Free and Bound (A Club Volare New Orleans Novel)

by Chloe Cox

  He said, “I want you. By my side, in my bed. Probably for the rest of our lives, but I’ll let you call it.”

  Well, that was it. She was only human.

  Olivia burst into tears.

  Gavin smiled softly, and then he drew her closer, until his arms could wrap around her, until she could trust the safety there. When she looked up, he kissed her tear-stained cheek and pressed his forehead to hers.

  “You know I’m a mess, too, right?” she said.

  “Oh man, yeah,” he said. “Your mom died, you took care of your family, you never got to be yourself. It’s not rocket science.”

  She pinched him.

  “Do you have any idea how long it took me to figure that out?”

  “‘Bout as long as it took me, and you didn’t have Charlene yelling at you like a pissed-off football coach to help you out,” he said. “I can’t fix it for you, but I’m damn well gonna be there for you while you do it.”

  “Promise?”

  Gavin didn’t say anything, not for a long while. He held her tighter, in that dumb parking lot, with a stack of pies melting in the sun, and he smiled.

  “Only if you give me a ride,” he said finally.

  Olivia pinched him again, and this time Gavin didn’t let it go. He swept her up, grinning that pirate grin, and pinned her against the hot brick, somehow sending a shiver through to her core. He let himself look at her, really look at her. And then he kissed her.

  Holy God, did he kiss her. He kissed the fairytale right into her, until she was barely breathing, and barely standing.

  Then he pulled back, looking slightly sheepish for the first time, possibly in his entire life.

  “I really do need a ride, though,” he said. “They were out of cars at the airport and no way in hell I was gonna waste any more time.”

  Olivia laughed, and pointed at the jalopy behind him.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

  “This is your car?”

  “Yeah, first one I ever fixed up,” she said, and walked with maybe a little bit of extra sass in her hips around the front of the big car, towards the driver’s seat.

  When she looked up, Gavin was rooted to the ground, his mouth still open.

  “What, I never told you the family business was auto parts?” she said innocently. “How do you think I got so good at messing them up?”

  Gavin looked at the car, then looked back at her.

  “You drive like that on purpose?” he said.

  She shrugged. “It’s fun.” Then she smiled. “You mad?”

  “Nah,” Gavin said, walking around to the passenger door. He thumped on the roof, then looked at Liv, that grin in full effect. “Just thinking about how I’m gonna punish you for messing with my car.”

  Olivia paused, the key in the lock. She had to let that fluttering sensation leave her body before she even thought about driving.

  “I can’t wait,” she said.

  Epilogue

  Gavin breathed in deep. He usually only got like this in a scene, in full-on topspace. But at the moment he was just standing out in the garden with a bunch of other folks, giving Simone a welcome back party. Nothing special.

  Except for that one thing, of course.

  He took another breath, relishing how powerful it felt. His senses sharper. His nerves firing at full capacity, the world bright, his woman beautiful.

  Goddamn, she was beautiful.

  Olivia was sitting with Simone on the other side of the garden as the party was winding down, the two of them talking with that easy, quick intimacy women sometimes had and that always amazed him. Her hair back, her shoulders bare. That light cotton dress.

  Easy. There’s time enough.

  As he watched, Olivia said something and Simone laid her head on Liv’s shoulder. Almost sisterly.

  There wasn’t anything that Olivia couldn’t make better just by being around.

  Even Daniel Delavigne… Truthfully, Gavin never expected it. A few weeks after he got Simone into a program, Daniel came by to shake his hand. That was it. It wasn’t better, the grief wasn’t gone, and it never would be. But the older man wasn’t twisted up in hate anymore.

  And Gavin wasn’t twisted up with guilt.

  “Charlene’s making some kind of dessert,” Luke said.

  Gavin looked for just a second before he returned to Olivia. The people around them started to make their way back towards the open French doors. Charlene did make damn fine desserts.

  “You talk to your lawyer friend?” Gavin asked.

  “That I did,” Luke said. “Said what you thought. Our hands are tied, legally speaking. No one can touch Crennel until he does something actionable.”

  Gavin shook his head. ‘Actionable’ was one word for the kinds of stuff he expected Crennel to get up to. Gavin could think of a whole bunch of others, none of them very polite.

  “We’ll think of something,” Gavin said.

  Luke nodded. No one at Volare planned to let Crennel run around hurting people for long.

  “Tomorrow, though,” Luke said. “Right now I’m gonna go see what’s going on in that kitchen. You coming?”

  Gavin tore his eyes away from Olivia long enough to take a long look at his friend. “You know Charlene’s like my sister,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “She deserves to be happy.”

  There was a pause, as Luke adjusted his hat.

  “I know,” he said.

  Inspection over. Luke’s instincts were right—he got that Charlene was closed off. And like any Dom/me worth a damn, he wasn’t interested in pushing people past what they could handle. But handling love wasn’t Charlene’s problem—believing in it was.

  “Then get off your ass already,” Gavin said.

  Luke cracked a smile under that hat. “I’ll take it under advisement,” he said. “You comin’ in?”

  “Not yet,” Gavin said, his eyes back on the one person that everything in his life revolved around.

