One Too Many

by Jade West

  And Brett knew it.

  But more than that I felt the need for another human body pressed to mine. The warmth of someone’s arms.

  Of Grace.

  And of him alongside her. Loving her as hard as I could. Harder than I ever could.

  “No dicks,” he grunted, and it brought a grin to my face and a laugh alongside it.

  “Fine by me,” I said. “We’ll keep it PG13.”

  It was the strangest bliss in the world to follow them through to their room, pulling off my clothes so easily as they got ready for bed with their bathroom door wide open. I daren’t venture upstairs for my own supplies, choosing instead to throw myself into the moment when Grace appeared back in front of me with her pretty tits still in her lace push up bra.

  My cock was hard in my boxers, my balls tight enough to blow at a simple touch, but she was careful, wrapping me in arms that gave me what I needed without tipping me over the edge.

  Brett was already between the sheets when she led me around to her side, sliding in ahead of me and coaxing me in after her.

  “This isn’t sex,” she breathed, for his benefit, I’m sure.

  It wasn’t sex. It was a tangle of limbs and her body heat at my side, her fingers against my shoulder as they stroked my skin along with her breath.

  I’d never done this. Not once.

  Never shared a bed with another body for anything other than cold, hard fucking.

  I thought sleep would be impossible, nothing like the wave that washed right over me. His breath was steady before mine, deep as the mattress shifted under all three of us and he rolled into his wife, his arm landing across the full breadth of her tiny ribs and landing right on mine.

  He didn’t pull away, and neither did I.

  “Sleep,” she whispered, and I nodded in the darkness.

  For once I did what I was told. Without question, without deeper motives.

  The sleep that found me there was the best sleep I’d ever had.

  But the dreams, of words and memories and that letter I’d read so desperately on the empty beach that afternoon.

  They were the best of all.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Brett

  I knew what she was doing. I knew her logic was selfless, splitting herself between two men who’d come to crave her. Offering herself without restraint, between them both and her bid to make them whole.

  But it wouldn’t work.

  Not here and now, not anymore.

  It didn’t stop me wanting it. Didn’t stop me thinking about it. Didn’t stop me waking with my heart in my throat at the realisation all over again that I had a brother. A real fucking brother. Made of the same flesh and bone as the man I’d looked up to more than anyone in my whole fucking life.

  My dick was hard at the memories of that same flesh and blood boner fucking my beautiful wife until she screamed, but my gut was reeling afresh as I kicked my feet out of the covers and left them a tangle of sleepy limbs as I retreated to the bathroom and pushed that squeaky fucking bolt closed.

  And there I stayed. For way too long. Contemplating moves that made no sense, doomed every which way I looked at them.

  I wouldn’t ask him about the letter, not now and not ever. He could tell me when he was ready, or never at all, and that was his call to make. His secret to keep.

  But it pained. It fucking pained that the last words ever heard from my dad – our dad – were for his ears and not mine.

  I choked back the bitterness as soon as it came up.

  I’d had plenty of words from my fucking dad. The least Tom deserved was a couple of scrappy pages almost three years after I said my goodbyes at his deathbed.

  Grace slammed her palm against the door as I was wiping my ass.

  “Brett? Are you coming out?”

  I forced a laugh. “Jeez, sweetheart, give me a second, will you? I doubt that brother of mine wants to smell my crap first thing in the morning.”

  I hoped it was convincing, but I doubted it. I blew my nose loudly enough that they’d hear it, shuffling about the place like this was a regular morning ritual, even though she’d know it wasn’t.

  “Brett?” she called again, and I pressed my mouth to the door.

  “Go ahead to breakfast,” I told her. “I’ll be a few.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll get Tom to help me. Take your time.”

  It hurt as much as everything else of late, the idea of them laughing over a fry-up together, an idea that was both beautiful and disgusting all at the same time.

  That about summed up this whole sorry affair – both beautiful and disgusting.

  Disgusting were the thoughts still tumbling in as I jerked my hard cock in my fingers and screwed my eyes shut in search of a mental blankness which wouldn’t come.

  I wondered if he was feeling it too, that same disgust. But I doubted it. He’d known the truth all along. The truth about a brother he’d been missing since we were kids. A brother who didn’t so much as glance at his scrawny ass through our school years.

  Too late. It was much too late for that.

  I came with a hiss of breath, spurting cum all over my hairy belly and wiping it down with a tissue and a groan.

  This couldn’t go on. Not in this halfway land of shadow and torment.

  We were either all in, or we weren’t.

  Brothers or pussy-sharers.

  And today would be the day we made the call, before it sent all three of us fucking crazy.

  Scrap that.

  More fucking crazy.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Grace

  Brett tried, I know he did. Thomas did too – finding a groove alongside me at breakfast while Brett busied himself in the kitchen.

  I wanted to tell him to settle down into his seat like the guest he should be, but I didn’t. I could feel it from him with every gesture, how much he wanted to help. How much he wanted to find his sense of self at our side.

