomorrow. The barman must have read his mind and before Richard could make any kind of summoning gesture the man materialised beside his chair.
“Can I help you, sir?”
Richard was stunned into embarrassed silence. The guy wasn’t as young as he’d seemed from a distance. He was tall, not quite as tall as Richard of course, and there was a suspicion of real muscles under the white shirt and black waistcoat. His features were of the eternally boyish type though, hence the youthful appearance, but there was dark stubble as well as the slight beard, and laughter lines around the eyes; he was probably only a few years younger than Richard. This is what happened, he mused, when you examined things on the far side of a room in poor light and through your reading glasses.
The barman frowned, obviously confused by his customer’s silence. “Would you like to order something, sir?”
Richard swallowed, yeah, he’d like to order the guy to his room but that obviously wasn’t going to happen. His gaze had drifted from the attractive features down over the man’s body, the broad shoulders, the narrow waist and the shapely hips. He lingered far too long on the journey and when he eventually forced his eyes back up he discovered that the frown had turned into an amused smirk. “A cocktail perhaps?”
Dammit! Richard cursed silently. The guy must have noticed him watching; his covert perusal had not been as covert as he’d thought. Richard considered the suggestion though, just for the pleasure of seeing the man expertly spin the cocktail shaker as he mixed the ingredients, but he wasn’t a cocktail kind of guy. No doubt that was why he was single; he was no fun. Lee had said something to that effect when he’d packed his bags and jetted back to the states for the last time, ‘it’s all work with you Rich, and no play’. And it had been true, to an extent, certainly that last year they were together, Richard had regularly worked late rather than go home to yet another argument.
“Sir?” The barman prompted, clearly trying not to laugh at Richard’s inability to communicate.
“Red wine,” Richard stammered at last, “a large glass, a Merlot if you have one.”
“Yes, sir, I’m certain that we do.”
In an effort to appear disinterested now that his order was placed, Richard snatched up his phone and studied it intently as the man walked away. He was still trying to quell a variety of inappropriate thoughts when, only a couple of minutes later he returned and, with what Richard perceived as unnecessary ceremony, placed the glass on the table in front of him. “Your wine, sir,” he said smoothly, “enjoy.”
“Thanks,” Richard nodded, and attempting to fix his eyes on a neutral body part, studied the name tag on the left lapel, “Orlando.”
“You’re welcome, sir. And if you’d like anything else, anything at all, just let me know.” And with a cheeky wink and a grin, he returned to the bar.
Had that been a come-on? Richard felt faintly stunned but not too stunned to watch the retreating figure and conclude that as well as the killer smile, and liquid brown eyes, Orlando also had a very nice arse.
Richard sipped his wine and, abandoning the covert approach, allowed himself the luxury of watching Orlando’s interactions with the other customers. They all seemed amused by his conversation. Maybe he was just the friendly sort and flirted with everyone; presumably this generated sizable tips. But he couldn’t help wondering about how the firm body beneath the hotel uniform might feel in his arms. Should he follow it up, or was he fooling himself to imagine that a guy who looked that good would be interested in him? And had he ever been any good at the casual fuck? Didn’t he always need the stimulus of intelligent conversation first? He was still brooding when Orlando appeared at his side again.
“Your bill, sir.” He proffered the slim black folder containing the receipt, and a pen. “We’re closing now.”
“Closing?” It came out as a squeak, which for a man with a naturally deep voice was alarming. Richard hadn’t finished pondering his next move; or if he should make a move at all because he still hadn’t quite managed to convince himself that some fast meaningless sex would be a great idea.
“Yes, we close at eleven but the upstairs bar will continue serving until two am if you didn’t want to turn in just yet.”
“Oh, no, no, I’m done for the night,” Richard said quickly.
“In that case would you like to pay by card, sir?” There was a subtle pause. “Or charge it to your room?”
Richard studied Orlando’s outstretched hand; that had surely been an invitation. “I’ll charge it,” Richard said, as confidently as he could while reaching for the folder. He wrote his name and the room number slowly and clearly before signing.
“So…” he gazed up at the other man, trying not to let his residual uncertainty show as he passed the folder back. There was a brief touching of fingers and he shivered. “Are you finished too, when the bar closes?”
“I need to tidy up, but I’ll be pretty much done by eleven-thirty.”
“Right, yes, good.” Richard swallowed. “Maybe…?”
Orlando winked. “Eleven thirty-five?”
Richard nodded dumbly and then gulped down the remains of his wine and headed for the lifts.
TBC
Author: Artemis Allen
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Richard Armitage/Orlando Bloom (mention of other partners)
Beta:
silvan_lady; Thank you - so much for everything.But I have tampered with it because I can’t leave well alone, so all mistakes are mine.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction.
Notes: For
gattodoro. Buon CompleannoWord Count: 2,235
Parts 2 & 3 will be posted on subsequent days
Summary: Things are not always what they seem.
There has been some blatant begging and borrowing here and also some downright stealing.
So… sorry but… not sorry.
