“I’ve got this thing coming up,” he says.
“What?”
“It’s a party. Sorry, a ‘reception.’ And I don’t want to go. It’s at Clive Spooner’s place. You probably don’t know Clive. But he’s just … ugh.”
That’s so not the reason he’s uneasy. Ashton eats networking events for breakfast.
“Can I go with you?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry.”
“Oh. You’re taking someone else? Maybe two girls, like we talked about before?” I say the words lightly and with a smile — my way, I’m sure, of keeping what frightens me at arm’s length. But the joke isn’t funny, and sets acid in my stomach. I don’t even want him to answer.
“No, I’m going alone.”
“Because you can take someone else if you want.”
He seems to understand what I mean, even though it’d be stupid for me to say it. I’m fishing for reassurance — from a man who has every right to fuck anyone he wants, no less. Shockingly, Ashton gives it.
He takes my hand from across the table and squeezes it. Then he pulls back and I see the same expression I saw after noticing his flowers — after he was finished being so sweet with my dad. An embarrassed look melting into an artifice of confidence that says, Sorry, I don’t know what came over me there. I’m better now, so let me give you more of the cocky dickwad you’re used to.
“I don’t want to take anyone else.”
I melt inside. I know it’s a mistake, but I’m a puddle all the same.
He tells me about the event. I don’t actually care and it has nothing to do with me, but I listen with a hammering heart. I’m on high alert all of a sudden — but for what, I couldn’t say. I just know I’m not where I should be. I’m falling for this man, lulled by months of courtship that I always knew was bullshit. I’m losing myself to him, and it’s the worst idea in the world.
He tells me about Clive Spooner, hinting that something Clive is up to might one day change the world.
And he spends even more time telling me about some guy named Anthony Ross — a modern-day god among men. Clive might change the world, Ashton says, but Anthony has made it his mission. I want to laugh, but something tells me I shouldn’t.
“Sounds important that you go, then,” I say.
“It’s just business.”
I didn’t say it wasn’t. Why is he defending against an accusation I never made?
Unless he knows something I don’t about such parties — ahem, receptions.
Unless he knows exactly what I’m thinking, and is protesting too much.
He rubs my bare leg under the tablecloth. My mind snaps away from troubling things and finds its natural center. His hand feels good. It’s going nowhere … but I remember and anticipate ways it could.
“It was nice of you to spend some time talking to my father,” I say to distract myself from the percolating sensations below.
“He’s a good man. I like that he looks out for you.”
“Because I need looking out-for?”
Ashton nods. “God knows what men think when they look at you, Jenna.”
“Men? Or you?”
His hand moves a little higher. My skin tingles. My nipples stiffen.
“We should eat quickly. I promised to have you back by midnight like a good little boy … but there are so many ways I need to ravish you first.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ASHTON
CLIVE SPOONER IS EXHAUSTING. I know he’s probably not half as arrogant as he seems, but I always feel like he’s trying to impress everyone with his presence. Then again, we’re all in competition, in a way, even as we form this Boys’ Club of ours.
I consider Alyssa’s words: that we’re building a testosterone bomb. It’s true. We’re a collection of alpha wolves attempting to form a den in which there are no omegas, females, or pups. We’re explosive for sure. But that’s not why it will work. It’s because we’ll be able to do what Ross says, and change the world together.
Ross dwarfs Clive, both literally and metaphorically. He’s at least six inches taller, with hands that could palm basketballs. He’s broad, with a brick wall chest, but lean like a kid who grew up scrapping. I’m not usually jealous of other men, but I have to admit I’m jealous of Anthony’s physique. It’s hard to be large and lean, but Anthony, thanks in large part to genetics, has both in spades.
His handshake is a vise. His smile is wide and genuine. His eyes are sapphires, somehow fathomless, like the bottom of the ocean rather than the top. And despite his over-the-top nature (his empire was built on personal development), I can’t help but feel he means every ridiculous word.
Anthony says to me, “Your future is what you make of it.”
“Hmm.”
“If you don’t see it, how can you believe it? And if you don’t believe it, how can you see it?”
I’m torn. Anthony and I are sitting, with a few other high-powered guests, around one of the Microdyne home’s many pools and hot tubs. I don’t normally like to get casual, but seconds after meeting me Anthony took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his pant legs, and sat on the edge of a sunken hot tub with his feet inside it.
Now I’m doing the same, despite it being out of character. Anthony projects some sort of spell. I want to find his positive-affirmation, feel-good-psychology bullshit ridiculous, but I can’t. When Anthony talks about believing and seeing, I should laugh. Instead, I find myself nodding along.
“You had a vision when you started your company.” Anthony claps his big hand on my leg, then fixes me with those piercing blue eyes. “But that’s just the thing, isn’t it, Ashton? The vision came first. It was only after you had the vision that you could make it a reality. That’s what I mean when I say, ‘Your dreams become your reality.’ It’s not new-age bullshit. It’s fact.”
I understand why this man is as wealthy as he is. I understand why his haters say he could turn his legions of devotees into a massive cult. I just met Anthony Ross ten minutes ago, and I already feel like we’re best friends. Somehow we click, and I don’t click with anyone … with one recent and notable exception.
