by Jade West
“Not yet we don’t,” he countered. “But we will. By the time that cunt checks out this time around we’ll know everything we need to know and then some.”
I nodded, flutters of rambling objections threatening to burst and break out loud, but they didn’t. Couldn’t.
This version of my husband was the one I’d walked up the aisle to and promised my all. The one I’d counted on to stand strong at my side for better or worse. The one who’d given me shivers in bed at night and hunger for skin on skin that drove me crazy through the day.
“He’ll want to pay,” he told me, and I believed him. “He uses cash like a shield. It’s as much of a weakness as it is a strength. If not more so.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I wouldn’t mind a shield like that.”
The tip of his head made me feel like a fool, despite the way he brushed my cheek with his thumb. “It’s not about what’s in your bank account,” he said. “It’s about what’s in here.” He dropped his hand to my chest, his palm warm against my breast and my beating heart. “It’s about who you are. What you believe in. How much fight you’ve got in your bones.”
I placed my hand over his and drew a breath, that beating heart racing like a train.
“Kiss me,” I said, and he did. Fierce and fast, his mouth wide and his tongue violent as he walked me backwards to the bed. I’d barely recovered from the first orgasm when he tugged my jeans down for the second time. His tongue was as violent with my pussy as it was with my mouth when he dropped to his knees and ate me up, sucking and grunting like I was his greatest pleasure and my clit was his favourite dessert.
I was squirming with my fingers against his scalp when he reached out for our bottom dresser drawer, too wanton to question what he was diving for until the head of something solid pushed inside.
“You’ll need to take two of us,” he told me and my clit sparked wild. “We’d better start getting that pretty little cunt of yours up to the challenge.”
Fuck, how he worked me. Fingers, mouth and every toy in that fucking drawer. I took it all and begged for more, begged for everything with a voice that didn’t sound like me. And finally, when he presented my body with two toys at once, my ass clenching tight around a thick plastic shaft as my pussy strained to swallow up another, I didn’t feel like me either.
I felt like the woman in cuffs on plastic sheeting. The dirty bitch who’d unravelled for a stranger and given him her all.
But this time it was my husband. This time my body thrummed with love as well as lust. And it was delicious. Delirious. Disgusting in all the right ways as he grunted at the stretch of my straining holes.
“I can’t,” I hissed, even as I bucked and squirmed. “I can’t take it.”
“You were born to fucking take it,” he said back. “You’ll take it in the flesh next week and it’ll be every bit the filthy fantasy you’ve rubbed that clit off to every fucking day since he’s been gone.”
I came again right then.
And that night was the first night in bed that I didn’t rub my clit to the fantasy.
I didn’t need to.
It was also the first night in bed that I snuggled into my husband’s side and let his steady breath soothe my fears away without so much as a flutter of backlash.
It was the first night since the rumour mill hit us almost a year ago that I slept like a woman without a care. Without a nightmare. Without a rush of palpitations in the morning at the thought of this place going away.
Sarah saw the change in me before I said a word about it. And when I’d finished telling her about the return of my old husband and his challenge, her smile across the breakfast table said it all.
She leaned in close for a hug once the kids were loaded in the car, her kiss on my cheek sweeping back to my ear for the final sisterly whisper before she went on her merry way.
“I’ll solve the mystery,” she told me. “By the time Thomas Heath from London comes back here you’ll know everything from his shoe size to his favourite take out.”
I hugged her so tight I lifted her from her feet, just like old times, me the big sister and her the little one.
“I’ll miss you,” I told her, and she laughed.
“I won’t be a stranger,” she said. “Your life is far too interesting to watch from afar.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Brett
Any half decent sportsman knows that commitment to training plays a big part in winning the game.
I was as committed as an athlete striving for world class fitness, pushing myself to the limits every night in my quest to master my wife’s body.
I watched her through the eyes of a stranger in a brand new sport, observing all her quirks and quivers with absolute attention.
She had a whole host of whimpers I’d never fully appreciated. Shivers which blared out loud that she was teetering on the cliff of explosion, but they came in different flavours. I learned them all. Loved them all.
I loved all of her, and within a few days of this rediscovered me I knew without a single doubt in my body that she loved all of me too.
I could’ve cancelled Heath’s reservation without breaking too much of a sweat, but I didn’t want to. Not just because I had a point to prove, to myself as well as him, but because of Grace. Because of her dreams. Because of the way her eyes lit up at every filthy mention of us both stretching her full at once.
“One day to go,” she told me as she stretched out her limbs in bed on Monday morning.
“One too many,” I said, and flashed a smile.
Her confusion was delicious. Her smile was more fuel than I’d ever need to go through with such a crazy fucking rerun.
“You really want this?” she asked.
“Because you do,” I answered. “Because I wake up hard every morning at the thought of you going wild between two men who’ll be busting their nuts to be the best for you.”
It was all the encouragement she needed to dive that pretty mouth beneath the bedcovers and check out my revelation for herself.
As much as I hated the sonofabitch Heath for his mission to fuck our shit up, I couldn’t deny I owed the guy a grudging drink on me.
