Belle: Part 2 (Unbowed) Read online

  Belle: Part 2

  Unbowed, #2

  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.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  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!

  Don’t miss out on Liz’s next release!

  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.

  Belle: Part 2

  "Thanks to Elysium, I was a child of Hades--and Dean had dominion over me. From day one, I had already belonged to him..."

  It's March on beautiful Ixora Isle. Flowers bloom just as surely as matters of the heart, and Belle and Dean recover from their breach of trust one step at a time.

  In the coming days, the couple must face:

  A dinner date that takes a turn for the dangerous.

  An unwelcome family reunion.

  A birthday surprise.

  A black-tie affair.

  A promise.

  A death.

  A gift.

  House Rule #5

  Communication is essential, both in and out of playtime.

  1

  Belle

  Monday, March 4th

  People were going to call me crazy for staying.

  After all, my client—not my boyfriend, not my husband—had bent me over a window ledge, ankles restrained, legs spread, and paddled me until I was a screeching, wailing mess. It was only now, four days later, that I could sit without wincing. Anyone else would have left. And had anyone else forced me to confront my fear of heights, albeit indirectly, I probably would have left too.

  But it had been Dean—and for some reason, one I had yet to put my finger on, I couldn’t walk away from Dean Donahue. When he had come to check on me that day, shortly after everything had happened, I hadn’t wanted to shove him out and slam my bedroom door in his face again. I hadn’t wanted him to leave me alone. I’d wanted to crawl into his lap so he could comfort me. Coddle me. I hadn’t expected an apology—but the one he gave, over and over again, made the storm of emotion inside disappear. Instead, I found peace in his arms.

  Which was insane.

  I knew that.

  Even after everything, I still trusted him.

  Over dinner that night, we had discussed invoking my safeword. We talked about appropriate punishments, and the role both a Dominant and a submissive played in implementing them. While I wanted to curl into a ball and not leave my bedroom, Dean had me up and moving about—and talking. About safety. About trust. About personal limits and boundaries.

  I’d gone to bed that night feeling safe—which was also insane. I knew that, too.

  Over the last few days, we’d passed the time lazing around. In the pool. In the cinema room. In the kitchen, where Dean continued to ply me with all my favourites, like he was still apologizing.

  And, honestly, that was why I stayed.

  Because the man who’d paddled me wasn’t the man I knew. He wasn’t the Dom I knew.

  I believed that wholeheartedly, despite the nagging voice at the back of my mind, always whispering as I tried to fall asleep. He hurt you. He bruised you. He forgot your biggest fear and used it against you.

  All of that was true.

  It was the way he responded afterward, however, that made me stay. Dean could have locked himself in his office. We could have gone days without speaking, the house tense, the island paradise devolving into a tropical nightmare. We could have then begrudgingly resumed Dean’s rigid daily schedule—and I would have done it, because I was a professional, but I wouldn’t have put so much of myself back into it. Not again. I would have been Belle, The Escort—period. No more wavering back and forth. No more straddling the line between professional and personal.

  But Dean had talked. He had listened. He had comforted and soothed and apologized.

  So, here I was again: a tightrope walker, trying to toe the line and remain professional, always a second away from careening down into Bellelandia, where I was just me—me, who wanted my Dom back, whether he paid me or not.

  Even though I was ready to get back in the ring, Dean had insisted we take a full five days off after the incident so I could properly recover. I’d almost protested—I didn’t need five days of recovery—but then I’d sat down and my butt had screamed, the bruises an ever-present reminder that I wouldn’t have been able to play like we usually did. So, begrudgingly, I had accepted that the first week of March would be full of lazy days spent at the pool, on the beach, in the theater room, and on any padded surface we could find.

  However, just because we weren’t playing didn’t mean the dynamic needed to stop entirely. I still called Dean sir—because he was my sir. And he cared about me, cared for me. He carried the guilt of that afternoon with him wherever we went, and I wanted to distract him. I’d gotten past it; I’d made it clear I never wanted to be paddled again, because it was nothing like the for-show paddlings Penny doled out at Elysium, but I wasn’t afraid of future punishments.

  I liked my punishments.

  I wanted to get back to them.

  I wanted to get back to us.

