Belle (Unbowed Novels Book 1)

by Liz Meldon

  Much to my surprise, Belle made the first move. She pushed up on her toes, her mouth seeking out mine for a rather chaste little kiss. Close-lipped and gentle. Her hand pressed to the middle of my chest, the other hanging loose at her side, her eyes a breath away from closing.

  I took a deep inhale, quieting the beast roaring to life within my chest—the beast who loved to inflict pain and pleasure in equal measures, who loved to dominate, to control, to master. How could she know what such an innocent gesture would do to me? How could she know it’d rile me up, a dozen sordid images whipping across my mind’s eye? Pushing her up against a tree and fucking her as the bark shredded her flimsy dress. Nudging her to her knees so I could sample her mouth again—and this time she would keep her arms behind her back like she was told. Ravaging her right here and now, not a soul around to hear her cries.

  I had a weakness for wide-eyed innocence—for perky submissives whom I could utterly ruin. I hadn’t had one in my personal life for years, nor had I spent such an extended period of time with one who submitted for money. Still, this was my first true vacation in far too long, and I intended to enjoy every fucking second of it exactly the way I liked.

  Yet before I unleashed a single fantasy on Belle, I pulled away. Not an easy feat, given how easily she excited me, but I didn’t go far. With a hand gently grasping her throat, my skin warmed as her breath quickened.

  “Belle,” I whispered, loving the way her name tasted, “you have to tell me when you’re faced with something that makes you uncomfortable. I want us to be able to discuss it so we can both decide if it’s something worth pursuing. Do you understand?”

  After all, some discomforts could be overcome—if guided by the right hand.

  Beyond that, I didn’t want her feeling like she had to cater to my every need because of our—situation. While it might take a few days to figure out how we would interact with one another, Belle had always seemed easy to get along with. What I didn’t want was a doormat, a woman who thought she had to spring into action twenty-four seven because I was paying her. The idea might be counterintuitive to some, but I hadn’t brought her here as some chained-up sex slave. I wanted her to enjoy herself, too. I wanted her to be as close to her authentic, curious self as she was comfortable with.

  “I understand, sir,” she murmured, her breath catching when my hand tightened just a hint around her neck. She stood up taller on her tiptoes, that kissable lower lip caught between her teeth. I gave her a beat longer—for her to use her voice, to tell me that all this traveling had made her tired, that perhaps we ought to go back.

  Nothing.

  She merely pulled off her sunglasses and tossed them aside, exposing herself, baring her vulnerabilities.

  “Good.” I dragged her in for a far rougher kiss, taking full advantage of her parted lips to claim her as my own. My arm snaked around her waist, and I lifted her up as she squealed, her mouth frantic to keep pace with mine. I let the beast free, allowed him to consume, to drink her in for just a few perfect moments as she dangled there in my arms. Her pulse raced beneath my palm, and she gripped my T-shirt again, the neckline protesting the stretch of her little fists.

  As soon as I lowered her back down, my hand left her throat and shot down her figure, questing purposefully over every curve until I reached the two pert globes of her ass. Belle giggled, a sound I happily swallowed, when I kneaded each—then tugged them apart, imagining how exquisite they’d look, shuddering, quivering, when I eventually took her from behind.

  While my stiffening cock longed to be buried inside her—in any of her available holes, for he was an equal opportunist sort of cock—I wanted to return the gift she’d bestowed upon me on the flight.

  The gift of her mouth.

  So, with some difficulty, I extricated myself—from her pretty little mouth that chased after me, from her swollen lips and her flushed cheeks. Holding up a finger, I strode back toward the cliff’s edge, but not so close that she could see over. As I kicked the rocks and dirt aside, I decided I could kill two birds with one stone: return a favour and help her properly enjoy the view.

  Without a word, I settled on the ground, stretching out on my back—hoping the ants had more interesting mountains to conquer in the forest.

  “Come here, Belle,” I said as I settled down, hands threaded together on my stomach. “I want you to straddle my face.”

