I Can Give You What You Want
Title: I Can Give You What You Want
Rating: R
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo
Summary: In which Eduardo is a model and Mark is horny. And there is a bitchy photographer called Leo who maybe brings them closer.
When Mark arrives at Facebook on a Monday, he is almost exhausted enough to be certain that he’s walked into the wrong building yet again and make an abrupt turnabout. He blinks, sees The Wall, sees some people he vaguely recognises as what Dustin has dubbed ‘his minions’, and walks forwards, tripping past a harassed woman with actual killer heels on.
‘Dustin,’ he calls, clutching his laptop case to him and narrowly avoiding a runner, ‘Dustin, come here.’
Dustin detaches himself from Chris and strolls over, a wide grin stretched across his face.
‘What’s up, dude?’
‘Why has my office been turned into a studio?’
Dustin looks around him in a totally unnecessary stalling tactic, and Mark feels a headache building behind his eyes.
‘Ask Chris?’
‘Dustin, I am asking you, I am asking you because Chris is currently talking to what looks like the scariest woman alive, and you clearly know what is going on here and also I will actually fire you if you don’t tell me now who the fuck all of these people are.’
Dustin looks far from properly chastised but he raises his hands warily.
‘It’s for the article.’
Mark grinds his teeth together, and reminds himself that Dustin is his friend and therefore only somewhat evil on a Monday, ‘I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘The article, man, the article! You know, Chris got us that huge spread in Wired and decided that we need some SYTs to make the company seem less like a giant nerd orgy.’
Mark watches possibly the gayest man alive take light readings and bark at his assistants in an indecipherable accent.
‘SYT’s?’
‘Sexy young thang’s, baby!’
Matt is certain that he pays his assistant a horrendous amount of money to keep stupidity at a reasonable distant. And then one of the models come out and the bottom of his stomach maybe doesn’t fall out but it does do a wriggle it hasn’t since Erica Albright first showed him her boobs all those years ago.
Mark is pretty sure that there is some sort of rule that prevents him from fondling an employee, even if said employee is only temporary and therefore making employee too strong a word anyway. Probably. And, you know, there is definitely some fun-sponge who drafted it up into the Facebook contracts just for the express purpose of cock-blocking randy CEOs. And normally Mark wouldn’t be against it. He’s made something of a reputation out of his disinterest in his workforce.
‘Dahlink!’ calls the photographer and swoops down onto the man, gabbling away with flailing arms and cheek kissing. The man laughs and takes it all in good grace and Mark realises that for all his condemnation of happy people he would actually pay good money to make the man smile like that and then perhaps lick it off his face.
‘Mark!’
Mark jolts awake and blinks hopelessly at Dustin, who is really the worst person ever to give 6 percent to, as it just gives him an untitled sense of his own worth.
‘Oh my Gawd, are you crushing on the model?’
Mark shakes his head firmly, as he is most certainly not.
‘You are, aren’t you? Oh this is too good, I have to tell Chris!’
‘No! No, Dustin, I know that you think my threats are empty but I will actually murder you violently and sell your parts to science.’
Dustin at least listens to the desperation in his tone if not the words themselves, and eyes him up for a moment.
‘Ok, no inadvertent set-ups, promise. He’s maybe a light-year out of your league anyway’
Mark nods an agreement and heads towards the blissful quiet of his own office, throwing a request at his secretary for an aspirin. He wires in ten minutes later, if only mildly more distracted than usual.
***
‘Mr Zuckerberg- Mark- Mr-,’ cuts through his void, and he slips his headphones off, stares at the woman fidgeting by his desk. She looks almost tearful, and he wonders where he’s acquired this reputation of an ogre from when he’s only really screamed at a couple of people who’ve interrupted him when he’s doing something really important.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry for interrupting, but Dustin asked if you could please come out.’
Mark rubs at the bridge of his nose and frowns, ‘right, I don’t suppose he said why?’
‘No.’
‘Right,’ he looks up at her, ‘you can go then?’
She scurries out, and he stretches at his desk. The clock on his wall announces that it’s almost three, and he grabs absently at the sandwich on his desk, strolling to the doors and wandering through to the ballpen.
It’s not as chaotic, although the number of people seems to have multiplied. He’d complain about the added weight gain, but he’s almost certain most of the onlookers are, in fact, his staff.
‘Dahlink, give me more, more you sexy puppet!’
It is unquestionably the most ridiculous statement the office has ever been exposed to, and Mark is sure that it can’t even mean anything, but the somewhat insanely beautiful man sitting at the desk in a suit of all things, hipster glasses perched on his nose, flutters his eyelashes and does indeed give more.
