by Liz Meldon
She disappeared for a few minutes after, leaving me without a word, and I stood, waiting, hoping she hadn’t gone back to the house without telling me, worrying about her disappearing into the forest alone. However, when she picked her way out of the foliage with an indigo hibiscus bloom in hand, my mild annoyance faded away.
“You were a very beautiful bullfinch,” Belle said as she arranged the flower on top of the dirt mound.
“Yes.” I watched, unable to hold back a smile this time, as she stood and wiped her hands on her romper. “She was.”
And yes—she is. Beautiful. Inside and out.
Belle looked up at me, then giggled, standing up on her toes to brush the dirt off my forehead. With a grin, I bowed down to let her.
We stood before the grave another minute, silent, the shovel resting on my shoulder, before slowly meandering along the trails, back toward the house, hand in hand.
Just me and my sweetheart.
5
Dean
Tuesday, March 12th
The bar buzzed with patrons when Belle and I strolled in, and I led her through to the only booth left in the far corner, our hands clasped, positively giddy. Because it was all going according to plan. Fantasies in public settings were hit-and-miss, as there were, unfortunately, so many variables I couldn’t control. But tonight had been perfect. Belle’s skintight little outfit. Her glossy blonde waves. Her smile. Dinner—our conversations. Sunset on the beach with the submissive of my dreams. And now a packed bar with a booth just waiting for us to christen.
The stars had truly aligned for my sweetheart’s night of forced public orgasms.
It was one of my list-approved fantasies: taking Belle somewhere off Ixora and making her climax surrounded by strangers. She’d be all dolled up, looking scrumptious. Men wouldn’t be able to resist ogling her no matter what we did. Dinner. Dancing. Drinks. We’d retreat to some shadowy corner of a bar where I’d whisper filth in her ear as my fingers worked her under the table. She’d fight to keep a straight face, to appear composed and proper, like we were any regular couple on a date night, and then I’d drag her into a screaming climax, one she’d have to keep quiet.
Just thinking about it—I had been flying at half-mast all day.
Belle must have noticed, because she had been brushing up against me since breakfast. Bending over in her near-sheer cover up, luscious figure on display. Talking back to me, all the while wearing the cheekiest of grins—just begging for me to take her over my knee. I hadn’t. I intended to pay her back by making her climax as many times as I could tonight.
Because this evening’s outing was technically our playtime, we had yet another lazy day around the house. Belle’s taskwork had been to sit at my feet while I worked through the mind-numbing bullshit my father had sent me. Whenever I’d started to huff, not even realizing I was doing it, she would put her head on my lap as if to comfort me. Quiet me. Settle me.
It had been lovely.
But then the rest of the day she’d been a total teasing brat, and I couldn’t wait to put her through the ropes.
We’d had dinner at a cozy little seaside restaurant on Saint Thomas, both of us eating light. From there, we strolled along the beach at sunset, Belle in her short, pink, form-fitting dress—an outfit that clung to her gorgeous figure like it had been painted on. I especially enjoyed the back cutout, which let me rest my hand directly against her skin as we walked off dinner.
Oh, and I also thoroughly relished the fact that she’d worn the perfume I’d bought her before my vacation had started. Dabbed delicately on her wrists, her throat, it had greeted me as we left the house this evening, and she had giggled when I grabbed her and buried my face in her neck. That perfume—yet another subtle reminder that she was mine.
We’d gone from beach to bar when the sun finally dipped below the horizon. The location I chose was small, intimate. Made entirely of reclaimed wood from the island, its shacklike appearance belied the fantastic drinks and appetizers inside. Located within walking distance of a few of the island’s hotel chains, Sunset Beach Bar, as per usual, had bustled with tourists when we’d arrived. Crescent booths lined the back wall overlooking the bar. Beyond that, the place was totally open, lacking a fourth wall. Instead, we were greeted with views of the patio, the beach, the water. Twinkling strands of soft yellow lights illuminated the outdoor seating. It was just what I had imagined, just what I had fantasized about for ages…
Now, if only Belle would stop people-watching and actually focus on the fact that my hand was on her thigh.
