by Chloe Cox
And found Olivia cornered in a playroom by Simone.
“You’re back,” Olivia said, turning around.
Gavin stopped. There was a break in the rain and some late sun was hitting her from the windows, right where she rubbed two fingers on her collarbone. For a second he forgot what he was doing.
“Simone, your Dom is downstairs,” he said finally.
Something flickered across Olivia’s face, and then it was gone.
There was a beat, and then Simone left by walking between him and Olivia. He barely saw the other woman go. Just registered the split-second she crossed between him, and his sub.
Olivia finally blinked and licked her lips.
“What was that about?” she said.
Focus.
“Did she say anything to you?” Gavin asked.
The clouds shifted, and the sunlight undulated over her soft skin. Like they were underwater. The expression on Olivia’s face was heavy, clouded. What had happened?
“Not about you,” she said.
It took him a second.
After she said it, he did feel better. Olivia had seen something bothering him that he wasn’t even aware of in the moment, and she’d addressed it.
She made his goddamn head spin.
“That wasn’t what I meant,” he said, softening. He took another step towards her, his whole body always aware of the distance between them. “Did she bother you in any way?”
“No,” Olivia said.
Gavin unwound a quarter-turn. The sobriety thing needed watching, but if she wasn’t drunk, Simone probably hadn’t tried to mess with Olivia.
But now he was left with no explanation for the anxiety he saw in Olivia’s face. When he’d left, she’d been blissed out. Happy. Secure.
Now she kept looking at the ground, standing in the middle of a playroom, right in front of the scaffold he’d built. No one should look sad in front of that thing.
“Liv,” he said. “Tell me.”
“She warned me.”
“About her father?”
She looked up at him, sharply. Almost annoyed. He smiled.
“You totally just stole my thunder,” she said.
And tried to smile. Only it was fake.
That sealed it. Something was wrong. Something she wasn’t telling him.
22
“Olivia, what’s wrong?” Gavin asked.
But it was impossible to concentrate when he looked at her like that.
Olivia couldn’t be around Gavin without remembering, vividly, what he looked like naked. What he felt like naked. She had to work so hard just to not drop down to the floor and actually beg—oh God, that idea alone—that she had nothing left for keeping her guard up.
Which is why he got to see through her like she was a piece of glass.
“Nothing,” she lied.
“You were going to call your agent. What happened?”
“About that,” she said, and risked another look up. Nope. He was still standing there, half in this dappled shadow, half in just enough light to see how freaking built he was under that easy white t-shirt he always wore.
How was she supposed to tell her brand new, incredibly hot Dom that she was scared to tell anyone that she was his sub? It had been one thing when it was fake, but now it was…well, personal. Now she had something to lose, and it mattered if people knew.
And looking like she was ashamed—even if it was more complicated than that, like, way more complicated—wasn’t exactly the way to earn Gavin’s trust, either. Which she needed to save the club.
Just don’t look at him.
“Olivia,” Gavin rumbled. “We have a deal. I’m keeping my end of it, which means we’re going to get your career back on track. What did your agent say?”
She sighed. Gavin would get it out of her eventually.
“He did actually have a suggestion,” she said. Because the truth was, it would help the club, too. It would be selfish not to mention it. “He thought we should throw a big party, basically. Like an event? Where we make a big thing, with the press and everything. It could show the club, too, how you’re different than that Crennel guy. Like you’re the real deal, and he’s just some creep in a basement.”
There was a pause.
“Crennel is just some creep,” Gavin finally said, stepping slowly out of the shadow. “But that’s not what’s bothering you.”
“Is that a Dom thing,” she asked, her eyes dropping to his big, rough hands again. She remembered, vividly, what those hands felt like on her skin. There was nowhere to look on Gavin Colson that didn’t drive her to distraction. “Can you sense a disturbance in your sub?”
Just a hint of a smile on Gavin’s stone face.
“Yes.”
“So you’re like a pirate Jedi now.”
“Stop avoiding the question.”
Olivia wanted to back away from his questions, and couldn’t make herself do it. The rest of him—all six-odd muscle-y feet of him—kept drawing her in.
She looked up at him again. He was still staring at her, his jaw tense and his eyes bright, and she very much wished he’d take control in one very specific way. Multiple times, if possible.
“Olivia.”
It was the voice. It penetrated her, every time, echoing inside, thrumming against…Not a helpful line of thought. She put a hand against the wall, just needing to feel something solid as Gavin walked towards her.
But what was she supposed to say? That she was terrified of telling people and she didn’t know why? That for some stupid reason, she still missed…
“I wish I could talk to Brandon first,” she murmured.
And then she felt like an idiot, because it was true.
“Obviously that’s insane, sorry,” she said, and turned towards the wall, determined to inspect the wallpaper. Brandon still knew her best, was the thing. Well, sort of. He was—had been—her best friend. And, ironically, he’d probably have a lot of great advice about coming to terms with one’s sexuality.
“It’s not insane,” Gavin said, and Olivia snapped her head up because oh God he was coming closer now.
