Why wouldn’t a billionaire, who could have anyone, be up-front that he wants a girl who will satisfy him like no other?
Why wouldn’t he want a woman who will let him — encourage him! — to have other women, too?
Why back away from our animal nature? Biologically speaking, women want men who can provide and protect. Men want women who will eagerly receive their seed and generate quality offspring. So Trevor plays it up. He makes it sound better than I am in my head, but we all know what this is about.
It’s gross; really, it is. Repugnant, I know. But Trevor says it well, and by the end of his little speech, everyone in the room knows he’s looking for a hot girl who’s a ton of fun. Clever but never malicious. Fun but not obnoxious. A girl with a mind of her own, but who won’t one day decide she can do better and take that mind elsewhere.
Hearing our speech come out of Trevor’s mouth makes me want to puke.
I stuff it down. I know the layers. When you traffic our sort of company, nothing is as it seems. There are always plans within plans, meanings within meanings. It’s always a mistake, around the Rosses and their associates, to believe that what’s happening is mere discussion, and a mistake to assume that the discussion isn’t a test, and that those in it aren’t being judged. It’s even a mistake to assume that the test itself is a meta-test, and that what’s really being watched is how a person responds to their own response when assessed in a way they’re supposed to pretend they don’t notice.
I get a headache just thinking about it.
But the girls take it all in. They nod, accepting the truths along with the lies, deceptions masquerading as candor, truths masquerading as lies, and the curious gray items that are somehow neither and both.
Twelve women, placed into competition for the rich man’s hand.
Ten thousand dollars per day plus landmark bonuses. By the end of the first week, all who remain receive an extra twenty-five. Fifty after the first round of eliminations. And on and on. If you add it all up, over the eight-week contest, the runner-up walks away with more than a million dollars. And the winner? Why, she walks away with keys to the castle.
Participate in the contests in whichever way you choose. For most of them, that means sex, and lots of it. Which makes sense because the billionaire heir to a sex-based empire wants a girl who can hold her own.
Who knows how to behave, and do what she’s asked to do.
Plenty of it is true. The rest is smoke and mirrors. The contest was designed to assess an ideal winner, but even more than that it was made to test limits. The things they’ll be asked to do as the days and weeks go on, it’s not exactly that Trevor or I or anyone else cares how well they do some of them. It’s more accurate that we care how they respond to requests. To being challenged.
Trevor tells them cameras are everywhere. And he gives them a few safe zones where they can know they’re alone, but the zones themselves are tests.
The southwest corner of the kitchen.
The front lawn, thirty yards equidistant between the fountains.
Places all over the house, most more public than the monitored private areas. Places the contestants can go and know they’re not watched, yet feel watched more than usual. Places they’ll forget about, and of course there’s no written list. One of the girls has an eidetic memory; we chose her specifically because it adds to the variables and muddies the data pool in a very specific way. But even though she’ll remember all of the spots the cameras can’t see, seeking them out is like water torture. None are truly private, and from time to time we’ve organized events to disrupt the best ones. Like mowing the lawns, right through the blind spots, when we know the contestants will most be wanting time away.
Maybe this is cruel.
But they can leave whenever they want.
My eyes go to Bridget. I was sure, even after insisting on her presence at dinner, that she’d already be seeking escape. I thought she might raise her hand when I gave them an out, or turn and run once Trevor opened his mouth.
He tells them that toys have been provided. As many as they could want, for use alone or with a partner. Or with multiple partners.
He tells them that no matter what our contestants want, the three studs we’ve hired are paid well to indulge.
If there’s anything they want, no matter how crazy, we can get it for them as long as it’s legal. Mostly legal, anyway.
“A Sybian?” Roxy shouts. Roxy, who I predict won’t survive the first round. She’s so sexual, my profile suggests she’ll miss obvious avenues for advancement. There’s an expression, about the type of person who will pass dollar bills in his greedy quest to gather pennies. Roxy is like that, only with dicks slapping her face.
And when she calls out for the Sybian — probably thinking her knowledge will set her apart from the prude others — Logan laughs. And tells Roxy she’s an amateur.
Trevor says that if any of the girls like it rough, Logan’s their man. And Logan raises a hand and smiles his charming, boyish, not-at-all-rough smile.
I watch Bridget. Now actually willing her to stand and leave. Willing her to go. Willing her out of my life, away from all of this.
But she only looks down at her hands.
I watch Trevor, fascinated. He and I have our issues sometimes, but I admire him. He looks like a college kid. Charming smile, eyes that women say sparkle enough to melt them. Athletic build, smaller than me but leaner, with a solid washboard stomach. He wears his light brown hair teased into spikes, a kind of swoop. I find it stupid, but girls always dig it. Dig him. And they dig him like the Everyman boyfriend, like he’s just back from lacrosse practice and might be talked into a blowjob before heading off to the quad for some hacky sack … if she insists.
