by Chloe Cox
“Do you remember what I told you earlier?” he said.
“That I should come get you if anyone bothered me,” she said.
“Why didn’t you?”
Something shifted in his voice. His eyes. Somehow he was bigger, more powerful, and his restraint more noticeable.
“Answer me.”
There were a lot of reasons. She didn’t like asking for help. She didn’t think she should have to. She didn’t like that Gavin had told her to, if anybody got to her. But when she spoke, she went with the biggest reason of all.
She said, “Because I wanted to see what you would do if I didn’t.”
The words hung in the air between them, sparking, swirling. Olivia hadn’t realized it until she’d said it out loud, but it was true. She’d broken the one rule he’d given her for exactly one reason.
“To provoke me,” he said.
Olivia shrugged, and it felt like the most daring thing she’d ever done in her life, that time she climbed the water tower with a boy and a six-pack of beer included. Gavin exhaled slowly, and every hair on Olivia’s body stood up, her skin alive with pins and needles. The only thing that could push her higher is if he touched her.
And then Gavin raised his heavy hand and slid it behind her neck, his calloused palm resting on the back of her neck, his thumb cradling her head. Slowly he tilted her head up towards his, and pinned her with his gaze.
“I know what you’re playing at,” he said. “No more games. No more pretending.”
“I told you not to treat—”
“Quiet,” he said, and his tone thrilled her. Then he looked her up and down one last time.
“You have your safe words,” he said.
And then he pulled her by the back of her neck, pushed her, controlled her, toward the stage in the center of the room.
Olivia was suddenly conscious of the hushed silence and the heavy pressure of all those eyes on her. All those people, watching with interest, who still needed to be convinced that Olivia and Gavin were serious. She’d completely forgotten that she was supposed to be playing a role.
She wasn’t playing a role anymore. It was her body, responding. Her body, crying out for more.
All she could think about was what Gavin would do next.
With a look from Gavin, the jazz band in the corner started up again, but nobody turned away. They were still very much the center of attention as he led her up the shallow steps to the stage. It had been full of people, most of them dressed in very little black and lots of skin in a style Olivia had come to think of as kinky cabaret, and there were black wires and musical equipment and…other kinds of equipment, all in various stages of assembly. They’d been setting something up.
And they all melted away ahead of Gavin.
A blond man with a collar around his neck looked at her, shaking his head, as he jumped down off the stage rather than get in Gavin’s way.
“You did it now,” he said.
Olivia laughed breathlessly, an involuntary reaction. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get enough oxygen, and her skin burned where Gavin touched her. The desire she’d been trying to keep under control flared, and the warmth spread between her legs.
The audience was watching, and for the first time that she could remember in her entire life, she was excited by that.
Gavin pulled her to the center of the stage, and brought her around to face him again. He kept hold of her neck, the heat of his hand flowing through her until she could feel it on every surface of her body.
When he looked at her, he was calm again. Completely, utterly calm.
“You wanted to see what I’d do,” he said. He loosened his grip on her neck, threaded his fingers through her hair.
She barely nodded.
Gavin raised his other hand and slipped his first two fingers under the left shoulder strap of her dress. That thin, delicate piece of material, already doing so much work now that she was bare beneath, could barely take the strain.
“I was too nice before,” he said. “That won’t happen again.”
He drew her closer until his lips almost touched her forehead, and he slid his hot, heavy hand down her arm, to her waist, her hip. Around, over her hip, so big he could palm her, to the small of her back. His fingers found the hidden zipper, and began to pull.
Her breath hitched.
But his hand was smoothing up the side of her body again, the dress bunching up that much more under the pressure of his hand, across her belly, her breasts, his thumb brushing her nipple. Every stroke lulling her until his touch thrummed through her at a dizzying frequency, until he bent his head to hers and inhaled.
“I never should have let you keep this,” he said.
He moved his finger up the front of her body, and Olivia realized he was tracing a seam. She looked up at him. He held her eyes and moved his hands to her shoulders, where he grabbed hold of her dress.
“Green,” she whispered.
With one cold motion he tore it down the middle.
Olivia jerked forward with the force of it, and she steadied herself with a hand on his chest. She was breathing hard, trying not to smile. Something had happened when he tore it away, and she didn’t know what.
She’d felt that inside her.
Olivia dug her fingers into Gavin’s chest, and felt his own breathing. Big, deep breaths.
“You like provoking me,” he said. “Good to know.”
He pushed the remaining scraps off of her, letting the ruined dress pool at her feet. She was naked. He’d stripped her in front of a room full of New Orleans’s kinkiest. She thought of the kinky cabaret production crew they had interrupted, watching from the sides of the stage. She was pretty sure they could see wetness shining on her thighs.
Now he tilted her face up to his again, his jaw clenched.
“What if I tied you down and made you come in front of all of these people?” he said, his words clipped.
“Green,” she whispered.
