Belle (Unbowed Novels Book 1)

by Liz Meldon

  I stomped on his foot, jabbing my heel into the white hemp, and this time when I shoved, he moved. Not much, but enough for me to get off the railing, to remove my spine from its unnatural bend.

  “Just fucking listen to me—”

  “Let go!” I shouted. I’d never had a client get handsy with me before, nor had an Elysium patron forced themselves on me. The helplessness, the powerlessness—it wasn’t the kind that I got off on. Not by a long shot. Fear churned my gut, as nauseating as his breath, but I refused to shut down, clamp up. Just because he was stronger, bigger, just because he was one of the trust-fund wolves Dean had warned me about didn’t mean he could just—

  Just because I was technically still an escort, a sex worker, a paid submissive, didn’t mean he could do whatever the hell he wanted with me.

  Fuck this guy.

  So, I fought like the kitten I was—nails out, teeth bared, feet stomping, arms flailing. Richard caught me by the elbow, wrenching it up; I went with the momentum, heart thundering between my ears, and lashed out.

  “Fuck—”

  Richard released me when I managed to clock him square in the nose, a lucky swing and nothing more. Seizing my chance, I scrambled away along the railing, panting, my ponytail a little loose—my entire body numb, cold, buzzing the same way your foot does when you sit cross-legged for too long. My dress had survived intact. Trembling, I looked down at it, checked the thin shoulder straps, swept my hands across the tulle flower petals below.

  Somehow, the dress’s integrity seemed to matter.

  Never mind that my wrists, my back, ached. My ankles wobbled in my heels, my feet clammy.

  “Belle?”

  With an unopened champagne bottle in hand, Dean stood halfway between the glass door and his brother, brow furrowed. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to run into his arms—but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. Humiliation spread like wildfire, engulfing me from top to bottom, choking me.

  “Your whore almost broke my nose,” Richard growled, leaning against the railing, splayed there like we had just gone ten rounds in the ring, like he had fended off an opponent twice his size.

  Whore. I knew people thought it. Friends who disapproved of my decision to go into escorting, the people they told when they gossiped about this girl they’d met in university, the one who’d become a prostitute. It had never bothered me before. Let them think whatever they wanted. I knew what I did at Elysium. I liked what I did at Elysium—the people I worked with, the close-knit bond that had formed between us. Penny. Sex work had never shamed me before, but hearing Richard say it out loud, sneer it… Standing there, I suddenly felt very small—insignificant.

  My embarrassment spiked, cheeks burning. Apparently I had been a sheltered whore, because no one had ever called me that before. Not in that tone. And if they had, maybe I wouldn’t have cared, but this was Dean’s brother. This—was the brother of the man I loved. Somehow it hurt so much more.

  “Did she now?” Dean moved the champagne bottle from his right to his left hand. “Well, maybe I should finish the job.”

  Gingerly, I touched my pearls, finally finding the courage to look at him. Dean shook his head, scowling, my dark god in all black—my protector.

  “Really, could you be more of a fucking stereotype of yourself, Richard?”

  I hooked my finger onto the small ring in the middle of my collar, meeting Dean’s gaze when it darted to me. If I could have curled up on the spot and cried, I would have.

  “Belle, come here.”

  Dean held out the arm clutching the bottle, offering a safe port in the storm. I swallowed hard, sliding my fingers across my pearls again—and moved. One foot in front of the other, my body found its momentum, and I crossed straight to him. I hated to cower, to hide, but I just…

  He felt so good. So solid. Dean enveloped me, his arm around my shoulders, and tipped my head up with a finger under my chin.

  “Is that how it works?” Richard snorted. “You’ve trained her well. Got yourself a whore and a dog, eh?”

  “Look at me,” Dean murmured to me, and my eyes snapped back to him—I hadn’t even realized they’d gone to Richard, to that smarmy face, to the creep in white linen. Dean did a quick sweep of my body, my face, my hair. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No.” I didn’t have to think about it. Richard had startled me. Embarrassed me. But he hadn’t hurt me—not like he wanted to, I assumed, the way he kept throwing whore around. I was shaken, not broken. I rolled my shoulders back and took a deep breath. “I’m okay.”

