Page 52 of The Spare

She’s gazing at me now. Even though her words are casual, I can tell it cost her a lot to say them. These things don’t come easy to my wife.

‘Curious, how?’

I slide an arm around her waist and tug her closer to me. She sets her drink down next to mine on a poser table and lays her palms on my chest.

She frowns. ‘This is hard for me to say.’

‘Okay,’ I tell her, leaning my forehead against hers. ‘Close your eyes if it’ll make it easier. You can say anything to me. I’m impossible to shock.’

Apparently, it does make it easier, because her eyes flutter closed. ‘That’s kind of the problem. If this kind of thing is… important to you, and you’ve given it all up for me without a backwards glance, then we should talk about it. I don’t want you to be bored in this marriage.’ She opens her eyes and leans back so we can see each other properly.

I’m rarely lost for words, but I am now. ‘Slinks, that’s not— Of course I’m not bored. How could I be bored, being married to you? Alchemy is just— It was an easy place to find sex if I didn’t want to put in the effort. That’s all.’ God knows, the sex we’re having is fan-fucking-tastic. Pursuing my wife, turning her on, surprising her, watching her trust me enough to fall apart… those are all the thrills I need.

‘But it’s still early days,’ she says. ‘You might—you might get restless.’

Her face is so forlorn. I had no idea she felt like this.

‘I won’t. I promise.’ I reach up and cup her jaw in my hand.

‘You can’t promise something like that,’ she says, her eyes darting downwards. ‘And I don’t want to risk it. We should be planning for this stuff.’

‘Planning?’ I say. ‘How?’

She shrugs. ‘By pushing our boundaries so you don’t get bored.’ From the way she says it, I’d guess she’s never uttered the phrase pushing our boundaries before. ‘The others are going to Alchemy after this. We should go, too. You can show me your dark side.’

‘Apparently, we’re going to Alchemy after this,’ I tell the guys shortly after Slinks and I return to the group. I’m still reeling from her suggestion. ‘Sounds like your wives gave her the hard sell.’

‘Not Marlowe,’ Brendan says. ‘She’s never been.’

‘Well, Athena and Soph, then.’

‘Sounds like Soph,’ her husband, Ethan, mutters, but he has that goofy smile that he always gets on his face when he says her name. They’ve only been together for about eighteen months, but the man is pussy-whipped beyond all hope.

‘We’ll be there,’ Gabe says, and I shake my head in mock disgust.

‘Former priests are always the dirtiest bastards. You going, Bren?’

‘Fuck no.’ He shudders. ‘I went once, when Marlowe and I were… Well. Anyway, it was an utter fucking disaster from start to finish. I met this absolute firecracker—one of the workers there. Asked her if I could fuck her up the arse.’

‘Oh, God,’ his brother says, dropping his head and palming his face in despair.

‘Oh God is right. She bends right over for me, right there in the Playroom, and I couldn’t get it up, could I? All my dick could think about was Marls. It was like a puppy that missed its owner. Fucking pathetic.’

I snort and take an amused sip of my dirty martini. Brendan is always good value. Marlowe seems far more mature than him, but I know she and her daughter have done him a world of good. He’s a decent bloke, at the end of the day, and he’s really stepped up for them. He’s also a highly entertaining storyteller—must be the Irish in him.

‘The girl was so unimpressed,’ he continues. ‘You should have seen the look she gave me and my limp dick, like you sad fuck. Most mortifying moment of my life. I wouldn’t mind, but she was absolutely smoking. Ivy, I think her name was. You guys know her?’

I instantly choke on my drink.

Oh my God.

I start coughing my guts up. Jesus Christ. Bren nearly did Ivy up the shitter—that’s far too close for comfort. My poor brother would die if he knew. I suspect he thinks about what Ivy used to have to do to pay the bills as little as humanly possible.

‘You all right, mate?’ Ethan asks, giving me a hearty slap on the back that has me coughing up more of my martini.

I suck in a desperate breath. ‘I will be,’ I rasp.

CHAPTER 24