Dustin sidles up and elbows him in the ribs.
‘Bonjour, my sexy puppet.’
‘Dustin, we don’t even wear suits in this office. Who wears a suit in this office?’
‘I shall start! I will wear a suit and be fabulous and fashionable and refer to everyone as ‘dahlink’!
Threats of imminent unemployment have little to no effect, so instead Mark looks back at the man lounging in the chair, a smouldering gaze tipping over his specs, big eyes framed by thick lashes and what looks like eyeliner.
‘He is wearing eyeliner.’
‘Yes he is.’
The concurrence from a passing intern is a little disconcerting. A young, blonde woman with high heels and a pencil skirt leans onto the desk, a stylist rushing forwards to tidy her fringe. The two of them look at the Mac, and there is a flash as the photographer takes a shot.
‘Mark, hey!’
‘Chris. I hear that this is all your fault.’
Chris blinks, ‘oh, wow, ok. It was in the movements, and besides,’ he turns to stare at the models, who are now being arranged to drape artfully over the crane seat, ‘this article is going to be amazing.’
‘How is it going to be amazing?’
‘Well,’ Chris takes a sidelong look at him, and Mark knows something probably very awful is going to happen, ‘for one, you’re going to talk to a journalist, and for once in your crotchety, bad-tempered life be charming,’ he seems to think about this, ‘or at least tolerable.’
Mark bites back the immediate rejection for the idea, because despite what most papers believe he really has grown up since college and is capable of conversation with a stranger, no matter how little he likes it.
‘Fine,’ he answers shortly.
‘We’re going to need some photos as well.’
Mark rolls his eyes, ‘of me?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘Right.’
‘With the models.’
‘Of course.’
‘…In a suit.’
Yes. Something very awful indeed.
***
‘No.’
‘I quite like it.’
‘No.’
‘Maybe with a yellow shirt.’
‘The odds of me actually wearing this are worse than the odds that that model will turn around and agree to a date with Dustin.’
Chris looks at the blonde who is staring at her own reflection and ignoring the man chirping away to her.
‘He’s a billionaire. It could happen.’
‘No. And no to the suit.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Chris, it is tartan.’
‘It’s cool! It’s… edgy or something.’
Mark turns to glare at him, spreading his arms wide, his bare chest exposed in all it’s pale, pale glory.
‘I am not Gerard Butler. I do not want to be Gerard Butler. Gerard Butler would maybe wear a red tartan suit with no shirt on underneath and look edgy. I look like a Jewish version of that addict from Trainspotting.’
‘He wouldn’t be seen dead in Dior,’ Dustin shouts, whizzing by on a scooter.
‘Hey, nice suit.’
Chris uses the momentary distraction to vanish into the throng, and Mark scowls as he turns to reprimand the interruption. Except that it’s not a disposable coder, or anyone from the marketing department. He watches as a tanned hand reaches out to pour a glass of the hot water and lemon from the craft services table.
‘Dior, right?’
‘No, it’s Mark,’ he says, before he can stop himself. It’s a bad, bad joke, possibly the worst he’s ever told, but apparently a lot has to be said for the charm of his deadpan because the man doesn’t walk away muttering prick, and instead smiles this overwhelming grin, eyes crinkling, and sticks a slim hand out.
‘Ah, well, I’m Eduardo. You must be Mark Zuckerberg.’
It is a very nice name. Possibly the nicest of all names. He squashes the need to announce this and nods, taking his outstretched hand, resisting the urge to stroke his thumb over soft, brown skin.
‘I must be.’
He is rewarded with another smile, and the man takes a sip of his water.
‘So, I think we’re supposed to be having a couple of shots together?’
Mark shrugs and regains control over his thought processes.
‘I couldn’t say. A photoshoot is really so far down in my list of priorities that my moronic staff neglect to inform me of their existence until the crucial moment, which,’ he glares down at himself, ‘involves fuck-ugly suits and inappropriately dressed models.’
He realises, as he finishes speaking, that there is a reason most people go off him almost immediately, and that wouldn’t be a problem but he actually is like, really fucking attracted to this man, and insulting various limbs of his profession is probably not the way to go about wooing him.
He is inordinately pleased when Eduardo just laughs, tilting his neck back and letting Mark gaze longingly at his exposed jugular.
‘I did wonder why we were wearing suits when the most dressy thing I’ve seen today is a button-down. Don’t you want to have a word with the photographer?’
‘He scares me a little.’
Eduardo smiles again, all teeth, and leans forwards conspiratorially. Mark can feel warm breath on his neck.