  Dean nodded, his mouth in a thin line—his eyes a raging storm. Like the painting in his office, fury seeped out of every pore, every detail: in his hand’s slight tremor, in his powerful body’s tension.

  “Richard,” he started, still looking at me—his voice whip-sharp and dripping with venom, “there are plenty of people inside waiting to speak with you, wanting answers. Some of Father’s investors, his partners, his friends. They’re all looking for you.”

  His brother chuckled dryly, then straightened and brushed a hand down his suit. “I’m afraid I don’t have a head for numbers like you, Deanie. It’s actually what I’ve been trying to talk to you about, now that you aren’t knee-deep in pussy.”

  My blush sharpened, its intensity painful. Dean merely rolled his eyes and finally turned his full attention onto Richard.

  “Let me guess,” he mused, mirroring his brother’s nonchalance, yet every word fell heavy between them. “You want the title and the perks that come with running things. You want the luxury of our Mediterranean properties, the staff at your beck and call—while I do all the work.”

  Richard clapped his hands together, so patronizing that it made my teeth hurt, I was biting down so hard. “You’ve got it. Even Dad thinks it’s a good idea. I make a better face for the company—”

  “No, Richard, that isn’t happening. You want the salary, the benefits, the reputation—you have to actually do the job.”

  I pursed my lips. It was all pretty sound logic to me, but Richard stared at Dean like he had insulted his mother. Their mother.

  “Need I remind you what we have on you?” he hissed as he took a few steps toward us. “Do you want this, her, your little perversions to go public?”

  In an instant, my humiliation vanished. Poof—into thin air.

  Because no one threatened my sir.

  Especially not some deadbeat jerk who couldn’t keep his hands to himself. My eyes narrowed, and I stopped hugging Dean, stopped clinging to him like he was my life preserver in this mess. Arms crossed, I stood beside him instead and stared Richard down with my best impression of Dean’s stern-eyed Dom look, the one that always made me just a little nervous.

  “You know I was right to tell him,” Richard carried on, oblivious to me staring daggers. “When my PI informed me what you do to these women, these poor, helpless, probably horribly abused women… Well, the whole arrangement is just twisted, Dean.”

  What a sanctimonious piece of—

  I took a deep breath. This wasn’t my fight. It might have started out that way, but this was Dean’s brother, the man who had tormented him his whole life. Dean had earned the right to annihilate him, not me, even if he expressed his “concern” for my wellbeing like a patronizing ass, all the while lazily perusing my body like he had earned that privilege.

  This guy made my stomach turn.

  “Fuck you, Richard.” To his credit, Dean seemed to have swallowed his rage. He even let out a little chuckle as his arm slipped from around my shoulders to my waist, the champagne bottle held in front of me like a shield, its golden tip shimmering in the moonlight. “Fuck you for everything. Do it. Tell them. Get on stage and make an announcement right now. Tell your skeevy tabloid friends—I don’t care anymore.”

  “What? Dean, this is your life—”

  “No, it isn’t.” He pulled me closer, wearing that soft, warm smile, the one that made my heart flutter. “My life is right here.�
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  Unable to resist, I stole a quick kiss as Richard sputtered at us, cupping Dean’s recently shaven cheeks. They were sharp. Not smooth, not when I brushed against the grain.

  How would they feel between my thighs? I nibbled my lower lip, cheeks burning again for all the right reasons.

  “Please tell me you didn’t—? You don’t fall in love with whores, Dean. You use them until they’re all dried up, and then there’s a newer, younger model waiting to take her place.”

  “I’m done, Richard,” Dean said firmly, dripping with the calm, cool confidence I had seen inside earlier. He held my gaze a moment longer, then grinned at his brother. Ahh, the mocking smile. A secret personal favourite of mine. “I’m done with you, with our father—I’m done.”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic, not for some—”

  “Belle?” Dean pressed a hand to his chest, his expression wounded. “Am I being melodramatic?”

