One Too Many Read online

I switched back to Thomas Heath’s profile but it was a fortress of privacy. I could only flick through his profile pictures, of which there were just three. The original preened shot of him staring stoic at the camera. One of him in a suit with a couple of other guys also in suits, still with the same stern glare I’d seen so many times these past few days.

  It was the third shot that took me aback, listed as three years previous. He was smiling on that one, his grin so much more natural than I could have pictured. His glasses were thicker and his hair was messy enough to give him an air of hipster on a Sunday morning. He was wearing a t-shirt, his toned arms tanned and rippled with fit-guy veins. The t-shirt wasn’t anything I’d have placed him in in a billion years.

  People disappoint, pizza is eternal.

  Just no. No way.

  I was staring dumbstruck when Brett slid into the seat next to me and landed a big sloppy kiss on my cheek. I didn’t speak a single word, just angled the phone in his direction with my eyebrows up high.

  He squinted, his own surprise registering obvious when he caught up with the plot.

  “Got to be an old pic,” he said. “Teenage or some shit. No way that’s this past century, you don’t turn into that much of a prickly cunt overnight.”

  I zoomed out so he could see the date and he squinted again.

  His shrug was more throwaway than concerned.

  “Something must have happened to him to make him change so much,” I said. “It’s just too weird.”

  “Maybe he can relax in his free time.”

  I pulled a face. “This is his free time.”

  “Life, work, the pressures of being a mega millionaire. I guess they take it out of him. Poor asshole.”

  I tipped my head toward him as I weighed it up, but it still felt weird. Pizza is eternal. I couldn’t even imagine him eating the stuff.

  “I didn’t look him up on social media,” Brett told me. “Didn’t even think about it. Did check him out on Google though. He’s got more businesses than you can shake a stick at, loaded on top by some weird shit currency investment. He’s every ounce the lord of cash he makes himself out to be, don’t you worry.”

  I laughed a little to myself, loving how Brett had done his research without saying a word.

  “What?” he asked, and I laughed again.

  “You didn’t say you were playing detective.”

  “Didn’t want to talk about the cunt any more than necessary. Just wanted to know he could cough up the cash when the time came.”

  “There’s much more than that,” I said, clicking away from his profile picture and back to the mutual friends screen. “We have a friend in common, Polly Piper.”

  He jabbed a thumb at her image. “Who the fuck is Polly Piper?”

  “A girl from the year below at school, my sister knew her. She works in the bakery on Church Row, just behind the main square. Red hair, remember her?”

  His eyebrows knotted in the way I knew so well. “Not a clue. Small fucking world, though.”

  “Too small?”

  He shrugged. “Seven degrees of separation. Maybe he bought a donut from her once and she sent him a request. I expect he gets a few.”

  “Feels close to home.”

  He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer. “We don’t know Thomas fucking Heath. Believe me, we’d remember. A guy like that’s not exactly easy to forget.” I let out a sigh as he nuzzled close enough to breathe in my hair. “I don’t know Polly Piper and it sounds like she’s not exactly high up your contacts list. If you think a guy like Heath is gonna go chow down on an iced bun and tell the world he fucked sweet Grace Foster from Churchdown High School up the ass while her husband watched, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  I hated how he did that. Put things in such a way that I sounded like a crazy.

  He’d always done it, laughing at my interest in murder mystery serials on TV and shrugging off my finger pointing as I yelled out the potential culprits five seconds into episode one.

  “Ping her if you want to dig for info,” he offered, too little too late.

  It was my turn to shrug. “I don’t even know her, must have accepted her request years ago. I don’t think I’ve ever even hung out with her, she was friends with Sarah, but not good enough friends to ever come over.”

  “Ping her anyway,” he said, but I shook my head.

  “Hey, Polly. I’m about to fuck a guy I think you know. Thomas Heath? Anything I should know about him? He’s good for fifty grand, right?” My tone was sarcastic enough that Brett jabbed my ribs with his fingers and tickled hard.

  “Smart ass. You’re the one who’s playing private investigator.”

  “Says he who can list Thomas Heath’s directorships from memory.”

  “You don’t know I can do that… I may have just been browsing…”

  But I did know that. I knew everything about him. Including how much he liked my fingers to sweep up the sensitive skin on the nape of his neck. He shivered as I did it, eyes closing.

  “I’m going to ask him,” I whispered, and his eyes opened.

  “Don’t ask him. Don’t tell him anything about us. Not who’s on your friends list, not which school you came from, not how you know Polly Piper on his friends list. We want the asshole to disappear into the ether and never come back.”

  He had a point.

  I sighed and nodded as I clicked away from Polly’s picture, casting the handset on the table.

  “Fine,” I said, and snuggled tight into my gorgeous husband’s side.

  Just where I belonged.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thomas

  I kept my distance from the Fosters. I needed nerves, the wonder of surprise in pretty Grace’s eyes as I took my fill of her perfect little body. I needed disdain, hate, maybe a flash of insecurity in Brett’s as he watched me take his wife to places she’d never dreamed of.

  Friendly drunk conversation had crossed some barriers. I wouldn’t be crossing them again.

