by Chloe Cox
Had she gotten anything good?
She’d gotten the best of her life. He hadn’t even had sex with her, though she would have begged him. Would have begged. Instead Cole gave her something else: the knowledge that she really was a submissive. He’d pushed her into a space where she’d been weightless, free. Where she just existed. And now she knew it wasn’t just a fantasy. It was part of her.
So yeah, “good” didn’t quite cover it. Neither did “terrifying.”
“No,” she said, looking back up at Faulkner. “I’m sorry, Mr. Faulkner, but as far as I could tell, the club and Spencer Cole were both on the up and up. They were actually really nice. But I wanted to tell you that I would be happy to help you with any other—”
“Did you fuck him?”
Bette was so shocked by the actual words that for a moment she just froze, dumbfounded.
“I said,” Faulkner repeated, drawing the words out for her, “did you fuck him?”
“No,” she said, blinking. “And that’s none of your business.”
Red flushed Faulkner’s face. His jowls trembled under the three-day beard that made his face look so dirty. Spreading his hands on the desk, he levered himself to his feet and leaned forward. He looked her up and down again, this time with naked contempt.
“Christ,” he sneered. He looked up, like he actually expected a heavenly acknowledgement. “Why are the hot ones always so dumb? Listen, you airhead. Spencer Cole isn’t clean, because no one is fucking clean.”
Bette had to fight back tears for one dumb microsecond, not because she wasn’t used to gross dudes saying horrible things to her, but because some part of her actually agreed with him: everyone was dirty, no one was safe, nothing could be trusted. Hell, that was how she’d ended up in this office, having this conversation.
But damn it, she did not want that to be true. She was not going to teach Lizzie that. And she was not going to let Faulkner take what Cole had given her. She believed in Cole as Dom. She’d seen it.
Slowly, calmly, Bette made herself give a stupid, placating smile. Then she asked, “What exactly do you need from me in order to give the court a positive report about the home life I offer my sister, Mr. Faulkner?”
For a long moment, Faulkner just stared at her. Bette legitimately wondered if he was going to hit her.
But he only picked up a pen and then threw it down. “You know what I want,” he said. “Get your pretty little ass back to that sex club. If you can’t get me proof that Cole is breaking the law, then focus on the sick shit that goes on in that place. If it looks illegal—hell, even if it doesn’t—bring it back to me.”
“And then you’ll talk to the judge for me,” she said, her voice sounding hollow.
Faulkner dropped down into his chair and leaned back. “And then I’ll think about it.”
Fury flashed through her. “Why do you even care about this?”
Faulkner smiled as he smoothed down his comb-over, laughing at his own private joke. “It’s my job to care when I think people are being exploited,” he said.
Bette said nothing. She’d known Faulkner was a bad guy, but she hadn’t known he enjoyed being a bad guy. She was beginning to think she was seriously out of her depth.
Of course, it could always get worse.
“Now.” Faulkner said, letting his eyes rest on her one last time. “Get out of here, Barbie doll. I’m sure you can figure out some way to use that body of yours to get what I want. Unless,” he added, his twisted smile widening, “You want me to call your ex-husband? I’m sure Mark Duvall would be happy to pull your sister out of foster care. I could write a man like that a recommendation, easy.”
Well, there it was. Bette stared dully at the man threatening her little sister. She’d always known that was the undercurrent of all of these conversations, but to have it said out loud was something else.
“Of course not,” she murmured. Some part of her took a back seat as her body remembered how to look deferential. “I’ll get you what you need, Mr. Faulkner. You don’t have to do anything like that.”
Faulkner leaned back, his chair squeaking in protest. He smiled.
“Good,” he said. “Now let me watch you walk away.”
Bette forced a smile as she rose from her seat. She forced herself to move normally, as if she couldn’t feel Bob Faulkner’s evil eyes on her the whole time. She forced herself to keep it together all the way back to her car.
