by Chloe Cox
And his instincts were telling him two contradictory things about Bette Liffey—that whatever she was tied up in was bad, worse than he’d originally thought. That her issues with a little sister who didn’t live with her was almost too much of a coincidence. That when he thought about the little girl he’d seen with Mark Duvall, he wasn’t being paranoid.
And that none of that mattered in the moment, because Bette Liffey was being honest, in her way. She was that scared, that alone, that vulnerable. She only got to be her full self with him, like this. And that she really belonged to him, in a way no sub ever had.
So fuck it. He’d keep his promises. He wasn’t going to investigate her like a criminal. He’d find a way to bring her out of hiding anyway, even if he had to keep her a secret while he did it. Because as much as he knew their scenes together were a lifeline to her, he was just now seeing that she was a bright spot in a dark world for him. Seeing her with those kids had made that real fucking clear. She was a light. And she was going to learn to trust him.
With his free hand, Cole loosened his tie and pulled it over his head. He let her go only to secure the tie around her head as a blindfold, and watched her body respond to that little bit of deprivation. Watched the gooseflesh appear, watched her breathing change, watched her skin flush.
He grinned. Good. Now it was time for some fun.
Bette had never been blindfolded before. She’d thought it was sort of a beginner’s thing, the sort of thing even vanilla people did, and maybe she wasn’t super experienced at this BDSM thing yet, but she wasn’t a total newbie anymore, either. She’d been overconfident, grinning as Cole took off his tie, right up until the moment she couldn’t see a damn thing anymore.
Oooh boy. Maybe it was different when you were blindfolded with someone who wasn’t the ungodly powerful Dom, Spencer Cole. Because now, with him, the loss of sight was…
Bette inhaled, deeply. Even that felt somehow erogenous. Every single one of her senses was freaking out, to compensate for the loss of her eyes. She could hear the whine of a refrigerator from wherever the kitchen was, she could feel a breeze she hadn’t known was there until he’d put the blindfold on. She could feel the beating of her own heart.
And she could smell him. Coming closer, farther away. He opened something off to her right, rummaged around in it, came back. The whole time her brain did cartwheels trying to figure out what was going on. By the time he came back to her, she was held tight, taught, like a line at maximum tension. Just…waiting.
“Good girl,” he murmured.
She didn’t even have time to bask in the glow of his approval before something cold and metallic closed around her left nipple. Bette hissed, but she didn’t move, and she was rewarded with another clamp on her right nipple. Cole let go, and something fell between her breasts, pulling on the clamps and brushing her belly.
It took her a second to put it together, but she was pretty sure…
A lead chain.
Like, basically, a leash.
The words came together in Bette’s mind and then echoed down through her body, turning her on everywhere they touched. Turning her on even more, anyway. Which she hadn’t thought possible.
“Follow me, sub,” he said.
And then she felt a tug on her nipples.
Bette gasped, the sensation almost overwhelmed by the feeling of being absolutely in his power. She took one step forward, the wetness between her legs spreading to her thighs as she did so, then another, and another. The pull on her nipples was her only cue about where to go. She probably took only about seven or eight steps, but it felt like a mile, her nipples aching and raw and somehow demanding even more, her pussy soaked, her body craving him. Every tug pushed her higher and higher, and every step brought her closer to—something.
He was right. She would have to trust him completely.
That knowledge alone did something to her. It made her want to run away screaming, and it made her want to submit completely. It made her fucking crazy.
Finally the torturous pull on her nipples stopped, and Bette found herself doing a mental inventory of what she’d seen in the few moments before Cole blindfolded her, trying to figure out where she was, and what was going to happen next.
Somehow, he knew.
“Stop that,” he said, and swatted her bare ass, one short, sharp stroke. Bette jumped. How on earth did he know? Did it matter?
“Yes, Sir,” she said.
“Turn around,” he said. “Slowly.”
He helped her, thank God. His hands on her hips, turning her until she faced the opposite direction. But what came next blew her mind.
“Sit,” he ordered.
And she did it.
Blind. No idea what was underneath her, and with a chain attached to her nipples, she just sat down. Her ass made contact with cool leather and she squirmed, smearing her own wetness under her.
“Good girl,” he said again, and this time the praise lit her up like a lantern.
She was smiling as she felt his big hand right in the center of her chest, between her breasts. With a firm pressure he forced her backwards until she was nearly horizontal, and the bare skin of her back made contact with more leather. As she leaned back her breasts spilled to the sides, pulling on the chain that connected the clamps, and Bette moaned.
He was done giving her verbal instructions, his hands rougher on her, more demanding. He got under her thighs and lifted her legs up until they were nearly level with her head, holding them there with his big body, his groin pushing into her wetness in a way that made her groan all over again. When he was done, he’d strapped her legs to something, holding them in that position.
She was bound, spread, blindfolded, and exposed to whatever he wanted to do to her. He hadn’t been kidding about trust. She thought about her pussy, wet and spread and probably glistening for him, and she groaned.
“Cole,” she breathed.
A sudden, sharp smack, right on her pussy, and she cried out.
