by Chloe Cox
“Assume the position.”
And she had. It had been a joke with them, to make the ‘position’ something not-obviously-sexual—standing at attention, basically, with her boobs out and her hands clasped together—but it was something they could do in public, so of course then they’d started doing it. Just a little thing. And he’d use the voice and she’d melt. And then they’d have to go somewhere so he could have his way with her and she could lose her mind to an earth-shattering orgasm.
And now she was standing in a bathroom with him, alone, in her bra and panties, with her breasts thrust out and her hands together and her pussy wet.
And, she realized, her panic attack beginning to fade.
So there was that.
It was the only reason she wasn’t reading Holt the riot act at that moment. Because this, whatever this was…was weird. Inappropriate, even. But it was working. She was calming down.
And he could tell.
Simone could feel Holt’s eyes on her, leaving little trails of heat in their wake as they roamed over her body, taking the scene in. He moved closer, his eyes flickering to the pile of clothing on the floor and back again, until they rested on hers. Their eyes locked.
Simone forgot to breathe.
“Your clothes are stained,” he said. “You’re changing before your meeting?”
Simone blinked. How did Holt know she had a meeting? Gavin had announced that he’d hired her as the club’s publicist, but…
Holt’s voice cut through her thoughts with that Dom edge.
“I asked you a question,” he said.
“Yes,” she answered, again automatically. “It’s coffee.”
Holt looked down at the pile of her ruined outfit, which, to be fair, did appear to be more coffee than outfit from this angle.
“What happened?” he said.
Simone sighed. As if she didn’t feel dumb enough.
“I was rear-ended,” she said.
Holt’s eyes darkened, and he moved so fast Simone didn’t have time to react. In a moment he was standing only a foot away, so close she could feel the heat from his body. Could smell the scent of his aftershave, mingling with the musky, sexy scent that was pure Holt. He frowned as he looked her over again, even more intently this time. Simone found she couldn’t even move.
“Are you ok?” he demanded.
“I’m fine,” she squeaked.
“How’s your neck?” he said, ignoring her. “Can you turn it?”
Simone moved her head, almost afraid that he would touch her. God, what would happen if he touched her?
“I’m fine,” she said again, this time louder. “It was just enough to ruin my outfit, that’s all. I promise.”
Holt exhaled, as though satisfied with this explanation—temporarily. He didn’t move for a long, long moment. Just a moment, when he was still close enough to touch her.
Then he took a step back, and Simone…missed him.
Damn. The one day she needed to go well, the one day where she needed to step up and be a rockstar, and it was turning into her lowest moment in months. And of course that’s when Holt freaking Manning had to walk back into her life, if only for this particular moment. She was already late, flustered, and now utterly embarrassed and impossibly turned on. Not to mentioned confused. She was confused as all hell.
Because she couldn’t make herself tell him to leave.
She looked up at Holt again, and gripped her hands together to steady herself. She was still standing in the position. Her body had ideas of its own about what to do next. And the charge she was getting from this, from just his proximity, from the goddamn electric field generated by all that Dom energy, was just too strong. Stronger than her, apparently.
“Holt…” she tried.
He didn’t answer her. Just kept looking at her. Evaluating her.
And it was working. Whenever he looked at her like that, with those Dom eyes, she couldn’t help but relax into it. She knew he would see everything, so there was no point in hiding, and she would just…let go.
She could feel the stress recede even further. It was the only time in her life she almost wanted to hang on to a panic attack.
“You had a spare change of clothes with you,” Holt said finally.
Simone nodded.
“You were prepared,” he said.
Simone smiled a little bit. She had been prepared. That was true.
“Good girl,” he said again.
Those two words were like an electric current, direct from Holt’s lips to her body. Desire jolted through her, heating her skin, hardening her nipples, coiling in a tight little ball right in her core that begged for release. With horror, she looked down to see her traitor nipples poking through the flimsy, sheer, regrettable material of her mostly see-through bra.
Instinctively, she looked up to see if Holt saw. If, on top of all the other embarrassing things that happened today, the ex who had dumped her, who had broken her heart, now knew how much she still wanted him.
Of course he saw. Holt knew.
Not only did he see, but he was looking. Simone watched Holt’s eyes heat as they traveled down to her breasts, watched the muscles in his neck tense, watched his nostrils flare.
She blinked.
He wants me.
The Dom who’d rejected her…still wanted her.
Instantly her back straightened. She wasn’t totally powerless here. She was just…
“Tell me how you’re feeling,” Holt ordered.
She shuddered. She was still very much a sub.
“I know what you’re doing,” Simone said, instead. “I know you’re calming me down with…you know what I’m talking about.”
Holt smiled down at her.
“And it’s working,” he said.
“That’s not the point.”
“Say the word and I’ll leave.”
They stared at each other. Finally, Simone looked down. She still couldn’t do it. The world felt warmer when he was close to her. She couldn’t help it.
“You look great,” Holt said after a moment.
Simone smiled, despite herself. “I’m not wearing any clothing.”
