Belle (Unbowed Novels Book 1) Read online

  Belle

  Unbowed Novels, #1

  Liz Meldon

  Copyright 2018 Liz Meldon

  Published by Liz Meldon, Amazon Edition. All rights reserved.

  License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons or situations is unintentional and coincidental. References or mention of trademarks are not intended to infringe on trademark status. Any trademarks referenced or used is done so with full acknowledgement of trademarked status and their respective owners. The use of any mentioned trademarks is not sponsored or authorized by the trademark owner.

  If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to purchase their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-989261-01-9

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  February

  Belle: Part 1

  1. Belle

  House Rule #4

  2. Dean

  3. Belle

  House Schedule (Monday–Saturday)

  House Rule #7

  4. Dean

  House Rule #1

  5. Belle

  6. Dean

  House Rule #13

  7. Belle

  8. Dean

  House Rule #16

  9. Belle

  10. Dean

  11. Belle

  House Rule #17

  12. Belle

  House Rule #2

  13. Belle

  14. Dean

  March

  Belle: Part 2

  House Rule #5

  1. Belle

  2. Belle

  House Rule #11

  3. Belle

  4. Dean

  5. Dean

  6. Belle

  7. Dean

  8. Dean

  House Rule #3

  9. Belle & Dean

  10. Belle

  House Rule #19

  11. Belle

  House Rule #8

  12. Belle & Dean

  House Rule #21: Addendum

  Epilogue: Belle

  Thanks for reading!

  Never miss a release again!

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my fantastic beta reader Amanda for all your love, support, and passion. You always let me know if I’m on the right track. I’d be lost without you. Shout-out to my phenomenal proofreader Phoenix, for catching my errors with poise and tact, and offering a point of view that always makes me stop and think.

  Much love to my author besties group, my sun and stars, and my parents for being incredibly supportive of this journey. A huge shout-out to the amazing #bookstagram community for all your love and support! Last, and certainly not least, a great many thanks to my readers. Without you, there’s nothing but me and my imagination.

  Cover art courtesy of the amazing Daqri at Covers by Combs.

  February

  Belle: Part 1

  Rule #1: Never fall in love with the client.

  Belle

  I'm terrified.

  I've never done this before—two months on a private island, isolated from the rest of the world, just me and my new client.

  A client who wants my unwavering submission.

  What if I'm a horrible submissive? What if I fail?

  Worst of all—what if I fall for the man I know I can't have?

  Protect your heart, Belle, I tell myself. Protect it when he smiles at you, kisses you, binds you. Don't let Dean Donahue have it, as tempted as you are to surrender it.

  Because escorts don't get fairy tale endings. We get paid.

  Dean

  I've wanted her from the first moment I saw her.

  Belle Bennet, escort. Darling Belle, sweet girl, on her knees, bound and gagged, writhing in pleasure—or pain. The choice is mine.

  She is mine. Perfect in her naivety, she's the submissive I've been waiting my whole life to claim.

  And for the next two months, I intend to have her—mind, body, and soul—any damn way I see fit.

  The Unbowed series is made up of duet standalone romances featuring escorts and the rich, alpha men who love them. It contains steamy content, including consensual kink, and may not be suitable for all readers.

  1

  Belle

  Friday, February 1st

  “How would you like me to fuck you, baby?”

  Oh god. I pressed my lips together, trying not to smile incredulously; it took everything I had in me not to snort in this very drunk, very sweaty gentleman’s face. Candace had a whole mountain of rules for her associates to follow—and not laughing was one of them. Demure chuckles and a bad case of the giggles could be absolutely fine, depending on the situation.

  But you didn’t laugh at Elysium’s patrons—ever.

  The whole purpose of this underground kink haven was that our clients and their guests could feel comfortable in their sexuality. Let their freak flag fly—all that. To be laughed at… Well, it kind of killed the mood, and was very much an affront to the club’s ethos.

  Still, this guy had no chance of getting anywhere near me. Not tonight, two minutes out from closing time, and not ever, if I had my way.

  Always the professional, I slapped on a charmed hundred-watt smile and tipped my head to the side, making sure to flip my blonde curls. The art of distraction—most of us knew how to employ it effectively. His glazed-over stare tracked the curls. Both of us leaned against the top-floor bar, the one at the back usually only frequented by employees in need of a drink. I had a water pending; many went for something harder to get them through a shift.

  Thankfully, I’d never needed alcohol to survive a night at Elysium.

  Unlike many in the sex industry, I actually enjoyed my job.

  Though I enjoyed it a little less with this guy’s rank breath huffing in my face.

  “Water for the lady.”

