Private Dancer (Club Volare Book 12) Read online

  He was so far in his own head, keeping his cock from leading him back to Bette, that he barely noticed when Blue appeared at his side, looking nervous as hell. It was her first week working the front door. Something was obviously wrong.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “Um,” Blue said. “It’s Mason. He won’t leave.”

  Bette took a deep breath, and tried to steady herself for the walk over to the comfy looking chairs in the middle of Club Volare’s main room.

  Of course, she wouldn’t be sitting on the comfy chair. She’d be perched on the arm of the thing. Waiting.

  For her new Dom.

  Cole had wound her up about as high as Bette thought she could go—especially in public!—and then, like he was a psychic, he’d let her go just before she crossed over into “totally overwhelmed.” Now she had a little break while he filed her paperwork, except she was already spending that break thinking about all the things Cole would do to her.

  At least there weren’t any couples playing on the main floor this early in the afternoon. No, there was just a bunch of…equipment…around, to get Bette’s imagination going while she filled out an entire form about her sexual preferences.

  Carefully, as gracefully as possible, Bette lowered herself onto the arm of the comfiest looking chair, and shuddered. The pressure it put on her already swollen pussy was somewhere between delicious and delirious. Cole had probably known that would happen, too.

  But he didn’t know—couldn’t know—that filling out a stupid emergency-contact form would upset her so much. Bette didn’t actually have an emergency contact. She’d had to fill in Mrs. Palmer’s name, because the important thing was that her little sister be taken care of if anything happened to Bette. And she couldn’t tell him any of these things because…

  Well, because she didn’t really know him, if she were being rational. And because her life was apparently a soap opera. She’d finally found a man she wanted to be her real self with, and nope, that was the guy she had to lie to.

  It was like Mark and Faulkner had found another way to trap her. She hated being bullied by people who obviously knew they would get away with it. That had been literally her entire childhood with her weirdly screwed up parents. Nobody had stood up for her then, either. The ugly truth was that, for the most part, bullies always got away with it. The world wasn’t fair, and most people would rather support someone strong than protect someone weak. So Bette had learned how to survive, knowing she’d never be one of the strong. And she’d promised herself she’d always stand up to them, if she ever had the chance.

  But if she stood up to Faulkner now, Lizzie would be the one to pay the price. So Bette still couldn’t be the superhero she’d needed as a kid. She had to be the victim again. It freaking sucked.

  Maybe that was why she wanted to tell Cole so badly? God, if he hadn’t made it very, very clear that this was “not a relationship” – which, they’d just met, so yeah – she might have told him anyway. Because it just felt…

  Your hormones are lying to you, Bette.

  She had to be smart. Chemistry wasn’t love, and she couldn’t afford to make another mistake. While she figured this out, she couldn’t let Cole find out anything else about her. The man already saw way too much.

  She took a deep breath, and tried to focus on the form in front of her, balanced precariously on her knees. She could feel the fire of her anger at Mark and Faulkner and the other bullies of the world melting into the heat of her arousal, pushing her even higher. It was a weird, weird feeling. In fact, it was something she’d never felt before.

  But she was getting used to feeling new things around Spencer Cole. Might as well get used to a few more.

  Her hand shook as she drew the new member inventory closer to her face, pulse thundering in her ears as she stared at the…the sex survey Cole had ordered her to take.

  The sheet of paper had instructions at the top. There was a whole list of, um, activities, and she was supposed to rate them on a scale of “yes please” to “hell no.”

  Someone had been very thorough.

  The words “impact play” and “leather belt” jumped out at her like they’d been bolded. Maybe it was just because she was already on a hair trigger, but…

  Nope. She couldn’t. Bette swallowed, the shame from years ago rising in her like it was fresh. It hadn’t even been her shame. Not really. Talk about failing to stand up…

  Let’s skip that one for now.

