Page 77 of Worth the Risk

Chapter 17

SHE SLIPPED OUT OFthe back seat of the SUV and slammed the door. It didn’t pull away as she expected. Lil T rolled down his window, his black shades aimed her way, and he nodded toward the rear entrance with his chin. It was a cool AF order to get her ass inside, which she did.

Now that she knew that a lot of the doms at the club also worked for Rossi Security, and most were retired military—SEALs, Army Rangers, and, like Dan, an ex-Marine—it explained a lot.

T and Angie had driven her to work today because Dan was in the Rossi surveillance room downtown, pulling his quarterly weekend shift, which all the men did on rotation. He wouldn’t be in until after he got off at midnight when the unlucky man assigned the overnight shift relieved him. Since she didn’t get off until two, they wouldn’t have time to play in the dungeon, which, now that he’d given her an introduction to what went on behind the huge gothic doors, she was really looking forward to again.

Bella stowed her things in her locker in the employee break room. When she squatted to get her work shoes out of the bottom, she felt a twinge of soreness inside and the pull of strained muscles in the back of her thighs. She blamed Dan. Her skin still tingled from his touch, and more so his improvised paddles, and she ached in places that had seen more action in the past three weeks than in the entire decade since Joe Fratelli took her virginity after senior prom. It was an inauspicious event and was probably why she hadn’t repeated the awkward, painful grope session until her third year of college.

After exchanging her flip-flops for her work shoes and fastening her apron, she headed out to start her shift, but her mind wasn’t focused on the evening to come; a certain dominant consumed her thoughts. If he had been her first, he would have definitely been her last because compared to the three other men she’d been with over the past decade, his skill was on a different stratospheric level.

Until Dan and his special brand of loving, she’d never had such a high sex drive. He’d say the right man hadn’t brought it to the surface yet, like her hidden submissive traits. Yeah, they’d been buried—so deep no one, including herself, had seen it.

Except for Dan, she allowed. And probably Master Sean, who hadn’t hesitated in hiring her for his kink club. But also, Mistress Anne, who had her pegged right from the beginning, and her posse of new girlfriends. So, basically everyone in the lifestyle.

She laughed, drawing odd looks from the members sitting at the bar. But she didn’t care, doing an internal happy dance. Because incredibly, and finally, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, not only did she have a sexy dom who did wonderfully erotic things to her body, she actually had a posse.

Chiding herself for acting like a silly, giddy schoolgirl, Bella got to work, but the grin never left her face. She was working, yeah, but she actually enjoyed it. None of the other bars she’d worked at were as nice, the people nowhere near as friendly or relaxed and happy just being free to be themselves.

Hours later, after working nonstop without time to even catch her breath between orders, it was coming up on 10 o’clock, time for her break. If Dan was on DM duty, he always tried to schedule the start or stop of his shift to spend it with her. She was looking around for Marcy, to let her know she was leaving the floor, when she spotted her coming toward her, looking a bit frantic.

“Bella!” she called. “I know it’s time for your dinner break, but could I run to the ladies’ room before you go?”

“Sure thing. But what happened to Lisa? Is she on her way? Or is it just you and me for the rest of the tonight?”

“No one has heard a peep from her, and Ben is pissed. So, even if she shows up, it might be just the two of us because I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he fired her.” Marcy handed her a tray. “Be a doll and deliver these beers to table 4 for me? I really gotta go.”

She then whirled and bolted for the rear door.

Bella sighed as she moved through the overcrowded bar to deliver the four long-neck beers and what she had to guess were tequila shots because of the small bowl of lime wedges. She really hoped Lisa had a good excuse. She hated to see anyone fired, and they really needed her help on nights like tonight. Bella also knew firsthand how hard it was finding a decent job waiting tables. She didn’t know Lisa, other than she was younger, flighty, and needed to invest in an alarm or get a watch. Maybe if Ben gave her an ultimatum, she’d straighten up. Better yet, have a dom strap her to a spanking bench and teach her how it was going to be from now on, like Dan undoubtedly would do to her for the same behavior. Perhaps then she could stay on so they would have three waitresses on crazy-busy Elena nights.

But she didn’t have to make the decision of letting someone stay or go; that was all Ben, and she didn’t envy him for it.

It was table number 4’s second round and also their last if they wanted to play later. When she pulled out her stamp, the table of doms dutifully held out their wrists and let her ink a black two on the paper bracelets, which everyone, masters, subs, dommes, members, guests, and even the owners were issued at the door.

After grabbing their empties to get them out of their way, Bella returned to the bar and dumped them in the recycling bin. Then she made the rounds on her tables, the chatter and laughter and always the music in the background, filling her ears. Something else caught her attention. A feeling of unease crept up her spine, like an icy winter breeze on a hot Texas day. It wasn’t uncommon during her year on the run, but she’d never felt that way at the club.

She surveyed the crowd. In a membership of three hundred, she’d only met a small fraction of them and wouldn’t recognize a threat in the sea of unfamiliar faces. When all she saw were laughing, happy, singing, and dancing leather-clad, half-naked people, delaying their more carnal pursuits for a few hours to enjoy Elena and her band’s awesome show, she questioned her instincts.

Security at Decadence was tight. Dan’s Rossi Security brethren saw to that nightly.And dark-haired, swarthy-skinned Italian men with New Jersey accents would stick out like sore thumbs.

Telling herself she was paranoid, she took a new order, cleared a few dirty glasses, and headed back to the bar. Before she got there, a commotion in the back toward the playroom doors erupted. There were shouts, curses, pushing, and shoving, mostly from the crowd who jockeyed for a better position to see the show. Men in black with orange armbands parted the rubberneckers with a barked warning to move or be moved as they hurried to break up the hostilities before they escalated further. Dan wasn’t among them, but Ben was.

“Bella!”

She turned at the sound of her name and moved toward Hannah, who was behind the bar flapping her arms frantically and signaling her over.

“I’m stuck here alone until”—she waved toward the continuing ruckus—“whatever that is gets resolved. But I was on my way to the back for garnish. Would you mind?”

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