Free and Bound (A Club Volare New Orleans Novel)

by Chloe Cox

  “Stop what?” she said.

  “Stop apologizing,” he said. Before, when he’d talked to her like this, when he’d look at her like this, Gavin’s face had been unreadable. But now, just for a moment, it cracked.

  He stood up, rolling his shoulders, planting his big hands on the table between them.

  “Look at me, Olivia,” he said. “There is nothing wrong with you. The way you kick my ass in a race, the things you feel or don’t feel, those are not problems to be fixed. They’re parts of you to be explored, with hope and wonder and goddamn joy.”

  Olivia stared at him.

  She didn’t know what to say.

  Gavin relaxed, sat back down. He was still looking at her, over the table full of seafood, but it was still like he’d somehow released her.

  “And whoever made you think different should get what’s coming to him,” he said.

  Well, she’d asked for it. She’d said she wanted him to tell her like it was.

  So why was she so upset?

  Five

  Olivia couldn’t sleep.

  No, worse than that. She was angry and aroused at the same time. This wasn’t lying awake, tired, just waiting for sleep to happen; this was pretending not to feel the need building in her, bubbling over until she just had to move, had to thrash against her sheets, had to pound against her pillow. It was dumb.

  And it was Gavin’s fault.

  She stared at the ceiling and dug her hands into the mattress beneath her, hoping that this feeling would go away by sheer force of will. Her skin was hot, her breasts ached, her thighs were wet. If she touched herself one more time, she’d scream in frustration.

  How could someone who made her so angry turn her on so much at the same time? What was worse was she knew she didn’t have a right to be angry. Because he was right. Of course he was right—she shouldn’t have to apologize all the time. But she did not think she needed to be fixed, it wasn’t like that.

  It was just that she’d never orgasmed with a partner. She’d never even come close. For a long time she’d had a bad habit of dating jerks, at least partially because it was easier to guard yourself with a guy who didn’t think much about anyone other than himself. And she’d thought that was the reason.

  But then Brandon had come along. Before he’d hit it big, when she was still the one who always paid for dinner, and loved him for not making a big deal about it. He’d been the nicest, kindest, sweetest man she’d ever met, and that had been weirdly hard, at first, because she wasn’t used to that kind of attention. It made her self-conscious. But eventually she’d believed him—he’d really loved her. And even then, even with the sweetest guy on the planet, she’d never really enjoyed the sex. And if she was honest, it didn’t seem like Brandon did, either.

  And if she couldn’t have good sex with someone like that, then maybe the guys weren’t the problem. Maybe it was her.

  So when Brandon did the dump-and-disappear, she hadn’t just lost her best friend and future husband. She’d lost the last shred of hope. It was a confirmation of everything she feared.

  And then Gavin Colson showed up, and made her feel things she’d never felt before without even touching her. She’d gotten used to the idea of who she was; she’d gotten used to the idea that she’d have to just pretend, that when she played a sexy ingénue submissive, she was kind of a fraud. That had been work, getting used to that. She’d cried over it, and she’d eventually accepted it. That didn’t mean she wanted to cry over it all over again if, even with Gavin, sex turned out to be…like it always was.

  And now she couldn’t get his words out of her head.

  You can be anyone you want to be here.

  You never have to see me again.

  No stakes.

  And she couldn’t freaking sleep.

  Suddenly Olivia launched herself out of bed, driven by an impulse she couldn’t ignore anymore. Moving felt good. The sheets, tangled up in her legs, slid to the floor, and it felt good. She pulled on those yoga pants from earlier and left her room, walking fast in case her brain eventually caught up and stopped her, and knocked on Gavin’s door.

  Oh holy shit what am I doing.

  She was about to turn back when he opened the door.

  Oh. My. God.

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Gavin Colson, standing in front of her in all his muscled…something. Words weren’t working right for her. There was a soft overhead light in the hall, the kind that never turned off, and it glowed just enough to show the definition in his chest and shoulders. Striations of muscle, like threads woven together, or estuaries joining into one big, powerful force of nature. There were two shadows where his huge chest muscles dipped into the swell of his shoulders, shadows that flowed into his collarbone, his neck.

