Burning Rivalry (Trevor's Harem #2) (6 page)

In this small room, I can smell her. Every ounce. Her presence is too close. Her motions too seductive, even though she’s trying to be the opposite. Her anger makes me hard. The way she talks, the sound of her voice. It swells my cock. The way she distrusts me, resents me, hates the way I keep my secrets. And the way, despite it all, she keeps bravely coming back.
 

But it’d be stupid to surrender. Just as it’d be stupid for Bridget, when she returns, to give in.
 

And suddenly, I need her to leave. To get away from me. It’s not just Trevor and my position that bothers me. It’s not even Bridget’s perilous situation — and the idea that she might be cut off from the money required to solve it — that bothers me. It’s all of those things, yes. But I’m terrible for her. I’d ruin her, even more than she’s already ruined. Temptation lasts only minutes. I won’t ruin it all for lust.
 

I try anew to hate her. To remember what she did to me. To remember how she was, how she is.
 

But it’s impossible. The hard, rude, asshole kid she used to be, I now only see as a front. She was always this soft underneath. This beautiful, in all beauty’s forms.
 

She comes too close, and her hair swings against me, filling my nose with
her.
She tries to take the laptop where I’ve been monitoring her email, to be sure my payment to Jenny arrived. To be sure the problem is at least temporarily solved.
 

But I didn’t anticipate Brandon.

I didn’t stop to consider what a powder keg Bridget’s situation was and remains, and how at any moment, it could get so much worse.
 

“Give it to me.”
 

“I can’t.”
 

“I’m not
yours
, no matter what you think. I don’t need your help.”
 

“You are. And you do.”
 

She swings to hit me, but we’ve been through this all before. Frankly, I’m tired of her posturing. I brought Bridget here to break her, but now I mostly want to kill her self-deception. She’s not self-aware. Bridget’s spent so much time lying to herself, she doesn’t even know who she is, or what she needs and wants.
 

I think I’ve won the confrontation, but she grabs the laptop in the moment of distraction. Her hand leaves mine, and she’s turning away — not for the other end of the small control room, but for the short hallway that leads to the main one. The hallway I followed her into, so I could frighten her in the dark.

I move faster, blocking Bridget’s way.
 

“Let me out.”
 

“I’m doing what’s best for you. You have to trust me.”
 

“What possible reason do I have to trust you?”
 

“I let you stay. I sent money to — ”

“I’m not for sale, Daniel! I’m not your possession!”
 

She opens the laptop, balancing it with one hand and levering with the other. Her chin is down toward the screen, her eyes rolled up as if daring me to stop her. We’re a kid and a parent in a standoff, me telling her not to take another step or else — and her doing it anyway, to test me. I hate the way she’s only making me like her more. I hate the way that disobedient little expression makes me want to kiss her, to fuck her, to show her who should listen to whom.
 

“Fine. It’s Brandon,” I say.
 

She nods, as if she knew that much. Probably from Erin, who caught an accidental eyeful. “What about him?”
 

“He’s worried. And not just him. His wife, too. And someone named Grady. And Mary.”
 

“Maya,” Bridget corrects.

I nod. Yes. Grady and Maya. Names I should know but don’t. Usually, these profiles are extensive, and I know everything about the candidates and the worlds they live in. With Bridget, I skipped steps. I figured I knew her well enough, and what I didn’t yet know, I snooped and sussed out. But her friends and family got only the most passing glances. It didn’t occur to me that she’s changed, like any normal human. That who she is today is shaped by people I never bothered to meet. I knew I was being rash. But only now, too late, is it dawning on me just how sloppy I’ve been, and how much it’s going to cost me.
 

“Maybe they took offense at your policy of me not telling anyone where I went.”
 

That’s not our standard policy. With due diligence, we have time to fabricate excuses and lies that let the girls come to places like this without others knowing exactly where or why or what. Things were rushed with Bridget. I made a judgment call, and judged wrong.
 

“It’s more than that. It’s Jenny.”

Bridget looks down at the computer, panicked. I put a hand on the lid and close it. Not enough to force my will, but enough to underscore my opinion. I won’t push this now. But it’s unspooling, and I don’t like the tangled web being woven.
 

“Not Linda, Bridget. Just Jenny. You aren’t answering your emails, and after you Skyped her … ”

“What?”
 

“I meant to answer some of them for you.
As
you.”
 

She gives me a look of loathing.
 

“But she’s more impulsive than I thought. Worried. Neurotic, really.”
 

“That happens when you grow up the way she did.” Bridget puts her hand on her chest. Atop breasts that, despite all of this, are full with nipples erect. “Me? If you think I have it bad, think again. I’m the lucky one compared to Jenny.”
 

“She’s been emailing Brandon.”

Bridget’s mouth comes a bit farther open. At least we can both agree that Brandon getting involved is a horrible idea. He’s got a savior complex. He’ll rush in to save the day if Jenny tells him too much, and if he does that, things will get very bad very fast. Brandon will use money and, if necessary, his fists to solve the problem. But Nicholas Kidd will use guns — and lots of them.
 

“She hasn’t told him anything yet, at least since his last email to you,” I say, raising my hand. “Just that she’s a friend and is having trouble getting in touch with you, and — ”

Bridget snaps the computer shut and tries again to get past me. Her body presses into mine. I’m so hard just being here with her, and she’s proving impossible to resist. I want her to go, to rejoin the competition before anyone notices how long she’s been gone. If Kylie suspects anything, which she will, we’ll have a problem. And if Trevor has reason to suspect, the problem might be unsolvable.
 

