Chapter 1
The car felt claustrophobically small with Joseph’s muscular arms flexing as he gripped the wheel and Beth’s intoxicating floral perfume emanating from the back seat where she sat, her thighs brushing against my silent children. My gaze was locked on the never-ending grey pavement of the highway, the yellow lines melting into each other as we raced north, attempting to ignore the smothering tension just beneath the surface of Beth’s presence. She had graciously offered us her battered caravan for the week—a chance for familial connection, she’d cooed behind her fiery red lips, an opportunity for the children to grow fond of Joseph. But there was an undeniable, dangerous spark igniting between my new lover and Jasmine, my 16-year-old daughter. I had noticed her appraising stares in his direction during dinner, the deliberate manner in which she would allow her flimsy robe to slip open when sitting across from him. And I couldn’t shake the image of Joseph’s flushed cheeks and parted lips when he’d discovered her shiny silver vibrator nestled among her delicate underwear as he assisted with laundry last month.
Beth had nonchalantly invited herself along last night, proclaiming a “change of plans,” her blackened eyes lingering on mine just a moment too long at the dinner table. Joseph remained unaware of our shared history - those Merlot-infused nights that began well before he entered my life and persisted, covertly, even after. Those stolen moments in her cedar-scented garden shed while he was engrossed in football games: her fingers deftly gliding across my collarbone before teasingly dipping between my legs; how she brought me to a shuddering climax, then instructed me to go home and let him claim me. I never mustered the courage to share that side of myself with him - the part that still quivered whenever she called; the part that could taste her cinnamon lip balm even in my wildest dreams; or how I craved his gaze as I pleasured myself, imagining her touch.
Caught in the middle of my two lovers, with a week to conceal my secret affair with Beth from Joseph. Beth, always the seductress and provocateur, would either have her sights set on every available (or unavailable; she never let morals stand in her way) conquest or would dangerously crave me, driving me mad with her flirtatious touches and sensual glances.
Our tyres crunched over the gravel as we entered Seaview Holiday Park. Liam pressed his face against the window, eyes wide at the rusted swings and peeling slides that sprouted from patchy grass beside what appeared to be the clubhouse—a weathered wooden structure that sagged at the corners.
“Seriously?” Jasmine yanked out her earbuds, the tinny echo of her music briefly filling the car. “This is where we’re staying?”
“It’s... rustic,” Joseph muttered, trying to soften the blow as he turned off the engine.
Beth smirked, running a manicured nail along the window. “I’ve always had a fondness for places with... character.”
I tensed as Beth’s eyes met mine, a silent acknowledgement of those weekends in places just like this—places where no one asked questions about two women sharing a room. Joseph hefted the bags from the trunk, whistling tunelessly, while I herded the children toward what would be our home for the next seven days.
Inside, time had stopped somewhere in the seventies—brown-and-yellow floral wallpaper curled away from the corners, revealing patches of mould beneath, while matted orange carpet squished underfoot. The air hung heavy with the ghost of a thousand cigarettes and the unmistakable tang of rising damp. Liam disappeared into the furthest bedroom with the enthusiasm of a child discovering a fort, while Jasmine collapsed onto a sagging sofa that exhaled a puff of dust.
“Kill me now,” she groaned, her thumbs already dancing across her phone screen.
Joseph’s fingers found the curve where my waist met my hips, his touch burning through cotton. “It’s an adventure, isn’t it?”
I pivoted toward him, muscles straining to lift the corners of my mouth. “Absolutely.”
Jasmine wrinkled her nose as she emerged from the bathroom, the door’s rusty hinges announcing her return with a prolonged screech. A damp tendril of honey-blonde hair clung to her flushed cheek as she surveyed the cramped living space with undisguised contempt. “Please tell me there’s another bedroom somewhere.”
“Just the one!” Beth announced, her crimson lips curling into a smile that didn’t reach her kohl-rimmed eyes. Her gaze locked with mine, glittering with unmistakable mischief beneath the flickering overhead light. “The kids get the pull-outs in here, and we grown-ups will cosy up in the double. All three of us.”
“Mom.” Jasmine’s voice dropped to a horrified whisper, her French-manicured nails digging half-moons into her palms. “I am not sleeping in the same room as Liam for seven days.” Her eyes, so like mine but harder somehow, flicked from the threadbare carpet with its constellation of mysterious stains to my face, silently begging. I understood her desperation—the privacy she needed for her nighttime and morning rituals would vanish with her brother sprawled across the room, his gangly limbs and observant eyes invading her hormonal desires.
I forced a smile, feeling my lips stretch taut across my teeth. “You’ll manage, Jasmine. Think of it as an adventure—sometimes we need to stretch beyond what’s comfortable.”
My words rang hollow in my own ears, brittle as the yellowed ceiling tiles above us. I pictured the cramped bedroom waiting for us: that single double bed with its concave mattress and suspicious rust-colored stain near the headboard, surrounded by peeling wallpaper where faded roses bled into one another. I’d lie trapped between Joseph and Beth, inhaling the mingling scents of his woodsy aftershave and her cinnamon perfume. Joseph would remain oblivious, too proper to even pleasure himself with another person in the room, his body rigid as a plank beside me, while Beth would savor every opportunity to brush her manicured fingertips against the sensitive skin of my inner wrist, to press her lips against my ear, her hot breath carrying whispered promises only I could hear, each syllable sending electric currents down my spine to pool like liquid heat between my thighs.
