Free and Bound

by Chloe Cox

  Gavin smiled, that slight scar on his lip giving him that lop-sided grin.

  “What is that?” he said.

  Shit. Olivia hadn’t even realized she was humming. It was only something she did when she was nervous, but usually it was on purpose.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Summertime?” he said. “Louis and Ella?”

  She jerked her head up. That cut too close. Olivia never sang in front of anyone else, never even hummed, not even in front of Brandon. Not since her mother died. It was too personal.

  But that was the whole problem, right? Gavin always got too close without even trying, and it made her feel like a different person, like someone who had zero control over herself. The faster she could be done with Gavin and Club Volare, the faster she could go back to fixing her life.

  She had to ask him.

  “Gavin,” she said.

  “Quiet.”

  It was an order.

  And she obeyed.

  Just immediately, she stopped, her mouth partially open. It was the voice. The tone. Something. There had to be some explanation for why, when he was this close, and she was this turned on, he could do that.

  And then she got pissed.

  “Who the—”

  His hands wrapped around hers, and he brought them against the wall, up by her head. “Shh,” he said.

  And then she heard it. Muffled laughter, close by, like someone had seen them and was trying to get a better look, peering into the alcove. Gavin let Olivia go and turned partially around, still blocking her body with his.

  “This is a private conversation,” he said. “Move.”

  There was a beat.

  “Was that Gavin Colson?” one voice said, already trailing away.

  “I swear,” said the other. “Some people just don’t know how to behave in public.”

  Olivia tried not to laugh. Lady, if you only knew the kinds of things this man makes me want to do in public. And in private. Literally anywhere, anytime.

  Which is exactly why I have to get this over with.

  “Thanks,” she said, finally exhaling. She had to build up to this. “I owe you one. Or two, now, I guess. And I’m about to owe you another, because I have something else I need to ask you.”

  “I’m calling in that debt first,” he said, taking her hands—gently—in one of his. “Right now, in fact. Remember I said I have plans for you.”

  Olivia swallowed.

  “What do you want?”

  Gavin had never looked more serious.

  He said, “I need you to save Club Volare New Orleans.”

  The jazz band started a new number with a big brassy blast just as Gavin watched the surprise wash over Olivia’s face, and he realized where he’d seen that look before—that look of the sudden clarity that can come with a shock. He’d seen it on submissives who were into impact play.

  If his dick hadn’t already been hard, that would have done it.

  Just a few minutes of conversation, and he was pretty damn sure Olivia needed Club Volare just as much as Club Volare needed her.

  But first he had to convince her of that.

  Finally Olivia tilted her head, looked up at him, and said “So, I understand all of those words you just said individually, but…?”

  Damn. Olivia had this habit of making him smile in the worst circumstances. He ignored the growing ache in his balls, and forced himself to focus.

  “There’s a guy who heads up the city planning commission,” he said. “We need licenses to operate, and this guy wants us gone. But you’ve got the Submit and Surrender movie coming out, and everyone in town loves you. You’re the only person who can convince people that BDSM isn’t just some messed up perversion. We need you to change some minds.”

  The music filled the space between them for a few beats, and Olivia narrowed her eyes.

  “Is it Daniel Delavigne?”

  For a second, Gavin thought he misheard.

  What the fuck?

  He leaned in again, ignoring the adrenaline spike. “You know him?”

  “Not really,” she said, her breathing changing the closer he got to her. “I met him at a meet-and-greet for the movie last year, and then I…”

  Olivia was looking at him more closely.

  “I saw him, tonight,” she finished, and searched Gavin’s face. “Staring at you, when I came in. It seemed…intense.”

  Gavin wasn’t used to being watched by a sub. And he’d never had a sub pick up on his thoughts like that.

  Yeah. He’d have to be careful if he wanted to avoid getting too involved with Olivia Cress.

  She said, “Why does he—”

  “That won’t be relevant,” Gavin said. His tone said it wasn’t up for discussion.

  She held his gaze for a beat.

  Finally, she said, “What would you want me to do?”

  “I want you to lobby politicians. Rub elbows, talk to people. I want you to convince them—show them,” he said, gritting his teeth. He took this personally. “We need to show them why the club is important. Why it’s necessary. Why it has to survive.”

  Olivia exhaled slowly.

  “You want me to talk to people about BDSM? As myself? In public?” she said. The corners of her mouth turned down, and her eyes darted around rapidly. Signs of fear.

  “Like, be the public face of BDSM in real life?”

  “You’re already going to be the public face of BDSM in the movie theaters,” he said. “And I am not letting the paps anywhere near you.”

  Gavin watched her. She was anxious, just like she would be if she were resisting her kinky side for one of the many reasons people did that, and he’d just asked her to confront it. Gavin tensed—he didn’t like seeing her like that, stressed out, but he knew it was an opportunity for her. She just had to take it.

  She looked up at him, and he felt it again. That chemistry. That bone-quaking, electrical storm of an unearthly fucking attraction, and he knew just how dangerous it was. No matter how tempting it would be—and it would be a goddamn temptation—he had to stick to his own rules. They couldn’t get involved with each other’s personal lives. The club, and her submission, when she eventually gave it to him. That’s all it could be.