Where she proceeded to scream and cry and hit the steering wheel in the privacy of her little car cocoon.
What the hell was she going to do? Bette couldn’t try to frame an innocent man in a million years. She just didn’t have it in her.
And she couldn’t give up on Lizzie. She wouldn’t. She would die first.
What the hell was she going to do?
One thing was clear: she was going to have to go back to Club Volare. After running out of there with her tail between her legs, she was going to have to go back. And she was going to have to face Cole.
10
Years of working nights with the force before he’d joined the agency had conditioned Cole not to need much sleep. What he did need was a way to dial back the stress of his job. Lots of guys drank, which was stupid and got people hurt. Lots of guys slept around, which was slightly less stupid, but still got people hurt.
Cole dominated.
Vanilla sex didn’t do it. It wasn’t the sex that pulled him out of his head. It was the submission of a willing sub, offered up with utter trust and faith—everything else fell away in that moment. It brought him back to what was real, what was good. It brought him back to humanity.
And now that was compromised, because he couldn’t get Bette the lying sub out of his damn mind.
He shook his head as he made his way past the front desk at Club Volare, remembering the last time he was there. Get your head on straight, Cole.
Chances of finding a sub available during the afternoon at Club Volare were higher than one might expect, but it wasn’t just any woman he was looking for when he strode into the cool, elegant mansion. Hell, if he was being smart, he wasn’t looking for a woman at all.
He needed space to think.
First, there was the Duvall case. Cole prided himself on keeping a professional detachment from his cases, but Mark Duvall had already tested that commitment. The more Cole found out about the stuff he was into, the more Cole wanted to nail him.
But now there was a little girl involved. And Cole still couldn’t find a thing on her. He had the address of the couple who was taking care of her, and they were in the foster system, and everyone had a good opinion of them. But nothing on the little girl—no name, no nothing. Either the records hadn’t been updated yet, or, more likely, someone had pulled them.
But it meant the stakes were higher. He would do whatever he could to protect that child. He just didn’t know what that was yet.
So the little girl was why he had to clear his mind. But his lying sub Bette was the reason he couldn’t.
The juxtaposition of those two things should have thrown him off the mood entirely, but he was feeling protective over Bette anyway. He’d pushed her to give him some little scrap of the truth—her name, her real name, what she called herself inside her own head—and the more time passed, the more Cole wondered whether he’d done that for her sake, or to sate his own curiosity. His own hunger. He’d never wanted a woman like that. Never felt anything like that, what it was like to feel her come around his hand, that connection between them. Not even with his ex-wife.
Christ, just thinking about it made him hard.
But it didn’t matter. His ex-wife had still taught him a few things. A sub who was less than honest was not the sub for him.
Nevertheless, his lying sub haunted him. Right up until his gaze crossed the bar, and he saw her.
Bette. The lying sub. Back in his club.
Still blonde, still beautiful as hell. Less make up this time, less artifice. Even less confidence.
She was huddled up to the bar, folded around that barstool like she was trying to make herself as small as possible.
The vulnerability made him ache. The fact that she came back made him rock hard. The idea of any other Dom getting anywhere near her made him an animal.
“Hard to walk away from a woman like her, isn’t it?” Gavin was standing at the edge of the room by the foyer, where the equipment was stored, running his hands down a length of rope, checking for fray.
Cole didn’t even turn his head. He recognized Gavin’s voice, and he wasn’t going to let Bette out of his sight this time.
“I take it you got my message,” Cole said.
He’d left Gavin a detailed note, explaining the outline of what had happened with Bette. Just the important facts: her ID was fake, and would come back that way, and in Cole’s opinion she was a true sub in need of help. So it would need to be dealt with.
He hadn’t felt the need to mention why he might not be the Dom for the job. Gavin already knew. Cole had made sure everybody knew everything when he’d applied for membership.
“I did,” Gavin said. “The name on her driver’s license doesn’t concern me as much as what’s going on inside her head. Now I’m just wondering why you haven’t taken her on yourself already.”
