Free and Bound

by Chloe Cox

  He’d seen her. He held her eyes and started to walk towards her, and it took her an endless, endless second to remember all the other crap in her life.

  Olivia blinked. You cannot let yourself lust after a man you can’t have.

  So she tore her eyes away from his.

  And that’s when everything went to hell.

  Gavin had been studying the red-haired kid in the green trucker hat.

  Trucker Hat seemed to have gotten over his initial fear of Gavin, and now his eyes were trained on the door that Olivia had closed behind her.

  “Why is this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?” Gavin said.

  “Huh?”

  Gavin didn’t have time for this. He didn’t like the feeling in the room, he didn’t like the way these men were waiting on Olivia, and he didn’t like this guy in the trucker hat. He put a giant hand on Trucker Hat’s shoulder and turned him around.

  “Answer me,” he said.

  “What?” Trucker Hat said, still looking at the door over his shoulder. “Are you serious? Do you live in a cave or something?”

  The door opened, and Olivia stepped back out.

  Jesus. It hit him like a train. Beautiful didn’t describe it. The way she moved, the way she smiled. She made everything seem like it mattered.

  Then she looked at him, and that was it. He knew something was wrong, and he needed to be where she was. He walked toward her.

  And that’s about when every other person in that room lost their damn minds.

  There was an explosion of light and sound. Twenty-odd camera flashes going off at once while thirty-odd men all started shouting at the same time was almost as bad as a flashbang.

  “Olivia, when did you find out?”

  “Did you always know?”

  “How much did he pay you?”

  Chaos.

  Gavin shielded his eyes against the flashes just long enough to see Olivia duck back through that same door, slamming it shut behind her again. One of the reporters pushed past the rest, reaching for the doorknob, shouting. Gavin clenched his fists.

  Locked.

  He relaxed, but only for a moment. He reached out and grabbed the reporter in the trucker hat.

  “What the hell is happening?” he said.

  “Jesus, let go of me!” Gavin drew Trucker Hat up close by his shirt as the reporter struggled to get free. “I’m going to miss my shot!”

  “I asked you a question.”

  Trucker Hat cursed. “Her ex, Brandon Greer, the biggest action star in the world? That ring a fucking bell? He was caught with another dude last night at some place in Malibu, there’s sex pictures all over the web, and no one has gotten a pic of Olivia Cress yet. Now get off of me!”

  Gavin let him go.

  “Why the hell does anyone care?” he said.

  “Are you serious?” Trucker Hat said, picking up his phone where he’d dropped it. “You know how much I’m going to make for a reaction shot of Olivia Cress when she finds out?”

  Gavin let him rush ahead with the rest of the reporters, all of them shouting questions at a closed door. But some of the smarter scumbags were starting to peel off and look to the other exits from the gym. It was only a matter of time before one of them found the side exit, and then, across the parking lot, the back door to the locker rooms.

  Where Olivia was.

  The last thing he heard as he ran out of the gym was someone banging on the office door and shouting, “Were you always a fake?”

  3

  “Brandon’s gay?”

  Olivia barely had time to say that out loud before someone pounded on the door behind her. Panicked, she spun around and locked it. For a second she thought that was an over-reaction. Then someone tried the lock.

  “Kick it in!” The muffled voice came right through the flimsy door.

  Yeah, she didn’t have time to have feelings right now. Pretty soon she was probably going to have a whole lot of feelings about all this—although, she noted, almost clinically, that surprise didn’t seem to be one of them yet—but right now, she had other things to think about. Maybe her agent could explain to her how Brandon being gay—Brandon is gay?—meant that she was somehow even more of a phony than she’d been when Brandon was straight and supposedly heartbroken over her, but right now…

  Maybe he’s bi?

  But why wouldn’t he tell me?

  Something thudded against the door behind her. She had no idea how to think or what to feel, but she knew she wasn’t going to let those jerkwad paparazzi get the better of her.

  She ran past Charlene’s office and down the hall that led to the door to the parking lot, thankful that for once that she got somewhere early and got a good parking spot. Not like she expected there to be enough people here to compete for spaces, but still, old habits died hard. She patted herself on the back only long enough to open the back door, blink into the high spring sun, and then see that her car was completely blocked in by other cars.

  Guess this is where all the paps parked.

  Olivia stepped back inside, out of sight, and closed yet another door. She didn’t have a lot of options. Charlene had said she was going to bring her car back around after stopping by her restaurant. It felt like ages ago, but rationally Olivia knew it was just a few minutes—and that it was possible Charlene hadn’t left yet. She risked another look outside.

  Nope. Charlene’s car was gone, and another car was in her space.

  And now there was a guy, a dude with a camera, leaning against that other car and smoking a cigarette.

  She really was trapped.

  “Screw this,” she said.

  She turned back around, determined to—

  And there was Gavin, his back to her. Tall, furious, and just…God. There was a slight sheen of sweat on his neck, and his fists were clenched, the muscles in his back tight. He exhaled, like a frustrated bull, and turned to look the other way down the hall. Olivia just stared at him, open mouthed, her mind shutting down while her body just…responded.