“You don’t speak unless it’s your safeword,” he ordered. “You are mine, tonight, sub. You have served yourself up to me, and you are mine, to do whatever I want with. Your input is not necessary. Is that clear?”
Wordlessly, desperately, Bette nodded. Nothing anyone had ever said had turned her on more. And she wanted nothing more in that moment than to please him.
As he moved between her legs, those words bounced around inside her head, and her body responded. He’d said she was going to see she could trust him.
And somehow, because of that, she felt free even while she was bound.
He let his hand rest over her pussy for a second, and then it was moving again, then he was kneeling between her spread legs, the fabric of his dress shirt brushing against her thighs. The flat of his tongue was a warm, wet surprise, and he licked her from bottom to top and back again, grazing over her clit and tearing another cry from her throat. He had her balanced on the precipice of an orgasm already, pushing her closer and pulling her back, tormenting her as though he could read her mind.
Suddenly his tongue was gone, and so was he, and the absence made her ache. He’d just wanted to taste her. She was trembling and shaking, waiting for him, wanting him. Not just wanting him. Wanting to tell him everything, wanting to believe he’d want her anyway…
Another tug on the chain brought her back to the present, and the sound of something buzzing made her pussy clench.
“This is for me, sub,” Cole said as he pressed it against her entrance. He held whatever it was there, vibrating against the tender flesh, and her back arched as she curved into it. He chuckled, and without another word pushed it deep inside her. Bette cried out, her muscles clenching around the tiny vibrating egg.
“Don’t forget that,” he said. “And don’t forget that you come when I say so. Nod if you understand.”
Tears dampening his tie where he had blindfolded her, Bette nodded. The vibrations from whatever he’d put inside her weren’t overpowering,
but they were insistent, and pressed right up against her g-spot, and knowing she couldn’t come was torture all on its own.
“Good girl,” he said again, and it had that same calming effect. “It’s time, sub. You are mine. Every single hole you have is mine.”
And for the third time since they’d begun whatever this was, Bette felt cold, gooey lube on her asshole.
She inhaled sharply, her body tensing. He’d only ever put plugs in her ass, and one time he’d shown it to her afterwards, and it had been so small. Her mind raced, all the way back to the beginning, when she’d filled out that stupid form. The idea of being fucked in the ass had always really turned her on, but she’d never tried it. Maybe that was a theme. She’d never tried any of the things she really wanted to do because she’d never really trusted anyone else she’d ever been with. And now Cole wasn’t going to give her a choice.
Because she was his. And he’d known the whole time. He’d been working her up to this. Without her saying anything, he’d known. He saw her, even when she thought she was hiding. Which was far more terrifying than being tied down with her legs spread and her virgin asshole served up to him.
It was terrifying because she liked it.
His finger on her asshole short-circuited her brain, and she moaned. There was something about the way he touched her there, the delicate nerves that never got any attention, that turned her on like nothing else. The pressure alone was overwhelming in a way that blanked out her mind, that made her shake and scream.
And suddenly it wasn’t his finger anymore. She could feel the difference. The head of his cock pressed up against her, and it felt impossibly huge. She took a big breath and shook, the nipple clamps shaking with her, the thing inside her vibrating. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. He was still pushing against her; the pressure was relentless, building more and more, until she didn’t know if she could take it anymore. She felt herself flush with heat all over, a sweat breaking out on her chest, her forehead, and this time when she opened her mouth she wailed, her nervous system overwhelmed by him.
The blindfold was ripped away, and suddenly it was Cole on top of her, Cole’s eyes searching her out, and a wave of calm swept over her.
“Look at me,” he said.
As if she could look anywhere else. He held her eyes as he guided himself into her, pushing past the point where she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, past the point of panic, until with a weird pop he was inside her. And then it all melted into a kind of pleasure she’d never known before. She was fuller than she’d ever been, full of Cole while he possessed her. While he claimed her. While he owned her.
At some point she realized the voice she heard was her own, begging to come. His thumb on her clit, his cock in her ass, Cole gave her permission.
She was lost.
24
Cole inhaled deeply as he eased his car into the first level parking lot of a nondescript building in the middle of downtown. Why his contact had picked this place was fucking beyond him. He would have preferred a normal lunch at a diner or something, but Stevie was insistent. And paranoid. So a parking lot it was.
He inhaled again, and this time he was certain he could still smell Bette on him. He’d showered, even shaved since last night. Didn’t matter. Bette’s scent was on him. In his brain. He could probably track her, if he wanted to, like an animal.
He wanted to. Wanted to find where she was right then, bend her over against the wall, shove her panties aside and feel his cock slip into her wet heat. The drive to possess her was relentless.
Worrisome, for a Dom.
He found the pillar marked “4” and parked his car nearby, lights on, as requested, and tried to shake it off. No dice. His cock wasn’t listening to reason, which was the part that pissed off his Dom sensibilities. And his mind…
His mind couldn’t let her go, either. There had been something, last night, after the incident with Mascolo and Turnbull and those kids. Something had shifted between them. Cole couldn’t quite figure out what, and it was annoying him.
