Burning Choice (Trevor's Harem #3)

by Aubrey Parker

  “Wasn’t Blair Russian?”

  Jessica points in my face like a gumshoe discovering a point. “Exactly.”

  “Okay, I’m lost.”

  “It’s from the file. So maybe it’s not a real number. Because why would Blair have an SSN?”

  “Jess, seriously.”

  She’s thinking. Tapping her chin.

  “You know, when we first came into the house, Blair had that room in the east corridor. Do you remember?”

  “No.”

  “I haven’t checked the GPS over there yet. But your room’s coordinates are — ” And she starts spooling off numbers, too many to register. The world shouldn’t have so many numbers.

  “Jess!”

  She stops.

  “Jess, you know I love you, right?”

  “I guess, sure.”

  “You’re very seriously pissing me off right now.”

  “Oh. Sorry?”

  “I don’t like numbers. Numbers kilt my pa.”

  “What?”

  Stupid kids today, never understanding clichés from old westerns. “Never mind. Have you had your turn with Trevor yet?”

  “Turn?”

  “Yes, we’re supposed to … ” I trail off because that’s when I realize I’ve been assuming this was how it would go, because that’s what Trevor implied. We’d file past His Majesty one by one, have our private time, and someone, somewhere, would make sense of what happened. I’ve been assuming this is our test, but then again, isn’t everything here a test?

  I’m still trying to figure out how to finish the sentence when Daniel comes up from behind, puts his hand in the small of my back, and whispers into my ear, “You’re a shit actress, Bridget. They’re on to you. And now you’re in serious trouble.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Daniel

  As I walk the girls out into the gardens, my mind is running a mile a minute, full of thoughts I’d rather not entertain.

  I don’t have a superpower. Not in the way the girls have them; not in the way each of them is special. I’m just a guy. But I do see patterns. I’m excellent at strategy, and being who I am has forced me to learn the fine art of guile — of thinking at least one step ahead of the people who have, since I came into my own, always been scheming to claim what’s mine. As a kid, wits were all I had. Once I got older, bigger, and ultimately stronger, I gained more tools to use against the enemies who shook my hand, wished me well, and smiled while looking me in the eye. But brains have always, always beaten brawn. And like a body, brains can be exercised, too.

  There’s no way I can know what Halo thinks, even if I anthropomorphize the fucking thing into thinking like Alexa does. There’s no way I can know what any of our staff thinks and might report, as they manned the cameras and mics during the past half hour — or what any member of the board might have thought, as they watched my beautiful black sheep play her inadequate part. Worst, I’m almost positive I can know what Caspian White will think if he chooses to poke his nose into our footage during his stay. And even that’s assuming he didn’t deliver a subtle worm with the first packets we’ve traded with LiveLyfe, which he controls, which might have opened a back door nobody even knows is there.

  Trevor is a fucking idiot. I don’t know what he told Bridget when they were in their blackout, but I know he told her something. Maybe a little and maybe a lot, but something for sure. Bridget isn’t Kylie, who can hide things she learns that disturb her. She isn’t Roxy, who’s lost enough that consequences mean nothing, or Jessica, who always sees what others don’t. And she isn’t Kat. She’s Bridget. Flawed. Just a girl. And thinking of how hard she once seemed only serves to break my heart, reminding me that below her teenage shell, she was always flawed.

  I’m pissed at Trevor for burdening Bridget with something. A troubling secret, judging by her body language as she walked back to the house, and one she’s not self-aware enough to hide.

  I’m bothered by what Trevor said, too. He’s sure she’s in danger if she stays, and yes, she probably is. But the difference between me and Trevor is that while I’m willing to march on in face of the peril — have to, actually; there’s no way to do this without using Bridget — he wants to deal with it by pulling her out. And why not? Trevor wins if she leaves. I’m the one who loses, twice.

  And I’m jealous. This time, it’s not a turn-on. This time, it only raises my cortisol levels, my vasopressin levels, my adrenaline, even my testosterone. Only my big human cortex keeps me levelheaded. It’s a luxury that most of the women won’t think to engage as our trained fingers push all their chemical buttons. You can outthink chemistry. But not if you don’t see which hands are pulling your strings.