  Jesus. The immediate relief was intoxicating enough. But that wasn’t the problem. In the middle of what was a ridiculous crisis, in the middle of finding out that the most important relationship of her adult life had apparently been at least a little bit of a lie, she was wet.

  Gavin turned around and his shoulders relaxed—briefly. Then he looked her over, and the tension was back. His eyes flashed as he looked her up and down, finally resting on her eyes, and she shivered. He’d looked at her exactly like that once before, in the hotel they’d stayed at, when she’d teased him with something she’d been wearing. And about two seconds after he’d looked at her like that, she’d been wearing nothing at all.

  “How did you get back here?” she said.

  “The same way a bunch of those guys with cameras are about to get back here. There’s a side door,” Gavin said. He was very serious when he said that.

  Then he grinned.

  He absolutely knew what she’d just been thinking.

  “My car is blocked in,” she blurted out. “I would totally be running away from this mess like a sane person, but there are guys out there waiting for me, and my car is blocked in, so now I’m just thinking of going full on crazy-person instead? I don’t know, I have no idea what I’m doing, I just need to get out of here.”

  Gavin burst out laughing.

  “Man, I missed you, Liv,” he said.

  They stood there, looking at each other. Of all the things for him to say, in that moment, that was the one that knocked her on her ass. She didn’t know what to say.

  Good thing the moment was ruined by a scruffy guy in a trucker hat bursting through the side door Gavin had come through, shouting, “Olivia!” And taking a damn picture.

  Olivia liked to think she was stoic and calm when beset by life’s little surprises, but this time she flipped out like a startled cat. Before she knew it she had slipped, hit a stepladder that had been left out near a supply closet, and fallen on her ass. />
  “Ow,” she said, and looked pointedly up at the jerk in the trucker hat.

  He took another picture.

  “Olivia, was the whole thing fake? Have you done that before? Do—”

  And then the man in the trucker hat just…disappeared. One second he’d been standing over her, a sloppy kind of guy with dark-red hair poofing out underneath that bright-green that, aiming his camera at her face, and then the next he’d just seemed to float gently upwards before flying violently sideways.

  Olivia propped herself up on one hand, her hip hurting where she’d fallen. She looked around, wary of any other reporters, but none of the others seemed to have found the side door yet.

  Well, except for the guy in the green hat, who was currently pinned against the wall by Gavin Colson.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Gavin growled. With one iron hand he held the guy in place, and with the other he grabbed the offending camera.

  “Come on, man, I’m just doing my job,” Trucker Hat said.

  “Your job sucks,” Gavin said. He held up the camera. “And you misused this, and now you have pictures on it you shouldn’t have. So now it’s mine.”

  Then he closed his fist over it, and lots of tiny little expensive parts went crunch.

  “What the fuck?” the reporter said, his face twisted up with sudden anger, evidently feeling bigger now that Gavin had let him off the wall. He was older than the hat suggested, mid-thirties at least. “You think she doesn’t want this? They live off this stuff! She wants me to—”

  “Stop. Talking.”

  Without any apparent effort, Gavin grabbed the other man and started to drag him in Olivia’s direction. Olivia scuttled a little further down the hall, almost weirdly curious to find out what would happen. It might be crazy, but she’d never felt safer. It was like having the world’s most casually dressed knight get pissed off on her behalf.

  “I swear to God I will sue,” the reporter said, still struggling.

  “Looking forward to it,” Gavin said.

  “Hey, Olivia, did you do it for—”

  Gavin drew the reporter up and flattened him against the wall again, right next to the supply closet. The hat went flying.

  Gavin was breathing very, very slowly. His voice was even and cold.

  “You do not talk to her unless she talks to you. You do not address her unless she addresses you. You do not even fucking look at her unless she says so, you goddamn worm. Liv, do you want to talk to or look at this worm?”

  “Nope.”

  Gavin opened the supply closet door, and threw the reporter inside. He closed the door and held it closed with one huge hand. With the other he took the stepladder, twirled it around, and shoved it under the doorknob.

  Olivia stared at him.

  “So, thank you,” Olivia said, “But also…dude. I’m pretty sure that’s not super legal.”

  “I’ll let him out,” Gavin said, running a hand through his black hair. “Eventually.”

  Then he looked at her. She was still on the ground near where she’d fallen, now suddenly very conscious of the fact she was wearing a dress. And of how much leg she was showing. And of how much the protective, territorial thing turned her on, no matter how many times she told herself it shouldn’t.

  “Thank you,” she said again.

  She put out her hand.

  He pulled her up, her hip finding his, her other hand falling on his shoulder, the whole length of his body hard and warm against hers. She melted into him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  Neither of them said anything as he touched her face, his fingers drifting lightly down the side of her neck. Her body rose to it, her face tilting up, her chest rising. Like he already had her on a leash.

  “Damn,” she whispered.

  And Gavin pulled away. He dropped her hand. She felt cold.

  And then she was suddenly pissed off that she hadn’t been the one to pull away. It was like with ice cream—she always told herself she would have just one bite, and it was never, ever true. Gavin Colson was her salted caramel. She could never stop at just one touch.

