“Bridget?”
Brandon’s face, clear as day, on my screen.
“Where are you?”
I don’t know how to answer that. Suddenly, it’s as if I’ve forgotten.
“Jesus Christ, I’d about decided you’d been kidnapped. Gavin’s convinced that Tommy Finch had you killed and buried in a shallow grave or something.”
My mind has to scramble. I know the name Tommy Finch; of course I do. He’s the cock who knocked up Maya from the Nosh Pit, like, ten years ago and has ignored her ever since. Now he has a new starring role as the asshat who’s inexplicably interested in buying Grady Dade’s uncle’s crap-shack. But I’ve been in this funhouse for a few days now, and my world feels changed. Inferno feels a thousand miles away.
I sit, then lower the screen so Brandon isn’t looking above my head.
“Tommy? What does Tommy have to do with anything?”
“What did you do, just take a vacation?”
It’s hard for me to answer because I feel something on my leg. I look down and see that it’s Daniel’s hand. Sliding higher.
“I just went away for a while.”
“Where?”
“Fuck you, Brandon!” I say, trying to channel Normal Bridget from the remote location of Somehow Different Bridget. “You’re not my daddy.”
Leaning in, Daniel whispers, “Then who is?”
I push his hand away. It comes right back, this time firmer. Gripping my leg rather than just touching it. He pulls the leg toward him, opening them. The other leg doesn’t seem to need an anchor and refuses to follow. Suddenly, the throbbing in my pussy feels very real and very important.
“Look. Someone named Jenny’s been calling. She seems really worried. Who’s Jenny, Bridget?”
Daniel’s finger brushes my panties. Holy fuck, they’re soaked. I only feel it when his fingers graze the corner where leg meets torso, tickling me, hooking a bit beneath the fabric and pulling it up. I’m bare for a second before his finger slips and the crotch of my panties snaps back into place, but in that second I felt the wetness spread, the chill as room air struck the moisture. I’m a furnace beneath it. I want him to touch me again, but I push his hand away. Not now. Not while I’m on with my brother.
Daniel slips from his chair. There’s space under the counter where the laptop is sitting, and Daniel crawls into it. I try pinching my legs together, but I’m so turned on, it rubs vital things and gives me a thrill. Daniel sees it and seizes the distraction, spreading me open. He pushes my skirt up. I won’t lift my ass to make things easier, but don’t feel compelled to keep stopping him, either.
“She’s just a friend.”
“She says she’s been trying to find you but can’t.”
“I’ll call her,” I lie. But I’ll need to contact her somehow. Some way. Even if Daniel has to do it, answering emails as if he were me. Because the one thing that can’t happen is Jenny letting the Linda cat out of its bag. Brandon will help if that happens, and that’s exactly the problem. He’ll help too directly, and surely make things worse. The limbo I’ve been in before today is far, far better than that.
“Oh. Okay. She said something about needing money.”
“Jenny always needs money,” I say, trying to laugh as if Jenny’s a lovable mooch. But it’s a hard act to pull off, because now Daniel is pulling my panties back aside and sliding a finger inside me.
“What about you?” Brandon asks.
I shiver. Daniel’s added a second finger, and I don’t want him to stop.
“What?” Brandon asks. “What’s wrong?”
I have a thousand answers: I’ve been taken to some pervert’s compound in the Rockies. If I don’t start fucking strangers, I think I’ll be punished. They say I can leave, but I haven’t managed to, and am stopped whenever I try to go. I might know too much. About Trevor Stone, about his company, Eros, about the kinds of things they’re up to. I need help, Brandon, but I’m finding myself unable to ask.
Daniel moves his hands to the bottom of my dress and shoves while lifting me off the seat. A moment later, he has my panties by the sides and is pulling them down, peeling them away from my skin, releasing what feels like a bomb on the verge of detonation. This time, he doesn’t have to pick me up. I lift myself just enough, and my panties curl away from my wet slit like a banana’s skin. I watch Daniel between my legs, seeing his fingers return to where I need them most. Spreading me open with his thumbs. Rolling his fingers across my clit, making me shiver.