“You always did look great in nothing.” He grinned back. “But I mean you. You look good. Healthy.”
Simone sucked in a breath. That was literally the last way you wanted an ex to describe you. “Healthy.” Possibly the only thing worse would have been “brave.” Nobody who was kicking ass and generally doing well in life was ever described as looking “healthy” or “brave.”
“I know what you meant,” she said.
“No, you don’t,” Holt said, and suddenly he was in her space again. All six feet and change of his hard, muscled body, his tanned skin and his delicious scent, came within inches of her. Within inches of her bare stomach. Her breasts. Her lips.
And suddenly all Simone could think about were two questions: Was he really going to kiss her?
And would she let him?
3
Holt stopped himself just in time.
Every fiber of his being told him to take Simone in his arms and show her how he felt. That he hadn’t gone a single damn day without thinking about her. Without wanting her. That he missed her, down to his bones.
Because he could see, right on her face, what she was thinking. Thinking that he felt sorry for her, or pitied her, or some such similar nonsense—doing all she could to deflect the fact that he had meant what he said. She looked good. She looked better than good. She looked amazing. She just couldn’t hear that coming from him yet.
But of course that was Holt’s fault. No matter how good he was as a Dom, he was still human. Still flawed. And one of those flaws had nearly cost him everything.
He’d fucked up with Simone. He’d done it for both good and bad reasons, but the fact remained: he’d made a mistake. Seeing her relapse had scared the hell out of him for reasons even Simone didn’t know about, so much so that even Holt didn’t even know he was scared
until it was too late. So he’d been too harsh. Too hard. He’d severed the connection between Dom and sub and he’d called it “tough love.”
There wasn’t one right way to deal with a situation like that. But Holt had found a wrong way. And Simone had paid the price.
And now she was standing before him, half naked, vulnerable, anxious, in need of the one thing he wasn’t allowed to properly give her.
Domination.
“I meant what I said,” he said, finally. “You look amazing.”
Simone let out a long, shuddering sigh, and closed her eyes. She shook her head slightly, her lips curling up into the slightest smile. Damn, he loved to see that.
“This is weird,” she said, and looked up at him. “This was definitely not how I’d planned to see my ex again for the first time.”
Holt shrugged. It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about it.
“How did you want it to go?” he asked. “In the club? You with another Dom, me with another sub?”
Immediately, Simone tensed. The look she shot him was pure murder, and Holt almost laughed out loud. Good. That thought bothered her as much as it bothered him.
He hadn’t taken a sub since Simone. There had been no point. His cock ached and his balls hurt, but there was no one else.
“This is better,” he went on, still just inches away from her. Christ, he could smell her. “This way we don’t have to pretend we don’t know each other well enough to see through all the bullshit.”
“I’ve changed a lot,” Simone said. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
Holt looked at her, hard. He looked up. He looked down. He looked at the blush spreading across her cheeks, the gooseflesh on her arms. The tight peaks of her nipples in that see-through bra.
“That so?” he said.
Simone’s blush deepened. The pressure built at the base of his cock all over again. He was going to have to tuck it into his waistband like a teenager. Besides, now was not the time for this, no matter what his cock was telling him. Holt reined it in.
This was the woman he loved, and she needed his help.
“You freaking out about your first day on the job?” he said.
It was a statement more than a question. No matter how much she had changed, he still knew her.
Simone looked down again.
“It’s just one of those days,” she said.
Holt wasn’t buying it. The problem was, neither was Simone.
“Cut the crap,” he said. Her head snapped up, her eyes locked with his. “You’re freaking out because of Crennel. But we all believe in you, Simone. Everyone knows those rumors are just that. Rumors.”
Holt didn’t expect her to shake it off just because he’d called bullshit on the rumors that Club Volare’s practices had put her in the hospital. He wasn’t an idiot. But he also didn’t expect her body to go tense and her eyes to go wide. He’d said the word “rumors” and it was like a switch had been flipped. Right back to square one.
His eyes narrowed. There was something more. Something he didn’t know about. But right now, it didn’t matter.
He knew how to help.
Fear coursed through Simone’s entire body when Holt mentioned “Alan Crennel” and “rumors” in the same sentence.
Unfortunately for her, in certain circumstances, fear was one of those things that just turned up the volume on whatever she was already experiencing. It was like a shot of adrenaline to her nervous system. And the circumstances at that particular moment included Holt freaking Manning being close enough to pin her to the wall.
She bit her lip, and remembered the text messages waiting for her on her phone. Of course Holt was only talking about the rumors that everybody already knew about, that it was Club Volare that had let her get alcohol poisoning after a BDSM scene gone wrong. Rumors—lies—started by Alan Crennel.
Those text messages reminded her that the only thing worse than Crennel’s lies would be the actual truth about that night. Hell, if Holt knew the truth, Alan Crennel would probably be texting from a hospital room. If his thumbs even still worked.
“Yeah,” she said, finally. “Those rumors are definitely not helping my long-awaited comeback.”
