Free and Bound (A Club Volare New Orleans Novel)

by Chloe Cox

  Well, she might have had an idea, if she’d thought about it for a few more seconds.

  Eight

  Olivia had just finished filming the Submit and Surrender movie at Club Volare LA, so she knew what she was looking at.

  She just couldn’t tear her eyes away.

  It looked like one of the rooms at Club Volare LA, kind of. There was a St. Andrew’s cross on one wall, a bench, a rack with a bunch of restraints. But there were some things she didn’t recognize. Things she couldn’t help but wonder about.

  The weird part was that she wasn’t intimidated. Yesterday, she would have been, or she thought she would have been. Now? Her mind raced, and her heart pounded. But not from fear.

  “Liv?”

  It was Gavin’s voice, carrying from the other side of the suite.

  She had already turned around and closed the door quietly behind her before she realized two things: one, she had reacted like a school girl about to get in trouble for snooping. Which…oh God. That made her squirm a little bit. She took a deep breath, and her strapless dress pulled tight around her breasts. That didn’t help either.

  And two, Gavin had called her “Liv,” and she’d loved the way it sounded, coming out of his mouth.

  She looked ahead, took a deep breath. Tried to compose herself, though she could feel her panties sticking to her already.

  And walked back into the fray.

  Only, there was no fray. Olivia ventured out further, until she was standing in the middle of the great room, the elevator doors in front of her. She’d thought she’d heard voices at first, but now, there was nothing. How long had she been composing herself?

  “You get lost?”

  She whirled around. Gavin was standing in the open doorway that led to the living room, leaning against the doorframe. Absently, he reached up to loosen his tie.

  It did things to her.

  “Kind of,” she said.

  Maybe it was her tone of voice. Maybe it was the look on her face as she said it. Whatever it was, it got Gavin’s attention.

  He pushed off the doorframe and buttoned his suit coat. And looked at her.

  “And what happened?”

  Olivia bit her lip. She wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell someone about all the things she was feeling. But wanting to and being able to…

  “Where are Roman and Lola?” she asked.

  “Left for a doctor’s appointment. Last minute cancellation, they got in. Said to tell you goodbye, and don’t forget to call Adra,” he said. His eyes flickered. “What happened?”

  That tone of voice. Whenever he used it, something in her started to turn, to tighten. Immediately she could feel her pulse around her clit, felt her whole body come awake with a burning need. The pressure in her was building, the words wanting to come out, only she didn’t know how to put any of it into words.

  So she did the next-best thing.

  Slowly, she began to inch the hem of her dress up her thighs. She watched him watching her the whole time.

  She was wearing a thong. Once she got it over her hips, it fell to the ground around her ankles, a tiny little piece of fabric.

  Her heart pounding, Olivia stepped out of it, bent down, picked it up.

  Then she tossed it to him.

  He caught it in one hand, barely moving. He said nothing as he put it in his pocket, his eyes never leaving hers.

  Gavin got to her just before she thought she would pass out, her heart racing like she’d just done wind sprints, her brain silently freaking out at what was the most daring thing she’d done sexually.

  So far, anyway.

  Gavin wrapped his arm around her waist, jolting her close to him while his other hand found the zipper on the side of her dress. He kept up the eye contact. He kept up the eye contact the entire time he unzipped her dress.

  Then he pulled it off of her.

  Olivia bit her lip again, her eyes half lidded. Her skin felt hot, a prickling sensation running over her in waves. Gavin put out his hand, and she stepped out of it. She was naked in front of him.

  With a soft growl, Gavin picked her up, over his shoulder. The sudden movement was disorienting, wild. Olivia dug her fingers into the back of his jacket, and the pulse between her legs grew into a deep ache. He walked fast, just a few big strides, and they crossed the threshold into the living room. Next thing she knew she was on the couch, bouncing a little where he’d thrown her, with Gavin standing over her.

  He growled again, and pulled her off the couch, onto the soft carpeting. She smiled and squirmed, enjoying the anticipation and hating it at the same time because it meant she had to wait, and when he pinned her hands over her head, she gasped.

  Olivia still didn’t speak. She just arched her back towards him, begging him, needing him, to touch her.

  As he spread her legs she stretched her arms back, above her head, felt something on the ground—a string? A cord.

  The curtain cord.

  Without thinking, she wrapped it around her wrist and moaned.

  Gavin stopped.

  His eyes still flickered, but his manner had changed. Gently he reached for her wrist, and unwrapped the cord.

  “Too dangerous,” he said. “Can cut off circulation real quick.”

  For a moment that old feeling of embarrassment, of having screwed up in front of someone who knew what they were doing, of revealing herself as a fraud, resurfaced. But where it used to flood her mind, drowning everything else, this time it was crowded out.

  By the sight of Gavin Colson, between her legs, undoing his tie.

  Olivia opened her eyes wide, like she didn’t want to miss a single moment. She didn’t even want to speak, in case she’d break the spell, or she’d wake up to find it was a dream.

