by Chloe Cox
Olivia rolled over and wiped her face, totally disbelieving that this could make her cry. She was an adult, dammit, and she’d handle this. After that conversation with Aaron Black it was obvious that the secret to saving the club lay in Gavin’s past. So she had to figure that out, and she had to do it quickly. Before she had to spend another night crying about being so very close to something she couldn’t let herself have.
But her thoughts, as she finally slipped, struggling, into sleep, weren’t about the club, or Brandon, or her career, and not even about her family who she really needed to call. She kept thinking of what Aaron Black had said.
She kept thinking of the look she saw on Gavin’s face when he’d thought about his past. And she kept thinking about the way it made her heart hurt.
15
It had been a rough night, followed by a rougher morning.
Gavin hadn’t jacked off that much since he was a teenager. It hadn’t even been for pleasure. It was more about maintenance.
Proximity to Olivia was turning him into a mindless animal, and it felt good.
After a sleepless night, he’d gotten up early. In the shower it came over him again. The way she moved, naked, in his arms. The way she smelled. He’d let out a frustrated howl and started in with hard strokes, thinking about her ass. He wanted her face down, ass up, cherry-red from the spanking he’d give her. He wanted to teach her to come on command. He wanted to plunge deep inside her, no equipment, no script, just raw, animal…
There was a reason he’d soundproofed the rooms. But after that, he’d felt like a human man again. Mostly.
So he’d been relaxed when Olivia almost killed them later that morning on the drive to Charlie’s.
“What was that, anyway?” Gavin said, getting out of Luke’s truck, and brushing off the last of the white dust that had exploded from Olivia’s purse without warning while he was driving. “Baby powder? Why the hell would you have baby powder in your purse?”
“It wasn’t baby powder,” Olivia said. She stopped him just outside the door to Charlie’s and brushed uselessly at his shoulder again. “It was dry shampoo.”
Gavin thought about this.
“Dry shampoo?”
“It’s a thing!”
Gavin tried. He really did.
But then he thought about it again.
“I couldn’t see anything at all,” he laughed. “It was like I’d hit a cloud.”
“Ok, it fell out of my bag and I got it, but then you hit a bump! And Charlene left it for me, like a true friend, because she couldn’t find my regular shampoo when she was getting all my stuff, and she knows I color my hair, and…”
She looked at him.
Then she shook her head and sighed.
“I was returning it to Charlene,” she said. “Here. At her restaurant. Where we are going in order to be seen, albeit ideally not while covered in an unidentified white powder. It makes perfect sense.”
“I’m a simple man, Liv. I only need simple explanations.”
Gavin grinned down at her, trying to put her at ease. This had been her idea, going out in public the next morning as a romantic couple to bolster their story, but he knew she was still spooked by the possibility of people hassling her about her ex. He was fully prepared to act as a possessive, protective Dom in that scenario. Wouldn’t be hard to act the part.
“You ready?”
She nodded.
Then he took her arm without even thinking about it, and he felt it ripple through her. They both paused.
Goddammit.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up while the air between them crackled all over again. She was a natural sub. She called to him. And he’d decided he was going to find out why she fought who she was.
Gavin focused his senses, and led her to his usual table. No point waiting, and he wasn’t going to have her stand out in the open for any length of time.
“You see any of them?” she whispered as she crawled into the booth.
“No photographers in need of a clobbering,” Gavin said, sliding in next to her. “Just regular people pretending not to stare at the Hollywood actress.”
Olivia looked skyward. “I have the weirdest job.”
“You don’t seem to like it much,” Gavin said.
She gave him a brilliant, practiced smile.
“Yeah, but it pays well,” she said.
He didn’t say anything, just watched her. Eventually she looked down, and the mask faded. Gavin had never seen any evidence, here or back in Los Angeles, that Olivia Cress lived an expensive life. Whatever she did with all that money, she didn’t spend it on herself. He had a hunch about where it all went.
“So you’re a simple man, huh?” she said.
“Very. Luke’s an engineer, though,” he said “He might want to know why it looks like a flour bomb went off in his truck.”
“Wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t returned my rental.”
“You wouldn’t want to see what I did with that rental,” he said. “I led those photographers on a three hour tour.”
She shook her head, and finally let herself laugh.
“I’m going to clean it up,” she said.
“Nah,” Gavin said. “I’ll take care of it.”
They smiled at each other. And for a second it was like…
It was like it was so easy.
Watch it, Colson. He had to keep that kind of thing in line before it went too far. He already knew he should be worried about whatever Daniel Delavigne had planned, but there was no way in hell he was going to think about that now. He wanted her so badly his teeth hurt from grinding them together, but he wasn’t going to let anything get in her way, and that included whatever complications would come out of it if he took her and bent her over the table right now.
“Goddamn,” he muttered.
“Do they have pie this early?” Olivia said.
She hadn’t been listening, just responded when she heard his voice. Her own voice was thin and tight again, all the laughter gone out of it. Looked like she’d gotten lost in thought too.