  In an effort to distract him, after lunch today I’d grabbed Dean’s hand, steering him away from the pool, and walked him up to the third floor. If anything was going to help us move on, it was confronting the room that had triggered the reaction. Standing at the top of the dark stairwell, I’d waited, holding Dean’s hand, looking up at him—patiently, not expectantly, wide-eyed but supportive, strong, until he finally pushed down on the handle and threw the door open.

  In an instant, we’d been bathed in sunlight—and there was no going back.

  For the last hour, he had taken me through each of his paintings. Work he’d had shipped in from his hous
e in London. The pieces he had finished since we’d arrived on Ixora Isle. Landscapes. Cityscapes. Some canvases taller than me, others the size of a postcard, haphazardly painted, like he’d been in a hurry, desperate to get his vision across. Rough outlines, completed masterpieces—and me. We ended the walkthrough on the still-unfinished portrait of me.

  “I don’t normally paint people,” Dean admitted softly, that gorgeous sage-green gaze roving the canvas. My cheeks warmed when it slid to me. “But you have a face that demands to be painted, Belle.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “A body too.”

  My blush sharpened. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Actually,” he said as he faced me, “it was your smile that made me want to paint you, but then I started and realized I wasn’t talented enough to capture it.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Dean’s work was breathtaking. What he could do with a brush—it was as masterful as what he could do with his tongue. I smiled at the thought, my heart skipping a beat when he cupped my face.

  “There it is,” he whispered, “that smile…”

  Try as I might, I couldn’t stop myself from leaning into the touch, into his palm’s warmth. Something felt different between us since the incident. Not bad—just different. I might have been calling him sir, but he was less dominant than usual. Sure, he still cooked all our meals. He reminded me every two hours, on the dot, to redo my sunscreen. He had a timer going off twice a day so he could apply cocoa butter to my backside, to my thighs—a gesture that always evolved into a full-body massage that left me prickling with heat.

  Beyond that, however, Dean seemed more—normal. He wasn’t the CEO. He wasn’t the restaurateur. He wasn’t the man with eight billion to his name. And he wasn’t completely my Dom. We talked more freely about everything. Laughed more openly during our movie nights.

  Almost like—friends.

  Which, again, was insane. I knew that.

  But knowing hadn’t stopped it from happening—and I certainly didn’t want it to stop.

  I wasn’t sure what had changed, who had changed, but maybe it didn’t matter.

  Maybe, months from now, when I had some distance and time, I’d figure it all out.

  Maybe I wouldn’t want to.

  Maybe it was time I stopped thinking, analyzing.

  Because whatever had changed, whoever had changed, I liked it. Period.

  My breath hitched when Dean stroked his thumb along my lower lip, his eyes stormy, but he made no move to close the gap between us. I didn’t either. We stood like that, each of us too still, in front of his easel, his half-finished portrait of me and my pink bow, his hand cupping my face and his thumb ghosting over my mouth.

  I fought the urge to catch it, to suck it in.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Belle?” he murmured, our voices barely rising above the distant hum of the air-conditioning. I tipped my head into his palm, smiling that smile he seemed to like so much.

  “Will you paint me?”

  Dean chuckled, the sound skittering across my body and pooling between my thighs. The storm had ebbed in his eyes, replaced with something warm and lush instead—something I found myself drawn toward as he said, “I am painting you.”

  “No…” I took his hand with both of mine, his five fingers somehow meshing seamlessly with my ten as I led him around the easel to the small desk behind. I’d missed it on my first visit to his sunlit gallery, so enraptured with his work that I hadn’t had time to take in everything.

  The desk had the same finish as the deep, rich tones of the dining table downstairs, though it was nearly impossible to appreciate it under all those tubes of paint. Cans of paint. Toolboxes—filled with airtight containers of paint. Every colour. Every shade. Unique blends and brand names. He kept his brushes there in metallic tins, their pristine bristles facing the cloudless blue sky above, the gallery’s domed glass ceiling leaving nothing in shadow.

  Freeing just one hand, I picked through the tubes I’d only glanced at when we first arrived, when Dean had finally welcomed me into his private world, then plucked the one I was looking for—the shade that had caught my eye. Coral Rosé—nontoxic body paint. He had a whole collection of colours. I held the tube up, label forward.

  “I saw these earlier,” I told him. Our hands remained loosely entwined, hanging between us. Dean let out another little chuckle, one of surprise this time, and took the tube in his free hand, turning it over to scan the back.

