Chapter 19
NOVA
The serene beauty lay perfectly still, eyes closed, even as the man removed the rose from her blood-streaked hands. He trailed the thorns across the length of her, leaving pink lines in their wake. He handed the rose to a man on his left before gracefully climbing inside the cushioned tomb.
“They’re acting, right?” I whispered to Maisy. “She’s not actually unconscious…”
“She’s hypnotized. Jayne said she won’t be able to move or speak until he comes, breaking the spell,” Maisy replied, giddy. “So cool, right?”
The music was dark and rhythmic, the volume rising.
The man delicately brushed his thumb against her lips. He leaned down, giving her a soft, gentle kiss.
He worked her clit as the crowd watched with rapt attention.
She didn’t react. She was the embodiment of peace and tranquility as the man feverishly played with her tits, teased her nipples, kissed her neck.
He lifted one of her arms and let it drop, as if to show us the enchanted slumber was still in full effect.
The moment his large cock impaled her, my own core felt phantom jolts of pleasure. Familiar shame took hold, reminding me this was wrong—I was wrong.
“This was Jayne and Archer’s idea?” I whispered to Maisy in horror.
Her eyes stayed glued to the now animalistic fucking of Sleeping Beauty.
“They oversee the creative direction, but the idea for the scene itself came from Laura, the girl in the case—she’s been planning it for months.”
I frowned. “Oh.”
“But it was Archer’s suggestion to add in actual hypnosis. You should’ve seen her last week at Pilates—she couldn’t stop talking about it.”
If Sleeping Beauty was allowed to orchestrate a fucked-up fairy tale, was I allowed to enjoy watching it?
Was I allowed to desire my own?
This was something I still hadn’t decided, something I didn’t know how to decide. With each thrust, the stag man gripped his prey harshly, pushing her wrists above her head, lightly holding her neck, slipping his thumb between her pliable pink lips.
My thighs shifted. My clit pulsed with a sudden awareness. Below, Wes wasn’t watching the performance. He was watching me.
His gaze scorched my skin. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop watching, couldn’t drag my eyes away as the man growled and plunged deep inside the blonde beauty. His muscles trembled, sweat beading on his chiseled body.
“Wake up,” he commanded as he unloaded inside her.
The woman opened her eyes.
She beamed.
The crowd went wild, clapping and whistling. I raised my hands on autopilot, finding myself clapping with the rest of the room. But I was entirely focused on the look on the woman’s face—the joy, the pride, the raw desire swimming in her hooded eyes.
The man slipped out of her before he scooped her into his arms and back onto the ground. He whispered something in her ear. She laughed. They kissed again as the crowd cheered.
“Let the Midsummer festivities begin,” the man called.
Maisy tugged on my arm, and I glanced at Wes one more time—his exposed chest, the threatening tattoos, the eyes that were devouring every inch of me from afar.
I quickly turned away.
“Hot, right?” Maisy gently elbowed me. “I want to get taken in an ancient fertility rite.”
“Like, symbolically, right?”
Maisy lifted a brow. “I have an IUD.” She paused. “Don’t tell Jayne, though, please. She says hormonal birth control disrupts our connection to our authentic selves and the divine.”
“Do you think that?” I asked her.
Maisy stared at me with wide eyes, as if the question was preposterous. “Of course. I’m getting it switched to the copper one, okay, which is way less toxic, but don’t mention that to anyone…”
“Maisy, of course I won’t share your medical history with people,” I assured her.
She shushed me, even though I’d already stopped talking. She reached for a golden door handle, and we entered a massive bathroom. Or maybe a powder room, in old money terms.
“Nova!” multiple cheery feminine voices exclaimed at once. Girls were doing each other’s hair and makeup in front of the long mirror or chatting from the arrangement of plush chairs. Others were assembling their outfits.
In the center of it all, Jayne turned.
I lost all train of thought. She was in all black, like a goddess of the night, or some dark queen of the underworld. She wore a crown of black crystals, a black sheer skirt with a double slit, and a dramatic corset that pushed out her breasts and attached to a jeweled collar.
“I call it Mother of Demons,” she said, giving herself a little twirl as she grinned. Her skin sparkled with ethereal shimmer, her lips a dark berry red.
“Lilith,” I said with an awestruck nod.
“Exactly.” She looked down. “It’ll all come off throughout the night, but what fun is it to be a woman if we can’t make a grand, dramatic entrance?”
The rest of the women had followed the theme more traditionally.
There were a few fairies, one butterfly, three different princesses of various shades and styles.
One woman was dressed as a literal doe, with ears, face paint, and strappy lingerie that covered nothing at all.