I need to get off this Skype call. Now.
“Noth … nothing.” Shit. I’m starting to feel like I’m going to come. And when I look down, Daniel is smiling. He spreads my folds some more, showing me a bit of pink. Then he lowers his face to me and I feel the warm roughness of his tongue on me, flicking my clit, slipping shallowly into my pussy to taste me.
“Bridget?”
“Tell him,” Daniel whispers up at me. But the son of a bitch, his lips are so close that his words vibrate against my skin, giving me tremors. “Tell him where you are and why you came.”
“Look,” I manage to say over waves of intense pleasure as Daniel’s tongue runs up my sex from bottom to shivering top. “I’m going to … I’m gone for a while.” And though I try to stop it, a sigh escapes my lips.
And my mind screams, Tell him where you are, at least!
“Okay. Is it for work or something?”
And my mind says, Nobody knows where you are, and this your only chance!
“No, it’s … ” Shit. Fuck shit fuck! I feel every muscle from my stomach down wanting to clench. Daniel’s hooked a finger back inside me, pressing into a spot I didn’t know was there. His tongue is ticking back and forth across the hood of my clit like a metronome gathering speed. I can barely tell one sensation from the next. It’s all pressure and tension begging for a burning release.
Tell him!
But I can’t. Because if I tell Brandon where I am, I’ll have to tell him why and how.
I wasn’t abducted.
I went willingly.
I fucked a guy at a club, then blew him in his limo. The same guy who’s between my legs right now, making me come, who finger-fucked me while I watched two other strangers getting it on.
So yes, Brandon, come save me. Come save your dirty little slut of a sister.
“It’s not business,” Daniel says as he rubs my pussy. “It’s pleasure.”
“It’s just a vacation.”
“When will you be back?” Brandon looks puzzled. I understand. This call was out of the blue, and we never Skype. I don’t really have a point and haven’t asked anything he’d expect me to ask, because frankly I’m too far gone to care. I’m not really answering his questions. I’m jumping, fidgety, out of breath.
And oh, holy fuck, I’m coming. I’m coming, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
I lash out with one hand, spinning the laptop so it’s facing the nondescript wall. Daniel’s tongue shoves me over the edge and I practically crack my head into the counter as the orgasm curls me into a twitching ball. I bite my fingers to keep from yelling out, but the waves just go on and on and on and I never want it to end. I can hear Brandon calling my name, worried, but I can’t give him any attention. My eyes are closed, my pussy is on fire, and I’m somewhere else.
With my eyes still closed, I feel Daniel set the laptop in my hands.
Then he’s behind the screen while I slouch down, half sitting, half on my back. Unzipping his jeans and pushing them down. Around the laptop, I see his fat, hard cock bob free, its tip already wet. He tugs me to the chair’s edge, again jostling the computer in my hands. Then he’s pushing my legs farther open as the last of my orgasm trills away, pushing his hot length into my clenching pussy, giving it something to grip.
“What the fuck is going on, Bridget?”
The screen bouncing as Daniel starts to thrust. My breathing harder and harder to control.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’ll call when
I … get back.”
I manage to hit the disconnect button before I come again, practically tossing the computer to the counter as I reach behind Daniel’s ass and pull his cock inside me to the hilt. I come all over it as he moves slowly. When I’m finished, Daniel turns me over like a doll and slams into my pussy from behind until I feel him grip my bare ass and fill me with seed, collapsing on top of me as his breathing recedes, his lips kissing my neck.
“You have to get back before someone misses you,” Daniel says, his cock still tumescent inside me. “But remember, don’t touch anyone. You’re mine.”
