by Chloe Cox
Or like he had, once upon a time. He hadn’t been back here since they’d broken up, almost a year earlier. It was important to remember that.
He’d had a day to mull his sub’s retreat, in between juggling cases and making sure all his work was in order before he moved on Crennel. He should have anticipated this. After all, the last time he and Simone told each other they loved each other, things had gone tits up not long after. Simone had fallen off the wagon, and Holt had cut her off, ending it all. A connection like that would be hard wired into her brain.
No wonder she was skittish.
Well, he’d handle it. His sub would know he wasn’t going anywhere this time. His woman would know he loved her, and that they were in it together.
She opened the door to her apartment before he’d even knocked.
“I heard you coming down the hall,” Simone said. “No one else walks like you.”
Holt didn’t say anything for a moment. He was too busy taking in the view.
He would never get over how damn beautiful she was. She was a beautiful woman, sure, but she was also one of those women who got more beautiful the more you got to know her. It had amazed him the first time around, and it was no different now.
She stood there, in the door to her own apartment, looking up at him with soft eyes while the rest of her was stuffed into a thin cotton dress that reminded him of what he’d enjoy later. He didn’t know if he wanted to kiss her or fuck her or hold her.
Then he looked closer.
The tight lines around her eyes. The faint flush on her chest. The tension across her shoulders, scrunched up just a hair too close to her ears, rolled over like she was braced for a blow, or protecting her soft belly.
It was an instinctual posture, something humans inherited from their ancestors. It was how you protected yourself. It was what people did when they were scared.
His sub was stuck in flight or fight, and she didn’t know it.
“Step inside,” he said.
Simone stopped breathing for a second, her hand gripping the doorframe, her eyes getting bigger. He watched the flush begin to spread, watched her pupils dilate. She took a step back, her eyes never leaving his.
His sub was stuck in her own head. And he would set her free.
He would do it right this time.
He stepped inside after her and shut the door behind him. Then without another word, he took her face in his hands and kissed her.
He listened for it with his whole body, the moment she started to relax into him. He pushed her up against the wall behind her, pushed his leg between hers, and kissed her again, deeper this time, longer.
Simone moaned into his mouth. She was so relaxed now she practically melted into the wall.
“Well, hello to you too,” she murmured.
Holt smiled against her lips, then pulled back so he could see her face.
“You all right?” he asked.
Something struggled in her expression, and she bit her lip.
“I will be,” she said.
Holt nodded. He’d learned, since the last time they did this dance. That would be good enough for now. He wouldn’t push her to tell him before she was ready.
She sighed and pressed her cheek into his hand where he still held her face. Simone knew him as well as he knew her. She knew what he’d just done for her, and she knew why.
“Thank you,” she said, looking up at him with those big eyes.
“I’m not done, sweetheart,” he said.
He dragged his hand down the front of her body, over the swell of her breasts, into the narrow of her waist, down to the valley between her legs, just like he’d wanted to do since he first saw her in this damn dress. Her body fluttered under his touch. So damn beautiful.
He slipped his hand between her legs and slid upwards until his fingers found her wetness. She hissed, and her fingers dug into his arm.
“No underwear,” he murmured. “Good girl.”
She was breathing hard against him. And his cock fucking ached.
Time to take what was his.
“Now get it wet for me,” he said.
Simone’s eyes widened. She knew what he meant, and the look that went across her face as she immediately dropped to her knees made his balls tighten and his cock strain against his jeans. She slid her hands up his legs, her eyes looking up at him as she unzipped him, and Holt sucked in air. He was going to fuck her mouth until her head was clear, or until he couldn’t take it any longer. Whichever came first.
The way she looked at his cock always made him even harder, no matter how hard he was. Simone defied the laws of physics like that. She didn’t just take him in her mouth obediently. She did it greedily. Her eyes watered as she sucked him, her hands finding the back of his legs as tried to take him all in. She was hungry for him. She wanted him.
But she needed to know she wasn’t in control.
Holt threaded his fingers through her hair and made a fist, taking control of her head. Immediately, she stopped.
“Look at me,” he said.
She did.
He held the eye contact as he started to move in her mouth, slowly at first, holding her head in place where he wanted it. He fucked her at his leisure, enjoying the look of pure submission that stole into her eyes as he did, going deeper, harder. Making sure she knew who was in charge.
Until he saw the flush spreading across her chest, saw her nipples tight and hard, felt the moans she made along his shaft. She was ready.
“Up,” he ordered.
She didn’t think. Just obeyed. Stood up immediately, her saliva still glistening on his cock and on her lips.
Holt didn’t wait. He dipped down and lifted her up, legs spread around his waist, pinned her against the wall, and entered her in one smooth, deep stroke.
Simone cried out as she fluttered around him, her body jerking against him.
“Eyes,” he said, and thrust into her.
“On,” he said, and drove in deeper.
“Me,” he said, and impaled her against the wall, his eyes locked on hers while she came around him, knowing he’d driven out whatever blasted thing had been haunting her.
