One Too Many Read online

  I felt attractive. Wanted. Needed, even.

  I felt like more of a woman than I’d felt in years, at the suddenly greedy hands of the man who’d called me his own for well over a decade.

  I swilled the bar towel in cold water and wrung out the dregs of wine he’d wiped, and once again he approached from behind and pressed in tight. My ass clenched and fluttered at the ridge of him, nervous of a rerun so quickly, but his kiss was for my hair, not for my mouth.

  “We really should sleep,” he said, and I nodded.

  “Early start. He said fine print at breakfast, right?”

  “There’ll be plenty to negotiate,” Brett told me, and I was grateful for the confidence in his tone.

  He flicked off the lights behind me and kept my hand in his as he led us through the darkened bar. Our living quarters were ground floor, further on back past the kitchen, and I was relieved when we were firmly back in the familiarity of private space.

  Any hopes I had of a repeat performance disappeared when Brett set the alarm for the morning and I saw our remaining sleep time flash up on his phone screen.

  Shit.

  I’d be needing an intravenous caffeine drip to make it through the breakfast shift, let alone handle any… negotiations.

  Still, that didn’t stop me staring at the ceiling when I slipped into bed in my soft cotton nightdress, all washed up clean for the night. Brett’s arm draped easily across my waist, his breath hot on my shoulder, slowing down with its regular steadiness until I knew he was dead to the world.

  I always admired how he could sleep so easily, even in the midst of all kinds of shit.

  Me, not so much.

  I must have made it nearly thirty full minutes by the time my nerves were jangling too loud to ignore. My legs were twitchy, restless, more than happy to launch me to my feet once I’d slipped from Brett’s sleepy grip.

  It was the window I went to first, hoping the darkness of the waves outside would be enough to relax me back to bed and sleep along with it. But no.

  A walk. I needed a walk. Me and the sea air out front, and some space to get my murky mess of thoughts in some kind of order.

  Brett didn’t even stir as I pulled on some flannel PJ bottoms and a huge fluffy cardigan and slipped outside our patio doors.

  I’d smoked a pack of ten cigarettes as a teenager, too inexperienced to even hold them in the right fingers. I’d coughed through every single one and never bought another pack since.

  Stepping out into the dark front garden outside our hotel that night was the closest I’d ever come to wanting to try the habit again.

  I pulled my cardigan tighter around me, being careful to tread carefully in my comfy pumps as I made it down a couple of steps to the main patio area. The waves were loud, the moon low over them, shimmering a path into the blackness that reminded me all over again why I’d been so consumed with the need to buy this place last year.

  And reminded me all over again why fifty grand would be worth doing all kinds of crazy shit for.

  I didn’t take a seat on any of the picnic benches, my legs on a mission of their own to reach the railings on the front so I could stare down onto the beach I loved so much. I came out here often in the middle of the night, unconcerned for any passers-by in such a small village, especially in winter. I guess that’s why it took me so long to register his presence along to my right, leaning on the iron fencing, staring out to sea just as I was.

  He was smoking. It was the glow I saw first, before the rest of him. My eyes had to adjust before his tall figure came into focus. My heart jumped and ran, my belly flipping hard as the man who wanted to buy my body for 50k edged a little closer and held up a hand in greeting.

  I considered rushing back inside and safe into Brett’s arms without so much as a wave in return, but the legs that had been so restless just a few moments back turned into solid lumps of lead and held me rooted to the spot. I sucked in a breath as he stepped closer still. I could taste the smoke on the breeze, and the shape of the cigar in his fingers became obvious.

  “A beautiful night,” he commented and toked a fresh mouthful.

  “Always,” I said, relieved when my voice came out steadier than I felt. “It’s always beautiful out here, that’s why we moved.”

  “And why you’re so keen to stay,” he added.

  I blinked a few times in his direction and my eyes adjusted well enough to see the lighter tones of his hair. I took a step in his direction, sliding along the railings like I wasn’t concerned for proximity in the slightest, even though every inch of my skin was prickling.

