Page 16 of Worth the Risk

She assured them she was okay to return to work. But she did so with another pain plaguing her—that of disappointment. If she couldn’t bear a sliver of glass in her knee so tiny both she and Ben had missed it, how would she withstand what a sadist would dish out?

Wasn’t that just her stinking bad luck? For the first time in months, her interest in a man superseded the fear of pursuit, and he turned out to be kinky on a whole different level.

Ben had been right to warn her off. She wasn’t ready for her first BDSM encounter, especially with the Marquis De Sade, no matter how hot and sexy he was.

She needed to stick with her plan. Safety and staying ahead of her father’s thugs had to be her priority. But thinking about how her brief encounter with Dan made her feel, she had to wonder if she’d ever be able to have a normal life. If she’d ever get the chance to fall in love with a good-looking, steel-blue-eyed man with thick tousled wavy hair, who made her pulse race and her hands tremble, or was she destined for a life of loneliness and constant running?

***

HE’D HAD A LONG DAYof work. It started with two client meetings, a team case review, and surveillance of a cheating husband–the asshole boinking a little chippie at the Hyatt while the woman he vowedto love and cherish unto deathtook the prick’s three kids under five to the park–and that was before lunch. In the afternoon, he backed up Lil T with a skip apprehension in Kerrville, an hour north of town, and then completed his expense reports, which he hated only slightly less than two-timing prick husbands.

After all of that, when Dan emerged from the playroom after a four-hour DM shift on the busiest night of the week, he should have been dead on his feet.But he entered the bar with a burst of renewed energy. The pretty new waitress had kindled a fire within him when he hadn’t had more than a spark in months.

What was it about her though? She was beautiful, with the contrast of her midnight hair and porcelain skin. And those full, scarlet lips—enhanced by lipstick, but he didn’t give a fuck and got hard, imagining it smeared on his skin, especially his cock.

He shook himself.Don’t get ahead of yourself, Dan ole boy. She might not be your type.

That wasn’t a slight against beautiful Bella, but not everyone liked his style of play. He could contain it. Luckily, he didn’t need to inflict pain to get off because finding a partner who was submissive and also a masochist was difficult, if not impossible. He enjoyed rougher, more intense sex than some women wanted, so he had to be careful in selection and negotiation.

He had struggled with his sexual proclivities for years, wondering why he was how he was. But finding a home at Club Decadence with others who liked what they liked and didn’t apologize for it, made him accept it was just how he was wired. There was a threshold for what he would do, and how much erotic pain he was willing to inflict. He’d never dreamed of pushing past a play partner’s limits to meet his needs. He only enjoyed it if she did. Like a sub, he had limits. Some were hard and fast because he just wasn’t into it; others were lines he would not cross, which many of the sick fucks he arrested in his cop days didn’t seem to have.

Eager to see Bella and get to know her a little better, he stopped just outside the dungeon doors and scanned the bar and lounge. It had cleared out after Elena left the stage, most of the members shifting to the play areas, but now, at closing, it was empty, and she was nowhere in sight. Ben was behind the bar cleaning up, so he headed that way.

“I was looking for Bella. She was supposed to wait here for me after her shift.”

Ben glanced up from wiping down the bar and gave him a headshake. “I had to send her home early after Sean patched her up. She was kind of gimpy.”

“Patched her up?” Dan asked in alarm. “What the hell happened?”

“While sweeping up, she lost her balance and fell on a speck of glass we missed. It was weird. The shard was no bigger than a grain of sand, but it made a bloody gash in her knee.”

“Did she need stitches? Maybe someone should have taken her to the ER!”

“Sean said it wasn’t deep enough. He flushed it out, glued it, and bandaged her up.” Ben stopped wiping. “She seemed distracted after that, more so than in pain, except for the limp, I mean.”

Dan’s heart sank, fatigue suddenly overtaking him now that the chance to see her had passed. He sat down hard on a barstool, rubbing his forehead. “I was hoping to talk to her. Did she say anything before she left?”

Ben shrugged. “Not really. Just that she was heading home. Why, is everything okay?”

Dan hesitated before speaking, unsure of how much he should reveal. “I’m just worried about her. Maybe I should check on her in the morning. Do you know where she lives?”

“She’s brand new. I don’t know much about her. Except for the accent and how she saysyou guysinstead ofy’all. I’m guessing she’s not from our neck of the woods.”

“I figured that out the first time she opened her mouth,” he said with a slight smile. “What about her last name?”

“What about it?” Ben returned, as he put bottles of liquor back on the shelves that lined the mirrored wall.

“Has she got one?”

“Rinaldi. I’m sure she’s fine, Dan. She seems tough. When I found out she was vanilla, I had reservations, but she’s hanging in like a trouper.”

“Wait. She isn’t submissive? I thought Anne recommended her?”

He nodded, adding, “And Sean interviewed and hired her. Weird, isn’t it? Those two are rarely wrong. I figured they got the same first-impression subbie vibe I did.”

He’d been certain Bella was submissive, too, or he wouldn’t have pressed her for more. His ex-wife was strictly vanilla, leading to five miserable years, and he wasn’t going there again.

“She’s not scheduled for another shift until Monday. There shouldn’t be a problem with her coming back by then. It was superficial, Dan. I promise.”

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