“That’s how people figure themselves out. They talk it out, try it out. Whatever. And he was important to you,” Gavin went on. He was standing just a few feet away, so close that she could tell, from the timbre of his voice, what it would feel like if she had her head on his chest as he spoke.
Focus, Cress!
“No, the insane part is that I don’t feel right about doing a whole big public thing without talking to him first,” she said. She finally met his eyes. “See? Insane. Or pathetic. One of the two. Possibly both.”
“You’re used to taking care of everybody,” he said.
Olivia opened her mouth, and found she had no idea what to say. That wasn’t what she expected. And she didn’t expect to see him look worried, or to see him this close to her, or…
He was standing not a foot away from her now. She could feel the heat from his body.
“Everybody,” he said again. “This club, your brother, your father. Even your ex, for some goddamn reason.”
Softly, she said, “That may be a slight exaggeration.”
She watched his hand reach out and touch hers. Not grab it—touch it. He ran his fingers slowly, lightly, along the lines and ridges of her hand, and she shuddered.
She felt his eyes on her.
“No it’s not,” he said, watching her. “Come to think of it, the only one you don’t talk about like that is your mother.”
“She’s dead,” she said, automatically, even though he hadn’t asked.
And then Olivia froze. She always felt bad, telling people that. It upset them so much. They always felt so sorry for her, and it got in the way, and then she’d have to make a joke out of it.
“Christmas Eve,” she went on. “She was killed when a reindeer knocked over a giant candy cane in Santa’s Village. Just like she always feared.”
Gavin raised an eyebrow.
There was a surprised silence.
And Olivia burst out laughing.
“That is the actual worst pun I have ever heard.”
“Incorrect. That was brilliant.”
“It doesn’t even qualify as a pun!”
“If I pull out the dictionary and make you look up ‘pun’ you’re just gonna feel foolish.”
“If you pull out the ‘dictionary’ I might feel a lot of things, but foolish isn’t going to be one of them.”
They smiled at each other.
He was so close.
So…
He touched her face, and her breath hitched. Just his fingers, her skin, that fire. Carefully, carefully, he helped her to look at him.
“So how much were you messing with me?” Gavin said.
“A lot,” she admitted. She laughed. Why was she almost crying? “My mom is dead, though.”
“Yeah, I figured you got the fuzzy end of the lollipop on that one.”
Simple. Matter of fact. His slate-speckled dark eyes, light in the late, lazy sun, still focused only on her. How had they even gotten into this conversation? Gavin always did that. Always pushed through to places she didn’t even know existed, until she was totally disoriented. And totally enthralled.
Because right up until then, Olivia never realized how much she counted on people feeling uncomfortable whenever she spoke about her family. How much she counted on other people to make it all about them. So she could just…hide.
Not this time.
“What makes you such an expert on fuzzy lollipops?” she said.
“I’m good at lots of things,” he said.
“Like de-fuzzing lollipops?”
Gavin’s eyes didn’t move as his hand dropped to her waist. Her hip. The small of her back.
She started forward with a gasp.
“The trick is,” he said, “you have to lick them clean.”
And he grinned.
Jesus, this man.
Olivia’s hand found its way to Gavin’s forearm all on its own, the pads of her fingertips tracing out the rough topography of his muscles. Every contact gave her a little buzz. She felt hypnotized.
Which, goddammit. She needed him to trust her, and instead here he was, inside her head again. She always let him take control.
She paused. Everything she knew about Gavin she knew from their week together in Los Angeles. He was a self-made gambler-turned-investor from a split home who met his brothers as a grown man, and he hid his smarts behind that pirate charm, and as soon as he became her Dom he’d shut all of that down. No more stories about when he was a kid, no more references to his brothers. That was another Gavin Colson. This guy, this six-foot wall of slowly smoldering muscle standing in front of her, studying her with that feral sensitivity—he was a freaking mystery.
“This isn’t fair,” she said.
Gavin’s eyes gave away nothing except the intensity of whatever he felt underneath, and for a moment neither of them moved.
Gavin breathed in, deeply.
“Life isn’t fair,” he said. His hand tightened on her back and pulled her forward, crushing her against the hard length of his body, sending a hot current through her with a thrilling jolt.
“And this,” he said into her ear, “isn’t an equal arrangement.”
Gavin pulled back to look at his sub.
He stayed calm. But the tension was there—the uncertainty. There was always going to be this goddamn moment. Would she be like all the others? The kind of sub who ignored boundaries, who thought trust went one way. Was she going to push him, just to see how far she could take it?
“No duh, it’s not ‘equal,’ in one, very limited sense,” Olivia finally said. “But you’re going to have to trust me eventually, Gavin. If we’re going to throw a big thing, with a big show from Blue, where we tell the whole world we’re a couple, they’re going to, you know, ask about that. They’re going to ask me, about you.”
Gavin knew she had a point. But he just needed to fucking touch her. He needed his skin against hers, inside hers.
No. Focus.