‘I’ll tell you a secret, he scares me a little too.’
Mark tries very hard not to fall in love.
***
So the photoshoot happens, and Mark is wrestled into a pin-striped Prada suit that actually fits and does, according to Eduardo, look ‘really great’ on him. He maybe slips a note to Chris telling him that the suit is not to leave the building under any circumstances.
Leo is as terrifying as he could possibly be, and Mark can immediately feel his hackles rise with every sigh and irritated spew of Romanian the man spits as he attempts to make him look ‘easy-peasy and sexy sexy’. He is fully prepared to sock the man in the mouth when Eduardo reaches over and clasps his wrist, fingers warm and reassuring as he smiles and presses him into a cross-armed pose at his desk that manages to be simultaneously comfortable and natural and apparently ‘much more of the sex’. Until of course Eduardo stretches over his arm-rest and he assumes what is much more of a startled rabbit gaze.
‘No! No, the face, again the face!’ Leo cries, and Mark clenches his fists in exasperation. Eduardo is stifling a laugh as the girl, Ariette, sits on the desk and stares blankly at pastries in the distance.
‘I don’t know what you want from me,’ he grits out, and Leo throws his hands up in the air.
‘Eduardo, Iubirea mea, make him comfortable while I take photo of Ariette riding the Dustin boy.’
Mark can only hope and assume the man means for her to ride on the scooter with Dustin, although the latter looks as if every major holiday has come at once.
‘Are you alright?’
And isn’t it just too good that the man is stupidly nice as well as hot? And inexplicably polite, even to Mark.
‘Funnily enough…’ he gripes, and Eduardo just smiles instead.
‘OK, well just, you need to relax.’
‘I don’t really relax.’
‘Yeah, I sort of picked up on that.’
Mark tries to glare at him but it’s a little hard when your adversary is projecting that much pretty at you.
‘This is ridiculous,’ he states, tugging at the shirt collar. Eduardo nods sympathetically, and stands. He is lanky and skinny, and Mark really wants to grab at his hips and pull him onto his lap.
‘You should just,’ Eduardo pushes into his personal space and leans him back into his chair, until he is just on this side of lounging. He bends one of his arms at the elbow and rests it on the arm-rest, forearm up, his laptop shut, and places the blue and white, larger than average business card in his fingers. Mark watches his face, rapt with concentration, and thinks that maybe he could see it everyday and never get bored. Finally, the man settles back onto his other side and leans onto his shoulder, Marks hand curling around his back in something entirely too natural. He notices the photographer slip back into the room, hovering quietly for the first time.
‘Now,’ the man breathes, eyes dark and entirely too close, ‘look straight into the lens.’
Mark does, feeling something inexplicably heady rush through his system. He is all too aware of where Eduardos body is pressing into his own.
He is staring straight ahead when the man nudges his ear with his nose.
‘Work it. You’re CEO, bitch.’
There is a flash.
***
The shoot packs up with a minimum amount of fuss, and the building gradually clears of people. It’s nearing nine o’clock when a knock at his office door startles Mark out of his admittedly vague perusal of a proposal from a new investor.
‘Hey.’
It’s the model, his features shadowed in the doorway, face scrubbed clean of makeup and a nice jacket over his shirt and jeans.
‘Hello.’
‘So,’ he begins, stepping forwards into the office and running a hand through his hair that sort of borders on the ridiculous without so much product, ‘I’m probably overstepping my boundaries in a major way here, and I might have read this completely wrong but I was wondering if you’d like to go for a drink. Tonight. Er, with me.’
Mark realises, as he watches his feet shuffle, that the man is nervous.
He stands, knocking his desk a little, ‘Yes. That would be,’ he thinks for a moment. Not ‘acceptable’, people tended to take offence.
‘That would be nice.’
***
The bar is quiet and dark, and Mark will appreciate anywhere that chooses to play non-specific, inoffensive dinner jazz. It’s also not hard to notice that the place is relatively… well, it looks like sex, if sex was a bar. Or maybe it’s just Mark. It could just be him.
‘So how much did you hate today on a scale of one to ten?’
Mark takes a moment to think as the bartender brings over two paper coasters and a bowl of mixed nuts.
‘I’d go with eleven at the start, to be quite honest.’
Eduardo bites his lip and smiles, ‘and by the end?’
Mark gazes at him steadily, ‘far more tolerable.’
There is a blush working up his cheeks that Mark wants to touch.
‘How long have you modelled for?’ he questions as Eduardo points out a drink on the menu and he nods his acquiescence, indifferent to the contents.
