by West, Jade
“Here he is!” he announced, raising his glass in some sad fucking toast. The other guys nodded and raised theirs too, but my eyebrows were pitted as I made my way over to his screen, caring about nothing more than the business I’d been missing out on.
He moved aside for me to get a clear view of the bid screen. His voice was loud in my ear when he spoke again.
“I should be cursing your superior slut reading skills doing me out of my leadership bid,” he told me. “But how can I? How can I when such a sorry little bitch as the one upstairs has come good enough to earn us a fucking fortune? Good call, brother. Good fucking call.”
I gritted my teeth as he landed a slap on my back, fighting back the urge to wrap my hands around his throat and choke the idiotic thrill right out of him.
“I need quiet,” I grunted, and the other guys didn’t need telling twice. They knocked back their drinks and made their exit, closing the door tight behind them.
Good fucking riddance.
My eyes were lasers on the screen, senses honed in hard on the generous list of online bids for the girl sleeping soundly upstairs.
“Drake’s been on to me already,” Eric said, seemingly still ignorant of my distaste at his attitude. “I told him you were busy with the slut upstairs, but he didn’t leave a message. Maybe this’ll be enough to get him off your back, hey? Good shout all round.”
“What the fuck did Drake have to say to you?” I hissed, but again the whisky did wonders at dulling down the dimwit even further into the dregs of stupidity.
I saw his shrug at the side of my vision. “He said he was aware of the bids coming through. Not just from the bid portal, but from his personal contacts. He said he’d been talking. That he’d been in demand, people wanting a back door guarantee they’d get their needs serviced. Secret handshakes and all that jazz, you know how it goes.”
I did fucking know how it goes. People at the top scratching the backs of other people at the top. A bubble of slimy cuntish associates all invested in getting their wants serviced at whatever the cost. And so they did. All of them lumped in together. One big stinking vat of privilege and prestige and enough money to buy their way to any putrid destination they were craving.
As it turned out, they were all craving her.
Paige Rowan Emmerson.
The delicate little petal upstairs.
The dainty little girl whose pleasures lay in the filthy half-light.
The bids on screen surpassed even my previously ambitious expectations of her worth. It wasn’t just in the volume of offers either. It was value too. Value and experiences desired.
My clients were filthy to the extreme, of course they were. That was the nature of the business here and always had been, right from the moment Drake enlisted me as a hardnosed young deviant, on the edge of my own rails all those years ago. Still, I felt the extremity of these bids as though I was seeing through fresh eyes all over again.
The Dubai twins had been first with their offer, but unlike regular double penetration the guys had a list of finer details seared under their bid heading.
Double vaginal. Double anal. Ass to mouth. Full night unbarred. Twelve hours straight with potential room for additional associates included in the action.
So she was to be their party piece. A filthy party piece with their dirty shit-stained dicks down her throat.
I could picture them laughing. Goading. Slapping her about as she retched and spluttered and gave them forced thanks over and over.
The figure they were offering burned my senses. I cursed myself afresh that I wasn’t clicking accept with enough force to give me fucking whiplash, regardless of the shit storm they’d put the girl through.
“That’s good, right?” Eric asked when my click finger hovered. “I mean they usually bid half of that, yeah? They must be keen as fuck to have a go on her.”
I didn’t give him an answer, just clicked on through to the next bid listing without hitting the accept button.
It was from one of the newer members, this time out of sync with his other new member buddy. His bid was more than acceptable. A world away from the one they’d risked a barring for when it came to Annabel Fisher just a few days previous.
He wanted bondage. Painful bondage. Suspension by tits, aided by me to get the bindings correct. He wanted to be able to whip her front with his belt without limits, then fuck her in any hole while she was still bound tight.
Standard. It was standard. But even his standard request made my gut surprisingly volatile.
Eric kept up his annoying commentary. “At least he came good. So did his associate. Both of them learnt their lesson well and good after the warning you dished out.”
The associate’s bid was below a listing from one of our most generous clients from across the Atlantic. Another standard entry for a variety of BDSM implements without permanent scarring.
I clicked on newbie number two’s listing and hated myself for not prioritising the viewing of these as they came in live over the past few hours.
Drake had seen all of them, and no doubt had chance to investigate all of them and give verbal approval before I’d even glanced a look at them. It was another ridiculous insult I’d hurled at my own common sense these past few days. More of the Paige Emmerson effect, it would seem.
I needed to damn well immunise myself against the Paige Emmerson effect, it would seem.
Newbie number two wanted to dress her as a school girl and beat her ass with a traditional cane. He wanted to fuck her throat with an implement long enough that she would vomit all over her school blouse, then make her lick herself clean.
Jesus Christ. Newbie number two was surprisingly niche in his tastes. I’d never have boxed him in with the grade-A freaks during his initial days as a client of ours, but put that down to another oversight on Eric’s part since he was the one who did the interview process prior to bringing him onboard.
“Didn’t have him down as such a weirdo,” Eric commented, as though reading my mind.
