Burning Rivalry (Trevor's Harem #2) (5 page)

Bullshit. I feel certain, right now, that’s exactly what he meant to do.
 

“Don’t worry. You didn’t.”
 

A small chuckle in the darkness. He nudges me forward because we’re facing off in the gloom.
 

“They say animals can smell fear,” he says.
 

“Good for animals.”
 

“Humans, too.”
 

I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, and don’t want to ask. We’re out of the little passage a second later, and I’ve shoved the rolling chair aside. There’s nobody here in what Erin called a control room, so I have no idea how it moved earlier. I can properly see him. He must have noticed the chair move while he was lurking behind me in the dark, but he doesn’t seem mystified. It’s just another game he’s playing with me, as he’s been doing all along. Falling for any of it makes me feel stupid. I got spooked for no reason. It’s irrational and if Daniel is trying to fuck with me, he got lucky once but won’t again.
 

“It’s true, you know.”
 

“What?”
 

“We can smell fear. Not consciously. Not even in a way that’s really understood. But study after study shows that on some level, we’re all aware of things happening with other people that they may not even know — or admit — about themselves. Like moods. Like chemical signals that we don’t have any kind of ordinary capacity to even detect, but still somehow seem to.”
 

“Fascinating.” I’m already looking around, interested only in finding whatever Brandon-related communications are in here, then confronting Daniel for snooping. It isn’t straightforward. The room is larger than I’d have imagined, filled with monitors, computers, and controls of all kinds. I suppose the narrow passageway is supposed to connect the hall and a room that seems to have been shoved behind the bathroom. No wonder the door seemed so out of place: There’s no space for a room behind it, between the bathroom and the wall. We’re closer to the home’s heart, tucked neatly away.
 

“I’m only telling you,” Daniel says, “because if you’re afraid, there are people who will be able to — ”
 

I spin to face him. “You’re snooping in my email.”
 

“Erin told you.”
 

“Of course Erin told me. You thought she wouldn’t?”
 

I wait for him to react with shock as I fumble for the upper hand, but he gives me a cocky little lift of his mouth, as if I’m merely amusing to him.
 

“No, I knew she would. She’s loyal. It’s one of her key strengths.”

I spy a laptop to one side, open to a Gmail window. I cross to it, but Daniel is faster, slapping the lid shut then standing mostly over my shoulder, holding it closed.

“We need to talk.”
 

“That was my email, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”
 

“I don’t recall giving you permission to read my email.”
 

“I don’t recall feeling I needed it.” I pry at his fingers, trying to shove his hand away. But he’s a hell of a lot stronger than I am, and it’s clear he’s playing with me, like a cat with a dying mouse.
 

“Fuck you, Daniel. Let me see it.”
 

“It’ll only upset you.”
 

I look right at him. If that’s honestly supposed to be something that will decrease my interest in what he’s keeping from me, he’s vastly miscalculated.

“I can take care of myself.”
 

“No, Bridget. You can’t.”
 

“If you’re trying to help me — ” …
again
, my mind adds.
 

“I’m not trying to help you. I’m trying to protect you.”
 

“That’s not your job.”
 

“It is now.”
 

“‘Now’?”
There’s some cue that’s changed hands here, and I don’t know what it is. I want to ask why now, of all times, Daniel feels he needs to be some macho, alpha-male savior. He helped me out with Linda and I really appreciate it, but I’m not looking for support. I’ve always made it on my own. I don’t want help. I never want help other than the kind I make for myself.
 

“You know what they say about the life you save. It’s your responsibility forever.”
 

“You didn’t save my life.”
 

“The continuation of brain waves and a heartbeat isn’t the only definition of alive, Bridget.”
 

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Now he’s making me mad. And what’s worse, I think he’s trying to.
 

He’s staring right at me. His intense brown eyes. Hard, unshaven jaw. My hands are still scrabbling along his, halfheartedly trying to prize the laptop away so I can see how much he’s been meddling, and as I struggle my hands keep trailing along his forearm. He isn’t doing much more than leaning his hand on the laptop, but still his muscles have become like a sculpted iron pillar.

“It’s so easy to dislike you, Bridget.”
 

“Fuck you very much.”
 

“It’s so easy; I don’t understand why I can’t.”
 

In one smooth motion, Daniel pulls the laptop away, as if he’s simply removed it from a shelf. My best efforts to snatch it away don’t even register.
 

He points at one of the monitors, and on it, I see the group of Ones. But they’re not having the orgy I expected. They’re not even naked. Instead, they’re filling out paperwork. Tony and Logan hold papers up intermittently, and I’d swear they’re polling responses to follow. I see Trevor there, but only barely. He’s sitting to one side, kicked back, legs crossed. A few of the girls keep looking over at him. Trevor, like Daniel, has dressed down for the day. My potential husband, by the rules of this freak show, dressed in jeans and an untucked button-up shirt, sleeves rolled up, bare arms crossed over a broad chest. I have to admit, he looks hot as hell.
 

“In a bit, the groups will switch. You’ll go in with Tony and Logan to be
tested
— the mundane nature of which will take most of your number by surprise, because they’ve spent the last half hour mentally preparing to impress Trevor with some sort of glamour, charisma, or most likely sexual display. Frankly, some of them will be disappointed when they see it’s all flash cards and schoolwork. That changes conditions between the halves. In this first rotation, it’s your group, not that one there, that’s mostly being tested. But after the switch, behavior in both groups will be of interest. Specifically, we expect some in each group to make a few comparisons between their circumstances in the sessions that will blow the experiment’s cover.”
 

“What experiment?” My eye keeps wandering to the laptop, and it’s difficult to keep myself from being distracted from the reason I came here in the first place.
 