  “Finding it hard to sleep?” I asked him. “Guilty conscience, maybe?”

  He laughed, then paused long enough for a particularly loud wave to crash below. “Guilty for what? Offering a fair business proposition to two people in need of the money? Tell me, why should I feel guilty for that?”

  I laughed myself, a snippy little giggle that didn’t sound quite like me. “I dunno. How about trying to be a marriage wrecker? Offering dirty propositions that would make most people blush. Or run a mile.”

  Another side step and his elbow was less than an arm’s length from mine. “I don’t see you running. Blushing, maybe. It’s too dark to tell. But running, definitely not.”

  “If you think you’re going to wreck our marriage–” I began, but the burn of his eyes, even in the dark, dried the words up in my throat.

  “What happens in your marriage is no concern of mine. I pay for one night, for my own amusement. No strings. No emotional importance. Nothing but your body doing my bidding for ten hours straight.”

  “Nine,” I corrected. “Nine hours straight.”

  His teeth were bright in the moonlight as he cracked a grin.

  The man was beautiful.

  I felt guilty for even thinking it.

  “I was testing you,” he laughed. “Nine hours. Yes.” He gestured back over his shoulder to the hulk of the hotel behind us. “I imagine your husband is sleeping soundly after his exertions. Maybe he should’ve given you round two to tire you out enough to join him in slumber. I’ll be sure to leave you ready for sleep when I’m done, that’s a promise.”

  It took me a long second to understand his meaning. The cock of his brow. The dirtiness of his smile.

  No.

  But yes.

  He laughed again, and this one made me shiver. “I was enjoying the quiet of your patio. The windows are big in the bar. They gave me quite a vantage point.”

  Oh how my cheeks burned, scorching against the cool wind as I wished the waves would swallow me up.

  “You watched us.”

  “A very satisfactory product demonstration. I enjoyed it very much.”

  I wanted to tell him he was an asshole, but he’d been a customer on our grounds, every bit entitled to enjoy the gardens. I wanted to tell him manners cost nothing, and personal space invaders were nothing but pricks, but I knew we’d been asking for it, hungry for flesh on flesh in the bright lights of a hotel bar.

  My question came out unexpectedly, unfiltered.

  “Why me?”

  He didn’t ask me to repeat the question, just angled his body to face mine, his eyes heavy, brooding dark as the moonlight graced his perfectly chiselled face with milky white highlights.

  “Is that a request for flattery?” He tipped his head. “Do you want me to indulge your ego by reeling off a list of your finer attributes?”

  My mouth flapped open, struggling with a comeback. It was absurd. This whole thing was absurd.

  My ego was tenuous at best, given the threat of ruin these past few months. My face felt plain and vulnerable without the armour of makeup. My hair felt windswept and ragged in the salty breeze. My PJ bottoms were dotted with puppy dogs and my cardigan was far from at its best.

  He stubbed out his cigar on the top of the railings. “You don’t believe you are beautiful enough to warrant a fifty grand price tag.”

  It was a statement, not a question. I
didn’t have a response, so I didn’t offer one. Instead I shuddered at his closeness, at the oriental spice scent of him. At his pristine appearance even at fuck-knows-what o’clock in the morning.

  “Your smile,” he said. “I love how you hard you force it, even when your eyes don’t match. Your hair frames your face, just so. It’s beautiful.” I closed my eyes as the very tip of his index finger grazed my forehead. “You’re vivacious, even when you’re suffering under the weight of the world. You have a magic in your eyes that even your dismay can’t snuff out. Your laugh is…” His smile was glorious. “Intoxicating. Heady.”

  “You don’t have to–” I whispered, but his words didn’t stop coming.

  “You carry yourself with pride and poise, unaware of your own prowess, your own beauty.” I flinched as he reached for my hand and took my fingers in his. But I didn’t pull away. Couldn’t bring myself to pull away. “Your hands are delicate. Your fingers dance absentmindedly.” He ran his thumb over my knuckles. “Your foot taps, you know that? It’s like a jittery little window into the frenzy of your brain. You’re a thinker. I can tell. A worrier, too.”