21
It was early, but the festival was already busy in that Louisiana kind of way, with folks ambling between all the booths, with music coming from a four-piece band on the corner. It’d get more crowded and noisier as the day wore on. There’d be a brass band wandering around, live stage music, an oyster-shucking contest, and food. Lots of food. And true to form, there were mostly oysters, but New Orleans didn’t miss a chance to eat. There was a beignet booth at the end that already had a line around it, and Simone had a sweet tooth.
“I need some carbs,” she said, nudging Holt toward the beignets.
“I bet you do,” he said. “You’re gonna need ‘em for later, too.”
Simone blushed as a wave of heat swept down her chest to settle in her core. She’d been having aftershocks all morning after the way Holt took her in her own hallway. What a way to start the day.
It was a good thing she was still walking on air, too, because truthfully she’d been kind of a mess before that. She was trying to figure out how to buy time against Alan Crennel’s threat—and his video of her, which she didn’t like to think about too much, because it made her violently ill—and until she figured out that situation, it felt like she was lying to Holt somehow. She’d tried to keep calm since she’d gotten Crennel’s last text, demanding that she tell Holt to lay off the investigation, but with mixed results. She’d felt kind of like a duck: all calm and poised on the surface, furiously spinning loony tunes legs underneath.
She’d been spinning herself into exhaustion without even realizing it—until Holt showed up.
Holt had seen that right away. And he’d known what to do. And while that didn’t fix her problem with Crennel, it did fix her ability to care about that problem, at least temporarily. Simone knew that sex-induced endorphins were a real science thing, but at
this point she’d have bet good money on the existence of Holt-induced endorphins, too. It was, possibly, the only explanation for how she was feeling.
And she wasn’t the only one. Practically every woman they passed couldn’t help but look at Holt. And it wasn’t just because he was pretty. It was because he was six feet and change of rough-hewn, muscular, masculine sex, and every woman in the vicinity took notice.
Instinctively, Simone slipped her arm in his, savoring the familiar thrill when her skin touched his. Her shoulders started to relax, and her breathing slowed as they strolled in the general direction of delicious, delicious carbs.
God, even just being close to him made her feel safe.
She looked up at him, out of the corner of her eye. It was more than just his actual physical ability. It was…
It was that he was giving her space.
Quickly, Simone looked back down. Holt obviously knew there was something wrong with her. He hadn’t said as much, but that’s what that little scene in the hallway had been about, and they both knew it. But he wasn’t pushing her. He wasn’t demanding that same…rigidity, for lack of a better word. He was keeping her safe by giving her space.
Somehow that made the idea of disappointing him much, much worse.
She might have lost it then and there if she hadn’t felt Holt stiffen. They stopped where they stood in the stream of festivalgoers.
“What’s wrong?” she said immediately, glad for the deflection.
Holt didn’t say anything. Simone looked at his face, and followed his burning gaze.
Cave Johnson stood at the head of the beignet line with what looked like a very bored, very annoyed, thirteen-year-old goth girl. Holt, of course, wasn’t looking at the girl. He wasn’t moving, but his death glare was fixed solidly on Cave.
“I still want to kick his ass,” Holt said finally.
Ok, there was that rigidity she remembered.
Simone sighed. “There’s nothing we can do about the article now. The Love for Life event is coming up, and we’ll make do without the press. It’s over and done with.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not. Because he hurt you. Because he’s not doing the right thing.”
Holt exhaled, long and slow.
“Who are you if you don’t do the right thing?” he said.
It wasn’t so much the words. It was how he said them.
Harsh. Righteous. Angry.
Loaded with all the judgment normally reserved for higher powers, spiritual and legal.
Maybe a year ago, Simone would have flinched, because she knew inwardly she could never live up to the standards of a man who thought like that. But this wasn’t a year ago. This was after rehab, after therapy, after all that work. And she was watching him as he said it.
She knew that expression on his face so well. She’d seen it in the mirror a million times.
She couldn’t believe she’d never realized that all Holt’s rigid righteousness was really directed at himself.
“That case,” she said. “Mrs. Greenfield. It’s bothering you.”
Holt looked down at her with surprise. Simone smiled. She didn’t often get to surprise her Dom.
“I’ll figure it out,” he said.
She squeezed his arm, and brushed her lips against his shoulder.
“You have a very hard job,” she said.
She felt his lips on her forehead, and no matter how complicated this all was, she couldn’t stop the feeling of warmth from filling her whole body.
“I like it that way,” he said. “But it’s not as hard as restraining myself from going after cowards like Cave.”
Simone looked back at where Cave and the goth girl were now ordering their beignets. There was something about the interaction that got to her. Cave wasn’t talking, but Simone could read that body language. It was almost as loud as the body language of the goth girl. That right there was a father trying desperately to relate to his thirteen-year-old daughter, and a daughter who was mortally embarrassed by the fact that her father even existed.
Simone had to laugh.
“What?” Holt said.
“Well, look at them.”
