by Chloe Cox
There was a tense moment, and then the older kid—man, he really was just a kid—let his shoulders slump, and all the fight went out of him. He looked too damn tired to be a kid.
“Yeah,” he said, finally. “Ok. I’m sorry, miss.”
Cole nodded at the kid, a sign of respect. He’d earned it. Then he kept his word—sort of. He moved off down the alley, and pretended to make the phone call he would make later, from the office, accompanied by a lot of paperwork that was going to make Mascolo and Turnbull’s lives difficult for a few weeks. He wanted the paper trail, and he wanted the official record.
And he wanted to observe how Bette worked whatever magic she was currently working.
Turned out it wasn’t complicated. Just kindness, respect, empathy.
“For what it’s worth, I thought you handled that really well,” he heard Bette say. “You did exactly what you needed to do.”
“I’m not a pussy,” the older kid said, the first wall of his defenses beginning to crumble.
“You were smart,” Bette said. “You bought time and you got away safe.”
You could see the weight lift off the older one’s shoulders. He’d been afraid, and humiliated, and unmanned. Cole remembered what that felt like at that age. The intensity of it. It was no minor thing.
So Cole watched with appreciation as his Bette practically transformed those hard-edged wannabe men into the light-hearted kids they deserved to be, all in the space of about five minutes.
She was a goddamn marvel. In a world full of dirtbags like Mascolo and Turnbull, a world run by king dirtbags like Mark Duvall, Bette Liffey was a damn marvel.
But she was a marvel who’d disobeyed an order from her Dom. Cole smiled. It was going to be an interesting evening.
22
Bette seriously had no intention of disobeying an order from her Dom, but, well, it had turned out to be kind of necessary.
She really had meant to stay in the car. But after she saw those excessive-force-enthusiast cops leave—and seriously, the fact that she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d seen them before was driving her absolutely crazy—she figured the danger was gone. And if there had been one last remaining shred of doubt that Bob Faulkner’s version of Spencer Cole and the actual Spencer Cole had nothing to do with each other, watching Cole get righteously angry at cops who abused their power would have obliterated it entirely. So after Cole had dispensed with the dirty cops, Bette couldn’t resist. She’d popped her head up to get a proper look at her Dom being a badass, and then she’d seen the faces on those poor kids.
Bette had always been good with body language. She’d had to get good at reading her parents’ moods when she was a kid if she wanted to know when to be out of harm’s way. So she took it all in immediately.
The little one, getting smaller and smaller. The older one, trying to make himself bigger, just to hide how scared he was. And poor Cole, trying to do the right thing, and having no shot in hell of getting through to those boys under the circumstances. Cole’s natural dominance and, honestly, just his sheer size, would make him intimidating even if he were dressed in a giant pink bunny outfit. There was approximately zero chance those boys were going to open up to him.
So she had to get out of the car, no matter what Cole had told her to do. And it wasn’t until later, after they’d taken the boys—Darren, who was twelve, and his little cousin James, who was ten—for burgers, and Cole had gotten them to light up like two little Christmas trees by talking about some Japanese cartoon called Dragonball Z, that Bette had time to think about the fact that she’d actually disobeyed a direct order.
And of course, disobedience probably still meant discipline. And the very thought of that had Bette squirming in her seat, all the way back to Cole’s house.
Which was good. Preferable, even. Because she didn’t dare think about what it had felt like to see Cole with those boys, taking care of them, dropping them off at home, having a chat with their mothers. Just overall being the kind of man that…
Well. That was the sort of danger zone where Bette could lose her heart. Much better to let her mind wander over the many methods of discipline Spencer Cole probably had available at his house.
“We’re here,” Cole said.
Bette looked up, startled. He’d approached his house from the opposite direction than she had on her way there, and she hadn’t recognized the street in the dark. That meant they’d been together for a few hours already. It had felt like no time at all.
Definitely the danger zone.
“It was nice of you to take the boys home,” Bette said into the silence. Cole brought the car to a stop, and maybe it was the low light, maybe it was the rapid fire pace of her own heartbeat, but for some freaking reason, she couldn’t stop herself from what she said next.
“You’d be a really good dad.”
As soon as it was out of her mouth, Bette felt somehow naked. Exposed. Because it was true, and because she realized how much she cared about this man that she was still, somehow, lying to. Even that had been an excuse for her brain to be all, “just tell him the truth! A good dad would understand why you lied to protect Lizzie!”
As if she could hope to explain that and…what? Have him just forgive her? Have it all work out like some sort of fairytale?
Bette had tried a fairytale, once. With Mark. Which had sort of confirmed that fairytales were not, in fact, real.
Cole still hadn’t said anything. He didn’t even move, not even to look at her. He was staring at something off in the distance, something she couldn’t see.
“Thank you,” he said finally.
And then, without another word, he got out of the car. Bette didn’t know what to do. For a second she thought she’d screwed up irreparably, that she’d made it too real or something, that she’d broken some rule. She realized she didn’t know much about Cole, either. Maybe less than he knew about her.