Anthony’s one of those people who knows everyone, and whom everyone loves. Everyone thinks that they are his best friend, when in reality he has millions around him who feel they’re his one-and-only favorite. He projects an aura, and it isn’t bullshit. I believe this man can help us change the world. And at the same, somewhat cynical time, I understand why hot women follow him around in long chains of tits and asses.
Anthony has thick, wavy black hair and a jawbone cut from marble. Those who don’t really know him swear he does hypnosis from the stage during his seminars, but that it’s not true. He’s just able to melt panties with a gaze, like Superman using his heat vision.
“Listen,” Anthony says, laying an amiable hand on my back. “You want another drink? I’m getting up anyway.”
“No, thanks.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m good.”
Anthony pulls his feet from the hot tub, dripping deftly away from where I sit in my bespoke pants, then leans over to squeeze my shoulders. I don’t like being touched by men, and I sure don’t go for brotherly gestures of manly affection, but somehow the genuineness of his quick squeeze doesn’t bother me a bit. Nor does the stupid, trite thing he says before leaving:
“Don’t you go changin’.”
I chuckle, hoping he returns so we can talk some more. I feel like Anthony and I are on the same wavelength. I abide most of the potential members of the Trillionaire Boys’ Club, but I like Anthony. He’s my kind of people, and someone as standoffish as I am usually doesn’t have many people at all.
A young man comes to sit in Anthony’s vacated spot and shoves a drink into my hand. I don’t know who he is until Mark Parker, CEO and owner of the Greens chain, sits on my other side. Both have their shoes and socks already off, pant legs rolled up. Seconds later we’re three buddies in a tub.
&nbs
p; “Ashton,” Mark says. “Good to see you.”
“Lies,” I say.
“You’re right. I don’t like you.” But he laughs. This is how we all are with each other. “You remember Crosby?”
I look at the younger man. He’s maybe seventeen or eighteen, no more. I slowly remember who he is. He’s Mark’s younger brother — not a billionaire, but the second heir to the original Greens fortune their father left behind. Mark made the business huge, from millions to billions following his father’s death. So Crosby is just rich enough to be obnoxious, yet he never worked to earn his pay. The worst kind of spoiled.
He’s taking selfies of us all with his phone. He gets one of me and him together before I practically elbow his face.
“Drink your drink,” he tells me, only mildly annoyed. “Maybe it’ll get that stick out of your ass.”
Because I have to stay at the reception a while longer, I do. I’m disappointed that Anthony doesn’t return. Mark and Crosby both stick around to irritate and annoy me. Soon Crosby is naked except for his boxers, corralling women I suspect Clive had imported like the caviar.
And to think: Alyssa balked when I said this would be more party than reception.
I down a few more drinks to pass the time, but no matter how fuzzy I get, Crosby still annoys the fuck out of me. Mark sees this and eggs his little brother on. They won’t leave me alone, and Crosby won’t stop taking pictures.
They follow me to the buffet. They follow me when I try and call Jenna, just to bitch about this stupid event, and get her voicemail instead. They follow me when I go to my car, and Crosby snatches my keys saying I’m too drunk to drive.
But I’m not drunk, and I didn’t intend to drive just yet, even though I’d love to. I brought the Lotus instead of the limo, and it glides like it’s on rails. And I hate this party so much, but I know I’ll catch hell from Alyssa if I slip out now.
Mark and Crosby follow me when I find Clive, attempting to strengthen some of the interpersonal bonds I’m here to reinforce. Clive is drunk; it turns out not to matter. They chase me into the bathroom and I nearly punch Crosby hard enough to send him flying into a urinal. He ducks my jab and laughs harder, taking more photos of the great time he seems to think we’re having.
I return to the hot tub and find the area quiet. A swarm of imported girls return, chattering in what I think might be Russian. Without preamble or explanation, they start removing their clothes. Every girl, every stitch. Each is stunning with a perfect body, all about Jenna’s age. They seem all-natural, without surgical enhancements, but still they strike me as fake compared to Jenna.
One of the girls surprises me, surfacing from the hot tub’s bubbles between my legs like a diver. She says nothing, just starts massaging my cock through my pants. It’s already hard; the strip-down display was unavoidably hot, and I’m a straight human male. But the dick rubbing annoys me, so I practically kick her in the face while turning away.
The girl, unperturbed, moves five feet to the side, where Crosby’s again made himself comfortable beside me. He doesn’t protest like I did. In fifteen seconds she’s freed his cock and has her lips wrapped around it, rubbing a slow fist up and down the shaft. Crosby takes photos and videos with his phone the entire time. He doesn’t have much staying power. He jerks upward and the girl slows her fist. Then she’s licking his tip clean, swallowing what he filled her with.
Only once out of the hot tub do I notice what’s been happening around me.
The entire compound has degenerated into a scene from Caligula. The women stripping and springing into action were only my sector’s part of the party. Now they’re everywhere. The Microdyne house looked like a sausage-fest when I arrived. The gender balance is now 50/50 if not higher on the female side, but it’s hardly an egalitarian ratio. These women are all either hired party favors or hot girls who like rich men in very direct ways.