He said, “I didn’t say we were doing the show.”
“But—”
Gavin looked at her, and she fell silent. Instinctively. He was already half way to topspace, and that didn’t help. And it didn’t change the fact that she was still hiding in every damn way she could.
That was not going to fly.
“We’ll do it, and we’ll make a big announcement or whatever your agent said,” Gavin said, “if and only if you sing in that public show you want to put on in my club.”
There was a pause. And then Olivia scrunched her face up.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
She’d gone from disbelief to wild-eyed scheming, trying to get out of it. It had been a shot half in the dark, but he’d been right. He’d seen it, something in her, when he’d caught her humming when she was nervous back at Charlene’s crazy cooking thing. She’d forgotten about that, but he hadn’t. He didn’t know what it meant, exactly, but he knew it was important. And now he knew she had to sing.
“Like…”
“On stage. With Blue. Or whoever, you figure it out. I know you can.”
“How do you know I can sing?”
Normally Gavin loved the way they bounced words off of each other, like they’d invented a game that only the two of them knew how to play. But right now, all he wanted to do was…
“What was that?” Olivia said.
Her eyes were big. Startled. Gavin wrenched his attention away from the beautiful, evasive sub in front of him and listened. Nervous chatter, lots of footsteps.
He laughed.
“That was a tour group,” he said.
“A tour group.”
“You heard me.”
Gavin grinned down at her. Now they could both hear Luke’s voice coming up the stairs. The look on Olivia’s face gave him an idea. If she was nervous about an audience when it was the real thing, this was as good a time as any to rip off that particular Band-Aid.
She bit her lip.
“You still haven’t told me what I’m supposed to say when they ask me why The Man Who Couldn’t Commit is suddenly settling down,” she said.
Deflection.
“You’re not getting out of singing,” he said.
He took a step closer, and watched her chest shudder slightly as she breathed in. She was wearing some kind of dress, something that meant he could see the flush spread slowly over body. And where she got red and flushed, she got less anxious.
Gavin took note.
“I don’t really sing in front of other people, as a rule,” Olivia was saying. Her voice sounded unfocused, and she touched her hand to her collarbone again. “Traditionally.”
“I’m not real traditional,” he said.
Her eyes flashed. “What makes you think you can have it all your way?”
Gavin let his eyes rove over her heated body. He’d never seen anyone fight so hard to feel so shitty when she could be feeling something else entirely. He’d never seen anyone try so hard to feel for other people, and not at all for herself. It was a waste.
“Because I can,” he said. “And I will.”
He felt her body move against his, the shift of her hips as she breathed in. That flush was spreading across the bare skin of her shoulders. His pulse was a driving force pounding at the base of his cock, pushing him forward. All he needed was to see her let go…
“You know what,” she said, “maybe I’ll just make it all up.”
She looked up. That look—he recognized that look now. Defiant.
Provocative.
“Maybe when they ask me about you, I’ll just make up whatever I want,” she said again. “Since none of this is real anyway.”
That was it.
Gavin moved quickly, but deliberately. He took her hand, the one he’d touched until he
could feel the charge build between them, laced her fingers in his, and pinned it behind her, resting on the curve of her own perfect ass. He watched her eyes widen for a moment—savored that—touched the side of her face with his other hand, then raked it down her soft, yielding curves.
She gasped. He watched her nipple harden where his hand had been.
Then he pushed his hand between her legs, under her dress, and felt what he knew would be there. She was soaked through to his palm as he cupped her, and squeezed.
“This is real,” he said.
23
Olivia closed her eyes and tried to breathe. His hand still held her, under her dress, between her legs. Her pulse pounded against his palm, every throbbing impulse radiating from her core out to the tips of her fingers. She looked down—her hands were shaking.
“You can do all the goddamn mental gymnastics you want on your own time,” Gavin said into her ear, hoarsely. “But on my time, I’m going to make you feel just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Whatever I damn well want,” he said.
She shuddered.
A male voice echoed somewhere behind her, refracted through the angles of the stairway, the hall, the door she remembered leaving open. Right. There was a freaking tour group.
Coming to tour the facilities, presumably.
Facilities that were currently…
In…use?
Gavin squeezed her where he held her, and she sucked in air as the added pressure moved her swollen lips against each other, sliding, slick. She almost burned. That impulse to move her hips, to do something with the pressure building up inside her, grew, until she let out a whimper, and pressed herself into his hand.
He’d won again. She’d wanted him to trust her, to give her something to work with, and instead…she was helpless, and she was his.
Olivia stretched up on her toes and nipped at his neck.
Gavin…quickened. The muscles in his neck twitched and she watched the jolt radiate through his otherwise motionless body, and then suddenly: fast moving muscle, relentless movement, ruthless hands. He spun her around and half pulled, half dragged her across the room, and in a split second she found herself standing over another kind of bench. It was rounded, like a smaller, lower pommel horse, the wide side facing her, and Gavin had pushed her forward so that the tops of her thighs pressed into the soft leather.
