Burning Rivalry (Trevor's Harem #2) (11 page)

This is the part, in a reality TV show, where the cameras would be capturing it all for the public’s amusement. Reality shows are one of my guilty pleasures, so I know how this usually works. Kylie’s struggles, handled by a deft crew for later broadcast, would be cute rather than humiliating. She’d laugh when the cameramen laughed, knowing the joke is more with her than at her expense, seeing as it’s unreasonable to expect tall beauties like her to have rock-climbing experience, and therefore it’s all in good fun. On TV, it would be obvious that the three of us are competitors, but we’d keep our claws retracted in public, extending them only in private. So right now, we’d all be laughing, pretending we’re friends. Kylie might even trip and fall into Trevor’s arms, coincidentally of course. And then she’d say something endearing about how she’s so clumsy. And the charming bachelor would fall for her just a little bit more.
 

But there isn’t any crew. It’s just me, Kylie, and Kat. Trevor is handling belay duty, the rope threaded through a complicated anchor at the short cliff’s top. I’ve done a respectable job of climbing with the rope as a
just in case
safety line. Remarkably, so has Kat. But Trevor’s had to hold a lot of Kylie’s weight. It’s satisfying on two levels. First of all, Kylie looks like a floundering asshole. And second, holding her up strains Trevor’s arms, and his arms are almost as nice as Daniel’s — with the significant advantage that the guy they’re attached to actually smiles, says please and thank you, treats us like people.
 

I’m not here to have sex with anyone, but I let myself think of what it would be like with Trevor. I’ll bet he’d be courteous. I’ll bet he’d ask permission. I’ll bet he wouldn’t shoot his load up my back and into my hair, necessitating a backward walk of shame out of a club with a stain on my dress.

I look at Daniel. He’s watching Kat ascend, making notes on a small pad. The notepad is like a thorn in Kylie’s side. Not only does she suck at rock climbing — normal and expected of a tall girl who’s never done it before — but she’s also, apparently, being graded. Each time she slips, Kylie looks over at Daniel. And each time, he writes something down.

But somehow, this works as a date. I don’t know what the other nine contestants are up to right now, three miles down the trail, at the big house, but this is the most normal I’ve felt since arriving. We’re just five people hanging out, trying something different, getting fresh air and sunshine, finally getting to know our host. Between short ascents and pointers, he’s been sitting on a rock and telling us about himself. Not his official corporate bio, but Trevor Stone as a person.
 

Straight As in high school. The kind of kid I always wanted to beat up, but later came to admire, once I was a bit more adult and a little less angry.
 

He shifts his seat, and now he’s sitting right beside me. I realize all of a sudden that my hand is on his leg, and I snatch it back as if it’s an alien limb. But as Trevor continues to talk, I see that
his
hand has moved to
my
leg. I should push it away, but I see Kylie’s eyes on it before she’s locking her evil gaze on me. And that makes up my mind: I leave the hand where it is, pretending I don’t notice the choice being made.

Trevor tells us that he grew up in privilege; of course he did. He makes a self-effacing joke about how he definitely didn’t make it on his own, how he grew up with a silver spoon so far down his Richie Rich pie hole that he was constantly gagging. He tells us how he struck out on his own, got a law degree, didn’t join a firm but started a new one. He got bored of law, and moved into education — law education, but education nonetheless. Kat is licking her lips through this part, no doubt imagining Trevor as a professor. I doubt he’s much past thirty (if he’s that old), so he must have been really young back then. And the girls in his classes must have loved him, spending many quiet nights at home wanting him from behind closed doors. Or maybe he partook — because no matter how sweet Trevor seems right now, I keep reminding myself that we’ve all seen his cock. It was in Kylie’s mouth, in public, not twenty-four hours ago.

The same thought must be percolating through all of us, because that old energy comes quickly creeping back. Like yesterday, after the groups switched. I don’t want this to degrade, because I’m having fun just being a person. And seeing Trevor away from the trappings.

That’s when I realize that Daniel is missing. I’m not sure when he left, but now it’s only the four of us. We’re in a smallish area with enough space for climbing, and for someone to stand back and belay, but that’s it.
 

There’s enough room, it occurs to me, for people to lie down on the grass and see what happens.

We’re all looking at one another, seeming to think the same thing, when Trevor finally stands.
 

“Okay. Break’s over. Who’s up for some team building?”

Teams?
There are only four people here.
 

But we all sort of nod, unsure what to do. Trevor moves over to grab the harness, which Kylie left draped over a branch. He tells me to get into it, so I do, clipping onto the climbing end of the rope while Trevor moves to the belay end. Then he holds it away from his side and says, “Who wants it?”

There’s a second between Trevor speaking and me realizing what he means. Fortunately, Kat responds first. A single word, not particularly coherent.

“Like … ” Kat says, making vague motions with her hands.
 

“Hey, gotta learn all the skills. Come on. Take it.”
 

I watch Kat take the rope, with me on the other end. Kylie looks over and sneers. I know she wishes she had it instead.

“But she is too much heavy,” Kat says to Trevor.
 

“Physics is your friend. Bridget, sit into the harness. Give it all your weight.” I do, and Trevor hands the rope to Kat, seeming surprised to realize she can keep me from falling the remaining two feet to the ground.
 

“You don’t have to lift her. You just have to keep her from falling. Understand?”
 

