A Touch of Spice (2 page)

“You okay?” he asked, withdrawing to his side of the table. “Let’s try this again, yeah? Your boyfriend wants to see you with another bloke and you, being lovely and totally smitten, thought to make that fantasy come true on his birthday. What date are we talking about here? I have to check my calendar…”

Jackie bit her lip. “This Saturday?”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’m available Saturday,” Tony announced brightly. “How did you want to do it? I should warn you, I’m not jumping out of any birthday cakes.” He tapped his chest with an open palm, adding, “I’m claustrophobic.”

“I thought you could just…be in the bedroom with me when he got home.” In her head, the tableau drew itself in far sultrier tones than anything that came out of her mouth. “He likes it a little rough. Do you mind that?”

Tony shook his head. “You’ve seen my films, haven’t you? I’m good with anything short of actual bodily harm. But we can talk limits in a moment. I’m curious to hear what
you
want to have happen, love. Sure, it’s your boy’s birthday, but you’ll be with another man. Does that make you uncomfortable at all?”

It did, but mostly it was making her feel excited. Just the thought of Marten watching as she took another man’s cock inside her had her squirming a little in her seat. She told Tony that she’d be fine.

“And he’s okay with that, too?”

Jackie arched a brow.

He went on, “Some lads like the idea of seeing their wives or girlfriends with someone else, but come the actual screwing and they get antsy. Like roosters pecking at the competition, if you know what I mean.” His shoulders sagged. “What I’m saying is this—you’d have a lousy time of it if it turned out your boy’s the sort to get jealous easily.”

“I-I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Jackie stammered, sure she was blushing all the way up to her ears.

“Why’s that?”

She looked up to find that Tony was peering at her over his cup, steam rising in soft, fragrant eddies that faded into the cacophony of patrons chattering indifferently around them..

“Because my boyfriend is bisexual.” She had never said that to anyone before—not to her best friend or her sister, not to her gynaecologist, with whom she discussed her sex life at least once a year.

“Oh,” Tony drawled. “Okay. I can work with that.” If he was taken aback, then he did a brilliant job of hiding it—a consummate actor, whether or not there was a camera waiting to catch the flicker of tension across his face.

He sipped his tea as Jackie told him the rest
.
She had been meaning to try something like this for a while. “Couldn‘t really find anyone among our friends I felt comfortable enough with to invite into bed, I guess. As for approaching a complete stranger… I worry it might get me laughed at. Or…worse.” She arched her brows. “And then there‘s that niggling fear that if I pick the wrong partner, I‘ll have ruined a good relationship.”

Even if Marten wasn’t the jealous type, he himself had only brought up the subject when they were intimate together, often in the heat of the moment. He said it was just a fantasy, but Jackie wondered if he wasn’t simply denying himself for her sake.

“Then how about we do this?” Tony countered, gazing at her through his lashes. “You take him out for dinner on Saturday and I can be in the neighbourhood—say, around ten?——when you’re done. If he’s up for it, you give me a call and I’ll come up. If he’s not sure or if you’ve changed your mind, then… No hard feelings.”

“Really?”

Tony shrugged. “Yeah. I saw the pic you’ve got in your email signature. You look like a nice couple. I don’t want to be the guy who breaks you up.”

It was that escape route that convinced Jackie. “Okay.” They exchanged phone numbers and Jackie texted him her address, with Tony solemnly promising he wouldn’t stalk her if she didn’t call, and parted ways about an hour later. The drizzling rain had stopped by the time Jackie got off the bus just outside her apartment building. She had to admit she felt a little better after talking to Tony. He seemed decent, like the kind of guy she could stand to be friends with, even if this plan of theirs fell through. She found herself hoping that the feeling was mutual as she roused her smartphone and typed him a quick message.

Thx for meeting with me. Have a GR8 evening. Jackie
.

“You sound way too much like a smitten teenager,” she told herself, backspacing until everything was deleted. She went with a more conservative—

Thank you for the talk & wish you a great evening

Signed with her full name rather than the careless, overly friendly nickname.

A reply chirped from her cell just as she was about to jump into the shower.

My pleasure, lovely
,
Enjoy the birthday boy.