Slyly looking at his daughter, Cave held up the line and asked for more sugar on the already over-sugared beignets. His daughter looked like she wanted to die. Cave made a gesture, and the server piled more sugar. Then more. Still more. Cave kept checking his kid’s face, though he played it totally straight like Charlie Chaplin.
He didn’t get her to laugh until his beignets were completely buried under a tiny, sweet avalanche. Even from that distance, Simone could hear the “Dad!”
The look on Cave’s face when he got his daughter to smile was maybe the sweetest thing Simone had ever seen.
“I guess it’s not that simple,” she said as Cave walked away with his momentarily happy kid. “I mean, I would have given the world to have my father be that interested in seeing me smile at that age. He can’t be all bad.”
There was a beat that was a little too quiet. Simone looked away from Cave and his kid to see Holt, still staring at the man whose ass he’d wanted to kick. Only now his expression was…different. Intent. Wheels were spinning.
“You have cop face right now,” Simone said, gently.
Holt laughed, catching her off guard. And then he looked at her.
And oh God, how that man could look.
She wondered if the way he looked at her would ever not just utterly destroy her. There was something about the combination of hardness and softness, of demanding Dom and gentle love, that felt like…
It felt like forever. It felt like chills.
“I think you just cracked a case for me,” he said, finally.
“Really?” she said, her voice small. “What case?”
But Holt only smiled some more. Simone could lose herself in that smile. She could forget about everything else in her life, she could forget about her past, she could forget about her secrets, for that smile.
And she would have if she’d had one more minute.
“Hello, Simone,” came the interruption. The voice was oily, slicked in self-satisfaction. Cruel.
And familiar.
In slow motion, Simone turned her head, knowing what she would see.
Alan. Fucking. Crennel.
Standing tall and thin, his face narrowed like a predatory bird. Everything about him felt dirty.
In the time it took Simone’s brain to click on, Holt was already moving. He put himself between her and Crennel, his big body forming another physical barrier between her and harm. She put her hand on his arm, feeling the tension in the muscles under her fingers, and didn’t have the heart to tell him he was too late.
“And who is this?” Crennel said, his smile only a little thinner.
“Her Dom,” Holt said, his voice strangely even. Not friendly, but not threatening, either.
Simone couldn’t square the sound of Holt’s voice, and his demeanor, with the way he felt under her fingers. Maybe that was one of his investigator skills—hiding how he really felt. Only he hadn’t introduced himself as an investigator, either. He hadn’t even said his name. He’d introduced himself as a Dom.
You’re focusing on irrelevant details, she reminded herself. She only ever did that when she was on the verge of freaking out.
“Well, hello, her Dom,” Crennel said, and it was not a compliment. Generally Doms didn’t define themselves in terms of their subs. And as if to underscore the insult, Crennel turned fully to Simone.
“It’s been too long since we’ve seen you, Simone,” he said, his lips curling. “Be sure to check your messages. I’m sure we’ve sent invitations.”
And before Simone could answer—before she could even react—Alan Crennel turned around and walked away.
She was shaking. It was on purpose. All of that was on purpose. He’d shown up to mess with her head, and then he’d left before she could…
What? What would she have done? What—
“Simone.”
Holt’s voice snapped her back to the present. She looked up, and he grounded her in place with those gray eyes. Suddenly, she remembered to breathe.
He was studying her, as the chaos of the festival swirling around them faded into the background. The love of her life, the one person in the world she didn’t want to see this, was studying her with those glittering gray Dom eyes. And he was seeing everything.
Whatever she expected him to say next, it wasn’t this.
“Are you ok?”
Simone blinked. No, she wasn’t ok. But she…she didn’t…
Holt reached up, and held her face in his hand, the way he had so many times before. The contact short-circuited the thoughts in her head that were spiraling out of control, reset her.
“You don’t have to lie to me,” he said, gently.
Simone closed her eyes.
But I do, she thought. I have to lie to you. And I don’t know why.
“There was one man, after you,” she said, and she realized she couldn’t lie with her words. She could only lie with what she didn’t say. “I went to Crennel’s club once, after I got kicked out of the club, because I just…”
She shook her head. That was a sentence she couldn’t finish. And when she opened her eyes, she saw that Holt was still there.
“It doesn’t matter,” she lied again. “It was a mistake. I never saw him again, and that’s it.”
It was almost the truth. It was what she wanted to be the truth. Maybe if she repeated it enough times…
But Holt was still holding her. Still searching her.
“Are you in any danger?” he said, finally.
“No,” she said.
One more lie didn’t matter, did it?
Holt frowned, his eyes heavy. Did he know?
Did he know she was lying?
“If someone threatens you, you can count on me,” he said. “You’re my whole heart, Simone.”
That’s the problem.
That’s what she wanted to say. What she should say. The truth. The whole truth. But she couldn’t make herself do it. She couldn’t make her lips move, she couldn’t make her heart open.
So instead she just buried herself in Holt’s chest and tried to pretend, for just a little bit longer, that her world wasn’t about to come apart.
