by Jade West
I stood up from my stool prepared to retreat to my own room for my final evening, just to make the tension more bearable, but his slap was solid on my back when we reached the fork in the road, pressing hard to my spine and guiding me past the staircase with his eyes firmly ahead.
“Last night,” he said. “Let’s do this.”
We held back for Grace to head on by, her eyes glinting with life as she dared a glance back at us.
Fuck me, she was more beautiful in that moment than I’d ever seen her, her hair curled so perfectly from the nape of her neck, her lips dusky pink and begging for the kind of brutal kisses that would leave them swollen.
I wished they’d be mine.
Brett shot me one more blistering stare before his wife dropped to the bed and kicked her shoes off. He was rough with his shirt buttons, drunk fingers more savage than cautious as he tore the clothes from his body.
I took my cufflinks, placing them carefully on the nightstand before taking more concrete action.
“Show me how much you want your husband’s cock,” I barked at Grace, and she ate him up with the hungry eyes I’d been missing so much since the last time.
She didn’t need telling twice.
His dick was hard when she pulled it from his pants, his jaw gritted hard as she sucked it in with her greedy mouth.
I pulled up a chair, a mirror image of the first crazy night I’d spent with their nakedness, my legs crossed at the knee as I reclined back for a decent viewing.
“I don’t have fifty fucking grand for you,” Brett grunted, and his smile was drunk but real.
“Draw a red line in lipstick if you want it even,” I said back with a smirk.
“No sensors,” he told me. “You don’t need a barrier, Tom. I think my Grace wants us both to pitch in all night long.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Her eyes were on mine even as she sucked him deep, spluttering around the length of him like the dirty little slut we’d trained her to be.
I hoped I’d remember this for a long fucking time, breathing long and slow as he fucked her pretty throat and she slavered all over him.
“Show her what you’ve got for her,” I told him, and he gave me a nod.
“I’ll show her what I’ve got for her,” he responded, and gripped her throat with the same brutality I’d shown him all those nights ago.
He was learning. Every skill I’d learned by heart blooming deep in him through his sportsman’s vision. It was a joy to watch him slam his gorgeous wife to the bed and tug her dress down around her perky tits.
My mouth watered at the sight of them. Hungry to clamp down and mark her skin just as he was doing.
I ignored the twitch of the dick in my pants, shifting in my seat as the two people in the room with me found their groove.
They were different. He was different. Enough for the both of us combined as he sank into the authority he’d seized with both hands since the recent tornado of shit revelations rocked his world. He’d find himself in himself without question, exploring his own natural dominance through a whole different lens without the flawless illusion of his father to live for himself.
And fail for himself.
Risk himself in ways he’d never dared. Express himself in ways he’d never considered.
I was feeling it too. A whole world waiting out there, calling the whole new person I was becoming through this pain. Pain and hope.
Grace wrapped her legs around her husband’s waist, grinding against his naked cock as his mouth ravaged her and his hands pinned her wrists overhead. He was rough enough that she shied away from him, whimpering for more as her body betrayed her. And there she was, the Grace we’d coaxed from the demure woman who’d smiled out through her eyes all these years. The little vixen who tumbled over herself for more. Deeper.
Everything.
Brett didn’t look at me as he tugged her knickers to the side and slammed in hard.
I didn’t expect him to. Didn’t want him to. Didn’t even contemplate the possibility of an invite as her body squirmed under his and he ate her up.
His eyes were brutal on hers, his face just an inch away as he whispered obscenities I couldn’t make out and didn’t need to. She was transfixed, all her focus on the man who was claiming her, balls deep in the cunt that had grown so needy for its fill.
I waited until he pinched her nipples so hard she squealed, rolling her head back against the pressure as his power came to the fore.
I was quiet when I edged the chair backwards and made for the bathroom, waiting until their cursory glance had checked out my destination well enough for them to cast it aside as nothing and return to their pending climax.
I knew there would be another to follow it, and another after that. Their rapture couldn’t be contained in one single fuck session, not by a long way. It was raw and ripe. And ready.
Ready for me to say my goodbye.
I flicked on the switch in the bathroom to flood it with light, making sure I let out the noise of the door closing before retreating with backward steps into the shadow of their living room doorway.
And then I ran.
Quickly enough that I couldn’t change my mind, taking the stairs to my room three at a time and scooping up just my basic belongings before taking the rear stairs and tossing the essentials in my passenger seat and striking up the ignition.
There was no sign of them when I’d finished scrawling a handwritten note of my own and posted it through the main porch letterbox. The door was firmly closed on the world for the evening when I reversed from my parking space and headed along the coast with a smile on my face.
This time, like the last, I had no idea where I was headed.
Only this time, I didn’t care.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Grace
I knew it long before I summoned the ability to call a break.
We both knew it.
The hum of the bathroom extractor fan was still going strong as my husband slammed his cock into my asshole and I ate him up with whimpers too pained to hold back.
