Burning Offer (Trevor's Harem #1)

by Aubrey Parker

  Fuck her for being who she was, who she is.

  Fuck her for her sympathy.

  And fuck her for my sympathy. Or really, fuck me for that one. Why couldn’t she be short a few months’ rent? I’ve given her almost twenty thousand dollars — pocket change for the company, especially given all that Alexa seems to be brewing. That would handle a person without someone to save. But research turned up Linda Bernard, age forty, living in the lap of luxury in Miami. I know Linda’s secret, too.

  Fuck Bridget for her bad luck.

  And fuck me for caring. I shouldn’t want to help, especially when my neck’s on the block to provide it.

  The mirror window comes alight. Seconds later, I see Bridget enter the room, toss her still-off shoes into the corner. Her body language is angry. She would be; the arboretum is a bit of a maze. I didn’t want her following me, and she wouldn’t, after what I’d said in parting. But anyone else would be afraid right now. Nervous too, in a more practical way. I know the other girls’ minds as well as I know my own, and their profiles suggest that given this strange cocktail of stimuli, they’d be fretting, worrying their hands together, hearts beating fast enough for the room’s biometric system to pick up clear the hell across the room from the mattress sensor.

  Not Bridget. She’s too hard for fear. She’s seen too much real-life horror to be scared by the likes of me.

  I think she’ll go for her bag. Pick it up, stuff the charging Fitbit and whatever else she’s spread around the room into it, and storm off. She’ll either find one of the boys and demand that she speak to anyone in charge other than Daniel, insisting we cut her first check and release her, or she’ll march the miles it takes to get off the grounds, in the dark and empty-handed. If she demands payment, it won’t be for money. It’ll be to prove she’s not afraid, that she won’t be bullied. It’s the way she is. And always was.

  I’m right about the anger. She huffs around in circles, barefoot. Her arms crossed, her movements quick and agitated. She talks to herself a little, and I’m tempted to grab the headphones so I can hear what she’s saying. But then she stops. Goes to the bed, to the mirror’s right, still close and plainly visible. And flops down, her head on the pillow, arms still crossed. Her knees together, bent in a little pyramid.

  The legs, as one, sway back and forth. Thoughtful. Agitated as she stares at the ceiling, like the twitching tail of an angry cat.

  Then they slightly part, sag against the confining tube of her new dress.

  Bridget takes the hem.

  Hesitant, as if facing a hard decision, she drags it up her thighs. Halfway up, she lifts her hips and brings it up past her ass. Hooks thumbs into her panties and she drags them down until they’re at her ankles.

  Her legs fall open, her ankles bound by gauzy fabric.

  My heart’s beating hard enough to choke me, and has been for several seconds — ever since I realized this wasn’t just an angry, running-out-the-door huff. I watch Bridget touch herself, running a finger from down low to up top. Dipping in for lubrication. I see the lights shine on her finger as it comes out. She’s soaking wet. For me.

  I unbutton my pants.

  I unzip my fly.

  I reach into my boxers and pull out my cock, half-fat already.

  She rolls sideways. Reaches into the nightstand and retrieves the vibrator we left for her, same brand as the one at home. She turns the base, and I imagine it coming to life.

  I’m hard in seconds, watching Bridget roll onto her back and run the tip of the thing across her clit. The way she’s situated, I can see all of her. She’s still dressed as if for a fine ball, her hair back in that casual but somehow deliciously sexy pony tail with her bangs out and parted, her small amount of makeup still on.

  I watched her apply that makeup.

  I watched her after Trevor left, and immediately after I was at her door.

  I watched her enter, and if she doesn’t bail before dinner, I’ll watch her until she leaves the room.

  I’m watching her now, in her most private moments.