Part 1
Richard logged out and closed his laptop with a firm click; he was done for the evening. Even if his boss e-mailed or texted he would be justified in ignoring it, although he probably wouldn’t of course because he was committed, or stupid and also because he had no personal life. He waited a minute but his phone remained silent, maybe Ian had turned in for the evening too, he gave it a few more seconds while he glanced around the hotel lounge. It was a large open-plan area furnished with a mixture of tables and booths and illuminated only by muted ceiling lights and the candles still alight on the occupied tables. It was very quiet as only a few people remained providing a subdued hum of conversation but then it was past ten ‘o’clock so this was probably normal for a Sunday evening. The two women who had been sitting at the bar and whose occasional scrutiny he had felt but determinedly ignored, refusing to make eye contact, had left thank goodness. He wondered if they were here for the conference, one of them had looked familiar.
The conference, an annual professional event for firms like theirs which specialised in corporate law, was being organised by his company this year; well Ian’s company, Richard was the junior partner. It would start tomorrow and Ian would be arriving early the following morning to kick things off but Richard had been sent down today to check that everything in the venue adhered to the plan they’d agreed with the hotel when they’d booked their services last year. So yeah, fun day for him. The Sunday train journey from Leicester had taken half an hour longer than it would on any other day and he’d had to accompany an overeager duty manager on a tour of the conference rooms and the private dining facilities and then half-heartedly review the list of delegate room allocations; it all seemed fine to him. He was pretty sure that Ian’s right-hand woman would have been able to do this more efficiently and with significantly more good humour but Ian had insisted that since Cate would be holding the fort while he and Richard were away, it wasn’t fair to ask her to work on the Sunday as well. So, Richard, again the one with no life, was spending the day in London.
It hadn’t been all bad though. After he’d finished with the duty manager he’d exchanged his suit and tie for jeans and a casual shirt and slipped out to the BFI cinema just across the river from the hotel to catch a showing of Some Like It Hot,, one of his favourite films and then he had eaten a very decent dinner in the hotel restaurant; a meal that the company would be paying for and he hadn’t had to cook himself. He had brought his coffee through to the lounge and submitted his reassurances to Ian that everything was in order, checked the schedule for tomorrow and the notes for his own presentation on Tuesday and then caught up with his personal mail. But now he was off the clock and he thought he deserved a nightcap before he retired to his solitary room. Richard chuckled at this thought; his bedroom back home would also have been solitary but the décor was considerably more relaxing and his pale blue sheets definitely less starched.
He packed his laptop and his other papers into the messenger bag along with his reading glasses, then stretched out the kinks in his back and slumped gracelessly back into his chair with a sigh before turning his attention towards the bar. There had been two members of staff there when he’d first arrived, a guy and a girl, but now there was just the barman. Richard had noticed him of course; he was a good-looking kid, dark hair scraped into a stubby bun at the back of his skull, the faint moustache and hint of a beard were probably just downy fuzz. He’d watched slyly, only lifting his eyes fractionally above his laptop screen, as the guy mixed cocktails with an extravagant flourish and he’d heard him occasionally talking with the two women; not his words exactly but the low cadence of his voice and an infectious, almost seductive, chuckle; he wasn’t quite sure why the women had bothered looking over at him, maybe because the kid was too young for them. He was too young for Richard as well; maybe if he’d been ten years younger. Not that he’d been in the habit of hitting on baby-faced bartenders ten years ago; make that twenty years younger then. But in truth, after he and Lee had split last year he’d found he couldn’t really remember how one did manage a pick-up in a bar anymore; and perhaps the rules had changed.
He and Lee had actually met in a hotel bar not unlike this one but in Amsterdam almost fifteen years ago at a conference on international company law. He’d noticed Lee during the day and at dinner, it was difficult not to, he was vibrant, tall and strikingly attractive; but that first evening in the bar it was Lee who had approached Richard and engaged him in an animated discussion about the topics they’d covered that day; he’d almost managed to make corporate law sound wildly exciting. He turned out to be amusing and charming as well as clever and fucking sexy and they’d spent the night together. In fact, they spent every night together that week and at the end of the conference, they decided that, despite the fact they lived on opposite sides of the Atlantic, they were willing to give the whole relationship thing a shot. Somehow they made it work, and they kept on making it work even after they really should have let it go. Stubbornness maybe, unwillingness to admit things had changed, fear of the solitary life, on Richard’s part at least? But it eventually became too obvious to ignore and Lee again was the one who took the initiative. So, Richard had found himself about to turn forty-five and single again. He wasn’t out of the game though, he kept telling himself, just out of practice.
There had been a few dates over the last year; or rather he’d been mostly set up by friends. Cate was particularly committed to the cause; he didn’t recall her having had quite so many dinner parties in the past and he was amazed at the wide range of her acquaintances but then Cate was the friendly, outgoing sort and he was a reserved, grouchy hermit. She’d apparently assumed he didn’t want another lawyer, even an English one and so there had been a parade of what she considered to be suitable men; all of them tall, dark, good looking and in their late thirties or early forties; Richard thought she should really set up an agency. They had included a university lecturer, a radio presenter, a theatre director and even an astrophysicist from the National Space Centre. He’d been a fascinating dinner companion, although he'd made Richard feel guilty that he’d never visited a place that was literally on his doorstep, but he was much less fascinating in bed; it was more of a whimper than a big bang.
