Belle (Unbowed Novels Book 1)

by Liz Meldon

  Belle faced forward, her spoon in her mouth. When I peered around, I found her gaze unfocused. The silence had my heart thundering, beating so hard it threatened to burst right out of my chest. Fire prickled beneath my skin, growing hotter the longer she said nothing, and I paused once more, drawing in a soft breath.

  “Belle—do you want to leave? I can have the plane ready to go by this evening.”

  In a few measly hours, she could be gone from my life forever.

  “No.” She stuck her spoon in the slightly melted ice cream. It sloped to the side of the container. “I don’t want to leave.”

  I finally exhaled that soft breath. Thank god.

  Relieved, I went back to massaging her, touching her with the knowledge that she was still mine—for now. That I had a responsibility to do better, to never let what happened today happen again. I stilled, however, when she looked over her shoulder at me.

  “I want to know you.”

  My eyebrows shot up. Know me? Belle knew me better than some of my closest friends at this point. She knew the real me. Not the mask I wore in the boardroom. Not the one I adopted for my father’s associates. And not the one I begrudgingly carried for years, cleaning up my brother’s messes as a legion of staff watched on.

  “I want to know Dean,” she continued, sounding surer of herself this time, “not just my Dominant. I…need to know you.”

  Why?

  I bit my tongue again so I wouldn’t blurt out the first thought that came to mind. Whatever she needed to feel secure with me, I would give it to her. After all, I had pried information out of her that one afternoon—lapping at her pussy as we bobbed along in the pool. I had a halfway decent picture of who Belle Bennet truly was; it seemed only fair to return the favor.

  But then again, I needed to know. I was her Dominant. I ran the show. I was responsible for her—for her well-being, her safety. Her body and her mind.

  Submissives look after their Doms, too, you pretentious prick.

  I glared up at my forehead, all the while knowing the little nagging voice was right. In a true Dominant-submissive relationship, we were equally responsible for each other. Perhaps it was time to finally let her in.

  “I can do that,” I whispered when I realized she was still staring back at me. My small smile had her cheeks pinking up, and she turned away, gone back to her ice cream.

  “But I don’t want to know today,” Belle said after another spoonful, her voice thick, heavy. I resumed massaging her, working each side of her hips with both hands.

  “All right.” I bit back sweetheart, catching it just in the nick of time. Because she wasn’t my sweetheart—not really, not yet.

  Still, the title suited her. It suited us.

  “What do you want today, then?” I asked instead. My hands drifted up to her lower back, avoiding the darkest bruises on her cheeks in favor of a back massage. When she kept quiet, spooning more ice cream in, my Dom side flickered back to life. “Belle, do you want to be left alone?”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you want me to stay with you?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay,” I murmured, not bothering to hide my smile this time. The silence that followed lacked the anxiety of the last stretches, and I fell into an easy rhythm, working her back, her thighs, her poor bum with my hands. I eventually grazed the sharpest, brightest of the bruises, knowing the butter would do the skin some good, but only applied a very slight pressure. If Belle’s whimpers suggested anything, it was that she wasn’t ready to be touched there—which was fine by me.

  What wasn’t fine, however, was that she had nearly gone through three-quarters of that pint of strawberry ice cream in less than a half hour. Finally, even though I’d sworn I would indulge her as much as she wanted today, I took it away—and Belle let me. As much as she deserved to eat an entire pint, I worried she might get a stomachache. With some difficulty, I reached over and set the container on the night table, then popped the lid on, my hands soft and slick.

  Sometime later, she asked, “Did you get those for me?”

  Kneading the base of my palm up her back, I followed her line of sight—straight to the macarons.

  “I did.” My fingers splayed when they reached her neck, then fell back together to slowly slink bit by bit up the long, slender column. “They reminded me of you, all pink and sweet.”

  A luxury, macarons. A treat that required a skilled hand to craft. I hadn’t really chosen them because I thought Belle was pink and sweet—more because she was my luxury, a submissive who required a skilled hand, one who made me a better Dom, today’s behavior notwithstanding.

  She stared across the room at the box, nibbling on her lower lip, and I felt my resolve weakening.

  “Do you want them now?”

  She nodded. Sighing, grinning, I carefully extracted myself and crawled across the bed, just able to reach the box on the dresser without climbing off. As I made my way back, I found Belle curled up on her side, hugging the blanket.

  “I want you,” she started, but then her voice caught, and there was this pause that had me stopping mid-crawl. Our eyes met, and once again I saw the depth in those blues—the stunning levels of intricacy, of intimacy, behind a single look.

  Those blues took my damn breath away.

  Belle blinked hurriedly, flushed, and sat up on her elbow. “To have a macaron, too. I want you to have one.”

  “All right.” What I wouldn’t give for just a flicker of what was going on inside her head. Instead, I undid the satin bow around the long, thin box and gently pushed it open. When offered, Belle took the first pink macaron in the row, carefully, handling the delicate meringue pastry like it might crumble.

  A bit like how I’d expected to find Belle when I returned for aftercare. Broken. In pieces.

  But—my girl was made of tougher stuff. She had surprised me. She had captivated me.

