Falling Hard - Shelly Bell
Chapter 1
If there ever was an unassuming location for a sex party, the quaint Tudor-style house in front of her definitely fit the bill. For Pete’s sake, there were children’s bicycles on the neighbor’s lawn.
Her cousin, Dreama, must have given her the wrong address.
Isabella rifled through her purse, cursing the starless night and wishing for the umpteenth time that someone would invent a purse that lit up when you opened it. After digging her way to the bottom, she finally located her cell. A black screen. Of course it was dead. She leaned on her grandfather’s old Buick and growled in frustration. Would anything go right tonight?
Tonight’s event was going to be her first sex party. And probably her last. But since Isabella couldn’t call Dreama for the right address, her plans to screw were, well . . . screwed.
“What are you wearing?”
Startled, Isabella spun and pressed a palm to her chest as if trying to keep her racing heart from flying out.
Dreama blew a ring of smoke into the humid air then took another puff of her cigarette.
Isabella glanced down at her outfit. “What I’ve worn all summer.” Even she could admit that black stretch pants and a pink T-shirt with her family bakery’s logo probably wasn’t standard sex party wear.
“That isn’t what I meant. I’m wondering why the hell you’re still wearing it.”
Fanning away the smoke, Isabella arched a brow. “I came straight from work. I didn’t have time to change. Not to mention, everything I own is in boxes.” After the incident with Tony last year, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever feel safe living in this town again, and she had packed up the majority of her clothes and mementos. “And I wasn’t about to ask Mom to borrow some of her clothes. She would’ve grilled me for information until I told her the truth.” She plucked the cigarette from her cousin’s mouth, dropped it on the concrete, and ground it out with her shoe. “Is that what you wanted? You want me to tell your Aunt that you’re taking me to my first sex party?”
Dreama shook her head, a little laugh escaping her lips. “It’s not a sex party. It’s a play party.”
Isabella raised a brow. “There’s a difference?”
“Yes. No one has sex at these things.”
“You didn’t tell me that.” What was the point of being here then? She could’ve not had sex anywhere. The idea of coming to this thing was to experience BDSM in a relatively safe environment. If the party wound her up, how would she get any relief? She’d already packed away her vibrator.
“Sure I did.”
Isabella placed a hand on her hip. “No, I think I’d remember a detail like not getting laid at a sex party.”
“Play party,” Dreama repeated. “There’s no penetrative sex.”
“Penetrative. Is there any other kind?” Isabella’s confusion cleared as her cousin lewdly wiggled her tongue at her. “Oh, you mean oral.”
Dreama grabbed her hand. “Are you sure you really want to be here? You’re so innocent.”
Maybe before last year she was, but not any longer. She’d always thought innocence referred to the status of your virginity. How wrong she’d been. Innocence was a state of mind, and she’d lost hers the hard way. “I am not.”
Her cousin’s eyes clouded over with sympathy. “No, I suppose you’re not.” She clutched Isabella by the shoulders, concern etched on her face. “Are you ready to go in and get a firsthand look, or would you rather go get a drink somewhere? I’m good either way.”
When Tony had gone off the deep end, Dreama had been the first one in her close-knit family to realize something wasn’t right. Everything had spiraled out of control so quickly, Isabella hadn’t known what to do. She’d always told herself she’d never allow a man to hit her, but by the time Dreama had confronted her about her explosive relationship with Tony, it was too late.
She had officially become a statistic.
“Isn’t your Dom in there waiting for you?” Isabella asked.
Dreama’s lips tilted up in a smile. “Master Jamie is inside, but he’ll understand if I go get a drink with you. He knows you and I won’t get to see each other for a while.”
“I want to go inside,” she said. And she did, despite her racing heart and her sweaty palms. “I need to do it. You know I do.”
After almost dying at the hands of her mentally ill ex-boyfriend at the end of her senior year of high school, Isabella had lost her ability to trust anyone, especially herself. As a result, instead of having gone away to college as planned, she’d allowed her parents to convince her to stay at home and work in their bakery full-time. Her life in limbo, she’d filled her days at the bakery and her nights either in therapy or at home, hiding away in her bedroom.