Belle (Unbowed Novels Book 1)

by Liz Meldon

  The hunger had dissipated over the last hour, the novelty wearing off, but he still offered a thoughtful critique of each dress, stopping whatever he was doing to give me his full attention.

  This dress wouldn’t need much of his time.

  The dress announced my arrival, swishing along with each step, and Dean glanced up the second I squeezed through his office doorway. I stopped in the middle of the room, under the hook he’d hung me from yesterday, and blew the bits of hair that had escaped my bun out of my face.

  “So…”

  His lips twitched, as if fighting back a laugh. “Wow.”

  “Yeah.” I pushed down the material again, watching it bounce up as Dean stood from behind his dual monitors. “I don’t remember adding this to the cart.”

  “I thought it was a bit questionable at the time, but I let it slide.”

  “Sir. In what universe would I wear this—”

  “You look a bit like a cupcake,” he said thoughtfully, tipping his head side to side as he appraised me. My cheeks warmed: apparently we were riding the same brainwave.

  I loved that—being so in tune with him. We’d had plenty of those moments lately, and while they were most powerful during our play sessions, my stomach erupted with little butterflies whenever it happened in our free time.

  Gathering the giant skirt in both hands, I sidled up to his desk, grinning, and leaned over to kiss him. Just a quick peck—he had wanted to keep us very vanilla with all these assistants in the house; Eliza’s four lackeys had even set up a makeshift command center for their usual responsibilities at the dining table downstairs. When I pulled away, Dean’s brows shot up, his smile curious.

  “I thought I looked like a cupcake too,” I murmured with a giggle. “I’m going to say this one’s a no.”

  Dean gave me a very serious, very studious nod. “Agreed.”

  Still blushing up a storm, I practically floated back to the door. At some point, what had started as a job had turned into paradise, into a dream I never wanted to wake up from.

  Even the mean voices at the back of my mind had finally shut up.

  “The next one will be better,” I insisted, waddling around the corner, then leaned back to shoot him a smile. “Promise.”

  “I can’t wait, sweetheart…”

  Thursday, March 21st: BELLE

  I couldn’t see.

  Even without the blindfold, the world was a blur around me. My gaze darted about, frantic, teary, unfocused. The sun—too bright. All the white furniture blended together. My chest heaved. Gasping. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t get enough air.

  “Belle?” Like velvet, like honey. Like rich, smooth chocolate. Like the glow of a new day, just as the sun crested the horizon. “Sweetheart?”

  And in the chaos, there was him. Dean. My Dominant. Sir. I sought him out—that voice, that comfort. Naked and shaking, my hands groped into the bright void, desperate for him.

  Sage green. I found him. Those eyes. I saw them first, clearly, in brilliant focus. Flecks of gold in the afternoon sunshine. A hint of grey—lingering darkness from our scene.

  No more frantic searching.

  Just him.

  I stared into those eyes, my breath coming easier now, in deeper gasps, filling my lungs, then leaving in long and slow exhales. He was doing it too—breathing with me. Was I mirroring him, or the other way around?

  We fell into a rhythm, a familiar song, staring into one another, inhaling one another. My hands found his bare chest, the dip of his pectorals, my marble Adonis.

  I blinked. The room came back into focus. We had played in the first-floor lounge today. The blindfold sat on the glass coffee table. Beside it, the leather switch, the vibrator, the gag, the plug, the clamps. Thick, squishy carpet cushioned my legs, my butt. Silence all around us, save for the drumbeat of my heart.

  Slowly, Dean eased me onto his lap. I went willingly, happily, his pliant little submissive. As my cheek pressed to his skin, I closed my eyes, forcing the tears out again. They fell, brushing across my skin and his. Still shaking. Still—breathing.

  Subspace. He had called this subspace.

  It was terrifying and beautiful. I craved it. I feared it. I plunged into it with my eyes open.

  He stroked my hair, murmuring soft comforts against my shoulder, my neck, my cheek.

