by Jade West
He clutched his face like the scared little boy I’d defended in our school playground.
“We like girls who can take it, no?” he ventured. “That’s what you told me. You said girls who can take it are our cash cows for the win.”
“We like girls who’ll get the bidders bidding.” I held up the crumpled printout. “This little purchase will have the bidders fucking begging, not just bidding.”
He didn’t get it, that was clear. Not with his idiot eyebrows raised up high as he struggled to comprehend.
He didn’t get anything about the girl with the sad little soul, but he would.
I was a visionary in this seedy business world. Always had been. But even my slow take-up brother would catch on soon enough. They all would.
“You really think she’ll sell?” he asked.
“I think she’ll outsell every piece of pussy we’ve ever put up for bidding. I think she’ll outsell the Lane girl three to one.”
“No fucking way–” he laughed, then checked himself.
It was my turn to smirk. “How much do you want to fucking bet on it?”
He didn’t want to fucking bet on it. His stance shifted before my eyes, weight shifting from hip to hip as he struggled to fathom a way out of the wager.
“I’ll bet you a beer or two,” he offered finally, and my laugh was evil.
“And the fucking rest,” I said, and slapped the pretty picture of my sweet little slut back down on his desk. “I bet my entire sixty-day payday that she’ll make more money than we’ve ever seen from one girl.”
His eyes widened. “You want to bet the whole lot?”
“The whole fucking lot. My percentage against yours.”
He tipped his head. “Let me get this straight. You’ll give me your whole payout if she makes less than the Lane girl?”
“I’ll give you my whole payout if she makes less than any girl we’ve ever offered.”
I watched his brain ticking, working out the risks as his fingers strummed her printed picture.
His confusion made me all the more venomous.
His inability to see the potential in such a blissful little diamond was enough to condemn his fate as my second in command for all time. I’d been seeing it for months, his ever boldening pushes for some semblance of responsibility, even when it wasn’t deserved.
I knew he was a long way from capable, but he didn’t. The prick didn’t have any concept of his own stupidity. Not now, and not ever before.
It should never come in any way close to him running this show, not in a million fucking years. He’d never even come close to reaching a level footing on my watch.
But still, I’ve always been a gambler. It’s a streak of hedonism that I enjoy greatly.
“I’ll give you more than my payout,” I expanded. “If she doesn’t come up trumps as the biggest earner on the block, I’ll give you equal governing power from then on in. Your word will be as good as mine.” I paused. “On the flip side, if she does come up trumps as the ultimate pay day, then you’ll shut your mouth forever more and do what you’re fucking told without question.”
His strumming fingers stilled. Brain ticking all over again.
“I think you’re finally off the mark on this one, bro,” he said, strangely smug. “There’s no way in hell that girl will outdo the others. She doesn’t look anything like good enough.”
The prick should never have taken the deal. My confidence in my wager should’ve been ample enough fuel to send him running.
It was another nail in the coffin of his intellect when he offered his hand in acceptance.
My handshake was firm. My fingers crushed his and held fast.
The meeting of our eyes spoke louder than the handshake, his younger sibling ambition pitting itself hard against my authority. The burgeoning fire in him was begging to be hosed down cold with his tattered pride.
I’d do it gladly.
There would only be one winner in this, just as there was only one winner in anything that counted for shit in life.
I was smirking long before the handshake was over.
That one winner was always me.
Chapter Thirteen
Paige
I woke with a start, checking under my pillows with frantic fingers in the dark.
Dirty notes rustled under my fingertips. So many I felt sick.
Sick at what I’d earned. Sick at what I’d done.
But more than that, sick at what I wanted to come.
My heart was pounding, hair sticky with sweat even in the chill of the room.
The pain was still right there between my legs. The ache booming loud with every little move I made.
But it had been worth it. So worth it.
The money was worth everything I had to give. The nightmares could go running; I’d had enough of them for a lifetime already.
I’d counted every sorry used bank note before I attempted sleep. Two thousand pounds. Two whole seedy dirty thousand pounds.
I’d never seen that kind of cash, nor anything close to it. Crumpled twenties on the coffee table when I was a kid were like lottery wins in our house. With a father who drank most of his wages before heading home every Friday, a few loose coins to buy scrappy groceries from the corner shop was the cash win of the century.
If this money was enough to blow my senses – and it was – then two hundred and fifty thousand pounds was beyond comprehension.
I’d never have believed in the possibility of truly earning that kind of money, not for a heartbeat. Not without Carolyn Lane confirming her sister really had come out the other side with everything they promised her.
I only hoped the interim cash would be enough to get the scum off Phoebe’s back in time. She needed it soon. Real soon.
I sent her a text message before I showered for college that morning, making sure to keep it as vague as I could in case her dickhead boyfriend saw it first.
I can help. I’ll call you later. Stay safe. x
I checked for a reply as I stepped out from my dorm room, but there was none waiting. I forced the worry aside and made myself follow my usual routine.