  His inflection threatened to make me giggle, and I fought a smile as I shook my head gravely. “No, Dean, I think you’re being perfectly civil. Reasonable. Sane, even.”

  “Hmm, yes.” He nodded, his eyebrows furrowing deeper. “Yes, that’s what I thought.” When he faced his brother again, the farce dropped, replaced by something colder. “You’ve got a crowd waiting in there to pick your brain about the future of our family’s legacy. They all heard I stepped down. A shift in the internal structure could spell a decline in an empire—or a surge. It’s up to you now. Sink or swim, Dickie.”

  Dean flashed a quick, heartless smile as his brother gawked, then steered me back to the terrace door, a hint of swagger in each step. I added a bit of sway to my hips too, just to be a united front.

  Once we were inside, bombarded with air conditioning and the drone of countless conversations, the string quartet near the dance floor playing something gentle and slow, Dean’s weight fell on me. Not completely, but I suddenly needed to wrap an arm around his waist just to keep him from folding over.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked somewhat breathlessly. We cut through the crowd, ignoring anyone who called his name, and headed straight for the huge entryway with golden ivy crawling up its sides. I opened and closed my mouth a few times, lost for words, and nodded.

  “I… Fine, I’m fine.” The look on his face was so sincere that it hurt. “Bit shaken up, but it’ll pass.”

  “Did he hurt you, sweetheart?”

  “No.” I stopped us just beyond the arched doorway, shaking my head when one of the resort staff in a crisp red jacket strolled toward us, perhaps thinking we needed assistance. The guy did a one-eighty back to the noise of the gala without a word. Out here, everything seemed much starker, the corridor empty and bright in comparison to the ballroom. Each step echoed, and I pulled Dean off to the side, just behind some enormous Etruscan-inspired vase—Dean had been a little dorky about its history when we’d arrived.

  He seemed to have no problem with me manhandling him, and when I had him up against the wall, he sucked in a sharp breath, blinking rapidly, dazed.

  “Sir?” I gently pried the champagne bottle from his hand. Had he intended for us to drink it on the terrace—or maybe put it to other uses? Clearing my throat, flushed, I clutched it to my chest with one hand and squeezed his arm with the other. “Are you okay? That—was really intense.” I pressed my lips together briefly, hesitating, and then just decided, screw it: he wasn’t my client anymore. “I’m really proud of you for, you know, everything you said back there. Really proud.”

  He swept a hand through his hair, his chest rising and falling slower now. “Thank you, sweetheart. I appreciate that.”

  “Of course.” It was a big step: confronting the brother who, for all intents and purposes, had been emotionally abusing him since they were kids. When Dean had told me the airplane story, about how his fear of flying stemmed from Richard torturing him—well, I should have broken the jerk’s nose.

  Dean’s gaze dropped to the champagne bottle. “Wish I’d opened that already.”

  “I could try—”

  “Let’s save it,” he murmured, catching my hand when it went for the gold foil. “We’ll celebrate back home. Because that—what I said—it was…”

  I grinned, eyebrows twitching up. “Intense?”

  “Liberating.” Dean pushed off the wall and drew me to him. While I didn’t need to support him anymore as we slowly meandered down the empty hallway—I could have. Arm curled around my waist, Dean let out a laugh, the abrupt sound bouncing off the walls, and shook his head. “Everything I said back there—it’s what I’ve wanted to say to him for years.”

  “Well, he deserved it.”

  Dean stopped suddenly, then swooped down and dipped me into a sharp kiss that had me moaning. Aching. Panting. Gripping his lapels, I chased after him when he pulled away, desperate for more—for his mouth on mine, his tongue thrust between parted lips, the threat of teeth ever-present.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered thickly. Heat flashed in my belly, gathering between my thighs, and I nodded.

  “Yes, sir.”

  House Rule #8

  Belle will not hesitate. She will trust that Sir acts with her best interests in mind.

  12

  Belle & Dean

  Sunday, March 31st

  The sea was calm today.