  But he was looking at her, again. That intense look.

  That Dom look.

  He was waiting.

  “Oh,” she said, her mind skittering over a million possibilities, like trying to find the one key she needed to unlock everything. And then she remembered.

  “Green,” she said.

  “Good girl,” he murmured, and quickly bound her hands together over her head. She breathed hard as he did it, even harder when he leaned back again. Instinctively, she tugged on her bonds—he’d tied her to something. The leg of the couch.

  Her hands were tied together, she was tied to the couch, and she was naked.

  Gavin looked down at her approvingly, put a hand to the side of her face, ran it down the length of her body. She rose to meet him where he touched her, her body arching all on its own. She heard herself moan.

  He moved so quickly she couldn’t process what he was doing. He moved her legs, grabbed her hips, flipped her over with her bare breasts pushing into the floor, the deep carpet setting her skin on fire where it touched her. His big hands wrapped around her hips again, this time from behind, and lifted them in the air, so she had to scramble to keep up, leaning on her forearms as he brought her to her knees, her head down by the ground, her ass high in the air.

  “That’s better,” he said, and slapped her ass, hard.

  Olivia let out a muffled groan, and arched her back as she heard the sound of a zipper.

  This time wasn’t slow. Gavin plunged into her to the hilt, dragging her hips back with his huge hands, impaling her on his cock. Olivia made a sound she never heard before, and pushed back, wanting to take more, take as much of him as she could. With a sharp clap, he smacked her on the ass again, withdrawing only to fill her again, and again, and again, the sharp sting of his hand dancing with the feel of his cock driving into her until both sensations merged and she came, harder and faster than she ever had in her life. She was still screaming into the dull shag carpeting as Gavin fucked her with rough abandon, his thrusts driving her forward with each stroke, his hand finding her shoulder as he let loose a thundering roar. She felt his cock spasm inside her, and he fell forward as he pulled out, catching himself before he crushed her underneath his full weight.
>
  He stayed there, for a beat, the two of them panting in a wordless rhythm.

  She felt him roll off of her, and missed his warmth, his weight. She felt him untying his tie from around her wrists as she let her cheek sink into the carpeting, totally unable to move. She felt him slip his arms underneath her, then gently lift her, cradling her. Olivia put her arms around his neck without thinking.

  As much as she could think, she was thinking: what the hell was that? It was like getting hit by a storm. A hungry, profoundly male, dominant storm. She hadn’t even known her body could do that.

  But right then, at that moment, she just liked the smooth feel of his shirt, the strength of his arms and shoulders. She leaned into him as he sat, with her still in his arms, on his bed. He laid her down carefully, and came back a moment later, naked as she was, with a washcloth.

  He wiped them both down.

  He climbed into bed.

  And he held her.

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t demand anything. He didn’t need her to talk, or to explain. He just held her, as her heart rate slowly came back down to earth, running his fingertips along the length of her arm, kissing her forehead.

  The last thing she remembered before falling asleep was thinking that this felt too good to be real, and she didn’t know if she’d be able to tear herself away from it.

  Gavin woke when Olivia started to stir. She’d slept sweetly in his arms, and he hadn’t wanted to move a muscle the whole time. But as she woke up, she stiffened. Grew tense. Anxious.

  Not surprising. Happened a lot when people had new experiences, especially intense ones. Especially if that new experience showed you something new about yourself. And especially if it meant sharing it with someone else. He’d given her what aftercare he could, but you couldn’t stop a freak out if someone needed to freak out. Everyone had to do it their own way.

  He could already tell Olivia Cress was going to need to freak out a little.

  “How you feeling?” he asked.

  “Like I ran another marathon,” she said, and he could hear her smile in her voice. “What time is it?”

  “Five.”

  “Five!” she said, turning to look at him, propping herself up on her elbow. It took her away from him, and he felt it immediately. “Did you miss your meeting?”

  “I have people to go to things if I don’t want to. Perk of being the boss.”

  Confusion passed over her face. She couldn’t tell why that didn’t satisfy her, but he could. She was looking for a reason to get away and figure out what she’d just done, and what she’d just felt.

  “We don’t have to talk about it yet,” he said.

  Olivia blushed slightly.

  “What if I don’t want to talk about it at all?” she said.

  Gavin studied her. He shrugged. “Your choice. But I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be rude, I just can’t.”

  “It’s ok,” he said.

  And he meant it. It had taken him a long time to learn that even when you could see plainly what someone’s problem was, what they were feeling, any of that, it didn’t mean squat unless they could see it themselves. Accepting people as they were had been a long, hard lesson that had paid off in spades.

  It was also why he set his own hard limits. And the woman lying next to him, naked, glowing, looking up at him with every damn emotion playing in her eyes, was the only woman who’d ever made him forget any of that.

  “You are dangerous, Olivia Cress,” he said.

  She fell back on the pillow and burst out laughing.

  “I’m dangerous?” she said and smiled up at him. “You are like the definition of dangerous. You are…”

  She paused. And even though her eyes softened, she still felt farther away.

