by Chloe Cox
Holt shook his head.
“Toyota Sienna,” he said. “Goddamn, dude. What happened?”
It was the kind of vehicle moms used to transport their kids and every single classmate simultaneously. And Luke was more the kind of guy who liked to build up a vehicle from the chassis. Hell, he’d built a construction company from less. Holt had first come to know the man by reputation before becoming acquainted with him as Charlene Bastien’s Dom and one of the founding members of Club Volare NOLA, and never once would Holt have associated him with a minivan.
“All right, that’s enough staring, shove your eyeballs back into your face,” Luke said with a laugh.
“Just gotta say…” Holt said, running a hand over his hair.
“Nothing. You don’t gotta say nothing if you want a donut.” Luke gestured at a box of donuts on the ground.
Holt was weak for apple fritters.
“You brought donuts and a minivan to a BDSM club,” Holt observed, chomping into one sugar-covered mess. It wasn’t enough to distract him from thinking about Simone, but it was still a damn good donut. “You feeling ok?”
“I was feeling hungry,” Luke said, grinning. “Hungry enough for an entire box of donuts if you want to keep running your mouth. And she just needs a little work, that’s all.”
Holt peered under the hood. Thing looked blasted.
“You doing an epic favor for a neighbor or something?” he said.
“Just bought it off of her, actually,” Luke said. “It started complaining on the way here. Hadn’t given it a lot of advance thought, to be honest. Mrs. Murphy said she needed to offload her niece’s van, and I snapped it up on a whim. Figured it’ll be useful. Needs some work, but it’ll be a fast fix for me though. Charlene’s gonna like it too, lots of space in the back for cake.”
“Yeah,” Holt said. “Cake.”
Because that was why couples bought minivans. Unless Holt had missed an invitation, Charlene and Luke weren’t even married yet.
Still, that didn’t stop a Dom on a mission.
He had those thoughts about a woman, too. One woman. Simone. This time last year, he’d have thought they’d be well on their way to owning an embarrassing minivan of their own.
If he’d been able to save her.
But he hadn’t. Simone had only been allowed into the club on the condition that she stay sober, and he’d thought it had worked. He’d wanted it to work. Truth was, from the moment he saw her, Holt would have found a way to be with her, even knowing she’d had a problem with alcohol. Even with his own history, he had to have her. And for a while, it had been perfect.
Then one night she’d come to him just drunk enough to hide it, and tried to get him into a scene. An intense scene. The kind of scene where she could get hurt.
He’d known she was drunk, that she’d crossed the one bright-red line. So he’d broken up with her. Hard. Swift. Consequences.
He’d thought it would save her.
“What are you doing here this early?” Luke said, dragging Holt back to reality. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”
Holt hadn’t been to many parties at the club. No point without a sub. Social functions, sure. But even then…
“I’m here to talk to Gavin about Crennel,” Holt said, his voice clipped. He couldn’t even say the man’s name without tasting metal in his mouth. Without his hands closing into fists.
Luke stood up, his expression suddenly grim. Holt remembered that Luke had his own tangle with Alan Crennel, when the piece of crap had tried to mess with Charlene. Seemed like everyone at the club had an Alan Crennel story.
“Good,” Luke said. “Somebody needs to get that bastard.”
Holt didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. In fact, it was better not to.
Everyone knew it was personal for him. Everyone knew Crennel had hurt Simone by leaking those lies to the newspapers. He was the reason her relapse had been a goddamn public gossip event. He was the reason the club’s reputation was in tatters, and why Simone was putting such pressure on herself to fix it. And Holt would go to the ends of the goddamn Earth to find anyone who hurt Simone Delavigne and punish them. Hell, there wasn’t a limit to what he would do. None. That was dangerous for a man in law enforcement.
“Working on it,” was all he would say.
Luke nodded. “I should warn you, Simone is here today,” he said, after a moment. “They’re starting planning for the Love for Life charity dinner. It’s supposed to kick start a publicity campaign. Charlene won’t shut up about it.”
Holt actually laughed. The warning was a little late. Not that Holt minded.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.
“One more thing,” Luke said. “Charlene heard Crennel’s planning his own event. She’s all worked up about it. Don’t know if that’s useful for your purposes, but I figured I’d mention it.”
It was Holt’s turn to nod. It wouldn’t do anything for an investigation, but maybe it could help convince Gavin. Any leverage was good leverage.
He looked down the side of the house, towards the conservatory at the back that had been made into Gavin’s office. He could stand there for ages talking to Luke about cars or donuts or even Alan Crennel, and it still wouldn’t be enough to get his mind off of Simone. Holt could still see the look on her face. The look that told him she was still his sub.
A Dom had a responsibility to his sub.
But it was more than that. Holt took another look at Luke’s banged up mom mobile minivan, and recognized the feeling in his chest for what it was. Jealousy. A petty emotion. Not one he was used to having, but there it was. Jealousy over a goddamn minivan.
Simone was more than just his natural sub. She was the love of his life. And he was going to do three things about that.
Give her Alan Crennel’s head on a plate.
Top her for her own damn good.
And win her back.