  The rest of the survey was still an experience. There were things that made her swallow hard, and things that brought the heavy throb between her legs all over again. Her breath wheezed out as her nipples tightened, nerve endings remembering the light sting of Cole’s hands, and the spreading warmth that had eventually overrun her ability to think about anything except how bad she needed to come.

  Where was he, anyway? She lifted her head and looked around, half expecting to find him silent and Dommy behind her, watching as she marked down her interests and her oh-hell-nos. She was alone, though, with only the soft sounds of background music and a rhythmic thudding to keep her company.

  And that was when she heard it.

  A sharp cry, then a wordless shout. A scream that raised the hair on the back of her neck. Sobbing.

  Bette nearly fell from the chair, she got up so fast. Everything Bob Faulkner had told her about the club came rushing back. Stomach churning, flinching as another scream echoed through the club, she stopped thinking and ran.

  The moaning and shrieking led her into part of the club she hadn’t seen before, this wide-open space filled with equipment, some she recognized from the night before, some her mind just stuttered right over, unable to comprehend. Then it didn’t matter what the furniture looked like because adrenaline flooded through her system, drowning her.

  Across the room, spread eagle and tied to this big X-shaped structure, was a naked, shuddering, moaning man with a slender build, who couldn’t have been a whole lot bigger than she was. And he was being whipped.

  With a leather belt.

  A long belt wielded by this huge, huge man, who, while Bette watched, pulled back his arm and let loose again. The crack of leather on flesh made her jump nearly out of her own skin.

  Ok wait. This was on the list. This was on the list, Bette.

  She knew that, intellectually. But then the little guy strapped to the X started to plead.

  “Stop!” he sobbed. “Please!”

  And the big guy with the belt just smiled—he smiled. Nobody came to see what was wrong. Nobody stepped up. Nobody cared at all.

  And Bette just…snapped.

  She ran forward, and grabbed that damn belt.

  “He said stop!” Her shouting voice didn’t even sound like her own. It vibrated, she vibrated, with the force of fear and fury rolling up from inside her.

  The man with the belt stared at her. Her hand hurt. The man on the cross shuddered. Everything was still.

  Just for an instant. The man with the belt—the Dom—threw the belt aside and lunged for the bound figure, covered the smaller, slender man with his massive body like the Dom was some kind of human shield. Like he wasn’t the one who had just been laying welts across the helpless man’s back. Like he was protecting him.

  “Holt!” the Dom bellowed, and the force in his voice drove her back.

  Bette stumbled against something, caught herself on cool leather, just as the Dom that Cole had introduced as a monitor strode out of nowhere. He didn’t even look at the big man, just strode right at her, his features so tight and controlled, her heart plummeted right to her feet.

  And she started babbling. “He said stop—”

  “Get her the hell out of here, Holt,” the other Dom growled.

  Holt didn’t say a word. He reached Bette and grabbed her around the waist with one arm, and didn’t even break stride as he lifted her off her feet and carried her into another room, one with a door that opened off the wider, open area.

 
He pushed her down into a chair, pointed a hard finger in her face, and bit out, “You. Stay. If you move a damn hair, I will know it.”

  Then he stalked back out of the room. Just outside, he barked at someone she couldn’t see. “Find Cole and get him in here.”

  Holt left the door open. He disappeared from view, but she could hear him talking to someone, low, clipped masculine tones in two different voices.

  Bette couldn’t just sit there. She pushed up and ventured close to the door, then fell back again as she watched the huge, broad Dom wrap a blanket around the smaller man. While she stared, the big man stood, lifting the smaller one as he did. Up against his chest, cradling him.

  Like he was carrying someone he loved.

  The icy hand of panic, of adrenaline, began to melt away. And Bette was left with that awful feeling that maybe she’d been wrapped up in her own head, maybe she’d been reacting to stuff going on in her life, and…

  Yeah. She had screwed up.

  That little pit of dread coalesced in her gut just about the time Cole turned a corner, and looked right at her.

