Burning Offer (Trevor's Harem #1) (9 page)

Running my fingers along his shaft, spellbound.
 

Then it’s in my mouth. And I’m sucking it, my lips tight. Making a pussy for him to fuck. And now he is, thrusting slightly upward. I add a hand to keep him from going too deep, but that speeds him up. He thrusts faster, and I pump and suck harder. In my mind’s eye, I imagine his tip erupting in my mouth. I don’t swallow, or even take it in my mouth. But right now, it’s all I want in the world.
 

My other hand slides down my bare body, between my lips, making me jump when the first finger rolls across my clit. Holy shit, I don’t think I’ve ever been so worked up.
 

“Fuck! I’m going to come in your mouth!”
 

I want it. I want to take it all. My hand works faster. My lips suck harder, tasting a fraction of salt. My own orgasm is coming fast; I might even beat him to it. I come hard all of a sudden, almost by surprise. As my muscles tense, I stop the movement of mouth and hand, and that’s when Daniel comes: as I’m caught at the peak, unable to move. He explodes inside me and fills my mouth with his warmth.

The second it’s over, I begin to regret it. I swallow what I can and wipe the rest away. Then I can’t get dressed fast enough.
 

“I hope you enjoyed that,” Daniel says, buckling up. “Because it was the last time.”
 

I look up. I won’t admit I want more, and don’t understand.

“From here on out, I’m off limits. According to the contest’s rules.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

We’re in the air a half hour later, headed away from the only family and friends I’ve ever known.

I must be an idiot. I’m certainly fucked up, broken in the head, living out a cliché: Troubled foster kid runs away from home without telling anyone where she’s going or leaving a note, gets in with a bad crowd, acts out sexually so she can get some much-needed attention in exactly the wrong way. The only twist is that I waited until I was twenty-six years old to do it.
After
I’d climbed out of despair and started a career with a future.

Once, after Keith put me in the hospital, Brandon accused me of seeking my own destruction. He didn’t mean it, and felt bad the minute it left his lips. But there was a core of truth there, as Brandon consoled me after the latest dysfunctional relationship with exactly the wrong kind of man. Because here I am. I may be in a private jet surrounded by luxury, but there’s no world in which any of this is a good or smart idea.
 

I tell myself it’s for Linda. I tell myself it’s for my life going forward because with the kind of money we’re talking about, I could build the studio and audio business of my dreams, even after I’m done rescuing someone worse off than
I
am.
 

But if I’m doing this for Linda and my career, why do I still taste semen on my tongue? Out of all the crazy things I’ve done yesterday and today, sex was the only one I wasn’t paid for.
 

Private air travel is vastly different from the way I’ve flown before. There was no security, no lines, no pantomime by a flight attendant telling me where to find the exits. We pulled up in one wheeled luxury vehicle and took off in another.
 

I was composed enough while boarding the plane — a good thing because there’s a flight attendant (albeit a more polished one), a pilot, and another girl about my age who introduced herself as Erin. She has dark brown hair that looks recently salon-styled, small features, and eyes so blue they make mine seem green. She’s short and has a little overbite. Her teeth show when she smiles, but in contrast to Daniel, I find her immediately comfortable and friendly. She seems nervous but at least together. She’s immaculately dressed in a pale blue dress and a silver choker. I’ve got my white dress on, but that’s it. I never took my Converses off before degrading myself in the limo and didn’t feel like getting pretty while Daniel tucked himself in and leered at me, so I boarded with my Cons on and hair a mess.
 

Once in the air, I find the bathroom, which is a lot bigger and nicer than any commercial plane I’ve ever been on, with a large polished mirror, towel racks, and a sink that looks inlaid with brass. I lock the door and set about primping as I’ve been commanded. It feels stupid to put on heels while flying even though Erin’s wearing them, but at least I strip off my ill-matched shoes and socks to go barefoot. I have a cute little toe ring that I can’t for the life of me remember putting on last night or pulling socks over, but it matches a pair of dangly earrings I find in Daniel’s bag. They’re sliver, the shape of vertical eyes, covered in what I assume are real diamonds. I consider not putting them on when I freshen my makeup, but don’t feel like another power struggle. Daniel will insist I wear them, I’ll say no, yada yada, I’ll end up doing it anyway, after my self-respect is knocked down another notch.

Surprisingly — or not surprisingly at all — there’s a small makeup bag in with the shoes and earrings. I skip my usual kit for the same reasons and apply the pale pink lipstick, mascara, and light eyeliner. I pull my hair back into a ponytail but fluff my bangs out, parted in the middle. I give myself a once-over in the mirror before heading out, deciding I look sufficiently cute. I try telling myself I’m only putting in this effort about my dress and appearance to avoid a fight. It has nothing to do with another girl being on board and my feeling competitive. It has nothing to do with the feeling that she looks a lot prettier than I do. I definitely don’t feel relieved that I’m at least taller, and men seem to think my voice is sexy.
 

When I emerge from the lavatory, I take the plane in anew. It’s tiny compared to the jets I’m used to, but the opulence more than makes up for it. There’s plush carpet that’s soft under my toes. The windows have shades like a home, albeit subtly anchored for travel. The seats are large and soft, made of tan leather, and rather than being arranged in cramped rows, they’re spaced out and turned every which way. There’s a couch with small red pillows in a horseshoe along one wall farther up, near the cabin. I can see Daniel up there, talking to the pilot through an open door. He’s removed his blazer, and I can see his broad back muscles beneath the stretched fabric of his pressed dress shirt. The tattoo, I hadn’t noticed before, seems to run around his back as well. I can see its spikes poking over his collar, climbing a strong neck.
 

But Erin is much closer to me, not far from the bathroom. Sitting in one of the big seats, her posture slightly curled up, clearly nervous. The chair’s enormity makes her look tiny in her little blue dress.