CHAPTER NINE
Bridget
I leave the room with Daniel at my back, but don’t turn to see him. I’m not sure what just happened. Or more accurately, I know exactly what happened, and don’t know how to feel about it. If I look back and he’s watching me go, that means one thing. If I turn back and he’s at work, tending to monitors and taking the behavioral notes I assume he’s supposed to be taking, that’s something else. Erin sending me here means something. Daniel with Erin before me … well, that could mean something as well.
I put it out of my mind. There are games being played here, but not the big obvious ones we’ve been led to suspect. Or at least, that’s the case for me. For Bridget — the odd girl out who shouldn’t even be here.
I’d planned to stay until the first elimination. Make myself a bunch of money that I can then turn around and use in one way or another: to bail Linda out yet again if she earns a fresh beating, or bail myself out in the meantime so that, somewhere down the road, I’ll be in a better position to offer even more help. I’m split on that, too. I’ve scrimped and made do all my life. Now, I have a shot at buying my way into something real. With luck and some artful dodging, I might be able to walk out of here with enough to get a better place, buy my equipment, put a down payment on a studio where I can produce voice talent, beyond my own. Live the dream.
But that’s where I start looping, second-guessing everything, my mind stuck on repeat.
Am I really thinking of spending this money on myself? With my mother in such dire straits?
Well, why the fuck not? I got into this to help Linda, and sent her my first payment — which, at the time, I thought was pretty much all of it. If I’m going to do this thing I find so morally reprehensible, why shouldn’t I benefit? Me, not just someone else — a person who, let’s be honest — has been absent for my entire life?
But then, do I really find this place so morally reprehensible? Separately, am I being held against my will, even if that restraint is subtle, without chains and bondage?
I just had my chance to tell Brandon where I am and request a rescue.
But I didn’t, because if I had, I’d have to admit all I’ve already done.
And I didn’t tell him because Daniel’s tongue was on my clit. His cock was inside me. I don’t want to like it. Or him. But even now, he’s fixed in my mind. The taste of his lips won’t leave me.
Maybe I’m a martyr, making the best of a bad situation because I must in order to help the people I love, with all of my other options exhausted.
Or maybe I’m selfish. Maybe I’m here because I want Daniel to fuck me again and again and again, to use me like a toy, and I want the money I’m earning from this otherworldly ecstasy all for myself.
I enter the front room, and Kylie catches my eye.
Then Logan is in the opposite doorway, drawing all eyes but her. She’s still looking at me. I can see the accusation. Where have I been? I feel exposed. Daniel’s come is still wet between my legs. I feel it with every step. I’m sure right now that Kylie can see it, can see right through me.
She turns toward Logan, who announces a switch.
I follow at the group’s rear. The Ones pass us, and I catch a glance from Jessica. It’s full of meaning, but I can’t totally glean it. She’s figured something out and is trying to let me know, like a car in an eastbound lane flashing headlights to alert westbound drivers of a cop checking speeds. I stop a beat, but Jessica is pushed along by the people behind her, with Tony at the rear. And there’s a hand in mine, Erin’s, pulling me on for my own good. I got in trouble before, and now I’ve stayed back too long “in the bathroom.” People are going to catch on to me, and then it’ll all be over.
But it’s not Erin who’s taken my hand. It’s Kylie.
“We got off on the wrong foot,” she says.
I watch her. Unsure what to say.
“Let’s be honest,” Kylie says. “Eventually, we’re all going to be kicked out but one. In the end, someone’s going to win it all, and it will be me. Not you.”
“I don’t want to win.”
“I know you don’t. So I got to figuring. Who’s better to have on my side? Someone who wants to win everything, or someone who doesn’t? Someone who’s happy to come in second place, or someone who wants the crown?”
I haven’t heard anything about a crown. I’m not sure if she’s just speaking metaphorically, or truly deluded that the number one pick here becomes a literal modern queen.
“I see you,” she says as we walk. “I see you working the Daniel angle.”
