Chapter 60
The limo was dark except for the soft amber glow of the interior lights, the Montana highway humming underneath them, the privacy partition up so the driver saw nothing, heard nothing.
Brett knelt on the floor between Richard Sullivan's legs in his white wedding lingerie, his six-inch Louboutins turned sideways so he wouldn't snap an ankle, his white silk robe pooled around his hips, his hands braced on Richard's thighs because he didn't know where else to put them.
His makeup was ruined. Black mascara and eyeliner tracked down his spray-tanned cheeks in rivers. His cherry-red lipstick was smeared across his mouth and chin from the kiss, from what had come after. His honey blonde hair, so perfectly curled on the plane, was mussed where Richard's hand had fisted it.
The white satin choker with slutty tramp in cursive script dug into his throat with every shallow, panicked breath.
Richard looked down at him with those cold blue eyes — Lance's eyes, but without any of Lance's warmth — and his hand tightened in Brett's hair, not painful, just possessive. Controlling.
"Look at me," Richard ordered softly.
Brett forced his tear-filled eyes up. He didn't want to see. He didn't want to remember this face later. But he obeyed, because he'd said he would, because the five-million-dollar check was still on the plane, because Lance was at home thinking his wife was safe.
"Good girl," Richard murmured, and the praise landed like acid on Brett's skin. He wasn't a girl, not anymore, not without the estrogen. His mind was sliding back toward male every day, his body felt foreign in the push-up bra, his breasts ached and felt like "girl parts" that didn't belong to him — and yet here he was, on his knees, playing the part Richard had paid for.
Brett whimpered, a broken little sound he couldn't hold back, his shoulders shaking under the lace.
Richard's thumb stroked over Brett's wet cheek, smearing the makeup further, smearing the shame deeper.
"You're doing so well for your first time with the right Sullivan," Richard whispered, his voice thick with power and scotch. "My son trained you pretty, I'll give him that. Even if you're falling apart without your little shots."
The words falling apart hit Brett harder than anything else. Because it was true. He was falling apart. He didn't find Lance attractive anymore, not the way he used to. He didn't feel like Brielle anymore. He felt like Brett in a costume, and the costume was suffocating him.
"Please," Brett whispered, his voice hoarse and low and cracking, the testosterone making it sound like a stranger's voice. "Please, can we just—"
"No," Richard cut him off, his hand tightening again. "You don't get to beg. You get to obey. That's the deal, pet."
Brett closed his eyes, tears spilling hot and fast. He thought of his wedding ring, sitting in a black velvet pouch in Mara's pocket on the plane. He thought of Lance's text that morning: Love you more. He thought of the empty hormone vial in their bathroom trash.
He opened his eyes and nodded, once, a tiny, shattered movement.
Richard smiled, slow and victorious.
"Good girl," he said again, his voice dropping to that intimate, terrible purr. "Now swallow, bitch."
The order hung in the air between them, filthy and absolute.
Brett's whole body recoiled. His stomach heaved. His mind screamed no no no — the Brett part of his brain, the male part that was coming back without estrogen, the part that was starting to see Lance as just a friend, not a lover — that part wanted to bite, to fight, to run.
But the Brielle part, the part that had walked down the aisle in Chantilly lace, the part that loved Lance enough to sell herself for him, the part that was still wearing a white push-up bra and a garter belt for a man who wasn't her husband — that part obeyed.
With a sob that tore his throat raw against the choker, with tears pouring down his ruined face, with his hands fisted in Richard's suit pants like a lifeline, Brett did exactly as he was told.
He swallowed his pride. He swallowed his shame. He swallowed everything Richard gave him, because that was the price.
When it was over, Richard finally let go of his hair, leaning back against the leather seat with a satisfied sigh, straightening his tie like nothing had happened.
Brett collapsed sideways onto the limo floor, curling in on himself in his white silk robe and his white stockings and his red-soled Louboutins, his face buried in his hands, his body shaking with silent, wracking sobs.
The choker with slutty tramp felt like it was choking him.
Richard reached down, almost gently, and stroked Brett's mussed blonde hair.
"Twenty-three hours and forty minutes to go, pet," he said softly. "And you're already learning so well."
Outside the tinted windows, Montana kept rolling past, dark and indifferent, carrying them further and further away from the little rental in Kalispell where Lance Sullivan slept alone, believing his wife was safe.
Brett lay on the floor of his father-in-law's limo, wearing the lingerie he'd worn for his wedding night, tasting scotch and betrayal, and wondered if there would be anything left of him to go home to when the twenty-four hours were over.…