  “With good reason,” I said, and finally managed to tug my hand away.

  “You’ll be a treasure around my cock,” he told me, and I sucked in a breath. “Easily worth fifty grand, though please don’t think that is open to further negotiation.”

  My laugh in the night sounded bitter but empty. “I don’t get it… I mean, there are plenty of women… plenty of young, pretty women who’d love to spend the night for free. I don’t see…”

  “Why I’d want you?”

  I shrugged. “It seems ridiculous. Crazy.”

  His face was so stern when he cleared his throat that it hitched the breath in mine. “I want you,” he told me. “One full night where I sample everything you have to give. I’ll appreciate every part of you, every hidden crevice, every nervous shiver, every little fantasy I uncover in that busy mind of yours.”

  And he did.

  Want me.

  I could see it.

  Obvious. Blatant.

  Real.

  More real than this one crazy night. More real than some random offer in a hotel bar.

  It was deeper. Darker.

  I thrummed with it.

  I hated how much I thrummed with it.

  “I have to go,” I whispered. Ragged. “Sleep. I need to sleep.”

  I was backing away without even a goodbye, retreating into the safety of my regular life, even though I knew it was shaking on its foundations.

  “Goodnight, Grace,” he said and I managed to turn my back on him with only the vagueness of a wave, unsure if he could even see it in the moonlight.

  Unsure if I even cared.

  Unsure if I ever wanted to see him again. Or worse.

  If I did.

  I kicked off my pumps by the patio doors and ditched my cardigan over our cosy armchair, casting it off like it was dirty, like me. Tainted, like me.

  Brett shivered at my coldness as I slipped between the sheets at his side, but clutched me tight despite the chill, his breath still even in his sleep.

  And I held him.

  Oh fuck, how I held him.

  Chapter Seven

  Thomas

  I loved it when negotiations took their time. Transferring a sum of money on a couple’s split-second decision and taking my fill of the wife’s pussy just a few minutes later was one thing. Discussing the intimate conditions of the proposal in the hard light of day and drawing out the suspense for days on end was quite another.

  I was very much looking forward to it as I made my way down to breakfast. I’d held back as long as possible after my short, sharp power nap, taking my time to shower and dress in another finely presentable outfit, suited and booted in a freshly pressed shirt and fine cashmere sweater under a pale grey day jacket. I made sure my hair was groomed to perfection, my glasses crystal clear and positioned just so before I took the stairs down to the Foster’s breakfast room.

  An elderly couple were finishing up their poached eggs as I picked up a broadsheet newspaper from the rack at the front and took a seat by the window. I barely acknowledged Grace’s presence as she loaded her arms with empty plates from a vacated table near the condiments bar. It took her a few moments to notice me sitting there. When she did, she contained her reaction well. Her back straightened just a little as she balanced the stack of plates on her forearm, her throat bobbing just a touch from a nervous swallow. She tipped her head in acknowledgement, caring little to offer the beaming hostess smile she flashed at the other guests on her way back through to the kitchen.

  I scoured the stock listings in the back of the newspaper, happy to observe that one of my recent well-tipped acquisitions had already made me back the cash I’d be spending on Grace’s sweet pussy with some to spare.

  Getting to this level of self-generating wealth had been a long, hard battle, but the rewards were well worth the exertion. I loved money nearly as much as I loved the power it granted me. The man it made me in the eyes of outsiders looking on. The freedom it offered me to do whatever the hell I wanted in this world.

  And yet it meant so much more still to the boy who’d gone without for all those years. I still felt him deep inside sometimes during long quiet nights, remembering so vividly what it felt like to be an invisible nobody with chilled toes where the rain came through my tattered school shoes. During dark moments at far reaches of the globe, sometimes I even heard my sad, lonely tears, echoing from those times gone.