  I’m not saying Trevor fucked Bridget in that bubble before burdening her with knowledge she shouldn’t have. I’m not saying he decided that corruption would be the best way to eject her, to confuse her, to get her head in exactly the wrong place. I’m not saying he decided to have his cake and eat it too — because although we know all the manipulations, we’re still men with our own psychological and chemical triggers. You don’t need a neurology degree to understand what I plainly see happening with Trevor: We all tend to want what we can’t have. And in this rain of abundant sex (this is a harem for Trevor Stone, after all), I know he’s increasingly turned away from the other girls, letting the hired studs tend to their needs and demonstrations. Trevor can have any of them, except for Bridget, so long as he chooses to keep playing fair.

  We take the path between the bushes, and somewhere behind us Logan, Tony, and Kylie untangle from what I deduce from the sighs is a post-coital haze. I’m looking for Trevor and Kat, with the rest of the house in tow. Or Trevor and Roxy. Trevor and whoever. I won’t stand by and let this unfold as we’d intended, as it’s now slowly twisting and becoming something unwanted. I’m going to prove that Bridget should stay. I’m going to force some critical mass, meant to undo what Trevor has done — whether it was just whispers or something more.

  I’m not saying that while the cameras weren’t looking, Trevor fucked her.

  But I do know he knows how if he wanted to.

  We both have all the statistics. The room sensors measure her capillary dilation at night. We know how her body temperature changes day to day because her bed tracks it for us. We know these things about all the women — and when, in a purely mechanical world, they’d be the most receptive to poaching by an alternate mate. Biology hates monogamy; it’s always searching for ways to move the best possible genes into our offspring, even if doing so requires infidelity and underhanded tricks. Few people want to cheat in the real world. It happens in a dance of hormones — because free will, when you get right down to it, is only illusion.

  Bullshit, I tell myself. She wouldn’t do that. She’s not like that. She’s not that kind of girl.

  But as soon as I say it, I remember the buttons I pushed when speaking to her on the sex line, using the unfair advantage I’d gleaned from research. I remember buttons pushed in the alley, back before I cared. I remember the limo, and how easy it was to break through her defenses, using just the right levers.

  And then the most unwanted of all questions rises inside me. I try to push it away but hear its insidious whisper before I can:

  Does she really love you, or is she conditioned?

  I turn away, back to my task. I know how I can solve this — if I act now, and decisively.

  But I’m only avoiding the truth.

  I, of all people, know that love is conditioning, too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Bridget

  Daniel releases my arm and rushes across the clearing toward Trevor. We found him about fifty yards from the blind spot, sitting with Kat and Roxy. It’s very platonic, differentiated from a garden tea party only by everyone’s casual clothing and the lack of any tea. Kat was sitting with her legs demurely crossed, and Roxy, though she was licking her lips, had managed to kick back without leaping forward. It looked like they were having a c
onversation. Discussing pros and cons of whatever.

  After Daniel whispers harshly into his ear for a while, Trevor stands and gestures for him to follow. I don’t know what to make of it, and apparently neither do any of the others. We all stand around as if this were an elimination, trading glances, lost and unsettled. Even Kylie looks ill at ease. Even with all her bitchy manipulations, this is something she didn’t see coming and isn’t sure how to parse — whatever it is.

  Daniel and Trevor have moved farther back but are still visible. We watch as they argue. It strikes me how much larger Daniel is of the two. He must be six-three, whereas Trevor usually seems tall at maybe six feet. Daniel’s also broader, and in his T-shirt appears much larger. He’s straining the seams, and his tattoos look like serpents, writhing away down one arm, up toward his neck. But even more, Daniel is clearly the aggressor, making his presence as big as his body. A strange way to talk to his boss. This is Trevor’s house, Trevor’s game, the object being at least nominally to choose Trevor’s bride. But Daniel practically has him cornered, and it makes me think he’s pushing too hard. Even though it turned out to be part of another of Kylie’s tricks, I tried sacrificing myself to save Daniel’s position with Trevor and the company. And yet right now, by barking in Trevor’s face, he’s about to throw it all away.