  Funny how that worked.

  Olivia waved Simone off as the younger woman got up to join the rest. She sat there, looking happy and peaceful. And then she turned her gaze, and found his.

  It never failed. The whole world fell away, leaving just her, looking at him. Gavin started towards her without even thinking about it, his body setting the pace.

  He allowed himself a small smile as he got closer, wondering if Olivia had any clue what he had in store for her.

  If he’d done it right, she had no idea.

  God, just the sight of him. Still.

  She would watch him walk towards her like that all day, if she could. In slow motion. She’d never seen anyone that at home in their body, so relaxed and aware and confident, unconcerned about anything except what’s his.

  The way he looked at her with that intense concentration, like he had something very particular in mind and he was going to have it, come hell or high water, counted as foreplay. She was practically squirming already.

  He stopped in front of her, blocking the low sun like a freaking giant. Even with the terrible light, she could have sworn she saw a smile in his eyes.

  And then, without saying anything at all, he turned around, and began walking towards the new hedge maze.

  Knowing she would follow. Without question.

  Yeah, that was a panty-dropper.

  Her inner thighs slicked against each other as she walked, and her pulse ratcheted up in time to the throbbing between her legs. Jesus. She’d never known she was this sexual. She never could have thought she could get this aroused from…

  From a look.

  The truth was that she would probably follow him anywhere, and even better was the fact that she wouldn’t have to—Olivia knew she was home to him, even if he didn’t say it.

  But she was damn sure going to follow him into that hedge maze. She trotted to catch up, lost in the pleasant anticipation of a probable orgasm, and it hit her: she was this turned on because she was this
…in love. To the point where she wondered if she’d ever really loved before. If she did, she wasn’t very good at it. She mostly remembered spending a lot of her time and energy either worrying about the unknown or hurting over the unfortunately…known. Re-enacting old wounds, and old fears, in ever new, creative ways. Every relationship had been like two people trying to act in a scene together when they’d been given lines from two totally different plays, neither of them able to hear the other person, neither of them able to see that they were in the wrong freaking play, and there was no one there to appreciate the performance, anyway.

  But with Gavin, it felt like backstage. It was being in a club with the only other person who saw what you saw.

  It was being loved fully, passionately, unconditionally, for who you truly were, and nothing else.

  Even if he sometimes disappeared behind a hedge.

  Olivia snapped up, very alert, and walked toward where she’d last seen him, by the hedge that stuck out a little funny. She’d only zoned out for a second, thinking about him, and—

  An arm snaked around her waist in a familiar grip, and pulled her back until she was pinned to his hard, warm body. She yelped, and it turned into a giggle as he turned the corner, lifting Olivia with one arm, and spun her into a small, green clearing. She was still catching her breath as he spun her around to face him.

  Then she lost it again. Just…breathless.

  The light was dying, and it only made him seem more savage, rawer, his features dark and craggy, his eyes bright. He held her waist tight and bent down to smell her neck. She sucked in air as gooseflesh rippled down her arms. Over his shoulder, in the last of the light, she could see what looked like a St. Andrew’s cross, and she shivered.

  Gavin’s hands roamed over her body, each point of contact, each bit of pressure, pulling her tighter, further. She dug her own fingers into his back, buried her face in his shoulder. She loved to feel this, how much power he had. Knowing he could do anything, at any time. Knowing how much he wanted her.

  Gavin took another deep, greedy breath, like he’d been waiting for this all day. She knew she had. He ran his hands down her sides, rounded them over her hips, slipped them under the hem of her dress.

  Olivia knew what was coming, and shivered. The last time he’d done this there had been so many unknowns. They were playing parts, pretending in front of a whole group of people. This time they were alone in the little world they’d made together.

  Gavin’s hands started to slide up the backs of her legs. He let himself trace the bottom of her buttocks, taking a leisurely pace.

  And then he stopped.

  “You’re not wearing any underwear,” he said.

  “Nope,” she whispered.

  There was a rough, animal sound, and then her dress was up over her head, ripped off her body and flung on a hedge, and she was standing bare-ass naked in front of one worked up Dom.

  Gavin exhaled in a low growl, clasped his hands on her naked ass and lifted her, all at once. Instinctively she spread her legs and wrapped herself around him, burying her face in his neck, her arms around his shoulders. She ground her hips and pressed herself into him, just needing him to freaking touch her already, knowing she’d have to wait.

  He walked them both a few steps, stopped, took the opportunity to bend his neck and take one nipple in his mouth. The suction was sharp and unexpected, and as his teeth grazed her skin she moaned, squeezing him between her thighs.

  Gavin surged forward and Olivia felt hard leather at her back—the St. Andrew’s cross. He slapped her ass hard, once, and she dropped her legs obediently. His shoulders heaved as he breathed in, and then more quickly than she would have thought possible he had her right hand up above her head, strapped to the cross, then her left.

  He stepped back for a moment. She heard a click, and a ring of garden lights softly glowed to life in a ring around her. Her breathing picked up. She could see him better, could see her own nakedness better, her nipples taut and her back arched because she just couldn’t help it.

