by Chloe Cox
Olivia let go of the strap she’d been holding on to for dear life, and smoothed her skirt, an old nervous gesture. She couldn’t make herself look up at Gavin, but she could feel him looking at her. She could feel the air between them heat up, grow sharp, charged.
“If you weren’t thinking about me, then what the hell were you thinking about?” he asked.
Olivia’s reflex was to resist, to tell him it was none of his business. To hide. She opened her mouth, looked up—and got hit with those eyes.
“Tell me,” he ordered.
“Brandon,” she said, automatically. She blinked, and looked out the window again.
It was like a dam bursting.
“And about how mad I am?” she went on. “How freaking jealous I am, that he gets what he wants. How for some reason the idea of the club not being here just…”
Olivia looked down at her nails again, so carefully tended in a style she didn’t particularly like, on the recommendation of a stylist she’d been told to hire, for a career she didn’t really want.
“So I guess I was thinking about myself,” she said.
Olivia thought she heard that rumble in his chest. She looked up to find Gavin looking at her again, his big torso twisted towards her, his arm on the back of her seat. And then—something again, just below the surface, for just a second before it sank beneath the calm, controlled, Dominant-as-fuck expression on his face.
Goddammit, she wanted to see what was under there.
She wanted…
“Damn,” she whispered. “I really am sorry.”
And she bolted out of the truck, leaving Gavin sitting in a driveway for the second time in three days.
I have got to stop doing this childish crap.
But she just couldn’t let him see her cry. Because seeing the way he looked at her, remembering the way he touched her, realizing that for almost a full second Gavin had trusted her—Olivia Cress realized that she actually did want this man to be her Dom in real, actual life. Not a fantasy. Not an idle wish. She’d been treasuring the possibility, that sense that all she had to do was say yes, carrying it around with her like a goddamn blanket, and now she had to face the fact that she’d probably screwed that up beyond repair too.
She’d never been brave enough to ask for what she wanted, and now it was gone.
Olivia didn’t stop until she’d climbed all the steps in the old Garden mansion and closed the makeshift door to her makeshift room behind her, which was not helping with the childish feeling, and then she waited to cry. The only way forward is through, she thought. Cry it out, get it out of your system, move on.
And she freaking couldn’t. On top of everything else, she just couldn’t…
She couldn’t move.
Footsteps. On the stairs. Heavy, purposeful footsteps.
Gavin’s footsteps.
“Olivia,” he said, his voice easily penetrating the makeshift wall between them. She even felt the rumble through the floorboards, somehow. “Come here.”
She stood there, in her attic space, every cell in her body aware that all that separated her from Gavin was a thin wall made of particle board, a makeshift door. She was rooted in the space between her fantasies and what was actually about to happen. And there wasn’t anything in the world that could have gotten her to make a choice, one way or the other.
Except the voice of Gavin Colson.
“Olivia, get your ass out here,” he ordered. “Now.”
Gavin watched Olivia open the door and stand, for a second, half in the sun and half in the shadow.
Goddammit, she was beautiful.
And she was raw. She was holding herself, her arms crossed under her breasts in that white sundress. She’d been all sex and sweetness in that thing, making that damn speech to Delavigne and the rest of the commission. Her defiance of his orders wrapped up in that intense desire to save his club for him—he fucking loved the contrast. Now it was the same thing—raw, vulnerable, and pissed off, all at once. Olivia Cress had been fighting herself for too long. She needed help.
Her eyes met his.
Careful. Her apology had surprised him. It had almost been easier when he’d thought she’d been like all the others, because then he could go back to being detached. But nope. She had to be special. Gavin smiled. He really wasn’t used to subs seeing through him.
“I said come here,” he said.
He watched the voice work on her. She stepped toward him, almost unaware of it until it was already done.
Then she fought it, and raised her eyes. Sweetness and salt. Once again, he had to remind himself not to get involved. He hadn’t needed to do that in ten years.
It was time to take control. No more running, no more evasion. He just had to remember his mantra: always make sure a sub knows her safe words.
And never trust her to use them.
Eighteen
“What do you want?” she said.
Olivia was at the end of her rope, and it was about to snap. She really couldn’t take it if he’d come up here to lecture her, or tell her she’d dropped the ball in some new, previously unforeseen way. She just couldn’t take any more pressure, or any more failure.
And she’d just snapped at Gavin Colson.
He was standing tall, like he always did, relaxed and confident. Stern, but maybe a little smile at the corners of his mouth. The light from the skylight above hit his black hair just enough to make it look blue, just enough to show the scruff on his cheek, the scar on his lip. All she wanted was to lose herself in those arms. To not have to think…
“You disobeyed an order,” he said. “Again.”
Desire flared within her at those words—that attitude—and it reminded her of how she’d screwed it all up. And that it hadn’t totally been her fault.
“That’s not fair,” she said. “I would have handled it differently if you’d told me why you didn’t want me in there.”
Olivia’s pulse picked up. Telling the plain truth felt so crazy, somehow. Thrilling. She realized she almost never did it, and neither did anyone else she knew.