The truth was, Bette reminded him a little of the pit bulls he used to foster back in Chicago. Cole laughed out loud, by himself, in his car—no woman in the world wanted to be compared to a foster dog, but hell, it was accurate. Bette was beautiful and smart and funny, but she was also skittish, jumpy, unable to trust. There was something she wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t.
And Cole had a guess about what it was. A fucking wild guess. Something he wouldn’t move on without evidence. And Bette was liable to bolt if taken off leash, so he’d kept her on a long lead. But things were coming to a head, between them. Maybe it was time to bring her in.
He was brought short by the sound of knuckles rapping nervously on his window. Cole shook his head. He didn’t know how Stevie managed to rap on a window nervously, but the man found a way. He rolled down his window.
“How you doing, Stevie,” Cole said.
Stevie looked left and right. He couldn’t have looked more suspicious if he’d tried. “You weren’t followed or anything, right?”
Cole knew Stevie from college. They’d been on the same floor, freshman year, and Stevie had been an obvious target for meatheads until Cole got involved. In a different era, Stevie might have been diagnosed with something, but as it was he’d found his niche working at the IRS. Stevie liked numbers, and he liked order, and he liked following the rules. Which meant Cole was asking for a lot.
“I wasn’t followed, buddy,” Cole said. “We’re fine. I promised you.”
“This is very much against the rules,” Stevie said, frowning. He checked underneath his suit jacket, where he was hiding a manila envelope. “You need a warrant for this, Cole.”
“I know,” Cole said. “And I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. This guy is protected. He hurts people. I can’t get a warrant until I can prove that.”
Stevie’s face twisted up in agony. “He hurts people?”
Cole sighed. Following the rules was difficult in a world full of shades of gray. Stevie didn’t like having to pick and choose which rules were more important, or which ones were justified, or which ones were right or wrong. Come to think of it, neither did Cole. Sometimes reality sucked.
“He hurts people,” Cole said finally.
Suddenly Stevie relaxed. His shoulders retreated from the vicinity of his ears, his left eye stopped twitching ever so slightly. He handed Cole the manila folder, and nodded.
“Ok, I trust you,” he said.
And then, without another word, he left, his narrow frame slipping between parked cars until he disappeared.
Cole smiled. Stevie was never one for small talk, or lengthy goodbyes. He was just a good dude that not many people took the trouble to get to know. And he’d given Cole something more valuable than gold.
He’d given him the tax records for Mark Duvall’s clubs. Including contractor names. That meant the strippers—at least the ones who were on the books. Going back years.
That meant leads. Leads on the women who Mark Duvall might be trafficking.
Because that was what this was adding up to. The drugs, the bribery, the rumors of underage girls hooked on whatever the hell Mark gave them appearing and disappearing at random clubs. None of them were foreign, was the thing. Duvall was preying on vulnerable women locally. And Cole was going to find out where, and how, and who the fuck was responsible, so he could drag them all to hell.
It wouldn’t keep Bette off his mind. But it would keep him busy.
Bette took deep breaths as she keyed in the Palmers’ address from her current location, which was a depressing looking strip mall outside the city, and worked on getting herself into the right headspace for where she was going next.
Growing up in a military family meant a lot of transition. Bette couldn’t remember what her very early childhood was like but she distinctly remembered her mother telling her that she could only bring what she could carry. Not because they didn’t have the money,
but because Bette’s things weren’t important. Anyway, it turned out five year olds couldn’t carry much.
So Bette wasn’t surprised when Lizzie showed up on Bette’s doorstep with almost nothing. Bette’s father had dropped the three year old off with a plastic grocery bag full of diapers, a change of clothes, and a rubber squeaking duck that looked like it had come out of the pet aisle at Wal-Mart. The next day, she’d taken her one credit card to the nearest mall and damn near maxed it out loading Lizzie up with toys and new clothes. It was something Bette wished she could do again.
But that afternoon Bette had finally found a lawyer who would take her case, and this time that’s where she’d nearly maxed out her credit card. Retainer for the lawyer who was going to help her get Lizzie back, even if Bob Faulkner did his worst.
She should feel proud of that, but the lawyer took the wind out her very small sails by telling her how lucky she was that he was going to take her case.
“Not many people want to go up against Mark Duvall’s attack dogs,” he’d said, like he was excited about the prospect of attack dogs.
Of course, that had made her realize that maybe it wasn’t normal to be turned down by like a gajillion lawyers. So apparently Mark was messing with her there, too. Was she just insanely naive?
Bette snorted. A naive stripper. Sure, people would believe that. Well, whatever. When she was done with lawyers, she was going to spoil Lizzie rotten.
And Lizzie apparently heard her over some sort of psychic connection, because Bette had no sooner pulled into the Palmers’ driveway and stepped out of her van before Lizzie came tearing at her, blonde hair and skinny arms flying.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Bette laughed. She wrapped the little girl up in the biggest hug ever and gave her a little twirl before putting her back down.
“I love you.” Lizzie said, her face muffled in Bette’s belly.