  When I didn’t hear the dulcet pitter-patter of her gladiators, I sat up on my elbows and offered my best watered-down Dom scowl. After all, this wasn’t playtime, even if our house rules were still in effect. This was—just for fun. For her.

  Belle hesitated, fiddling with the billowy fabric of her dress. I pulled my sunglasses off, folded their arms in, and set them out of harm’s way.

  “Belle.” My tone left no room for argument—in theory. “I’ve wanted to taste that cunt of yours from the first moment we met. Come here.”

  She jolted forward as if shocked by some delicious cattle prod, taking short, curt steps to close the distance between us. Shyly, she climbed down on top of me, crawling up my body with less coordination than I was sure she wanted.

  “How should I…? Uhm.” Belle gestured to my head, her cheeks positively aflame. Honestly—I’d never met an escort who blushed this much. She was perfect.

  “Kneel over me,” I instructed, tapping one side of my head, then the other. “Knees here and here. My shoulders will be between your calves. I’ll do the rest.”

  She brushed my cock in passing, the caress only serving to worsen the tightness in my shorts. Belle seemed not to notice; she was too preoccupied with wrangling all the dress up my body. After she had finally passed my shoulders, she shuffled about, arranging her legs properly—and all I had to do for now was sit back and enjoy the view.

  Belle’s perfectly trimmed cunt was a vision. Cute little lips. Neat. Orderly. In an instant, I knew where everything was—and how best to attack. Her folds glistened with the beginnings of arousal, and it took everything I had in me not to lunge up and spear her with my tongue.

  Instead I waited, dutifully, until she found a comfortable position. Her dress had fallen over my head in the meantime, which, I had to admit, made the whole ordeal hotter than comfortable. With the Caribbean sun unrelenting in the cloudless sky above, it was stifling under here. Sure, I could have put her on her back and tasted her just as well. I could have dropped to my knees—a real tit for tat scenario—and propped her up on my shoulders. There were plenty of other possibilities, but as I wove my arms around her thighs, smothered by her heat, her exquisite scent, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Suddenly, her dress disappeared; she must have realized she’d let it fall. Belle gathered it all in one hand while the other braced against the rock beneath us.

  “Are you…? Is this all right?” she asked in an adorably small voice. I peered out from the curve of her pussy, grinning.

  “Yes, just fine, Belle.”

  Whatever she intended to say next was lost in her breathy moan when I latched onto her clit. I worked the little bundle of nerves gently at first, teasingly, noting what kind of pressure made her twitch and gasp, what kind made her squirm and moan. The latter got me harder.

  The next week would be a trial period for both of us. While we had met before, talked, spent endless hours in the conference room two floors above Elysium with lawyers in tow, we weren’t familiar with each other’s bodies. All that would change, of course, and very soon, if I had my way. So, while I lapped at her cunt, arms wrapped around her quivering thighs, forcing her to stay open for me, I not only used the moment as a means to return her earlier generosity, but also a learning opportunity.

  I categorized the sounds she made—when she made them, how often, at what volume. I took note of her breath—when it fell harder, when she held it. I did my best to listen to her body as I explored her with my tongue, wishing I could add a finger or three for good measure—and maybe something else to plug her pretty little asshole. Fo
r now, however, I stuck to the basics. Rhythm. Consistency. Movement. If her body seemed to deflate, the tension seeping out of her, I tried something new to bring her back up again.

  My back ached and my cock strained—both in pain, both easily fixable with the right creativity. But I pushed through, because this wasn’t about me.

  Well, it was a little about me. Perhaps even for me. But from the sounds she made, her high-pitched squeaks and strangled moans, and the way she shook in my arms, Belle wasn’t exactly suffering up there.

  Far from it.

  Because some time later, both of us coated in a thin layer of sweat, my jaw pleasantly sore but still ravenous, her entire body stiffened. Had I been inside her, perhaps I would have felt her clench around me. As it were, my attention had been on her clit—and had been for quite a while. She keened softly, her hips grinding against my mouth, until she fell forward, gasping, and her dress fluttered down over my head again.