  I never want to stop watching her. I never want Bridget to be alone. Never without me. I want all of her, no matter the consequences. I hate her so much. That’s how this was supposed to work. I remind myself as I pump my cock, already feeling my balls tighten, focusing on her slit, on the way she holds the vibrator on the hood at its top. I remind myself that I hate this woman as I watch her pussy lips blush pink and separate, waiting for a lover to slip inside and fill her. Waiting for me.

  I remind myself that it can always be just about sex. That I can have my cake and eat it too. I can keep hating her, and fuck her like I did in the alley. She obviously wants me. Clearly, what came out as a threat only turned her on. So we can be like that, Queen Bridget and I. She can hate me and come hard on my cock as I fill her. I can fuck her throat and make her gag. Sex isn’t love, and I’m strong enough to have the first without prickling the second’s edges.

  She’s my nemesis.

  She’s my enemy.

  I brought Bridget here to break her. To pass around like a favor, so they could break her, too. If she shattered quickly, she’d run home ashamed. If she somehow stayed until the end, I’d have changed her into something she hated, something she always stood against. I’d have proved that I’m no longer who I used to be, and that even Queen Cunt can be bought and sold.

  I watch her back arch, hips rising off the bed, vibrator plunging as she climaxes. I watch her mouth open and hear her sigh as if I was atop her. Inside her. Inside the pussy that’s opening for me while I sit here alone. And then my balls tighten and my cock erupts, and I fantasize about wiping it all across her smug face. Making her take it. Making her pay, because I loathe her and always have.

  Fuck her. Fuck Bridget Miller and her problems.

  And fuck me for knowing that as much as I hate her, all I seem to think about lately is how I can protect her.

  From all of this.

  And from me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Bridget

  There must be a Wi-Fi signal in the house. And it must be open, not so much as requiring a password. I guess I understand because based on what I saw from the air, there are no other homes within ten miles in any direction. From what I’ve gathered, there might even be a fence at the border, and certainly a gate at the road. Nobody’s driving up here to steal a signal and waste Trevor Ross’s bandwidth. And even if they do, what does he care? Trevor’s got six figures a day to spend on women.

  The idea of an open network didn’t even occur to me given that we’ve conspicuously been shown no rooms with computers for public use. I spotted one in an office just down the hall, but don’t care enough about my email to risk using it. The people here know I keep a vibrator in my nightstand, and Zone bars in my fridge so they stay crunchy. I think they’ll know if I push the wrong buttons.

  I’d sure like to let someone know where I am, but it’s not worth forfeiting the $10K I’ll earn if I stay until morning. And besides, the desire to reach out dulls a bit more with every hour I’m here. What would I even say to Brandon, if I could email or Skype him? Hey, Bro, just FYI, I’m up in the mountains at a sex ranch, so no need to worry. No, I’m not coming home yet. Gonna ride it out for cash, maybe let this hot asshole I met yesterday fuck me a few more times before I go.

  Yeah. Not worth it.

  But as I’m touching up my hair and makeup for dinner, my wristband vibrates, indicating a new email.

  The feature is useless. It can do two things besides count my daily steps and measure my heart rate: display the caller ID of anyone who calls if my phone is nearby instead of smashed in someone’s limo, and display email subject lines (but not content; it’s a fucking wristband after all) in the presence of a Wi-Fi network. But seeing as I’m not Dick Tracy enough to actually talk on my wrist communicator and can’t even read the damned emails other than their little cocktease headers, I don’t understand why the makers included either feature.


  But this particular headline stops me.

  It’s from Jenny, and it says, Linda.

  The second-to-last time Jenny sent me an email with a person’s name in the subject line, it was when our grandfather died. So the last time she did it, to let me know about something innocuous that I no longer remember, I told her to knock it off. I see a name and nothing else; I figure the news is grim. If anyone wants to let me know that someone got their nails done in rainbow colors or someone else just learned how to work their computer after years of frustration, bitches had better give me a more complete subject line to keep me from getting freaked out.

  But the subject line on my wristband doesn’t say Linda likes to play hopscotch or Linda is running for mayor. It simply says Linda.