  But not today.

  She avoided my eyes as she approached with her notepad, making sure to stand at a healthy distance with the bulk of the table between us as she tipped her head for my order.

  I said nothing, keeping my attention firmly on my newspaper until she was forced to speak aloud. Her voice was edged with the nerves she’d been trying so hard to hide.

  “What can I get you?”

  I folded the pages of the broadsheet closed and placed it neatly on the table top before answering.

  “Coffee, black. Full English. Toast, not fried bread.”

  She pinned her tongue between her teeth as she scribbled. My dick twitched at the thought of pinning it between mine.

  “Help yourself to cereals from the front. Yoghurt, too.”

  I didn’t hold back my stare, letting it eat her up until her pale cheeks flushed with a tell-tale bloom. She’d brushed up well on no sleep. A tight white camisole under an open floral blouse showed the swell of her tits nicely without being obvious. She was still scribbling away on the notepad as she cleared her throat.

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” she said softly.

  “Breakfast ends at ten today, no?”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall behind her back. Two minutes still remained until the serving deadline.

  “No, it’s not that. You’re in time, I just thought…”

  I shifted in my seat before answering her unspoken question.

  “I haven’t changed my mind. I’m more than ready to negotiate the fine print when I’m done with my breakfast.”

  I wasn’t sure if her short exhale of breath was relief or apprehension, it could have swung either way.

  I smirked up at her before she retreated. “Please ensure your husband doesn’t spit in my breakfast, or worse. Believe me, I’ll notice. I have a fine palate.”

  Her glare was like fire. “We’re professional here. Your food will be exactly as it should be.”

  I picked the newspaper back up and opened it at a random page. “Good. I hate it when my eggs are overdone, please ensure they’re not.”

  I watched her from the corner of my eye as she headed for the kitchen. She only looked back once over her shoulder before pushing her way through the door and out of sight.

  The other guests had disappeared during our exchange. The room was just me and the rumble of the fridge under the condiments bar. I took a deep breath and turned my attention to the
view out front.

  It really was a beautiful spot, and it was easy to see why they were so attached to it. Gulls circled over dull blue waves, muted by the cloudy sky overhead. The sea was at high tide, swallowing up the sand with foamy jaws and spitting out straggles of seaweed amongst the dunes.

  Staying on an extra few days really wouldn’t be a hardship.

  I was watching a gull hop along the iron railings I’d conversed with Grace at when she landed my coffee down with a clank. It looked an adequate beverage, but far from quality. I had to fight the urge to tell her cheap sachets were beneath this establishment as I tossed the cruddy little packets of sugar to the side.

  “Food will be up soon,” she told me, and I offered a curt nod.

  The bird had flown away by the time I looked back. Grace’s presence stayed firm at my side. I wondered if she was quietly surveying the sea or the stranger she’d soon be spreading her legs for.

  “I haven’t told my husband about last night,” she whispered, and the confession amused me so much I spun hard in my seat to face her.

  “You make it sound as though there was something to tell.” My laugh was low. “Believe me, last night was far from eventful in light of what is to come, but if it makes you rest any easier I won’t bring it up if you don’t.” I leaned into her a little. She smelled of orchids with a hint of blackcurrant. “It can be our little secret.” I raised a finger to my lips.

  I loved how her teeth gritted in response. “We don’t have any little secrets,” she hissed. “I just don’t want him to think I had trouble sleeping. He’ll worry.”

  “I kept you awake, did I, sweetheart?” I couldn’t hold back the grin.

  She leaned down until her mouth was level with mine, close enough that her breath tickled my lips. Her eyes were fierce and fiery, tightening my balls deliciously. “I’m not your sweetheart,” she told me. “And I have plenty of things to keep me awake at night. You’ll be a distant memory this time next week.”

  I held her stare with a fire of my own. “So why is your sweet little cunt already wet for me?”

  The flash of whites around those pretty irises told me more than words ever could.