One Too Many

by Jade West

  We were desperate for every solid five-star review and recommendation we could get right now. Pride had no place here, not this season. Maybe never again.

  Thomas Heath from North London gave me a smile that made his eyes sparkle behind his glasses. There was amusement there, and it smarted hard. A fresh bout of humiliation slammed me in the heart, but I kept my chin high and shoulders firm.

  Fuck my husband’s pride, but fuck this guy too.

  Fuck him and the tailored shirt he was wearing on a Saturday night in a seaside bar. Fuck the heavy gold watch on his wrist that probably cost more than a whole year’s salary for most of the population.

  Fuck his judgy smirk, and his laughing eyes, and the way he thought he knew our business.

  “Sure, why not, I’ll take another,” he answered in a beat, and his voice was clipped and curt, dripping with posh-boy school.

  The amusement was still bright on his face as he moved his stare across to Brett.

  I felt like an absolute shit when my husband bended to instruction, reaching up to grab a fresh shot from the optics. My heart dropped like a rock at the state of us.

  It would never have happened in Bristol, Brett bowing so willingly to such a bitchy counteraction, not in a million years. I barely recognised the man whose desperation made him this compliant, even at my request.

  His broad shoulders seemed stooped even though he was holding them firm, his frame smaller than I’d ever seen him, even though he was still easily big enough to make me feel tiny in his shadow. His dark brows looked beat and the dark eyes under them looked like they belonged to someone on their knees.

  Someone I didn’t know.

  This wasn’t the man I married. Wasn’t the man who’d been so strong at my side before we boxed up our life and moved from city to seaside for ventures new.

  Wasn’t the man I fell in love with all those years ago, back in high school.

  I had to hold back a hitch of breath as I realised I was hardly the woman he fell in love with either.

  Thomas Heath took the whisky from Brett’s outstretched hand and gestured a wordless cheers before taking a sip.

  I wondered if he’d overheard our anniversary toast earlier. If he knew we were supposed to be celebrating a decade of married life together, even if these days were turning out to be a damn sight shittier than hoped. If he even cared a single toss for us and our troubles or simply wanted a nightcap.

  My question was answered without delay.

  “I heard you’re in the shit,” he remarked, and I wished the ground would open up. “I get it. Times are hard. Money’s tight. Bigger hotel down the coast about to fuck you over.”

  “We’ll be just fine,” Brett grunted, but our guest laughed out loud.

  I don’t think I could have blamed my husband if he’d smashed the whisky glass over the asshole’s head, but the grit of his jaw was his only immediate sign of aggression.

  “How long do you think you can keep hold of this place?” our guest asked, and I cleared my throat loudly before Brett had the chance to answer.

  “We’ll keep it,” I assured in a tone that sounded unusually blunt.

  He pointed a finger in my direction as if he was acknowledging a joke, and in that moment I hated him easily as much as Brett did.

  “One month,” he said. “I bet you’ll last a month tops.”

  “How much do you wanna fucking bet?” Brett shot back, and finally the gruff in his voice was at least a little bit familiar.

  Thomas Heath took another sip of whisky as Brett leaned back against the beer fridge and folded his arms tight across his chest. His shirt strained with the tension in his biceps.

  The two men were chalk and cheese. Brett was dark and broad where Thomas Heath was a dark dirty blonde and toned but lean. Brett was rugged where Thomas Heath was preened to perfection. His suit, his shirt, the neatness of his finely trimmed beard.

  Two very attractive men from very different spheres. Both toned and ripped enough to present a fine specimen of male power, just in very different flavours.

  I hoped I wouldn’t watch their differences pitted against each other first-hand.

  The thought gave me an edgy shudder tinged with something too intimate to be embraced. It must be the wine.

  The wine and far too long without a decent fucking.

  I hated myself for even noticing my own seedy reaction.

  “Ten grand,” our guest said without even flinching. “I’ll give you ten grand quite happily. Only it’s not for a bet. That’s not quite what I had in mind.”