  After a whirlwind two months for Dean and me, the sparkling blue lapped at the shore gently, easily. Not a great day for surfers, sure, but my goodness, was it ever beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off it—at least, when they were open, anyway. When they weren’t squeezed shut, the exquisite combination of pain and pleasure wreaking havoc across my body. Darkness and the sea. Both tranquil. Both a welcome sight.

  If Dean hadn’t offered me my collars, my mood today would have been vastly different. As the pink leather dug into my throat, I couldn’t help but imagine how I would have looked at the sea today instead—if I hadn’t been wearing my collar. My branding. My security blanket. My queen-maker. My tell to the world that I belonged to the man brandishing the flogger.

  I would have been miserable. I would have looked at the sea, at the gently rippling blue, at the glitter of sunlight, and hated it. Hated that it was so calm, when inside me there would have been chaos. A swirling maelstrom of misery. I’d glare at it, all the while wishing time could slow, just for a day or two. Wishing one second was one minute—that one day was one year.

  Wishing that I wouldn’t have to leave him.

  But he had said something. He had made a move. He had taken a chance, a risk—played Russian roulette with his heart. Dean had made me his, and so, today, I could look at the water and smile.

  Well, smile as best I could—gagged.

  Tomorrow we’d be boarding Dean’s private jet once more. Two new people would climb those steps and buckle themselves in. Two individuals who had changed, in my opinion, for the better.

  But we would still play our games.

  Dean had two new ones to pass the time between Saint Thomas and New York. He’d been rather tight-lipped about it—and I couldn’t wait.

  Unfortunately, that hadn’t been the only thing he had been tight-lipped about. After his run-in with Richard at the gala, after what he’d said, Dean had spent yesterday afternoon on a video call with his dad. Although he had left the office smiling when all was said and done, I still didn’t know exactly what they had talked about. Dean had explained that he wouldn’t be working with his family anymore, but the details beyond that were a mystery.

  As far as I was concerned, they could stay a mystery until he was ready to talk. All that mattered to me was that he was okay.

  And from the way he’d ridden me into the night, using my hair like reins, full of mocking smiles and denied orgasms—Dean had seemed okay.

  Time would tell. He had seemed okay when we returned from the gala, shared the bottle of champagne between us, then made love on the beach until sunrise. But then he had gone quiet until his video confere
nce. Even now, a day later, I still braced for the fallout. This was his family. This was his life. This wasn’t fantasy anymore.

  Well—this was fantasy.

  The flogger cracked across my ass, mercilessly, and I yelped, squirming in place.

  This, the trip’s crowning glory, our grand finale, was pure, unadulterated, filthy fantasy—for both of us.

  As pain bloomed, the blow warming my skin, I looked back to the sea again. So calm and peaceful—it belied the journey ahead. Sure, we were in love. While Candace would still get her cut of this arrangement, Elysium was out of the picture, and then what? Dean and I had talked about the fact that we were in a bubble here, that this paradise wasn’t real life. As soon as we stepped onto the tarmac in New York, we were going to have to figure it out: our relationship, our dynamic, our professional futures. Nerves plagued me. Excitement burned me.

  But fear…

  Wearing my collar, there was no fear.

  It might be a bumpy road, but I couldn’t wait for the ride. I wasn’t scared of it anymore—the unknown future.

  Forget the first rule of escorting.

  No. Fuck the first rule of escorting. I had fallen in love with my client. No more limbo. Now—now my life could take off like it was always supposed to.

  Another ruthless crack of the flogger, the pain sharpening, the heat intensifying, blazing across my ass, my thighs. I wriggled in place, forearms tense, knees aching, and tried to move forward—but I was stuck. Dean had seen to that when he attached a leash to my pink leather collar and wrapped it around a tree trunk. I had expected that. He had walked me around on my hands and knees like a dog, naked, leash and collar and everything. I just hadn’t expected the second leash.

  It also attached to my collar—and tied around a palm on the other side of the trail. The towering twins that marked the end of the path from Dean’s house down to the beach—he had tied me between them, the leather leashes taut, no give. I couldn’t crawl away even if I wanted to.