“All that you need to understand, Bridget, is that the true competition is about to begin. Not because of anything we’re doing, but because of what the girls probably will. That group has spent a half hour following instructions, unsure why they’re doing any of it. Yours has spent a half hour waiting and mentally preparing for something that, as you see, isn’t actually scintillating at all. It’s not an elegant group date. It’s not skydiving or hiking. It’s not a bunch of screwing. It’s the dead opposite of stimulating or pleasurable.”
 

“And that means — ”
 

“This is the most clinical, most frustrating form of foreplay, but it still contains foreplay’s secret ingredient: anticipation. After all this annoying waffling following last night’s expectations, the wait for what they’re sure must be coming
eventually
is just turning up the heat.”
 

“I don’t see your point.”

“They’re going to be horny. Like you.”
 

“I’m not horny.”
 

“Normal social rules don’t apply. We’ve made it clear that this is a morally loose atmosphere. They’re free to do what they want when they want. The whole place is designed to be subtly charged, but seldom overtly. We don’t want any of you compelled. It’s exactly the opposite. My goal, in observing, is always to determine what any of you will do on your own, without us telling you to. This group has been thoroughly screened. They’re not the types to hang back for long. And once one of them crosses a line in either group, the normal competitive urge in the others, combined with their arousal, will quickly escalate the situation. I know you don’t think you’re like them, Bridget. But you’re not immune, either.”
 

“I said, I’m not horny.”
 

“Your pupils are dilated. I can see the pulse in your throat, and you can’t keep your lips together.”
 

Holy shit. He’s right. I thought I was just pissed off and annoyed, but I’m totally fucking wet. Back in the room, with nothing going on, keeping my distance from Kylie, I could only think about what the Ones must be doing. I distinctly remember wondering how Logan and Tony, if they were servicing the other girls, would be able to service my group when it was time. I wondered if, after enough time of waiting, Richard would start trying to warm us up. Maybe take some of the pressure off. I’d keep my distance from him, too, but the thought still infiltrated my mind. I pictured things ramping up, clothes coming off. I’d have to sit and watch, like I sat and watched with Erin and Tony back in my room. And then
that
image was in my head. God help me, I found seeing them fuck right in front of me hot as shit. I’ve thought of it and touched myself, subtly and more overtly, since.
 

“No matter what happens,” Daniel says, “you have to resist. Do you hear me? Don’t join in, no matter what the other girls do.”

I want to issue something on the spectrum of
Of course not; what kind of slut do you think I am?
, but now there’s a porno playing in my mind, and part of me wants what I’d normally deny. Part of me wants to hear those sounds. See those sights. And, if it has to happen, maybe feel those sensations. Even if it’s my own hand doing the wandering, I somehow doubt — after a few days in hedonist’s paradise — that I’ll feel the need to sit upright and play the good girl to the bitter end.
 

“Why not?” I say instead.
 

“The first reason is that if you don’t want to be thrown out for real this time, you need to prove you’re not some sort of a plant. Trevor already suspects I wasn’t as thorough with you as I was with the others, and if he can confirm it, we’ll both be in trouble. But I know how you are, and so does Trevor, from the profile I already showed him. If you let yourself go too fast, he’ll suspect you’ve been tampered with. He’ll assume you would only turn contrary to your normal tendencies that quickly if something outside of himself and the other men has been stimulating you, away from the cameras.” He hesitates. “Or erased from them.”
 

He means himself. He means the stimulation he’s given me, both directly that first day in my room and later, without so much as touching me. He means our special, unique circumstances. His saving me, shoving me back into this competition, paying off my mother’s medical needs. Maybe the live-action foreplay we had before arriving, outside the club and in the limo. He’s not supposed to do any of that. He’s supposed to be off limits and objective. He’s not supposed to coach, or play favorites.
 

“Okay. I’ll stay out.” A prissy voice in my head tells me that this is hardly a concession, since I’d never have done anything anyway. I’m not that kind of person. Except that in the past few days, I’ve learned that maybe I’m not who I thought I was after all.
 

“But the second reason matters much more than whatever Trevor thinks.”

I swallow, feeling the arousal I didn’t even know was there throb like a giant heart inside me.
 

“What’s that?”

“Because I don’t want you to.” He levels a hard stare in my direction. “Because you’re mine.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

I shouldn’t have said that.
 

But it’s true.
 

Bridget’s always been mine. She was mine all those years ago, just in a totally different way. She was my choice then, mine to obsess over, then later hate. Mine to follow, mine to seek. My choice to come here, against Trevor and the board’s wishes. Mine to defend, mine to hide. Mine to call, when I discovered her secret, and then mine to seduce with only my voice. It was easy. I’d done my research; I knew her triggers. And then she was mine. At the club. Through our interview and beyond. Because it turns out, her triggers match me, and she matches all of mine. I’ve loathed her, and now that feeling has become something else. Something worse than hate. But through it all, Bridget’s been mine. And nobody else is allowed to touch her.
 

But I’m being stupid. What I warned Bridget against — strange temptations that come in the heat of the moment? That’s exactly what I should warn myself against, too.
 

Her beauty intoxicates me. She doesn’t know she’s beautiful, and would never think of herself as sexy. She barely thinks of herself as feminine, and usually acts like she’s not. But I see the curve of her neck. The shape of her back and hips when she wears the dresses we provide. The effortless length of her legs. My constant, never-ending preoccupation with what lies between them, wet for me. Her intense,
nothing-can-hurt-me
attitude. The guilty compulsion I feel to hurt her just a little, so I can see the loss of control when she’s vulnerable.