by Liz Meldon
“Why don’t we get a table outside?” Brunet Prick offered, stomping along in his horrific socks and sandals combo, his breath rank with cheap vodka. “We could even go down to the beach.”
I rolled my eyes. Because putting this intoxicated woman near a body of water seemed like a genius idea. Honestly, if Belle hadn’t stepped in, Juliet’s safety could have been compromised.
“No, gentlemen,” I said finally, looking between them as they hovered in my peripherals, “I don’t think so.”
Both frowned, as if just realizing that I was a part of this.
“Look, man, we’re just trying to have a good time.”
Ahh, there was the shift in tone. Blond Prick had gone from some pathetic faux-seductive rasp to an I’ll put your head through a wall if you so much as look at me growl. How macho. How terrifying.
As we picked our way through the crowd, Brunet Prick finally managed to skirt around me, his lanky frame darting by a trio of women suddenly barring my path before I could stop him. It put him one step closer to Belle. Scowling, I kept my eyes on him, unable to make out what he was crooning as we muddled through the densest part of the bar, Blond Prick still suggesting we detour to the beach behind me.
A few moments later we were out the front door. The din of countless conversations ceased, silenced as soon as the door swung closed. Our feet crunched across a sandy, gravel-ridden parking lot, and the night’s cool breeze ruffled my hair, soothing my rising temper. Behind us, smokers huddled just off to the side of the main entrance, chatting quietly amongst themselves. To my right, a vacant road sporadically lit by lampposts, the concrete bathed in a soft yellow light. To my left, dark outlines of palm fronds danced against a starry night sky. Beyond that, the sea.
And in front by a good five or so feet—some twat who had placed himself between me and Belle. If only he realized what a stupid fucking move he’d made. My pace quickened.
“Do you guys want to get food? We know a great place,” Brunet Prick offered, power-walking suddenly as if to outrun me—as if to keep up with Belle’s brisk stride.
For fuck’s sake.
“Or we could do room service,” Blond Prick added, practically nipping at my heels. He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively when I looked back at him, incredulous. “We can swing this if you can.”
My glare hardened. Right. Time to verbally eviscerate this bar gnat—
“Hey!”
Belle’s startled cry had my heart leaping into my throat—and the sight of Brunet Prick’s hand wrapped around her forearm had me seeing red. Blood-boiling, heart-thumping, caveman-brain, possessive-Dom red. Two long strides later I’d reached them, and I slammed a hand down on the little shit’s shoulder and wrenched him away from Belle.
“Fuck off, bro,” he snapped as he staggered back, unsteady on his feet—drunk, probably, but not quite as drunk as the woman he’d been feeding shots. Worried he’d trip over his own fucking feet and crack his head on the gravel, I kept a hand there to steady him, a verbal lashing on the tip of my tongue—
And then he took a swing at me.
This lanky, sock-and-sandals, seashell-necklace-wearing boy took a swing at me.
His fist, not even properly formed to protect his thumb, flailed wide, missing my nose by about three inches, but the look in his eye told me he’d try again.
So I decked him. Square in the face.
Pain radiated through my hand as soon as my fist met his jaw, and I reared back with a hiss as Brunet Prick went down.
“Holy shit—Travis!” Blond Prick rushed to his friend’s side, and I stepped out of the way, teeth gritted, shaking out the dull ache that had engulfed my hand. My first thought was Belle—and I found her watching me, eyes wide, brows up, lips slightly parted. There was no telling whether she was impressed or terrified, but I wanted neither. It was stupid, punching some drunk kid because he got handsy with my—
My what?
My escort?
No. My girl. My sweetheart. My Belle.
I’d never been in a bar fight before, nor had I wanted to, but I would have taken on assholes twice my size for her without flinching.
Behind us, a few of the smokers cheered, but I ignored them, face hot, adrenaline pounding, as two of the bar’s security team stalked toward us. Hands raised, I stepped away from the scene.
“We were just leaving.”
“He grabbed me,” Belle insisted, her voice about two octaves higher than usual as she pointed a shaky finger down at Slowly-Regaining-Consciousness Brunet Prick. “And he swung first!”