“Don’t know,” he said. “It’s morning.”
“Well, screw the pie rules,” she said, looking over her menu.
He smiled. “You make your own pie rules.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
She paused, like she remembered what else those words could mean, then looked back down at her menu.
“Anyway, I need my Pie Surprise when I’m nervous like this.”
Gavin watched her.
When she was distracted by stuff like accidentally squeezing a dry shampoo bottle inside a moving vehicle, she was fine. Better than fine—she was Olivia. Funny, full of joy. But then she’d go back to thinking. Gavin remembered what it was like, to have all those new feelings you didn’t know you had come at you at once. Like trying to drink from a fire hydrant. He wished he could fix it for her.
“What’s Pie Surprise?” he asked.
Olivia looked at him, unguarded and naked for a second—and he knew he’d hit a nerve.
“It’s just something my mother used to do,” she muttered. “Anything she could find in the pantry and a ton of sugar stuffed inside a crust. Surprise!”
A comfort food.
Olivia saw him about to speak and jumped in. “I swear to God, if you ask me if I’m ok one more time, I will…”
“You will tell me if you’re ok.”
She matched his stare, defiant, frustrated, full of feeling. Gavin’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he ignored it.
“Yes, I’m ok. I’m better than ok!” she said. “I mean, we’re one step closer to saving both the club and my career, right? That is excellent!”
Gavin fought to stay expressionless. They both knew she was avoiding a particular conversation, but that was normal, and that wasn’t what worried him. What worried him was that he needed to fight to stay detached.
He hadn’t recognized it because he hadn’t felt anything like it
for so long.
Treat her like any other sub, Colson.
“Stop hiding,” he ordered. “And tell me.”
‘Stop hiding and tell me?’
Screw that. Olivia stared back at Gavin, determined to hold her own.
Which she knew was dumb. This wasn’t a pissing contest, which she wouldn’t be well equipped for anyway. She had an actual job to do this morning, and it was going to be hard: tell Gavin what Aaron Black had said, and have that ‘honest conversation’ about the past that Gavin clearly did not want to have.
And she was already distracted. All she could think about was what it had felt like to be naked, with his hands on her.
“I’m not hiding anything,” she said, forcing herself to look down at the flawless white tablecloth. “But I think you might be? Maybe. Not on purpose? I don’t know.”
Olivia hadn’t meant it to come out like that. She looked up at him, needing to see his reaction.
Gavin leaned back in his seat, those piercing eyes studying her. For a moment, she thought she saw…something. Some flash of pain, some hint of vulnerability, cross his face. But then that flash disappeared, subsumed in something else. Something greater. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to—it was in everything he did.
Total dominance.
Gavin watched her, his dark eyes shining with interest, and she knew she wasn’t going to get an answer. Not like this. Not by challenging him.
Besides, the look he was giving her was hot enough to melt steel. There was no way her panties stood a chance.
“And how are my two favorite people this morning?” Charlene said, her cheerful voice cutting between them. Olivia hadn’t even noticed her friend come over, but now she was standing over their booth with a big, knowing grin plastered all over her face. “You two in your own little world?”
Olivia tore herself away from Gavin and sighed. She had to have that honest conversation with him, and she had to do it soon, even if she had no idea how in the world to do it. But forcing herself to do something like that when she was this turned on in his presence, all the time, was like trying to walk underwater. She could feel the resistance with every step.
“Earth to Olivia,” Charlene said. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“Nope,” Olivia said quickly. “Of course not. We’re just here to be seen, if it that makes any sense? Keep it believable.”
Charlene eyed first Olivia, then Gavin. “Everything go ok last night?”
“It was great,” Olivia said. She could feel Gavin’s eyes on her all over again, and she wondered if he could see how much even thinking about the previous night turned her on.
“Uh-huh,” Charlene said. “But how are you doing, Liv?”
Olivia sighed. Everyone kept asking that.
Gavin smiled.
“I’ve heard she’s ok,” he said.
“He’s taking good care of me,” Olivia said.
Their eyes met.
Now she knew he could tell.
Charlene cleared her throat. “Ok, so is there anything I can get you two?”
“Pie,” they both said.
“Any kind,” Olivia said. “Surprise us.”
“Wow,” Charlene said. “So you two are ridiculously cute, but—”
She left that sentence hanging and craned her neck towards the entrance, her expression clouded. If Olivia tried, she could hear some kind of commotion—something was wrong.
“Be back in a flash,” Charlene muttered, and hustled off.
Olivia watched her go, wondering if she should help. Charlene didn’t get worried. She didn’t get—
“Whatever that is, it’s not your problem, and Charlie can handle it,” Gavin said. “Stop avoiding, and tell me what’s wrong.”
It was like getting splashed with a glass of cold water.
