Grace

 

I wasn’t expecting to find them like old chums, toasting on shots like they were school buddies catching up on a winning sports streak.

It was strange, disorienting as I dropped down the final few stairs and made my way over to the bar. Brett’s eyes were twinkling weirdly, with the kind of pride I remembered back at college when he’d paraded me in front of his rival rugby team after winning the trophy.

My whole face felt flushed as I closed the distance, even my neck was burning at the scrutiny from both guys at once. I wished I was better dressed for it, not still clad in jeans and the same boring cami from my exertions with the bedding changes upstairs.

Thomas Heath’s eyes were hungry. Dirty. Eating me up with the kind of confidence that made my pussy flutter along with my belly. There was no denying it. I was excited.

Scared shitless, but excited.

I hated myself for it. Maybe I always would.

I blew a stray wisp of hair from my eyes as I made to hoist up onto one of the vacant barstools, but the guy with the perfect blonde hair gestured me closer with a nod, moving his folded coat from the stool nearest him to the bar top at his side. I flashed Brett a look before I accepted the seat, but he didn’t give me any indication that I should keep my distance. I daren’t even look at the man who wanted my body for a high price, keeping my eyes on my fingers as I tapped them in a rhythm in front of me. It didn’t matter. I could smell him, his fine musky scent mixed with cigar smoke and the sea. I could feel him, the electric heat of his body so close.

I jumped in my seat as his knee eased out and rested against my thigh, a flash of embarrassment breaking into a smile as I settled back into some kind of composure. Nothing. It was nothing. Just a knee through denim.

I cast a glance down at our legs to make sure the contact was just that, and couldn’t hold back the surprise as I noticed his feet were bare, his shoes and socks cast underneath his stool. The bottoms of his trousers were damp and stuck tight to his calves, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. It felt invasive. A sliver of humanity behind the perfect shell of his appearance.

Maybe he was just a guy after all.

Brett poured me a wine and I took it gladly, swigging back half of it before wiping my lips with the back of my hand.

“I needed that,” I said and he smiled, his eyes conveying his empathy as he raised his own glass to his mouth.

“That’s on me,” Thomas said, and I wondered what was with the generosity.

Showing off to excess on top of the insane money he was throwing our way? Trying to build bridges in places there was only spit and fury?

“We should be buying your drinks,” I told him. “You being the well-paying customer and all.”

“Maybe you can get the next round.” His smirk was smug but not antagonistic. I was getting weirdly used to his expressions, and weirdly used to the way they sparked the tingles in my belly.

“There’s going to be another round, is there?” I asked, and he raised an eyebrow.

“Unless you’re planning to close the bar early. I notice it’s quiet.”

I didn’t want to tell him he was the only guest left in the hotel, and it was obvious Brett didn’t either as he took the other man’s glass back up to the optics for a refill before I could say a word.

“We don’t close the bar early,” my husband said. “Service is everything.”

They were so different, these two men. Brett was broad and heavyset, his hair short and his stubble heavy enough to give him a foreboding seriousness. Thomas was lean and lighter, his eyes light and sparkling, confident with an edge of amusement that never seemed to leave him, not even when he was angry.

It was that cockiness. It never waned.

I wondered if it would be like that in the bedroom.

I hated myself for hoping so.

I changed the topic of conversation, even though there wasn’t one.

“You’ve been out,” I commented, gesturing to his bare feet on the rung of the stool.

“It was windy,” he told me. “Brisk. I liked it.”

“A bit cold for bare feet, no?” I asked, and he smiled a guarded smile, as though I’d touched on some private humour.

“I’m used to a chill in my bones,” he said. “I enjoy the sensation, reminds me where I came from.”

The question came so easily. “Where did you come from?”

He hesitated just a moment before answering. “I came from a mother who didn’t have enough sense or stability to take care of a growing boy. The stones would come into my shoes, the rain too. I got used to it.”

Brett blanched along with me, but the guy knocked back another swig of drink as though it was no grand revelation. He caught our expressions and let out a sigh.

“Please, no pity. I can’t tolerate people’s misguided sympathies.”

I was aware that my foot was tapping and he could feel the movement against his knee, but I couldn’t stop. “Sorry,” I said. “I just didn’t expect… you seem so…”

“Rich?” he finished. “Polished? Upper class?”

I shrugged. “Self-assured was what I was thinking, but all of the other statements apply.”

If he was offended he didn’t show it. “My success was earned not granted. I built a life for myself, success for myself. That’s really all that matters when the night draws in.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, because it seemed the only good thing to say. “I was lucky, my family were good. Kind.”

Brett leaned across the bar and took my hand. “We had it lucky,” he said. “A rough start is hard, doesn’t give you an excuse for being a royal cunt, though, no offense.”

I couldn’t believe my ears, my mouth dropping open even as my eyes found his and saw them sparkle.

He was joking.

Actually joking.