  “Tell me where you’re at,” he said—a gentle inquiry, a delicate command. My lids lifted, but heavily this time. Hands limp in my lap, I took in our surroundings. The white couch. The glass walls. The palms outside. When I came back to Dean, I nuzzled under his chin, finally able to move—but only just so.

  Tell him where I was at?

  I was naked and bruised.

  But euphoric.

  Tell him where I was at—I was in love with him. Didn’t he know? I tipped my head back, staring into the sage. Couldn’t he see?

  An exhausted sort of cackle-snort slipped out of me, and I closed my eyes when he pressed his lips to my temple.

  It was insane.

  Loving a man who reduced me to this—this weeping, aching mess of a woman.

  A woman who truly felt free for the first time in her life. Free in his arms. Free at the end of his lash. Free because he gave me permission to soar.

  I loved him, even when he made me sob. In pain. In earth-shattering pleasure. God help me, I loved Dean Donahue.

  So, no, I suppose it wasn’t insane. It wasn’t insane to love the man who had ripped the lock off my cage—a cage I had never noticed in all my life—then wrenched open the door and told me to fly. Who set me free. Free to live how I wanted, needed. Free to make my choice, to choose him, this, us. Free to feel like this—both broken and whole.

  No judgements. No fear. Just acceptance and passion. Love. It filled the room, the house, the island. It filled my world until it threatened to burst, and even then I wanted more.

  “Belle?” He breathed my name into my hair, which he had removed from its pink satin bow at some point. It splayed across my back. His fingers smoothed through it, undoing my braid.

  Tell me where you’re at.

  “F-four,” I stammered.

  “Only a four?” Dean held me closer, tighter, the constriction so damn good, even after he’d bound me. “All this—for a four?”

  Zero to ten, our new post-play rating scale.

  Zero: I felt nothing.

  Ten: I felt everything.

  One to nine: I felt alive.

  I nodded, mouth stretching into a shaky smile to match his as he smoothed my tears away.

  “All right,” Dean whispered, gathering me up again, tucking me under his chin. “All right, sweetheart. I’m here. You did so good today. I’m very proud of you.”

  “Thank you, sir.” My heart smiled. I closed my eyes and breathed him in, listening, feeling, the steady thrum of his heart.

  Free as a bird—in my Dom’s arms.

  Friday, March 22nd: BELLE

  My heart pitched straight down into my stomach.

  “Nope—nope. I can’t. I officially can’t.”

  Abandoning my half-eaten bowl of popcorn, I scrambled from my huge, cushy chair and into Dean’s next to me. As I hastily curled up in his lap, my sheath dress hiked around my thighs, my face hidden in his neck, the heroine screamed.

  “I can’t do it!”

  Dean let out a few uneasy chuckles, pulling me closer. “Well, I told you we didn’t need to watch a horror movie—”

  “Why would she go down to the basement?” Something groaned—something creepy and definitely dead. Goosebumps rippled across my arms, and we both jumped at a noisy onscreen crash.

  “Because she’s an idiot. There’s a perfectly good pantry she could have locked herself in—”

  “Ghosts can go through closed doors!”

  “Oh, it’s not a ghost. It’s…some other…horrible…thing.”

  I snorted, risking a peek through my fingers—just when the thing’s shadowy reflection caught in the dusty mirror the her
oine strolled by, her trembling hand clutching the flashlight. Nope. Nope. A horror movie projected on the enormous wall in the cinema room—it had been a poor choice across the board. Dean’s earlier vote had been for some ridiculously dry political thriller, so I’d gone in the complete opposite direction with what I thought might be some B-rated slasher flick that would make us laugh. Mistake. Mistake.

  “Ugh, no, I can’t either.”

  “No,” I protested, tugging at Dean’s wrist when he covered his eyes. “You have to tell me what’s happening while I don’t watch.”

  Something crashed again and I squealed, burying my face against him.

  “Well, why do I have to watch it?” he grumbled, wrapping an arm around me, his entire body tense. Despite my racing heart and clammy palms, I grinned.