  No love, no romance, no bullshit. He wouldn’t let his past become her problem.

  And then he saw something else flash across her face. Something he couldn’t immediately identify.

  “I’ll do it,” she said. “If you pretend to be my new boyfriend.”

  7

  Gavin Colson needed her to save Club Volare New Orleans?

  Olivia could barely even admit to herself what she really wanted in bed. Starring in a movie about it was one thing—it wasn’t really her, just a role. But just the thought of other people knowing the truth about her made her queasy, and publicly helping the club would definitely reveal more about herself than she was entirely comfortable with.

  Which…is actually quite messed up?

  But when he’d told her that the club was important, that it was necessary—that was the only time his gravel baritone had strained, and she remembered how important Club Volare had been to the people she’d met in LA. And she knew what the right thing to do was. Which meant she had to do it.

  But then some genius part of her brain had thought, Why not kill two birds with one stone? And she’d said the magic words.

  “I’ll do it if you pretend to be my new boyfriend.”

  Immediately she realized exactly how crazy that sounded. She launched into a rambling and cringe-inducing explanation of her agent’s totally crazypants yet disturbingly accurate theory of Hollywood public relations, and she made a note to repeat, a few times, that this wouldn’t be a big deal. Nothing real. They didn’t even have to spend a lot of time together. Just a few staged photo shoots.

  She did not mention that that was all she thought she could handle without succumbing to sex fever and dying at a young age.

  Gavin was looking a
t her kind of strangely. Olivia hadn’t known “dumbfounded” could be a sexy look, but somehow he managed it.

  Carefully, he said, “You want to get a fake boyfriend to convince everyone you’re not a fake?”

  She sighed.

  “Sonny says it will work, and he’s usually right,” Olivia said. “Unfortunately. And it’s real money for me and my family, and it’s not like an acting career lasts forever, so I just…I have to try.”

  Gavin stood up straight, his face going back to that usual inscrutable Dom mask.

  “And your brother’s tuition is due,” he said.

  She stared at him. She’d forgotten she told him that. Why had she told him that? A simple slip up, and Gavin had figured out that she supported her brother.

  “Yeah, and that too. But like I said, it’s really not a big deal, just a few afternoons,” Olivia said. Keep it light. “We barely have to see each other. Besides, you already let me drive your car, and there’s no way it can turn out any worse than that did.”

  Gavin looked down.

  Had she really just said that? About his car?

  Olivia closed her eyes. If she had sat down all afternoon and tried, as hard as she could, to come up with the worst possible way to tell Gavin Colson about what she’d done to his car, she probably couldn’t have done much better than that.

  “What about my car?” he said.

  “Ok, so please know that I am so, so sorry…”

  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes again. This was bad. She’d been avoiding this because it was really bad. How could she expect him to help her after she wrecked his car? How could she expect him to be anything but furious?

  “It’s not totaled, but it’s not…” She opened one eye. “It’s not good. It’s in the shop on—”

  “Are you ok?”

  Gavin was looking at her with that…that look. That intense, burn-through-a-steel-door look. He could give any actor in Hollywood a run for their money, look-wise, and those guys gave ladies looks professionally. He was mesmerizing.

  She felt his fingers on her cheek.

  “Are you ok?” he said again.

  “What?” Olivia looked down at herself, then looked back up. “I mean, yes? But the car—”

  Gavin’s eyes flashed. “What happened?”

  “I’m fine,” she said and fumbled in her clutch for his keys. “I will pay for all repairs, obviously, and I promise that I tried, but I guess it’s a pretty recognizable car? And a few of them must have seen me leave even with you messing with them…”

  She stopped talking when she saw Gavin’s face.

  Slowly, he said, “They chased you?”

  “Yeah, but I promise the car—”

  “I don’t give a damn about the car,” Gavin said. He inhaled sharply, and when he looked at her again he was very calm.

  “You’re staying at Volare,” he said. “As my submissive.”

  The world came to a slow, spinning stop while she stared at the tall, imposing Dom in front of her. She must have misheard him.

  “What?”

  “It’s not up for discussion.”

  Olivia raised her eyebrows as high as they would go. “Excuse me?”

  There was an eruption of cheering from the main dining room, beyond their alcove, that drowned them out, left them staring at each other, wordlessly. People were teasing Charlene, which meant she must be up on stage, finally.

  Then one drunken voice above the rest: “Where’s Olivia?”

  Applause. Laughter.

  Gavin’s shoulders rounding over her like a shield.

  There was a tense silence.

  He said, “I’ll pretend to be freaking Batman if you want, so long as you help with the city and you stay at the club, where it’s safe. But the only way anyone will believe any of it is if you’re there as my sub.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “You’re an actress,” Gavin said. “Play the role of yourself.”

  Olivia knew she should want to slap him for that. But what she really wanted was for him to push her up against the wall again and fuck her, mercilessly. Right here. Right now.

  And that only made her angrier.