She could feel Holt’s eyes on her.
“Look at me,” he said.
She did. Good Lord, those eyes. That stare. And she couldn’t help but focus on the rumble of his voice in his chest, and the way it stirred between her legs. She was shifting again, not into subspace, but almost. Her mind was clearing. And he was doing it on purpose.
Suddenly he barked, “Stand up straight. Shoulders back. Chin up.”
Simone obeyed.
She always obeyed. And damn it, it always worked.
“You’re prepared for this meeting?” he asked.
“Of course.” Her knees might have been wobbling, but her voice wasn’t. She was so painfully aware of her near-nudity. Of the air tickling the fine hairs on her bare belly as Holt stepped nearer. Of the way that he was wearing several layers of professional clothes, and she was most definitely not.
“You are excellent at your job,” Holt said. “This club is lucky to have you. You will remember that.”
Another order.
And she would, of course, obey it.
She wanted to hate him for this, as he took another step closer. She wanted to hate him for reminding her that she was not, in any way, shape or form, over him. For reminding her that she needed this, that she needed to be topped like she needed air to breathe, and that she wasn’t going to last long if she couldn’t get it.
But as he took another step, pushing her back until her back pressed against the wet rim of the sink, boxing her in until she could feel the heat coming off of him, until she could see the stubble on his jaw, all she could think was how much she ached for him.
Holt raised his hand, and Simone stopped breathing. Her eyes followed his hand in torturous slow motion as he moved toward her while she stood there in a slightly wet white bra and very wet panties, her nipples erect and her breasts almost aching, her pulse thundering between her legs, and she felt her stomach flutter. As though he had touched her. Her inner muscles tensed and her lower abs contracted as though he had actually touched her.
Holt’s eyes flickered down. He saw that too.
The twin heat of embarrassment and arousal bloomed from between her legs and spread until her whole body felt hot to the touch. Holt looked her in the eyes, hard, and then…
He brushed his thumb against her cheek, as though wiping away a tear, and then held it up for her to see.
An eyelash.
He’d wiped a goddamn eyelash from her cheek.
“They’re good luck,” he said. “But you don’t need it.”
“I’ll take what I can get,” she said.
They locked eyes one more time. Holt didn’t let her move an inch. Didn’t let her look away. Didn’t let her hide.
“You’ve already done it, Simone,” he said. “Remember that. You got sober. You got your life back. Everything after that is a piece of cake.”
Simone blinked.
She wanted to believe him so badly.
Half glaring, half wanting, Simone went to blow the freaking eyelash off his thumb. She caught herself leaning forward, weight on her toes, chin tipping back as she leaned into Holt. She wanted to smell him. Her skin was yearning for the stroke of his hands. Her tight nipples wanted to feel his thumbs stroking them again, and then she wanted him to slide a finger along the ridge of her panties, feeling how damp she was. She wanted Holt.
His throat worked as he swallowed. His eyes flicked down her body.
All it would take was a single command.
Just one word.
“And you are excused,” Holt said.
4
Holt’s hand gripped the doorknob like it owed him money as he closed the bathroom door firmly behind him. He looked around, made sure no one else was near the foyer, that no one else was likely to walk i
n on her.
Nothing. Nothing but the morning light, the smell of honeysuckle, and the vision of Simone burned into his brain.
Christ, she was beautiful.
He’d known he missed her, but seeing her like this was something else. He was firing on all cylinders, his mind quick, his senses heightened. He could feel everything, but nothing so much as the pounding, driving need at the base of his cock. He could punch through an armored goddamn tank.
This woman.
Holt took a breather. He needed to clear his head, give his cock time to calm down. He already knew his balls would ache for the foreseeable future, but there was no way to see Simone like that and not end up rock hard. Even Doms had their limits.
He shook his head, took a few strides, and let himself out onto the big old porch. Better. He’d walk it off. He should have been more prepared for this. He’d known he would see her around ever since Gavin announced Simone as the club’s new publicist. Hell, he’d been looking forward to it. It had been a long year without her. A long year of worrying about her and knowing he couldn’t do a damn thing about it at the same time. Of knowing he had hurt her. Of waiting, until she seemed ready.
It was good to see her looking so good after all that.
Seeing her on the verge of a panic attack was not.
She was tougher than he remembered. Had some more layers to her. More guarded. That armor would probably work against anyone.
Anyone except him.
Because the look on her face told him everything he needed to know. She was still his sub. He was her Dom. Everything else was as complicated as two grown adults could make it, but that was simple. That was true.
“Walk it off, Manning,” he muttered, and jogged down the steps of the porch to walk around the side of the big old house. He needed something to get Simone off his mind before he went in and asked Gavin to make a formal complaint to the US Attorney’s office so he could go after Alan Crennel.
He did not expect that thing to be a goddamn minivan.
He’d noticed it when he’d driven in, then forgotten all about it as soon as he’d seen Simone. Now it had a familiar face attached to it. Luke Logan had the hood popped and was staring down with a look of determination on his face.