The seven days stretched before me like a minefield. Jasmine would sulk and seethe, I would lie awake trapped between desire and deceit, and Joseph—poor Joseph would spend nights rigid with frustration, his expectations of intimate vacation moments evaporating with Beth’s unwelcome presence. Only Liam seemed content, building fortresses from this disaster, his childhood still mercifully intact.
My impossible situation hung in the air like the moisture that clung to my skin. I glanced at Joseph’s pocket where the car keys made a slight bulge, imagining myself speeding away from this decaying holiday prison. But my fingers found their way to the bottle instead, muscle memory guiding me toward temporary oblivion as I filled a smudged glass to the brim.
The wheels of my suitcase caught on the warped floorboard as I entered the bedroom. I stood before the bed, its veneer flaking away like dead skin, wondering which drawer might best conceal the tangled web I’d woven between my lovers.
The door clicked shut behind Beth, who leaned against it with a knowing smile that crinkled the corners of her kohl-rimmed eyes. The fading afternoon light caught the amber flecks in her irises. “Hiding away in here alone?”
My elbow jerked, sending deep crimson merlot splashing across the worn beige carpet like arterial spray. “Joseph has Liam outside collecting seashells. They could walk in any moment.”
“That’s half the thrill.” Beth’s gaze travelled slowly down my body, lingering on the hollow of my throat where my pulse hammered visibly. “Jasmine’s lost in her social media universe, thumbs tapping away. We have a window of opportunity.”
The flush started at my neck, climbing upward like mercury in a thermometer, heat blooming across my cheeks. “We agreed not to do this here.”
“Did we?” Beth stepped closer, her hips swaying hypnotically, voice honeyed and dangerous as a wasp’s buzz. Her fingertips found the frayed edge of my shirt, grazing the goosebumped skin beneath. She pinched my nipple through the fabric, rolling it between her fingers until it hardened into a tight bud. My breath caught in my throat, principles dissolving faster than sugar in hot tea.
“Five minutes,” I murmured, already surrendering to the inevitable pull between us.
Beth’s crimson lips curled upward like a cat who’d cornered its prey. “I can work with that.”
When her mouth found the sensitive spot below my ear, her cinnamon-scented breath hot against my skin, I squeezed my eyes shut, trying desperately to picture Joseph—his gentle, calloused hands, his trusting face with that crooked smile—anything to dampen the electricity coursing through me as I betrayed his trust once more.
I’d been fooling myself from the moment we arrived. As Beth’s fingers expertly worked the brass button of my jeans open with a practised flick, I knew this vacation had become a ticking time bomb, its countdown accelerating with each forbidden touch.
I gasped, “Beth”, between shallow breaths as her lacquered fingernails caught on my zipper’s metal teeth. “Someone could walk in,” I whispered, the warning dissolving into a soft moan as I arched my hips toward her touch, my own trembling hands yanking denim down sweat-dampened thighs. My body hummed with electric need—a craving for the kind of obliteration that would drown out the persistent voice of conscience, something far more potent than the bitter merlot still coating my tongue. For just these stolen moments, I wanted the world beyond this musty bedroom with its water-stained ceiling and peeling wallpaper to disappear like morning mist over the distant shoreline.
Her tongue claimed my mouth with a fierce possession that made my knees weaken. She tasted of cinnamon and danger, each stroke silencing my protests more effectively than any words could. I surrendered to her rhythm, my body betraying me with a shudder that acknowledged what I couldn’t voice aloud—how desperately I craved this surrender of control, this momentary escape from the weight of my own choices.
As her knowing touch traced electric circles between my thighs, I reached beneath her shirt, palm meeting the warm curve of bare flesh, the heat of Beth’s hardened nipple seared into my palm, her need as palpable as my own. I couldn’t remember whose idea this was anymore, the line between seducer and seduced long since blurred. All I knew was that this connection, this forbidden fire that raged between us, was too potent to extinguish with mere words or well-intentioned promises.
As Beth’s fingers slid inside of me, my moan of pleasure was swallowed by her hungry mouth. The world contracted to the space between us, the tangle of our bodies and the frantic, desperate way our hips ground against each other. Beth’s touch was both familiar and foreign, her every move pushing me to the brink only to pull me back just as I teetered over the edge.
“Joseph,” I gasped, his name a feeble attempt at resistance, a final plea to the fading remnants of my sanity. Beth only growled in response, her tongue delving deeper into my mouth, her fingers working faster, harder, as though she could erase the very memory of his name from my lips.
I lost myself in the sensations, in the way her nails raked down my back, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. The bedroom dissolved around us, leaving only the two of us, locked in a desperate dance of lust and lies. My orgasm crashed over me like a tidal wave, stealing my breath and my reason, leaving me limp and shuddering in her arms.
Beth’s fingers slowed, her kisses turning from ravenous to tender as she traced the shell of my ear with her tongue. “I’ve missed this,” she whispered, her voice husky with desire.
I couldn’t respond; my lungs were still fighting to regain their rhythm. Instead, I pulled her closer, burying my face in the crook of her neck and breathing in the intoxicating scent of cinnamon and sin.
The main door’s sudden click jolted me from my haze. I scrambled to dress, fingers fumbling with damp fabric and metal buttons. “Looks like you’re on your own now,” I whispered to Beth with a guilty half-smile, barely composing myself before Joseph’s shadow darkened the bedroom doorway.