  “Because you’re the sir.”

  He sighed dramatically, and when I resurfaced again, he appeared to be watching through his fingers.

  “Can we at least turn the light on?”

  I shook my head. Dean’s home movie theater was amazing, the seats comfy and the projected image filling an entire wall, but you had to watch everything in the dark. “If the light’s on, then we can’t really see the screen.”

  “You’re not even watching it!”

  “But you’re watching it for me,” I insisted as I snaked my arms around his neck, staring up at the stream of light emanating from the mounted projector overhead. Suddenly, it was too quiet. My pulse quickened. “What’s happening?”

  “Belle.”

  More onscreen silence. I waited, biting my lower lip, in full brat mode and loving it. Neither of us said anything for a long moment, even after something creaked in the movie, the heroine gasping.

  Dean huffed, his hand sliding down to cup my butt. “She’s… She’s opened some box, and now she’s looking at a necklace. We’re zoomed in on the necklace. It’s this gaudy ruby thing. And now we’re panning up to— Oh, fuck me. What the hell is that?!”

  The heroine screamed.

  The thing screamed.

  I squealed, shoving my face into his shoulder—and Dean hid behind my hair.

  Sunday, March 24th: DEAN

  In the very faint light streaming in from the balcony windows, my submissive was looking at me like I was crazy.

  “You’ve never been flogged.”

  “Of course I have.” I tugged the duvet cover up, then threaded my hands together on my stomach. Belle, meanwhile, settled in, an arm crooked under her pillow, my eyes long since adjusted to the darkness of my—our—bedroom. We had said good night to one another almost an hour ago, but then she had asked something, and I’d answered. Another round of murmured good nights and sweet dreams and languid kisses, then something had occurred to me that I just had to share, and Belle concurred. On and on the cycle went, several times over. Good night. Kiss me. Oh, wait, what do you think about—?

  And now here we were, chatting in bed, long after midnight.

  “I don’t believe that,” she said with a giggle. I shot her a look, one she may or may not actually have been able to see, brows lifted.

  “And why not?”

  “Because… Because Doms don’t get flogged.”

  “I’ll have you know that I’ve been caned, flogged, whipped—the works,” I told her. Years ago, sure, but that didn’t change the fact that it had all happened. She was quiet for a moment, perhaps mulling over this startling new information, and then shifted onto her back.

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanted to know what it feels like.” All the Doms I knew had done the same at some point. Perhaps not all within one week as I had, shortly after I’d been approved for membership at Elysium. Aged twenty-six, exhausted from work, and interested in taking my lifestyle up a notch, I’d planned to introduce more toys into my sessions. Toys that could seriously hurt a submissive if handled incorrectly.

  “Why?”

  I grinned. “Because I thought—if I’m going to do it to someone else, even if they ask me to, I ought to know how it feels. All of it.”

  “Nipple clamps too?”

  “Nipple clamps too.” Not that my nipples were anywhere near as sensitive as Belle’s, but it hadn’t exactly been a fun experience for me either.

  “Butt plug?” She sounded like she was smiling.

  “No.” I chuckled. “I suppose I haven’t tried everything. I’ve been bound, strung up, spanked.”

  “Huh.” Belle sat up, the duvet falling away, her nipples pebbled—prominent, even in the darkness. “By who?”

  “One of the Doms at Elysium.”

  “Which one?”

  “He doesn’t work on location anymore, I’m afraid.”

  “You were caned and flogged and spanked by a man?”

  “Samuel,” I said lightly, a faint admonishment. “I wanted to know how hard a man could go—so I wouldn’t do it unless given the green light by my submissive. Samuel was very helpful. He knew it was just a learning exercise.”

  She crawled across the bed, the linens swishing beneath her, and I blinked rapidly when the bedside table lamp flickered on. “Belle—”

  “How did it feel for you?” she asked, no longer incredulous—but dripping with curiosity. “To feel all the things you do to someone else.”