  It was my turn to laugh, but Brett didn’t laugh along with me.

  “Ten grand for a non-bet?” I asked. “I didn’t think you’d had that many whiskies. Maybe it’s time you got some sleep.”

  I was laughing on my own and it dried up in a heartbeat when I caught the fierceness of the stare between the two men in front of me.

  I was missing something. Something unspoken. It made my belly flip and lurch.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “What’s even going on here?”

  Brett grabbed the towel back up and carried on wiping the bar. “Bar’s fucking closed,” he grunted again. “Drink up, pal. Enjoy the rest of your fucking stay and don’t come back.”

  I didn’t contradict his rudeness this time, but our guest made no move whatsoever to finish up his drink.

  “Ten grand,” he repeated. “Straight into your account.”

  “You heard me, fuck off,” Brett barked, and I felt it again, that belly flip.

  “What for?” I asked, feeling like a dumb idiot but unable to hold back the question.

  I couldn’t believe he’d give us 10k. The thought was insane. Ridiculous.

  Surely he was joking? Surely? But he didn’t look like he was joking, which begged the question all over again, even as Brett’s jaw gritted tighter and the posh guy’s eyes landed back on mine.

  “What for?” I said again. “You want to buy something? From us?” I paused. “What the hell have we got here worth ten grand to you?”

  And there it was, the thing that Brett must have been bristling over. I felt it even as the words left my mouth.

  I saw them often, the looks men gave me at the bar after a few beers. The way their eyes scoped me up and down like a piece of meat they wanted to shunt their dick into. I barely gave it a thought other than flashing them a happy smile with the hope they’d spend more at the bar and book to come again.

  Even so, despite all the stares and the nods and the over easy eyes on my ass every time I turned around, I hadn’t been feeling all that desirable of late, not with this stressy shit hanging over our heads every single day.

  I’d even had to talk myself round to dressing up and making the effort for our anniversary since Brett barely noticed me these past few months. I doubted he’d even observed I’d curled my hair the way he used to like, or picked out the dress he told me looked great on me at a friend’s party last spring.

  I doubted my husband noticed anything about me these days, especially not how I wriggled for his touch in the middle of long nights when I was lonely. I doubted he’d noticed how I picked my smokiest eye shadow out this evening so he couldn’t see how I’d been crying over final demand letters.

  I doubted he’d fuck me tonight, ten year anniversary and smoky eyes or not, not given the amount of crap picking at our bones under the surface.

  But this other guy would.

  His eyes were hungry and made my legs quiver even crossed. His smile was filthy and made me flutter inside. Deep. Places I most definitely shouldn’t, especially not with my husband about ready to fly across the bar and smash his face in.

  I shouldn’t want it, and I didn’t. Mainly.

  I was in love with my husband, just like always. He was the man I wanted to grab me and hold me tight this evening. He was the one whose touch I craved.

  So why did Thomas Heath’s filthy gaze make me shudder and prickle?

  I was no cheat. Not even
in my head. Not ever.

  And maybe I was wrong anyway. Maybe Thomas Heath didn’t want a thing from me.

  I’d barely even collected my thoughts when he spoke again.

  It was Brett he spoke to, with a confidence that made my cheeks burn.

  “Ten grand for one night with your wife,” he said, and I felt my mouth drop open.

  “What the–” Brett began, but the man’s words carried on right over him.

  “Ten grand for a night with your pretty wife. I’ll fuck her until I’m done, nothing too crazy, just a good hard fucking until I’ve had my fill.”

  Brett’s fist pounded the bar top so hard I jumped and shrieked. His fingers jabbed toward the other man’s face and his grimace was like nothing I’d ever seen from him in my life.

  Maybe my husband still had more fire in him than I’d given him credit for.

  “You’d better fuck off before I lose my fucking shit,” Brett boomed, and I got to my feet, gesturing the guy away before this really did spill over into two guys fist-fighting in our lobby.

  Thomas Heath rose to standing slowly. Really slowly. His hands were up in some kind of half-assed apology as he took a step away.