“I’ll see you later,” Holt said. “I got to see a man about a plan.”
Luke nodded as Holt walked off, down the side of the house, through a garden path that passed a fountain or two and about seventeen kinds of creeping plants, all of them fighting to see which could smell the sweetest. Gavin’s office had an entrance from the house and from the gardens. Holt didn’t think Gavin cared which one he used, and he’d rather give Simone a break before he went and saw her again.
Gavin was already at his desk, looking at some papers, when Holt rapped on the garden door and let himself in.
“You’re early,” Gavin said, looking at the clock on the wall. There was a hint of a smile in his voice.
“It won’t take long,” Holt said. “If you can give me what I need, we’ll have to follow-up later anyway.”
“You want to ask me about Alan Crennel,” Gavin said.
Holt stared levelly at the other man. They both hated the bastard. Alan Crennel had messed with both of their subs, at one time or another, and he’d been a constant pain in the ass for the club itself. But Holt had played by the rules. He’d waited almost a year, now, to give the local authorities a chance to make their case. Gavin had waited even longer. Neither man was known for his patience. And Holt was done waiting.
“I figured you’d be open to the idea of nailing his ass to the wall,” Holt said, finally.
Gavin smiled grimly. “You have no idea.”
There was a silence. Eventually Gavin dipped his head.
“I guess you do,” he said. “Unfortunately I don’t think I can help you. But maybe you can help me.”
“How’s that?”
“I talked to a lawyer friend,” Gavin said. “Dom out of Boston, but from Louisiana. He said you’d probably want me to make a formal complaint or make a statement about anything I might have witnessed. Only I never saw anything illegal. Crennel was careful about that. Nothing explicit.”
Holt crossed the room and took a seat opposite Gavin. He didn’t like what he was hearing.
“You know the rum
or is he gets people plastered,” Holt said, his voice wearing a little rough. “Not just booze, either. Drugs. And then there’s the rumor about the little recordings he makes.”
“I know,” Gavin said. “And I believe them. But the man has an assault claim against me—”
Holt raised an eyebrow.
Gavin shrugged. “I decked him once. He deserved it. But I don’t think I can be your witness, not in any useful capacity.”
“I’d like the opportunity to determine that for myself,” he said.
“Of course,” Gavin agreed. “I’m just trying to save you some time. Because I might not have what you need, but I want you to get that son of a bitch. And not just for Simone’s sake. If I’m going to save the club’s reputation, I have to be able to fight back.”
“You want me to share anything I find?” Holt said. “I can do that, as long as it won’t interfere with an official investigation. I’ll pass along whatever I can.”
Gavin nodded. He looked up at the clock. Then he smiled again.
It was a knowing smile.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “But you won’t be sharing that information with me.”
Holt was about to ask him what he meant by that when the door opened and answered for him.
Simone Delavigne walked into the room, looking just as good in red as she had in white, with some starch in her spine and some purpose in her step. Then she looked at Holt, and the red traveled right to her cheeks.
5
Holy crap. That just happened.
Simone had watched Holt leave the bathroom, closing the door behind him, like this was all perfectly normal for nine thirty in the morning, on any morning, and she didn’t know whether to scream or to laugh.
He’d waltzed in on her being a total mess, like in some literal nightmare, and then he’d…
He’d reminded her how much she needed a Dom. How much he — it — grounded her. How much it helped her cope with stress. How much she’d missed it, this whole time.
Holt had been the only Dom who could ever do that for her.
Simone looked at herself in the mirror, all calm and rosy and somehow looking freshly fucked, and she didn’t know whether to thank him or nail his balls to the wall.
Because that…that had crossed a boundary, probably. No, definitely. They were not together, and that had been Holt’s decision. A decision that still pained Simone, especially because she knew that he had been right—she was a mess. And yet he’d seen exactly what she’d needed, and he’d given it to her, because he was the only Dom in the freaking universe who could have.
And because she’d wanted him to.
No. Needed him to.
Every day since they’d broken up and she’d had to go without a Dom, sober or not, she’d been getting more tense. It was like she’d been holding her breath for months without exhaling.
And now she’d finally emptied her lungs. Even if it was only a little taste, it helped. Her mind was clear, the anxiety was gone, and she was going to go kick this meeting’s ass. She finished cleaning up, put her back-up clothes on, and opened the bathroom door, totally unafraid of whatever happened next.
Which was sort of darkly funny, if you thought about it. She’d been building cinderblock walls of stress for months and Holt had yanked out the foundation with a few short commands.
The bastard.
If he’d told her, “Take off the underwear and grab your ankles,” Simone would have obeyed. He hadn’t, so she hadn’t, but what they’d done was more inappropriate in a way. It was so much more…intimate. Intense.
Of course she wanted to yield to him. He was her Dom. He probably always would be her Dom, even if she would never be able to live up to his expectations.
And now Holt knew it. After seeing the way she still reacted to his voice, his presence, his commands—he knew it. And worse yet, so did Simone.