  I sat up with a sigh, arranging the pillows behind me to soften the bite of the headboard, and then beckoned Belle to me with a nod. She did as she was told, crawling into my arms and snuggling up to my chest. “I wasn’t sexually aroused by it, but it helped me understand the feeling of, well, surrender, helplessness, to be completely at someone else’s mercy. It allowed me to better understand my submissives and what they need from me.”

  And how hard to hit. That was key. Even though I had gone overboard with the paddle that fucking horrible day, I hadn’t left any lasting physical damage on Belle’s precious behind. I still knew where the wood needed to land. I knew how to bruise and not maim.

  “Did you have a lot of submissives before me?” she asked, trailing her finger across my skin, some of her bright, exuberant curiosity dulled suddenly. I kissed the top of her head, my throat tight.

  “Only a few—and none like this. None like you.”

  Her finger ceased its travels briefly, then started up again, her nail twirling across my chest instead, over my pecs, around my nipples. “And did it hurt?”

  “What? The flogging? The caning?”

  “Yeah.”

  I exhaled a laugh, drawing her closer. “Of course it did, and I’m afraid I don’t enjoy experiencing pain—only inflicting it.”

  She hummed, then sat up, her hand on my chest, her hair a frizzy mess after our shower this evening.

  “Do you think I could try it?”

  “Try what—flogging me?” I arched my eyebrow when she nodded. “Why?”

  “To see what it feels like…to be you.”

  Smirking, I smoothed her hair down, then cupped her chin. “And what if you like it more than submitting? What if you want to be the Dom?”

  Her eyes widened, and she hastily shook her head, utterly adorable in her refusal. “I don’t think that’s possible. Not with you, sir.”

  “But you want to try it anyway, just to see what it feels like?”

  “Consider it a learning exercise.” Her royal blues gleamed as she smiled, sliding from my sweet little submissive to something—brattier. I hesitated. It was almost two in the morning, but she looked so fucking interested, so wide-awake.

  “Get the riding crop from the closet,” I said with a sigh, then held up a finger when she giggled and clapped her hands together. “Only around my shoulders and chest.”

  “Nipples?”

  “No.” I gave her a warning look before she hopped off the bed, even though I trusted her to respect my limits. “And my safeword is apricots, too.”

  “Oh, sir,” she said, laughing as she skipped off to the closet. “You don’t need a safeword with me…”

  Only when it came to my heart.

>   She found her weapon a little too quickly for my liking, and as she smacked it against her palm, looking like a kid in a candy store, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was about to seriously regret this…

  Thwack.

  10

  Belle

  Thursday, March 28th

  The last time I had actually styled my hair was the day we left New York.

  Thinking back to the Belle of then, the one who had stood in front of her bathroom mirror, straightener in hand—so anxious, so afraid of failure—I wished I could have told her that it wouldn’t be so bad.

  I wished I could have told her that the next two months would be the best months of her life.

  And that she would break the first rule of escorting. Crush it. Eviscerate it.

  That she would become the stupid girl who fell for her client—and that at some point, she wouldn’t care anymore.

  That she was about to fall in love.

  The Belle of then felt like a completely different woman than the one staring back at me in the mirror now. I liked this Belle better. Living in her skin, knowing what I knew, feeling how I felt—it was a whole lot easier, somehow.

  After turning off and unplugging the styling wand, I set it on its little stand to cool down. For tonight’s gala, I had opted for a sleek shine, conditioning the heck out of my sun-kissed hair, my wild salt-and-sea-ravaged mane. Waves framed my face. The ends curled under. I’d managed to achieve a blowout look without spending a dime. Sure, it had taken a full three hours to get here. Barricaded in my old guest room, I had done my makeup and hair alone, wanting to surprise Dean with the final look when it was all one pretty package.

  As per both of our preferences, I hadn’t gone crazy with the makeup by any means. My face had a healthy glow to it, and I’d opted for neutral shades across my eyes—soft browns and golds to highlight my blues, but nothing dark enough to clash with my dress.