When she turned, my eyes widened at where her deer tail was coming out of.
“Oh,” I said, making Maisy giggle.
When someone else slipped into the room, she was already nude. She winked at me, and I realized it was the slave nun—the one who wanted Wes to paddle her.
“We have your outfit,” Jayne said, pulling my attention back to her. “It looked beautifully complex. Could I assist?”
“And I can do your makeup! I took a peek inside, so I have an idea,” Agnes offered. She was one of the princesses.
“Um, sure, thank you,” I said to both. I moved to the boxes laying on the edge of a table. When I opened them, I realized with a sudden dread I was about to be fully nude in front of this room full of women and half-nude in front of a few hundred strangers.
A portion of whom presumably ran the entire world.
Oh my God. I was in a mansion with Max Graves’s son and Elliot effing Sulton. Who the hell else was here? Was I about to show my ass cheeks to the President of the United fucking States of America?
“I think she might be freaking out,” Maisy whispered at a volume I could obviously hear.
I thumbed the hand-beaded outfit, the lines of crystals about to drape down my body, the delicate choker—or perhaps collar—that would encircle my throat.
When a hand closed on my shoulder, I jumped.
“Let us help you. It’s normal to be nervous. Everyone’s a little scared at their first party,” Jayne said.
The girls nodded and echoed Jayne’s sentiments. Even the nude slave nun offered warm words of encouragement with the chorus.
I glanced around one more time. Everyone else was naked or close to it. They’d probably also seen each other in far more compromising positions.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I declared a resounding fuck it internally.
I nodded to Jayne, and I dropped my dress.
It brought me one step closer to Lorelei.
I could see her walking inside this room any minute now.
Maybe someone here was friends with her.
One of them could’ve been the mystery woman who joined her for brunch.
She might not have even gone by the name Lorelei with them.
I’d decided it was supremely stupid of me to have given my real name. Though I wasn’t sure that would’ve stopped The Circle from knowing everything about me already.
I slipped off my underwear next. Jayne smiled warmly, admiring me like I was a marble statue in the Met.
None of the other girls batted an eye for more than a few glances or appreciative looks. This was all as shocking as a normal Tuesday afternoon for them.
Jayne helped me into the top portion. I held the beaded masterpiece in place over my breasts as she fastened the clips at my back. Her touch was cool, sending a shiver down my spine.
“You’re going to look otherworldly in this,” she whispered. “A work of art.” Her fingers brushed my neck as she clasped the collar attachment.
“Are those diamonds?” I whispered to Jayne. “Actually, no, don’t answer that. It’ll make me sick.”
Jayne laughed.
I bashfully put on the delicate panties myself, grateful they weren’t sheer or cutout at the crotch like some of the other girls’. I wouldn’t have worn them otherwise.
Jayne helped with the garter belt and thigh jewelry, and soon, I was draped in surprisingly heavy, glittering lingerie.
The room oohed and ahhed.
The matching ethereal wings were much lighter, though I didn’t love the way my range of movement was limited by them. Knowing me, I’d accidentally poke someone in the eye before I left. Maybe a congressman, if I was lucky.
“Someone clearly doesn’t want anyone else touching you,” Maisy said with a mischievous smile.
Agnes nodded. “That is not an outfit to be hunted and ravished in.”
“Good work, Nova. Good work,” Jayne said.
I opened my mouth to say I hadn’t done anything. And if that were true, that would mean Roman was both demented and delusional, because I owed him absolutely nothing.
But again, a room full of women devoted to men wasn’t exactly my target audience for this sentiment.
Attendants came in with plates of food and more drinks, which Jayne explained were non-alcoholic, because she didn’t want to see any of us under the influence tonight.
Consent could only be given sober, she reminded us.
One or two drinks were fine, but no more.
Drunkenness earned an escort out of the party.
I wondered if the male banks were following these rules. I also wondered how the hell Lorelei was.
I sat on a stool in front of the mirror and let Agnes work her magic.
She swept my waves of hair behind my shoulders and placed iridescent highlighter on my cheekbones and in the corners of my eyes, along with tiny rhinestones around my eyelids and undereye.
The technique made my dark irises appear bigger, my skin plump and dewy.
“You see the vision?” she asked as she worked.
I sighed, watching myself become wholly transformed into exactly what Roman wanted me to be. Exactly what The Circle wanted me to be.
I was a glimmering angel, untouched and pure, ready to be served to the highest bidder.
Across my mind’s eye, I saw a flash of Lorelei’s father, Pastor Roy Carter. My own father. My older brother.
I nodded. My tongue tasted bitter. “I see the vision.”