Cate was wrong though, he would be quite happy to have another lawyer in his life, and his bed. Lawyers were smart people and for him, brains were more important than looks; or at least equally important. And here he was at a conference with a hundred other lawyers, more than fifty per cent of them male; so he had packed some useful supplies in hopeful anticipation.
Anyway, for tonight, he decided he would settle for a glass of wine as a pleasurable end to his day, and hope for a more exciting encounter tomorrow. The barman must have read his mind and before Richard could make any kind of summoning gesture the man materialised beside his chair.
“Can I help you, sir?”
Richard was stunned into embarrassed silence. The guy wasn’t as young as he’d seemed from a distance. He was tall, not quite as tall as Richard of course, and there was a suspicion of real muscles under the white shirt and black waistcoat. His features were of the eternally boyish type though, hence the youthful appearance, but there was dark stubble as well as the slight beard, and laughter lines around the eyes; he was probably only a few years younger than Richard. This is what happened, he mused, when you examined things on the far side of a room in poor light and through your reading glasses.
The barman frowned, obviously confused by his customer’s silence. “Would you like to order something, sir?”
Richard swallowed, yeah, he’d like to order the guy to his room but that obviously wasn’t going to happen. His gaze had drifted from the attractive features down over the man’s body, the broad shoulders, the narrow waist and the shapely hips. He lingered far too long on the journey and when he eventually forced his eyes back up he discovered that the frown had turned into an amused smirk. “A cocktail perhaps?”
Dammit! Richard cursed silently. The guy must have noticed him watching; his covert perusal had not been as covert as he’d thought. Richard considered the suggestion though, just for the pleasure of seeing the man expertly spin the cocktail shaker as he mixed the ingredients, but he wasn’t a cocktail kind of guy. No doubt that was why he was single; he was no fun. Lee had said something to that effect when he’d packed his bags and jetted back to the states for the last time, ‘it’s all work with you Rich, and no play’. And it had been true, to an extent, certainly that last year they were together, Richard had regularly worked late rather than go home to yet another argument.
“Sir?” The barman prompted, clearly trying not to laugh at Richard’s inability to communicate.
“Red wine,” Richard stammered at last, “a large glass, a Merlot if you have one.”
“Yes, sir, I’m certain that we do.”
In an effort to appear disinterested now that his order was placed, Richard snatched up his phone and studied it intently as the man walked away. He was still trying to quell a variety of inappropriate thoughts when, only a couple of minutes later he returned and, with what Richard perceived as unnecessary ceremony, placed the glass on the table in front of him. “Your wine, sir,” he said smoothly, “enjoy.”
“Thanks,” Richard nodded, and attempting to fix his eyes on a neutral body part, studied the name tag on the left lapel, “Orlando.”
“You’re welcome, sir. And if you’d like anything else, anything at all, just let me know.” And with a cheeky wink and a grin, he returned to the bar.
Had that been a come-on? Richard felt faintly stunned but not too stunned to watch the retreating figure and conclude that as well as the killer smile, and liquid brown eyes, Orlando also had a very nice arse.
Richard sipped his wine and, abandoning the covert approach, allowed himself the luxury of watching Orlando’s interactions with the other customers. They all seemed amused by his conversation. Maybe he was just the friendly sort and flirted with everyone; presumably this generated sizable tips. But he couldn’t help wondering about how the firm body beneath the hotel uniform might feel in his arms. Should he follow it up, or was he fooling himself to imagine that a guy who looked that good would be interested in him? And had he ever been any good at the casual fuck? Didn’t he always need the stimulus of intelligent conversation first? He was still brooding when Orlando appeared at his side again.
“Your bill, sir.” He proffered the slim black folder containing the receipt, and a pen. “We’re closing now.”
“Closing?” It came out as a squeak, which for a man with a naturally deep voice was alarming. Richard hadn’t finished pondering his next move; or if he should make a move at all because he still hadn’t quite managed to convince himself that some fast meaningless sex would be a great idea.
“Yes, we close at eleven but the upstairs bar will continue serving until two am if you didn’t want to turn in just yet.”
“Oh, no, no, I’m done for the night,” Richard said quickly.
“In that case would you like to pay by card, sir?” There was a subtle pause. “Or charge it to your room?”
Richard studied Orlando’s outstretched hand; that had surely been an invitation. “I’ll charge it,” Richard said, as confidently as he could while reaching for the folder. He wrote his name and the room number slowly and clearly before signing.
“So…” he gazed up at the other man, trying not to let his residual uncertainty show as he passed the folder back. There was a brief touching of fingers and he shivered. “Are you finished too, when the bar closes?”
“I need to tidy up, but I’ll be pretty much done by eleven-thirty.”
“Right, yes, good.” Richard swallowed. “Maybe…?”
Orlando winked. “Eleven thirty-five?”
Richard nodded dumbly and then gulped down the remains of his wine and headed for the lifts.
TBC