  13

  Not for the first time, Cole brought time to a screeching halt.

  Bette was now approximately one hundred percent convinced that she had seriously screwed up by intervening in…whatever it was she had intervened in. It had sure looked like a large Dom beating a sub with a leather belt while the sub begged the Dom to stop, but as soon as Bette jumped in and grabbed that belt, things had taken a turn.

  The sub looked freaked out, disoriented. Looking to his Dom, the one who’d been hitting him, for comfort. Bette could barely tell, because the sub was cradled in the big Dom’s arms, and the Dom had no interest in anything besides taking care of his sub, least of all explaining what was happening to the idiot newbie who’d just grabbed a leather belt out of his hand.

  She could feel the disapproving eyes of the monitor on duty, Holt.

  And Lord, her hand hurt.

  But none of that compared to the hard eyes of her Dom, Spencer Cole.

  They were gray now, more than blue. Weird thing to notice. Was it tied to mood? Was she just frantically finding things to wonder about while he strode towards her, full of purpose? She couldn’t look anywhere else. She couldn’t think about anything else. Had she crossed an uncrossable line? Was she about to be tossed out on her ass? Or worse?

  What was he going to do to her?

  Cole’s eyes took in the whole scene as he came towards her, sweeping over the tableau of the big Dom and his sub in the corner, over Holt off to the side, resting again on Bette, standing in the doorway of the room Holt had put her in. He didn’t say anything. He just kept coming, closer and closer, until he was only inches away, towering over her.

  Bette found herself looking down. Cole put a hand under her chin, and forced her to look up at him.

  “Sub,” he said. Calm. Confident. In control. “Are you ok?”

  Bette blinked.

  “Um, I think so,” she said. Cole just stared at her, and Bette found herself thinking deeply, looking inwards. “I don’t know,” she corrected. “I feel terrible.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Bette swallowed.

  “I heard him screaming,” she said. “That Dom was beating him with a leather belt, and he was yelling for him to stop, but there was nobody here, and nobody was doing anything, and…”

  She stopped, not wanting to finish. The truth was she’d decided to stand up all on her own, in a panic, and it wasn’t even about the sub getting beaten with a belt. Cole’s eyes wouldn’t let her lie, even to herself. The truth was Bette had needed to stand up to an imaginary bully, because she couldn’t stand up to her real bullies—Bob Faulkner, her ex-husband Mark, even her freaking parents, if she wanted to go back that far.

  And she couldn’t explain any of that without giving the whole game away, putting her sister in danger in the process.

  “I just had to do something,” she said, quietly.

  Cole didn’t say anything for a long, long moment. But his eyes did. His eyes glowed with…with heat?

  “You didn’t get the monitor on duty,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  Cole took another deep inhale, his eyes glittering down at her. She was freaking mesmerized. She’d gone from righteous anger to panic to deep shame and regret in the span of a few minutes, and now it was like Cole held her in the palm of his hand. It was dizzying. So dizzying that she didn’t even look away when Holt came up to talk to them.

  Cole didn’t look away either. And he didn’t wait for Holt to explain.

  “Everyone ok?” he asked, loud enough that he was obviously talking to Holt.

  “They will be,” Holt said.

  “What was the scene? Jim and Robbie on the St. Andrew’s Cross, leather belt?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Cole’s face was briefly like a storm cloud, then he calmed. He was still looking at Bette. “I’ve seen them do that scene,” he said. “It’s not appropriate for a public area without a warning.”

  “They should have gotten a private room,” Holt agreed. “I’ll talk to them about it later.”

  “See that you do,” Cole said. “Or I will. And I will handle my sub.”

  Bette shivered. That had been a promise.

  Cole’s sub was still a little freaked out.

  Well, she had messed up. Bette had been just shy of panic when he arrived after she’d intervened in a consensual S&M scene, reacting like she expected a single mistake to cost her everything. He’d calmed her down a little just by being fair and concerned with her well-being. So basically by not being an asshole. But her breathing was still a little shallow, her pupils were dilated, her heart rate was up.