He’s saying the most despicable things, and yet they’re all looking at him as if he’s a puppy. Like they want to ride his polite cock like cowgirls then let him carry their books across campus. It’s why, despite our differences, the two of us make such an excellent pair. I don’t do nice. Whenever we do anything for the company, he talks, and I provide details in private afterward. Between us, Trevor is always the face-man. I’m seldom allowed out in public. People see Trevor and trust him. They believe him, laud him, want to be his buddy. Me, I’m the asshole. The guy you watch out for then hope doesn’t find you in the parking lot on the way out.
Trevor gives the rules.
You are here to compete with each other over the course of eight weeks. The longer you stay, the more you will earn and the further you will advance in the ranks. At the end, I will chose the woman I will marry.
We have our psychological profiles. We don’t need to know whether any of these women would actually make him a good wife beyond the sex because we’ve done our homework and know they will. Fuck Match.com. Trevor could pick any of them and live happily ever after, if that’s a thing for relationships that start with a twelve-girl sex-fest.
Tony, Logan, and Richard are at your disposal 24/7. Every day is judged. You will earn points, and in two weeks I will make my first eliminations.
But he doesn’t explain how points are earned. How every day is judged.
You may not cause damage to the property. You may not fight with other contestants. You may not injure each other, except by permission and with due use of a safe word during rough play. And as you’ve already learned during run-up, Daniel will not participate. It’s his job to be objective, so under no circumstances is he to be enticed, seduced, or otherwise engaged.
Bridget looks up. Right at me. Surprise on her face.
You may spend the rest of the evening, Trevor says with his boyish smile, finishing up, however you choose.
And then it begins, before the main course leaves the kitchen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Bridget
It’s like a stampede.
Things change so fast, I barely trust my senses. The way Trevor delivered his closing line, we all knew what he meant — like when you invite a guy u
p for coffee after a date, but nobody thinks it’s about coffee.
Roxy, the dark-haired girl with the gap between her teeth, immediately falls to her hands and knees. There’s no tablecloth on the front table, so she dog-walks under it to unbuckle Trevor’s belt as if making a statement about the bold and how fortune favors them. Not to be outdone, Blair sees and follows. I’m not a prude, but this is a bit too much and I look away. Last I see from the front table, they’re both reaching into his pants, presumably about to split the duties of sharing him like a summer popsicle.
With Trevor occupied, Kat seems to decide she wants the next best thing. She shoves her chair away, leaving her toasted walnut salad half-eaten, fork still fully loaded with romaine and dandelion greens. When her chair bumps mine, she gives me a rumbled “Move” that sounds more practical than rude. I have sex to make, I imagine her saying. Please to step aside so I can use pussy.
I figure she’ll go for one of the three male attendants, but instead she walks up to Roxy, still on her hands and knees, and lifts her skirt above her bent-over ass. Finds Roxy without underwear and shaven, sticks two fingers inside her in a way that’s somewhere between presumptuous and medical.
The tables clear like dugouts at a baseball fight.
I’m left alone. Blinking. At the other table, I see Jessica, but now she won’t look at me, either. Or maybe she doesn’t see me. I’m trying to pretend I don’t see the growing pile of bodies, mostly because I’m still sick to my stomach about my earlier call with Jenny. For most of my life, I didn’t even know my birth parents. Didn’t know my mother lived each day by a razor’s edge, or that my father was forever in the slow process of murdering her. I didn’t know I had a sister until six months ago, and now what would bring most orphans pleasure brings me nothing but pain.
The instant orgy doesn’t arouse me. It seems offensive, as if they all know my pain and are electing to mock it. To make me leap through hoops like Trevor described.
We’re all animals.
Here to perform. To do tricks. To be judged.
And Daniel is stepping back. Standing up. He looks serious as he watches Ivy pull her dress completely off without hesitation, push Logan back, and grip his unleashed cock to play with. She puts her back to him and squats a little, rubbing him against her ass. I try not to look as she spreads a little. Eases him inside. And slides down until he’s fully inside her.
A man she may never have spoken to before.
I turn back to Jessica. She was sitting beside Erin, but now Erin is gone. With all the increasingly nude bodies entangled as they are, it takes a while to spot her. She’s gone back for seconds with Tony, and this time she’s as nude as Ivy. It’s a violation, the way I feel right now. I have problems these people can’t imagine, and Erin and Jessica are the closest things I have to friends. And yet they aren’t here, or even sitting back with me. I don’t want to see my friends naked. I don’t want to see Erin bend over the table as Tony stands, reaching back with both hands to spread her cheeks for him.
Jessica still hasn’t joined in. But she’s looking around as if she fears doing the wrong thing. Losing her slice of the pie, perhaps, because what the hell, aren’t we all for sale?
I feel kicked. Punched. I’m human; I’m not immune to the noises of pleasure and wet thrusting as I slink away, and hate that I’m a little turned on. It’s the novelty doing it. The fact that I’ve never seen anything so shameless before. People who were having a civilized dinner seconds earlier are now yelling each other’s names behind me.
Out of the dining room. Down the main hallway, hung with a repeating pattern of mirrors and what looks like priceless art. The rooms, as I move farther away, are still brightly lit, curiously quiet. I know from Trevor’s speech that they’re all being watched, but that’s fine. I don’t need to be truly alone, just alone enough. Away from it all.
