Gagged (18 page)

I smile at Aurora, initiate the transfer, and watch hate fill Aurora’s eyes, my first demonstration of cash over ethics established in seconds.
 

Then I look at James.
 

“Now fuck her,” I say, “while Aurora watches.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

A
URORA

I
ACTUALLY
LAUGH
THEN
STOP
the second I see James’s hand, already on Jasmine’s leg, creeping upward.
 

His fingers under the bottom of her dress.
 

Then most of his hand.
 

I look to Jasmine’s face, sure she’ll be aghast, but her eyes are fluttering closed. I’ve never seen her quite like this. Jasmine is usually bubbly and fun, always a party, never ashamed of her sexuality. I know far more about Jasmine’s body, her lovers’ bodies, and what the two have done together than I care to. She’s regaled me with tales that disgust me while making me laugh and a little bit itchy — the kind of pleasant dissonance that worms its way into my dreams.
 

But now, she’s different.
 

Her eyes are half-lidded. Peering at me between flutters, as if her eyelids are too heavy to keep at full mast. She looks like someone fighting sleep after a long, exhausting day, except that what looks like fatigue has been joined by a slow, steady rise and fall of her chest. Her big, wide, bright red lips are parted. And now that I realize it, she’s looked this way most of the time we’ve been here.
 

Ready for this. From the start.

While Caspian was telling his story and James was touching her shoulders and arms, her breath had the same slow, desperate rhythm. She’s always played sexy to make me uncomfortable — the kinds of stories I imagine taking place amid great revelry, with Jasmine doing her sexual duties to the thrum of loud and exuberant music, making crude jokes with a smile.
 

But this is something else.
 

It’s like she’s not in control of herself. Her eyes, when she looks at me, are almost apologetic. Her legs have parted as if having a mind of their own. One hand, on James’s pants leg, is only an inch below his obvious erection, moving slowly. Her other hand has idly crept up to the space where her neck meets her chest. Fingers trailing skin. Pulse visible on her milky white neck, throbbing between swallows.
 

“Jasmine,” I say. “We need to go.”

“No,” Caspian says. “You don’t.”
 

“Jas?”
 

His hand riding higher. The dress moves up; her legs part. His fingers disappear. I can see a flash of white amid the red. Her panties, as she writhes beneath them, as if having them on is causing her pain.

No.
No, I won’t allow this. I refuse. Jasmine is my friend. If she does this, here and now, things will never be the same between us. She barely reacted when Caspian blew our little secret, probably because she didn’t believe it was true. Or maybe because she believed every word, and it’s only fueling the fire I now realize has been smoldering since we entered.
 

I take her hand. The one that’s moved to rub James’s cock through his trousers. Her eyes flash as if I’ve stolen a prize. She’s someone else now. Someone I don’t want to see.
 

“No,” I tell her. “Don’t.”
 

“She wants to, Aurora.” Then his voice changes, and what Caspian says next is almost pensive, as if he’s speaking more to himself, like a scientist, than to me.
“Look at how
badly
she wants to.”
 

“Stop this,” I say, turning to Caspian.
 

“You
stop this. After all, she’s your friend. She has your best interests at heart, doesn’t she? You believe in her, don’t you, and she believes in you?”
 

“The bet is off. Stop it. Now.”
 

“You surrender so quickly. I’m not forcing her, nor is James. What happened to your faith? To your certainty that people can’t be bought?”

“I don’t want your money. Nobody does.”
 

But Caspian smirks and nods at the couple. “It looks like she wants you to have the money. Because otherwise, what’s the alternative? That she knows how much this is bothering you, but is doing it anyway? Or is she too deep in herself to stop, like you last night?
Too much Jasmine for Jasmine
, until it’s over and the spell breaks?”
 

His words make my heart leap into my throat.
Until it’s over.
Of course “over” means what it seems to — but this isn’t really happening, is it?

“Stop this!” I shout. But it all continues, spiraling on like a bad dream.
 

