by Chloe Cox
“That’s what you tell yourself,” Cole said. “But it’s bullshit. Your ex was a bad guy, correct?”
Bette opened her mouth, shifted her weight like she was going to confront him, argue with him.
Cole wasn’t having any of that.
He moved her to straddle his legs, pinned her arms behind her back, and sat up straight. Bette was just the right height for that—she could straddle his dick, and Cole could still tower over her if he wanted. Could still hold her hips, pull her down, where he wanted. There was something about being able to physically dominate a woman, even while she was theoretically on top, that got to a certain kind of sub.
Bette was one of them.
Cole could feel the wet heat coming from her pussy on his jeans. She was turned on past the point of being able to fight it much. Good. Now she just needed to know she would be exposed.
Slowly, Cole pulled at the strap that held her robe closed. Then he opened it, revealing her naked breasts, her fluttering belly. The wetness on her lower lips glistened in the low light.
“You are mine, sub,” he said. “Remember?”
“Yes,” she said. It came out ragged.
“I’ll do what I want with you, when I want. And you’ll like it. Because why?”
“Because I’m yours,” she said. “Sir.”
“Because you trust me, whether you like it or not,” Cole said. “Because if you didn’t trust me, you wouldn’t be here.”
Bette blinked up at him again. Fuck he liked when she made that face. That open, vulnerable, “what the fuck truth bomb did I just hear” face.
“Answer the question,” he said.
She pressed her lips together, blinked again.
“Yes, my ex is terrible,” she said. “More than that, really.”
She used present tense. Cole kept himself calm. Kept his own reaction out of it. No matter how much he wanted to find the guy and pound him into the ground, that wasn’t important in the moment.
“Are you in danger?” he said.
Bette just laughed bitterly, shook her head. “He wouldn’t want me to think I was important enough to hurt physically,” she said. “He just wants to make me miserable. Wants to remind me that he can always make me miserable, if he wants. Just that kind of thing.”
Just that kind of thing. Cole made a mental note. One day, when Bette Liffey consented to trust him enough, Cole was going to bring justice to whoever had done this to her. By whatever means necessary.
“Bet he was charming before he went full asshole, huh,” Cole said.
“God, how do you know that?”
“I’m a Dom,” he said. “It’s my job.”
Bette just looked at him. Her eyes got that searching look as she studied his face. It was unnerving, for a Dom. Subs didn’t usually look at them like that. Usually went the other way.
“I think it’s more than that,” she said, softly.
Cole could admit it. He was surprised. But he didn’t lie to subs.
“You’re right,” he said.
Bette stared at him for a moment. “You have a bad ex?” she said.
Cole didn’t say anything. Just watched her. There was something happening, something new. There’d been shades of it before, echoes. Bette was looking at him like he was a human being again. Not just a Dom.
It made him realize no sub had done that before. It was a strange feeling, to be seen that way. Cole relished it. Rolled it around, got the feel of it. It was like a drink of cool, sweet water, waking up parts of him that had long been dormant.
Bette kept watching. Cole kept letting her.
Finally, she spoke. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice low. Almost a whisper. “It’s just…you’re like this invulnerable Dom, most of the time. Only you’re not really invulnerable, are you?”
“No,” Cole said. “No one worth knowing is.”
Bette’s hands found their way to his chest, like she knew there was something stirring there. Her hands were hot where she touched him.
“What happened?” she said.
“She lied to hurt me,” Cole said. “And it worked.”
Such a little thing. Cole hadn’t said that to a woman before, certainly not a sub. Hadn’t thought he’d ever be close enough to one again. Hadn’t thought it mattered, much—he was self-sufficient, and he wasn’t afraid of his own wounds.
But Bette. Bette was different. Bette made everything different.
The only question was whether whatever this was between them was bigger than Cole’s rules. Bigger than Dom and sub. If what she needed was more true than any lie she could ever tell.
If it was, he would damn well give it to her.
Bette was so wrapped up in Cole’s eyes that she hardly noticed he’d let her wrists go. She still straddled his lap, her face level with his, her nakedness exposed where he’d opened her robe. Her whole body hummed with desire for him. For the huge, hard cock she could feel pressing through his jeans, for the light in his eyes, for the feel of his rough hands on her soft body. He’d had her bared and bound to him from the moment he set eyes on her, and she was just now figuring that out.
There was no man she wanted more than Spencer Cole. And there was no man she deserved less. He’d just told her someone lied to him. To hurt him. And even though Spencer Cole seemed like the kind of man it was impossible to hurt, it had worked.
Bette had started out lying to him. To hurt him.
Well, no more. Somehow the easy way Cole admitted he wasn’t invulnerable made him seem even stronger. Bette didn’t know what was happening, but she knew…
She knew there was more.
“That’s not the worst part, is it?” she heard herself say. “That they lied to you?”
“No,” Cole said. Still just as calm. As confident.
She didn’t know why, but Bette had to touch his face. She reached up, and felt the stubble along his jaw line, his chin. What the fuck was she doing? She could feel her wetness, could feel the urge to move against his leg, and here she was, touching his face. Want to know more. Wanting to know everything.