“That’s enough, Belle.” I hadn’t meant to sound like I was chastising her, but my fight-or-flight response was still kicked into overdrive and it made my words sharper. A flicker of warmth returned at the thought of her defending me, but it wasn’t necessary. Not wanting this to drag on longer than it already had, I fished a business card out of my wallet and offered it to the nearest bouncer. “If you have any questions—”
He waved me off as his partner played the how many fingers game with this Travis character.
“Not necessary, Mr. Donahue.”
My business card lingered between us, but rather than question the first stroke of good luck in the last hour, I slipped it back into my wallet and gave the man a curt nod. When I faced the girls again, ready to get the hell out of here, Juliet doubled over and puked on her feet.
Fucking. Perfect.
Belle darted out of the splash zone, face crinkled with disgust. I ran my hand through my hair, then flexed it at my side.
“Well, let’s get her cleaned up, I suppose—”
“Is your hand okay?” Belle asked, hushed, fretting over me like she had the bullfinch as I approached. “Dean—”
“I’m fine,” I told her, shifting upwind and trying not to gag when the vomit smell hit me. “Really. It’s nothing.”
“Are you sure? Maybe you should have it looked at.”
“It’s fine, Belle.” I closed my eyes and took a breath. Stop sounding so aggressive, you fucking knob. When I opened them, I found a frowning Belle gathering Juliet’s stick-straight red hair away from her mouth. She glanced at me shyly when my fingers brushed against hers. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be short. I’m fine. My hand hurts a little, but at least I know how to form a fist. If he’d hit me, he might have broken his thumb.”
“Water,” Juliet wailed as she flicked vomit off her feet. “Need water.”
I exhaled crisply, and Belle shot me another apologetic look.
This night had started out so perfectly.
“I will be back in two minutes—with water and paper towels and hand sanitizer,” I said, slowly, tautly, swallowing my frustration, because it wasn’t meant for Belle. I wasn’t upset at her. She was the one who had rescued Juliet from two assholes, one of whom was rolling about on the ground, howling about how I’d shattered his nose. Idiot. I hadn’t hit anywhere near his nose.
How had we gotten here?
All I’d wanted was make Belle come, repeatedly, in public.
And now we were cleaning up a drunk mess, the scent of vomit stuck up my nose, while some college kid screamed about suing me for all I was worth.
Scowling, I made a beeline for the bar and hoped—please—that they had hand sanitizer.
Not exactly my best night out ever. However, as I glanced back and spotted Belle comforting a sobbing Juliet, her expression earnest and gentle, as though administering her own form of aftercare, I decided that it certainly wasn’t my worst, either.
6
Belle
Dean hadn’t said a word to me since we left Saint Thomas.
I stood waiting for him, my feet in the sand, clutch in one hand and shoes in the other. Silently, Dean navigated his bowrider, casting lines and tying the boat to the gently bobbing wooden pier—doing all the things with all the ropes, things that I had seen him do a dozen times before, but couldn’t tell you what he was doing, or what he still needed to do.
If I hadn’t le
arned any of it by now, a month and a half into our trip, I wasn’t about to learn at one in the morning after the strangest night so far. My cheeks burned at the memory, and I stole a quick look at Dean’s hardened expression in the faint light of the dashboard. Was he angry with me? I couldn’t tell. The silence didn’t bode well, and I hadn’t wanted to push him after—well, everything.
He’d had such a nice night planned for us. Sure, it had featured a little embarrassing kink for me in particular, but I had been excited about it all day, just as he had. And then I’d gone and ruined it by sticking up for Juliet, and things just went downhill from there. First those two drunk idiots at the bar, following us, harassing us, grabbing my arm—taking a swing at Dean. He had never struck me as the violent type, but he’d stepped up to defend me without hesitation. Dean had knocked the guy out cold. My knight in shining armor.
The moment had been swiftly ruined by Juliet throwing up every last ounce of vodka churning in her stomach. That guy—Travis—promptly started screeching about suing Dean, pressing assault charges, and we had been stuck at the bar for about an hour while they sorted it out with the local police. Witnesses stepped forward, thankfully, to confirm my story, but by then Juliet, a personal assistant from Minnesota, had become an absolute drunken disaster. She’d kept trying to curl up on the ground to sleep, but then, as I attempted to sit her back up, she would vomit again, then cry about needing sleep.