Cole glowered, but he didn’t take his eyes off Bette. He couldn’t, for some goddamn reason.
“You know why,” he said. “My track record with subs who lie to me is lousy.”
“Your track record consists of one ex-wife who recanted her accusations,” Gavin said, mildly.
“If you can call it that, sure.”
Cole’s ex-wife, Lottie, hadn’t recanted exactly, and she hadn’t apologized, but she’d come as close as Lottie ever would. She’d written a letter to Cole after the divorce went through, wishing him well. Her exact words were, “When I go to the mat, it’s no holds barred. You know that.”
Cole had known that. In retrospect, it had been one of the things that drew him to her in the first place, and it had been the first clue that they were all wrong for each other. Lottie had been a sexual submissive who was terrified of being known, and lashed out in indirect, manipulative ways when she felt threatened. Cole had been a Dom who wanted to know her. They’d each reminded each other of people they’d known in the past. Bad combination.
“To me, that makes you the most qualified Dom here,” Gavin said.
“Interesting take.”
“You have chemistry with her. She’s a natural sub. I don’t know what got her through my doors but I’m not going to turn her away without making sure she gets the help she needs to figure out her sub side. Out of all the Doms under this roof last night, she turned to you.” Gavin looked up, gave him a shrewd, scrutinizing look. “You paid a hell of a lot in club cred in order to get her off that stage, Cole. The entire NOLA community heard you stake your claim. So it won’t be easy for me to find a local Dom willing to teach her, but I will find someone if I have to.”
Cole rolled his neck. He knew what Gavin was doing. But he still had to play along. “No,” he said. “You will not.”
Gavin laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Cole didn’t answer. He watched as Bette started to relax a little bit, pushing her hair out of her eyes, starting to maybe look around at what was on offer.
Just then, her phone chimed.
She swiveled and reached for her bag on the stool next to her. The way her face lit up when she saw who had texted her—Jesus.
She had the kind of smile that could bring a dead man back to life.
So damn open that for a minute, he forgot everything except the night before. The way her big, vulnerable eyes had switched back and forth between desire and trust, fear and bravery. The way she’d picked him out of the auction crowd, turning instinctively to their connection in a time of need.
He hadn’t lied to her. She could have saved herself from what was happening on that stage. It wasn’t protection she was looking for when she locked eyes with him.
And goddammit, he wanted to give her exactly what she needed.
“I trust you,” Gavin was saying. “Do you trust yourself?”
That almost got Cole to turn away from Bette, who was now looking around the room while nervously tearing napkins to shreds. Almost. Even if Gavin weren’t pulling his benevolent Club Master routine, Cole could see with his own eyes that Bette was lost, and scared, and needed guidance.
“Point taken,” Cole said. “Fine. She’s still mine. But that means I’m going to do it my way.”
And Cole’s way meant two things: one, he would have to find a way to keep his distance from his new sub. The way she’d gotten to him in that light scene had been like a direct electrical jolt to the heart. He didn’t understand it, but he didn’t need to. It had left him compromised. Clouded his judgment. He wouldn’t let that happen again. This would be a pure D/s arrangement, nothing more.
And two…he’d get to the truth, one way or the other. He would get Bette to open up to him, one secret—and one leg—at a time.
It had taken Bette a full hour of nail biting out in the parking lot to work up the courage to walk back into Club Volare.
She hadn’t stopped thinking about Cole the whole time.
The way she felt when he did…whatever it was he did. Waved some magic Dom wand over her until she was drunk on glittery sub dust, a velvety abrasion that stripped her down to this frighteningly raw honesty, so that she didn’t have to hide all those secret, half-formed desires. To want what she wanted, and be wanted for it.