All of them are young — between eighteen and maybe 25.
All of them are stunning. I imagine them being selected by gauntlet, where only the hottest and most flawless survive.
And all of them, from what I see, are totally shameless.
There’s not a lot of clothing to cover the acres of smooth skin. I see bare breasts, shaved pussies, and a few overt displays of wide-spread legs, pink lips open and waiting. Many are wandering like nude cocktail waitresses, but some are earning whatever paycheck they’ve been promised, either on their knees in front of someone or propped up, legs open or asses out. The sounds, as I make my way through the grounds, are everywhere.
Everyone is asking someone to fuck them.
Everyone is requesting that someone come here or there, like maybe in their mouths.
Everyone is calling out to some deity, be it God or Buddha or Jesus or whoever.
I don’t know how I missed this. I was too distracted by Crosby and his fucking selfies. But I see that the late hour has arrived and the business is over. Clive has supplied his guests with carnal entertainment. There are a dozen holes between me and the front gate that I could stick my reluctantly erect cock into.
I give the valet my stub, and he raises an eyebrow as if to ask, Are you sure you’d like to leave just as the party’s getting started, sir? Or possibly, Would you like me to set up a complimentary bit of road head for your drive home, sir?
I jab the ticket harder at him. My eyes, unless he’s stupid, should leave no doubt as to what I want and what I don’t.
I’m tired of this scene. I don’t know why, because I’d have lapped it up in the past. Maybe I’m getting older, finally maturing, despite being years younger than the likes of Clive, and decades younger than that ladykiller Anthony Ross.
Are you sure you wouldn’t like a lithe young woman to ride your cock while you drive, sir?
But I simply glare until he scampers away to do as he’s told.
Hurry up, kid, I think, I’ve got a lady I very much need to find and fuck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
JENNA
I’M SHAKEN AWAKE.
MY ROOM is dark. I jump, but then I see it’s Ashton above me, dressed in a full-on tuxedo with a straight tie. I’m startled to see him, but my heart is calming. I don’t know why he’s here. This is my father’s house — the home I grew up in, the room whose walls were once covered in posters of boy bands.
“Ashton?”
“Shh. I had to see you.”
I look past him. My window is open, but my room’s on the second floor. He’s climbed a tree to come here. I see the grit on his tux, the traces of bark on his starched white shirt. He’s such a tidy person that I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Ashton never has a hair out of place.
And his words? His actions? I’m still half-asleep and can’t quite reconcile them with reality. They barely make sense.
“Did you—?” I start to say, meaning the open window, the tree, the comical climb I imagine him making. You’d think I’d have used that tree in the opposite direction growing up, to sneak out at night. But I was always a good girl. Only since my parents’ breakup — the true first signs of strain, two years before the actual divorce — did my wild streak start.
“Where is your father’s room?” he cuts me off with a whisper.
“Downstairs.”
“Below us?”
I shake my head. “Other side of the house. Why?”
“I need you.”
Those three simple words give me gooseflesh. The night is so still. He’s like a vampire, arriving in the darkness to claim me.
But here? In my childhood bedroom? I’m almost as indignant as I am aroused. I want him, too. But I’m not a thing. I’m not his to take whenever he wishes, without ever asking.
He removes his tie and tosses it to the floor. The jacket comes next. He discards it like a gum wrapper instead of hanging it carefully over something and brushing it free of lint like he’s always done before. He unbuttons his shirt, but only the top few buttons. Then he lifts my covers and slides into bed beside m
e, still mostly dressed.
His arms wrap around me. I can feel his hardness against my leg, but he only lies there, his breath on my neck.
“Ashton? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” He slides closer. “Not anymore.”
I turn to look at him. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing’s gotten into me.”
But it’s too much. Too weird. I sit up straighter. I watch his dark eyes in the sparse light filtering up from the street. “Don’t you want to …?”
“What?”
“Don’t you want to have sex?” For a second I’m embarrassed — ridiculous, given the things we’ve done.
“Very much.”
“Well?”
“I just wanted to take a moment.”
“Why?”
“To do without. As if you’ve denied me.”
“I’m not denying you.” The words stir something. My hair against my shoulder, bare but for the straps of my nightshirt, is like the brush of my lover’s fingers. I forget why I was put off by the idea that he’d come here and simply expect to fuck me.
This change is even stranger than the one at dinner. Stranger than the one I saw when he spoke to my father, deferring to the older man’s authority like a proper suitor. His lack of action is making me more aroused, not less. I want to be the aggressor. I want to take him all without asking.
“I know,” he says. “But you could.”
“Anyone can. What’s so special about denial?”
“You don’t know, Jenna. You can’t know what it’s like to be me. Everything is so hard at first, but at a certain point everything gets too easy. You’re the only person who challenges me, who pushes back, who made me work to have you.”
“I’m yours.” I lick my lips, finding control harder to summon. “You don’t have to work to have me anymore. We have a deal.”
Trillionaire Boys' Club: The Clothing Mogul Page 13