“Fine!” Olivia blurted. “I’m nervous! That’s what the pie was supposed to be for, but you just had to push it. I mean, it was what my mom did before tests and stuff, to calm my nerves. So I was waiting for the pie. But now you’re…you’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Being…”
Olivia furrowed her brow, realizing she didn’t even have a word for what Gavin was. He insisted on seeing things he wasn’t supposed to see, and then talking about them, and it was…
“Arrogant!” she finished. “I really am fine, Gavin. I mean, last night wasn’t easy, given…our mutual attraction,” she said, waving it away with her hand, like that would make it less of a constant distraction. “It’s just that I’m just a mess right now, with everything going on, and I have to focus on fixing my life, and not…”
Olivia stopped.
Who was she even arguing with?
Gavin leaned back again, his big arms resting on the back of the booth. Even this was too small for him.
She just wanted to crawl back into his lap.
“Then we’re done,” he said, easily. “The show we put on last night was plenty convincing.”
“Even if I ‘disobey’ you in public?” she said.
“You mean if you deliberately provoke me by transgressing against the rules we have negotiated, will I rise to it as those rules demand?” Gavin said.
That he looked so relaxed when Olivia felt so anxious drove her up a wall, and then that he effortlessly articulated something she hadn’t even been able to put into words herself drove her right back down the opposite wall. It was disorienting.
“Will you?” she said. She licked her lips. “Rise to it?”
“You can count on it,” he said. “But you already know that. And you knew it last night.”
Olivia wanted to do something to get that smug expression off his face. What made it worse was that every time they’d butted heads so far, he’d been right. That first night, she’d had to go to sleep knowing she was lucky that Brandon had called it off, because she absolutely would have gone through with the marriage, even though she knew it wasn’t right. Because it was what she was supposed to want, and she thought it would make everyone else happy.
And that was more messed up than she wanted to admit.
“Gavin, I have to tell you—”
“Two key-lime pies, made to order!”
Gavin smiled at the waitress, and she practically tittered away. Olivia just stared at the pie. Key-lime was her brother’s favorite. What a freaking pie surprise.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“I forgot to call my brother,” she said.
Gavin was watching her again. What the hell did he see that was so interesting?
“Do it now,” he said.
Olivia dived into her bag in search of her phone. She’d had the stupid thing off just to avoid all the nonsense phone calls she was likely to get until the Brandon story blew over, and Gavin had been ignoring his phone so it just seemed polite, and then in all the role playing excitement she’d just…dropped the ball. Already, she’d dropped the ball.
But there was no way she could call Jack and be in the same general space as Gavin. Her brain couldn’t handle both things at once. Which was the whole reason she had to get this job done as quickly as possible in the first place.
“I’m sorry, I hate when people do this, but I’m just going to send a quick text,” she murmured. “This time of year is…just a thing, with my family. I can’t believe I forgot to check in.”
“Fighting something you want is hard work,” Gavin said. He said it like it was just a matter of fact. “You’re spread thin. Bound to drop a ball here and there.”
Olivia froze.
She knew it was a coincidence. Lots of people talked about dropping the ball when they screwed up. But coming from Gavin, it got inside her head and start bouncing around, messing up the place.
“What did you say?”
Gavin paused, his fork in the air, ready to demolish the rest of that key-lime pie.
“You’re not the only person to ever try to be something they’re not
,” he said. “Never works, in the long run. They always screw up some other part of their lives.”
“Platitudes don’t work in real life either,” she said. “You can’t just do whatever you want when there are people who depend on you. That’s not how the world works.”
Gavin didn’t say anything. Just shrugged.
Infuriating.
“Tell me why Daniel Delavigne is trying to kill your club,” she said.
“No.”
“Aaron Black basically told me that he needs to see evidence that you’ve ‘changed’ before he supports Club Volare. How am I supposed to do that when I don’t know what you…?”
She’d almost said what you did.
Gavin wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. He took his time. Olivia saw it for what it was—he was thinking.
When he spoke, his tone was final.
“It’s best to let the past stay where it belongs,” he said. “In the past.”
“And you decide what’s best?” she said. “That’s convenient.”
Gavin exhaled, his nostrils flaring.
At least she got to him the way he got to her.
They stared at each other as the sounds of the restaurant coming to life got louder, and closer. Olivia wanted to believe she would’ve won if the commotion that had been brewing at the front of the restaurant hadn’t finally made its way over to them and interrupted.
“Gavin, you dummy, I have been trying to call you,” Simone Delavigne said, all in a rush, and planted a hand firmly on their table, blocking Olivia. “And will you tell your friend Charlene that I am not the devil, and she should let me come and go as I please? Anyway, I’m going to bypass all the pleasantries and the lecture that you are undoubtedly about to give me to tell you that my daddy heard about your little party last night, he knows what it was for, and he’s calling an emergency session of the commission. He’s trying to vote you down right now.”
16
Gavin held the door for Olivia, so he saw it coming before she even opened her mouth.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“Nope,” Gavin said.
“Yup,” she said. She stood in front of Luke’s Chevy with her arms crossed. Wouldn’t have stopped him from backing out of the parking spot, but he understood the gesture.