Wanting to tell him everything. Because, somehow, it was like he already knew.
“The worst part,” she heard herself say, “is when you look back, and you realize you always knew there was something wrong. So why did you lie to yourself about it? That’s the part that haunts you. That you were able to lie to yourself. Because you always wonder if you’ll do it again.”
“Bette,” he said. His voice told her it was an order. A command.
She did what she was told, and looked into her Dom’s eyes.
“You will not lie to yourself anymore,” he said. “Because you will not have to. Not with me. Is that understood?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
They stared at each other for a while. For a moment, for an eternity.
“One more thing,” Cole said, his voice low. Serious. “Whoever it is that hurt you, he’s not here. And I’m not going to let him hurt you, ever again.”
It was an insane thing to say. There was no way he could know how to do that, no way he could know what he was promising. And Cole knew that. But she believed him, anyway. And she knew he meant it, anyway.
Because with a single sentence, Cole could banish her past from her mind. All her stupid decisions, all her second guessing, all the ways she’d managed to land herself in her current situation…it all seemed to melt away when he looked at her like that. When he touched her. Was she crying? Was she about to cry?
Bette had no idea. But she did know one thing.
She had to kiss him.
Impulsively, she did it. She leaned in, her arms sliding around his neck, and let her lips meet his, knowing it wasn’t protocol. Knowing a kiss wasn’t hers to take. But she needed it. And she needed more.
“Please,” she whispered into his mouth. “The way you make me feel…I need…”
She never got to finish the sentence.
Cole exploded up out of the chair wit
h her still in his arms, his hands under her thighs, his eyes boring into hers. He lifted her like she weighed nothing at all, kicked the armchair back into the corner behind him, laid her on the ground, her legs still wrapped around him, her nakedness still on display while the useless robe fell around her shoulders.
He moved so quickly, so forcefully, she realized just how much stronger he was than her. How much more powerful. With one huge hand he gathered her wrists together and pinned them above her head, his weight between her legs making her groan. Cole’s other hand quickly freed his cock, but when she moved her head to look at it—God, she wanted it—he pushed her back with a growl.
She was his. And he was in control.
Bette just moaned, her ribcage rising, her hips moving all on their own. He rose above her, big and overwhelming, nearly blotting out the light. He guided his cock until the head rest against her entrance, and then he stopped. Bette wanted to scream. But she knew better. She knew what to do.
She looked up, into his eyes, just as he wanted.
And then, holding her there like that, in this strange space he’d carved out for her, where nothing could get to her and he was in control, Spencer Cole pinned her with his gaze and slid into her, inch by relentless inch.
She heard herself groan. He was big, bigger than she’d thought, and the feeling of fullness was overwhelming, and it just…didn’t…stop. Her breath came in short, wet rasps, her body trembling as she took all of him.
He watched her. Watched her the whole time, his eyes hungry, his jaw set. Watched her yield finally, fully, her body offered up to him completely.
And he fucking took it.
Cole pulled out and drove into her hard, deep, rough. He kept coming, each thrust slow enough for her to feel every single nerve as he dragged the head of his cock over her g-spot, slow enough for her to know he was in charge, slow enough for her to feel him coming and know she would be stretched to the limit. Her eyes watered, chest shuddered, her breasts bouncing with every punishing stroke.
He wouldn’t let her look away. Just fucked her like that, while he held her down, while he claimed her body and mind at the same time. She was crying out his name by the time he released her.
“Come,” he rasped. “Now.”
And she fucking did.
Her mouth open in a silent scream while her body let loose in a rhythmic cascade that felt like the end of fucking everything.
He owned her.
And when she was done shuddering around his cock, he hauled her up, all the way up, crushing her breasts to his chest and his fingers into her hips. He was still inside her, his girth still stretching her, even while aftershocks tore through her. She got her arms around his shoulders just before he lifted, slammed her back down. They came together in a slap of flesh and a chorus of cries, hers high and surprised, his deep and hoarse.
Spencer Cole wasn’t just her Dom. He was a man, and he was making her his. And for the first time, Bette understood that on an animal level.
With a growl, he opened his mouth on the side of her neck and angled her hips just so, bit and pushed and she burst. This time, release didn’t toss her high and drop her fast. The pleasure held, carrying her along a current of pleasure that just—went on forever.
After that, things got a bit hazy.
She melted into him as he carried her, gathering her weightless, boneless body to him, lifting her that much higher, to a place where there were no ex-husbands or corrupt social workers or odds stacked against her.
There was just her in the care of her big, bad Dom.
“I’m not done with you, sub,” he said.
And with that, he placed her on a bed, facedown—they were in a room now, another room, Jesus Christ—and that’s when the restraints came out. Bette smiled as she felt the leather circle her wrists, her ankles. Every sensation was another thing that crowded out the rest of her life. Every touch melted away her fear, her anxiety.
As he spread her legs, she felt the last of her resistance fade. And she was finally allowed to just feel.
It was about when Bette felt the cold, sticky lube spreading on her asshole that she realized she never wanted to be done with this, at all.