  She said, “This is fake, Gavin. A professional arrangement only.”

  Gavin looked her up and down.

  “No it’s not,” he said. “And you know it.”

  Suddenly he pushed off the wall and walked to the edge of their little alcove, sticking his head out to get a look around. The music had picked up and people had started to chant a countdown.

  “The coast is almost clear.”

  “Gavin—”

  “You are a sexual submissive, Olivia,” he said, his tone brusque. “Normally I wouldn’t push you on that, but circumstances are what they are, and it’s the truth. Whether you’re happy about that is your own business. But nobody fights who they are forever, Liv.”

  Gavin turned around. He looked her in the eyes and held her there.

  He said, “And when you’re ready, I’m going to take you as my sub.”

  Arrogance. Just sheer, blinding arrogance.

  And it filled her to the brim with an aching, burning need, a tremulous, terrifying, force of freaking nature need that made her want to fight him and fuck him at the same time.

  “And how, exactly,” she said, “will you know when I am ‘ready’ to be your sub, Gavin?”

  Gavin grinned.

  “Because you’ll beg to be,” he said.

  And the bastard put out his hand.

  “It’s time to go, Liv.”

  Olivia opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  And then, over Gavin’s shoulder, she saw what Gavin had been shielding her from. That ginger-haired, creeper paparazzo from the day before, dressed up in a waiter’s jacket and screwing up people’s drink orders, just waiting for another opportunity to make her life hell.

  “You’re wrong,” she said. “And you’re arrogant. But you have a deal.”

  She put out her slightly shaking hand, and hoped he couldn’t tell how turned on she was.

  “Take me to Club Volare,” she said.

  While Gavin threw his coat over her shoulders and walked her out, Olivia could have sworn she heard the first few brassy bars of “Summertime.”

  8

  Olivia tried to look at anything other than Gavin’s hand.

  He was driving them both to Club Volare in his friend’s car, and every time he switched gears the muscles in his thick, tanned forearm flickered beneath his skin, and she just. Kept. Looking at it. She kept looking at his big hand, squeezing the gearshift, at the cuff of his suit shirt rolled up, and the bulge of his shoulder, and then next she’d be looking at his face while he watched the road ahead, slick with rain.

  They hadn’t spoken since he’d smuggled her out of the party.

  While they’d been inside Charlie’s the storm had broken, and now it came down in heavy drops that thudded a slippery rhythm on the windows and hid them behind a curtain of water. Just the two of them, hot and humid, while her plastic dress slid over the surface of her skin every time she shifted her weight to relieve the pressure on her swollen labia. Olivia knew that other people still existed in the world, but it sure didn’t feel like it.

  Why hasn’t he said anything?

  All she could think about was the slight sheen of sweat she could see on his forehead, out of the corner of her eye, the recent memory of his hands on hers, the feeling of his body pressing up against her…

  The way he’d protected her…

  “Nope,” she said under her breath.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Olivia ran a hand over her chest—everything felt so hot, even her own skin. Your brain isn’t working right, Liv. It’s just hormones. She just needed to get through this night without doing anything she’d regret, or anything that would complicate the situation. And then in the morning, when she wasn’t spiked up on adrenaline, she could wor
k it all out. She’d have a clear head, and she’d set some professional ground rules, and she’d come up with a plan, and it would be fine.

  She took a deep breath. “How far is it?”

  She could feel his eyes on her. She did her best not to move. Just the thought of Gavin seeing how turned on she was, the fact that he’d know it was because of him, was making her dizzy.

  He turned the car into a dark drive and cut the lights before easing into a slow stop.

  “We’re here,” Gavin said.

  Olivia looked out through the sheets of rain at an old Garden District mansion with a wrap-around porch, and then back at Gavin.

  He looked at her. A muscle in his jaw flexed.

  He leaned across the gearshift, his arm across her lap, the cables of muscles in his bronzed arm shifting, undulating. His musk filled the car, made it impossible to think. Olivia watched with horror as her finger rose, seemingly on its own, to graze the skin on the underside of his forearm.

  Warm, smooth, rough at the same time. The contact made her desire real, here, now. Dangerous, while the rain pounded ceaselessly on the roof of the car. She had to move.

  “We better make a run for it,” she said.

  And then she was out the door, into the cooling rain, and running for the house.

  Running felt good, the rain felt good, and the cool relief of not being right next to a man she wanted and could not have felt good. She could breathe. She stumbled, took off her heels, felt the wet grass beneath her bare feet. She would regain her composure, and she could do this. Olivia hitched up her fancy shower-curtain skirt, climbed the steps of the porch, and then looked back.

  Only to see a garage door opening and Gavin driving slowly into the dry shelter of an attached garage.

  “Crap,” she said.

  Cursing a few more times, she turned and tried the front door. Locked. There were no lights on in the house that she could see, no one else there. Gavin was going to have to let her in.

  She ran her hands through her now soaking wet hair, and checked her increasingly ridiculous shower-curtain dress for cleavage mishaps. This is professional, Cress. Be professional. You are calm and collected and ice-cold.