by Chloe Cox
“Beard,” he said, automatically.
“Whatever weird hair metaphor,” she said. “Now, what did you want?”
Aaron Black stood there in a kind of bewildered silence. He looked like he’d just gotten slapped with a large mouth bass.
“I wanted to apologize,” he said.
She sighed. He’d started off saying he wasn’t going to apologize.
“Why are men so incredibly bad at that?” she asked.
“Because we hate being wrong,” he said.
Olivia laughed, somewhat bitterly. “Join the freaking club.”
And then she couldn’t hold it in anymore. She wrapped her arms around herself, and tried to keep from shaking. She’d never felt this happy and this sad at the same time.
“Miss Cress,” Aaron said. “Are you ok?”
He started to climb the steps, a hand out going out to her—but it was the wrong hand, attached to the wrong man, and it only made it more likely that she was about to cry.
And then that voice.
“Olivia.”
She almost, for a second, couldn’t make herself look up. She didn’t think she could take the disappointment if it wasn’t him.
But it was. She knew it was.
Gavin stood a few feet behind Aaron, his eyes locked on Olivia. His big body dressed in black tie, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the suit coat slung over his shoulder while the sun faded into the trees behind him. The light was dying, but his eyes shone.
“Are you ok?” he asked her.
Olivia opened her mouth, closed it. Smiled.
They stood there with the air shimmering between them. Gavin stood perfectly still, but somehow he gave an impression of constant motion, of vibrating tension. Olivia could have sworn he pulsed at the edges, like she would hear his heartbeat if she just listened.
And then, just for a second, her heart dipped as she remembered there was, technically, still an audience: Aaron Black.
“Yes,” she said.
Gavin took a deep breath, and seemed to grow even larger.
“I’ll look after my sub, Black,” he said.
Her breath hitched.
Does he mean it?
He walked toward her, slowly, and she could feel the trouble swirling all around them, trouble they’d have to deal with, but she just could not look away.
Neither could he.
He climbed the steps, slowly, and stopped just at the top, just out of arm’s reach. Gavin breathed in slowly, leaning his head back as he looked down at her, the muscles in his neck bunching up against his back and shoulders. He rolled his neck and exhaled, eyes fixed on her.
“Brandon told me,” he said.
She nodded. “My career is in the garbage.”
“You went up there anyway,” he said.
She wanted to say something, anything, but all of the things jumbled together all at once and brought her brain to a complete halt. All she was left with was the way the lights from the party hit his face, the way every breath was deeper, faster, the way she could feel the heat begin to breathe, grow, spread.
He hadn’t moved, but he seemed closer.
“You deliberately,” he said, “obeyed an order.”
Olivia smiled at the irony.
“I guess I finally got right with it,” she said.
She closed her hands into hot little fists. She’d only just found this part of herself, and now she needed it, and she needed it with him. That she might not ever have it again hurt.
His face was unreadable.
But his voice still touched her.
“Strip,” he said.
Olivia’s eyes flew open. With a rush of warmth she remembered the first time he’d said that, needing to slow down, call a yellow.
Now she would bare all, anywhere he wanted.
Do anything, anywhere he wanted.
She looked at him, and hooked one thumb under one strap of her slinky silver dress.
She never got to the other one.
Gavin crashed into her, violent and gentle, rough and smooth. He picked her up, effortlessly, let her bury her face in his neck again while he took the stairs, two at a time.
After that, it was a blur.
His hands, on her body, holding her, touching her. The way he moved his body with that athletic grace, the specialized perfection of someone doing what they were built to do. The sheer animal joy of being herself, as hard as she could. Of finally having a place for all that love, all that want, all that fierce tenderness, those things she’d had to hold inside for so long because there was never a place for them to go, there was never a person to take it.
And seeing all of that in his eyes. Like two starving people, finally able to feed each other.
Finally.
32
Everything was perfect. Which meant something was wrong.
Gavin woke up slowly, rising at a languid pace through levels of consciousness. He’d come to in his own bed, with Olivia’s scent in his lungs and her hand on his chest, and the warmth of her naked body draped over his, where she’d been all night.
He didn’t think he could have been asleep for more than a few minutes, but the sun was slanting in through the skylights at a late angle, and it had only just begun to rise when they’d finally slept.
Together. They’d slept together.
It was a random line in the sand, but Gavin had figured out a long time ago that you had to make a line somewhere, and it had to be easy to see. Not sleeping together was a good one. Kept the reminder alive—there were limits on what they were to each other. That kind of thing.
He’d crossed it. He’d picked her up and blitzed right over it in some kind of fever, and now it was like it had never been there at all.
Olivia took a sudden deep, sleepy breath, her fingers curling a little more against his chest. He looked down. There was something yelling at him, the voice of reason probably, but then he breathed her in. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stay like this forever, he’d have to find a way of making sure none of his old ghosts came back around to hurt her. But for right then, that moment, the rest of the world could go to hell.
“Hey.”