  She pulled against her restraints just to feel something touch her. He was driving her absolutely insane, and he knew it.

  He knelt down in front of her and clasped one big hand around the back of her heel, and patted her calf with the other. She understood. Wordlessly, she lifted her foot and Gavin spread her leg to the side, fitting her bare foot into a stirrup on the cross. Binding it there.

  When he did the other leg, a trickle of wetness spread down her thigh.

  Olivia watched him through her already half-lidded eyes, her ears roaring with the sound of her own breathing, her body burning rhythmically to the time of her own pulse. She ached.

  He kicked at something with his foot, barely moving. And the cross, with Olivia tied to it, began to tilt backward.

  Oh God.

  So slowly she could barely keep her silence—he hadn’t spoken, and instincts told her in this scene, this moment, neither should she. A slight breeze blew in through the garden with the voices of what remained of the party and she felt it like a caress, her eyes fixated on what she could see of the night sky, her whole body contracting with the sensation. She was so aroused it was beginning to hurt, the pressure building, building.

  Please—

  She stopped herself just in time. Gavin had walked around to stand close to her head, double checking the restraints, like he always did. Then he placed his palm on her cheek and she turned towards him, hungry. Suddenly he grabbed hold of her face and bent down to kiss her deeply, ruthlessly.

  And then he was gone.

  Until a hand on her breast, squeezing, rubbing, rolling the nipple between his fingers. And then gone again.

  Olivia moaned. She lifted her pelvis off of the cross in sheer frustration until he slipped his hands under her ass and put his mouth on her. Her thoughts scattered as he licked her, slowly, from end to end, in one hot, hard stroke.

  And then he was gone.

  Olivia groaned.

  “Gavin, please,” she begged, tugging on her restraints one more time. “Please just—”

  One finger on her lips.

  One beat.

  “No talking unless I ask you a question,” he said. And smacked her pussy once.

  Olivia jerked in her restraints, the sharp pain resolving into a slow pleasure that only built up the pressure inside her. She glared up at him, breathing heavily.

  Gavin chuckled.

  And then he slid the blindfold over her eyes.

  They’d only used the blindfold a few times so far, going slowly to make sure she didn’t panic. So far it had been easier than she thought, and more exciting. She sank into that newly-found space within herself, where sounds, smells, and touch slowly intensified in the absence of sight until everything would overload all at once, and all she’d know then was a flash of light and a wave of ego-shattering pleasure.

  She smiled into the darkness, relaxed and tense at the same time.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Every passing moment pulled her higher and tighter, until she thought she would break unless he—

  Something small. The hard chill of metal, dragged across her abdomen on what felt like a thin chain, her stomach fluttering in its wake. Olivia moaned, and pulled at her restraints, arching her hips. She was barely verbal. She used to struggle to orgasm, sometimes, and now she had to actively fight it off, needed utter focus and control just to stay on the surface of the freaking earth while he teased her.

  He dragged it across one nipple, then the other, and the little metal thing had a sharp edge or two that made her moan. She squirmed, needing to move, needing more.

  He was gone.

  And then it brushed her lips, back, forth, back, forth, like he had dangled it just above her mouth. She parted her lips, and for a moment the object dipped down onto her tongue.

  Under the blindfold, her eyes opened wide.

  Is that—

  Without warning he entered her, and her th
oughts splintered into a million tiny shards. She moaned low as he slid into her in one agonizingly slow stroke, stretching her and filling her at the same time as her body strained to open for him.

  Oh God, she loved this.

  She felt his big hands on her hips as he pulled her down, seating himself fully inside her, and then Gavin began to move. Fuck, the way he moved. Her whole body thrummed with the rhythm of each stroke, building speed and depth slowly, inexorably, relentlessly. They’d had enough sex that she recognized this for what it was: possession. This was how he fucked when he wanted to take her for his own pleasure, when he wanted to show her she was his. And, because of how she was wired, when he wanted to give her the biggest orgasms of her life.

  Just knowing that…

  She didn’t think she could hold on.

  Gavin fell on her with another thrust, one hand around the back of her neck as he surged forward to kiss her, and drove into her deeper, until he hit her limit and Olivia’s blind sight exploded with light.

  She came hard, her hips lifting her half off the cross, her muscles convulsing around him in shuddering waves. She wailed as it spiraled further and further, racking her body until she fell, twitching, back on the cross, slicked with sweat and tingling all over her skin.

  She just lay there, for a moment. She didn’t have a choice. She felt him begin to move, to wipe her down, to check her wrists.

  Gently, he removed the blindfold.

  He hadn’t released her. The scene wasn’t over. But he was looking at her with…ferocity? Tenderness. Love. All those things, but more. Like he wanted to remember.

  He touched her cheek, wiped away tears she’d apparently cried, and leaned forward to kiss her one more time.

  And she felt the tiny metal thing again, wrapped in his hand, moving its way up the side of her body.

  “What is that?” she said, suddenly breathless.

  Forgetting the rules.

  Gavin leaned back, and shook his head. He was smiling.

  “Quiet,” he reminded her.

  He released her left wrist, took her hand, and wrapped her fingers around something.