by Jade West
I saw it then, loud and clear. I guess it was the blush which bloomed bright on his cheekbones. The dart of his eyes to the floor when I checked him over.
He liked her. Liked potty-mouthed little Annabel Fisher. Liked her shouting, screaming protesting little voice. Her sweet curves. Her dirty hole winking tight as soon as a decent few fingers threatened.
“You want her,” I said and he shrugged.
“Well yeah, she’s a pretty girl. Anyone would want her.”
It was my turn to smile. “Not enough to get all schoolboy shifty about it.”
His eyes twinkled when they met mine. “I’m not shifty, just give me a shot. I’m up for it. We’re from the same fucking stock, Bran. I can keep my dick up long enough to make a good impression. Try me out.”
I shouldn’t consider it, not for a moment. Not my younger brother with his big needy bollocks. Not for a second.
But I did.
I considered it enough that he spotted my weakness and straightened his back, eyes hard and hungry.
“I can do it,” he insisted. “Believe me, I can. Just give me a shot. Maybe she’ll even enjoy it.”
I knew I was crazy right there and then. I knew I was a fool for considering putting someone else in charge of shit. As my mother always said, if you want something done properly, you’d better make sure you do it your fucking self.
There’s no way I should have let Eric fuck Annabel Fisher’s filthy little ass on webcam for twenty-five grand of filthy money. Not now, not ever.
Luckily my senses came back into focus before my complacency got the better of me.
“No,” I said. “He’ll have to wait. She isn’t ready.”
“I can make her ready. Honestly, Bran, just give me a chance.”
I laughed out loud and gave him a slap on his arm. “Nice try, Eric. Maybe one day.”
His face dropped in an instant.
“I can fucking do it, Bran.”
“Maybe,” I replied. “But it won’t be tonight. She’s not ready, and neither are you. Send him a next week response and put it to bed.”
“This is bullshit,” he spat in a tone that betrayed his levels of interest in the petulant little bitch upstairs. “It’s good money for a good service. And I can do it.”
“It’s good money for a good service she’s not ready to take yet.”
His eyes seared mine, but mine burned harder. I straightened to my full height, the few inches difference between us booming loud and clear.
I was bigger. Stronger. In brawn as well as brains.
“You’re a control freak piece of shit, Bran,” he said finally. “When that little Paige bitch fails to impress the masses and leaves your bet up shit creek without a fucking paddle, I’ll remind you that I’m fifty-fifty and can get in on the action with whoever I fucking want.”
“She won’t fail,” I told him. “And when she brings in more money than we’ve ever fucking seen in this establishment, I’ll remind you to get the fuck into your subordinate position and keep your fucking mouth shut.”
My shoulder jarred his on the way past, my anger flaring on top of itself as I tracked upstairs and past Annabel’s room on the way to my own.
I could hear her in there. Shouting. Wailing. Moaning blue murder about me and everything I stood for.
I should have gone in there and delivered another round of punishment purely for the satisfaction.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I went to bed and stared at the starry night afresh through the window. I thought about her. Out there, not so far away. Thought of her thinking about me and what was to come.
I wondered if she was scared. Excited. As needy for me as my cock was needy for her.
I tossed myself off long and hard while thinking about sweet little Paige’s tight little cunt around my fist. Her whimpers in my ear as I took my fill. The tears down her cheeks as I made her suffer. Made her hurt. Made her beg for mercy.
And then I slept the best sleep I’d had in months.
Chapter Seventeen
Paige
I woke early, thinking of him. Thinking of all the crazy things he’d be doing to me when I was under his control. At his service.
Scared and wanting, all at once. Desperate for more, desperate for the end. Desperate for him.
Then, as the morning sun lit up my curtains, I thought of my sister.
I checked my phone to find no new messages. I called her number and it went straight to voicemail. I left one. A worried plea for her to call me as soon as she could. Begging her to take care of herself and reach out as soon as possible.
My heart was in my throat when I hung up. I fought back a wave of sickness as I stepped out into the communal hallway on my way to the shower, praying my dorm mates wouldn’t be gathered waiting with the same judgy eyes as the night before.
They weren’t. Not yet.
I got ready as quick as I could, opting for a dressed down jeans and cardigan combination with my hair swept up into a bun. I wanted to be invisible. A nobody on campus. A faceless girl who was nothing to talk about, nothing to gossip about or laugh about or whisper about and condemn as a piece of shit slut for all time.
As per usual in my life, what I wanted and what I got were two entirely different things.
The whispers were everywhere I turned, following me even closer through campus that morning than the day before. Giggles chased me around my lectures, judgy eyes waiting at every turn. I hated every second, nerves flaring in my stomach every time I caught sight of someone staring. It was often. Everywhere I looked. Every time I took a breath there was a hushed insult waiting to steal it.
The urge to bail and run away from the whole sorry lot of it was intense. With a potential payout looming loud and large on the not so distant horizon, my options would be opening up nicely.
But I didn’t bail and run.
Not purely because life would be unanchored at best without the structure of university life around me, but because I’d never been one to walk away from challenging times. It wouldn’t be me to turn tail and run. Not ever.
