by Liz Meldon
Stripping out of my bathrobe, I stuffed myself into the strapless bra that had fit like a glove two months ago, now a little tight, and removed the breathtaking Renaldi couture from its hanger on the back of the door. No panties, just in case Dean and I opted for a more exciting way to pass the time tonight.
Of the forty dresses I’d tried on, Dean and I had eventually narrowed it down to our three favourites. Then we’d taken a staff vote with the assistants. In the end, Dean had to break the tie—and he’d chosen well. Not only was the watermelon-pink gown so comfortable it felt like I was wearing nothing at all, it gave me the confidence to approach tonight’s event like I belonged there. Like I fit in.
It made me feel like a queen, honestly. Not a princess. Not a fluffy, soft, sweet creature—but a queen.
Beyond that, I could get the gown on by myself and go to the bathroom without struggling through eight hundred yards of fabric. After zipping up the side, I gave my outfit a quick once-over in the mirror. Sleeveless with thin straps. A V-neckline that made my hint of cleavage look spectacular. Fitted bodice, but not so fitted that I couldn’t breathe. Layers of tulle made up the skirt, fluttering down to the ground like flower petals, the different hues of pink giving it depth and texture without the weight of a much heavier fabric.
Felix Renaldi was a fashion god. Dean had promised to introduce us back in New York so I could personally thank him for my day of dancing around in couture.
I swallowed hard at the thought, my easy smile falling away.
Back in New York—when all this was over.
My lower lip wobbled.
I didn’t want this to be over. Three days from now, Dean’s private jet would whisk us home. I’d return to Elysium over two hundred grand richer, my financial situation secure. He—would probably go on to fight some more with his family, hopefully stick up for himself.
And that would be it.
Tears welled, my face scrunching as I fought to keep them at bay.
I didn’t want that—the end, the one all escorts faced. No fairy tales. Just money.
Even if I loved him.
Even if it seemed like he…
“Oh, heck.” I grabbed some toilet paper and dabbed around my eyes. While I hadn’t applied much makeup, the mascara would run and ruin everything if I cried—and we were only a half hour out from climbing into Dean’s boat.
He had promised to take it slow so the wind wouldn’t wreak havoc on my hair.
God, I loved him so much.
Sniffling, I tidied up my face and hoped the redness in my eyes would disappear. Tonight was supposed to be fun—a date night. Drinks. Expensive appetizers. A little dancing, a little showing up Richard. Dean had been anxious about it all day, so much so that he’d cancelled our playtime in favor of lounging around the pool. Not that I minded—but he probably would have been more relaxed if he’d been able to, I don’t know, bend me over the dining table and brutally have his way with me.
Just saying—an orgasm or five could do wonders for your nerves.
After a few more deep breaths in the mirror, I gave myself a thumbs up, determined not to let my feelings over all this ending sully what was bound to be an awesome night, then opened the bathroom door and—
“Oh, hey.” And found Dean sitting on my bed. He quickly stood and faced me, looking positively scrumptious, the epitome of dapper, in an all-black suit tailored to perfection, his sandy blond waves tousled—a siren call to my fingers.
Him in black, statuesque and powerful. Me in pink, like I’d just tumbled out of the fairy court.
Hades and Persephone—ready for a night on the town.
My stomach looped.
“Belle…” Dean swallowed hard, perusing my figure slowly—taking his time, admiring every detail. His stare was possessive, greedy. Lord of the Underworld—and the way his wandering gaze blazed a path across my body, I was his queen. There was no doubt about it anymore.
I smiled shyly, tucking my hair behind my ear. “Well, don’t you look handsome.”
“You—are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Dean murmured, sounding both Dean and Dom, his voice making my knees weak. “Come here… Let me see you properly.”
That growl. A shiver raced down my spine, goosebumps prickling as the chill turned molten in my core, between my thighs.
My shy smile turned coy, and I crossed the distance between us, slipping my hand into his when he offered it. Dean raised it above my head, eyeing me hungrily as I spun in place. Slowly, I performed for him, the heat intensifying, unfurling across my belly, licking its way down.