It was signed Anthony, like the Roman general, and Jackie fancied she could see him grinning as he had typed it out.

Chapter Two

By the time Marten got home from work, she had already run through every possible, contrived reason to answer Tony’s last message. Every time she thought she had a viable excuse she faltered, afraid that she might come across as some crazy person. She didn’t want to harass him, but the apartment was too quiet and her patience too slight to wait for the weekend. She thought, instead, of how Saturday might turn out—if he’d go down on Marten while she watched. If that was something Marten wanted her to see. Heat flared inside her at the thought, a steady flame fanned by the vagaries of her vivid imagination.

She started when Marten’s key turned in the door. “Hi, honey, I’m—” He didn’t get to finish his droll little greeting. He insisted on playing up the Cary Grant angle every chance he got—and his dapper, sleek looks didn’t hurt the attempt, but tonight Jackie was quicker. His lips were dry and chapped with the cold under hers, his suit already rumpled from a day at the office. Being backed up against the door like this was doing the fine wool jacket no favours, but Jackie didn’t care. If there was a complaint to be made, then it was lost, submerged under the force of her kiss. Marten moaned when her body pressed against his and circled her waist with his broad hands.

When they broke for air, his cheeks were flushed with more than cold.

“Hi,” Jackie said, grinning. She was rarely so affectionate after work and she didn’t want to look too closely into why that was. A certain retired porn star came to mind, his lips lush and soft-looking against the rim of his tea mug. Jackie pushed back against the thought, looping her hands behind her boyfriend’s neck. “Happy birthday.”

“My birthday’s not for a few days…”

“Are you complaining?”

“Oh, no.” He grasped her thighs, hoisting her flush against him. It wasn’t entirely comfortable. His messenger bag weighed against Jackie’s knee, his metal belt buckle pressing sharp into her belly, but it was all bearable because Marten’s lips had found her neck, kisses warm and wet just where she was most sensitive.

“Take me to bed,” she heard herself beg, though Marten was already leading them in that direction.

They knocked the door frame and Marten almost backed her clumsily into the wardrobe, before their journey ended with a loud thump and the mattress dipping beneath their combined weight. Marten laughed, the sound cutting off abruptly as Jackie sought his lips with a kiss. Their rutting was perfectly graceless, like teenagers humping behind school bleachers, but it seemed so much effort to undress. Jackie needed him now, this instant. She couldn’t stand to wait another minute. Mercifully, it seemed like she wasn’t the only one desperate for release.

“Grab a condom,” Marten urged, tilting to the side to undo his fly. His belt buckle fell open against Jackie’s splayed thigh like a brand, gleaming and icy. She wondered what it might be like to be spanked with it—or to spank Tony—and felt a flood of need gush from her sex.

The sound of her name on Marten’s lips brought her back. “What? Oh, right.” She scrabbled blindly on the nightstand until she knocked over the box of condoms they’d stopped stowing out of the way a scant three days after moving into an apartment all of their own. With no roommates around to interrupt there was no reason to hide how randy they were for each other. Jackie tore the wrapper with shaking hands, but held it out of her boyfriend’s reach.

“Get on your back,” she murmured, trying for seductive but sure she was coming closer to desperate instead.

Marten held her gaze for only a moment before obeying. He sighed through parted lips when she straddled his hips, reaching his hands to grasp her flanks. “You’re such a tease,
schatje
—”

“We’ve talked about this before, remember? A tease doesn’t deliver,” Jackie recalled, rolling the condom down her boyfriend’s cock. He was so hard, already leaking pre-cum into her fist. “I do.” She squeezed a little, mostly to hear him moan, before rising onto her knees above him. Holding him steady with one hand, she prised her soaked panties aside with the other. She didn’t have to see Marten’s eyes to know they were focused wholly on the sight of her sinking down upon him, taking him in with one fluid stroke. Heat filled her, the stretch pleasantly familiar by now as she settled onto his member.

“Fuck,” he bit out, and arched his head back into the pillows. Other curses tumbled from his mouth, in Dutch and in English.

