CONTENTS
The Burning Offer
Chapter One - Bridget
Chapter Two - Bridget
Chapter Three - Bridget
Chapter Four - Bridget
Chapter Five - Bridget
Chapter Six - Bridget
Chapter Seven - Bridget
Chapter Eight - Bridget
Chapter Nine - Bridget
Chapter Ten - Bridget
Chapter Eleven - Bridget
Chapter Twelve - Bridget
Chapter Thirteen - Bridget
Chapter Fourteen - Bridget
Chapter Fifteen - Bridget
Chapter Sixteen - Bridget
Chapter Seventeen - Daniel
Chapter Eighteen - Bridget
Chapter Nineteen - Bridget
Chapter Twenty - Daniel
Chapter Twenty-One - Bridget
Chapter Twenty-Two - Daniel
Chapter Twenty-Three - Bridget
Chapter Twenty-Four - Daniel
Chapter Twenty-Five - Bridget
Chapter Twenty-Six - Bridget
Chapter Twenty-Seven - Bridget
Chapter Twenty-Eight - Bridget
FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
THE BURNING OFFER
CHAPTER ONE
Bridget
My hand goes to my throat, and I think of money.
The club is a riot, and my head is spinning. Fingers stealing to my collarbone could mean several things my conscious mind isn’t aware of. I might perceive a threat, or maybe I’m nervous. It could mean I’m uneasy and need to fidget — subtle shifts of arms, legs, hips, and feet on these too-tall blue heels — my way into a more comfortable position. Or I could be demurring, which I learned today is universal in female flirting. Apparently, if I’m interested in someone, I’ll tilt my chin down, roll my eyes up, and idly brush my hair, face, and neck. I won’t intend to do it; it’s programming. So I can forgive myself for noticing the tall, dark man in the suit despite all that’s on my mind. Flirting is biology, operating without intellect’s consent. Genes striving to be perpetuated down the generations by nudging bodies into motion and lubricating their congress. A reason that all of us, everywhere, can be forgiven for our stupid sexual mistakes. We’re animals, when you get right down to it: fundamentally out of control.
But despite my discomfort at being here, and the admiring stranger’s many glances, I know what my hand is doing, stroking my throat, dragging short nails across my skin.
Guilt.
And again, I think of money.
The hand circling my bare upper arm makes me jump, and sends that guilty hand flitting back to my side like a little bird with a secret.
“Are you having fun, Bridget?”
Abigail. Shout-speaking over the music.
I force a smile. I feel caught but am not entirely sure why. I’m hiding a few things, sure. Everyone does. But before Abigail took my arm, I was just standing here, leaning against a wall like a dude, a man’s drink in my free hand. I’m sure I look uncomfortable and unapproachable. But I’m sure as hell not going to sit at the table like the other girls who’ve been left alone, waiting for a man to save me with a dance.
The thought makes my eyes flit toward the stranger I’ve seen watching me all night. The one with tan, possibly Latino skin, one day’s stubble, a suit that’s either black or very dark blue, sitting on his broad shoulders so well, it must be custom tailored. Starched white dress shirt underneath, no tie with an open throat. A black dagger of what looks like a tribal tattoo poking into the open V like the tip of a secret identity.
But he’s gone. And Abigail is smiling, waiting for a proper answer.
Instead of giving it to her, I nod and touch my throat. Intentionally this time.
“We can talk more quietly outside!”
I hate clubs. I hate crowds. I don’t even like groups larger than a few people. This place is the opposite of my scene, but Abigail’s been on the road with Gavin for weeks now, and this is the closest their little band will be to Inferno Falls for months. Or maybe Abigail has finally made the escape she’s been longing to make since I’ve known her — and won’t be coming back at all. I had to come.
I nod and mouth; I’m enjoying the music.
But I’m not. I came here to see their ensemble, not this shitty opening act. I love Abigail, and feel guilt atop my current shame for not wanting to obey my true desire and head outside where it’s quieter. But my feelings are complex, and right now I can abide sympathetic company even less than this sensory torture. I’ve felt conflicted since this morning when I received the envelope, without a stamp or any return address. Since the investigation it prompted. Since what I discovered — and then remembered.
“Does it still hurt?” Abigail shout-asks.
My throat. My surgery. Eleven months ago; no, of course it doesn’t still hurt. But Abigail knows what I do for a living — the public half, anyway — so I can be a bit of a diva. You don’t strain your voice in a club when it’s your moneymaker, hurt or no hurt.
I nod, still smiling, still sneaking glances at where my admirer was before he disappeared.
I feel terrible brushing her off, but I know if we go outside Abigail will ask how things are, if I’m any closer to my dream now that she’s wrapped her hands around hers. I can’t take her sympathy right now, or her wanting to help me.
I’m not proud of what I’ve done.
I’m not proud of what I’m still doing.
And I’m uneasy. Oh, God, am I uneasy. I wish I knew why, but I don’t; not really. The envelope on my doorstep was a splinter, under my skin and in my mind, but I don’t know where or how to extricate it. I only know that it’s bothering me, and that the more time passes, the deeper its implications burrow. I jumped a foot at Abigail’s touch. Luckily, with the music thrumming, she seems to have taken it for some wall-bound species of dancing.