  And, most of all, she had made me feel safe. Relieved. Needed.

  She had made the choice to stay, despite everything, and as I plucked out my own soft pink macaron, I vowed that she wouldn’t regret it.

  I vowed that I would never be careless with her again.

  “Cheers,” I murmured, holding up my macaron. She nibbled her lower lip, perhaps weighing the shift in tone, then tapped her pastry to mine. I fought the urge to kiss her. “Here’s to March.”

  Belle smiled shyly, but there was strength, too, in the way she held my stare and tapped our macarons once more. “To March.”

  March

  Belle: Part 2

  "Thanks to Elysium, I was a child of Hades--and Dean had dominion over me. From day one, I had already belonged to him..."

  It's March on beautiful Ixora Isle. Flowers bloom just as surely as matters of the heart, and Belle and Dean recover from their breach of trust one step at a time.

  In the coming days, the couple must face:

  A dinner date that takes a turn for the dangerous.

  An unwelcome family reunion.

  A birthday surprise.

  A black-tie affair.

  A promise.

  A death.

  A gift.

  House Rule #5

  Communication is essential, both in and out of playtime.

  1

  Belle

  Monday, March 4th

  People were going to call me crazy for staying.

  After all, my client—not my boyfriend, not my husband—had bent me over a window ledge, ankles restrained, legs spread, and paddled me until I was a screeching, wailing mess. It was only now, four days later, that I could sit without wincing. Anyone else would have left. And had anyone else forced me to confront my fear of heights, albeit indirectly, I probably would have left too.

  But it had been Dean—and for some reason, one I had yet to put my finger on, I couldn’t walk away from Dean Donahue. When he had come to check on me that day, shortly after everything had happened, I hadn’t wanted to shove him out and slam my bedroom door in his
face again. I hadn’t wanted him to leave me alone. I’d wanted to crawl into his lap so he could comfort me. Coddle me. I hadn’t expected an apology—but the one he gave, over and over again, made the storm of emotion inside disappear. Instead, I found peace in his arms.

  Which was insane.

  I knew that.

  Even after everything, I still trusted him.

  Over dinner that night, we had discussed invoking my safeword. We talked about appropriate punishments, and the role both a Dominant and a submissive played in implementing them. While I wanted to curl into a ball and not leave my bedroom, Dean had me up and moving about—and talking. About safety. About trust. About personal limits and boundaries.

  I’d gone to bed that night feeling safe—which was also insane. I knew that, too.

  Over the last few days, we’d passed the time lazing around. In the pool. In the cinema room. In the kitchen, where Dean continued to ply me with all my favourites, like he was still apologizing.

  And, honestly, that was why I stayed.

  Because the man who’d paddled me wasn’t the man I knew. He wasn’t the Dom I knew.

  I believed that wholeheartedly, despite the nagging voice at the back of my mind, always whispering as I tried to fall asleep. He hurt you. He bruised you. He forgot your biggest fear and used it against you.

  All of that was true.

  It was the way he responded afterward, however, that made me stay. Dean could have locked himself in his office. We could have gone days without speaking, the house tense, the island paradise devolving into a tropical nightmare. We could have then begrudgingly resumed Dean’s rigid daily schedule—and I would have done it, because I was a professional, but I wouldn’t have put so much of myself back into it. Not again. I would have been Belle, The Escort—period. No more wavering back and forth. No more straddling the line between professional and personal.

  But Dean had talked. He had listened. He had comforted and soothed and apologized.

  So, here I was again: a tightrope walker, trying to toe the line and remain professional, always a second away from careening down into Bellelandia, where I was just me—me, who wanted my Dom back, whether he paid me or not.

  Even though I was ready to get back in the ring, Dean had insisted we take a full five days off after the incident so I could properly recover. I’d almost protested—I didn’t need five days of recovery—but then I’d sat down and my butt had screamed, the bruises an ever-present reminder that I wouldn’t have been able to play like we usually did. So, begrudgingly, I had accepted that the first week of March would be full of lazy days spent at the pool, on the beach, in the theater room, and on any padded surface we could find.

  However, just because we weren’t playing didn’t mean the dynamic needed to stop entirely. I still called Dean sir—because he was my sir. And he cared about me, cared for me. He carried the guilt of that afternoon with him wherever we went, and I wanted to distract him. I’d gotten past it; I’d made it clear I never wanted to be paddled again, because it was nothing like the for-show paddlings Penny doled out at Elysium, but I wasn’t afraid of future punishments.

  I liked my punishments.

  I wanted to get back to them.

  I wanted to get back to us.

  In an effort to distract him, after lunch today I’d grabbed Dean’s hand, steering him away from the pool, and walked him up to the third floor. If anything was going to help us move on, it was confronting the room that had triggered the reaction. Standing at the top of the dark stairwell, I’d waited, holding Dean’s hand, looking up at him—patiently, not expectantly, wide-eyed but supportive, strong, until he finally pushed down on the handle and threw the door open.

  In an instant, we’d been bathed in sunlight—and there was no going back.