  Did she just…?

  Had she just…?

  If I wasn’t mistaken, Belle had just broken her first rule. And I, in turn, was required to dole out her first punishment.

  As if my cock could get any harder.

  Blindly, I grabbed at her dress and yanked it off my head, tucking all that fabric under my chin and fighting the urge to drag in a much-needed lungful of fresh air. The urge to control, to dictate the situation, to right a very grave wrong, kicked back in, and that feeling was far more gratifying than any deep breath. I nudged her up by her hips, bringing her onto all fours over me.

  “Belle,” I said, softly, dangerously, my inner Dominant bursting to life, “did you just come?”

  House Rule #1

  Belle cannot orgasm without permission.

  5

  Belle

  Oh my god.

  That was—amazing.

  Oh my god.

  Wait.

  Oh my god.

  As Dean’s steely inquiry cut through my post-orgasm haze, I realized where I’d gone wrong.

  Ever since we landed, it had been such a whirlwind getting out here. That horrendously bumpy boat ride. Settling into my second-floor room. Unpacking and organizing all the lingerie. Trying to get into the right frame of mind for being an escort, not me—even when me enjoyed Dean as, well, me. On our island tour, I’d been so wrapped up in my thoughts, in the effort to be the fun, easygoing submissive Dean was paying for—that I had kind of let things slip in the heat of the moment.

  He was just so good at that. All that mental preparation I’d done to ready myself for the first time a client touched me intimately had gone out the window. Because it wasn’t weird. It wasn’t clinical. It was intimate and passionate and ohmygod.

  And then I’d ruined it by forgetting the first of many house rules.

  “Belle,” Dean said as I hastily scrambled off him. He sat up, wiping at the corners of his mouth. “Did you just come without permission?”

  I bit my lip. I could lie. I could pretend I had just been really getting into it, but the thought of doing so had my stomach twisting. Dean was my Dom. We were supposed to be honest with each other—honest enough, anyway—even if honesty meant I was in for a world of hurt.

  “Uhm.” I brushed my dusty hands on my dress, squirming under his unflinching stare.

  “Yes or no, Belle,” Dean said, voice cracking sharp as a whip. “Uhm is not an answer.”

  “Yes.” Pleasure still thrummed through me, the lingering aftermath of that stunning climax clinging to every inch of my body for dear life. Still, the longer this dragged on, the darker his gaze became—like flint—and fear started to crack through the haze.

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, sir?” I winced, knowing from my scenes with Penny that I shouldn’t answer a question with a question.

  “No.” He took a deep breath as he reached for his sunglasses and slipped them back on. “Tell me what rule you’ve broken, Belle.”

  “Rule number one,” I said without missing a beat, not wanting to make this worse. “I came without permission, sir.”

  “Good.” He stood, looming over me. “You know that means I’ll have to punish you.”

  “Yes, sir.” Punishment didn’t scare me. Most of my performances at Elysium were just elaborate, drawn-out punishments to entertain the crowd. Disappointing Dean bothered me. As he helped me up, then brushed the dirt off my dress, I realized it bothered me more than I’d expected.

  “Stay here,” he ordered, then turned and marched stiffly into the forest. Nibbling my lower lip, fidgeting with my nails, I shuffled away from the edge of the cliff. While I still couldn’t see the bottom, the wind had picked up, whipping my hair about, and I didn’t like standing so close.

  But—Dean had told me stay here. Maybe he meant literally. Glancing between the tree line and the spot where he’d left me, I hesitated, then padded back, my heart racing, adrenaline pumping.

  Although it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, it felt like an eternity had passed by the time Dean emerged from the trees again. I straightened, sucking in a panicked breath at the sight of the stick in his hand—a stick that I worried, momentarily, might be from one of those awful trees with all the spikes on them.

  It wasn’t.