I didn’t grace him with a response, clicking through to the next listing while once again ignoring the accept button.
I could imagine Drake reading all of these from his plush seat in some high-end establishment somewhere, smirking to himself at the inevitable praise heading his way upon offering such a popular little prospect to his cash rich customers.
Our cash rich customers.
I continued with the list.
Our elderly oil baron client wanted his regular whipping session with a particularly savage single tail. He was just prepared to offer a more competitive pay out to do so.
Our European politician client — using the general populous’ money as per usual — was on his regular driver for anal destruction. Anal fisting. He’d underlined painful in the description, and offered a whole slab more money as a cash incentive to the girl herself if he managed to achieve a prolapse on her asshole.
My stomach turned afresh at the thought. Eric’s laugh made my fist clench over the keyboard, wanting to land a decent punch directly to his piece of shit mouth for his ignorance.
I managed to hold back, clicking through the next five listings with barely more than a glance at their objectives. Strangulation. Group sex to the extreme. Medical play. Watersports. Fisting and stretching and pain on pain.
“She’s gonna have a busy sixty days,” Eric said, and this time I answered him.
“She’s a popular girl.”
I turned in his direction as he landed a slap on my arm. “You made her that way,” he told me, and I raised an eyebrow.
“I appreciate the praise, but this success is all down to the girl upstairs. Just as I told you it would be.”
He pulled a face, unconvinced. “Nah. Well, partly. But you should have seen yourself on screen, Bran. Fuck me, you were all in. Seeing you enjoy her that much I bet the guys watching couldn’t wait to get their fucking bids in. I’m sure we’ll have a shit ton more before the night is through.”
; “Pardon me?” I asked, not quite following his idiot logic.
“You,” he repeated. “You were all in. Looked like you were under the spell yourself. Never seen you quite so in the zone. Like steel usually, unmoved by any tight little snatch on the market.”
“I was playing my role as I always play my role,” I countered, but he laughed his fool laugh at me.
“Sure you were. Check the recording back later and say that again in the morning. You were all in. She was doing weird things to you.”
I’d have countered some more if the ping of a brand new bid didn’t sound loud and clear in front of us. I saw it appear at the bottom of the listings, just a few rows down from where my cursor was hovering.
No. Fucking. Way.
I heard Eric take a breath as mine caught deep in my chest.
The name of the bidder burned my vision even as I tried to soak it in. I’d almost managed to cast it aside in my memory as part of daily business, believing it to finally be a never to be seen again entity in our enterprise after the radio silence these past few years.
“Is that shit really real?” Eric asked, but I was already clicking to be sure myself.
It was there. Real. Bold as brass.
The name was royalty. Actual royalty. The traditional nobility of lifetimes leading a picture perfect life in front of the media.
Edward Macmillan York wasn’t an heir to the throne, he was simply a younger contender in the blood line, but still, he was regal enough that the paparazzi ate up his daily activities for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
What they didn’t know, miraculously, was that Edward Macmillan York was a sadistic, deviant cunt of the highest order.
A personal friend of Drake and our highest ever bidding client, disturbed enough that I’d fought my own limited moral instincts as I’d accommodated his requirements with several of our earlier sixty-day girls.
That had been some time ago. Rumour had it he still watched our broadcasts, but had busied himself with some other lines of in person activities.
Rumour had it some of them were extreme enough to put our filthy violence to shame as a universal rating.
And now here he was. Bidding hard. Bidding a serious sum of cash for my pretty little Paige.
As his name scorched the screen before my nerves flared high in my ribs.
I wasn’t used to nerves.
Not in the business. Not while dealing with Drake. Not while dealing with any fucking thing.
But here they were. Burning at the thought of him destroying little Miss Emmerson with his disgusting requests.
“Aren’t you gonna click on it?” Eric pushed, and I wanted to punch him all over again.
It’s then that I heard the ringtone of his private handset and flicked my gaze over sharply enough to see Drake’s name flash up on screen.
And then I knew it.
Of course I knew it.
His royal fucking highness wasn’t coming to us unprompted. He’d had an invite. A personal push in this sorry direction by his cunt of a school chum, Henry fucking Drake. The man on a mission to create the biggest tornado of cash bidders going.
It took every scrap of resolve I had to click on the bidding details and check out his requests. All I wanted was to fire off a click to the reject button. Still, the repercussions would be huge. The conflict with Drake would be propelled to a whole new fucking level if I turned down his royal highness.
I was hovering. Urging myself to click the reject button as Eric’s phone started ringing afresh with the same cunt of a caller.
“I should answer it,” Eric said.
I shook my head. “Leave it. He can call me.”
“You never answer…”
“He can fucking wait,” I finished, and held my breath as the York bid details maximised in front of me.
Eric took a breath as they appeared. I didn’t need to look in his direction to know his eyes were fucking widening as he scoured the text.