She was awake. She propped her chin up on his chest, smiled, laughed a little. Buried her face in his chest again.
“Words are hard,” she said, looking up once more. Still smiling. Still beautiful.
“They’re not so important anyway,” he said, and brushed his thumb against her cheek.
They both knew what he meant.
Olivia smiled again, shaking her head as it lit up her whole face, and pushed herself up off his chest, straddling him.
Jesus Christ.
This woman.
Her thighs on either side of his, soft and warm, her belly just grazing his cock as she leaned over him, her scent all over him, the best goddamn thing he’d ever smelled in his whole life. Her eyes, looking into his, unafraid.
“Yeah,” he said. “I could get used to this.”
He brought his hand up the side of her body, fondled her breast. The slight shift in her weight, the little noise she made as her focus shifted inward—that was like kryptonite.
Gavin sat up and flipped Olivia over all in one movement, catching her as he lowered her down onto his bed, beneath him.
He looked at her.
He looked at the light in her eyes.
And he had to have her. All at goddamn once, he had to have her, and hold her, and shield her. He bit her neck and spread her legs underneath him, his cock already hard and growing, the sounds coming from her throat driving him on, and then leaned back to get one last look at her, one more sight of the woman who’d—
Who’d what?
He paused, arms on either side of her, feeling her nakedness next to his, feeling like he had to protect her even then. He’d never felt so close to anyone in his life.
“What?” she whispered. Eyes shining.
How could he ever explain to her something he didn’t un
derstand himself?
“Is everybody decent?”
Olivia laughed out loud.
It was taking Gavin a minute to return back to the real world. His pulse still pounded in his temples, and his eyes were full of Olivia, but he was pretty sure he’d just heard Charlene call up the stairs.
“Ok, is anybody decent?”
“Not by a long shot,” Olivia called out.
“You know I wouldn’t put myself through this if it wasn’t important!”
Olivia sat up, kissed Gavin sweetly on the mouth, whispered, “Promise you’ll finish that later,” and wriggled out from under him. She reached out and arranged the sheets while Gavin tried to figure out words all over again.
“What’s up?” Olivia called out.
Charlene’s heels clattered on the old wooden stairs at uneven intervals, and the fact that she clomped around like a blind woman made sense when she poked her head up with one hand over her eyes.
“You left this backstage when you disappeared after your absolutely show-stopping number, by the way,” Charlene said. She tossed something in their general direction, and Gavin reached out and caught it.
It was Olivia’s phone.
“Normally I’d leave well enough alone,” Charlene said. “But this thing has been going off like a Coke bottle full of pop rocks all night and this morning, so I figured it might be something important.”
Olivia took the phone, unlocked it. Looked at Gavin and grinned. “You were here all night, Char?”
There was a pause. Gavin had no earthly idea what was going on.
“Well, I just wanted to say hi,” Charlene said, a little too loudly, and still covering her eyes while she backed down the steps. “I’ll see you at lunch, Liv.”
“Charlene Bastien,” Olivia said. “I am talking to you!”
“Mmm hmm,” Charlene said, her voice already fading as she ran back down the stairs. “Bye!”
Olivia laughed again as she fell back on the bed, phone in hand, face still shining. She turned that beam of joy right on Gavin, and he couldn’t help but smile. He’d never seen Olivia so happy, and it was dangerously contagious.
“Maybe it’ll be a new agent,” she said, turning back to her phone with a grin.
“I can get you a—”
“Hush,” she said.
Gavin overlooked it, only because of the expression on her face. She’d gone from pure joy to…something else. Smiling, but like she might cry.
“It’s drunk texts from Brandon,” she said. “I forgot how much I missed him in my life.”
“He said he was gonna help out, and he’d do as many fireworms as he had to. The poor bastard.”
Olivia smiled evilly. “He is going to be so hung over.”
Then she stopped.
She looked up.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“Nothing,” she said. “Probably. This is good. Right?”
Olivia held up her phone. There was an off-center selfie of a smiling, bleary-eyed Brandon Greer standing next to a man who looked stone-cold sober. Who looked the camera dead in the eye with such raw, cold hatred that Gavin could feel it all the way in his bones.
It was Daniel Delavigne.
“Gavin? This is good, right?”
Things were not good.
Olivia didn’t really know what they were, actually, which was the problem. She’d woken up and literally thought she was still dreaming. It was like waking up in a cloud of happiness. For the first time in her life she’d let down all pretense of a guard the morning after—and it had been amazing. She’d let herself feel and show every little jolt of happiness, and Gavin had felt it right back.
She knew he had.
And then there had been that picture.
“Hey Sue,” she said to the hostess at Charlie’s, feeling like she was calling down to earth while still on some cloud. Maybe not cloud nine, but definitely a cloud. A starter cloud.
“Usual table?” Sue said, handing over a menu. There were dishes on it Olivia had never had before—they’d changed up the brunch menu while she was in her little Gavin-Volare-Crisis bubble.
“Yes, please,” Olivia said. “Charlene’s not here yet?”