‘A long time. I did some when I was really young, stopped for a bit and then got scouted by a much bigger agency when I was, what, fifteen, sixteen I guess?’
‘And you’re my age?’
‘Twenty-three, yeah.’
‘Didn’t you want to go to school?’
Eduardo laughs, and Mark realises once again that with any other person he’d be sitting with nothing but an offended cloud of dust. It’s sort of horribly endearing.
‘I am at school. Actually I go to Stanford.’
Mark quiets as their drinks arrive, a dark, tall glass with gold flecks running through it. He takes a sip and raises his eyebrows.
‘This is good.’
‘Mm.’
He watches the man suck at his straw, cheeks hollowed and irises almost black in the dim lighting. He raises his eyes and catches his gaze, and although Mark can feel heat creeping up his neck, he doesn’t look away.
‘What’s your major?’
‘Economics.’
‘That’s unexpected.’
Eduardo looks delighted with his response.
‘You really are the most amazing person I’ve ever met.’
Mark raises an eyebrow.
‘My Pai used to tell me to watch out for honest Americans, he said they were the ones most likely to hesitate in private, but you’re not like that, not at all.’
‘Too many people would have a heart attack if I thought before I spoke.’
‘I like it,’ fingers graze his wrist, and there is nothing insincere in his tone whatsoever.
‘You’d be the first.’
They exchange a look that is too many things and suddenly not enough and all Mark can think is holy shit, because Eduardo is pulling him forwards and hovering with his lips for Mark to close the distance, giving him time to pull away.
Mark brings his hand up to cup his face and presses their lips together, heat and static and wet warmth between them. They move against each other, lips pulled between teeth and tugged and bitten until Eduardo is keening into his throat and Mark is harder than he’s ever been in his life.
He is busy mapping out a tanned jawline and throat when Eduardo hums, his voice breathy and short, ‘Mark, Mark, let’s go back to your place now, ok? Right now, because if we don’t I will actually have you fuck me on the sofas over there and I’m pretty sure we might get banned and I like it here.’
Mark groans and pulls him to his feet, dropping a note onto the table, and although he is pretty sure it is a hundred he is also pretty sure he doesn’t care. Because Edaurdo is laughing into his neck and basically draped over his body, and Mark sort of really needs to be in him right fucking now.
They’ll get back to Marks pretty soulless apartment, and Eduardo will drag him down onto his bed and they will get naked and Mark will discover that opening the other man up is really the hottest thing he’s ever seen, especially when he crooks his fingers and licks between them, and that when he is pushing into tight, warm heat, Eduardo will shudder and gasp like Mark is the only thing keeping him together. He will watch as tanned skin and skinny limbs tremble with each thrust, arms wrapping around his shoulders and bringing his face close enough to kiss, and a string of something dirty and hot falls from his mouth in hisses of syllables and moans of elongated vowels. And when they come, Marks hand wrapped around him and tugging, Eduardo will clench so hard he’ll black out for a second, and the sweat between their bodies will cool enough for them to wrap around each other, close enough to breathe the same air.
***
‘Someone got laid last night.’
Mark hears the muttered remark and neglects to comment, as he is busy being the fucking man.
Dustin and Chris approach him warily, and he quirks a grin.
‘Holy fuck, you had sex last night!’
He shrugs loftily, and Chris gapes at him, ‘was it the model? It was, wasn’t it?’
‘You had sex with Eduardo Saverin?’
Mark looks back and frowns, ‘you sound like you know him?’
‘Uh, yeah, he’s like, really fucking famous. He did that gothic shoot with Lily Cole for Marc Jacobs, the billboards were everywhere. Hey!’ he slaps him on the back, ‘not only is he, like, a billion times prettier than you, but he’s skinnier as well!’
OK, so Mark has maybe missed the part where he’s apparently sleeping with a supermodel.
‘How was he here, doing our ad?’
‘Duh, his Dad is Guilherme Saverin.’
Ah.
‘The guy who has two percent.’
Chris grins and slaps him on the back, ‘I told you this article was going to be amazing.’
***
A month and a half later the issue is published.
The cover photo is an absolute sensation. Eduardo is on his left, dark and languid, looking beautiful and sexy and a lot unattainable, and Mark sits, centre stage, his hand holding the Facebook card like a Japanese Star, the bold lettering with I’M and CEO and BITCH unmistakable.
The look on his face says it all really. He looks powerful and aloof and there is a shit-eating smirk on his face, and Eduardo had taken one look at it before dragging him back to bed with unusual aggression.