  Cue my knight in shining armor: Dan—twenty-six, part-time bartender, full-time law student at NYU—appeared right when I needed him. He set my enormous glass of water on the bartop, a straw bobbing between the dozen ice cubes, and then offered my gentleman caller a similar hundred-watt smile. To his credit, Dan’s smile seemed just as distracting as my hair flip, and I couldn’t blame the guy for taking notice. Dan Hill was model material; he’d done that part-time before Candace’s recruiting team scouted him. When he realized he could make triple what most minimum wagers earned in a week by working a few nights at Elysium, he’d signed his soul away on the dotted line, just like all the rest of us.

  Children of Hades.

  It was what the associates went by, keeping on theme with Elysium’s Greek mythology paradise schtick. Live out your wildest fantasies. Enter a judgement-free zone, where you are lord and master of all you survey. Let the children of the darkness cater to your every whim.

  You know—standard marketing stuff.

  Children of Hades, while ridiculous, sounded a lot better than escorts—or, more specifically, fetish escorts, which was what we all were.

  “Victor, my man,” Dan said, leaning over the bar and clapping the drunk on the shoulder. “Can I call you a cab? We’re thirty seconds away from closing shop.”

  Victor, in his rumpled suit that likely cost more than my rent, pointed at me. “But I—”

  “Belle’s spoken for,” Dan insisted as I discreetly grabbed my drink and backed away while he had Victor’s full attention. “But I know a fetching creature named Jade who’d be happy to wait with you until your car arrives.”<
br />
  I wrapped my lips around the straw and sucked, guzzling down nearly half the glass of freezing water as Dan sold Victor on Jade—Jade, whose sole job was to wait with patrons for cabs. She wasn’t just happy to do it—that was literally what she did all night, from open to close.

  Better than bathroom duty.

  Or cleanup duty, I guess.

  When Dan’s gaze met mine over Victor’s shoulder, I mouthed my thanks, cheeks warming when the bartender shot me a wink before refocusing on getting Victor out. By now, he’d probably forgotten all about me, especially when there was someone ready, willing, and able to put up with what was bound to be some very sloppy groping—until the car showed up, anyway.

  Mind you, Jade was known for occasionally hopping in the last car of the night, bumping up her earnings a few hundred dollars by spending the rest of the morning with a lucky patron. It wasn’t unheard of for the Children of Hades—guh, that name always got me—to go home with the men, women, and couples who frequented our fetish club, an underground den of sin beneath owner Candace’s Fifth Avenue fashion boutique, but that wasn’t for me. I didn’t do meet-ups either; I liked seeing all my faithful clients here, in the safety of the club, where there were rules, regulations, fines, and beefy bouncers.

  Well, I hadn’t done meet-ups—until six months ago.

  When I’d agreed to go away with a new client. Out of the country. Couriered by private jet to his private island for two whole months.

  Just him and me and the Caribbean Sea.

  Anxiety skittered through me, leaving my hands cold and my mouth dry, and I took another much-needed gulp of ice water, hating the way my heartbeat spiked just thinking about it. I’d had six months to prepare for this. I’d gone out with the client in question—Dean Donahue: thirty, Dominant, one-third owner of the Donahue real estate and hotel empire, billionaire in his own right—twice a month for coffee dates since all this had started. Candace called it a trial period, a courtship; she didn’t like sending any of her associates away with clients unless both parties were one hundred percent comfortable. It was the same for every escort who accepted a job outside of the city. The courtship differed from couple to couple, but the purpose was clear: to get to know the person you’d be spending a ridiculous amount of time with—for money.

  And I liked Dean. Given his wealth, status, and panty-melting good looks, I had gone into all this expecting the guy to be a snobby jerk. He wasn’t. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Dominant personality, sure, but that came with the territory.

  Still, our plane left tomorrow—oh, today, technically, at noon. My suitcases had been sitting by the front door of my studio apartment since yesterday—and the nerves had plagued me since last week. I couldn’t shake them, no matter how many pep talks I gave myself in the mirror, or how many times I smiled and nodded when coworkers told me how lucky I was.

  I just…

  It was scary. I wasn’t too proud to admit it. I was scared. Two months as a near stranger’s submissive?

  Scary.

  I let out a soft breath as the lights around Elysium turned up, switching from their dimmed setting to something much brighter. 3 AM—we were officially closed. When I had first started working here a year ago, I’d hated this time of night. Nothing said sleazy sex dungeon like lifting the mood light to reveal every seedy nook and cranny.

  In time, however, I had started to look forward to the place brightening up. No longer sleazy, no longer seedy, Elysium had become my home. I liked seeing her after a long night, standing strong as ever, memories of the full booths, the occupied playrooms, and the illuminated center stage on the lower level making me feel—whole.

  It was ridiculous—I knew that. Feeling whole and complete, like a well-rounded person, even though I worked six nights a week in a fetish club.