I’d hold myself together. Hold my resolve firm. Keep up with my studies as much as possible around the sixty-day experience and the hopeful payday.
I only wished the sixty days would come right there and then.
I checked his shadowy profile before my afternoon lecture, fingers trembling with the need to message and beg Mr Filthy Gorgeous to bring the date of my incarceration forward. I had the blank message called up on screen, cursor flashing ready, my back against the library wall as I struggled to find the words. Please. Please let’s do this soon. Now. I’ll give anything.
I was contemplating sending it until the bulk of someone tall appeared to my left and sent my fingers tumbling for the back button. Message unsent.
The bulk of the figure was big. My eyes scoped up slowly, from his torn-knee jeans up to his college sports team sweatshirt. I knew it was him before I saw his face. My skin was prickling like crazy, heart racing wild as his eyes ploughed into mine.
Jake.
The good guy from the beach. If good guy was in any way a term for it.
I could still feel his hands on my tits. The way his fingers gripped at me and flicked my nipples over and over.
His brown hair was styled in a floppier fringe than it had been that night on the sand. He ran those same fingers through it as I watched, his smile nervous. More than nervous. Edgy as all hell and brimming with the need to say so much.
I could read it in him. Unspoken but blatant.
I didn’t want to hear a word of it.
“Hey,” he said, and I shoved my phone in my bag and out of sight.
“Hey,” I replied right back, not knowing what else I could possibly greet him with.
Uncomfortable didn’t come close, not to how I was feeling. I wanted the ground to swallow me whole and take me away from this whole sorry spectacle and this whole sorry day.
“Can we talk?” he asked, an
d I wanted to say no. Wanted to say I had nothing to talk about. Wanted nothing to do with him. Nothing to bring me into contact with him this side of eternity. But I couldn’t.
His eyes were too open. Honest, in the strangest way. Needy for company in a way I recognised from my own long nights alone.
Needy for my company.
I held off speaking, trying my best to let his request for communication sink right in. Eventually my mouth moved on its own.
“I guess,” I found myself saying. “But it’ll have to be quick. I have lectures.”
I could have jumped a mile when he reached for my hand and took it firmly in his. I could have fainted when he led me through the gossiping bystanders without even a scrap of regret or self-consciousness.
He was strong. Unfazed by all the shitty looks the people shot me on our way past. Seemingly unbothered by associating himself with me around a heated-gossip campus chanting my name.
I had to remind myself with careful recall how he bailed and ran like a scared little kid from the beach that night, not giving a shit for me, or his friends, or anything more than getting away from the man who’d dragged them off me and punished them for their efforts.
He led me far from the library block, past Carolyn’s favourite donut spot and out to the playing fields beyond. The people eased away here, just a few straggling track runners making their way to the changing rooms after practice.
Jake pulled me off to the side, behind a big oak, blocking the both of us from passers-by. It was when he let me go that I felt my knees wobbling.
I hated this. Hated feeling so weak and vulnerable. So alone and pathetic and desperate for something solid.
The oak would have to do. I pressed my back to the trunk and splayed my fingers against the bark, hoping that on some level in the universe its tree energy would zip through my palms and give me strength.
It didn’t.
“I heard some things,” the guy started, and I closed my eyes.
“I’m not going to say anything about you,” I told him. “No matter what the rumours say, I won’t be telling them about the beach that night. Not about you, or your friends, don’t worry.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” he said, and I opened my eyes right on his.
It sizzled.
Not like the gaze of Mr Handsome while his sadistic fingers stretched me wide.
This was different.
Kind.
It made me feel weirdly small.
“I heard some things that worried me about you,” Jake continued. “I heard that you were out for money that night on the beach. That you were forced into it.”
“I wasn’t forced into anything,” I told him. “Forget about it.”
“But you were out for money, right?” he asked. “I heard you got paid in cash. Loads of it. I heard you’re likely down to earn a load more on some sixty-day shit fest where you’ll get fucked up like Rebecca Lane for whoever’s paying.”
I had nothing to say, so I said nothing.
“Paige, right? That’s your name? I’m Jake.”
“I know,” I told him. “They called you that, the other guys.”
“That wasn’t anything like me the other night,” he said. “Chris and Ryan are assholes. I got caught up in their bullshit, I should’ve known better.” He sighed, and I recognised the self-hatred on his face. “Should’ve done more. Got you out of that place. I was such a fucking dick.”
“And if I didn’t want taking out of that place?” I prompted. “If I was there of my own free will, doing what I wanted to be doing?”
“I don’t believe that’s the case,” he said. “Regardless of if you got into the dick or not, in the moment.”
He was tall, Jake. Imposing in a lean but muscular way.
Under normal circumstances he’d have made me fluttery. Maybe even a little giggly at the thought of hanging off such a hot guy’s arm around campus.
Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have my heart beating harder for some sick fuck guy in the shadows who wanted to hurt my pussy for money.
“I’m ok,” I lied. “It was one night. Nothing terrible happened. We all walked away just fine, no harm done.”