Getting her back to her hotel had been a nightmare. Not only had she lost her room key and phone, but she couldn’t remember where she was staying. Dean and I had hopped in a cab and taken her around to six resorts before we found the right one. By then, mercifully, the staff on duty offered to take over from there, calling her boss as Juliet wailed about getting fired.
Dean had given her his business card, with a scribbled note to call him in the morning. She’d be too drunk to remember, but he’d also offered to speak to her boss and let him know that her situation tonight hadn’t been her fault.
We cleaned up in the hotel lobby bathrooms, took the same cab back to the docks, then climbed into Dean’s boat and headed for Ixora. At no point had he suggested we return to the bar to resume our night. Midnight had come and gone, and from the look on his face, I’d assumed he just wanted to go to bed.
I couldn’t help but feel like tonight’s chaos had been all my fault. I could have just alerted bar security that Juliet was being hassled and fed shots by two creepy guys, but I had wanted to handle it personally. I felt it was my duty as a fellow woman who was also frequently bothered at bars—one of the reasons I never went out anymore—to see her home safely. But that had dragged Dean in, and then it had just been one mess after another.
As he turned off the last lights on the boat and hopped over the edge onto the dock, I wavered between apologizing profusely and letting it rest until tomorrow morning. Maybe we both just needed to get some sleep and forget tonight had ever happened. But this was the first of his fantasies that we hadn’t accomplished together, and guilt twisted my stomach to knots. Guilt over failing as his paid escort—and as his submissive.
More so the latter. The way his eyes had glittered mischievously as he’d talked about tonight at breakfast, I really had wanted to play. I’d wanted to please him. Heck, I’d been walking around the house all day in a constant state of arousal just thinking about what the night had in store.
Reality had been nothing more than a freezing-cold shower—for both of us, probably.
I blinked quickly, adjusting to the darkness, the beach illuminated only by moonlight. Stars glittered overhead too, thousands of them, beautiful and dotted across a pitch-black sky. Dean’s dark outline stalked down the dock, his footfalls heavy, each one timed to my pounding pulse. The island filled the silence still hanging between us. Wind rustled through the palm fronds. Waves crashed against the shore, against the cliff faces just beyond the pier. The bird population had gone quiet, their songs saved for sunrise.
As he closed the distance between us, moving from wood to sand, the hard lines of his face became clearer. The cheekbones, the strong jawline. Dark eyes, unreadable. Not wanting to press my luck, I just turned and worked my way across the beach, headed toward the trail that would lead us back to the house. My heart yearned to speak—to say something, anything. To apologize. But his face—it was almost like he didn’t want the apology. I held my clutch to my chest, white ballet flats hanging off two fingers at my side, worried.
Scared, honestly, that I had messed this all up.
That we were about to have a repeat of the gallery incident, and this time it would be all my fault.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood at the sound of him closing in, heavy, firm footfalls thumping behind me.
No. I won’t let this turn into that. I would use my voice this time. I would fight to be heard so we wouldn’t fall apart. I’d wanted to do a good thing tonight, but I had done so at the cost of Dean’s fantasy—at the cost of our time together. It was, after all, limited. Eighteen days left.
My heart sank at the thought.
So, I stopped. I faced him, lifting my chin, determined—only to inhale sharply at the look in his eye. Moonlight glinted off the sage, his gaze made dark and dangerous, otherworldly, flecked with stars. I started off so strong, holding my ground, shoulders back, but with every long stride he took, I found myself shrinking—shrinking down before my Dom.
When he stopped in front of me, I expected words, no matter how curt and crisp. Velvet or steel, I could take them both. Instead, Dean grabbed the neckline of my skintight dress, its fabric stretchy, yielding, and yanked me to him. I stumbled, feet catching in the sand, and pitched forward into his body, solid as a marble statue, my own personal Greek god. God of lust. God of the underworld. Thanks to Elysium, I was a child of Hades—and Dean had dominion over me.