“Fucking magnificent,” he murmured, each word like velvet steel. That was my Dean. The best of hard and soft, cruel and merciful. On my final turn, I noticed something seemingly innocent on the bed—a dark blue box. I paused, my hand falling from his, and brushed my fingertips across it. Given it was similar in size to the box he had first shown me on the plane, the one with that fun bullet vibrator, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had something sinful in mind for the gala—something he had been keeping all to himself.
However, before I could ask, Dean sat at the end of the bed and set the box on his lap. Swallowing hard, I followed, perched beside him. My heart thundered at his expression—no longer hungry. Something else. Something shadowy and unreadable. I fiddled with the dress’s top layer of tulle, rubbing the paper-thin material between two fingers.
“Sir, is everything okay?” If this was just another vibrator, another kinky toy, he’d be smiling. Mischievous. Eager. Dark, even, with that dangerous sort of glint in his eye—the one that made me wet every time. I didn’t recognize the darkness here.
“Belle,” he started, his words weighted, like he chose each one with the same intense care with which he always handled me. “I feel like I’ve been drowning. Always drowning, always fighting so fucking hard to get my head above water—and failing. I… It’s like I’ve been dying a slow, painful death, one that’s gone on for years with no end in sight, no sweet release.” The bulge in his throat bobbed as he finally lifted his gaze to mine, the darkness vanquished. Bright, glistening sage greeted me. “And you—Belle, you were like the first good breath after finally breaching the surface. With you, I’m no longer drowning.”
My gut told me to take his hand, to thread my fingers through his as we always did. But I stayed still, silent, hands fisted in my dress—my mind empty.
Until it wasn’t.
Until I knew—
“I didn’t realize I was drowning,” I whispered, my eyes swimming, flooding, “until I met you. It’s like I didn’t know what air was, like I’ve never truly breathed, until you.”
The seriousness, the stillness, hanging between us splintered as soon as his lips spread into an enormous smile. Warm and comforting. Dean beamed down at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back, even if my stomach was in knots. A laugh slipped out, airy and carefree, and I gently wiped at the twin tears spilling down my cheeks, mindful of my makeup.
“I have something for you,” he told me, shuffling closer and then lifting the navy-blue lid from the box. I leaned forward, gasping.
Inside sat two necklaces. One made of pearls and rose gold, a large circular gold pendant in the middle. The other looked more like a choker, crafted of rich-smelling pink leather, thin, with a similar loop of gold hanging off the middle.
“They’re collars, Belle.”
I blinked, heat rippling through me as I traced a finger across the pearls. Collars? Not necklaces, then. I looked to the leather, to the little hoop in the middle—like a dog collar, where you might attach a leash. My cheeks burned.
They were so beautiful—and they made me feel…
Conflicted. I pulled my hand back with a frown, twisting the tulle again.
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“Well,” he shifted to face me properly, “a collar is a gift a Dominant presents to his submissive. It’s a symbol of their bond, a symbol to others that you belong to your Dom.�
�� Clearing his throat, Dean set the box between us, handling it reverently, as though not wanting to jostle the pearls. “A collar… In certain circumstances, to certain couples, a collar can be equated to an engagement ring.”
My tears fell freely now, probably dragging clumps of mascara with them, marking my freckled cheeks with dark brown. I wiped at them distractedly, my hands trembling, the knots in my stomach lacing tighter and tighter. “I still don’t understand. You… You…”
“I want you. I want us. After this—I don’t want it, us, to end when we step off the plane in New York.” Dean dragged in a shallow breath, his cheeks flushed. Behind him, through the window whose curtains I no longer feared opening, the sun drifted toward the horizon, painting us a backdrop of burnt umber, burgundy, and apricot. It should have soothed me, seeing the shades of his soul stretched across the clear sky.
The knots twisted so hard they hurt.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Is this—a joke?” I asked, choking on the words. Did he really mean—? Dean wouldn’t joke about this. He wouldn’t be that cruel. But this was the fairy tale escorts never got. This was the moment Hollywood dazzled audiences with, while the rest of us knew the harsh truth.