If he’s a little late for work that morning… well. Fuck it.
Rating: R
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo
Summary: In which Eduardo is a model and Mark is horny. And there is a bitchy photographer called Leo who maybe brings them closer.
When Mark arrives at Facebook on a Monday, he is almost exhausted enough to be certain that he’s walked into the wrong building yet again and make an abrupt turnabout. He blinks, sees The Wall, sees some people he vaguely recognises as what Dustin has dubbed ‘his minions’, and walks forwards, tripping past a harassed woman with actual killer heels on.
‘Dustin,’ he calls, clutching his laptop case to him and narrowly avoiding a runner, ‘Dustin, come here.’
Dustin detaches himself from Chris and strolls over, a wide grin stretched across his face.
‘What’s up, dude?’
‘Why has my office been turned into a studio?’
Dustin looks around him in a totally unnecessary stalling tactic, and Mark feels a headache building behind his eyes.
‘Ask Chris?’
‘Dustin, I am asking you, I am asking you because Chris is currently talking to what looks like the scariest woman alive, and you clearly know what is going on here and also I will actually fire you if you don’t tell me now who the fuck all of these people are.’
Dustin looks far from properly chastised but he raises his hands warily.
‘It’s for the article.’
Mark grinds his teeth together, and reminds himself that Dustin is his friend and therefore only somewhat evil on a Monday, ‘I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘The article, man, the article! You know, Chris got us that huge spread in Wired and decided that we need some SYTs to make the company seem less like a giant nerd orgy.’
Mark watches possibly the gayest man alive take light readings and bark at his assistants in an indecipherable accent.
‘SYT’s?’
‘Sexy young thang’s, baby!’
Matt is certain that he pays his assistant a horrendous amount of money to keep stupidity at a reasonable distant. And then one of the models come out and the bottom of his stomach maybe doesn’t fall out but it does do a wriggle it hasn’t since Erica Albright first showed him her boobs all those years ago.
Mark is pretty sure that there is some sort of rule that prevents him from fondling an employee, even if said employee is only temporary and therefore making employee too strong a word anyway. Probably. And, you know, there is definitely some fun-sponge who drafted it up into the Facebook contracts just for the express purpose of cock-blocking randy CEOs. And normally Mark wouldn’t be against it. He’s made something of a reputation out of his disinterest in his workforce.
‘Dahlink!’ calls the photographer and swoops down onto the man, gabbling away with flailing arms and cheek kissing. The man laughs and takes it all in good grace and Mark realises that for all his condemnation of happy people he would actually pay good money to make the man smile like that and then perhaps lick it off his face.
‘Mark!’
Mark jolts awake and blinks hopelessly at Dustin, who is really the worst person ever to give 6 percent to, as it just gives him an untitled sense of his own worth.
‘Oh my Gawd, are you crushing on the model?’
Mark shakes his head firmly, as he is most certainly not.
‘You are, aren’t you? Oh this is too good, I have to tell Chris!’
‘No! No, Dustin, I know that you think my threats are empty but I will actually murder you violently and sell your parts to science.’
Dustin at least listens to the desperation in his tone if not the words themselves, and eyes him up for a moment.
‘Ok, no inadvertent set-ups, promise. He’s maybe a light-year out of your league anyway’
Mark nods an agreement and heads towards the blissful quiet of his own office, throwing a request at his secretary for an aspirin. He wires in ten minutes later, if only mildly more distracted than usual.
***
‘Mr Zuckerberg- Mark- Mr-,’ cuts through his void, and he slips his headphones off, stares at the woman fidgeting by his desk. She looks almost tearful, and he wonders where he’s acquired this reputation of an ogre from when he’s only really screamed at a couple of people who’ve interrupted him when he’s doing something really important.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry for interrupting, but Dustin asked if you could please come out.’
Mark rubs at the bridge of his nose and frowns, ‘right, I don’t suppose he said why?’
‘No.’
‘Right,’ he looks up at her, ‘you can go then?’
She scurries out, and he stretches at his desk. The clock on his wall announces that it’s almost three, and he grabs absently at the sandwich on his desk, strolling to the doors and wandering through to the ballpen.
It’s not as chaotic, although the number of people seems to have multiplied. He’d complain about the added weight gain, but he’s almost certain most of the onlookers are, in fact, his staff.
‘Dahlink, give me more, more you sexy puppet!’
It is unquestionably the most ridiculous statement the office has ever been exposed to, and Mark is sure that it can’t even mean anything, but the somewhat insanely beautiful man sitting at the desk in a suit of all things, hipster glasses perched on his nose, flutters his eyelashes and does indeed give more.