I want nothing more than my room. Where I can pretend, again based on the opening remarks, that I’m not certain that someone was watching me masturbate an hour ago.
But I’m weary. The day is catching up with me, and I realize all at once just how exhausted I am. So I settle into one of the big chairs around the fire and look through the wall of windows, out at the nighttime mountains.
Was it really just today that I came here? It feels like forever. And was it really only this morning when I woke with my sense of shame — the first of many I’d eventually feel? Was it really earlier today that I went to the Castleview Hotel, blissfully ignorant until Daniel’s arrival that I’d been played the night before?
I’d say that my mother raised me better than this, but that’s not true. My mother gave birth to me when she was fourteen, then stayed with my father and kept getting beaten. She has no way out because he won’t let her leave. He has his connections, and wherever she went, full of secrets and his pride, the organization would find her.
My mother didn’t raise me, nor did any of my foster mothers. I raised myself. In a way, Brandon and I raised each other. We’re all each other had, and I desperately wish things had stayed that way.
I can’t solve all of Linda’s problems. But as long as I wait until morning to leave this depraved mansion, I’ll have at least solved this most recent one. And then maybe my twenty-four hours of humiliation will have been worth it.
“Bridget, is it?”
I turn. It’s Kylie, coming up behind me. She looks intimidating. Kylie is everything I’m not. Her manner is bold but feminine, whereas I’m only mannish. She’s effortlessly beautiful — or at least comes off that way — whereas it took me forever to manage the little dolling-up I’ve done. Her nails are long and shapely. Her heels make her legs look slim and toned, whereas I’m unused to heels and wobble on the taller ones like a baby giraffe. And she’s got that little silver stud in her nose, which seems to say she’s just the right amount of wild.
“Yeah.”
“I’m Kylie. We haven’t really met.”
“Right. Have a — ”
She sits before I finish. In the adjacent chair at an angle, so I can see her perfect profile. She looks out at the mountains, and for a while we’re quiet.
“It’s cute, what you’re doing.”
“Sorry?”
“Playing coy. Like you’re too good for it.”
“For what?”
“For all of it.”
Kylie is still looking out the window. I can’t read her at all. She first struck me as cold, but maybe that’s just how she is. Then, a few seconds ago when she came in, I wondered if I’d judged her wrong because she seemed almost friendly. I don’t know what to make of what she’s saying now.
She smiles. Her eyes are light brown, with specks of amber.
“I … it’s not that.”
“I thought of playing the same angle.”
“It’s not an angle. I’m just — ”
“What do you think of Daniel, Bridget?”
She turns back to look out at the mountains. Her manner is casual. She goes on, not looking over at me.
“Some of us have been here for a few days. Unofficially, of course. Just hanging out as guests. I assure you, it hasn’t given us an advantage over you and your friends.”
“I don’t really have — ”
“Difference between them and you is, they seem to have decided to hop right in. Even the taller one. Before I came here, she let me lick her pussy.”
Jessica.
I look over at Kylie, but she’s still nonchalant, still watching the view. I don’t know why, but the flat way she just announced that gives me a thrill. Jessica didn’t strike me as a lesbian. But I guess you don’t actually have to be to play around, especially with points being tallied.
“It’s a big risk, Bridget. You might be eliminated entirely, out of hand. As a cold fish. An ice queen, with no use for her pussy. Unwilling to share it unless she’s alone with her man.” Kylie nods. “But on the other hand, it could be genius. Innocent little girl. What she loses in eagerness, she saves
for later, behind closed doors.”
“Kylie, I — ”
“I won’t lose this. I know what it is and knew the minute I got my invitation. They think I’m some stupid ditz like the rest of you, but I’m not.” Then she smiles at me, and this time I see teeth. “I’m sorry. Present company excluded, of course.”
Kylie crosses her legs.
“I went to the website. I called the number on the invitation. The bank doesn’t reveal its clients, but rumors are enough. And everyone knows Ross is in with White and Parker Altman. I looked up the whois on the website and of course it’s privately registered, but you can ping the server and follow the IP traceroute and narrow things down. Sure, servers can be anywhere. But a company like Amour won’t want an outsider handling their data. You can follow the clues if you look. So when I knew this was probably about Trevor Ross, I did more research. Looked at his travel patterns and, from there, guessed some of his interests and maybe his beliefs. Such as the fact that he’s spent a lot of time in India, where the most successful marriages are arranged.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Don’t you?” She taps her chin. “I don’t know. Seems to me you’re a smart girl. Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you agree with Trevor, that logic — not love — is the best way to pair people. Emotion is hit or miss. But logic is certain.”
I roll my eyes. Just a little, so she can’t see.
“Then good luck.”
“I know a lot about him, Bridget. Enough to make sure I’m his best match. I think you’re playing it too cool, but I have to agree that we’re both on the right track.”
I sit up. Turn more fully toward her to see one tan, toned leg bouncing atop the other.
“You think I left because I’m trying to attract Trevor?”
Burning Offer (Trevor's Harem #1) Page 13