“You’re right,” Gavin said.
Except for him.
“I should have told you. I was in a rush. Didn’t think,” he said. He gave her that lopsided grin again. “We don’t like to let word get around, but Doms are human, too.”
Shit.
She had nothing else. He’d taken the wind right out of her sails. And now she didn’t have a reason to be fighting with him anymore, except for the fact that she was terrified of not fighting him, because then she’d just be left with the fact that she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anything.
And she didn’t think she could take anymore rejection.
“You made it seem like I was the one who couldn’t handle it,” she went on. “But I did handle it! I told them the club could save lives and they believed—”
“Quiet,” he said.
Words left her.
Olivia watched him closely. That was it. There was something that actually got him riled up, some hint of emotion there, and it had been there during the commission meeting, too. She said that thing about Club Volare saving lives and something in the air had changed, and Gavin had hustled her out the door.
Gavin took a step toward her, his face coming into the sun. He peered down at her with his hard gray eyes, and she faltered.
“Olivia,” he said. That voice. It filled her. “You made a choice to provoke me.”
Provocation.
That word fit the moment.
He placed his big hand on her neck again, the contact coursing through her like a current, and cradled her head, his thumb on her cheek. Just like the other night, when she’d…provoked him.
“You disobeyed an order,” he said again.
And suddenly she realized: they were alone. They weren’t putting on a show for anyone else. There was no one around to convince—except her.
This wasn’t a performance.
This was re
al.
Olivia tried to think above the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears, tried to formulate some kind of coherent thought—and then her traitor body made the decision for her. She leaned her cheek into his hand, just wanting to feel him move against her.
“Yes,” she heard herself say.
“No more bullshit. I’m going to give you what you need, and then I’m going to take what I want. Nothing more, nothing less,” he said.
Her heart thudded against her chest, shaking her. She felt his grip tighten.
“Tell me your safe words,” he rasped.
For a split second, Olivia wondered why he kept asking that. But then she heard herself speaking again, like her body had just lost patience and taken charge.
“Red, yellow, green,” she breathed. “Red, yellow—”
Gavin’s thumb brushed against her cheek, gently, and Olivia curled towards it like a sun-starved flower. All blood and nerve and need, she turned her head and kissed his thumb.
And then she took it in her mouth.
The world stopped.
Gavin gripped her hard and brought his face down to hers, his body hulking over hers, his muscles straining through the white shirt. For a second they breathed together. And then with a growl he bent, and she was over his shoulder, again, like she weighed nothing at all, the whole world spinning in and out of her as he carried her across the attic.
In a moment she felt everything. She felt the humidity sticking to her skin, to his skin, the thin fabric of his cotton shirt rubbing between them, the feel of the hard muscles in his back sliding under her hands. The strong arm around her waist, like iron, like moving iron. The sound of a fabric dragging over something…
Olivia looked up through strands of her own tousled hair. A white sheet flung to the side of the room, through the sun streaming in, catching the air and floating down, ripped off of some piece of furniture that she couldn’t see while flung over his back.
There had been all the equipment, hidden under white sheets…
Slowly Gavin lowered her to the ground, letting her slide down his strong body while keeping his arm solidly around her. Controlling her. Her pulse beat out a rapid rhythm as she felt alarm course through her—followed closely by arousal. Excitement. She was totally powerless, and it turned her the hell on.
Olivia looked up, conscious of her dress riding halfway up her leg, of her breasts falling out of her bra, her hair a disaster. Gavin was unreadable. Implacable. Just a flicker in his eyes…
Then his hands were on her shoulders, spinning her around. Olivia reached out for something to steady herself, and her hand found something at about waist height. Leather. Pebbled.
She looked down.
A spanking bench.
“Heels apart, head down, ass up,” he said behind her.
Olivia stiffened even as his words set her on fire. Heat spread from between her legs through her core, to the surface of her skin, to her tightening nipples, and all of her was hungry for more.
“Olivia.”
That big, heavy hand on the back of her neck again. Calm voice. Gentle pressure.
I’m actually doing this.
She took half a step and bent forward, feeling the cool, pebbled leather press into the tops of her thighs, the crease of her hips. The slight pressure against her vulva made her shiver, and she heard Gavin chuckle.
“Keep going.”
Olivia took a deep breath, and then she bent forward. She spread her hands over the cool, textured leather, and lay herself over it, lengthwise. It was the perfect height, and angled down. Her breasts were crushed beneath her, her stomach flat against the leather. Her feet on the ground, her ass in the air.
The fire inside her roared. She bit her lip, looked ahead, and wrapped her hands around the cool handles.
“Good girl,” he said.
He put his hand on the bare skin at the back of her neck again, that same pressure, holding her down. That same reminder of who was in control.
His fingers on the back of her bare thigh.
His hand trailing up the back of that thigh, his fingers light, his touch torturous—until he hit the hem of her dress. A pause.