He threaded his fingers through her hair again, and let his other hand roam, the spreading warmth of it enough to make her delirious.
“You mess around with things you don’t understand,” he said, his voice hoarse. He paused, his head bowed towards hers. Then he pulled her head back again, so she couldn’t escape his gaze. “What if I brought you so close, over and over, until I drove you to speak in fucking tongues, until you lost all goddamn control in front of all these people, until you begged me for the kinds of things you can’t even say out loud to yourself?”
Olivia was mesmerized. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Just buoyed up on all the things Gavin was making her feel at whim.
“What if I made you beg?” he rasped.
He stared down at her, brutal and unyielding, but controlled. Calm.
Except…
Something so close to the surface, she couldn’t be sure she saw it. A single fin arcing across still water, just an expression, a flicker of ferocity in his face, and then it was gone.
An enormous hunger.
He wants me as much as I want him.
Olivia stopped breathing entirely.
Gavin’s lip curled slightly, the pale scar shining in the stage lights, and then he stooped down slightly, his mouth by her neck.
He inhaled.
And he thrust his hand between her legs, his fingers slipping inside her folds, finding the fucking deluge of evidence of just how much she wanted him. She ground her hips, wanting him inside her, finally, finally. Her eyes fluttered and as she leaned on him, and then, with a stifled growl, he pushed away.
He took another step back, his eyes glittering, his fists clenched.
“You will serve me like that,” he said finally. “Now go get me a drink.”
Fourteen
If he looked at her for just one more second, he’d lose his mind. They hadn’t negotiated sex. They’d barely negotiated any of it. And all he wanted to do was throw her down on the ground and enter her right there.
Gavin needed a goddamn moment.
He forced himself to turn away, her juices still wet on his fingers. His dick could have punched through a steel plate.
He walked over to the little raised lounge area he’d built into the back of the room, a place where he could watch his club flourish. A few core people were already getting comfortable for Blue’s show, but they were all people he knew. People he trusted.
They were all watching him.
He ignored them and sat in his own giant custom chair and stretched out. Focus. He’d deal with Aaron Black and the fallout later. They had to get through tonight first.
He would have her. Olivia would be his sub until one or both of them got it out of their systems. That much was clear from what she’d just shown herself. But Olivia Cress wasn’t an impulse decision. And he’d make damn sure that when the time came, she would be ready to beg for his collar.
Gavin looked up as he felt someone move into his space, an instinctive thing. He had to calm down. It was just Holt, a Dom he’d known for a long time. A friend.
Then Holt looked at Olivia, who was naked now for everyone to see and carrying back Gavin’s drink on a tray, and he smiled.
“She going to serve all of us?” he said.
Gavin’s huge fingers dug into the leather armrests of his chair.
“Absolutely not,” Gavin snarled. “Back off.”
Holt put his hands up. “No offense meant.”
Gavin closed his eyes and forced himself to ground. No woman had ever made him feel this way, not even—
“I have your drink,” Olivia said, her voice barely shaking. “Sir.”
Yeah, she hadn’t gotten less beautiful.
He watched her put the tray down on the table next to him, her full, round breasts with those perfect, pointed little nipples swaying gently right next to his face, and that was it. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her tight against his body. Jesus. He’d felt her naked skin against him before, and for a second he remembered every last feel of her flesh against his, and it was torture all over again. But still better than having every damn Dom in the room looking at her.
He wasn’t usually possessive. He didn’t like it.
“Tell me where you’re at,” he said gruffly.
“Green,” she said immediately. Olivia was watching his face, those big brown eyes just taking it all in. “These people know you, Gavin. They’ll know if there’s something off.”
She had a point.
Hell, he’d made that point earlier.
He pulled her closer to him, ignoring the ache that was building right at the base of his cock, and covered both of her breasts with his hands. Then he buried his face in the back of her neck, and squeezed.
“Jesus,” she moaned.
“We’re just going to watch the show,” he said. “We’re going to watch the show, and then we’re done for the night.”
“This more than you bargained for?” she said over ragged breaths.
He didn’t say anything. She was still, her hands were resting on his thighs. And then, slowly, the pressure on his dick increased as she gently ground her naked ass into his lap.
What the fuck is she—
A male voice interrupted.
“Gavin.”
Gavin counted to three before he looked up.
“What?” he said.
Luke looked at Olivia first, then back at Gavin. “Simone,” he said.
Damn.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” Luke said, his eyes flicking to Olivia again. “Holt’s taking care of her. How do you want to handle it?”
Gavin inhaled. So much about this was truly twisted, but there was no way around it.
“Take care of her, of course,” he said. “Anything she needs. Start with Gatorade and a bed if she wants one and someone to watch out for her. Take her home if she wants to go home. Just respect her privacy.”
Luke stuck his thumbs in his jeans.
“Delavigne isn’t gonna like any of that.”