Dean’s smile faltered. His brow puckered. The flush in his cheeks deepened.
“What? No. No.” Exhaling sharply, he carefully shifted the box behind us, out of the way, and moved in so that our thighs touched. In that moment, the knots loosened—only a fraction, but his touch brought instant relief. I dragged in a deep breath, forcing myself to look at him, to meet his eye, to read between the lines. He smoothed a hand down my leg, a whisper of a caress, and grasped my knee. The knots gave a little more. “Belle, this isn’t a joke to me. I’m being very serious. If you don’t want that—I just thought, after everything we—”
“So, you’re saying…you want this to be our real life?” I couldn’t help it: I interrupted. I spoke over him. I finally found my voice, raising it to drown him out. “You want this to be our everyday…thing?”
His thumb stroked my leg as he smiled gently. “Well, we can define how intense we want our everyday life to be, but essentially… Yes. I don’t want to lose you. And I know it’s a cliché—a client offering to whisk his escort away from sex work. I’m not here to rescue you, Belle, and I don’t mean to be a cliché. Not with you.”
With great difficulty, I finally tore my gaze away from him, pinning it to a spot on the wall across from us instead. Ignoring the voice in my head, the one screaming Yes! over and over again, emphatically, I forced myself to think, to consider what it would mean to bring dominance and submission into my daily life. To bring Dean into my daily life.
It should scare me more.
That thought—it was my freakin’ theme song for this trip. Dean ought to scare me more. My feelings ought to scare me more. All of it—should scare me more.
“Is this something you might—might want?” Dean murmured. His thumb had stilled, and I swallowed thickly as I looked back to him, unsure of how long I had been stuck in my own thoughts. For the first time since all this had begun, he sounded unsure.
And that uncertainty—it killed me. So, I nodded, desperate to bring his suffering to an end.
“Yes, but,” I licked my lips, then shook my head, a dubious bark of laughter flying out of my mouth, “I don’t understand why. I don’t know why it makes me feel so good to do what we do. My childhood was fine—normal. I’m just a normal person—”
“Sweetheart…” Dean tucked my hair behind my ear, then trailed his finger along my jaw. “You don’t need to be damaged to want this life. You just need to be yourself.”
He was right; the patrons at Elysium were all normal. Sure, most of them had sizeable bank accounts, but outside of that, they were just regular people—who lived a secret life of kink.
“Belle, why did you get into BDSM at Elysium? Why become a paid submissive?”
“The money,” I said, listing the automatic response I gave whenever someone outside of our world asked, skeptically, why on earth I would choose to be a fetish escort. Instead of offering me the knowing nod, the ah yes, of course, the money expression I knew so well, Dean merely arched an eyebrow, waiting. Waiting for the truth, for the real answer I’d never admitted out loud.
I could lie.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
No. I couldn’t lie. Not to him.
“And…to explore my sexuality safely,” I muttered, picking at my nails, palms clammy. “Dominant sex and kidnapped heroines and spanking—I read about all of it in my romance novels when I was a teenager. The pain, the punishment, the desperate surrender to another person turned me on. It excited me. The darker the better. And I thought something was wrong with me, that I had some mental issues—that I wanted to be abused.
“Then at Elysium, the professional subs were doing what I fantasized about every night with their clients, and no one judged them. No one called them sick. I told Penny I’d always wanted to…to…try, and she was excited for me. Mostly, I think, because she knew I’d earn more, but I was excited talking about it again. I…I liked it. I don’t know why—”
“You’ve just told me why, sweetheart.” Dean’s hand closed over both of mine, stilling my fidgeting. The weight of it, his firm grasp, had me sucking in a deep breath, and when I exhaled, the release had my eyes tearing again. Dean brushed one away when it fell. “And now? How do you feel now, Belle?”
“Now…” I clutched at his hand with both of mine. “Now, it feels like I’m free.”
Dean’s eyes seemed to twinkle as he smiled. “Not abused? Not sick?”
I shook my head, the last of my stomach knots releasing. “Never.”