Dustin sidles up and elbows him in the ribs.
‘Bonjour, my sexy puppet.’
‘Dustin, we don’t even wear suits in this office. Who wears a suit in this office?’
‘I shall start! I will wear a suit and be fabulous and fashionable and refer to everyone as ‘dahlink’!
Threats of imminent unemployment have little to no effect, so instead Mark looks back at the man lounging in the chair, a smouldering gaze tipping over his specs, big eyes framed by thick lashes and what looks like eyeliner.
‘He is wearing eyeliner.’
‘Yes he is.’
The concurrence from a passing intern is a little disconcerting. A young, blonde woman with high heels and a pencil skirt leans onto the desk, a stylist rushing forwards to tidy her fringe. The two of them look at the Mac, and there is a flash as the photographer takes a shot.
‘Mark, hey!’
‘Chris. I hear that this is all your fault.’
Chris blinks, ‘oh, wow, ok. It was in the movements, and besides,’ he turns to stare at the models, who are now being arranged to drape artfully over the crane seat, ‘this article is going to be amazing.’
‘How is it going to be amazing?’
‘Well,’ Chris takes a sidelong look at him, and Mark knows something probably very awful is going to happen, ‘for one, you’re going to talk to a journalist, and for once in your crotchety, bad-tempered life be charming,’ he seems to think about this, ‘or at least tolerable.’
Mark bites back the immediate rejection for the idea, because despite what most papers believe he really has grown up since college and is capable of conversation with a stranger, no matter how little he likes it.
‘Fine,’ he answers shortly.
‘We’re going to need some photos as well.’
Mark rolls his eyes, ‘of me?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘Right.’
‘With the models.’
‘Of course.’
‘…In a suit.’
Yes. Something very awful indeed.
***
‘No.’
‘I quite like it.’
‘No.’
‘Maybe with a yellow shirt.’
‘The odds of me actually wearing this are worse than the odds that that model will turn around and agree to a date with Dustin.’
Chris looks at the blonde who is staring at her own reflection and ignoring the man chirping away to her.
‘He’s a billionaire. It could happen.’
‘No. And no to the suit.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Chris, it is tartan.’
‘It’s cool! It’s… edgy or something.’
Mark turns to glare at him, spreading his arms wide, his bare chest exposed in all it’s pale, pale glory.
‘I am not Gerard Butler. I do not want to be Gerard Butler. Gerard Butler would maybe wear a red tartan suit with no shirt on underneath and look edgy. I look like a Jewish version of that addict from Trainspotting.’
‘He wouldn’t be seen dead in Dior,’ Dustin shouts, whizzing by on a scooter.
‘Hey, nice suit.’
Chris uses the momentary distraction to vanish into the throng, and Mark scowls as he turns to reprimand the interruption. Except that it’s not a disposable coder, or anyone from the marketing department. He watches as a tanned hand reaches out to pour a glass of the hot water and lemon from the craft services table.
‘Dior, right?’
‘No, it’s Mark,’ he says, before he can stop himself. It’s a bad, bad joke, possibly the worst he’s ever told, but apparently a lot has to be said for the charm of his deadpan because the man doesn’t walk away muttering prick, and instead smiles this overwhelming grin, eyes crinkling, and sticks a slim hand out.
‘Ah, well, I’m Eduardo. You must be Mark Zuckerberg.’
It is a very nice name. Possibly the nicest of all names. He squashes the need to announce this and nods, taking his outstretched hand, resisting the urge to stroke his thumb over soft, brown skin.
‘I must be.’
He is rewarded with another smile, and the man takes a sip of his water.
‘So, I think we’re supposed to be having a couple of shots together?’
Mark shrugs and regains control over his thought processes.
‘I couldn’t say. A photoshoot is really so far down in my list of priorities that my moronic staff neglect to inform me of their existence until the crucial moment, which,’ he glares down at himself, ‘involves fuck-ugly suits and inappropriately dressed models.’
He realises, as he finishes speaking, that there is a reason most people go off him almost immediately, and that wouldn’t be a problem but he actually is like, really fucking attracted to this man, and insulting various limbs of his profession is probably not the way to go about wooing him.
He is inordinately pleased when Eduardo just laughs, tilting his neck back and letting Mark gaze longingly at his exposed jugular.
‘I did wonder why we were wearing suits when the most dressy thing I’ve seen today is a button-down. Don’t you want to have a word with the photographer?’
‘He scares me a little.’
Eduardo smiles again, all teeth, and leans forwards conspiratorially. Mark can feel warm breath on his neck.