  Fucking Jenny knows better.

  And she knows how on edge I am about all of this. We always discuss the situation with an air of desperation. The way you talk about Ebola in Africa or the terrorism epidemic or how people in communist countries still have to stand in line for toilet paper. I know we have it all in common and are required by blood to care and fret, but seeing as there’s never been anything we can do, all that worry stirs in my gut. Hers too. But shit, poor as I am, I’ve never even had the money to fly down and meet my sister for the first time, let alone solve any of our problems together.

  And her email’s subject line just sits on my wrist.

  Linda.

  And then it vanishes, the notification delivered.

  I feel my pulse quicken.

  Goddamn you, Jenny.

  Scaring me like this with your stupid one-word headlines.

  I told you not to send me name headlines for who-cares reasons, Jenny, you silly bitch.

  But Jenny’s not a silly bitch. She’s smart, like me. Apparently, such things run in the family.

  Linda.

  It must be nothing.

  Linda’s having problems getting health insurance.

  Linda broke some of those stupid glass figures she collects and is totally despondent.

  Even: Linda fell and broke her ankle.

  Any of those things, really, are no big deal. Jenny can handle them. And hey, I’ll be back in Inferno tomorrow, nearly twenty grand richer.

  Unless there’s an easy way to stay another day. Because really, the more I think about it, that’s a genuine possibility. I’m pretty sure there was a big old fuckfest happening throughout most of the house today, but I didn’t partake. Or barely partook. And didn’t need to, wasn’t required to. So if it turns out I could do the same tomorrow, I’d be pretty stupid to leave another $10K on the table, wouldn’t I?

  Linda’s in the hospital, on a ventilator.

  Linda’s been shot.

  Linda’s been raped. Again.

  Except that last one is hardly news. That’s her day-to-day. So it must be more dire than usual. Like maybe Linda’s been raped so badly that she has severe internal bleeding, if that’s possible.

  I must look down at my wrist for five solid minutes. Five solid turns of the second hand.

  Then I’m out the door. Hearing my pulse in my ears, my own breath. There’s nobody out here, thank God; my time is almost up, and I imagine they’re mostly down at dinner. Besides, I don’t need to go far. Just a few doors down, to the office with the desktop computer.

  And the door is open.

  I click on the monitor, sure that it’ll be somehow locked down. Password protected.

  But it comes right up. There’s even a Skype icon on the desktop.

  My eyes find the door. I cross over and close it.

  There are no headphones or earbuds, so I’ll have to take my chances on being heard. I click the volume down and dial Jenny’s Skype name. I doubt she’ll be by her computer, but she has the app on her phone. Saves money, she says. Jenny’s as poor as I am, and has limited minutes on her cheap phone, darting from free Wi-Fi hotspot to hotspot to get her shit done.

  She picks up, as if expecting my call. I don’t have video, but audio is good enough.

  “Bridget, thank God.”

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  “Starbucks.”

  Of course. The hotspot of choice for digital vagabonds everywhere.

  “I couldn’t read your email. I was … ” I trail off, realizing I could have opened a browser to read the thing first. But it’s not necessary. All my life, I only had Brandon. I love him more than anyone in the world, but he’s not blood. Jenny is. Even though I’ve only known her for six months, I swear we’re connected across distance. I could feel the email’s urgency, and now I hear it in her voice.

  “He hit her again.”

  I put my elbow on the desk and my forehead in my hand. I hate hearing those words, but I’m also numb. Beaten up is Linda’s default condition.

  “With a bookend, Bridge. A goddamned cast-iron bookend.”

  “Shit.”

  “It’s bad.”

  “Is she in the hospital?”

  “No. He won’t take her.”

  I don’t ask why. Part of it is that her husband is a cruel son of a bitch. Part of it is that if he takes her in, he knows he’ll be caught.

  “I can convince him to let her go to Devalia. But you know how she is.”