Was she tipsy? I eyed our empty glasses, wondering if I shouldn’t have asked the waitress for a refill already. This would be Belle’s fourth drink tonight—perhaps the alcohol was making her distracted. She had just been so cute squealing over the little umbrellas when we’d first arrived that I couldn’t help myself.
Not great Dom behavior, but occasionally I was allowed to be indulgent.
I shuffled closer, then squeezed her leg. “Belle.”
“Hmm?” She startled out of wherever her head had been, blinking a few times before shooting me a shy smile. “Oh, sorry, sir.”
Her thighs parted, hitching her dress up to reveal more delectable skin ripe for caressing. Her eyes, however, shot back to the bar, focused intently on something else. I watched her for a moment, then resisted the urge to huff like a child. This wasn’t part of the fantasy. I was supposed to have her in my thrall, whimpering and shuddering as my fingers tormented her under the table.
“What’s wrong?” I murmured, nipping at her neck instead. She giggled when my teeth grazed her skin, then sat up a little straighter, cheeks stained pink, as the waitress stopped by with our drink refills: scotch for me, fruity blue cocktail with little floral umbrella for Belle. We both smiled distractedly while the waitress added a stack of napkins to the table as well before flitting back to the bar. Belle’s gaze followed her as she pulled her drink closer and wrapped her lips around the straw.
“Belle. Tell me.” My hand left her inner thigh for the tumbler of scotch instead. I kept my tone firm, but conversational. “Do you not want to do the—”
“Oh, no!” She sat up sharply, straw bobbing in her drink. Her blush sharpened, the colour more noticeable beneath the dim mood lighting, and she shifted on the wooden bench to face me. “I mean, yes, I want to.” Clearing her throat, she lowered her voice and snuggled closer as I looped her hair around my finger. “I really do.”
My cock stirred at her eagerness, and I leaned forward to kiss her forehead, then trailed my lips to her temple, to her ear, where I licked the shell and whispered, “Good girl.”
She shivered, her lower lip caught between her teeth as my hand smoothed back over her thigh.
“It’s just,” she said tentatively, peering up at me through her lashes, all kittenish and adorable. I paused and lifted an eyebrow, adopting that stern Dom expression that always had her melting into a puddle of gooey, pliant submissive. This time, however, she merely nodded toward the bar, neither gooey nor pliant. “There’s this woman sitting over there—the redhead in the teal dress? She was here when we sat down, and then those guys just showed up, and I’ve been watching them feed her shots for the last fifteen minutes.”
We’d been in our secluded corner booth for about a half hour, enjoying our drinks, the ambiance. I hadn’t wanted to start the scene the second we sat down, not when anticipation could be so utterly delicious. I’d wanted to make a night of it, drag it out, have her squirm and wonder, make her wait for me.
But apparently my doting submissive had found something to distract herself with instead.
“She just looks really uncomfortable now,” Belle continued, playing with her drink’s umbrella, snapping it open and closed. “And they keep touching her.”
I exhaled softly, then retracted my arm from its comfy place across the back of the booth. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t give two fucks about what strangers were doing to each other at a bar. However, Belle seeme
d genuinely concerned—and what concerned her concerned me.
Leaning forward, I scanned the very full bar, which ran nearly the length of the building and had three bartenders managing the somewhat-organized chaos. I spotted the woman in question last, even though she was right under my nose at the corner some ten feet away from us. Just as Belle had said: red hair, teal wrap dress, yellow flip-flops—one had fallen off at some point and was sitting under her barstool. She couldn’t have been much older than Belle, and two men sandwiched her in place, one seated on the stool around the corner, the other standing beside her.