I didn’t want to hold back. Or him, either.
I wanted everything he had to give. Everything he would always give.
But still my eyes filled up as Brett called a temporary time out with a kiss on my lips. He went to that bathroom door with his breath still ragged, and I watched him there, my heart thumping with more than an easing climax.
“He’s gone,” he said, and I nodded.
We got ourselves together without another word, slipping into clothes than would count as passable should a guest be wandering. His room was unlocked and empty, the toiletries still piled in the shower room the only real remainder of his presence.
I knew it was done for us, my heart tickling with the undeniable truth that he’d made that call permanently and not just on a whim in the night.
Brett was deep in thought when we trudged down to the reception desk and flicked the light on.
The letter on the doormat spoke more words with its existence than it could possibly contain inside.
To my brother and his dearest wife, it said on the envelope in scrawled writing, not dissimilar to George Foster’s
Brett held it close enough so that I could read it too as he tore the envelope open to reveal nothing more than a compliment slip with Thomas Heath’s letterhead on the top.
I struggled to hold back tears before my eyes had even focused.
Dearest Brett and his most beautiful Grace,
For all the times I made the wrong call at other people’s expense, here is my chance to make the right one. Finally.
Thank you for your hospitality, but this time, as with all others that would exist from this point forward, I really am just one cock too many in your sweet little slice of paradise.
This isn’t goodbye, but rather, goodbye for now.
Yours, with love and heartfelt thanks from the heart I swore I would never feel,
Tom.
Ther
e was no point holding back tears any longer, not when I read his sign off.
Because my poor husband was already lost to them by then, his chest heaving as he struggled to choke them back.
But I wouldn’t let him. I pulled him into arms that were all for him. And as Brett held me tight and sobbed into my shoulder, I loved Thomas Heath more than I ever thought possible for caring enough to drive away.
I just hoped his goodbye really would be for now and not forever.
Luckily for us we had belief where Tom was just finding it.
Belief in love.
Believe in commitment.
Belief in family.
And belief in the man who’d threatened it all, just to set us free.
Epilogue
Thomas
Twelve months later.
Tom,
My son.
It’s taken me a long time to put that in words. Far longer than I’ll ever be able to live with.
One day soon, when these lungs of mine breathe their last and I cross over into whatever fate awaits me in the great beyond, I hope there is at least one angel there to greet me with open ears, just so I can tell them how proud I am of the son I don’t deserve.
I don’t deserve you, Thomas, nor your forgiveness.
I’m just asking you, please, son. Please give an old man the chance to express how sorry he is for his biggest mistake in his life.
I’ve been hard on my other son, Brett. Too hard at many times, hoping to instil in him the urge to live his life to the fullest and not make the same mistakes a fool like me made through his own weaknesses.
I could tell you about your mother. About the heartache I felt when she was loving other men, but I won’t. There is no excuse that would come close to defending my absence from your world when it mattered.
You see, son, it doesn’t make a difference. Blaming other people never does. People can be shit-bags and assholes, but our failures are always our own. Own them, change them, demand more from yourself than a pat on the back and a better luck next time.
I should have owned mine long ago.
I’m sorry I haven’t owned them sooner. Believe me, I’ve wanted to. I just wanted to make sure my Brett found his feet in life before unleashing his disappointment in me. He looks up to me more than he should do, and that’s a mantle I carry heavily. I hope you can understand me for striving to father at least one of you boys in the way you deserve.
He’s a good lad. A good husband. His wife, Grace, is a gem of a woman too. You’d love her, I’m sure, if only they had the chance to be a family at your side, the way I should’ve been.
I’ve followed you eagerly from afar, biting my tongue until the point I dared risk facing my failures. Only, you didn’t make any of your own.
I’m proud of you, Tom. Proud of all you’ve achieved. Proud that you work so hard, push so hard. Aim so high in this world and conquer everything set to topple you.
I’d have loved to reach out before now, but I know how it would look. I know the suspicion you’d hold in your heart about my true motives for breaking that barrier and calling you my own while you are flying so high.
It’s not about the money, Thomas. I don’t want any money from you. I know I could never reach out now, I’ve lost my window of ever of holding you close, the way I should have done when you needed me, but I can write this message to you, and hope that you read it when I’m gone.
I don’t want anything but your knowledge that there was a man and he loved you, even though he was too weak a fool to say it when he had the chance.
If you read this, please consider building bridges with my Brett.
He should’ve been your brother, and he would have done you proud. I’m sure you’d love him, just the way I do, and he’d love you right back, the way I do.
Goodbye, son.
Yours with a love you’ll never know, and a heart that wishes for nothing more than your awareness of the truth,
Your dad, George.
I know it by heart already, my father’s letter. I’ve kept it in my inside pocket every step of the way around this beautiful globe of ours. Through the sprawling states of the USA while speeding in a growling Mustang, to the sedate canals of a freezing Venice in the heart of winter.