But I don’t want her to go with the computer.
 

I want her to leave.
 

And I want her just the same.
 

“You can’t keep me prisoner.”
 

“I’m not keeping you prisoner,” I say.
 

“You’re blocking me in. You’re cutting me off. You say I can go, but every time I try, something conveniently stops me. I can’t have a phone. I can’t
use
a phone. I couldn’t tell anyone where I was going. Now you tell me that the only family I’ve ever known is about to fall apart and I’m supposed to go back into the big room and wait for an orgy! Fuck you, Daniel!”
 

I meet her eyes. Her blue-green eyes with their dilated pupils. Her nipples hard atop her full breasts. Her breathing shallow, her skin blushed. All over, surely — disparate sources of alarm coalescing into a knot of undifferentiated arousal.
 

I gently take the computer then set it on the table and open the screen. I open Skype, enter Brandon Grant’s handle, and hit
Connect
. Then I move to the side, sitting out of the camera’s view while Bridget stands in its middle.
 

“I’m not keeping you here. Say whatever you must to your brother. Tell him to come save you, if you want.”
 

The shrill ring fills the control room. But instead of watching the screen, Bridget’s watching me.

CHAPTER EIGHT

It’s a bluff.
 

I don’t know
how
Daniel is screwing with me, but I know that he is. Everything out of his mouth is doubletalk or psychobabble. Everything he does is a game. He’ll be irresistible to me as if he’s able to reach inside my head, and then turn repugnant. When he does things that at first seem to be kind, I soon realize there must be an angle waiting to be played. He kept me in the game; he sent money to Jenny for Linda. But am I a fool to think he did those things for altruistic reasons? Maybe he did them to keep me here … while I paw over him, feeling indebted. What I took for kindness might be yet another mindfuck.
 

He won’t even let me reply to emails, so he definitely won’t let me talk to Brandon.
 

I look over. He’s beside the computer, the screen facing me. Daniel is sitting; I’m standing. He’s placidly watching. And insult against insults; I can actually see a long, cylinder-shaped outline in his tight jeans. The motherfucker has a hard-on. Toying with me is turning him on. Worse, he seems able to read me, and knows that I’m turned on, too.
 

But not for him.
 

Just because I’m human, and this is all … well … a bit much for a person to take without flinching.
 

“I guess he’s not in,” Daniel says.
 

I watch the screen. I see Brandon’s face. His avatar, as the connection keeps ringing.
 

“I guess you’ll need to try later.”

He’s right. Why would Brandon just be sitting there waiting for a call? Jenny has Skype on her phone and is nervous enough to sit by it, waiting, after sending panicked emails. Not Brandon. He’s probably out on site, surveying new land acquisition for Life of Riley.
 

Which is good, now that I think about it.
 

Because what will I tell him if he answers?
 

My eyes flick to Daniel.
 

“Go ahead and hang up,” he says.
 

I almost laugh.
 

Now I see it.
 

This is all a scam. It seemed ridiculous that Daniel, after cutting me off from the outside world, would break Trevor’s rules and roll out the red carpet to the one man able to cause them the most trouble. That’s because it’s ridiculous. Somehow, Daniel got Brandon’s avatar image and set this computer up to look like it’s calling Brandon when it’s actually not. Then he gets credit for letting me call. Not his fault that Brandon wasn’t there … and later, when I ask if I can try calling again, there will always be some reason it’s impossible. There will always be something that —
 

“Bridget?”
 

Brandon’s face, clear as day, on my screen.

“Where are you?”
 

I don’t know how to answer that. Suddenly, it’s as if I’ve forgotten.
 

“Jesus Christ, I’d about decided you’d been kidnapped. Gavin’s convinced that Tommy Finch had you killed and buried in a shallow grave or something.”
 

My mind has to scramble. I know the name Tommy Finch; of course I do. He’s the cock who knocked up Maya from the Nosh Pit, like, ten years ago and has ignored her ever since. Now he has a new starring role as the asshat who’s inexplicably interested in buying Grady Dade’s uncle’s crap-shack. But I’ve been in this funhouse for a few days now, and my world feels changed. Inferno feels a thousand miles away.
 

I sit, then lower the screen so Brandon isn’t looking above my head.

“Tommy?
What does Tommy have to do with anything?”

“What did you do, just take a vacation?”
 

It’s hard for me to answer because I feel something on my leg. I look down and see that it’s Daniel’s hand. Sliding higher.
 

“I just went away for a while.”
 

“Where?”
 

“Fuck you, Brandon!” I say, trying to channel Normal Bridget from the remote location of Somehow Different Bridget. “You’re not my daddy.”
 

Leaning in, Daniel whispers,
“Then who is?”
 

I push his hand away. It comes right back, this time firmer. Gripping my leg rather than just touching it. He pulls the leg toward him, opening them. The other leg doesn’t seem to need an anchor and refuses to follow. Suddenly, the throbbing in my pussy feels very real and very important.

“Look. Someone named Jenny’s been calling. She seems really worried. Who’s Jenny, Bridget?”
 

Daniel’s finger brushes my panties. Holy fuck, they’re soaked. I only feel it when his fingers graze the corner where leg meets torso, tickling me, hooking a bit beneath the fabric and pulling it up. I’m bare for a second before his finger slips and the crotch of my panties snaps back into place, but in that second I felt the wetness spread, the chill as room air struck the moisture. I’m a furnace beneath it. I want him to touch me again, but I push his hand away. Not now. Not while I’m on with my brother.