The walk to lectures was the same regular bustle from the same crowds of people. The world looked the same as every other morning, but felt nothing like it.
I wondered if it was in the smaller details. In how I noticed the world’s tiny features with heightened senses from the night before.
Maybe it was the buzz in the air as we approached exam season. Maybe it was the ripple of seedy gossip I’d managed to breach the surface of in order to dive in deep.
It took a few hours for me to realise that the biggest thing that was different was me.
I was different.
The new me was slavering with a weird new hope in the face of a lifetime of low expectations. The new me was thrumming with the sliver of something more. Of new potential.
But that wasn’t all of it.
There was a strange sadness in the mix creeping up my spine. And it was a strong contributor in the heady mash-up of self-loathing and relief I was juggling like a circus freak. On top of all of it was the zing of utter insanity at the promise of sixty days with the monster. Of sixty days in hell.
Only I wasn’t so sure it would be. Hell, that is. It would most certainly be sixty days with a monster.
A beautiful monster.
I’d have given anything to shout about my fucked-up predicament to someone who cared. Unfortunately, I was as short of those people as I was of most other things in life.
My regular dorm mates felt a million miles away as I avoided them around campus in my desperation to hide the changes in me. On top of everything else my college lectures were challenging, concentration slipping every five seconds at the memories of the filthy pain on the beach and the man who delivered it.
I could feel him. Deep.
I ached. Burned.
Even in the fresh light of day, I could still feel him in my stomach. Cramps taking me h
ard.
I shouldn’t enjoy the sensation.
Shouldn’t keep tensing myself up just to feel him there.
Still I kept a lid on it, like most things. I shuffled my notebooks and smiled my regular fake smiles like nothing was happening. I scribbled down notes in a flurry, determined to be as productive as humanly possible while I still could be.
College would be nothing more than a distant memory as soon as I got the call.
I was pretty sure I’d be ready. Waiting. Primed for all the filth in the universe and raring to do him proud. But when I stepped unsuspectingly around a corner in the library block that lunchtime I heard a low laugh that made me anything but proud.
I pressed to the wall by the term noticeboard, holding my breath at the horrible zing of what I was hearing. It came again and I shuddered. I should have run quick and bailed, but I was rooted to the spot, breaths ragged as the laughter came louder, closer.
I rarely registered voices around me. They were a blurred backdrop, meaning nothing.
But not this one.
I knew it instantly, gut churning hard as the prickles of pins and needles claimed the nape of my neck.
It was him. Mr sportswear with the gaudy gold chain from the beach last night.
Chris.
I could taste the musk of his hairy balls. Feel his grip on the back of my head as he fucked my throat until I gagged.
My stomach lurched as I remembered the scent of him. The length of him. The salt of his precum on my tongue.
How he flailed as the monster grabbed him in a headlock.
And how he ran. I remembered that too.
The way he tensed upright and fixed me in a cold hard gaze on his way by told me with no uncertainty he remembered me too. It was awkward. More than awkward. My cheeks bloomed and his jaw tightened, both of us trapped in a tunnel of discomfort that seemed to stretch on for miles in those short few seconds.
I wondered how often we’d passed each other in the months gone by and never even realised it. How many times my paths had crossed with his and left us strangers.
We were strangers no more.
The girl laughing at his side remained oblivious as he shot me a glance back over his shoulder on his way past. Was she a friend? A classmate? A girlfriend?
Had his dick been in another girl’s throat just hours before it was in mine?
I don’t know why the prospect of sucking another girl’s guy made me feel so much shittier than offering myself up to three drunk guys on a dark beach in the first place, but it did.
I guess it’s one thing to put a low value on yourself, easy done with no consequences. It’s another thing altogether to put a low value on someone else. I’d never disrespect another girl’s heart enough to trample on it and grab their boyfriend. Not intentionally.
I was relieved when the two of them parted ways at the end of the corridor with nothing more than a wave goodbye, exhaling a long breath which turned into a squeak when a hand landed on my shoulder.
My eyes were frantic as my head twisted, paranoid in my expectation to find the other two guys towering over me. But no. It was Carolyn, her laugh bright as she giggled at my surprise.
I put my hand on my heart as I pulled myself together.
“You scared the shit out of me,” I told her, and managed a smile right back at hers.
Hers was genuine. So genuine it felt like a light in the dark.
“Donut time?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Donuts are on me today,” I told her and led the way.
They’d be my only splurge from my seedy payday, and I couldn’t think of anyone better to share it with as we rocked up at the counter and placed our order for a tray of their finest.
Carolyn Lane was a curious friend. Her questions were pointed as she devoured the best of the icing.
How was your evening? What did you get up to? See anyone? Not anyone? Really?
I guess that’s when I first knew she was onto more about me than my superficial interest in her sister’s sixty-day mission for obscene cash.
“I heard you were out pretty late last night,” she commented, and I struggled not to rise to it.