“None taken,” Thomas said and smirked his trademark smirk. “In the end, everyone gets what’s owed to them.”

“Money doesn’t matter shit,” Brett grunted. “Not really. People are what matter.”

His fingers gripped mine tighter, showing off the gesture to the man at my side.

He laughed at us. “If that’s so, why are you so keen to risk your marriage for fifty grand?”

Brett laughed loudly back at him, right from his stomach. “I wouldn’t risk my marriage for fifty grand.”

“It’s not at risk,” I said after him.

Thomas tipped his head at both of us. “I can’t decide if you are naive or purposefully ignorant.”

Brett finished up his drink and gestured for the other man to do the same. I wondered if any of us would be walking in a straight line out of here this evening. Maybe we would get drunk and dive into the whole crazy spectacle ahead of time, right here in the deserted bar.

Part of me wanted that. Part of me despaired at the prospect I wouldn’t remember the details in the aftermath.

I watched Thomas Heath’s throat bob as he downed the rest of his shot. I wondered how his lips would feel on mine. If he would kiss me at all. How his tongue would taste. If he’d be fierce.

“You can’t decide if we are naive or ignorant,” Brett said. “I can’t decide if you’re a sex addict or a man struggling with far too much money and time on his hands.”

“Neither,” he said. “I just like what I like, and I like your pretty wife. I think she’ll be a delight around my cock.”

I dropped my eyes from him, staring at my fingernails. Too much. The flattery was too close and personal.

“I like my pretty wife too,” my husband said. “I’m not surprised you’ll pay fifty grand for her, I’m just proud as fucking punch she’ll be mine on the other side of it. You’ll be kicking yourself for sampling her and having to walk away. The knowledge of what isn’t yours to keep will taunt you for a lifetime.”

And I couldn’t. Couldn’t take it. Not the weirdness, or the over inflated notions of my body’s brilliance.

“Stop,” I said, holding a hand up to both of them. “I’m not some kind of supermodel the world’s going crazy over. I don’t have Models Weekly magazine knocking at my door. I’m just a girl with cellulite on her thighs and fingernails torn from changing bedsheets. Stop the cockerels at dawn thing, even if it is over a couple of drinks and an attempt at some fucked-up camaraderie.”

I chugged back the rest of my drink and slipped from my stool.

“I’ll let you fuck me,” I said to the guy staring at me without even a hint of awkwardness. “But you can’t think I’m some kind of superwoman. I’m not. There won’t be any refunds when I don’t match up to whatever crazy vision you’ve dreamed up in that filthy head of yours. There won’t be any grunts of disappointment when my thighs are flabbier than you’re hoping for and my tits don’t bounce like a porn star’s.”

I hated how his eyes burned.

“What makes you think I want that?”

“How am I supposed to know shit about what you want?” I snapped, and the whole sorry guise of friendliness smashed at my feet. “You’re just a stranger at a bar. We’ve had hundreds of them through here. None of them have offered a shit ton of money for a night in bed with me.”

“Grace,” Brett said, but I didn’t break the stare with the guy with bare feet and sorry stories of how they were cold as a kid. “Grace, sweetheart,” he said again, and I wrenched my eyes away with a groan.

“What?” I asked, but the love in his eyes knocked the wind right out of my sails.

“You’re worth every penny,” he told me. “More than every penny. I’m not even vaguely surprised there’s a random guy at our bar wanting to buy a night with you. He’ll be sorry when it’s done, and we’ll be glad he’s gone and left us all the richer.”

There was that unsettled feeling again, swirling deep. I felt it rise to my throat and threaten to spill. My nerves jittery as I registered the reality of taking another man for real.

I wouldn’t even know what I was doing with another guy’s body.

Brett gestured me back to the bar and picked up the bottle of red for a refill. “Relax,” he said. “We all need to relax around here before someone ends up losing their shit ahead of schedule. Two more nights and we’ll be done. Finished. Let’s make it through with as few theatrics as possible.”

I don’t know how he was managing to be so calm tonight, but I was grateful. Right then, I was grateful.

My Brett was strong, just like always. On my side, just like always.

My eyes were all for him as I gathered myself together enough to slip back onto my seat.

I jumped another mile as the guy at my side landed his fingers on my thigh out of view of my husband, but there was no seediness in his touch, only a squeeze of reassurance that shocked me to my core.

I remembered what he’d said to me on the sea front. The kind words that had seemed so real.

And I hated it. All of it.

Hated how much I wanted them to be true.

“You’ll be more than enough,” he whispered as Brett put the wine away on the far side of the bar. “I meant every word I said last night. I’d have said a lot more if you’d let me. Maybe if I had you’d have even believed me.”

His breath tickled my ear, and his fingers squeezed harder before they pulled away.

It was official, we were all going insane. All three of us.

I was grateful for the next chug of red that went down my throat.

If we were going insane, at least the alcohol would ease the ride to crazy town.