Kat tests the rope. I stand again when she seems satisfied, but now more than ever I don’t get what’s happening here. What, now we’re going to learn how to belay? How is this helping Trevor decide between us? I also wonder if placing our lives in each other’s hands is wise. From the top of the short face, the drop is probably only thirty feet, but that’s still almost the height of a three-story building. It’s not even apparent how anyone got up there to set the anchor. I see a path circling around from the rear that may summit at the clifftop, but that only underscores that none of us really know this place or each other. None of us have any reason to trust that what’s being said is true.
 

“Go ahead, Bridget,” Trevor says with the quarterback smile that everyone trusts … even if he is grooming a harem up here in the mountains.
 

Trevor guides Kat, shows her how to control the rope as it threads through a device on a second harness she’s just stepped into.
 

He’d step in if she fucks up, won’t he? He’ll save me if I start to fall, right?
 

I start climbing. It’s not a hard face, and we’re all wearing tight little climbing shoes. They’ve baffled Kylie, but I’ve worn the things before. I’m fair with my hands, and I work out. The holds are fair-sized. So this is all moot so long as I don’t fall.
 

Sure, Kat could pull hard and unseat me, making me fall. But she wouldn’t do that. Roxy is the sociopath. Who knows what damage Kat has that I haven’t seen. And it’s not like I insulted her the first day I was here, mocking her accent and calling her Boris.
 

I’m sweating, and it’s not that hot out.
 

Five feet up, I’m dipping into the chalk bag hanging on the harness’s rear, trying to recover my suddenly slippery grip. But when I look down, Trevor is smiling at me with a thumbs-up. Kat is steely, staring me down. Kylie, off to the side, looks ready to push them both out of the way, yank me hard, then step away as I fall.
 

Ten feet up.
 

Twenty.
 

I can come down now. This is high enough. Unfortunately, this is where I have to trust my belayer a bit as she lowers me down, but surely Trevor will take over.
 

But when I look down again, he’s still waving me up. Still smiling. And Kylie has her hands on her hips, her formerly coifed hair now a bird’s nest.

I slap my hand high for a hold at the top, but someone grabs my wrist, and it’s all I can do not to scream.
 

“Don’t.”
 

It’s Daniel, lying flat at the cliff’s top, next to the anchor.
 

“Don’t say anything, Bridget. Don’t you dare.”
 

I feel dizzy. I’m thirty feet up, unsteady, and the girl with the rope doesn’t like me. The girl five feet from her likes me even less. Daniel has taken a hand I need to hang on. My leg and forearm muscles are weary and shaking. He scared the hell out of me, and now it’s like he’s going to push me off.
 

The grip tightens. Enough that it hurts. Then he wedges a stick into the dirt and pushes down. It bows then snaps. Below me, in my peripheral vision, I see Trevor give a start.
 

“Tell them something broke,” Daniel says.
 

“What the hell are you — ”
 

“Do it.”
 

I turn my head. “Something broke.”
 

“What broke?” Trevor calls up to me.
 

“Tell him it was the root by the blue thing with all the cams.”
 

“It was a root,” I say. “By the blue thing with all the cams.”
 

“Tell him the cam thing is kind of coming loose.”
 

“The cam thing is coming loose, Trevor! I think it’s — ”

“Don’t ad-lib. She’ll know the difference.”
 

“Who will?” I say.
 

“Shit,” Trevor mutters from below. Then, concern audible in his voice: “Don’t lean onto the rope. Okay, Bridget? I need you to try and down-climb.”
 

I move to obey, but Daniel pulls my arm harder. “Tell him you’ll walk down.”
 

I look at where Daniel is. My face is barely at the edge, and there isn’t much to grab beyond it.
 

“Are you shitting me?”
 

“Just say it.”
 

“How did you get up here?”
 

“I walked,” Daniel tells me.
 

“Why?”

“To fuck you.”
 

I go limp at the blunt force of his words hitting me like a hammer. So much about this is wrong, I should backtrack on the weirdness alone. Instead, I feel my breath coming heavier. This time, it’s not just exhaustion and fear.

I turn my head. “I’m going to climb up and walk down.”
 

“Jesus, no. Come down. There are five anchors up there. You’ll be fine.”
 

“They’ll know if I don’t come down,” I tell Daniel.
 

“No.
If you go down,
they’ll know,” he corrects.

“You’re crazy.”
 

“Kylie will know, and she’ll find a way to make you pay. That’s what she does, Bridget. She’s a manipulator. It’s why she’s here. She gets people to do things they don’t intend to do.”

I know all about that. I remember slapping her, and how she smiled after I did.

“You have to trust me, Bridget. It’s in your character to refuse to listen, and Trevor knows it. So he won’t be surprised. He’ll assume you’re disobeying just to disobey.”

“Come on down, Bridget,” Trevor calls from below.

But Kat must not get the point, because instead of saying something Russian to make me retreat, she leans onto the rope, lifting me up toward the anchor.

“Bridget, you don’t even know the way back d— ”

But I’ve gripped a root and heaved myself upward. Daniel reels me in like a catch from my other hand. A moment later, I’m beside him and, wasting no time, his hand is between my legs, kneading, spreading wetness I barely knew was there.
 

“Bridget!”
 

“Shout down that you’re fine.”
 

His mouth on my neck. Hungry. His hand sliding inside my loose elastic pants.
 

“Shout it. Now.”
 

“I’m fine!”
 

The hand all the way down, Daniel’s fingers inside me. I’m completely lost in him as he breathes into me and covers my mouth with his.
 

“Now come for me,” he demands. “But do it quick.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Adrenaline in my system is confusing everything. I’m agitated, nervous, absolutely terrified. My heart’s beating a mile a minute, and I can barely catch my breath. And that’s just from the climb, and the threat of mortal peril.