“You gonna click accept?” he asked. “You gotta click accept, right? I mean the money… the money and Drake… and she’ll survive it… she might not be quite the same for the rest of her life, but she’ll survive it… You can’t turn down York, not if you ever want to handle Drake again…”
“Shut up,” I grunted. “Just shut the fuck up for once in your fucking life, will you?”
For once in his fucking life he heeded my instruction.
And for once in my fucking life I went against the grain of my own fucking liking.
I took his handset right off the table while Drake’s number was still fucking flashing, then pressed the call accept button as I made my way out to the back porch for a fucking cigarette.
Drake would learn soon enough he could go fuck himself. And so could Edward Macmillan fucking York.
Chapter Sixteen
Paige
I can’t have been asleep all that long before my eyes flickered open. It was a struggle to get my bearings. The room felt strange, and so did I.
I was warm. More comfortable than I’d ever been used to, wrapped up tight in such a plush bed under generous covers. It was only when my body shifted sideways to look for him that I registered the full battering my flesh had taken.
And my ass along with it.
I grimaced and stilled, grunting into the pillow as I fought for composure. Not that it mattered. I was well and truly alone in this space, nothing but silence to my ears as my eyes adjusted to the shadows.
I felt the isolation. Disconnected from the magnetism somehow. Small and strangely fragile without him, even though it was him who’d inflicted the damage.
I steadied my breathing and prepared for the onslaught of tenderness as I dared to move some more. I was thirsty. Really thirsty. My mouth was as dry as parchment and my tongue felt furry to match. The bathroom was calling like a beacon from the other side of the room and I made it to my feet and across slowly, with careful steps .
I drank from the basin tap with eager hands and it was a pleasure. It was a pleasure still further when I dared to splash my face and caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I looked ok. Sleepy, with slightly puffy cheeks and messy hair around my shoulders, but ok. Much more ok than I was expecting.
My belly did a horrible flip at the thought I was likely so much more ok than Phoebe, running from her druggie loan sharks and her druggie boyfriend to match, out on her own in the big, bad world.
Here the manor was big. It was certainly bad too. Most of the populous would challenge my sanity at feeling safe in this place. But I did.
Despite Brandon Grant’s deeply-veined sadistic urges, I felt safe in this place.
Safe with him.
It hurt to use the toilet. It hurt to wipe myself dry when I’d finished. It hurt afresh when I took the return trip to the waiting bed, but it didn’t stop me detouring far enough to take a quick glance at the landing outside the bedroom doorway. Only I couldn’t. The handle turned silently but gave me no access. Locked. It was locked.
I was trapped in here.
At least I should hear anyone coming before they were on top of me.
I used the opportunity to have a fresh look around the room. The curtains were open enough that I could see the very beginnings of dawn outside. I ventured close enough to scope out the landscape in the hint of daylight, and it was beautiful. A skyline of trees with open gardens into the distance. We were well and truly in the heart of the countryside here. Even if I did feel the need to escape from the clutches of my sixty-day master and managed somehow to find a way out of his clutches, I wouldn’t get very far.
I wouldn’t have the slightest clue where I was, or how best to make my way to civilisation. I wouldn’t have the slightest clue how to find my way back to my dorm room on the university campus and cry for help.
Not that there would be anyone waiting for me if I did. No friends bar Carolyn Lane. No family but a sister who was most likely on the run in her own world of retreat without me there to protect her. No c
ollege associates who’d have even a scrap of familiarity with me bar the assignment marking they’d been gracing me with these past few months.
I took a breath and opted to turn my attention back to my current world. Back to Brandon Grant and his personal existence in this place. This room, specifically. His things, specifically.
Only I didn’t make it that far, not when movement caught my eye from the gardens just to the rear of the building. I leaned into the window to get a closer view, and my heart jumped as I recognised his stance down there. His walk. The strong posture of his shoulders as he paced away from the building, across the grass with a phone pressed to his ear. He paused and took a drag of his cigarette, and once more there was that weird connection from his body to mine.
I could feel the familiar bristle of anger from him. I could feel the grit of his jaw without being close enough to witness it.
My fingers moved on their own, hitching up the catch on the window and easing the pane open a tiny inch. It was enough. Enough that when I pressed my ear to the gap I could hear the venom in his tone, lashing out to whoever was listening on the other end of the line, even if I couldn’t make out the words.
It surprised me to discover how much I wanted to. How much I wanted to hear every word he spoke. How much I wanted to know everything. Everything about him.
I stepped back from the window when he turned in my direction, petrified he’d experience the same weird connection flowing the other way through the ether and know I was there. Know I was watching.
I gasped when I felt his gaze flick up toward the window as I ghosted out of sight, backing into the bed hard enough that it set my bruises off fresh enough to made me buckle. Crawling over to my side and diving back under the bedcovers was a fierce battle. I was shaking as I gathered myself, settling down against the mattress with my eyes closed tight.
My breathing was calmer a few minutes later when I heard footsteps approaching outside the room. I tried to feign sleep when the lock sounded and I heard the swing of the door.