I don’t understand. We’re talking about Jasmine like she isn’t here, despite her being no more than ten feet from either of us. But maybe that’s because she
isn’t
here, not in any way that matters. Her lips are blushed and parted, her hands and legs minutely shaking. Her breaths are long and full, as much moan as exhale.
 

“Jasmine!”
 

“It’s okay,” she tells me. But her voice is far off and breathy. Dreamy.
 

“It’s not okay!”

“Ten million dollars,” she says. “I’ll do it. For you.”
 

“I don’t want you to!” I grab her arm and tug, but she shakes me away. Again she says, “It’s okay, Aurora. I know how much this means to you.”
 

A new voice in my ear. Caspian, who’s come around behind me, his hot breath inches from my neck.
 

“Why does it bother you, Aurora? They like each other. She wants him, and he wants her. I want to watch. And so do you.”
 

His hand. On my shoulder, the way it was last night. Gripping a little. Sliding into my unflattering sweatshirt. His fingers lower on my chest than I normally show in shirts and blouses and dresses. Lower than the upper line of every swimsuit I own as the tips of his fingers slip under my bra. Just to the first knuckle. Barely there. I could stop him. Like I could stop Jasmine if I really wanted this to end.
 

My pussy is throbbing. My panties feel soaked. I realize all at once, as I did with Jasmine, that I’ve been hot and bothered since we entered the office. My desire was lost in nerves, but now it’s naked and raw.
 

With James’s hand now pulling Jasmine’s panties aside to touch her, my eyes unabashed, I could touch myself if I wanted.

I feel my breath sigh in time with Jasmine’s. I feel my eyes flutter. There’s an insistent throb in my jeans. I move on the chair so the fabric will shift, hoping for stimulation. But oh God, it’s so much further along than I thought. I could come right here, without a hand to help me.
 

I fight the urge. I bite it back. I clench, but don’t withdraw from Caspian’s hand.
 

“Everyone has their price,” he whispers against me, “when they want to be bought.”

And I say, “You’re not … You’re not … ” But that’s all I have. That’s the most I can think to say as Jasmine’s hands fumble at James’s fly. As he raises his hips to let her slide down his pants and free his massive erection. As she lowers her lips to kiss its red and swollen tip. As I imagine him erupting into her mouth like Caspian erupted in mine.
 

Caspian’s hands moving all the way down. Cupping my breast. Then pinching the nipple, hard, hurting me. But still I don’t pull back. His other hand is on my throat like a threat. It’s working a little, as if he intends to grab me and turn my head by force. As if, when he does, I’ll find myself with my own cock to kiss.
 

If that’s what he does next, I guess I’ll have no choice but to accept it.
 

But he doesn’t. Instead he moves back to his chair, across from me. My pussy is hot and wet. I want nothing more than to rub it, but then I’d be admitting that this is all turning me on.
 

Jasmine sucks James’s length between her red lips, leaving a lipstick ring at its base. He raises her skirt and lowers her panties, and I see how dark they are in the middle. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another woman’s pussy in real life. Her lips glisten. I want to look away, but I don’t.
 

I hold my breath as Jasmine looks at me with upturned eyes and says, “It’s okay, Aurora.”
 

He pulls her dress all the way off. I see her body, so much more curvaceous and interesting than mine. She turns away from James, reaching back between her legs as she hovers above him then lowers herself.
 

I watch his cock slide inside her.

“Say the word,” Caspian says, rubbing his cock through his pants, “and I’ll make it stop.”
 

It’s what I wanted.
 

“Just tell me you don’t like it,” he says, undoing the clasp and sliding his zipper halfway down, “and I won’t take out my cock. The cock you sucked last night. The cock that you made come with your beautiful mouth.”

But I say nothing.
 

Jasmine rides James’s cock, his hands on her breasts, moaning. She’s naked. I can’t tear my eyes away from the sight of his shaft entering her, over and over, slick with her juices.
 