  I avoided breakfast and easy walks along the beach. I avoided the bar entirely that evening, slipping out through the rear exit and heading further into the village for a steak at one of the few small pubs I’d seen in passing.

  It went down a treat in light of the cruddy hangover symptoms. Thick cut and rare, with a healthy side portion of greasy fries and onion rings. I opted for a cold pint of bitter, sipping it down steadily by the warmth of a crackling fire, my feet kicked out as though this was a regular holiday and I was a regular passer-by.

  I moved to the bar after declining dessert, dropping onto a stool and ordering a refill of local beer. The place was quiet, but not empty like the Fosters’. Locals, I guessed, laughed in a small huddle, tossing darts at an old battered board at the back.

  I kept a smile on my face as I watched them over my shoulder, waiting for the barman to strike up the inevitable conversation. It didn’t take long.

  “You staying round these parts?” he asked, with a smile to match my own.

  I made sure my expression was easy. “The hotel on the front.”

  “Cliff House?”

  I nodded. “Nice place. Seems quiet though. Heard there’s another hotel opening a few miles down.”

  The guy grunted out a sigh. “Budget shit hole. Whole place will feel it. All of us.”

  “The Fosters said they haven’t owned the place long, bad timing on their part, it seems.”

  He nodded, his bushy eyebrows furrowing. “Poor sods. Between you and me, I think the Keswicks shafted them royally last springtime. They knew about the new place coming, just wanted out before it took them down. New guys didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Guess you’ll all be hoping for a miracle. Maybe the ground will open up and swallow the place before it gets going.”

  “We can pray,” he said, and pulled himself a beer from the nearest pump. “New place will bring crappy supermarkets and all the other bigger town dross, most likely. Seen it happen further do
wn the coast. Once one of them comes it opens the doors to all the rest.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I told him, and I was, in a distant part of me.

  Not just for the confirmation that the Fosters were screwed by hoteliers dashing for an easy escape, but for these other people, about to see their small-time coastal haven swallowed up by the first of the incoming corporates.

  I’d seen it happening all over the country, in one way or another. I’d been involved in some of it myself.

  It wasn’t the most satisfying aspect of business, even if I did enjoy seeing small-time assholes coming unstuck along the way.

  I thanked the barman for an excellent meal soon after and headed back slowly through the quiet lanes, approaching the hotel from the rear where I could sneak easily back up to the top floor unseen. It was a good time to think. An easy time to think, even though I should’ve probably steered well clear of the introspection.

  I lit up a cigar and pondered as I strolled, staring up at the stars in the cold sky overhead.

  I knew well enough what was coming, from that poor sad barman’s expression regardless of his words alongside. Fifty grand would go some way towards keeping those guests checking in Cliff House hotel, in spite of the bargain budget prices down the road. Fifty grand might well limp them along a little further in their dreams, but fast forward a few years, to the influx of opportunists and chain stores and those looking to make a quick buck off the transformation of a quaint little bolthole, and what you’d have is more of the same as they have now.

  A dead business. Debts racking up overhead. Tired dreams and weary legs.

  And a shattered marriage along with them.

  But that needn’t concern me. They’d have a shattered marriage long before that. Maybe I’d even be doing them a favour, a split in a few months’ time might ensure they had at least the dregs of my cash remaining to set them up anew.

  They should be thanking me in the aftermath.

  The telephone extension started ringing a few minutes after I arrived back in my room. I picked it up with a grunt of hello, halfway undressed for the shower.

  Grace’s voice was gloriously uncertain as she greeted me on the line.

  “Mr Heath? I saw the light in your window. There are um… parcels…” I heard the nervous smile on her face. “Many parcels.”

  “Keep them for me,” I told her, preparing to hang up sharp.

  “We didn’t see you… today…” she added, and it made me smirk to myself.

  “What did you expect? A timetable of my bathroom visits? A request for your signature on a permission slip to allow me to venture elsewhere?”

  “No, of course not,” she hissed, and I laughed aloud at how swift her hackles were to rise.

  “Goodnight, Grace. Please sleep well, you’ll be needing all of your energy tomorrow evening.”

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “Yes. Will you be at breakfast?”

  I wanted to say it was none of her business and to be standing pretty in the dining room just in case I made an appearance, but the local ambience of the village must have softened up my mood.

  “I’ll be at breakfast,” I told her. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have an evening to get on with.”

  Her apologies were delicious. Her goodbye was feeble enough to make my cock twitch.

  I pressed to end the call with my fingers already casting aside my trouser buttons.

  She wanted me. The stubborn little minx might still be denying the obvious, but it was there, as plain to see as the dead-end future of this quaint little bud of paradise.

  She wanted to know our deal was still on, that the filthy items in those parcels were really going to be used on her tomorrow evening. She wanted to know I still wanted her, was still willing to pay for her, was still busy thinking about all the filthy things I’d be doing to her.

  And I was still busy thinking about the filthy things I’d be doing to her.