‘I’ll tell you a secret, he scares me a little too.’
Mark tries very hard not to fall in love.
***
So the photoshoot happens, and Mark is wrestled into a pin-striped Prada suit that actually fits and does, according to Eduardo, look ‘really great’ on him. He maybe slips a note to Chris telling him that the suit is not to leave the building under any circumstances.
Leo is as terrifying as he could possibly be, and Mark can immediately feel his hackles rise with every sigh and irritated spew of Romanian the man spits as he attempts to make him look ‘easy-peasy and sexy sexy’. He is fully prepared to sock the man in the mouth when Eduardo reaches over and clasps his wrist, fingers warm and reassuring as he smiles and presses him into a cross-armed pose at his desk that manages to be simultaneously comfortable and natural and apparently ‘much more of the sex’. Until of course Eduardo stretches over his arm-rest and he assumes what is much more of a startled rabbit gaze.
‘No! No, the face, again the face!’ Leo cries, and Mark clenches his fists in exasperation. Eduardo is stifling a laugh as the girl, Ariette, sits on the desk and stares blankly at pastries in the distance.
‘I don’t know what you want from me,’ he grits out, and Leo throws his hands up in the air.
‘Eduardo, Iubirea mea, make him comfortable while I take photo of Ariette riding the Dustin boy.’
Mark can only hope and assume the man means for her to ride on the scooter with Dustin, although the latter looks as if every major holiday has come at once.
‘Are you alright?’
And isn’t it just too good that the man is stupidly nice as well as hot? And inexplicably polite, even to Mark.
‘Funnily enough…’ he gripes, and Eduardo just smiles instead.
‘OK, well just, you need to relax.’
‘I don’t really relax.’
‘Yeah, I sort of picked up on that.’
Mark tries to glare at him but it’s a little hard when your adversary is projecting that much pretty at you.
‘This is ridiculous,’ he states, tugging at the shirt collar. Eduardo nods sympathetically, and stands. He is lanky and skinny, and Mark really wants to grab at his hips and pull him onto his lap.
‘You should just,’ Eduardo pushes into his personal space and leans him back into his chair, until he is just on this side of lounging. He bends one of his arms at the elbow and rests it on the arm-rest, forearm up, his laptop shut, and places the blue and white, larger than average business card in his fingers. Mark watches his face, rapt with concentration, and thinks that maybe he could see it everyday and never get bored. Finally, the man settles back onto his other side and leans onto his shoulder, Marks hand curling around his back in something entirely too natural. He notices the photographer slip back into the room, hovering quietly for the first time.
‘Now,’ the man breathes, eyes dark and entirely too close, ‘look straight into the lens.’
Mark does, feeling something inexplicably heady rush through his system. He is all too aware of where Eduardos body is pressing into his own.
He is staring straight ahead when the man nudges his ear with his nose.
‘Work it. You’re CEO, bitch.’
There is a flash.
***
The shoot packs up with a minimum amount of fuss, and the building gradually clears of people. It’s nearing nine o’clock when a knock at his office door startles Mark out of his admittedly vague perusal of a proposal from a new investor.
‘Hey.’
It’s the model, his features shadowed in the doorway, face scrubbed clean of makeup and a nice jacket over his shirt and jeans.
‘Hello.’
‘So,’ he begins, stepping forwards into the office and running a hand through his hair that sort of borders on the ridiculous without so much product, ‘I’m probably overstepping my boundaries in a major way here, and I might have read this completely wrong but I was wondering if you’d like to go for a drink. Tonight. Er, with me.’
Mark realises, as he watches his feet shuffle, that the man is nervous.
He stands, knocking his desk a little, ‘Yes. That would be,’ he thinks for a moment. Not ‘acceptable’, people tended to take offence.
‘That would be nice.’
***
The bar is quiet and dark, and Mark will appreciate anywhere that chooses to play non-specific, inoffensive dinner jazz. It’s also not hard to notice that the place is relatively… well, it looks like sex, if sex was a bar. Or maybe it’s just Mark. It could just be him.
‘So how much did you hate today on a scale of one to ten?’
Mark takes a moment to think as the bartender brings over two paper coasters and a bowl of mixed nuts.
‘I’d go with eleven at the start, to be quite honest.’
Eduardo bites his lip and smiles, ‘and by the end?’
Mark gazes at him steadily, ‘far more tolerable.’
There is a blush working up his cheeks that Mark wants to touch.
‘How long have you modelled for?’ he questions as Eduardo points out a drink on the menu and he nods his acquiescence, indifferent to the contents.