  We straighten as the men emerge from their palaver. There’s a broad, low stone plinth in the middle of the clearing, like a monument to something or other. Daniel and Trevor stand atop it, and the rest of us find ourselves in a familiar position — below them, as if they’ve climbed on a mountain to talk down to their inferiors.

  “It seems we’ve ended up with … with some sort of a tie,” Trevor says, and I can see the way his eyes flick toward Daniel, as if checking to see if he’s reading this obviously bogus script correctly. “So we’ve decided on a kind of spontaneous lightning round instead of the … ” He hesitates, and when he continues I can hear his resentment at Daniel’s meddling, thick enough to cut. “The well-thought-out, carefully designed plans we’d set to precede the next elimination.”

  We all look from one to another. I catch Kat’s eye. She was in the middle of her turn when we barged in. Somehow, she’d ended up sharing hers with Roxy, and they’d all looked uncomfortable. Three was a crowd. But it was still Kat’s time, and now it seems she won’t get to finish. Jessica and Kylie didn’t even get that much. I can feel Kylie’s eyes boring into me, but I refuse to turn.

  “Change of plans,” Daniel says, taking the lead.

  He pauses, seeming to chew on something he’d rather not say. He looks at me once, quickly, but the rest of the time I feel like he’s deliberately trying not to look in my direction.

  “Eros is a sex company. We’ve danced all around that little fact. Used all sorts of euphemisms. We’ve been acting like this contest was something else, like it isn’t really about sex, when everyone here knows it is. So, masks off for today. Trevor’s bride must embody sex.” Daniel bites his lip. “And so if you want to stay here, you have to fuck like a champion.”

  He says it harshly, his voice callous and gravel harsh. Even though the onus in this thing is on us, Daniel’s little speech strikes me as self-flagellating, like he’s whipping himself with his words. Admitting what he doesn’t want to, being deliberately cruel because it’s easier than being kind, and he’d rather be thought of as a son of a bitch than a saint.

  “So fuck,” he says.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Bridget

  It’s like a feeding frenzy. Shed clothes flutter about like butterflies. Roxy makes noises of exertion before anyone is near her, as if she’s been holding them in and can now finally exhale. I see her grab Tony by the arm, and because Tony is enormous, her hand doesn’t make it halfway around his arm.

  “Move,” Daniel says to me, rushing forward.

  He pushes past me. He seems absolutely furious, and I don’t even know why. I’m left blinking, feeling smacked. Bodies are bare in an instant. Even my best friends here are spreading their legs, beckoning someone forward. It doesn’t matter who it is. Girl on guy, guy on girl, girl on girl, girl and girl and girl and guy. I can’t see Logan from the waist down because of the nude female backs kneeling before him, heads bobbing as if sharing licks on an ice cream cone.

  Trevor, strangely, hasn’t moved. He’s still on the plinth, alone now that Daniel is gone. Roxy comes forward, and he kicks at her like a dog trying to encroach. He looks at me, watching until I feel myself yanked backward, away from the fray.

  “I said move,” Daniel spits.

  “I thought you meant you wanted me out of the — ”

  “Suck my cock.”

  He’s unbuttoning like a grudge, like he’s been asked to scrub a bathroom floor with a toothbrush.

  “Daniel, what are you — ”

  “Just do it, Bridget. And make it fucking filthy.”

  “But the cameras … ” I’m so conflicted. Despite feeling confused, beaten, wary, and apparently a bit rejected despite what’s happing, I feel myself respond. It doesn’t make sense. It’s like there’s my mind on one track and my body on the other, and the two are refusing to share. But I can’t do it now, can I? I couldn’t possibly be wet for Daniel now … could I?

  “None of that matters. Everyone knows. The guys know. Trevor knows. The techs know. All of the girls know. The b … well … everyone knows. We aren’t keeping a secret. We probably never have been.”