  “Think on it,” he offered and I cursed under my breath. “Ten grand for one night, I’ll be gone in the morning and you’ll be a whole lot richer for your time.”

  “Fuck you!” Brett thundered and I closed my eyes against the craziness of all this.

  I was grateful for the hulk of the bar between them, even as Brett threw himself towards the hatch.

  I looked into our guest’s face while Brett wrestled with the catch, and he was serious.

  Oh my fucking God, he was serious.

  “Nothing too fucked up,” our guest told me. “Maybe you’ll even enjoy it.”

  I couldn’t swallow the weird lump in my throat at the thought.

  And that’s when my husband crashed on through to our side of the bar.

  Brett shoved the guy backward with enough force that he stumbled, but Thomas Heath really was toned under that suit, because he didn’t even come close to falling down.

  “Ten fucking grand,” he repeated, and I wondered if he had a death wish. “Don’t be a a fool, man. Think what you could do with ten grand.”

  I was already thinking, even if Brett wasn’t, even though it was utterly insane. Ten grand was enough to lessen our pay now pile and bring us back to some semblance of breathing space. Enough to help us through this godawful fucking month and then some.

  Enough for us to try to hoist ourselves up from the floor.

  “Brett,” I said, and my husband’s eyes were filled with terrible hurt and rage when they focused on mine.

  He knew.

  I hated how he knew I was thinking about the money. I just hoped he knew I was thinking about us. About him.

  “No fucking way,” he told me. “There’s no way in a million fucking years I’d send you upstairs with this seedy fucking prick, not even for ten million fucking grand. Not ever.”

  The man with the suit and watch and ten grand to spend on some other man’s wife didn’t seem fazed. He didn’t even flinch.

  His smirk was still there as he took his room key from his inside pocket and gestured upstairs.

  “You wouldn’t have to send her up to me,” he said. “Part of the proposition is that you come with her to watch. Non-negotiable.”

  How the guy ever made it out of that room in one piece I’ll never know.

  I was latched onto Brett’s flailing arm and screeching no as he went for him, digging my heels into the carpet as he dragged me along to chase the other man down.

  Ten grand we could do with, one of us serving time for assault, we could not.

  “Leave it!” I yelled, hoping Brett still had some tiny scrap of restraint in his raging skull.

  Thomas Heath from North London looked back at us from the doorway once I’d managed to get my flailing husband under some semblance of control.

  Before making his way upstairs his words were clear and calm enough to reach us both.

  “Let me make this easier for you,” he said, “twenty grand. You know which room I’m in.”

  I felt the heat from Brett. Felt the heat from myself. Felt the adrenaline filling the air.

  “Wait!” I said as Thomas Heath made for the stairs.

  He turned to look at me, a satisfied smile on his face that I could have happily punched. I swallowed the hot lump of trepidation in my throat. “Thirty,” I told him. “Thirty grand.”

  Chapter Three

  Brett

  I couldn’t explain the heavy beating of my heart. I couldn’t explain the surreal sense of pride I felt for Grace right then. Couldn’t explain the strange heat in my balls as Thomas Heath took a step forward.

  “No,” I said, quite fucking simply.

  “No?” He cocked his head at me.

  The words stung my throat even as I coughed them up and out at him.

  “Fifty grand. Fifty grand and I watch your every fucking move.”

  My wife’s eyes were saucers, mouth open wide. For a horror-filled moment I wondered if my complicity to this fucked-up proposition was a stab in a very wrong direction, but her clutch on my arm stayed tight. I was staring right at her when the asshole’s reply came.

  “You want fifty grand for one single night with your pretty wife?” His face was bursting with the kind of amusement I could quite happily pound off with my fist. “That’s quite an advertisement to how much you think I’ll enjoy it. Unless you’re trying to cheat me out of good money, that is.”

  Grace’s fingers dug in so tight I felt her nails pinch through my shirt.

  “You’ll enjoy it,” I grunted. “Fifty grand or go fuck yourself.”