From day one, I had already belonged to him.
Our lips met harshly. My shoes plopped into the sand, forgotten, as he dragged me into a kiss that set my body on fire. Toes curled in the sand, I pushed up, guilt forgotten, and surrendered—at first. I plunged into the savagery of his kiss, the bite, the passion, the possession. Dean kissed me like he wanted to claim me, mark me, consume me, our mouths parted, souls exposed. I let him—until I fought him.
I had no idea why I did it. Never had the idea to push back crossed my mind before, because I was a good girl who did as she was told. Yet I shoved him, both hands to his chest, momentarily throwing him off. I backed away, gasping, but he caught me before I made it more than a few steps, yanking me to him again with a growl. His mouth crashed to mine, merciless, and I bit back. His lips, his tongue—nothing was safe.
We were a hurricane, stumbling along the beach, bathed in moonlight. Louder than our surroundings, stronger, too, Dean and I were an unstoppable force—fighting one another. I fought for my freedom, tugging at his shirt, his collar. He fought to keep me, an arm snapped around my waist, fingers tangled in my hair. Heat pooled in my core, striking out each time his teeth caught my lower lip—when he grabbed my ass and squeezed, reminding me that he could.
Reminding me that I was his.
With a moan, I struggled harder, grabbing the front of his button-up tee and pulling. Much to my horror, I ripped clear through the first two buttons. Dean’s grip loosened around my waist, and I fled, staggering back, panting, eyes wide at the carnage I’d left behind.
Not only had I ripped the buttons clean off, but I had torn the fabric, too, right above the third button.
Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.
Slowly, Dean looked down at the wreckage, both of us gasping for breath. I hugged my clutch to me, terrified and more aroused than I’d ever been before. Without my panties, each gust of wind, each island breeze, whispered across my slick sex. My bodycon dress had crawled up my thighs, barely covering me. I was about to tug it down, my cheeks as pink as the fabric, when Dean looked back up—and smiled.
My sex pulsed for that smile, for the danger clinging to it,
for the way it said, You’ve done it now.
“Oh, kitten…” Dean closed the gap between us in two torturous strides, then yanked the clutch out of my hands and tossed it somewhere up the beach. “Wherever did you get those claws?”
“Sir—” I gasped when he yanked at my dress’s neckline again, this time wrenching it down my body, tucking it under my bare breasts. With the built-in support, I hadn’t needed a bra; something about going without my bra and my panties had made me feel so damn sexy earlier tonight. Now, as my nipples puckered, I felt exposed. Helpless. Cornered—by a predator whom I wanted to stalk me, hunt me, catch me.
Devour me.
Trembling, I lowered my arms to my sides and lifted my gaze to his. He held it for a moment, that smile haunting and beautiful as ever, before he pinched my nipple and twisted.
“Ow!” I slapped his hand away, eyes watering. His smile sharpened—and his hand went for my throat this time. Faster than I had anticipated, faster than I could respond to, Dean clamped down around my neck, then hauled me up to meet his mouth. Just like that, we were a hurricane again, two forces of nature colliding. Only one of us could come out on top.
As he slipped his tongue between my parted lips, I went back to his shirt, ripping it the rest of the way down. Three more buttons peppered the beach. His hand tightened around my throat, and when I dared open my eyes, I found Dean watching me, brooding, glowering. A challenging flick of my brow had him marching me across the sand, its texture shifting from feathery-soft to unyielding wet grit as we crossed into the surf.
The sea surged, reaching, reaching, reaching—crashing over our feet, my ankles. A shiver raced down my spine, my hands smoothing up Dean’s chest. My nails raking up his chest. I stopped right at his nipples, ignoring the pressure on my windpipe, the ferocity bearing down on my lips, and wondered if I dared—
Before I could decide, Dean somehow knocked my feet right out from under me. I toppled over with a squeal, plummeting in a controlled fall as Dean guided me down—quickly, like he wasn’t actually holding me, his arm around my waist, his other hand on my throat. I let out another undignified, high-pitched squeak when my back touched the wet sand, the crashing surf hurtling toward me.