Possessing Bella
Bella woke to find herself pulled closely into Stephen's arms and his worried expression hovering over her in the dark. She no longer felt the need to apologise or explain, and she smiled stroking his cheek and accepting the soft kiss of relief he offered her. The nightmares had become more frequent as Mel's memorial approached, and she was grateful to have the warmth and love of the man beside her. She snuggled into his chest relaxing as he stroked her back. She was beyond happy; she couldn't believe how good her life with Stephen had become.
The agreement they had entered into had been surprising to Bella at first. While Stephen demanded the respect and power due to him in a dominant-submissive relationship, he was also relaxed within the confines of their relationship. As if the constant concern that she would choose to keep another's collar had disappeared and allowed him to show her a side of him that was usually reserved for those he was intimate with. She realised she had only briefly caught glimpses of the softer side of him in the past as he watched over her training and helped her navigate the pitfalls and dangers of living within this lifestyle as a single woman.
Each day he was there when she woke and he left for work as early as she did, travelling down to the cove for the mornings and returning to work from the office in her apartment or his office in the club in the afternoons. While he lectured her about burning the candle at both ends, he seemed to understand her drive where her career was concerned and gave her a lot of independence about how late she needed to work except on Fridays. The weekends belonged to the Lord of the Cove. They drove down on Friday evening and came back on Sunday evenings, in which time they slept very little and played very hard between hosting their friends. She smiled at the constant stream of people who visited the Cove on a Sunday.
With Rob's return to the club full-time since Mel's death, much of what had been Stephen's role had been handed over to him as the owner. Mel had trusted Stephen completely during the time that Rob had been reclusive and when he had returned it had been difficult to define new boundaries between them. As Stephen took on the role of Bella's watcher Rob assumed even more, of the general managers role enjoying the challenge of updating and renewing certain aspects of the club.
With Stephen's help, Theo was now training another manager to lighten his load further, and he had negotiated his withdrawal from working weekends at the club with the proviso that he would be available for the large events and holidays throughout the year. Stephen remained a major presence from Sunday to Thursday, but he made his own hours, usually while Bella was either still at work or asleep. Bella herself worked with Rob and the club managers two nights a week finding that she enjoyed the hostess role in the restaurant where she could meet and greet everyone and socialise with her friends.
The Abbey at the Cove had rapidly become a much bigger part of their lives than the club had been, at least for Bella. She enjoyed the expanding group of friends who came often on Sundays for lunch and to inspect the renovation as it progressed. Arek was a constant presence as he worked on the landscaping of the huge grounds. He and Stephen bickered and teased each other like brothers and she wondered at the often about their friendship and the slight tension that ebbed and flowed between them. They were competitive with each other to the point of being aggressive at times and Bella often wondered why they would choose to spend so much time together.
She and Stephen had become a couple in the true sense of the word and Bella was amazed at how easily they were able to slide in and out of each area of their lives. She belonged to him heart and soul now and after the memorial when she had said her last goodbye and thanked Mel and his friends for all they had done for her she would beg his collar. She had been planning git in her head for the last few weeks and wanted the moment to be perfect.