Men. I hesitated to call them men, not when they barely looked old enough to legally order drinks here. My frown hardened when the larger of the two plaid-shirt-wearing preps ordered another round of shots, which the bartender promptly delivered. The woman’s arm shook as she brought the glass of clear liquid to her lips—well, she missed on the first attempt, catching her chin instead. Still, she downed it in a single gulp, coughing as her companions cheered her on. One had his hand on her knee. The other’s was on the small of her back, then up to her shoulders when she swayed slightly.
“She looks…” Belle trailed off when the woman teetered off her stool. We both watched her zigzag past our booth, one yellow flip-flop forgotten under her barstool, before disappearing through the doorway to the bathrooms.
I glared at the trio of bartenders. They really shouldn’t be serving her anymore.
But then again, those fucks shouldn’t be ordering anything for her either.
Belle set her clutch on the table. “I’m going to go check on her.”
She was halfway out of the booth when she paused, lower lip caught between her teeth again, and then settled back in beside me.
“I mean… Can I go check on her, sir?”
Warmth washed over me, my chest tight. Just as I’d felt the day that poor bird hit the window—love. It filled me up from the inside, choked me, smothered me, blinded me, threatening to spill out between us. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to drag her out of the booth, throw her over my shoulder, and whisk her out of here. Off to some dark corner, far from prying eyes, prying ears, where I could make her scream.
Where I could show her exactly what she, Belle Bennet, did to me.
And what I wanted to do to her, long after our two months expired.
“Of course, sweetheart, that’s fine.” I tucked her hair behind her ear with a soft smile. When was the last time a woman had made me all warm and fuzzy? Never. Doms didn’t get warm and fuzzy—right?
Maybe we did. Maybe we did when we’d finally found the right submissive. “Go make sure she’s all right. I’ll be here when you come back.”
Belle planted a firm peck on my cheek, her smile dazzling, her cheeks flushed, before scooting around the table and hurrying off to the bathroom. I leaned forward, watching her go, and then sat back with a sigh. Did she know the effect she had on me? She had to—I wasn’t exactly being very subtle with my affection.
Did it frighten her?
Did it make her want to run—to draw the line in the sand between client and escort?
It hadn’t happened yet, but we still had three weeks left on Ixora. The hammer could fall at any time.
Clearing my throat, I downed half my tumbler of scotch in a single gulp. The liquid scalded the whole way down, scorching my core—making my case of the warm and fuzzies worse. In Belle’s absence, I stole another glance at the bar boys. Tall, lanky—plaid shirts and board shorts on each of them. If I had to guess, I’d put them at twenty or just twenty-one. College students getting an early jump on spring break. While some schools were out now, over the next few weeks they would swarm the islands like locusts, adding to the bedlam that the annual regatta brought to Saint Thomas. I intended to avoid all that, if possible.
The pair stood jostling each other, laughing, smiling. The blond—already with a bald patch at the back of his head, the poor fuck—even picked up the abandoned yellow flip-flop. They had a good chuckle over that, too, and my jaw clenched when Blondie tossed it back under the seat. His brunet friend—freckly, wearing a seashell necklace and socks with his sandals—nudged it under as far as it would go, pushing the shoe up against the bar.
Which would likely force a severely inebriated woman onto her hands and knees to retrieve it.
Immature little pricks.
I batted around the idea of going down to fetch it myself, maybe bringing it to the bathroom so the poor woman wouldn’t have to stumble around half barefoot. However, by the time I’d picked up Belle’s pink clutch, a perfect match for the neon of her dress, my submissive had reappeared at our booth, her expression tight.
“Is everything all right?” I set her clutch down, making room for her on the bench, but she made no move to climb back in next to me.
“They keep buying her drinks and asking her to come back to their villa,” she said stiffly, arms crossed as she briefly glared at the pair over her shoulder. When she faced me again, her features had shifted to something softer, pleading—that of a submissive indirectly asking my permission for something. “She’s crying in the bathroom, and she’s really drunk.”
Damn it. I’d so looked forward to making Belle squirm and come and squirm and come—from now until closing time, if I so chose it. Instead, we were going to have to deal with this. Because it was technically the right thing to do—and because Belle wanted to. Because she wanted my permission to.