I’m opening my mouth to say something about getting a very late dinner after they play, when things finally quiet. But before I speak, Freddy is tapping Abigail on the shoulder, motioning her backstage. It’s nearly eleven. They must be getting ready to go on.
And then I’m alone again. With my hand wanting my throat, thinking of money.
What I need, it’ll take tens of thousands of dollars.
Hundreds of thousands.
Hell, I don’t know how these things work. It could be millions.
And yet what was the last thing I spent money on? The last time I borrowed money from my foster brother, Brandon, I got nodules taken off my vocal cords. Something that served me and no one else. Not a ton of money. But money I don’t have today because I spent it on myself. I could have made do. I could have saved that money, and it might have bought us some time.
I feel uneasy, like I’ll never again be able to sit still or sleep.
I feel trapped. Beyond trapped.
And then the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Someone’s behind me. Someone large, whom I can feel towering over me even before I turn. I’m five-eight, and wearing heels. But the presence at my rear is taller, broader.
I turn. And I see the man from earlier. The one I noticed outside as he eyed me, when a bouncer came to usher me into the club before I could drop Abigail’s name. The one who raised his glass from the bar, as if toasting a shared secret. The one who was watching when Abigail walked up — openly, like he owned me.
The stew of emotion in my chest seems to amalgamate into desire. Displacement, my mind says, remembering the psychology I found myself reading after the invitation’s arrival. Escapism.
My chin tilts down. Without meaning to, I touch my hair, my neck.
And to my horror, I rea
lize that despite all that’s happened, I’m incredibly turned on.
The music belting from the speakers trails off, and he says into the relative quiet, “Elle. It’s you.”
But my name is Bridget.
“It’s me,” he says, and I watch his chest muscles shift as he reaches toward me, the tips of what look like a massive tattoo writhing under his tan skin like a snake. “It’s Alexander.”
CHAPTER TWO
Bridget
But I’m not Elle. I’m Bridget. And this isn’t Alexander. I’d know, considering that I’m Elle and all.
The music hasn’t resumed blaring from the speakers, and things are far too quiet for whatever this is. We’re around the corner in this little club, as far from the stage and relatively civil pit as I could justify being without offending Abigail. When Forbidden Muse starts playing, I’ll need to move much closer. But for now, I’m near the door, and I’ve already had to sneak out for some air a few times already. The way today has been, I keep feeling like I might hyperventilate if I think on the wrong things for too long. The chill night air slaps me across the face enough to allow my return. But here and now, facing this handsome man and feeling something wrong inside me come alight, I seem to need a thousand slaps. The club is too small, and I won’t let myself believe he could possibly be saying what he seems to be saying.
“I think you have me mistaken for someone else.”
“I don’t think so,” he says.
I stand straighter. Ice clinks in my glass. I’m drinking scotch. I give the stranger my usual look. The one that Brandon says makes grown men cry, and not in a good way. Like I might kick them in the nuts. Or pull off their pants and laugh at the size of their dicks.
But the man doesn’t flinch. Alexander, he claims. He gives me a smile that lifts from only one side of his mouth, like he’s playing with me. A condescending, knowing look — dead sexy in a way I’d rather not admit even to myself.
“Nice to meet you, then,” I say. And I peel myself from the wall to walk away. Toward the front. Toward my friend, who dragged me here to support her, to get me out of the funk she couldn’t possibly know I’ve been in. Unless everyone knows. Unless everyone knows it all, like Alexander here.
He grabs my wrist. Hard. I’m so shocked, I don’t even wrench my arm away. I can only look back at him, aghast. Was I really feeling some strange attraction to this man just minutes earlier? Goes to show how fucked up I am lately. How fucked up I’ve been through my whole vagabond’s life, I suppose.
“It wasn’t easy to find you,” he says, still holding tight.
“I don’t know who you think I am, but — ”
“I think you’re Elle.”
I yank my hand back, but he’s already let go. He’s leaning back against a rail along the outer wall, one leg propped up like we’re here to shoot the shit. His hand lays down on the knee of a kicked-up leg. He’s wearing cufflinks. Tailored French cuffs, starched stiff as boards. I can’t guess at the thread count in his pants.
“My name is Bridget.”
His smug smile widens. Great. Now I’ve given this creepy asshole my name.
His eyes are unreadable in the club’s gloom. His head shakes.
“And I don’t seem familiar to you at all.”
“No.”
Except that he does. If he’s the guy he claims to be, I know him well. And more importantly, he knows me. We’ve never met, breathed the same air, or seen each other’s faces before now. But he’s whispered in my ear, and I’ve whispered in his. He’s made me come, and this despite the fact that I haven’t let a man past my defenses in years.
“You’re not how I pictured you.”
I spare us both the cliché of saying that I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“I imagined a blonde.”
“Men always imagine blondes.”
I get a little smile. I’m not sure what it means, but for some reason I’m sure that Alexander, or whatever his name is, has a different reason for picturing me blonde than the one I’m imagining. Like he knows something he shouldn’t, beyond the obvious things that no one should know.