‘A long time. I did some when I was really young, stopped for a bit and then got scouted by a much bigger agency when I was, what, fifteen, sixteen I guess?’
‘And you’re my age?’
‘Twenty-three, yeah.’
‘Didn’t you want to go to school?’
Eduardo laughs, and Mark realises once again that with any other person he’d be sitting with nothing but an offended cloud of dust. It’s sort of horribly endearing.
‘I am at school. Actually I go to Stanford.’
Mark quiets as their drinks arrive, a dark, tall glass with gold flecks running through it. He takes a sip and raises his eyebrows.
‘This is good.’
‘Mm.’
He watches the man suck at his straw, cheeks hollowed and irises almost black in the dim lighting. He raises his eyes and catches his gaze, and although Mark can feel heat creeping up his neck, he doesn’t look away.
‘What’s your major?’
‘Economics.’
‘That’s unexpected.’
Eduardo looks delighted with his response.
‘You really are the most amazing person I’ve ever met.’
Mark raises an eyebrow.
‘My Pai used to tell me to watch out for honest Americans, he said they were the ones most likely to hesitate in private, but you’re not like that, not at all.’
‘Too many people would have a heart attack if I thought before I spoke.’
‘I like it,’ fingers graze his wrist, and there is nothing insincere in his tone whatsoever.
‘You’d be the first.’
They exchange a look that is too many things and suddenly not enough and all Mark can think is holy shit, because Eduardo is pulling him forwards and hovering with his lips for Mark to close the distance, giving him time to pull away.
Mark brings his hand up to cup his face and presses their lips together, heat and static and wet warmth between them. They move against each other, lips pulled between teeth and tugged and bitten until Eduardo is keening into his throat and Mark is harder than he’s ever been in his life.
He is busy mapping out a tanned jawline and throat when Eduardo hums, his voice breathy and short, ‘Mark, Mark, let’s go back to your place now, ok? Right now, because if we don’t I will actually have you fuck me on the sofas over there and I’m pretty sure we might get banned and I like it here.’
Mark groans and pulls him to his feet, dropping a note onto the table, and although he is pretty sure it is a hundred he is also pretty sure he doesn’t care. Because Edaurdo is laughing into his neck and basically draped over his body, and Mark sort of really needs to be in him right fucking now.
They’ll get back to Marks pretty soulless apartment, and Eduardo will drag him down onto his bed and they will get naked and Mark will discover that opening the other man up is really the hottest thing he’s ever seen, especially when he crooks his fingers and licks between them, and that when he is pushing into tight, warm heat, Eduardo will shudder and gasp like Mark is the only thing keeping him together. He will watch as tanned skin and skinny limbs tremble with each thrust, arms wrapping around his shoulders and bringing his face close enough to kiss, and a string of something dirty and hot falls from his mouth in hisses of syllables and moans of elongated vowels. And when they come, Marks hand wrapped around him and tugging, Eduardo will clench so hard he’ll black out for a second, and the sweat between their bodies will cool enough for them to wrap around each other, close enough to breathe the same air.
***
‘Someone got laid last night.’
Mark hears the muttered remark and neglects to comment, as he is busy being the fucking man.
Dustin and Chris approach him warily, and he quirks a grin.
‘Holy fuck, you had sex last night!’
He shrugs loftily, and Chris gapes at him, ‘was it the model? It was, wasn’t it?’
‘You had sex with Eduardo Saverin?’
Mark looks back and frowns, ‘you sound like you know him?’
‘Uh, yeah, he’s like, really fucking famous. He did that gothic shoot with Lily Cole for Marc Jacobs, the billboards were everywhere. Hey!’ he slaps him on the back, ‘not only is he, like, a billion times prettier than you, but he’s skinnier as well!’
OK, so Mark has maybe missed the part where he’s apparently sleeping with a supermodel.
‘How was he here, doing our ad?’
‘Duh, his Dad is Guilherme Saverin.’
Ah.
‘The guy who has two percent.’
Chris grins and slaps him on the back, ‘I told you this article was going to be amazing.’
***
A month and a half later the issue is published.
The cover photo is an absolute sensation. Eduardo is on his left, dark and languid, looking beautiful and sexy and a lot unattainable, and Mark sits, centre stage, his hand holding the Facebook card like a Japanese Star, the bold lettering with I’M and CEO and BITCH unmistakable.
The look on his face says it all really. He looks powerful and aloof and there is a shit-eating smirk on his face, and Eduardo had taken one look at it before dragging him back to bed with unusual aggression.
If he’s a little late for work that morning… well. Fuck it.