  I wanted to believe he could find it here. That on some fucked-up planet he belonged here alongside us. With us. The three of us forging some crazy three-way thing that defied all social conventions but worked all the same.

  My sister’s texts kept buzzing in my pocket, demanding an update. But I held back right through the morning. That’s the first reality check I really got – the prospect of telling Sarah that Thomas was indeed Brett’s stepbrother but I was loving him all the same. That in future his cock would be deep alongside my husband’s every day from here on in.

  But was that any future? Really? Was that the road laid out ahead for us? With kids, in this little slice of paradise we were so desperately trying to carve out a future in?

  I’d have managed to convince myself a whole lot better if Brett’s face didn’t look like death when he joined us in the dining room after the final guests had finished up their fry-ups.

  The dawning reality that two in a bed alongside me was doomed to be one too many was enough to hitch my breath in my throat, the pain at losing something I’d enjoyed so much bubbling up to tear me open from the inside out.

  “What today?” Thomas asked as Brett slid into the seat at the table next to me, and I saw something so clearly brewing there between them. The younger brother looking to his elder for guidance in a place where there had only been hate and confusion.

  Brett’s shrug was casual enough to dismiss his own warring emotions.

  “I dunno,” he said. “We talk about being brothers. We act like brothers. We try to forge some fucking route through this crazy shit fest. I dunno, Tom, we’ll work it out.”

  Tom.

  He called him Tom.

  And so did I when I spoke again.

  “So, Tom,” I said with a smile. “Did you sleep alright?”

  A nod was all that was forthcoming until he finished up his coffee and shot Brett a stare.

  “I slept just fine,” he said eventually. “Better than fine.”

  “Good,” I said, and I meant it, despite the comp
ulsive tap of my foot under the table.

  Brett felt it. His hand on my knee said it all.

  “When do you need to get back to London?” he asked his brother, and Tom’s shoulders stiffened.

  “Any time,” he replied. “No time. It doesn’t matter. I’ve got all I need right here.”

  Both of us hitched our breaths in unison, but he broke out a grin.

  “I meant my laptop,” he said. “I have my laptop with me. The world at my fingertips.”

  And so it was.

  Brett made preparations in the bar and I dug into the usual room changes while Thomas grabbed his laptop and busied himself at the same window seat in the dining room he was coming to be a regular presence in. I said hello every time I ferried past him, my own heart warring over the potential outcomes of this crazy dynamic and which way it would likely swing.

  I sought out my husband when I heard him in the kitchen, assembling pans on the rack with his face still etched with his own rioting emotions.

  “Hey,” I said as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “We’ll work this out.”

  “How?” he asked, and I took a taste of his lips before I answered.

  “We’ll find a way,” I told him, hoping I sounded more convincing than I felt inside.

  “He’s my brother,” he hissed, and I nodded, feeling it every bit as much as he did.

  Only I didn’t. Couldn’t. I had no idea how it would feel to discover my father had been lying to me through all living memory.

  “Stepbrother,” I tossed his way on instinct, but his whole body tensed in my arms.

  “Brother,” he said. “The more I look at him, the more I see Dad.”

  And there we had it. The verdict of doom in the silence of the room.

  It was my turn to tense, and his eyes crashed into mine with a whole world more pain.

  “Talk to me,” he said. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  But how could I? I didn’t even know myself. My pussy thought one thing, my brain another, and my heart was living in her own little flurry, wanting more than she could ever have.

  “I don’t know what I’m thinking,” I told him, figuring he’d taken enough lies for the next ten years already.

  “I guess that’s something we’ve all got in common,” he groaned, and held me tight.

  Guests came and went, streaming in and out oblivious to the carnage all around us. I checked in a family with four young kids, and waved off a heavily pregnant woman with her nice young husband in tow. I scrolled through our upcoming bookings and the few chef CVs waiting in my inbox. I tried to function, tried to breathe, tried to convince myself this would all have a happy ending.

  Maybe it would.

  But I doubted it would be for all three of us, not right here and now.

  Maybe not ever.

  It was Brett who cooked for us, summoning us both to our own private living space while he laid out freshly caught cod in batter at our modest dining table. The buzzer was on call to ring right through from reception, and it did. Three times running, each time setting him running before I had the chance to get to my feet.

  “He’s finding it tough,” Thomas commented when the door closed behind him for the latest mad dash.

  “We all are,” I told him, and he gave me a nod.

  “Some of us have had longer to accept the situation than others.”

  I shook my head. “None of us have had time to accept this situation,” I argued. “There are just different aspects we’re having to sift through. None of them are easy. None of them make sense.”

  But he didn’t agree with me. His gaze was firm on mine when I dared to meet his eyes.

  “It makes sense to me,” he said. “More than the rest of my life ever has.”

  That was the first real moment I felt it, the danger of loving another man alongside the one I’d given my life to. It was his twinkling eyes. The smirk I’d come to know was hiding a whole tumble of nerves behind his perfect features.

  It was in the tension of his shoulders I knew was rife under his shirt. In the way my pussy clenched and fluttered.

  And my heart.

  It was in my heart.