  “You are Gavin Colson,” she whispered.

  Nine

  Olivia tore herself away from the huge, sexy, naked man who also scared the crap out of her, wrapped herself in a sheet—why? No idea—and padded back to her own bedroom.

  She didn’t know what had happened, exactly, except that she had gotten way more than she bargained for.

  Her interest in BDSM? Not just curiosity.

  Her interest in Gavin? Definitely not just physical.

  But he had to be a fling. She’d made a deal. And she couldn’t take all of this, not all at once. She was still reeling from the break-up; she’d still have to deal with the fallout. She didn’t know when she would feel strong enough to be this vulnerable, every day. She didn’t know if she ever had. Or if she ever would.

  She could already feel the panic rising in her throat, and then, as she was stepping out of the shower, she remembered that she was supposed to call Adra.

  She’d dropped the ball again, because of a guy.

  Olivia sighed, turned on her phone, and ignored the sense of dread that tried to claw its way into her heart, like it always did. This little sex vacation was a double-edged sword. Gavin had showed her parts of herself she hadn’t even known were there, and it had been beautiful. Blissful, even.

  And that was going to make going back to the real world that much harder.

  “Adra? What’s up?”

  “Oh my God I’m so glad you called,” she said, talking in the rush that was her trademark, both as a member of Club Volare and as an agent. “Sonny has been blowing up my phones, both here and at the office.”

  “What? My Sonny? My agent?”

  “Yup. And let me tell you, he is a piece of work. They moved up the production schedule on Burning Bayou because the director has a conflict. They’re going to do prep in New Orleans, which means—”

  “I have to get down there ASAP.”

  Olivia really could not afford another hit to her professional reputation while her ‘celebrity image,’ such as it was, was in the tank because of a break-up. Every single one of her paychecks went to supporting her family, and she’d banked on another couple of years of steady work.

  The familiar feeling of guilt started to encroach on this perfect fantasy week.

  “Sorry, honey. I know you were probably having a great time,” Adra said.

  Olivia looked at the ceiling.

  “Does everyone know?”

  “Only the smart ones. Tell him hi for me, and that we expect him at Thanksgiving. Now get your ass on a plane.”

  When Gavin came by to check on Olivia, she was running around her room like a crazy person, flinging clothes and stuff around.

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  “I have to pack,” she said, and avoided looking at him. “I can’t find my bag.”

  Gavin smiled. “Pack what?”

  Slowly, Olivia came to a stop, and looked at him sheepishly.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You came here with nothing but the clothes on your back. And those didn’t last long.”

  Olivia blushed and smiled, despite herself.

  “Look on the bright side,” he said, walking into the room. “Makes packing a hell of a lot easier.”

  He got a laugh out of her. It would have to be good enough.

  “What’s the hurry?” he said.

  Olivia looked at him earnestly, still wrapped in a sheet. He stopped himself from smiling, but it was fucking adorable.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry, but they changed the shooting schedule, and now I have to be on set in Louisiana in like a week, and I haven’t done any preparation, which if you knew me is like a definite sign of the apocalypse. I mean, I always did all my homework, all the time. Like, I did it early. And I really can’t afford to lose this job, and…”

  She trailed off as they looked at each other. Gavin could feel it, between them. Neither one of them wanted her to leave. Neither one of them wanted to look away.

  But what he’d seen earlier hadn’t changed. Olivia would need time on her own to figure herself out. And he needed time to figure out what the he
ll was wrong with him—he didn’t get like this about subs. He made a point of that.

  But if Olivia needed him, he knew he’d be there in a goddamn heartbeat. And that was dangerous indeed.

  “Too bad you don’t go back home much,” she said finally.

  It clicked.

  He got it, what Roman and Lola, and Adra and Ford, had set up. And he laughed.

  “Well, I’ve just agreed to head up the next Club Volare,” he said. “We’ll both be busy.”

  He found her dress in the closet, hung up and laundered by the staff, and handed it to her. He helped her find her bag. He walked her to the elevator, his hand on the small of her back.

  And he was not at all surprised when she got to talking as soon as he called the elevator.

  “Please don’t think I’m not grateful, or that this was bad, in any way,” she said. “I mean, this was…”

  Olivia swallowed, and turned to look at him.

  “This was important to me,” she said. “It’s just I’ve got a lot going on right now, and I don’t think I can afford to get distracted, if that makes any sense?”

  She stopped. He watched her with interest, watched her sort through her many thoughts, watched as she tried hard to tell the truth.

  He really liked that about her.

  “Thank you,” she said, finally.

  And she stood up on her toes to kiss him.

  It surprised him. It surprised him enough that he responded without thinking, and pulled her to him, pushed them both until she was up against the elevator door. He wanted her again, he wanted his hands on her body. But he wanted her to know that he understood more.

  He kissed her breathless, as tenderly as he could.

  The elevator dinged, and he pulled her back from the door, letting it slide open. He kissed her forehead once, and stepped back.