“I need you to know…” Dean untangled his hand from mine, then scratched at the back of his neck. “I wouldn’t offer you a collar lightly. This isn’t something I want you to wear for a month after we get back, and then it’s done. It’s… Well, it’s more permanent than that, and it’s completely your decision, Belle. But if you accept, it means you’re mine.”
Another shiver shot through me, shattering the nerves, the anxiety—the disbelief that this moment was even happening, that I was dreaming. You’re mine. I was suddenly desperate to hear him say it again, and again—preferably while he was making me his, fist in my hair, pounding me into this bed. I swallowed hard, weaving my trembling fingers together, trying to quiet my hammering heart.
“If I’m yours,” I said softly, carefully, needing him to say it, “are you mine?”
Dean blinked, as if fighting back tears of his own, and he grinned. “Yes, Belle. I would be yours, if you want me to continue being your Dom.”
Lower lip caught between my teeth, I looked at the box, at the gorgeous pair of collars inside, then back to him, then down to the collars. The first rule of escorting—never fall in love with the client—whispered at the back of my mind, growing smaller, quieter, with each passing moment. Accepting his offer opened us both up to the potential for heartache and misery. For pain and suffering, the kind you never recover from.
But that was my head talking. Logic. Reason. Self-preservation.
In that moment, my heart was fearless.
I reached for the string of pearls and rose gold; it seemed like the more formal collar, something I could wear in public without anyone questioning it.
But Dean and I would know.
In our hearts, we would know what the pearls symbolized, what they meant to us.
“Can you…?” I swept my hair over my shoulder, handing Dean his gift, then turned my back to him. A beat passed in silence. Even my racing heart had quieted. Just before I could glance over my shoulder, I felt him—the heat of his body as he moved in close, reaching around me. The collar was cool to the touch, each pearl kissing my throat as he fastened it in place. My breath hitched, and I trailed my finger across the entire strand, stopping to circle the O-pendant in the center.
Wearing it—my first collar…
<
br /> I felt like I could conquer the world.
Which was ridiculous, but screw it—that was how it made me feel. Powerful. I faced Dean again and found him smiling softly, his gaze warm.
Loved. Treasured.
Claimed.
“Now, Belle, I—”
I threw myself at him before he could get another word out, arms around his neck, clinging to him. To the safety he offered. To the confidence he incited. My lips brushed along his neck as he enveloped me in his arms, crushing me to the solid frame of his body. Drowning my senses in my sir, my Dom, in Dean. His musky cologne, distinctly masculine and powerful—a scent memory that would remind me of this exact moment for years to come. His breath across my shoulder, his lips, his tongue, his teeth as he showered me in hot, open-mouthed kisses. My name, whispered, murmured, growled, the velvet giving way to flint, to possession. Belle. My Belle.
Did this—the collar, his offer, the way Dean held me so fiercely, as if I might just disappear—mean that he…?
Yes, Belle. I would be yours, if you want me to continue being your Dom.
Of course I wanted that, but I wanted so much more than that, too.
I worked my way down to his chest and pushed, forcefully separating us, my heart drumming like thunder between my ears. This dress had made me feel like a queen. The collar—like I could conquer the world. It was time to put that bravery into practice.
My lips parted, but no words came out. We just stared at one another, until my gaze dropped to Dean’s mouth.
Say it, Belle. Say it, or regret it for the rest of your life.
“Dean,” I started, terrified, exhilarated, clutching at his black silk lapels, “are you in love with me?”
Not do you love me. Precise language—it mattered. He was always so clear with me.
He stared down at me, mouth opening and closing, an echo of me ten seconds earlier. I tugged at his lapels, eyes prickling with fresh tears, lips stretched into what was probably a manic smile.
“Because I’m in love with you,” I said, the words flying out of my mouth—maybe too fast, too jumbled, for him to understand. But then his cheeks flushed again, and I knew that he’d heard me. He’d understood. “And if these collars only symbolize our connection as Dominant and submissive, if they don’t allow for—for more, then maybe I don’t want—”