  Olivia shook her head, willing herself to look anywhere else.

  “So,” she said, gesturing towards the parking lot. “Got any ideas?”

  “I beat up the rest of these clowns,” he said. “Lock them all in closets.”

  He was only partially kidding.

  Olivia smiled. “I’d say let’s stay within the realm of legality. I should just leave. And you definitely shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

  Gavin’s face darkened, and he looked her in the eyes. She felt pinned to the spot. “No. I’m not letting them follow you. Or take anymore pictures.”

  “Well—”

  “Give me your car keys.”

  Olivia tilted her head, like what he said would make sense from a different angle. “Are you insane?”

  He shrugged. Then Gavin grinned again—please stop grinning like that, it makes me want things—and reached in his pocket.

  “Catch,” he said, and tossed her something.

  She caught it and had the weirdest sense of déjà vu again, remembering how he’d thrown her the key to his hotel room just after they met, in weirdly similar circumstances. This time it was a different set of keys, but it was just as crazy.

  “You want us to switch cars?”

  “I want you to get out of here safe.”

  He pulled her toward him, and for a second she stopped breathing. Then he gently pushed her flat against the wall, right next to where he’d been standing by the door to the parking lot, and where neither of them would be seen by anyone looking inside.

  “I’m the last one in,” he said, craning his neck to look out the back door. “No one’s blocking me.”

  Olivia racked her brain. If she remembered correctly, Gavin had once told her he had a sky-blue 1972 Dodge Challenger here in New Orleans. That wasn’t so much a car as a work of art that he drove around in.

  “You’re really letting me drive your car?”

  He’d seen her drive back in Los Angeles. This was no light question.

  “You plan on crashing it?”

  “I’ll probably just rough it up a little. Maybe some light mudding. Depends on my mood.”

  Gavin looked back at her, over his shoulder, slightly pained. “Please don’t joke about my car like that.”

  She smiled.

  “I will try my very best not to kill your car,” she said, putting her hand to her heart. “I will protect it with my life.”

  There was a pause.

  “If you do have to choose between your life and the car’s,” Gavin finally said, “I’ll understand if you have to pick the car.”

  Even though they were now standing flat against the wall by the back door like a couple of kids sneaking past the hall monitor, Olivia punched Gavin in the shoulder.

  “Hey.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m only going stealth ‘cause you won’t let me crack heads. We get seen, I’m going to take that as license to go full Godzilla on these pieces of crap.”

  Olivia shrugged, trying to hide a smile.

  “That doesn’t actually dissuade me,” she said.

  “Wasn’t really meant to.”

  That grin.

  In spite of herself, Olivia smiled. She’d forgotten how much fun they’d had just hanging out between Olympic-level sex sessions.

  “Olivia,” he said and turned to her, no longer playing at hiding against the wall. His brow furrowed, his eyes intensely focused as he gently loomed over her. “Do you have somewhere safe to go this time? Some place they won’t find you?”

  She blinked. She was just going to go back to the hotel she’d been staying in while back in town, but they were sure to find her there if they hadn’t already.

  “Charlene’s?” she said.

  Gavin nodded. “That’ll work. I’ll take care of these clowns while you get out to my car.”

  But he didn’t move. The di
stance between their mouths seemed both too far and not far enough.

  Then he took her chin in hand, and she stopped breathing.

  “I’m serious, Olivia—be safe. That’s an order.”

  Olivia inhaled sharply, and tried to stop herself from biting her lip. An order.

  Every point of contact between them pulled at her like a goddamn force of nature. Frustrated, she locked eyes with him. She wouldn’t let him know the power he had over her. She couldn’t. The stakes were too high. And she never had to see him again if she didn’t want to.

  Then Gavin grinned, and she melted all over again.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, as he pushed off the wall and reached for the door.

  “Wait, what?” Olivia said. She was still whispering, for no good reason. “What are you talking about? You don’t have to come to Charlene’s fundraiser thing tomorrow, that’s ridiculous.”

  “I’m not leaving you alone with those people,” he said. “Besides, I’m not done with you yet, Olivia. I’ve got plans for you, girl.”

  She was speechless. All the blood in her head rushed south, to the thundering pulse between her legs, and all she could do was think about the many kinds of plans he might have for her. Speech didn’t have a chance.

  Gavin swung open the door, pausing in the light. He grinned again, the light glinting off the tiny scar on his top lip.

  “That, and I gotta get my car back.”

  4

  Where the hell is she?

  Gavin had arrived at Charlie’s Bistro a few minutes early, before Charlene’s annual crazy cooking circus for charity was supposed to start. Technically it was the Cook For Your Life event, but ‘crazy cooking circus’ got it right. There were a bunch of cooking stations, contests, prizes for weirdest food or spiciest drink or whatever else Charlene could think up. It was the only charity fundraiser he’d ever enjoyed.

  Or at least that’s how she used to do things. Gavin hadn’t been back in a long time, but the fact that Charlene told him to dress in “disposable formal wear” made him think nothing much had changed. He’d been half right—Charlene had taken the craziness and turned it up to eleven. Most people were dressed like they were planning to cook, violently.