“It’s not that one night I’m worried about,” he said. “It’s what happens next.”
I shrugged my best shrug. “Rumours are rumours. They’ll die down.”
“The other guys are pricks.” His eyes burned mine. “They don’t give a shit what happened that night as long as their name isn’t mud around campus.”
“Their names won’t be mud around campus,” I assured him. “I don’t talk about my own crap, let alone drag anyone else into it.”
“And like I said, I’m not worried about what happens to them. I’m worried about what happens to you.” His pause ate me up. “They say it’s sixty days. That they fuck you up for sixty days. I heard the stories, about Rebecca Lane. I heard they hurt her so bad she couldn’t walk for weeks. That she had to fuck twenty guys and take three in her ass at once.”
I couldn’t hold back the smile. I felt like an idiot as it crept on my lips. That horrible urge to laugh in the face of tension.
“Three in the ass sounds like quite a feat,” I said. “Are you sure she took them all at once?”
The way his palm slammed the trunk above my head made me start. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I,” I told him. “I know what happened to Rebecca Lane is enough to send most people spinning. But I’m not most people.”
His expression was strange. Lips pressed tight.
Worried.
It felt warm.
“You’re really telling me you want sixty days with those freaks? For fucking real?”
“I’m not telling you anything. Like I said, I don’t talk about my crap. Listen to all the rumours you want.” I fidgeted with the bark of the tree. It felt dry against my fingers. My mouth felt dry too.
“I’m bothered,” he told me. “Bothered about you. Bothered about you going off with that asshole freak for money. It was him, wasn’t it? That asshole on the sand? He was the one who paid you?”
“With all due respect,” I replied, surprised by the strength in my own tone. “It wasn’t that guy that was about to slam me on the beach in a three-guy pile up.”
“And with all due respect, it wasn’t us that crawled up the sand fucking begging for it.”
“Touché,” I said, and admired his balls.
We stood quiet for a long minute. Staring. Thinking.
I needed to go from there. Needed to retreat to my regular schedule and back to the urges to ping the guy who wanted to fuck me up for cash.
“If it’s about money…” Jake began, but I held a hand up.
“I’m not talking about any of it,” I reaffirmed. “I don’t… talk… I’m not a talker.”
“Fine, don’t be a talker,” he said. “Be a listener.”
My smile felt brighter than I intended. “I’m always a listener. Listening is something I’m particularly skilled at. Years of practice.”
“Then listen to me,” he butted in, and I did listen. I listened loud and clear. “I feel like a jerk for the other night. I feel like an utter douche for going along with the other pricks and their dumbass pussy chasing. I feel like an asshole for not stepping in and saving you from whatever shit was going down.”
“Don’t–” I started, but he shook his head.
“I’m not done,” he said, and leaned in close. “Look, my family are the Whartons. The national hauliers.”
I’d heard of them. Seen them on plenty of trucks before.
“Nice,” I said.
“I mean we do alright. More than alright.”
“Good for you,” I told him.
“I get the money is attractive. I heard Rebecca Lane bought a posh new pad on her earnings. I’m just saying that if it’s money you’re after… If it’s money you need…”
My blood chilled.
“You’re trying to del
iver a counter offer?” I asked, and my voice sounded so weak.
The shake of his head was definite. “Fuck no. I’m offering you an alternative, sure. Just not… like that… not fucked up like that.”
“I’m good,” I said. “You don’t need to… feel guilty. I don’t need any sympathy-fuelled counter offers.”
My messy bun felt messier under his hot stare. My cheeks felt pink and way too expressive, my breaths shallow and flaky.
“It’s not guilt,” he told me. “It’s not sympathy, either. It’s more than that. I’ve seen you around. I like you… the look of you… Fuck, this is so embarrassing.”
His awkwardness was sweet enough to burn. It seemed a night groping my tits on wet sand with two of his college mates had done little to quell his interest after spotting me about campus.
“And I like the look of you,” I told him, and meant it. “But we’re… different. My life is different, Jake Wharton…”
“Right,” he said.
“Right,” I said.
“Don’t do it,” he insisted. “Whatever it is you’re planning, there are other options, other ways.”
“Thanks,” I said, and I meant it. “But I’ve got to go. Lectures.”
He blocked my exit with his arm across my chest, his hand gripping my upper arm with just the right tension. “Give me your phone,” he said, with a surprising amount of command in his tone.
I kept my eyes on his while I fished in my bag for the device, curiosity getting the better of me. I handed it over and watched him scroll through the menu.
He inputted his name and number in my contacts list then pinged a message through to his. I watched the delivered tick flash up.
“Now we’re properly acquainted,” he said. “You can reach out, if you need me. I promise I won’t bail again in a hurry when some asshole wants to scare me off.”
He handed back my phone and I held it tight, staring at the new contact information.
“Thanks, Jake Wharton,” I managed. “Nice to meet you.”
“Same to you, Paige Emmerson,” he said.
I walked. Slowly. Headed back to lectures and the gossip tsunami without so much as a backwards glance.