The freaking irony.
What if he already had kids? Kids he couldn’t see because of the divorce he mentioned? What if that was his worst wound, and she’d just poked it like an idiot?
She watched him walk around the front of the car, and she realized she was literally holding her breath. The distance that opened up between them after she’d said that was starting to feel intolerable. She wanted to know him. All of him, not just the Dom. She wanted to know everything that made Cole, Cole.
Because maybe if she did, she could find a way to tell him the truth about Mark, about Faulkner, about everything.
Good Lord, she wanted this to be real. And that was freaking terrifying.
Suddenly he was there, right beside her door, the window open. He opened her door and said, “Get in the house, sub. Now.”
This time, Bette didn’t hesitate to obey.
She jumped up and out of the car and speed walked, her thighs rubbing together and the pressure between her legs building the whole way. Her body was primed, just from his voice, but her mind…
Her mind was losing it. She’d pushed too far. Cole had been very clear that this was only a Dom/sub arrangement, nothing more, even if it felt like more. Even if she wanted more.
Say something, she said to herself as the silence began to feel heavy, and she realized she didn’t have keys to his freaking house. She watched him unlock the door, her mind screaming at her to fix whatever it was she’d broken by telling him he’d be a good dad. Say something, say something, say something.
“How did you know where the boys lived?” she asked.
Cole stopped, his hand on the door knob, and looked at her. Silently, Bette cursed her over-active mind. Because that is what anxiety-fueled paranoia will do: make you ask questions you’re not sure you want the answers to. Cole had never asked for an address. He’d asked the boys about where they wanted to go, but they’d just said “home.” It had piqued Bette’s curiosity at the time, but now, with her brain whirring at ninety miles an hour, it worried her. Because there was enough worry in her life to
spill over into literally everything.
“I called it in when you were helping them order their food,” Cole said. “They’d given me enough information to work with, but I wanted to check that their address of record was safe for them. Figured they could tell me that.”
Bette could feel her eyes getting big. They’d given him “enough information to work with.” And Cole had been able to find out all their details with just a quick phone call.
In all the time Bette had spent with him, what were the odds that she hadn’t given him enough information to work with, too?
Did he know?
Had he known everything, all this time?
Bette opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She almost hoped he knew everything. It would be such a relief. It would be…
Cole was watching her. Suddenly she heard the click of the lock, and he swung the door open into darkness. Without saying a word, he took her hand, the heat of his touch coursing through her body, and led her inside.
Bette stepped into the dark.
Cole closed the door behind them, and pushed her up against it. His body was hard and strong and hot against hers, and it called to hers. But he didn’t say anything. Didn’t do anything but look at her, hard.
Then he kissed her.
And goddammit, it worked. Her brain melted. Her thoughts crumbled, like castles made of sand. She forgot about the world outside, except for the way he touched her.
When he pulled away, he was breathing hard.
“I will never do that with you, Bette,” he said. His eyes almost seemed to burn. “You’re not some street kid in need of a break. You make your own choices. And when you trust me, it will be a choice. That’s the only way this works.”
“I know,” she said, and realized it was true. “Because you’re fair. And you don’t want me to know about your life, either. So you’re not going to go digging.”
An unreadable expression flashed across Cole’s face. Almost like he was surprised, but he’d never show it.
“What do you want to know?” he said, finally.
Oh my God, what are you doing? Her brain knew this was a terrible idea. She shouldn’t be trying to get closer to Spencer Cole. It would only get her heart broken. But standing there, in his dark house, with only the light from the porch to illuminate the rough lines of his face, the planes of the muscles underneath his dress shirt, and the spark in his eyes…
Her body didn’t give a flying fuck what her brain thought.
“How did your wife lie to hurt you?” she asked.
For a second Cole’s face hardened. Bette blinked. It was the same face he’d made that first night, when he told her she was lying. It was a look she never wanted to earn ever again.
“My ex-wife,” he said. “Lorrie. Claimed I’d hurt her as a Dom. That it was abusive. She recanted, later, after the divorce, but the damage was done. Before that I’d gone up against a precinct of cops on the take in Chicago, and when they got wind of it, it was game over.”
Bette stared at him.
“You were blackmailed,” she said flatly.
“That’s one way to put it.”
She put her hands on his chest, just because she needed to feel him solid, near her, protecting her, caring for her, the way she’d known him so far, while this fucking chasm opened up beneath her feet.
Blackmail. About BDSM. Basically the same thing Bob Faulkner wanted to do to him, using Bette to do it. Faulkner had to have known about what happened in Chicago with his ex-wife and whoever, had to have known a second accusation would stick. But how…?
“Bette,” he said.
His voice brought her out of her head and into her body, the way it always did. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around him, and nestled against his broad chest, where she could hear the beating of his big heart, and sighed. This was all kinds of fucked up, and she couldn’t even tell him about it.