  My dick was swollen hard, throbbing with a dull ache even as I gripped hard and worked fast. Tomorrow evening she’d be right before me, on all fours with that tight little ass stretched wide open, a pink tunnel of dirty flesh winking as I dribbled a healthy gob full of spit down into its depths from my hungry mouth.

  She had no idea how badly I’d hurt her in the name of ploughing her deep. No idea how the ache in that tender cunt could pain her good enough to beg for more.

  But she would.

  And that’s when I decided to have some fun, my dick still rigid in my grip as I picked that phone extension back up and pressed for reception.

  Her voice was just as needy as she answered my return call.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” I told her. “Bring them upstairs. Alone.”

  “Alone?” she asked, and I grunted my exasperation.

  “Yes, Mrs Foster. Alone. Call it room service. The customer is always right.”

  “But Brett…” she began.

  “I’m perfectly aware what our agreement is,” I barked. “Are you bringing them or not?”

  I counted to three before she answered.

  “I’m bringing them.”

  “Good girl,” I told her, and hung up the phone all over again.

  Grace

  Brett was watching a rerun of the football in our living room when I gathered up those parcels and headed upstairs. My arms were filled to the brim, packages on top of packages. I only hoped my balance was good enough not to set them all tumbling back downstairs as my shaky legs made the climb.

  I told myself my ragged breath was from exertion and not from nerves. I told myself I’d have let Brett know where I was headed if he’d have been closer, and I would have. It was no big deal, just delivering items to a paying customer. Nothing more.

  I felt clammy all over as I approached his bedroom door, my heart pounding so loud I could feel its thump against the boxes pressed to my chest.

  I managed just the sharpest tap to announce my presence, being sure to hold on tight to his precious purchases when the door swung open and revealed him in nothing more than one of our Egyptian cotton bath sheets.

  I couldn’t stop the way my eyes widened. Didn’t have a single hope in hell of delivering even the most clipped of words through my gaping mouth.

  He saw it all, of course he did. His eyes twinkled as he stood so easily, his weight on one hip and arm up high on the doorframe as he beckoned me inside.

  I looked anywhere but at him as I stepped over the threshold. His suitcase was standing neatly in the corner, his coat folded over the back of the armchair by the dresser. His sheets were rumpled and I struggled not to picture him in them, his naked body tossing in his sleep and his perfect hair a mess on the pure white pillows.

  “You can drop them on the bed,” he said, but approached close behind all the same and took the majority from me, hoisting them easily over my head and carrying them the rest of the distance himself.

  I didn’t say a word as I followed him and positioned the remainder gently on the bottom of the bed.

  I couldn’t avoid looking at him from that proximity. The towel was slung low around his hips, showcasing that he was every bit as toned as I imagined.

  His chest was smooth and hairless, his nipples dark against his golden torso. His abs were ridges of muscle under rippling skin, the V of his hips proud, with the most tempting of happy trails down beneath the white of the towel.

  He was nothing like my husband.

  Brett was broad and toned, but paler. His chest was dusted with dark hair and his happy trail was far more prominent. His hips were wider, his bulk meatier and less professionally sculpted, the glorious tone of his body all natural and good genetics.

  My husband was gorgeous beyond words, more than enough for my wildest dreams, but this other man, this handsome stranger with a million dirty parcels and a bank account rammed full of cash to back up his cocky smirk was a whole different ballgame.

  Different.

  That’s the only word for it.

  I
hated myself for wondering what his cock looked like behind the swathes of white. I hated myself more for realising my pussy was tingling at the thought I’d find out soon enough.

  “Curious, no?” he asked, and there it was again. That damned smirk. Always that damned smirk.

  “None of my business,” I managed, flinching at how he laughed out loud.

  I was getting used to that, too. That laugh. Always with that edge of something nasty, something dirty. Always at my expense, even when it wasn’t.

  “Oh, Grace. It’s plenty of your business.” He dropped to sitting on the edge of the bed, the towel straining across his thighs almost enough to grant me sight of his precious assets. I froze as he patted the mattress beside him and picked up one of parcels. “Relieve at least some of the curiosity. Come on. Open one. Don’t tell me you haven’t been wondering.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” I repeated, just like the last time around, but my body moved of its own accord, sitting a safe distance along from him and taking the parcel from his hands.

  One wouldn’t hurt. If anything it would relieve me, just to know. Just to see there was nothing too insane about his filthy collection.

  If there was nothing too insane about his filthy collection.

  “Go on,” he prompted. “Tear into it. I’m as curious as you are.”

  My fingers were dithery as they dug inside the tape at the top end of the package. I held my breath as I first peered inside, my heart in my throat as I realised what I was looking at.

  “Show me,” he said, but I couldn’t. I handed it over still half-wrapped, knowing my face would be beetroot as he tore the rest free.

  The dildo was huge. A thick length of rubber in glossy black. It would never fit. Not in a million years.

  He held it up and raised a fist up alongside it. “Excited?”

  “No fucking way,” I told him. “Never in a million years.”

  His cocked brow made me shiver. “Don’t be so quick to say that, sweetheart. You’ll be begging me for this monster by this time tomorrow night.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  He offered another parcel and this time I tore into it with less restraint.