  “I painted models for a friend’s fashion show a few years back,” he said with a wry grin. “Felix Renaldi. He did this ridiculously risqué spring line in Milan and he had me paint the cosmos on thighs and arms—”

  “Oh, what, no model boob for you?” I dropped my chin demurely when his gaze snapped to mine, sharp—dominant. “Sir.”

  “No, Felix had most of the torso covered.”

  Felix Renaldi. My brow furrowed. “Why do I know that name? Renaldi?”

  “Felix lives in New York most of the year,” Dean told me as he set the coral rosé back on the desk. “He frequents Elysium—he was actually my sponsor when I first joined.”

  Elysium membership was by invite only, and established members risked losing their privileges if their sponsored choices acted inappropriately. We held open-house events once a month, but they were considered tame evenings in comparison to what usually went on.

  “Felix and I have similar tastes,” Dean mused, fiddling with the ends of my hair, his voice like velvet. “Though I’m afraid my tastes have gotten quite specific over the last few months…”

  The prickle of heat simmering beneath my skin surged to a full-blown wildfire. How easy it would be—to get lost in that voice, in those eyes. Instead, I picked up the coral rosé again and held the tube out to him.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Belle?”

  “Will you paint me?”

  He said nothing, but his hand tightened around mine. Swallowing hard, I pressed the tube to his chest, waiting until his hand settled over it to retreat. I slipped away from him, taking a few steps back, then grasped the flowy fabric of my strapless yellow dress, the kind that stopped at my knees and cinched around my chest, and dragged it over my head. His gaze raked across my nakedness, stormy again.

  “Paint me?” I asked softly.

  The thought of sharing this with him made my chest tight. So far, Dean had told me all about his paintings. He had explained techniques, colour palettes, the differences between acrylics and oil paints. We had talked shop—but I needed to get inside, to know why he painted, why he hid it.

  Why he’d freaked out and turned into a completely different person four days ago.

  We’d talked a lot here, surrounded by pieces of his soul, but not about the things I wanted to talk about—things I wasn’t sure I’d earned the right to ask about.

  Maybe it would be easier for him if he just showed me this side of him.

  I ran a hand through my hair, gathering it and letting it fall down my back.

  “Sir,” I said, my nipples puckering as he lifted that wild gaze to mine, “I want you to paint me.”

  Dean inhaled sharply, clutching the coral rosé in a tight fist. I bit the inside of my cheek, waiting, worrying that I had pushed for too much. It was one thing to tell me about his art, to go into detail about the technical side of things—it was another thing entirely to show me this part of himself. But I waited, ignoring the little voice at the back of my mind that told me to take it back, to pretend I hadn’t asked—that I was just standing there, naked, for kicks.

  Finally, an eternity later, his movements precise, measured, Dean set Coral Rosé on the desk, and anxiety prickled through me, until—

  “All right.”

  My eyebrows lifted, along with my heart, my smile. “All right?”

  “We’ll need a few things first,” he said, sounding more Dom-Dean than he had all day. “Run downstairs and fetch as many pillows as you need. I want you lying down. There are spare linens in the storage cl
oset just off my bedroom—pick the ones that can do with a bit of paint on them.”

  I nodded, hopping to without being prompted. My backside gingerly protested the swift movements, the bouncing down tiled stairs, but I ignored that, too. Beaming, I went to the storage closet first, picking through the neatly folded sheets, all creased and smelling like lavender laundry detergent. Next, I grabbed every pillow off my bed, including the for-show ones that always ended up on the floor each night.

  My heart thundered as I scaled the stairwell to the third floor, and I stopped in the doorway to catch my breath—to watch Dean as he picked through tubes of paint and tossed the chosen few into the middle of the room. To his credit, he didn’t appear stiff or anxious about sharing this with me. Instead, he seemed—focused. Brow creased, mouth in a thin line. It’d be easy for someone to read the look as anxious, stiff, but I knew that look.

  It was the same look he wore whenever he was working out the logistics of a scene—when he was trying to determine which knot was appropriate for my restraints.

  It was the kind of look that made my heart oddly happy.

  Swallowing thickly, I padded in, and, without a word, started arranging our workspace—maybe playspace—on the floor, directly beneath the crest of the domed glass ceiling.

  “You’ll be on your back,” he remarked, striding over and dumping an armful of paint tubes beside me. “I want you to be comfortable, so use all the pillows you need.”