  She couldn’t help but look. It was all right there.

  The soft light made his skin look warm, smooth. Just a dusting of hair on his chest, trailing down, over and in the deep seam of his abdominals. He breathed, flexing them, and she made a little sound. Those ridged and rippling abs pulled her eyes down, where his muscles merged in a powerful V, leading down to…

  She looked. The thin material of those drawstring pants hid nothing. He was huge.

  “Olivia,” he rumbled, and ran a hand through his black hair. “You ok?”

  “Please don’t talk,” she blurted.

  Crap. This was not going well.

  “It’s just if you talk…” Olivia swallowed. She couldn’t stop looking at his body. She felt her nipples start to harden under her flimsy tank top, and crossed her arms.

  “If you talk, I don’t know if I can say what I want to say.”

  “Ok,” he said.

  She had gotten this far. She had no plan. And her brain was short-circuiting due to shirtless Gavin-induced stupidity.

  Olivia promptly closed her eyes.

  “I just realized I was going to apologize for basically running out on you during dinner earlier. But then that’s totally ridiculous and exactly the point, that I shouldn’t be apologizing all the time, so…”

  That wasn’t what she wanted to say either. She was already blowing it, and if she ever wanted a chance to be the kind of woman she played in the movies, this was it. She took a big breath.

  “You scare me,” she said. “Because I am really, really attracted to you, like more than I’ve ever been attracted to anybody. But I’m already at the end of my rope, and I just can’t take getting hurt again, and I just don’t know how to do this, I guess.”

  She opened her eyes, looked at him once, then looked at the ground. She still couldn’t look at him and get this out, and she had to get it out.

  “That’s not your fault, that’s me,” she went on, her voice weirdly steady. “It’s just I’m not normally like this, not in a judgmental way or anything, in fact I’ve always been so envious of women who…of the kind of women in the club. The kind of woman I play all the time. The kind of woman who knows what she wants and gets it. And I’ve never even…”

  Olivia trailed off. She couldn’t do it. She felt like an idiot, standing here in her pajamas, blathering on to someone she’d only just met about things she’d never even said out loud before, and—

  He touched her.

  It raced through her like a wildfire, melting whatever words were already half-formed, burning her to the tips of her fingers. Her breath hitched. Slowly he traced a burning path down her forearm. He took her wrist, then her hand, pulling her arm away from her body. Pulling her apart.

  And then he led her into his bedroom.

  Six

  Gavin watched her carefully. He’d only seen glimpses of this side of Olivia so far. The scared side. The vulnerable side.

  She was beautiful, with her hair down, her face bare. And when he took her hand in his, he felt her shaking. That’s how much this scared her. But she’d come to him anyway. That same mix of scared and brave, strong and vulnerable.

  She made him crazy.

  But that would
have to wait.

  He’d led her into his room because when she stepped over that threshold he’d figured the tide would turn, and he was right. She didn’t calm down. But that five alarm arousal was less scared, and more sexual.

  Focus.

  Her hand was warm in his. Her skin, soft. Her emotions needed tending, but damn if he couldn’t feel himself getting woke, the animal part of him pacing in the background. He’d never had to work this hard to concentrate.

  “What were you going to say?” he said.

  They hadn’t gone far, just inside, by the door. He didn’t want her to feel trapped. But now the flush returned to her skin, and she looked down again, her face screwed up like he’d given her a puzzle to solve.

  Finally she looked up at him with a sad smile.

  “I bet you never thought someone like me would be weird about this, huh?” she said.

  “I thought you’d be you,” he said.

  She laughed, bitterly. “Well, yeah. I guess that’s what I’m worried about. I’m not like I am in movies. I don’t have this incredible sex life.”

  Olivia looked down again, away from him, crossing her arms over her chest again. She was ashamed, apologizing already.

  His reaction was instantaneous.