And here I was, a warm and fuzzy Dom, finding it harder and harder to say no to her outside of our scenes.
“All right.” I passed over her clutch, and she held it to her chest, waiting. “Let’s take her home, then.”
“I think she’s here for work,” she told me. From her tone, I couldn’t tell if she was addressing me, Dean Donahue, or me, her Sir. Truth be told, I didn’t mind either way, not when she looked at me like that—like her partner in crime, the one to stand beside her through what was bound to be a messy endeavor.
“Likely staying at one of the hotels then,” I managed as I slipped out of the booth, then smoothed a hand down my button-up black tee as Belle nodded.
“She said something like that, but I couldn’t really understand which hotel she was saying.” Her features shifted again to something apologetic. “She’s…really drunk.”
Fucking perfect. I grinned wryly. “We’ll figure it out. Go fetch her.”
“Are you sure, sir?” She stopped two steps away from the booth, hesitating. “I’m sorry we’re not doing—”
“It’s fine, Belle. Really.” And I meant it. Sort of. “We can always try again after.”
She flitted back to the bathroom door, hurrying along on the tips of her toes at a half run, her white flats a little worse for the wear after all this island living. Once she disappeared, I grabbed my scotch and downed the rest, exhaling a mouthful of fire afterward. It really was a drink that deserved to be nursed, but apparently I no longer had that luxury.
And that was fine, now that I thought about it. As long as I was with Belle, I didn’t care what we did—even if it meant accompanying some belligerent tourist back to her hotel.
I could always make my submissive squirm and come and blush somewhere public after today. We had time.
Not as much time as I would have liked, however.
I slipped a hundred-dollar bill under my empty tumbler, then pocketed both my wallet and the tiny blue floral umbrella from Belle’s drink—which I intended to stick behind her ear sometime, maybe when she was expecting a flower, just to make her laugh.
Belle emerged a few minutes later, one arm around the redhead’s slim waist, clutch tucked under the other. The pair at the bar noticed them immediately, a homing beacon activated the second they stepped out of the bathrooms.
“Oh, hey, who’s your friend?” Blond Prick pounced first, seeming not to notice me as I fell in behind the girls, ready to take the redhead off Belle’s hands.
“I’m taking Juliet home,” Belle said stiffly, he
aded straight for the barstool with the shoe. When she left Juliet to her own devices, I moved in, balancing the teetering woman with a hand on her back. Mascara streaked down her freckled cheeks, her eyes red and unfocused. She tipped back toward me, and I hastily grabbed her elbow, too, getting her upright again just as her lower lip started to quiver.
“Aw, come on—it’s so early.” Ah, and here was Brunet Prick, right on schedule. They circled like vultures, closing in on both Belle and Juliet’s personal space, totally unaware that I even existed.
“She’s too drunk,” Belle said before bending down to grab Juliet’s flip-flop. Two sets of eyes settled on her heart-shaped rear, and anger darted through me. I’d wanted her to be the center of attention, but in a completely different circumstance—preferably with my hand between her thighs, milking her third or fourth climax as people started to glance toward us, wondering what all her poorly muffled squealing was about. This—two brats perving on her while she helped a lady in drunk distress—had me fuming. My hand curled to a fist, jaw clenched.
Still, I wasn’t about to make a scene. Fist unfurled. Jaw unclenched. Belle had a great ass. Let them look. I was the one who got to have all the fun with it.
She straightened and returned to Juliet, dropping the flip-flop at her feet. We both helped the woman into it, me with a hand between her shoulders and Belle with an arm around her waist. Honestly, when you couldn’t push a sandal strap between your toes, you were too drunk.
“She’s fine,” Blond Prick argued as we dove headlong into the crowd separating us from the exit. I kept Belle and Juliet in front of me as best I could in the sea of people, following within an arm’s distance, and the pair of plaid-wearing prats trailed after us, trying to scoot around me on either side. I squared my shoulders and stuck out my elbows a little, barring them.