“I guess so,” I told her. “I fancied a walk on the beach.”
“Enough to go running back to university in tears and a wedge of cash in your arms?”
Oh, how I hated it. College gossip knew no mercy.
I dropped my donut back on the tray and fumbled with the napkin, hoping to scrub the discomfort off me along with the stickiness.
The campus was twitchy. Windows everywhere. I should’ve been more careful. More guarded on the way back.
“You asked a whole lot of questions about Rebecca the other day,” she continued, but there was no hostility in her tone. I knew right there and then I liked Carolyn Lane more than I’d liked anyone else I’d met in quite a long time. “Just wanted you to know I’ve got an ear waiting right here if you wanted to talk it over.” She shrugged. “Talk, eat donuts, hang out and study… I’m up for the whole shebang. Even if you spend your time running from the beach with cash in your hands.”
I didn’t get it. The words were out before I’d even weighed them up.
“Why do you want to be friends with me?” I asked her. “I’m a nobody.”
Her next shrug was at odds with the strength in her eyes.
“Because I told you everything about my sister a few days ago and not one of those details has made it around campus. Believe me, I’d know.”
I shrugged right back. “I keep secrets. That’s no biggie.”
“Oh, but it is,” she said. “It’s the biggest biggie going right now, and it happens to be one I value deeply.” Her fingers were sticky when they reached across the table and grabbed for mine.
I ignored the sensation of fresh icing on my skin in favour of appreciating the beauty in the gesture.
A friend.
She could be a real friend.
Hell, how I needed one.
It was her who spoke next.
“I can handle some pretty big biggies too, you know,” she told me, and leaned in close. “I’m pretty good at keeping a secret too, so how about you tell me what you were really doing last night?”
And there it was, now or never.
Where to start?
I took a deep breath before I began.
Chapter Fourteen
Brandon
Under my watch, it only ever took a few days for a girl to lose her senses. Annabel was no exception, already well beyond knowing night from day when I made her acquaintance that afternoon.
The sun was still bright outside when I made my way up to her blacked-out bedroom, but she was caught in slumber unawares. I flicked on the harsh overhead lighting with no warning and she started like a rabbit in headlights.
She blinked fast as she adjusted to the change, pulling her legs up to her chest and holding tight as I closed the distance.
She flinched as I took her jaw in strong fingers, her eyes meeting mine unabashedly as I tipped her face in my direction.
It both pleased and disappointed me that the girl hadn’t yet learned her manners.
“Asking for punishment,” I said. “Silly girl to start the evening so provocatively.”
She caught herself and dropped her gaze, lips closed tight as she swallowed. “I just woke up,” she told me. “You can’t expect me to remember the rules as soon as I open my eyes.”
“I’ll have to give you a reminder then, won’t I?”
I heard her struggle with the bedsheets as I turned my back and headed for the web cam controllers. The countdown was already ticking, the notification ping having sounded loud to our hungry host of viewers around the world.
I should have been enjoying her pouty-girl nervousness, but my mood was flat as I checked out the preview screen on the host of cameras. Twenty viewing options for the subscribers, all available in real-time at the click of a button once the broadcast started. I was long used to the layout. L
ong used to ensuring the best experience for deep pockets.
Her big scared eyes greeted me from the host of images. Her perky tits rose and fell with her breaths. One camera was focused perfectly on her juicy little cunt, the lips begging right there and then to be splayed and tormented while she squirmed.
The laden toy rack was ready and waiting behind the closet door. The implements were primed for use, begging to bite and maim soft flesh and leave their mark for days.
I pulled out a gag along with the riding crop and Annabel whimpered loud.
It was a truly delicious sound.
“Please,” she said. “Please, take it slow. I’m still hurting from earlier…”
“And still being an impudent slut who needs educating.”
She gathered herself together quick sharp and rose to her knees on the bed, hands clasped in front of her in such an angelic display of subservience that I wished the cameras were already streaming to our audience.
“Please, sir,” she corrected. “Please, sir, take it slow. Please!”
“Hold that thought,” I said, and started up the ten second countdown on the cam controls.
I was facing her head on when the green light flashed in the corner of the bedroom. Live and loud, a whole host of dirty sick fucks watching with dicks in hand and waiting for the games to unfold.
“Please, sir!” she whined, and it was a good one. Her weight shifted from knee to knee, face crumpling in nervousness as I held the gag up for the viewer’s appreciation.
“Bad girls get what’s coming to them,” I told her, and she closed her eyes.
I hoped the tears would come.
I wasn’t disappointed.
This afternoon was about tanning her ass and leaving her red raw for days. This afternoon was about stretching her mouth so wide with a ball gag that she retched and dribbled all over her pretty bruised tits.
I beat her good. So fucking good.
Her ass was a crisscross of crop stripes, reddening just right. Her tits were worse.
So much fucking worse.
I rewarded her by ploughing her from behind with a monster dildo so deep her face slammed the mattress as she cried.