“Look at me, sub,” he said, gently, and guided her chin up. “Gavin and Holt all know, because I told them. There was an investigation. I made sure of it. My name has been cleared. But you will tell me if you need to take a step back, now. There will be no punishment for that, no discipline. I’m a Dom. I don’t need subs that are afraid of me. At least not for the wrong reasons.”
Oh, fuck. He was worried about her?
Of course he was. But that wasn’t what was bothering her. It was how quickly he’d turned it from something personal to something…not. He told her the facts, but not the actual truth – no emotion, no vulnerability. Bette recognized it because it was something she was good at.
“I don’t need to take a step back,” she said.
Liar. You’re falling for a man you don’t deserve, and that you can’t have.
“Good,” he said. “Because there’s a corruption case now. A really bad guy. A guy who really does hurt women. And I’m supposed to let it go, but I can’t. After all that, I just fucking can’t. But he’s powerful, and I don’t want it blowing back on you. That’s why I didn’t want those cops to see you today. And that’s why this stays a quiet arrangement. Just Dom and sub, in this little bubble, where it's safe for you. Understood?”
Did she understand?
Bette blinked. She’d been right. He wanted her as his sub—and nothing more. Just like he’d said. No relationship, no romance, no attachment.
“Sub,” he said. And the look in his gray eyes nearly undid her. “Do you understand?”
“I have a sister,” she blurted out. “A little sister. She’s my entire world. She doesn’t live with me now, but I’m working on it. And I would do anything…anything…to protect her. So I understand. I think.”
Cole stared at her, hard. Hard enough that Bette realized she’d never said that to anyone, before. She’d never talked about how ashamed she was that Lizzie had been taken from her. Never even admitted to herself that maybe, sometimes, she was afraid they were right—that Bette didn’t deserve to be the person who cared for Lizzie. That maybe her little cuddle gremlin was better off with the Palmers.
In another second, she would have cried.
Cole didn’t give her another second.
He pulled her hips into him, hard, his big hands heavy on her soft flesh, his eyes boring into hers. The way he looked at her short-circuited every thought in her head. Confident, strong, unafraid. When he looked at her like that, it was like nothing in the world could possibly go wrong.
“Look at me,” he said. “She is lucky to have you.”
Maybe it was the way he said it, but for the first time, Bette actually believed it. And she just…stopped. Stopped worrying about the future, stopped worrying about the fact that she was falling in love with a man who didn’t want more, and wouldn’t ever know who she really was.
And then he kissed her.
His mouth on hers, hungry and hot and dominating. Claiming. His tongue ravishing, his lips surprisingly soft, the stubble on his face harsh. He blotted out the whole damn world.
When he pulled away, she was panting.
“You did disobey an order,” Cole said, looking down at her, the hint of a smile on his lips. “I’m not going to punish you, because your intentions were good, and your instincts were right. But you’re still not sure you can trust me, sub. And that’s going to change. Starting now.”
He reached out with one hand, and flicked a light switch. Bette’s eyes went wide as she looked around the room. There was a lot of…equipment.
“Is this all for me?” she said.
Cole laughed, his deep voice touching her somewhere no one else could reach.
“It’s for me, sub,” he said. “Now strip.”
23
Cole looked out at his living room, seeing what his sub saw, for the first time. Much of his muted, leather, masculine furniture doubled as some kind of BDSM apparatus. Given the turn of a knob or a pull on a lever an ergonomic settee turned into a serviceable spanking bench, that kind of thing. He’d built almost all of it himself.
And while normally Cole was a planner—his style was controlled, planned scenes, carried out with the precision of a field op—but something about Bette made him want to feel it out, play to the rhythm between them. Maybe because she surprised him. Maybe because she had something to give. Either way, the result was that he’d brought out all the toys, because he wanted options.
Bette was staring, wide-eyed. Good. Not as good: she was stunned into silence, and stillness. Possibly because of whatever the hell had been going on inside her head just a moment ago. Cole had his suspicions, but whatever it was, he was going to replace it.
“I said strip, sub,” he growled.
Bette blinked, and then began to move. He helped unzip that lightly patterned sundress, watched the edges fall over her smooth shoulders. Now he watched as she slowly shimmied the dress down past her breasts, her warm, smooth belly, her full, round hips. She was wearing a matching strapless bra and panties, and Cole had to restrain himself from ripping them off of her. No use confusing a sub with conflicting orders. Especially a sub, that, every time she looked up at him with those big brown eyes, told him that she was slipping further and further into subspace.
That was a gift. He knew what it was worth. But fuck him if he didn’t get more and more attracted to her, every time he saw her. Especially now. Especially like this.
Naked, bare. Stripped of all defenses. Looking up at him, because she was his.
Cole reached out, touched her cheek. She leaned into it, her eyes half closing. He slipped his hand back, to the nape of her neck, and fisted her hair, pulling her head back, exposing her throat. Her breasts trembled as she took a breath, and his cock thickened.
He was firing off pure instinct now. Years ago, his instincts had told him there was something wrong with his ex, and he’d set them aside with rationality and appeals to his marriage vows and a bunch of other shit. That had been his mistake.