20
Bette took a deep breath, and opened the door to X-Pectations. It was one of the few clubs in the area that her ex-husband hadn’t gotten his hands on, but who knew how long that would last. And in the meantime, Bette needed to make some extra dough. She had saved up as much as possible, but she was burning through it fast, and she was starting to accept the fact that she was going to need to pay for a very fancy lawyer if she was going to beat Mark at the whole custody game.
She sure as hell couldn’t count on Bob Faulkner or any judge that listened to him to be fair, and when it came to Cole and Club Volare…
Well. After what had happened – after what she’d experienced – at that movie night, her whole world was different. Bette knew it wasn’t supposed to be real. She still hadn’t told Cole about her real life, and she didn’t plan to involve him or anyone else from the Club in her endless drama. She knew it wasn’t supposed to be real. But after that night, and the more time she spent with him, with everyone, the more this part of her life – the strip clubs, her ex-husband, Bob Faulkner – started to feel like a bad dream. The only things that felt real were Lizzie, and Cole. There was no way she was going to let anything happen to any of them.
So. X-Pectations it was.
Bette was good at her job. Being a perfectionist did that. And she looked out for other girls, as much as she could, so she had friends in almost every club, and never had trouble scheduling shifts.
But she knew, right away, as soon as she walked in: something was different.
Not with the customers. Those were always the same. Low lighting hiding low faces, for the most part. No, the difference was with the girls backstage. It was…somber? Like someone had freaking died.
“Hey Kris,” she said, putting her bag down next to the other woman’s on one of the benches in the changing area.
Kris looked up, and her eyes went wide.
“Bette!” she said. “Oh my God, I haven’t seen you in ages! Come here, you dummy.”
Ok, Kris’s hugs were still incredible. Bette couldn’t help but smile.
“Ok, don’t strangle me,” Bette said, laughing. “But can you tell me what the frick happened here? Who are all these new people, and why is everyone so…”
She didn’t even finish. Most of the women in the changing area were new, and most of them looked kinda miserable. Nobody was chatting, or laughing, or even commiserating.
“Things have changed,” Kris said. “I was worried about you, you know. You’re not still married to…”
Kris looked around. Lowered her voice.
“You know,” she finished lamely.
Uh. Yeah. Bette did know. She’d been freaking married to him. And she hadn’t thought anyone else knew what a monster he was, but here was Kris, who she’d never been particularly close to, talking about her ex like he was Voldemort. Never a great sign.
“Yeah, I got out of that,” she said. “He’s still trying to mess with me, but I’m out.”
“Good,” Kris said. “Make sure you stay out of it. The cops are poking around, and I doubt they’ll get anything on him, but it will probably get messy.”
Bette stared at her. “Seriously? The cops? What for?”
“Well, the drugs, obviously,” Kris said, keeping her voice low. “He’s got coke, like, everywhere, but also other stuff I’ve frankly never heard of?”
Bette looked down at her bag and yanked her stripper clothes out, as if she could hide her shame that way. Yeah, she knew all about that, too. That had been the thing that finally got her to leave. It hadn’t been two weeks into the marriage before Mark had started to change his behavior, staying out late, bringing weird people home at all hours, generally showing no more interest in either Bette or Lizzie. But Bette had managed to excuse everything away. Lik
e of course marriage was supposed to be work, and he was just stressed out about his investments. And she’d believed him when he’d said he’d wanted to clean up the strip clubs, turn them respectable, or whatever.
She’d believed all of his lies, because she’d wanted to. Until the morning Lizzie got up to find a passed-out woman in the living room next to a literal pile of cocaine.
Even then—even then—Bette had confronted him, like there was something to fix. And that was when the mask had slipped completely. Mark Duvall didn’t care about Bette or Lizzie, and never had. He didn’t care about anyone. He might not be capable of it. He’d only cared about having a ready-made family for the sake of appearances. He’d only cared about looking normal to investors, and politicians, and anyone else who needed to think Mark had some humanity in him.
They’d just been props to him. Cheap props.
She’d never been more scared in her life. She’d promised him that she would never tell anyone about anything that she saw, if only he would let them go. Mark had laughed. He said he’d never have let her see anything important, and Bette was too stupid to even realize it.
And thank God for that.
Except now Kris was implying that there was more. More than just the drugs.
“What else?” Bette asked, her voice tight. Low.
“God, Bette, I don’t know,” Kris said. “But I don’t like dancing in his clubs anymore. Those girls…it’s not the old crowd. A lot of them are young. Like really, really young. And all of them are high. And…I just wouldn’t put anything past him, you know? So I don’t ask questions, and I keep my head down, and I just keep paying into my SEP.”
Bette had to smile. “Still going to retire on the Gulf?”
“You know it,” Kris said. “Or maybe Key West. The older I get, the more Jimmy Buffett starts to make sense to me.”
“Lord, you and me both,” Bette said, and shimmied into her favorite stripping outfit. No sequins, nothing spectacular. Very girl-next-door-ish, which is honestly how she felt.