  I’ve never been to Miami. Much of what I see in my head is from television, and I picture everyone as a little dangerous, a little Latino, and always dressed in the trendiest whites. But thanks to my newfound sisterly relationship, it’s like I know the whole place. Dr. Genevieve Devalia is one of the many fixtures in my twisted mental Mr. Rogers’s Neighborhood. She’s the family friend who realizes that there are no in-betweens for situations like this one. Either Linda is fully out or fully in. We can’t get her proper treatment and leave her in that house because questions invite retribution. At first, I hated Dr. Devalia for treating wounds without squealing. But I also know Linda’s husband by reputation — at a certain point, the troubling question of his nagging wife will become more trouble than it’s worth. If that happens, it’ll be easier for him to make the problem disappear. Every way out somehow enables a further downward spiral.

  And only money can fix it.

  A LOT of money. The kind of money that can make good people vanish and bad people go away.

  “Shit, Jenny. Okay, fine. Devalia. I imagine she can tell anyone who asks that it’s not at all uncommon for people to slip and fall face-first onto bookends.”

  Jenny is quiet. “You didn’t read the email.”

  “I’m sorry. No. I just called.”

  She sighs. I know the sound; she’s wishing the email could have done some of this heavy lifting for her. There’s something difficult on her tongue, and she was hoping I’d be prepped already.

  “You know how it is down here, Bridge.”

  “Hot?”

  Another sigh. “I mean with the … you know, the business.”

  Meaning crime. Meaning Mafia, for all I know. It’s not something I like to think about.

  “Well, people all have their hands out. And Genevieve … ” She trails off.

  “Just spit it out, Jen.”

  “I guess someone is threatening her. Saying they’ll report her and get her medical license taken away. And … you know … maybe worse.”

  Worse. I can only imagine.

  “She has to pay them off to keep them quiet, Bridge.”

  “Can’t Nicholas intervene? Isn’t he big shit down there?”

  A deeper sigh. “He’s the one who hits, Bridge. He doesn’t give a shit if she sees a doctor. Why would he risk stirring up trouble with someone over getting her treatment? I’m the one who keeps pushing for any of this.”

  I feel momentarily guilty. It could be me pushing too, if I weren’t stuck up here. I often feel guilty about what’s happening in Miami. Usually because I wish I hadn’t snooped. Because I wish I didn’t know any of this, and feel obligated to help.

  “So … what? She wants money?”

  “Yeah.”

  I suppress
a flash of anger. Aren’t doctors supposed to help people no matter what? Jenny hasn’t given me details on what’s broken and bleeding, but I can’t imagine being hit with an iron bookend leaves kisses behind. And now this bitch wants to be paid before she’ll help? It makes me want to scream.

  “I thought … ” I hear Jenny’s voice break. “I feel like such an ass, but I was thinking about your books, the ones you record I mean, and people are talking about them being made into movies, and I thought … you know … if there was any way you could get an advance … ”

  I close my eyes.

  “How much, Jen?”

  I say it like venom. Venom for her father, for the doctor, for the hopelessness of the situation.

  “Twenty-five fucking thousand dollars.”

  Bitter. Covered in bile.

  “How could she possibly think we had that much money?”

  Because I do have that much money. Or will, tomorrow.

  “I said the same thing. But she said she just can’t do it otherwise. It’s not money for her. It’s money for them.”

  Meaning the criminal who’s extorting the doctor who’s treating the wife of the rival criminal. You’d think there’d be better organized crime etiquette at play, but apparently not.

  Now I hear her starting to cry. Inches from blubbering, knowing it’s hopeless.

  “She seems to really want to help, Bridge. I believe her. But if she can’t pay them, then there’s no way she can … she’d be in the middle … ” And then more tears are breaking my heart.

  I see a small crystal figurine across from me. I’ll bet it would cover the thirty grand.

  I bet that’s what it cost to fill the pool I walked by earlier.

  I’ll bet tonight’s dinner attire is worth double that.