My wife was shining in ways I’d never seen before. Loving me in ways I’d never seen before. It was in the finer details, the way she responded so beautifully to the reacquired strength in me.
He’d seen it before I had, the little siren in my woman that craved a man strong enough in bed to drag her ashore and claim her as she thrashed on the sand. She was ripe to be exposed, loving the kind of growled out instructions which set her free from her well-ordered brain and her perfect manners.
Hell, I owed him more than a drink. I owed him a slap on the back as well, but he wouldn’t be getting one. Not until it was the commiserating slap of a well-played, loser.
She fussed all day long getting his bedroom right for him. Polishing every surface to gleaming like it would make a damned bit of difference to a prick like him. He’d be there for the pussy and the pomp, not the fucking decor, but I smiled wide as she showed off her handiwork, kissing her cheek at a job well done.
We were busy for a Monday, springtime coming in fast and bringing the long weekenders with it. Our bar was surprisingly bustling as we busied ourselves behind the pumps, and that’s when we first heard them — the tales of refunded bookings from the place down the road.
“They offered an alternative,” the one guy told us. “But it was twenty miles north, nowhere near as nice as this place.”
We checked out their website once we’d wrapped up for the night, Grace’s bottom lip pinned between her teeth as she crossed her fingers and stared at the laptop screen.
“Postponed,” I said, not quite believing it for myself. “New opening date July provisional, ready for the summer break.”
“This is crazy,” she said, clicking refresh obsessively just to see it reappear time and time again.
“Crazy good,” I replied and closed the screen.
>
It was crazy good. Our bookings were on the up, the pings coming through steady and growing. Our reviews were glowing positive and our repeat bookings were coming in strong.
“All we need is a chef,” she told me for the hundredth time, and I was coming to believe her. “If we can get a decent chef in place by the summer we’ll smash their sorry asses.”
And there we had it. Competitive Grace, blooming out from the shadows with enough fire to burn their shit hole to dust.
I held her close in bed when we finally got there, my arms tight around her as she breathed in my breath.
“Tomorrow,” she said, and grazed her fingers up my back. “I hope he’s ready for round two.”
“We’re saying no to the money,” I told her. “No matter how much he puts on the table.”
“No matter how much?” she asked with a giggle, and I nipped the squidgy tip of her nose.
“No matter how fucking much, Grace. The answer’s no. No thanks, you smarmy cunt, we don’t need your fucking money.”
“I wouldn’t put it in quite those words,” she sighed. “But I’ll toe the same line in sentiment.”
“How about, no thanks, you smarmy cunt, we don’t need your fucking money, just your dick?” I suggested.
I loved her laugh. “No, not those words either.”
“Say it,” I told her. “Just to me. Say it like you mean it.”
Her eyes were dark in the pale moonlight, so clichéd but so true as they stared right at mine.
“No thanks, you smarmy cunt, wanker-face Heath, we don’t need your fucking money, just your dick. Hard please. Make it good. And this time make sure you fucking come for me, asshole.”
I’d almost forgotten about her own insecurities, losing sight of them under my own fight and fury.
“He’ll come for you,” I told her. “You’ve just got to believe it, Grace. Hell knows, I believe it.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Thomas
The drive was a bastard, my knuckles white on the steering wheel as I sped across country to my fight of a fucking lifetime.
I’d take him. Show him up for the useless piece of shit he really was under all the bullshit bluster he’d been carrying around his whole life. I’d show his pretty wife who the real man was in the room, leaving her with no uncertainty whatsoever that her quaint little life on the coast was nothing without the thrill of a real man’s cock inside her.
I’d up the stakes this time, so huge they’d have to balk at the pressure or push themselves into an outcome that would fuck them up beyond all doubt and reason.
One hundred grand on the table for a week with Grace in London. At my place, doing my every bidding and feeding my every whim.
I pulled into their car park expecting the same pitiful straggle of cars I’d seen last time around, but the place was bustling, people hogging the front and chowing down on ice creams as they watched the sea, and a couple of kids dashing along the railings brandishing buckets and spades.
I held the door open for an elderly couple before I’d even stepped inside the place, finding the Fosters busy behind the bar serving lunchtime drinks, Brett’s hand resting on the small of Grace’s back every time he wasn’t pulling a pint. My gut shrank at the sight.
I hung back in the doorway, watching. This wasn’t the scene I’d imagined walking into. I expected thinly-veiled misery, her eyes scanning for mine every heartbeat, needing another helping of the filth I could deliver like she needed a gulp of sea breeze.
Brett noticed me first, eyes narrowing as his chin dipped in a barely courteous nod. A scotch was waiting when I stepped up to the bar and took a seat, shunted gruffly across the woodwork with a flick of his hand.
“Customers. What a novelty,” I said with a smile. “I’d make the most of this trade. You’ll be all on your lonesome when the beast down the road opens its doors for the summer.”
“Glad to see we’re interesting enough to keep tabs on,” Brett commented. “You didn’t strike me much as a hotelier, so I guess it’s just our sterling personalities you find irresistible.”