I’m a hypocrite.
 

I’m a fraud.
 

All Caspian said about me feels so true.

“If you want to suck my cock again, you can.” I look over and see him pumping slowly with his fist. I remember the feel of it in my hands, the sense of control, and his abandon as I held him at my mercy.

I want to look away. From all of it. But I don’t.
 

This is his torture. The first act of many, in this strange wager. This is him chipping at my armor, proving myself less sure of myself than I claimed.
 

And I think of his words. The flavor of his worldview.
 

Dark.
 

Twisted.
 

Cold.
 

And when I think those things, as I watch his ice-blue eyes fixing on me, seeing me naked through my clothes, it makes me afraid.
 

Not afraid of him.
 

Afraid of
me
.
 

From my past, I remember pleasure.
 

And with it, the pain.
 

The scars on my back.
 

The burning, insatiable, insistent
need
between my legs.
 

“Do it.” His voice has found a new tone, cruel and hard. It’s not a request or suggestion. This time, he’s issuing a command.
 

I can’t respond. I don’t know what he means, except that I absolutely do.
 

“Do it, Aurora,” he growls. “Pants off. Spread your legs. Let me see your pussy again. Then touch it like you want to. Show me what it looks like when you come for me.”
 

I shake my head slowly, desperate to agree, knowing I can’t.
 

“Do it, or you get nothing. Do it, or I take it all away. Do it, or I take back the money. Do it, or I release security footage of what we’ve done. Do it, or I’ll post the videos on your LiveLyfe profile for all of your friends and family to see.”
 

His hand moves faster on his cock. He’s staring at me. Into me. My pussy is on fire. Jasmine comes, hard, folding over as if punched in the stomach. James follows her down, cock still inside her, and then she’s on her hands and knees before me, panting mouth less than a foot from my spread legs, James on his knees, thrusting behind her.
 

“No.”
 

“Do it! I fucking mean it!”
 

But I don’t have to do it myself. Jasmine is taking my pants down for me. I resist until I stop. I want it to end and be forced to continue.
 

I feel bare as Jasmine strips me from the waist down. I’m sitting across from this man with his cock out, rubbing faster and faster, my most private of parts bare to the world.

“Do it, Aurora,” Caspian says. “Do it, or this is all for nothing. If you don’t come for me, it’s all over, and you get nothing.”
 

James pulls out of Jasmine. I watch his heavy, slick-wet cock flop onto her, and then he’s gripping it again. He pushes in, and Jasmine screams out. It takes me a while to understand that he’s putting it in her asshole, and my head spins, lust eclipsing all reason.
 

What are you doing, Aurora? Didn’t you learn your lesson last night? What are you letting this man do to you?
 

“Come for me, or it’s over.”
 

I close my eyes. I don’t want to obey, and yet I want to follow his orders more than anything. I can’t do this, not here, not now, not with three people watching. But I close my eyes anyway and try to make my hand move. Then I feel something, and my eyes snap open — I see Jasmine’s mouth between my legs, hot and wet, licking me.
 

I want to shout for her to stop.
 

I come instead.

My pussy is all gripping and warmth and wetness. My eyes open and close, my mouth and lungs gasp for air. I’m sure I cry out. And I don’t push her away. I let Jasmine’s tongue guide me, its taboo warmth flicking me to torrid life. And as it’s all ending, I watch Caspian erupt in his pumping fist, spilling white down his knuckles. And Jasmine moans and shakes against me, yelling that she’s coming again, that we’re all coming together. And then James is heaving into her, slapping hard, bucking, and then he stops as his spasms subside, and his cock flops out of her and drips onto the floor, Jasmine collapsing onto her side as come drips from her asshole, visible from where I am with my legs spread, gripping as if missing its cock.
 

A moment of bliss.
 

A moment of nothingness.

And then reality returns, just as it did last night, and I know this will be so, so much worse.