“I’m not — ”
“Don’t deny it. I’m not stupid. I know you were supposed to be kicked out but weren’t. I know you’re not as nervous as you should be, for someone who needs money and just lost a lot of it. So I’m thinking maybe Daniel likes you, too.”
Erin looks back at me. So does Kat, the tiny angry Russian. Both of them eye me, then Kylie. We’re the two tallest girls in this group, and compared to Erin and Kat, we must seem like titans.
“You and me,” Kylie says. “We team up. We take it all the way.”
I’m tempted for a half second. But then I pull my hand away.
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t be stupid. You need me. This isn’t just about Daniel. Trevor’s the billionaire. Trevor’s the one who makes the final decision. And so far, you haven’t so much as spoken to him.”
That makes me look at Erin again. I can’t talk to her from here, especially with Kylie between us, but I really want to ask a question: How much have I missed while playing hermit in my room? Was there a cocktail hour? A meet and greet I didn’t know about, possibly running its course while I was tossed out and chastised?
I watch her as we walk, and realize she’s ugly. And by that, I mean she’s one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever seen. The kind whose body, face, and bearing make the rest of us feel woefully inadequate. And she’d be obviously stunning if she just sat in place, conversed, smiled and nodded. But Kylie sneers, the moment she opens her mouth. Rancor fills her model’s eyes when cast at anyone beyond her own reflection. Even when she looks at Ivy, who seems to be sliding into place as her BFF, I see competition. Kylie is one of those people who can’t relax and be. She’s always looking to be best. The zero-sum written all over her sculpted body turns her into a troll, though I’ve seen the men salivating to gobble her up nonetheless.
“Nobody knows what to think of you,” Kylie says. “You either think you’re too good for the rest of us, or you realize you’re out of your league and are covering up how obvious it is. You’re either an excellent actor, or that Poor Jane way you slump around is real. Either way, you’re going to ruin things here. Trevor won’t say, but I have ways of asking without asking. And I know you bother him, the way you sit there and judge.”
“I’m not judging anyone.”
“Don’t bullshit me.” She sort of puffs up, and I can tell she’s trying to be the bigger woman so she can try again. “You can’t just be here. They’ll kick you out. You need an ally if you want the money.”
I look at Erin. I think of Jessica, with whom I’ve already made a deal remarkably similar to Kylie’s proposal. I won’t do what it will take to make runner-up, but I’ll lie on the tracks until that first elimination, no problem.
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
Kylie’s manner snaps. “Yo
u think you’re keeping your secret. But you’re not.”
I want to say, Nobody can prove anything, but that’s just playing into this. So I shrug and say nothing.
When we enter the new room, I see the exact same setup I saw on the control room monitors: stacks of cards facedown, placards, sheets of paper and pencils. There’s an iPad on one of the tables, and Logan moves to retrieve it. He picks it up and starts reciting instructions as if we’re about to take a test.
Trevor is in the front. I saw him on the monitor, but what I didn’t see was the rather obvious erection tenting his pants. I think back to what Daniel said, about how the first half of this experiment was pure and how the second was bound, by force of the people in it, to degrade almost immediately.
Trevor is rock hard. His face is flushed. If I had to guess, he spent the last session exactly the same way the girls in this group did: frustrated, awaiting the inevitable.
All you need to understand is that the true competition is about to begin. Not because of anything we’re doing, but because of what the girls probably will.
I look around. The atmosphere in here is charged enough to burn me. Subtle shifts of bodies. Hair being touched and primped. Legs being crossed and uncrossed, as if uncomfortable. The men are acting professional, but the signs are on them. The name of this game isn’t waiting or testing. It’s resistance. Who can hold out. Who can make the other flinch.
It’s about foreplay. And restraint. And lack thereof.
Strange attributes for Trevor Stone to be seeking in a wife, it seems to me.
Burning Rivalry (Trevor's Harem #2) Page 5