  I could feel Grace’s shallow breaths tickling above my collar, cool against my burning skin. I was barely breathing myself, eyes locked on the sonofabitch who’d slammed into our anniversary like a typhoon on the rocks, raining gold and shit in equal measure.

  He had money, of that I was sure. Who the fuck knew from where, seeing as he looked younger than me by a couple of years. Inheritance from some crazy London trust fund, maybe. A rich lover somewhere, laying back on some plush chaise longue while he played obscene games for a seedy thrill.

  Who really cared? Fifty grand was fifty grand, and in the scheme of things one night was one night. We’d pick up the pieces after, buy all the therapy a couple could need and then some.

  I wish my gut didn’t twist quite so bad at the thought.

  His eyes were as sharp as his tongue as they checked me out, trying my already stretched patience. He was weighing me up along with Grace, and his scrutiny panged deep.

  I wondered what he thought of me, man to man, offering up my beautiful wife for his sordid thrill. I wondered if he’d already long assigned me a loser status on hearing the heap of shit we’d found ourselves in.

  Maybe it was only me who’d assigned myself the loser status. Maybe he was just an opportunist looking to get his dick wet inside someone who clearly didn’t belong to him.

  Grace would never belong to him.

  “Fifty grand it is,” he said finally, and I wasn’t sure whether it was regret or relief or pure fucking terror that pulsed up my spine. “The scenario on offer will need some amendments, of course,” he added.

  “Go on,” Grace said, before I had the chance.

  He took a step forward, so cocksure with his swagger that my fists clenched on instinct.

  “I’ll have to extend my stay,” he began. “Fifty grand demands more than an impromptu post-midnight fuck on a Saturday evening. I’ll need to make preparations, enjoy the ambience of the place a little more fully before I… indulge.”

  “Preparations?” I challenged.

  “Higher investment means a more adventurous experience, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate.”

  I was about to say fuck off all over again, but Grace jumped right in.

  “Adventure is fine,” she told
him. “Fifty grand gets you whatever you want.” She paused as she caught the disgust on my face. “Within reason,” she added too late.

  Hell only knew what filthy shit was whirring through her head.

  “Within reason,” he repeated. “Here’s how it’s going to roll. I’ll extend my stay until mid-week. You’ll close the bar early on Tuesday and our evening will begin at nine p.m. sharp. You will be mine until sunrise. Fifty percent cash transferred up front, fifty percent on completion.”

  “And if we call time out?” I interrupted. “Besides smashing your fucking skull in if things turn sour, I mean.”

  He cracked a smile, but I didn’t. “If you call time out before I’ve reached my first climax, the agreement is null and void. Past that point the fifty percent rule applies until sunrise. I can draw up a written contract if you’d prefer?”

  I didn’t need to answer that. Like fuck an agreement like this one would ever stand up in court, and like fuck we’d ever face the flames of public humiliation by taking it that far.

  It was Grace who nodded her head to seal the deal. A simple gesture. Quiet but firm.

  Honest.

  It seared my fucking gut, the whole sorry fucking lot of it.

  “Fifty grand,” she confirmed, and I wondered if she was really buying into this crazy shit. “Bar closes at ten on a Tuesday, breakfast starts at seven. That’s your full night, take it or leave it.”

  Nine hours.

  With any luck he’d last nine fucking minutes and call off the rest himself.

  Even nine minutes fucking my beautiful wife would be fuel enough for me to rip his spine out and not feel a scrap of remorse.

  But the cash.

  So much fucking cash.

  Everyone has a price. Everyone. Ours was fifty fucking grand and a life without fearing the postman every bastard morning.

  He knew it. Of course he knew it.

  The smirk on his perfectly smug mouth told me he was no stranger to this kind of bartering.

  “Done,” the piece of shit said. “We’ll need to iron out more of the detail, but I think a clear head will be considerably better for the fine print. No need to shake on it, I’ll see you at breakfast.” A pause. “Sleep well now. Sweet dreams, I hope.”