“Hey,” I say.

Erin looks up at me. Her deep blue eyes are ringed in dark liner. I don’t know why, but I immediately find myself drawing comparisons between us, judging myself by her high standard and wondering if she’s doing the same, or if maybe I’m the weird one. There seems to be just five people on the plane: me, Erin, Daniel, the pilot, and the flight attendant. Maybe a co-pilot I haven’t seen; I don’t know. But we’re the only passengers: Erin, Daniel, and I. Two girls and one hot guy. I can’t stop doing that math, and feeling uneasy.
 

“Oh. Hi.”
 

I sit. She smiles at me then looks back out the window. Not because she cares what’s out there. More because neither of us seems to know how to react to … to whatever this is. There’s no social precedent. We’re on virgin ground, conversationally speaking.
 

“So how did he nab you?” I say it playfully, but my undertones are serious. I wasn’t nabbed, but I didn’t precisely come willingly.
 

“Daniel?”
 

“Yeah.”
 

She peeks forward to see if he’s within earshot. I don’t think he is. I think we’re alone.
 

“I got an invitation.”
 

“Me too,” I tell her. “To the Castleview?”

She looks at me funny.
 

“The hotel?”
 

“It was The Four Seasons. In Chicago.”
 

“You’re not from Inferno Falls?”
 

“Chicago,” she repeats.

I take a moment to process that. There’s nothing particularly strange about Erin having come from Chicago. We’re in a private plane, after all, and we can go just about anywhere in a matter of hours. I’ve been assuming we’re flying directly to the estate I saw on Daniel’s tablet. I never considered the possibility that Inferno was but one stop of many, that we might be headed to New York or Denver or Seattle next. In that city, someone else will be the interviewee. Someone else will be the Bridget, run through the same paces. This time, I’ll be the Erin, who I’m beginning to think might have been hanging out on the plane all day, waiting since the flight from Chicago. Maybe since the night before, when Daniel found me in the club. To test me out, to see if my skills in the bedroom would live up to his boss’s standards. Not that we’ve used a bedroom.
 

The thought brings it all whipping back around. Why am I here? I knew what this was — the first part, anyway. Daniel already told me that Trevor Ross is running this show, maybe even as part of a cabal with his other billionaire buddies. He basically admitted that he was the first screener, fucking me to see how I fucked. And now, since the end of the limo ride, I know that I’m done with Daniel Rice, that he’s “off limits” until the end of whatever’s going on. So, what? Have I graduated Phase One? Time to move on up, fuck a new and bigger stranger instead?
 

The idea makes me sick. Not at the situation, but at myself. I’m a smart girl. I knew all of what I’ve just mentally listed, and yet I still boarded the plane. Still let them close the door and take off even after meeting Erin and connecting a few more dots. What’s wrong with me? Brandon said I have a kind of death wish. A self-sacrificing streak. I still don’t know what exactly I’ve managed to get myself into, but I know enough. And yet here I am, going right along with all of it.
 

There’s no way I’ll prostrate myself before Trevor Ross upon arrival. No way I’ll be handed off from one alpha male to another like luggage.
 

I tell myself I’ll leave as soon as I arrive if things look dicey. Daniel said I could do that, and as much as I distrust and dislike him, I believe it. Ten thousand dollars for a round-trip plane ride — $18,500 if you include what I’ve already deposited. The idea of getting $10,000 on top of that for each day I stay is tempting, but not if it means sacrificing my dignity. I’ll quit while I’m ahead, I swear it.
 

“Did he tell you what this is all about?”

Erin shakes her head. I hate that I feel in competition with her because she seems so sweet. But if I was the second stop on this journey, it means Erin was the first. And there’s no reason to assume that things went differently for her than they did for me.
 

I don’t like Daniel Rice at all. And apparently, I’m done with him, now that he’s finished with me. So why does Erin’s pretty face and compact, economical body bother me? Sitting across from her, I feel ten feet tall and gangly, with a voice that belongs on a Harley.
 

“He just said it was some sort of a contest.”
 

From here on out, I’m off limits. According to the contest’s rules.

“That’s what he told me. What kind of contest?”
 

“I don’t know.”

“Like a reality TV show?”
 

Erin shrugs. “He just told me I’d get ten thousand dollars for going, and that I can leave right away if I want.”
 

That sounds familiar. I look around again. Quieter I say, “Do you think any of this might be … I don’t know …
dangerous?”
 

Her face forms a question.
 

“Well,” I go on, “doesn’t Daniel strike you as … rough?”
 

Erin cranes out to peek, as if she’s forgotten who we’re talking about and needs a reminder.

“Not really, no. He struck me as very professional. It made me nervous, the idea of just going without letting anyone know where I was headed, you know? But he totally got that and said that although I still couldn’t call anyone, he wanted to make sure I felt comfortable. So he let me write a note and mail it to my mom. After reading it and making sure I wasn’t giving away private information, of course.”
 

“He let you write a letter?”
 

“Sure. And I went to the bank to check on the money he already gave me. Did he give you money ahead of time?”
 

“Yeah.” But I just want to know about this letter. Surely, he didn’t actually let her drop it in a sealed federal mailbox. Surely, it’s a trick.
 

“So we went to the bank. And the only thing I wasn’t allowed to pack was a cell phone. He was very specific about that. Said that cell phones can be tracked even if they aren’t used. Just a privacy issue. And I had to sign some nondisclosure agreements. I couldn’t pack a computer or a tablet. But just about anything else could come.”
 

The timelines are wrong. I was told to bring a day bag, but Erin is talking like she did her packing after she’d had a conversation with Daniel. And NDAs. I didn’t sign any NDAs.