  “Tell me what you’re afraid of,” he ordered.

  He’d said it as a Dom. And she looked up at him with wide eyes and spoke.

  “I’ve never come with anyone else,” she said. Then she laughed, softly. “God, that sounds so stupid now that I say it out loud.”

  “What about by yourself?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, and smiled slightly. “After a lot of practice.”

  Internally, Gavin fumed. He’d get details later. But it wasn’t uncommon that the women he met had all sorts of messed up expectations and hang-ups about sex. Some of them spent years sorting it all out, if at all. Usually no one ever bothered to ask what they wanted, and they’d learned it wasn’t important.

  And someone had done that to Olivia.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, again. “I guess I just don’t understand why you…I mean, I’m not a sub, and I’m not even anybody, really, and…I just don’t know how to talk about this, and—”

  Too much talking.

  Gavin put his hand to the side her face, silencing her. She leaned into his touch, just a little bit, enough to make his balls ache. He brushed his thumb against her temple, threaded his fingers through her hair.

  And then he pushed her up against the wall, and took her mouth in his.

  She tasted light and sweet, her lips so soft he had to take one in his mouth and suck on it. He kissed her deeply, he kissed her hard. He wanted her to know she was being kissed. And he wanted her to know why.

  “You’re Olivia Cress,” he said. “And I’ve never wanted anyone more.”

  Olivia was breathless.

  That kiss had been mind-melting magic. And too short. Way too short.

  And he had pinned her to the wall, and now stood over her, so close and yet so far. Mindlessly, she reached out and touched his hard, muscled chest, grazing the skin, the soft hair.

  She shivered.

  And she still couldn’t talk.

  “Olivia,” he said, a slight rumble in his chest. “Do you remember the club safe words?”

  She looked up at him, into those glittering eyes.

  “I’m not—”

  “Do you remember them?”

  “Yes,” she said. She had done a whole movie, after all. “Red, yellow, green.”

  “If you can’t talk, use those.”

  She blinked. Of course. That was the whole point, to make it easier to talk when you’re brain was all melty. She could do that. She could do that! Why hadn’t she ever thought of it before?

  “Ok,” she said. “Yes.”

  And she went back to touching his chest, letting her hands roam lower, her core tightening with every centimeter.

  “Look at me.”

  She frowned. But she did it.

  Jesus. His eyes…

  “I’m giving you an order,” he said.

  Olivia swallowed. But she trusted him. For some reason, she trusted him. She nodded.

  “You’re not going to think about orgasms. At all. Matter of fact, you’re not going to come unless I tell you to.”

  Her breath hitched.

  “You’re going to focus on what you feel, and nothing else. Understood?”

  She couldn’t stop looking into his eyes. Was this real? She’d heard what he said, and it sounded too fantastic, too…

  But she could hear her own breathing. She could feel her own pulse, from her fingertips to her swollen pussy. This was really happening.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  She thought she heard a satisfied growl before Gavin moved, so fast she wouldn’t have believed it. He dipped a few inches, cupping his hands around her ass, lifting her and pulling her to him with effortless speed. Her legs wrapped around him all on their own, her hands found his shoulders, and in just a few strides he’d thrown her down on his bed.

  She giggled, just little sounds of happiness and anticipation, and crawled backwards on the bed. Then her eyes finally fell to his crotch, and she went silent.

  Holy God, she hadn’t been wrong. His erection was a monster. She licked her lips.

  Gavin was staring at her too, his eyes flickering. When he spoke his voice was different. Lower. Brutish. Guttural.

  “Off,” he said.

  For a moment she stared at him, uncomprehending. Then she rushed to pull her tank top off, thrilling at the feeling of being bare, of knowing it was for him. Knowing it was because he demanded it.

  Still not fast enough.

  Gavin climbed on the bed and pushed her back, her bare breasts bouncing as she fell back, her nipples hardened into tiny little points. He looked hungry, starving. He looked at her like she was the only thing he’d ever wanted, and nothing was going to stop him, and she let that feeling wash over, warm her. And then he was on her.