  His cock is out. It’s not even totally hard, like his dick feels as blindsided as I do and is only now getting the orders to stand up and get ready for what’s apparently coming. Daniel rubs himself to life with one hand, seeming far more dutiful and distracted than horny. His other hand is on my shoulder, pushing me down. I’m too surprised for resistance, and a few seconds later I’m on my knees, Daniel’s monster in front of my mouth.

  But I’m not going to blow him right now, am I? Not with the confusion. Not with the strange, unexpected, somehow angry change of plans. Not with whatever’s hanging in the air, with what feels like dozens of eyes upon us, even though Daniel has pushed us out of the orgy’s main arena. I hear grunting. I hear screaming. I hear shouted proclamations of filth, both men and women describing what’s happening, and what they want to happen next.

  Daniel’s cock head bumps my lips. I’m entirely, entirely turned on. I realize I want to do nothing more than comply. To swallow him whole. To take his thick meat in my fist and pump him until he explodes all over me. I want him everywhere, in every hole. Anything that can be done, the urgency and oddity makes me crave it.

  “No,” I say.

  “Don’t say no if you don’t mean it.” It sounds rote, not sexy like the first time he said it.

  But I put my hand on his thigh. I push back.

  “No,” I repeat.

  “Bridget.”

  I shake my head. This is all wrong. I don’t like it. Because I’m missing a piece of the puzzle. Because something has changed — something bad — and nobody is telling anyone why. Because more than ever, I see this all as clockwork, predictable like orbiting planets. But most of all I don’t like it because I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything. My nipples are so hard, they’re sore. My tits feel engorged, like Daniel’s cock. I’m so wet, there’s hardly any friction when I back away from him, as if my upper thighs are slick with juices. It’s taking everything I have not to comply. If he’s not inside me soon, I’ll die. That’s how it feels: like I’ll die.

  “No.” The word has become talismanic. All I can cling to, like a piece of flotsam following a shipwreck.

  “Listen to me.”

  I keep backing away, blinking, feeling my head spin. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel funny.” My face is hot. My hands are jittery. I’ve literally never been this turned on. It’s so intense, it’s clinical. I don’t just need to get fucked. I need to be admitted to a hospital then hooked up to a medical vibrator until the swelling recedes.

  �
�You’re being triggered, Bridget. Look at me. Just fucking look at me, will you?”

  I can’t take him seriously. Not with his hard cock out in the open V of his jeans. He’s a man split down the middle: the top half rational, the bottom half carnal. I can’t focus on the top half, on the hand stretching toward me, the look of concern on his face. And it’s all I can do to not reach for the lower half. I know I shouldn’t but am having trouble remembering why. My hand goes to my pants, and fingers slip below the top edge, fingernail-deep into the top of my panties. I pull it out with force, feeling confusion, wondering what almost just happened. But if I don’t come now, I’ll explode. The motion of mere fabric against my clit is already driving me wild, and if I move again, I’ll collapse in fits of clinical-grade orgasms.

  “Look at me!”

  With effort, I do.

  “You’re being triggered. It’s a high-octane version of what’s natural.” He says it reluctantly, as though it’s a secret he’d rather have kept. “Trust this. Allow it to happen.” Again his hand is on my shoulder, trying to make me kneel.

  I smack it away. “No!”

  His jaw firms. “You’re confused. Afraid. But Bridget — ”

  “What do you mean, ‘triggered’?”

  His hands go up, pacifying, coming toward me. Slowly he says, “Conditioned patterns of behavior. Things you’ve learned on your own, that we’ve since discovered, augmented, and exploited.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Things like this.” He touches something around his neck. I hadn’t paid it any attention, but it’s a thin sliver chain with a distinctive pattern. “Bobby Valentine. Your first time. Do you remember?”

  “Bobby Valentine?” I know the name. I was fourteen. He was seventeen. I remember the intoxicating feeling of power. I could make Bobby beg, and did so for months.