I’ve seen it all, done it all, and his words have been there every step of the way. Reminding me what it’s like to carry regret with you until you die.
I won’t be making that mistake myself.
“Hello, Dad,” I speak aloud, staring at the sky on this sunny spring morning as the cemetery chirps with life. “I’m pleased today is under more pleasant circumstances than the last.”
I drop the white rose onto the green bank of earth and drop my letter down with it.
“It’s taken me a while to come back to this place. I needed to find my feet first. Not in a world of handshakes and stocks and shares, but in people. In life. I have you to thank for my awakening.” I can’t hold back the smile. “Well, you and my brother, of course.”
I pull out my latest postcard from my pocket. I’ve yet to send this one to their sweet slice of heaven. The final one I posted from overseas was from Paris, just a week ago from now. I trusted they were still getting them, a new destination every week with the same short text I’d been sending since driving into the night and out of their life all those months ago.
Thinking of you. Goodbye is not farewell.
Tom x
And a kiss. I always ended it with a honeycomb ice cream kiss.
I hope they are ready for my reappearance one day in the not so distant future. I hope they’ve missed me even a fraction as much as I’ve missed them as I’ve forged my first genuine path in this world, with the boy inside me taking greater gulps of air with every step.
I’m not scared of him now. Not scared of heartbreak or disappointment or putting my newly-discovered heart on the line.
Not scared of love.
Of life.
“They’re still down there, Brett and Grace,” I tell the dead man under my feet. “An anonymous businessman snapped up the hotel down the coast from them. He got it at a bargain price as well, I hear, since they couldn’t get their staffing crisis under control. Rumour has it he’s going to turn it into a training centre for disadvantaged youths, but I’ve heard he’s generally quite a cunt, so those rumours aren’t running too rife through the city.”
I light up a cigar, my first in weeks.
“I’m sorry we never met. I guess we’ve both got plenty of mistakes we’ll carry to our grave. Maybe you’ll be waiting for me on the other side and we can shake hands like grown-ups looking to start again.” I chance a smile. “Or maybe we’ll hate each other for our similarities. Either way, I look forward to it.”
I tip my head at a passing couple, my heart pounding at the clench of her fingers in his.
“In the meantime,” I continue. “I have some mistakes of my own to rectify. I just hope she’s been reading my postcards before she bins them.”
I reach out to touch the headstone, no longer hating the name Foster and everything it stands for.
“Goodbye, Dad. I hope Brett and Grace are up the duff by now. I’m hoping there’s a little niece or nephew to greet me when I head back down to the coast with my new bride on my arm.” I pause to take a final drag on my cigar, only this time I don’t drop it onto his grave. “Wish me luck, of course, she might not say yes to me yet. I know I wouldn’t.”
I laugh at that.
But that doesn’t matter, not today.
Winning isn’t everything, not anymore.
It’s the taking part that counts.
And I’m hoping to take every part of Polly Piper she’ll give me.
THE END
Acknowledgments
Ok, so, this book turned out to be quite a tale. Considerably longer than I anticipated. I hope you have enjoyed it to this point!
As always, I have some people to thank. *Clears throat*
John Hudspith, my
amazing editor. You came through for me all the way. Thank you. Couldn’t do this without you. I know I say this time and time again, but it’s true.
Letitia Hasser from RBA Designs, for so much more than just the cover this time. This design is all on you, this title is all on you. The initial spark of this story is all on you. Thank you!
To Jon at Read Owl Book Trailers (who also happens to be my other half) – thank you for the amazing trailer, I love it.
My PAs Tracy and Marci – thank you, ladies, always.
Gel, for the amazing teasers – thank you so much for all your hard work.
My author buddies, who have been super amazing on this project – Isabella Starling, Leigh Shen, Willow Winters, Jana Aston, Louise Bay, Sierra Simone, SC Daiko, and especially the enthusiasm and beta reading of my amazing friend, Jo Raven. I love you all!!
Isabella, as always I’m shouting you out for living at ours so much of the time. We love you here. Always. And you sort out my files and make them functional. In short, you are awesome, please keep it up. :D
To all my other author buddies, who make me smile every day. You know who you are by now.
To my beta readers – your enthusiasm means everything. Of course, of note – as always – is the incredible Louise Ramsay, who I always count on so much for early feedback, plus this time the amazing Maxine McCormick – thank you so much!
To my friends, who barely saw me throughout the creation of this book, and who put up with my incessant book talk so patiently. This applies every book. Constantly. Lisa and Maria especially. Thank you!
To the bloggers, reviewers, my book group members and all of you amazing people who support my work. I couldn’t do this without any of you. I am, and will forever be grateful to all that you do for me.
And to my family – Mum, Dad, Brad and Nan – thank you for being on my side, always.
You are my everything. You too, Misha. Thanks for being my fellow ENFP at the weekends. You rock. :D