  But I loved it. The people, my escort family. The clients, the joy they got out of what we provided. The atmosphere. The costumes. The excitement. The thrill of each new night, of limitless possibilities.

  The judgement-free kink.

  3 AM. The curtain closed. The lights came up. The actors could become themselves again.

  Stabbing my straw into the big chunks of ice in my cup, I scanned the second floor for a familiar face. The cleanup crew had already begun to make their rounds, wiping down the red-leather half-moon booths that lined the walls up here. More lights flickered on, bright, giving the corridors that branched off from the main socializing arena a sterile look. Beyond, down the hallways, I knew the playrooms would be getting a thorough once-over, every surface, every toy, sanitized within an inch of its life and put back, ready for tomorrow’s performance.

  While I was free to go, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. Although—I crouched down to undo the straps of my six-inch stilettos, stepping out of each shoe with a moan. Another thing I loved about the lights coming up: I could finally take off my shoes. When I had first started here, I’d been doing strictly foot-fetish work in the playrooms, and I hadn’t needed to wear heels. Sure, some clients requested them, but that was for a maximum of two hours per client. The rest of the time, I usually swanned around Elysium either barefoot or in pillowy slippers, and then got to spoil myself with weekly spa treatments on the company dime.

  However, once I’d started dabbling in the Dom-sub scene, officially both a foot girl behind closed doors and a submissive performer on the grand stage, heels came with the territory. They were no less comfortable now than they’d been when I first shoved my pampered feet into them seven months ago.

  Drink in one hand, shoes in the other, I drifted toward the employee lounge with a sigh. Behind the black door with Children of Hades Only embossed across it in gold lettering, next to Dan’s bar, we had a huge locker room equipped with showers and washer-dryers. I shuffled along slowly, slurping the last of my water, not wanting to go in there—not wanting to put my everyday clothes back on, not wanting to go home.

  Not wanting tomorrow to come just yet, even though it already had.

  Mercifully, a familiar face finally caught my attention. What was supposed to be one last quick glance over my shoulder showed me Penny—twenty-eight, full-time kink escort, Elysium Domme—leaning against the railing near one of the booths, her heavy-lidded gaze cast down to the level below, a tumbler of scotch in hand. The upper floor had a giant cut-out in the center, opening to reveal the lower-level stage, cage, and dance area, permitting voyeurs to take in the shows.

  After leaving my spiky shoes next to the bar, I padded over to Penny and sidled right up beside her, nudging her voluptuous hips with my own, all the while pointedly ignoring the steep drop between this floor and the one below. The bump seemed to jolt her out of whatever thought had forced those crimson lips into a frown, and she straightened, her entire being seeming to lift when she looked up at me.

  “Hey, babydoll.” She smoothed a hand over her raven locks, not a single hair out of place, and gave me the customary Penny once-over. “How’s that ass?”

  My cheeks burned at the thought, and I swatted her away when she leaned over to check.

  “It’s fine,” I assured her, though it did suddenly smart a little, as if startled to be back in the presence of the woman who had beat on it mercilessly three hours earlier. Penny lingered, nonplussed by my attempts to squirm away, and pulled at the lace fringe of my little lingerie boyshorts.

  Three nights a week, I did a public scene with one of the professional Doms at Elysium. As per our request, Candace usually scheduled Penny and me together—and it worked out for us just fine. Not only were we best friends, but we paired well together for the patrons. Yin and yang. Angel and demon. Teacher and student. Dominant and submissive. Penny was the exotic counterpart to my innocent girl-next-door look. While I had to spend an hour before each shift curling my long, thick blonde hair, she could slick her black waves up in a high pony and call it a day. My makeup was light: pinks, creams, taupe—a lot of blush and concealer. Penny always rocked a wicked cat-eye and a bold lip.r />
  We were a dynamic duo. When I’d first made the tentative step into the submissive arena at Elysium, curious about exploring the lifestyle that had been a secret guilty pleasure of mine since I read my first spanking scene in an old romance paperback, and keen for a pay raise, Penny was the only one I trusted to guide me. Teach me. Train me—at least enough to please a crowd. Pleasing an individual Dom was different, she had always insisted, but playing it up for an audience was easy. Do as you’re told. Squeal. Be your character.

  Tonight had been the old angel and demon routine—and the demon was doing the punishing. Dressed in identical corset and lingerie getups, Penny had been the demon in black, I’d been the angel in white. Woe is me: I’d been captured by a terrible Mistress, and my stubborn self-righteousness had gotten me in trouble for the last time!

  Honestly, the crap the production guys come up with.

  I’d had to crawl around the stage, ball gag and all, while she flogged me—gentler than she would have with anyone else—for the eager crowd. We then finished our performance with a light paddling over a lucky patron’s knee. My screams had been for show at first, but eventually it’d started to sting a little—and then my noises had been one hundred percent authentic.