“But we’re supposed to know the truth about it, aren’t we? That women with sexy voices are actually fat and ugly. I called that line on a dare. I don’t know what made me call back and ask for you when I was alone.”
There’s an elephant sitting between us. I won’t say it, or admit it. Everyone knows I’m a voice actor. I record audiobooks, and I’ve done a few commercials. A bit of video game work. But Bridget has never done phone sex. Not even if the money were excellent and it turned out she was pretty good at it.
“I knew you were beautiful. But I thought you were blonde.”
God help me, I pictured him exactly as he is. Doing my secret job rarely turns me on. I’ve even thought about telling my friends what I do because it’s typically a laugh. I can always hear the men panting as if they’re drooling over the ridiculous things I say. In my head, most are short, balding, too awkward for women they don’t pay for dirty talk. Socially retarded misfits, brave on the phone but cowards in person. I don’t resent them at all. But I do pity them, even if it makes me a bitch.
Except for that one night.
Except for that whiskey-smooth voice. His words reaching into my mind to evoke images I didn’t know were lurking there. I don’t date because I frighten men away, and I frighten them away because they always have it coming. But apparently, I’m still a girl inside. Apparently, I still have needs a strong man can invite with the right words. Here and now, I can try to pretend that I was only doing my job that night, that I was only saying what my phone sex clients expect to hear, and that I laughed with my girlfriends about it later. But he’ll know I’m lying. He’ll know I made myself come picturing him as he is now, imagining the big, strong hands as they did unspeakable things to my body.
The hands that are now so close to mine.
I feel myself blushing. Not just in my face but in body. My nipples are hard. And holy shit, I’m getting wet just picturing his hands on me.
How long has it been?
“Creep,” I say, moving to shove past him. But again, he catches my wrist. I shake it free, and a second later I’m out the door, into the alley, where I’ve been catching blasts of fresh air, trying to forget the stew of trouble that’s dogging me.
But it’s the wrong move.
Because ten seconds later, my phone sex stalker is out in the alley with me.
The door to the club has shut.
And we’re alone.
CHAPTER THREE
Bridget
“Get the fuck out of here,” I tell him. “I mean it.”
“I’m just standing here.” But he’s not. The guy’s removing his coat. Folding it delicately in half with one hand as it hangs from the other. Then folding it lengthwise over his bent arm. He lays the coat on a box of something that the club has discarded. I’m reminded of an executive winding down after a hard day’s work, or a scrapper setting his finer clothes aside to prepare for a fight. As the blazer slips off, his white shirt shifts, and I see more of his tattoo atop striations of muscle. He’s built like a boxer. In my mind the two images collide: a well-dressed fighter preparing to dust up and get dirty. With me as his opponent.
“I don’t know who you think I am, but — ”
“Elle. You’re Elle.”
“I don’t know any Elle.”
“All I know,” he says, stepping forward, “is that Elle sounded comfortable, but that Bridget — ” he says my name carefully, as if it’s fine china, “ — is not. One woman knows who she is, but the other is fighting it.”
He’s between me and the club door. Between me and the alley’s open mouth. The other way is a dead end, with a dumpster at the back.
“You’re turned on.” Then, like a scientist, his head tips, and he says, “Interesting.”
“Don’t you come any closer.”
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me t
o do.” And then he comes closer.
My breath is short. My heart is pounding against my ribcage like an animal plotting escape. I feel my pulse most in my neck. Which he’s eyeing like a lion.
“Elle told me she had fantasies. Rough, strange fantasies. I didn’t believe it. Not from you, of all people.”
From me of all people? What the fuck does this asshole mean?
“I was trying to give you your money’s worth.”
But admitting even that much of what we did together — I’m ashamed as I think back, what I told him, and the things I let myself do for his pleasure — isn’t making me cower for some reason. It’s making me dizzy in a very specific way. In my mind I’m back in my bed, headset on. Jeans bunched at my ankles, panties pushed past my knees. My hand between my legs, rubbing my clit as I revealed my deepest thoughts to an anonymous stranger with a smoking- hot voice. Why not? I couldn’t admit it to anyone else, and I’d never see this man in person. And if I did, he wouldn’t be like he was in my head. Men who called for phone sex were scrawny or obese, dumpy, pathetic. It was safe, saying what I’d said. It was safe to touch myself at his command. To slip my finger inside as he ordered then use my juices to lubricate my fingers while they rubbed my swollen clit. I’d never have to face him. Or myself.
He’s right in front of me, and I can feel my body reaching out to him. It takes intense effort to keep my hands at my sides.
I’m not like this. I’m not this person. Brandon always said, ever since we met at our first shared foster home, that I was the toughest person he’d ever known — boys included. Once we were adults, he began making jokes about the poor, foolishly brave men who’d dare to date me, of which there were few.
But that’s Bridget. And right now, I’m Elle.
Who came in this man’s ear, imagining his touch.
Who was able, just once, to let go.
To admit what I felt. What I wanted. What I needed.
Burning Offer (Trevor's Harem #1) Page 1