  Strong enough to make me feel sick as the spring of emotion bloomed behind my eyes.

  “I’m not sure he’ll be able to deal with all of this,” I whispered. “Not like this.”

  He dropped his gaze but his smile didn’t falter.

  “Maybe none of us will.”

  I wished more than anything I could argue, my heart finding a route through this that made sense for all of us.

  “I need to go back to the city,” he said, and I felt my soul cry. “We all need some space to adjust. All of us, Grace. Not just Brett.”

  I nodded, my fingers reaching out for his and gripping at the most inopportune moment.

  Brett barged right through as I squeezed his hand in mine, standing mute for too long before coming back to his half-finished meal. I didn’t let go of Thomas, not until it was clear this wasn’t some secret gesture he’d uncovered from the shadows.

  I was spread wide on a platter, my heart real and true, my motives as pure as they could be with two men flanking me in bed last night.

  Thomas cleared his throat before he repeated his statement for the benefit of my husband.

  “I’m leaving in the morning,” he said. “Work calling.”

  Brett cleared his throat right back. “I thought you said you had the world at your fingertips.”

  The other man didn’t miss a beat. “The world, yes. My project managers, no. There’s something about face to face you can’t substitute.”

  “You can say that again,” my husband said, and I prayed he’d argue for more time, for more closeness, for more everything.

  He didn’t.

  “Brothers can use the telephone, right?” he continued. “Email, too. Fuck, even carrier pigeon. The city means nothing, we can still…”

  “I’ll be back,” Tom said, forcing a grin at the iconic phrase.

  I wished I could smile right back, but my lips wouldn’t move that way.

  I wanted to beg them for one more night between them, no matter how desperate it sounded. I wanted to coax them for one more chance to feel the both of them inside me, but I never would. No matter how my slutty little clit begged me to sell out my mind.

  We tucked into our dinners in silence, and I kept my tongue at bay, hating myself for even the hint of selfishness threatening to run riot.

  I hoped neither of them would see it. That neither of them would ever stand a chance of seeing me the way I was coming to know myself.

  But he did see it. Brett.

  I saw it in his eyes as he placed his cutlery down on his empty plate and stared right at me.

  “One more night,” he said. “I guess we should all work out what we need from it. It’s worth speaking up in this shit storm, no matter how fucking crazy it sounds.”

  I never would.

  Not now, not ever.

  I’d never voice the urges pulsing deep, but it didn’t matter.

  Because if my husband knew one thing in this hell hole of emotion, it was me. His wife. The woman who’d been at his side since we were old enough to count for something.

  His smirk was every bit as confident as his blonde brother’s had been when he first rolled up on our doorstep, and it told me, beyond all doubt, that my silence wasn’t worth anything, not anymore.

  They may have split me open already, but it was Brett who was unravelling my insides without a sound. It felt intrusive.

  Addictive.

  Strangely horny to feel him digging deep without a word.

  “Let’s drink,” he said. “Let’s see if whisky can’t set the scene for our final evening, shall we?”

  I was burning up before I’d even nodded my agreement.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Thomas

  The air was different between us that evening. Tense and tight and laced with the unspoken web of cra
zy flitting through all of us.

  I wanted Grace. He wanted Grace.

  Grace wanted us.

  I held back from all action, opting for a cold glass of water instead when the whisky bottle came out. The bar was relatively packed for a hotel that was doomed in a few months, people laughing easily at tables nearby while I struggled to keep myself in check.

  I didn’t trust myself drunk, not tonight.

  I didn’t trust myself at all, in fact, not with that beautiful woman so close at my side and the words of her husband’s father still scorching my inside pocket. As much as I’d have liked a clear route glimmering ahead of us, the reality was a whole world more messy. It was the antithesis of how I chose to structure my life, always looking before leaping, always being certain of the outcome of every move.

  I guess that’s how come I finally knew I couldn’t stay in this place. Not with such emotional chaos running rife through my veins.

  My ultimate problem was that I had nothing left to race home to. The wind of bitterness had well and truly left my sails, leaving me cast aimless on a sea of nothing more than chaos.

  I needed to find myself, now more than ever. I needed to discover the potential of the boy I’d dismissed as a nobody and finally let him breathe.

  I needed to dream. To plan. To let myself feel the ground under my feet for the very first time without charging ahead to some glorified excuse for victory at others’ expense.

  I needed to say my goodbyes.

  Brett didn’t employ the same self-restraint as I mustered. The whisky flowed easily through his shot glass, and his words flowed easily along with it. Talk of sports and which ones we could watch together. Talk of barbeques in the summer where I could meet Grace’s sister and her two little girls. I grinned along with him, nodding my head at every one of his ideas, not having the sliver of spite left within me required to tear down his optimism.

  Grace was quiet. Simmering with the same bursting tension I’d revelled in over my very first visit. Her foot was tapping its crazy rhythm, her smile plastered on wide, even though she wasn’t feeling it.

  It was only when the final guests left for upstairs that Brett finished up his final shot and slammed his empty glass on the counter.