  Thank goodness.

  But it looked thick and sturdy all the same. Dean snapped off a few of the smaller twigs and shoots, then paused, completely ignoring me, and smacked it against his upturned palm. Once, twice, a little harder on the second round. Seeming satisfied, he looked up at me, expression unreadable behind his aviators. I gulped.

  “Lean against that tree,” he pointed the nearest one out to me, “lift up your dress, and present yourself for punishment.”

  I stumbled forward on stilt-stiff legs, the command making me blush. As I braced one arm against the smooth trunk, the palm fronds high overhead whispering in the wind, he carried on.

  “You’ll receive two counts of five,” Dean told me as I raised my dress, gathering all the excess fabric and hugging it to my chest like a pillow.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Normally it would be three counts of five,” he remarked sharply, “but since it’s the first day, we’ll go lighter.”

  “Thank you, sir.” My responses came automatically, like my mouth knew exactly what it needed to say—like it had memorized all the lines in this script. Meanwhile, my mind raced, trying to remember all the tidbits Penny had told me about taking a punishment. How to stand. How to cry out. How best to accommodate your Dom. Swallowing hard, I shuffled down and out, arching my back hard like I usually did on stage. In that moment, I wished I’d rubbed my thighs down with my dress; the breeze tickled my skin, still slick from our previous activity.

  The one that had landed me in all this trouble.

  I bit my lip and sighed.

  “You’ll count each strike.”

  “Yes, sir.” I braced for the first hit, one arm on the palm trunk, the other holding my dress up to my chest, my chin resting on its fist.

  Whack.

  “Oh!” I shot up on impact, pain blooming across my right butt cheek.

  That was a lot harder than Penny’s first strikes during our shows.

  “Belle.”

  “Sorry,” I muttered, dropping back down into position, my face burning—my entire body burning. The second hit landed on my left cheek, no less gently, and I yelped, shooting up again.

  “Belle,” he growled, and I pressed a trembling, sweaty hand back to the trunk. Dean’s shoes crunched across the landscape as he moved closer. “You know, I start over when you don’t count your strikes aloud.”

  I squeezed my eyes tight for a moment. Right. Counting. The pain had just been so startling that I’d forgotten.

  “Sorry, sir,” I said meekly. A quick glance over my shoulder showed him nodding, then rearing back to strike again.

  Whack. Both cheeks this time. I inhaled sharply, the part of my brain that focused on self-preservation screaming for me to get away from the m
an wielding the switch. A much softer voice, a gentle whisper, told me to tough it out—that I had earned my punishment.

  That thought had me tingling between my thighs.

  Dean cleared his throat pointedly.

  “Three?” I offered.

  “No.” He almost sounded like he was smiling. “Don’t be a brat.”

  “One,” I said miserably, shifting my stance for the sake of comfort—not arching my back so dramatically this time. Dean, however, missed nothing.

  “No, no, you wanted to thrust that ass out for me,” he said, tapping each cheek lightly. “You’ll hold that position until we’re done.”

  Are you serious?

  Penny had told me that anytime that thought crossed my mind when it came to my Dominant, so long as he wasn’t pushing a limit, I ought to assume that he was, in fact, very serious. Huffing, I pushed an arch into my back, basically serving myself up for a sharper punishment.

  Whack. Straight across both cheeks again. The sharp sting of each hit had started to blend together, my skin warming almost pleasantly. My toes curled. “Two.”

  Strikes three through five had me breathless and squirming. I couldn’t imagine there was a spot left back there that Dean had missed. He didn’t come across as the kind of man to do anything half-assed.

  Speaking of asses—mine could have used an ice pack right about now. Or some aloe, preferably with someone to massage it in. I winced as I switched hands on the tree trunk, my entire body sticky and uncomfortable under the afternoon sun, under the heat, under the lash of Dean’s stick.

  A stick that was suddenly between my thighs, ghosting up and down each one. This time, I managed to hold my position, even though the caress tickled a little.