He pushed the material up over her ass, bunched up around her waist, over the small of her back, like he was offended by it. He smoothed his hand over the round curve of her ass and gripped her pussy from behind. Olivia’s head snapped up at the same time she tried to bend farther forward, pressing herself into his hand. All she could do was moan as he pushed her back down onto the bench.
She gripped the handles harder as he stripped her panties over her hips, her eyes closed, her legs shaking.
“Spread,” he said.
She shuffled her feet a few more inches apart, felt her panties fall.
Bare.
Exposed.
Wildly she wondered…she wondered about everything. They’d had sex before. He’d seen her naked, he’d seen her more than naked. Why did this feel so new? Why—
She heard him inhale.
She felt him tighten his grip on her neck.
And with a sharp smack, he brought the flat of his hand down on her bare ass. The impact rippled through her, her flesh shuddering, shaking, the vibrations arcing straight through to her clit. She opened her eyes wide and let out a small cry that was immediately drowned in a hot flush of sensation, spreading over and through her.
Holy SHIT.
She grabbed the handles ahead of her, put her head down, arched her back. Her whole being centered around that ache where he should be. All she wanted was for him to fuck her.
Instead he touched her.
He cupped her pussy with his broad hand again and she moaned. She moaned like a goddamn animal, keening into him, way, way past caring about how she looked or dignity or anything other than Gavin Colson fucking her. She felt his thumb press against her entrance and outright growled, pushing her hips back, wanting—
“Olivia.”
He removed his hand from between her legs, and she started to push herself off the bench, to look up at him over her shoulder with something close to outrage when his other hand tightened on the back of her neck. Slowly, he pushed her back down to the bench, his other hand resting on her hip, leaving a streak of her own wetness on her skin.
“Down.”
“Gavin—”
“You call me ‘sir,’” he said. “And I don’t want to hear you talk unless I ask you a question or it’s a safe word. Do you understand?”
Olivia breathed hard into the silence. She was fucking dizzy. Her whole body was on fire, and Gavin had her by a goddamn leash.
Oh God, he might bring out a leash.
“Yes,” she said. “Sir.”
His grip loosened, his fingers gently massaging her neck. She could barely pay attention above the roaring need between her legs. She squirmed in his grasp, just needing to feel something move against her body. She needed to come, the way she knew only he could make her come. The way she’d only ever come with him. She was so past thinking about the inevitable consequences, or what any of this meant, or whether it was a bad idea or a terrible idea. She just needed him inside her.
She opened her mouth and at the last second remembered, and moaned into the leather bench.
“You come when I tell you to,” he said.
Like he could read her freaking mind.
“And only when I tell you to.”
Olivia gripped the handles harder. “Yes, sir,” she said.
He was still behind her. Slowly he began to move his right hand over her ass, bringing him close, so close—and then he stopped.
She could have screamed.
“You remember what I said when we first made an agreement?”
Olivia gritted her teeth. It was seared into her memory.
“Yes.”
“I want to hear you say it, Liv,” he said, his thumb brushing against her labia.
Olivia didn’t say anything. Why did it matter? Why did she have to—?
With a loud smack, his heavy hand came down on her ass again and she jolted forward, the sharp sting dissolving into a wave of pleasure that rolled slowly towards her core. He hit her again, and again, and then he spread her cheek and pushed his thumb into her drenched, aching pussy, and she cried out and clenched down around him as hard as she could.
And then he pulled away, leaving her empty and cold. And writhing. Fucking writhing.
“You’re not going to get what you want unless you own up to wanting it,” Gavin said, easily. She could hear him smiling.
Smack. Another brief caress, just shy of penetration. She strained against the handles and his hand on her neck.
“Tell me.”
Why was she resisting? Why on earth did she ever resist something she wanted? Olivia was just afraid to say it out loud, like she’d jinx it if…
Smack.
“Tell me or I’m going to keep you like this all damn night,” he said.
Smack. Like a tiny little moment of clarity, and then it would recede, and she’d still be afraid, only a little less each time…
Gavin’s hand tightened on the back of her neck, and he bent over her, just like he would do if he were about to enter her. Olivia whimpered in frustration, and then she felt Gavin’s breath on her cheek.
“You don’t have a choice,” he said, his hand still heavy on her neck. “It’s admit it, or live like this forever.”
Olivia turned her head to look up at him, and couldn’t stop herself from arching her back again. She wanted to scream.
When she opened her mouth, she said, “I want to submit.”
Nothing moved.
She couldn’t bear it.
“Please,” she said. “Sir. I want to—”
He’d already stood up, keeping the pressure on her neck, and then she felt his open palm strike her between the legs, and she yelped. The burning need inside her jumped and the ache deepened and just as she was about to lose her mind he thrust his thumb inside her. She wanted to scream at him to just fuck her already, but then he started moving, his thumb pressing down on her g-spot and his fingers finding her clit, and she just moaned again, one long, continuous keening sound that was basically the sound of her losing her fucking mind. She had never been like this, never been able to come like this, and she had no fucking clue what was happening to her body that she had no control over while she jerked and spasmed and came all over Gavin Colson’s hand.