Jackie echoed the sentiment with a soft keen. As much as she would have liked to torment him a little longer, she needed to move. It took a little effort to get her legs to cooperate. She felt as though her muscles had been reduced to Jell-O, but there was a sense of rhythm to their lovemaking once she found it. Marten worked his hips up and into hers as she bore down upon him with slick, sweet sounds. Jackie couldn’t fathom stopping. Her hands gripped along the folds of his shirt, grasping his silk tie as a makeshift leash. Tempting as it was to pull, she was afraid of choking Marten, so she settled for looping his tie around her palm as she rocked over and over onto his cock. Her cunt throbbed and she could feel herself getting close when, with a choked growl, Marten flipped them over.

A protest rose to Jackie’s lips. This wasn’t how she’d wanted it—why couldn’t he give her the upper hand for once? Then she saw Marten’s face, eyes gone so dark they were almost black and his cheeks stained with excitement and she gave up the thought. Marten could have her like this if he wanted to. She didn’t mind.

He spread her knees wider, his jacket falling around them like a pair of folded wings. “Jackie,” he ground out. “Jackie, fuck—”

The violence of his thrusts rattled the headboard. Jackie could only anchor herself to him as he fucked her hard and fast, pouring pure filth into her ear between haggard breaths. The intermittent friction of his pubic bone against her clit was just enough to send her over the edge.

She didn’t cry out, she never did, but Marten’s moans rose to a desperate, barely human pitch as he propped himself on his fists and began to pound her in earnest. One, two more thrusts, then he was coming, his handsome face transfigured and red with effort. His dick twitched inside Jackie’s cunt, held so tightly by the clutch of her inner muscles as it spurted in the condom. Shivers racked through him. Jackie opened her arms to catch him when he collapsed into her arms. “That was hot,” she mumbled. “That was so hot, baby…”

“Yeah.” Marten’s ribcage was still rattling with his rushing heartbeat.

Jackie placed a wet kiss just under his hairline, inhaling his sweat and the faint, familiar scent of his cologne. She’d never been a fan of men who went all boneless after sex, but with Marten it wasn’t so bad. He had a way of clinging that made her feel powerful, like she was dispensing kindness by letting him linger inside her in the aftermath. When he finally did move, his tie was askew and his hair stuck out at odd angles like the comic book version of a mad scientist. It didn’t get any better when she ran her fingers up his nape into the thick, brown strands to tilt his mouth to hers for a kiss.

Her own dress was rucked up around her waist, panties soaked and clinging to her in a way she found both decadent and a little unpleasant. At least she hadn’t been wearing tights today.

“What did I do,” Marten mumbled, his voice reduced to a languid, debauched little purr, “to deserve that kind of welcome?”

Jackie pressed her lips into a thin line. “Nothing. Why?”

He turned his head against the pillow until he could see Jackie. “Because that was—special. Lately we just get takeaway and watch movies until one of us falls asleep in front of the TV. Not,” Marten hurried to add, “that I don’t like that, too.” Since they had a turn-based system for picking the movies they rented and he usually picked three-hour-long war flicks, Jackie hadn’t thought for a second that he disliked their evenings, but now she wondered.

“It’s your birthday,” she pointed out. “The big three-oh.”

“And this is how we’re gearing up for that milestone?” Marten grinned into the pillowcase.

No
, Jackie thought, this was how she was making up for revealing his secret fantasies to a complete and utter stranger. Exchanging a few emails with Tony and watching his films didn’t mean she knew him. It didn’t even mean she could count him as an acquaintance—and still she had exposed Marten to his ridicule, never mind that she’d gone as far as to invite Tony to their bed. With the haze of post-orgasmic bliss fast receding, Jackie found herself feeling both ashamed and relieved as Marten dragged himself out of their bed. She didn’t want to lose this easy complicity, this hard-earned domestic peace she had forged for herself so many miles away from home.

“Marten?”

“Hmm?” He had already started peeling out of his sweat-soaked clothes, each layer revealing a little more of the man beneath the frosty professional exterior. When he turned to face her wearing only his black socks and his soiled tighty-whities, Jackie’s heart all but lurched in her chest.

“I love you,” she heard herself say, a far cry from what she’d meant to tell him but not so far from the truth.