  For the last hour, he had taken me through each of his paintings. Work he’d had shipped in from his house in London. The pieces he had finished since we’d arrived on Ixora Isle. Landscapes. Cityscapes. Some canvases taller than me, others the size of a postcard, haphazardly painted, like he’d been in a hurry, desperate to get his vision across. Rough outlines, completed masterpieces—and me. We ended the walkthrough on the still-unfinished portrait of me.

  “I don’t normally paint people,” Dean admitted softly, that gorgeous sage-green gaze roving the canvas. My cheeks warmed when it slid to me. “But you have a face that demands to be painted, Belle.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “A body too.”

  My blush sharpened. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Actually,” he said as he faced me, “it was your smile that made me want to paint you, but then I started and realized I wasn’t talented enough to capture it.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Dean’s work was breathtaking. What he could do with a brush—it was as masterful as what he could do with his tongue. I smiled at the thought, my heart skipping a beat when he cupped my face.

  “There it is,” he whispered, “that smile…”

  Try as I might, I couldn’t stop myself from leaning into the touch, into his palm’s warmth. Something felt different between us since the incident. Not bad—just different. I might have been calling him sir, but he was less dominant than usual. Sure, he still cooked all our meals. He reminded me every two hours, on the dot, to redo my sunscreen. He had a timer going off twice a day so he could apply cocoa butter to my backside, to my thighs—a gesture that always evolved into a full-body massage that left me prickling with heat.

  Beyond that, however, Dean seemed more—normal. He wasn’t the CEO. He wasn’t the restaurateur. He wasn’t the man with eight billion to his name. And he wasn’t completely my Dom. We talked more freely about everything. Laughed more openly during our movie nights.

  Almost like—friends.

  Which, again, was insane. I knew that.

  But knowing hadn’t stopped it from happening—and I certainly didn’t want it to stop.

  I wasn’t sure what had changed, who had changed, but maybe it didn’t matter.

  Maybe, months from now, when I had some distance and time, I’d figure it all out.

  Maybe I wouldn’t want to.

  Maybe it was time I stopped thinking, analyzing.

  Because whatever had changed, whoever had changed, I liked it. Period.

  My breath hitched when Dean stroked his thumb along my lower lip, his eyes stormy, but he made no move to close the gap between us. I didn’t either. We stood like that, each of us too still, in front of his easel, his half-finished portrait of me and my pink bow, his hand cupping my face and his thumb ghosting over my mouth.

  I fought the urge to catch it, to suck it in.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Belle?” he murmured, our voices barely rising above the distant hum of the air-conditioning. I tipped my head into his palm, smiling that smile he seemed to like so much.

  “Will you paint me?”

  Dean chuckled, the sound skittering across my body and pooling between my thighs. The storm had ebbed in his eyes, replaced with something warm and lush instead—something I found myself drawn toward as he said, “I am painting you.”

  “No…” I took his hand with both of mine, his five fingers somehow meshing seamlessly with my ten as I led him around the easel to the small desk behind. I’d missed it on my first visit to his sunlit gallery, so enraptured with his work that I hadn’t had time to take in everything.

  The desk had the same finish as the deep, rich tones of the dining table downstairs, though it was nearly impossible to appreciate it under all those tubes of paint. Cans of paint. Toolboxes—filled with airtight containers of paint. Every colour. Every shade. Unique blends and brand names. He kept his brushes there in metallic tins, their pristine bristles facing the cloudless blue sky above, the gallery’s domed glass ceiling leaving nothing in shadow.

  Freeing just one hand, I picked through the tubes I’d only glanced at when we first arrived, when Dean had finally welcomed me into his private world, then plucked the one I was looking for�
��the shade that had caught my eye. Coral Rosé—nontoxic body paint. He had a whole collection of colours. I held the tube up, label forward.

  “I saw these earlier,” I told him. Our hands remained loosely entwined, hanging between us. Dean let out another little chuckle, one of surprise this time, and took the tube in his free hand, turning it over to scan the back.

  “I painted models for a friend’s fashion show a few years back,” he said with a wry grin. “Felix Renaldi. He did this ridiculously risqué spring line in Milan and he had me paint the cosmos on thighs and arms—”

  “Oh, what, no model boob for you?” I dropped my chin demurely when his gaze snapped to mine, sharp—dominant. “Sir.”

  “No, Felix had most of the torso covered.”

  Felix Renaldi. My brow furrowed. “Why do I know that name? Renaldi?”

  “Felix lives in New York most of the year,” Dean told me as he set the coral rosé back on the desk. “He frequents Elysium—he was actually my sponsor when I first joined.”

  Elysium membership was by invite only, and established members risked losing their privileges if their sponsored choices acted inappropriately. We held open-house events once a month, but they were considered tame evenings in comparison to what usually went on.

  “Felix and I have similar tastes,” Dean mused, fiddling with the ends of my hair, his voice like velvet. “Though I’m afraid my tastes have gotten quite specific over the last few months…”

  The prickle of heat simmering beneath my skin surged to a full-blown wildfire. How easy it would be—to get lost in that voice, in those eyes. Instead, I picked up the coral rosé again and held the tube out to him.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Belle?”