Page 42 of The Spare

‘You like that.’

‘Umm-hmm.’

‘All those years you spent being the perfect little socialite, and look at you now. My dick in your cunt and my finger in your arse, and you’re fucking loving it. My filthy, filthy little wife. If they could see you now.’

I know he’s trying to shame me, in a really good way, and it’s fucking working. Confronting the sheer filth of what I’m letting him do to me makes it even hotter—far hotter than trying to dissociate. Even if I wanted to, it would be impossible to fantasise my way out of the right here, right now, because nothing and no one is hotter than my husband, and no one knows better how to press my buttons. So I squeeze my eyes shut and allow myself to drink in every single sensation that’s happening inside me.

‘You realise you’re going to come like this,’ Ben says. His voice is tinged with intense pride—or intense self-satisfaction. Hard to tell with him.

‘Yep,’ I say with a moan. This is the best moment of my life. Every nerve ending in my body is performing Maria’s twirling hilltop opener from The Sound of Music. My entire body is well and truly alive with the feeling of being double-dipped by my dastardly husband. Things are happening inside me that I have no reference for, no tools for. All I know is that I’m hurtling towards some kind of crescendo, and it’s going to be one for the ages. ‘Harder,’ I urge him.

‘Jesus, I am so fucking obsessed with you,’ he groans, picking up his pace. The sounds he’s making tell me he’s not far off, either, but I trust Ben to get me there first. My husband is a sexual superhero, and I know he’s got me. So I stand there, holding on for dear life, my sole contribution being to push back into every thrust, to overlook the physical discomfort and chase the accompanying pleasure.

I am actually drooling so hard that it’s dripping from my mouth, washed away by the shower water. Ben pounds me and pounds me, and it’s so gritty and rough: hard, dirty sex, the likes of which I have never, ever encountered outside of my Kindle.

The ache is morphing, spreading, building, consuming my entire body. All I can think about is our end game, where my husband ignites it and obliterates me. His fingertips dig into my hip as he continues to pump both my holes, and I shake with the effort of holding myself upright on Bambi legs, of withstanding a force so strong it may well end me, and⁠—

Oh shit.

My climax is a fireball, igniting my womb and ripping through my body and atomising me until I’m no longer matter but pure, incandescent energy. The contractions are endless, staggering, beautiful, my body their vehicle, my cries their only outlet. I’m practically screaming, my shouts echoing around this shower enclosure as Ben follows me right over the edge with a volley of brutal fucks as he empties everything he has inside me. On his final paroxysms, he pulls that blessed finger out and folds himself over me, his chest against my back, pressing fevered kisses down the discs of my spine, his arms wrapping around me before pulling me upright.

Still pulsing inside me, he holds me like that, and I let my head flop back against his shoulder, useless and boneless, as he caresses my hips, my stomach, my breasts.

‘Told you,’ he slurs, his breath hot against my ear. ‘I’m fucking obsessed.’

CHAPTER 19

Selena

If we’ve been hoping that the dramatic first few weeks of our marriage would ebb away, leaving behind calmer waters on which to build an actual future, we’ve been thwarted in grand style. Obviously, I’m back at work properly, which means a couple of days a week in London—I spend one night a week at my house, which is currently the strongest tether I have to my sanity—and Ben is, bless him, doing his best to engage with the increase in duties that his new title affords him.

But it’s soon after we get back from our ski trip that he tells me Ivy’s stepmother has passed away. Whatever my feelings towards Ivy, I’m horrified. Her stepmum was apparently only in her late fifties. She died of aspiration pneumonia: as the body dementia increasingly affected her swallow, she had more and more incidents where food and drink went down the wrong way, eventually causing an infection in her lungs from which she couldn’t recover.

How unspeakably tragic. And Ivy’s sisters aren’t even fifteen. Xavier certainly has his hands full, although it doesn’t surprise me that he’s stepping up. He may have royally screwed me over, but he’s clearly found a new focus for his well-developed sense of duty.

What I’m not expecting is the shitstorm Ben whips up one evening when he, Charlotte and I are having supper at home. I haven’t seen much of his mother recently, to be honest. I suspect it’s a mixture of her wanting to make herself scarce while we get our feet under the table, which is awful, and the belief—deeply held in women like her—that taking time to grieve is both unhelpful and self-indulgent. Best to get on with things. Keep busy. So she’s been out and about a lot, spending time with her human and equine friends.

‘A little bird told me you’re thinking of moving to Woodstock,’ he says to his mother over sea bass and sautéed veg.

‘That would be correct,’ she says, which surprises me. It’s the first I’ve heard of her moving to Woodstock.

‘I thought you planned to take the dower house?’ I say carefully. The dower house is on the grounds of the estate, a short walk from here, and is a beautifully symmetrical Georgian structure that predates the main house by almost a century. It’s mainly used to house visitors, apparently.

‘I assumed I would,’ she tells me, toying with her fork. ‘But it’s dreadfully lonely over there.’

‘But Charlotte, you should stay here if that’s the case,’ I say. ‘This has been your home for far longer than it’s been mine.’ I can’t say living with my mother-in-law is a core part of my life plan, but it would be inhumane to eject her so soon after her husband’s death.

She smiles at me. She’s been very sweet to me since the wedding. We’ve always had a good relationship—carefully honed at my end, obviously—but I think Xavier breaking off our engagement put the fear of God into her and she’s still thanking her lucky stars that Ben stepped in.

‘That won’t do at all, dear. It’s simply not how things are done. Besides, all this socialising has made me realise how much merrier things would be if I was in town. I’ll come back to ride every day, of course, but this way, I’ll be right in the middle of things. We have a little rectory in Woodstock.’

I cock my head. It’s not a bad call, all things considered. ‘Is it in good shape?’

‘Pretty good,’ Ben says. ‘The last tenants moved out in November, as luck would have it. We can spruce it up for you, Ma, if you’re serious about this.’

‘But how will you manage?’ I persist. Charlotte de Vere has had dozens of staff members at her beck and call for her entire married life. The thought of her living alone is staggering.

‘I thought I’d pinch Mrs Dale,’ Charlotte says in a tone that tells me it’s not a suggestion. Mrs Dale is the family’s longstanding housekeeper, but she’s getting long in the tooth. Not only will her loyalty lie with Charlotte, but looking after a single person in a townhouse should be a relief after the burden of running this place.