“I don’t give a shit what her daddy thinks,” Gavin said, controlling his voice. “She’s a grown woman and she’s drunk in my club.”
He didn’t need to say what he thought of Daniel Delavigne’s opinions. Or the fact that in ten years Simone looked to have fallen apart. Or that Daniel cared more about vengeance than he did about people.
Luke nodded. “Understood,” he said, and then went off to take care of it.
It was only after all that that Gavin saw how closely Olivia had been watching him.
“You ok?” she said softly.
Well, shit.
This woman was looking at him with concern, and those eyes were big enough and soft enough to comfort the whole world at once.
And that was the goddamn problem.
It had been instinct that made him keep his past separate from his dealings with Olivia, and now he understood why—because Olivia Cress was used to taking care of people, the way she took care of her brother, the way she took care of her family, even if she was quiet about it. And she’d do that rather than face how she really felt about anything. She was trying to grab on to a problem that wasn’t hers, just to have something else to do. That was where she was comfortable.
Not on his watch.
“Everything,” he said, “is under control.”
Olivia didn’t believe him.
Part of being an actress was paying attention to physical expression in other people and figuring out what it all meant so she could bring it to her characters. It was the only part of her job that she liked, and she was good at it.
So she knew something was wrong. Something was wrong with Gavin, and something was wrong with all the people watching them.
It made her wonder what Aaron Black had been talking about.
But only for maybe a few seconds at a time, because she was still buck-naked with Gavin Colson’s hands all over her and his rock-hard cock pressing against her like the world’s worst tease. She barely took in any of the apparently very involved kinky burlesque show that was going on in front of her. Hell, she could barely remember her own name.
So when the warm lights came back up and they announced intermission, Olivia scrambled to find something to say that wouldn’t make the whole situation even more insane.
“So,” she said, racking her brain and twisting towards him while his hands slid over her naked skin in a not at all ridiculous situation. Then she met his eyes, and her mind went blank.
Gavin raised an eyebrow.
“How was your day?” she blurted out.
They looked at each other.
And burst out laughing.
“Decent,” he said. “I like being outside, working.”
She remembered what he’d looked like when he’d come in and caught her snooping in his bedroom—kinda dirty, kinda sweaty. Very sexy.
“What were you doing out there?”
Gavin threw his head back against the headrest and smiled down at her.
“I was looking for wood,” he said. “For a project.”
Olivia couldn’t help it. She still had the giggles, and that just sent her off all over again. Literally all she could think about was Gavin’s huge and perfect erection, and how much better and bigger it felt than she remembered.
“I might know where to find some?” she said.
She opened her eyes and bit her lip.
There was a beat.
And then she felt his breath on her neck, and he ran his hands over her breasts and down her ribcage, over her shuddering stomach, and…stopped.
Goddamn him, he stopped.
Both of them, breathing hard, in unison.
Change the subject, change the subject, change the subject.
“Um,” she said, twisting again so she could see his face. “What…why…are you building something?”
“Always,” he said.
Olivia looked a
round. In all the recesses and in the corners there were wooden sculptures, or pieces of furniture, or even a few purely decorative pieces with antlers and things. She’d noticed it all over the house.
“You made all of these?” she said. “They’re beautiful.”
“I like making ‘em.”
“How long have you…”
He’d been looking at her, like he was trying to figure out what she knew about his sculpture habit as though it was some kind of national secret, but just then his expression turned for one brief, raw moment. She’d played enough tragic roles to recognize what it meant. It was grief.
“Picked it up a long time ago,” he said. “Quit one hobby, so I needed another.”
She said, “I’d like to see some of them.”
Gavin leaned his head back again and smiled slightly.
“Only if you sing me a song,” he said.
Olivia’s jaw dropped. How had he known about that? Gavin had only caught her humming, and Brandon hadn’t even known about that particular youthful fantasy after hearing her sing in the shower for a year. He only knew that she sang when she was nervous—and in the shower—and if anyone saw her she shut right up again.
She turned suddenly and shifted her weight so she could look him dead in the eye, and as she did so his hand fell between her legs.
His fingers just barely grazed her.
And they came away wet.
Olivia tried so hard not to move. She tried so hard. She watched the vein in his neck pulse and thought about how easy it would be…
“Enough,” Gavin said roughly.
He grabbed her by the waist with one hand and snapped his fingers with the other, and out of nowhere a uniformed man with someone’s blue-colored collar around his neck came forward with her clothing and what looked like one of those club robes. Gavin grabbed them with one hand and then simply…stood up.
With Olivia slung over his shoulder.
He carried her so effortlessly that his stride barely registered. Olivia was just dazed by how much it turned her on. He’d picked her up once, in that hotel room, but nothing like this. He’d carried her all the way up to the second floor before her mind kicked back into gear, and what it was telling her was that he wasn’t stopping on this floor. He wasn’t taking her the room she’d stayed in the night before. He was taking her to his attic.