  He hooked his huge fingers under the waistband of her yoga pants and stripped them off in one swift motion, stripping her completely bare.

  And then he looked at her and growled softly.

  He spread her legs and ran his hands up the sides of her body before lifting her butt in the air and pulling her down onto his still covered erection. She groaned. It was hard as a rock under there, curving up and into her swollen labia, still covered by those damn pants. In a minute, if he kept her like that, she’d soak through them. She ground her hips, involuntarily, this close to losing her mind.

  He took both her hands in his, pinned her to his bed, and kissed her.

  She moaned into his mouth as he caressed her with his tongue, his lips, his teeth. He was an animal. He let go of her hands, and they stayed where he wanted them anyway, while his hands roved over her body, touching, squeezing, pinching. He moved lower, his chin grazing her throat, her chest, and bit her nipple. She yelped, surprised, and then was even more surprised when the sharp, slight pain melted into a flooding pleasure.

  She tried to think about that, to file it away or wonder about it, just instinctively, but she couldn’t. Her thoughts were becoming scattered, like they couldn’t hold together under the force of all those sensations, like her mind was fighting for control, but for the first time, it was losing. He was driving her into a frenzy, never letting her get inside her own head. Every sensation followed by another, every moment a touch higher, until she was writhing underneath him, desperate, grinding her hips against his cock, losing her mind completely.

  “Please,” she managed. “Please…”

  Gavin made a sound against her chest, something she couldn’t recognize, and then he started to drag his face down her naked abdomen. Her belly fluttered, and the nervousness began to creep back in, the self-conscious wall, the—

  He slipped his hands under her butt and lifted her, slightly, and buried his face between her legs.

  The shock of it
silenced her. He wasn’t moving, he wasn’t licking her. She almost never did this, definitely not with Brandon, and she didn’t even know enough to tell him what she liked, and she was panicking about all the things she panicked about whenever a man went down on her—what she smelled like, what she tasted like, what she looked like.

  Gavin inhaled, deeply, making a pleased sort of sound, and then he thrust his tongue inside her. She moaned, confused. It felt amazing but it wasn’t just that. He licked her, in one long, flat stroke, and it was the look on his face that did it. This wasn’t yet about her pleasure. It was about his. He tasted her, smelled her, wanted her, just for her.

  Something inside her started to unfurl.

  Gavin lowered her back into his lap and leaned back, her juices shining on his chin, and made a low sound. Then he looked her right in the eye, and thrust a finger inside her.

  Olivia gasped. She couldn’t look away while he moved inside her, teasing her g-spot, dragging his finger around the sensitive flesh of her entrance. He watched her, hungrily, as he pushed her higher, higher than she’d ever been with anyone, ever.

  She wanted to beg for more. She wanted to escape. She wanted him to look at her, and she wanted to not be seen. She felt her eyes start to tear up and her hips start to move again, and she almost couldn’t take it one second more.

  And then he lifted her again, so easily, like it was nothing, he lifted her to his face and threw her legs over his shoulders, urgently, sloppily, like the world could come down around them and he wouldn’t even notice until he was done with her, and he put his mouth on her.

  Olivia moaned.

  The wet warmth of his mouth, the pulsing pressure of his lips, his tongue, the iron grip of his hands as he held her in place and drank her, sucked her, licked into a frenzy, all of it was too much. Almost too much. She grabbed at the sheets, twisting them up in her hands, pulling, thrashing, almost trying to get away from the feeling of being overwhelmed by another person. It was more than she’d ever felt in her entire life and it scared her and thrilled her and made her mindless, and he wouldn’t let her run away from it. He held her tight as she moaned and bucked, and as it built unbearably inside her, she raised her head off the pillow and looked down to see Gavin looking at her over the cusp of her own nakedness, his eyes piercing hers with that ferocity, that animal need, while his tongue lapped at her clit in a steadily increasing rhythm, and she went screaming over the delirious edge.