  And all because she wanted to stand up for someone she didn’t even know. Damn it, he liked her.

  But Cole had also seen that before, in people who had no reason to trust that anyone would be there for them. Who had no reason to trust in the world. That was why she hadn’t asked for help—she hadn’t believed it would be forthcoming.

  Someone had done this to her. Possibly a long time ago, possibly last week. He had no way of knowing.

  But he knew what to do now.

  Cole brushed his thumb against her bottom lip, felt its softness. Watched it tremble. The instant he touched her the connection between them flared high and hot, like it had before, the heat between them drawing her out of her head, back into her body. His cock responding, like it had before, furious with him for being a Dom and not an animal.

  Down, boy.

  He had to be careful with this fire. She couldn’t be anything more than his sub, couldn’t feel like anything more, or he’d risk her heart. But he would find out what had gone on inside that head of hers, and then he would show her what Robbie was after in that scene. He was going to crack his sub open, one way or another.

  “Get your things and follow me,” he said.

  Bette looked up at him with those soft brown eyes, and Cole had to fight the urge to stop her, crush those lips in a kiss. Reach down, grab two handfuls of her ass, lift her up and pin her against the wall. Right there, right then. Instead he watched her with an aching cock while she obeyed his order.

  Without another word he led her up the stairs, to where the private rooms were located. Cole knew them well, and he knew how they were usually stocked. The Red Room was what he wanted.

  Cole held open the door to the suite, painted red and black, and watched Bette take it all in. She looked around at the few pieces of equipment available, including a black leather spanking bench, and her shoulders relaxed. She dipped her head, and walked in.

  “So I guess it’s discipline time now, huh,” she said.

  Cole narrowed his eyes. He saw what Bette was trying to do, even if she didn’t. She didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to tell him what had happened, why she’d freaked out. Didn’t want to share any secrets, didn’t want to open up. She tho
ught she could just get a spanking and get it over with.

  “You are not in control, sub,” Cole said, and closed the door behind him. “And that’s not how this is going to go.”

  Bette dropped her oversize bag to the ground, turned, and stared at him. Surprised that he’d seen through her, or surprised to learn that that’s what she’d been doing. Either way, he liked that expression on her face.

  He didn’t give her a chance to dig herself any deeper.

  He closed the distance between them with a single stride, and took a fistful of her hair in hand, angling her back so he could take her in. He liked the view. He liked the sound she made as he ran his hand over her breast even more.

  “You think you’ll get a nice spanking and you’ll be done,” he said. “Wrong. Very, very wrong. There’s a reason you flipped out down there, Bette, and I need to know what it is. You want to tell me, but you also don’t want to tell me. Guess which one is going to happen?”

  Her eyes got wider, and then she laughed a little in disbelief. She stared into his eyes, searching, trying to figure out how he knew that. Cole stared back, trying to figure out why someone who wanted to open up to him so badly couldn’t.

  The fire between them grew hotter.

  “My God,” she said softly.

  Cole smiled. He still held her head back, looking straight up at him, his other hand still on her breast. Now he pulled her tank top aside, pushed her bra down, his fingers going for her nipple. She inhaled sharply, her eyes going soft.

  “Your orgasms belong to me now,” he said. “Your body belongs to me. And I’m going to keep you hovering just over the edge until you tell me what I want to know. Don’t smile, sub. You’ve never done this before. It gets uncomfortable, fast.”

  Ruthlessly, he pinched her nipple. Bette yelped, then flushed as the sting turned to arousal. Cole was going to enjoy himself.

  The messed up thing was that the connection between them, whatever this fucking heat was, was what made this possible. Normally to edge a disobedient sub, he’d have to have known her for a long time. He’d have to have played with her frequently, enough so that he knew her body inside and out.