Even if she’d wanted to hide how she felt or what she wanted, Cole would see through her. And like a crazy adrenaline freak, Bette couldn’t stop thinking about it. She’d hidden behind something—an act, her body, whatever—her entire life. She didn’t even know what it would be like not to hide who she really was—except for that messy orgasm with Spencer freaking Cole.
Which was a freaking problem, because Bob Faulkner was essentially blackmailing her to get “something” on Cole, the man she couldn’t – wouldn’t – hide from. Bette wasn’t formally trained in logic or anything, but she knew a conflict when she freaking saw one.
Could she tell Cole the truth? The full truth? The whole shebang, Mark, Faulkner, Lizzie, all of it?
The stakes…the stakes were so high. The stakes were Lizzie. Bette tore a napkin up into little microscopic pieces while sitting at that bar, going over it in her head. The truth was she couldn’t think about Cole without getting wet. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to look at him without feeling his hand on her ass. And she wouldn’t be able to look into his eyes without feeling what she felt before – safe, somehow. It made her want to tell him. God, what a freaking relief! If she told him, and he understood, and maybe even that he could help her…
Dangerous thinking, Bette. You’re not in love. You don’t even know him.
And if she got kicked out of Club Volare, she was really screwed. Bob Faulkner was obviously lying about both the club and Cole; these people had kicked that Mason tool out for merely grabbing her arm. The lady at the front desk had told her when she walked in, in between apologizing, and then even the owner, that Gavin guy, had come over to see if she was ok. Bette had worked in strip clubs with less concern for her safety, and she only worked the safest clubs. The ones with the really scary bouncers.
What the hell was she going to do? Should she tell Cole? Or just buy time while she figured out what to do about Faulkner?
It was while she was thinking herself in circles, getting all worked up, that her phone pinged. She yanked it out of her bag faster than should be humanly possible, because she’d been trained to expect texts from Lizzie at certain times. This would be right before she got down to homework.
Yup. Lizzie. Suddenly everything became clear again.
She shoved everything aside as she typed a response to her sister, the brightest spot in her currently confusing life. Lizzie still hadn’t lost her sparkle e
ven with everything she’d been through. She was just full of enthusiasm and amusing observations about a grim world. Bette was relieved and beyond grateful that her sister was doing ok—for now, anyway, and thanks entirely to the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, who were her sweet, kind foster parents. They had lucked the hell out there. It could have been much, much worse.
But then Lizzie texted something that made Bette’s heart stop.
“Mark came yesterday…”
Bette’s smile died an abrupt death. While she was furiously thumb typing, Lizzie texted again.
“I told him I didn’t want to see him, and then Mr. Palmer told him to go away. You should have seen his face :)”
Thank God for Mr. Palmer.
Bette deleted her crazy panicked message and composed herself long enough to tell Lizzie she was a badass, and that she couldn’t wait to see her on Thursday. Bette tried not to let Lizzie see her be scared, or worried. She wanted her to feel safe, like Bette knew what she was doing. But Bette had been Lizzie’s de facto parent for four years, at this point, and she still never knew if she was doing it right. And parenting while divorcing a rich, powerful, ruthless man who saw Lizzie as a pawn in a game of “who can hurt their ex the most”? That was some triple-diamond-level parenting, right there. Add literal blackmail from a social worker, and Bette felt like she was training for the parenting Olympics.
It still killed her that Lizzie had to think about any of this at all. It still felt like failure. And Bette was not going to fail her little sister.
On the other hand, according to the texts that kept pinging her phone, Lizzie was going out to get ice cream with Mrs. Palmer and didn’t seem too bothered by any of it. That kid was tougher than anyone Bette had ever met. It made Bette smile. There were times when she loved her little sister so much that her chest actually hurt.
Like now. She signed off so Lizzie could eat her ice cream and do her homework, and let herself enjoy it.
Bette closed her eyes, letting the brief panic of the Mark sighting leave her body. She was at Club Volare for a reason. And if she didn’t get her head right, Cole would freaking know. Then she’d have no choice but to tell him.