“Not your personalities,” I countered with my voice low. “Just your wife’s dirty little holes begging for my dick.”
He leaned over the bar top. “I wouldn’t call it begging,” he told me. “She just fancies trying out a double helping of dessert. I’m sure she’ll find yours is bland and tasteless when we’re both side by side on the serving platter.”
“I admire your optimism.” I raised my glass to my lips. “I hope you’re as optimistic when we set up the stakes.”
Grace stepped up beside him in time to hear my statement, and I despised the look that passed between them, eyes laughing at some private joke.
A joke about me.
The feeling was both alien and uncomfortable, dredging up points in time when every joke I ever heard was about me. Worse than their shitty humour was the way Brett saw my discomfort before I’d had the chance to hide it.
“Oh, come on, Heath,” he said. “You didn’t seem the tetchy type. Life got you down these past few weeks? Another couple seen through your crappy little marriage-wrecking games and proved themselves immune to your meddling?”
“No,” I told him. “No couple ever sees through my intentions. I’d go easy on the self-congratulations until they’re truly warranted.”
It was Grace who rolled her eyes and waved her hand between us. “Alright, guys, save it for later. We’ve got customers to take care of.”
She handed me the key to my bedroom and I retreated into a marginally safe space while I got my thoughts together. The place was immaculate. Polished to perfection and neat enough to appease the very fussiest consumer standards in my soul.
It took me a moment to notice the chairs were missing, and that at least brought a smile to my face.
Three in a bed this evening, in the real sense of the word. I unpacked my case carefully, ensuring every item of clothing was hanging neatly before I ventured up to the window and stared out at the front.
I’d forgotten how pleasant this place really was, so snug in the sandy cove between rocky outcrops. For a split second I wished I was a genuine guest looking forward to kicking my feet back and appreciating a break from the city madness. Maybe one day.
But not today.
Not this week.
They were enjoying a chilled bottled water at an empty bar when I re-joined them downstairs, freshly suited in a finely pressed suit with gold cufflinks and a fresh sweep of my hair.
I refused another scotch, opting instead for a water of my own, and that’s when I decided to begin the negotiations in earnest.
“One hundred grand,” I told them, pausing for the unavoidable hunger to sweep behind their eyes. But it didn’t come. I cleared my throat before I repeated the figure. “One hundred thousand pounds,” I said, but Brett raised his asshole fingers and encouraged me on.
“Yeah, we heard you. One hundred grand. We don’t want it.”
I laughed my favourite bitter laugh. “Sure you don’t.”
“Believe it,” he said. “We don’t want it. There’s not a sum in the world we’d take from you, so save your bargaining chips for someone who wants them.”
I looked over at Grace, but her face was a picture of easy calmness, not even a flash of disagreement in her eyes.
“Money makes the world go round,” I told them. “Don’t be fools.”
I’d forgotten just how beautiful that woman was until she stepped up to the bar top and stared right at me. Her curls were bouncy and her cheeks were healthy pink without being flushed. Her eyes were excited and her nervousness was well disguised, her stance all natural as she leaned in close.
“Money might make the world go round,” she whispered. “But it doesn’t make the man.” I didn’t flinch as she reached over the counter and pressed her fingers to my chest, cursing the prospect that she’d feel the speed of the beats under my shirt and find them racing. “What’s in here makes the man,” she
finished.
It was so preposterous I laughed until my sides hurt, barely coming up for air until she’d stepped away.
“Did you two join some hippy love commune in my absence?” I smirked. “Or maybe it was all the therapy you needed in the aftermath.”
“Sad,” she said. “It’s sad when people are so cynical of human truths. I think it’s maybe you who needs the therapy.”
“Sex therapy,” I countered. “So, let’s get back to business. One hundred grand on the table, up against one full week with Mrs Foster in London on my home turf.”
They both laughed as they shook their heads.
“What part of we don’t want it don’t you understand?” he asked, and for the first time in the whole poxy exchange it occurred to me they might actually be serious.
“We just want you,” Grace added, and that really did spark a rise of something uncomfortable in the depths of me. “No stakes, no bargains, no crazy cash offers. Just you, and us. No time restraints, no buzzing alarms, no silly red lines.”
“Bar closes at ten tonight,” Brett told me. “We’ll be up at your door at ten thirty. Feel free to have a few drinks on the house in the interim.”
“I’ll think about it,” I replied, acting as nonchalant as I could muster. “And in the meantime I’d suggest you consider your own sanity too. You’ll be thankful of my generosity when summer comes calling and this place is dead around your ankles.”
They were laughing between themselves again when I knocked back the rest of my drink and made for the exit.
Chapter Forty-Six
Brett
He didn’t show his face back in the bar that evening. Grace kept looking, eyes flitting to the doorway at every sign of movement. Only a short time ago that would have grated me to my core, but not now.
I knew she was mine, heart and soul. I just needed to prove her body was mine too, and not just with the testament of the ring on her finger. I needed to prove it to that smarmy sack of shit upstairs.