“Running late.”
Olivia took her seat, and looked around. No one was looking at her this time. Maybe a few glances from behind menus, but no one really cared. She was free. And the club was probably going to be ok, after the way she’d unloaded on Aaron Black. And there was what she and Gavin had become, whatever that was.
So why didn’t she feel free?
Olivia felt a twinge of anxiety and reflexively looked down and pulled out her phone, like that was an effective way of hiding. There was a text from Adra Davis, the woman who ran Club Volare LA and who also happened to be one of the best non-scummy talent agents in the business. That was good, too—Adra would probably be able to find her a different kind of work, different films or commercials, until she could figure out what she was going to do next. Maybe even enough to finish paying off the loans.
So why do I still feel like—
“Crap.”
Olivia snapped her head up, startled.
It was Simone Delavigne.
And she looked like absolute hell.
“Sorry?” Olivia said. “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine,” Simone said, and slipped into the opposite chair with, admittedly, a certain amount of grace. She left her sunglasses on. “I just need some coffee. I’d hoped I could get you for a one on one, but it looks like you’re waiting for someone.”
“Charlene’s running late,” Olivia said. Of course, Simone had already sat down. “We can one on one for a little while.”
The two women stared at each other.
Olivia smiled, determined not to feel queasy and anxious about Gavin, or Simone, or Gavin and Simone. Or why Gavin had shut down when she’d shown him that photo. Or what the hell Simone wanted.
If this was what love really felt like, it kind of sucked sometimes.
“I feel like I should apologize,” Olivia finally said. She looked down at the napkin she was busily destroying. “I didn’t ever mean to hurt you.”
Simone raised an eyebrow.
“You think I came here to yell at you?” she said.
“It crossed my mind.”
Simone took off her sunglasses and flinched. She was smiling, but not happily.
“You really love him, don’t you?” she said.
Olivia blinked. People kept telling her that. It must be obvious.
“Yeah,” she said. And she couldn’t keep a smile off her face entirely.
Simone just pursed her lips.
“Well, I didn’t come here to yell at you,” she said. “I came here to warn you.”
Gavin stood at the top of the stairs, amazed. One half of the club’s big main room looked like it had been hit by some kind of kinky fun tornado, and the other was…well, still with the kinky stuff, but neater.
Holt had a class of subs, on their knees, cleaning. In general, Gavin approved. And he hadn’t spent time at the party, meeting people, being friendly, like he should have, but he was pretty sure at least a few people had enjoyed themselves.
Gavin caught Holt’s eye.
“How’d it turn out?” he said, walking down the stairs.
“Pretty good,” Holt said. “Talk to Blue about Aaron Black.”
That was interesting. If Blue saw something in that man, there must be something to see. They might get past this vote, after all.
Of course, that didn’t put them in the clear.
“You seen Brandon Greer?” he said.
Holt didn’t say anything at first. Just squinted up at Gavin.
“I did, last night,” he said. “With the last person in the world I expected to see.”
“Where is he now?”
“No idea.”
Gavin looked down, counted to ten.
“You have a handle on things until I get back,” he said.
It wasn’t a question, and Gavin didn’t wait for a response before he started walking towards the door. He had his hand on the knob by the time Holt caught up with him.
“Gavin,” he said. He’d lowered his voice. “We gotta talk.”
“Not now.”
“About the Delavignes.”
Gavin paused, turned back. Something inside him started to fade to a dark, ruined black, and he took a moment to stop it. He wasn’t going to borrow trouble. He’d do what he had to make it as right as it could be, and keep it from Olivia’s door.
“I’m going to go see Daniel right now,” Gavin said.
“I don’t mean him,” Holt said. “I mean Simone.”
Gavin had already opened the door, where he stood half in and half out, making sure he’d heard right.
“What the hell happened to Simone?”
“I’ve been waiting to ask you that.”
It wasn’t Holt who said it.
Gavin turned away from Holt, out toward the porch. Daniel Delavigne sat in one of the wicker chairs, wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing in that photograph from the night before, except rumpled and slept in. The older man had been out there all night. Gavin watched him plant both his hands on the armrests and then slowly, painfully raise himself out of the chair, his eyes locked on Gavin as he did it.
Carefully, Gavin said, “Are you all right, Daniel? Where’s Simone?”
Daniel raised his head and tried to look down at Gavin. It didn’t work. “She’s sleeping it off, don’t you worry about her. Don’t you worry about her at all.”
The older man was almost shaking. Gavin had never seen him like this. He stayed still, and waited. There wasn’t much a guy of his size, in his situation, could do that wasn’t going to escalate everything.
Daniel stared at him, angry eyes open wide.
“I hear you are very happy with your Olivia,” he finally said. “But I have to wonder, Gavin, does she know about you?”
33
“You know you have an unbelievable voice,” Simone said, smiling through her now obvious hangover. “I really wanted to tell you that. I can’t believe I didn’t know you could sing like that.”