So screw him for messing with her head, even if he had done her a bit of a solid. Holt wasn’t going to mess with her for a moment more. Simone stood in front of the door to Gavin’s office, briefcase in hand, laptop at the ready, and she was going to PR the hell out of Club Volare.
She knocked once and entered Gavin’s office.
Gavin himself turned from the window at the sound of his door opening. He was good guy, Gavin Colson, if sometimes a bit of a know-it-all older-brother type. Smart, too. There was also a humor to the thin line of his mouth that Simone had always appreciated. She was happy to see him.
She was less happy about the other guy in the room.
It was Holt. Again. He was at the same meeting with Gavin.
And Gavin’s little smile told her this wasn’t entirely an accident.
This was a trap.
Holt slipped into Dom mode the second he saw Simone. He stood up, his body itching to call her over. He resisted.
Holt had exercised all the self-control he had when he’d walked into the bathroom to find Simone in her underwear, but it was somehow worse to come across her now, in Gavin’s office, even though both of them were fully clothed.
She’d dressed after he left her, so he drank in the sight of her body hugged by a thin white tee. Her waist was pinched in by the waistband of a red skirt so that she had curves like a violin. His fingers twitched of their own volition as he looked at her.
He didn’t have to imagine what it would be like. He knew exactly how she bucked as she came, knew exactly how she flushed. Knew exactly how big those blue eyes could get.
What he didn’t know was what was on Simone’s mind. He’d given her what she needed back in the bathroom, and, looking at her hold herself as though nothing had ever bothered her, he knew he would do it again. Because he’d seen something there, something that was stressing her out beyond the job, beyond feeling like she needed to prove herself. It reminded him of how he’d felt just after he’d broken up with her and things had gone to hell.
Holt wasn’t used to being in the dark. He was a detective, a good one. He was used to seeing through people, to seeing what they needed. And he knew Simone’s body, and knew her mind. But his mistake in breaking up with her the way he had revealed that he didn’t know her heart as well as he thought he had. It drove him absolutely insane.
He would make up for it. One way or another.
Holt studied Simone’s carefully poised face for a moment, until her eyes flickered to his and he saw what he needed to see. She wasn’t enjoying this.
“What are you playing at, Gavin?” he practically growled.
“It’s my fault,” Simone said quickly. “I’m nearly half an hour late. I’ll reschedule at your convenience, Gavin.”
“Sit down,” Gavin said. “Both of you.”
Holt frowned. He didn’t like anyone ordering Simone around but him, and he didn’t like being pulled into someone else’s half-thought-out plan. But this involved Simone. He would hear it out.
They took chairs at opposite angles to the desk. Simone’s skirt stretched tight over her thighs as she opened her briefcase in her lap, removing a computer.
“So you did this on purpose, then?” she asked, clearly already knowing the answer.
Holt wanted to smile. Even when she was annoyed, she could see through nonsense and glow while she did it.
“I scheduled you back to back,” Gavin said. “But then you did me a favor by being late. Might as well talk to you about it together. You guys are working different sides of the same case.”
Now Holt bit back a snarl. He didn’t know why that irritated him, but it did. Maybe he just didn’t like the didn’t like the idea of Simone working on anything that involved scumbags, and Holt only worked on things that involved scumbags. Especially one scumbag in particular. “She’s doing the Love for Life charity event, and I’m—”
“Hunting Alan Crennel.”
Holt didn’t miss the way that Simone flinched, just a little bit.
“Simone, you’re dealing with the damage to our public image, but Holt, you’re dea
ling with the underlying problem,” Gavin said. “You’re both going to be around Club Volare at the same time in the weeks to come. It’s painfully obvious to everyone at the club that you’ve been avoiding each other, but I need you to be able to work together.”
Gavin was still talking, but his voice faded into the background as Holt studied Simone. As soon as Gavin had mentioned working together, Holt was pretty sure he knew where this was going.
And he was pissed off about it.
Holt would have preferred to talk to Simone about what happened with them in the bathroom on his own time. Only Holt knew her well enough to be able to read her, and it was nobody’s business but theirs. Gavin’s intervention would just stress her out, remind her that her life was still public. That people still knew all her dirty laundry, and judged her for it.
And no matter how long he had known her, Gavin wasn’t Simone’s Dom. He didn’t know what condition she’d been in not ten minutes earlier. He wasn’t being careful. Just for that, Holt wanted to kick Gavin’s ass.
But most of all, Simone was his to take care of. His to dominate. And his to protect.
He watched her carefully while Gavin went on and on about how Holt and Simone would need to learn to work together and get along in the club. Just one sign…
“Look, it’s obvious neither of you are getting what you need from Club Volare under these circumstances,” Gavin was saying, standing up. “And I won’t let whatever is going on between you two mess with the rest of my club. If you don’t want anyone else, then figure out how to get what you need from each other.”
Holt saw Simone stiffen.
Then Gavin whipped out a document, one that looked an awful lot like a blank D/s agreement, and Simone’s cheeks bloomed pink while her hands balled into fists. Enough.
“Gavin, shut up,” Holt said.
His voice rang across the room. It was followed by a brief silence.
Gavin cleared his throat. “I know that—”
Holt didn’t let him finish.
