Free and Bound (A Club Volare New Orleans Novel)

by Chloe Cox

  Meanwhile, the roadies had to set up and the guys had to get ready. The cops wouldn’t let her within ten feet of the barricades, and everyone else was too busy for an interview. So Molly was standing in the middle of the street while everyone else had a job to do and the world frothed with fan mania around her.

  Well, almost everyone. One dude kept staring. Kept sneaking looks. The kind you could actually feel slime across your skin.

  And now he was back.

  “So are you with one of the bands?” he said. He was skinny and tall, older than Molly thought at first glance, just looking at the studded belt he wore and his mangy faux-hawk. He had some wrinkles around the eyes, the mouth. Nicotine stained teeth and sallow skin. None of that was so bad, except for the creepiness.

  He had sidled up to her. An actual sidle.

  “I don’t think they’d let me back here if I wasn’t,” she said.

  “You know Savage Heart is playing tonight,” Faux-Hawk said. He gave her a crooked smile. “I could probably get you in to meet them.”

  Molly stifled a laugh. She didn’t want to be rude, but that was funny.

  “You know,” Faux-Hawk said, coming close enough to touch her hand with his, “if I thought you were nice.”

  No longer funny.

  She recoiled from that touch, knowing just what he was offering, or rather demanding, from her. Immediately she heard Robbie’s voice in her head, calling her a slut, and it made her furious. She’d almost thought she was free of that. She’d had so long now without feeling that way, without feeling dirty, without feeling bad about the things that made her feel good, and this asshole comes along and…

  “Back off.”

  It was Declan. Always Declan. Showing up like he had that first day on the dock at Marina del Ray, except this time he was furious. Tall, thick, muscled, contained caveman. Molly felt his heavy arm come around his shoulders, and this time she gratefully leaned into him, wanting that protection. Not so much from the idiot with the faux-hawk—she could handle him—as from her own thoughts. Nobody got protective of sluts. She hated that she even thought that way, it was such a double standard; she didn’t believe women could be “sluts,” except when she felt like one.

  Faux-hawk tried to play it cool. “Oh, hey, Declan, what’s up? I’m with Radio Riot, and—”

  “Not tonight you’re not.”

  “Well, I’m not, like, in the band, I help them out, but sometimes—”

  “I said get the fuck out,” Declan repeated. His voice had that deep, bottomless timbre that was both supremely controlled and deeply intimidating. Molly freaking loved it, even if it made her feel, in a primitive way, a little afraid. “You think you can insult my woman and then come chill out at the show? Get the fuck out before I throw you over that barricade.”

  My woman.

  Faux-hawk seemed to focus more on the physical threat than Declan’s declaration of…what? Ownership? Possession?

  More?

  No. No. Declan had specifically said that he didn’t do relationships or commitments or whatever. She had to keep that straight in her head. She had to make sure she didn’t forget that she wasn’t allowed to fall in love for her own sake, either, or she would be well and truly fucked.

  “Your sub, you mean, right?” she asked.

  She was still plastered to his side, feeling small and protected and feminine against the hard masculinity of Declan. It felt good.

  “You wanted me to announce your sexual preference to that piece of shit?” Declan asked.

  He actually looked confused.

  “No!” Molly said. No, that…that had not come out right. Her brain was fried again, being near him, feeling the heat of his body, smelling him. She needed, like, note cards to talk to him like this. A PowerPoint presentation. Something. She would need to add a “no contact” rule for interviews, or she was doomed.

  “Molly,” he said, slipping his hand down to her waist and turning her to face him. The intensity of his gaze shocked her into the moment. “You are mine, Molly, while you’re my sub. I meant that. Do you remember that?”

  Molly looked up into those dark, deep eyes and remembered the feel of him, burying himself inside her. Mine. Oh God, yes, she remembered.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Declan put his hand to the side of her face, and she couldn’t help but lean in to his touch. Gruffly, he said, “I can’t help what I am. Any man who comes near you is asking for trouble. Any man who disrespects you like that is damn near suicidal. And any man who touches you is fucking dead. Do you understand?”

  She nodded. She understood. She understood how good it felt to have Declan get stupid and possessive over her, she understood how wanted she felt, how cared for. And she understood that it came with a condition: while you’re my sub.

  “Lenny!” Declan shouted. It snapped Molly out of her morbid thoughts and right back to the chaos at hand. A big, burly guy with a crew cut and a few military looking tattoos lumbered over. Declan’s hands were still planted on her body, and he turned back to look her in the eye while he spoke.

  “Lenny, you stay on Molly the whole show. You get her anything she wants, you make sure she’s in the front row, and you don’t let anyone, anyone, touch her until I want her. You know the signals, right, Lenny?”

  “‘Course.”

  The signals? What the hell? Was it actually true that rockers had secret signals with their security guys to pick out hot chicks from the crowd to bring backstage?

  Wait, Declan had signals?

  Before she could say anything, he’d crushed her mouth under his, and any thoughts she had about Declan and groupies and jealousy fell back to let Declan himself take charge. His kiss was hard and ruthless, and it shocked Molly’s body alive like no one, like nothing, but Declan could. She felt it race through her skin, her muscles, her core. Before she knew it she was moaning into his mouth, her hands searching out his chest, her hips pressing into him.

  She was useless against that onslaught. Helpless. She was angry, jealous, and she had no control over her own body.

  Declan’s hands gripped her by the arms and he pulled her away, gently biting her lip as he did so.

  “Get ready,” he said.

  And then he left her with Lenny. Just walked away, imperious, dominant, not needing to hear her response.

  And she was pissed all over again. Turned on and pissed off. Molly had a vague notion that she was pissed off for stupid reasons, that maybe she was inventing crap to get pissed off about because she was scared, but in the sea of conflicting emotions that Declan Donovan inspired, that was at least one that didn’t scare the crap out of her.

  Fine. She’d sit in the front row and be pissed.

  “Lenny, can we go inside?” she asked.

  Lenny answered by taking her arm. Which was just as well, because Declan had kissed her in full view of the crowd behind the barricade, and the reaction was, um, harrowing. Molly covered her ears and ducked.

  It was inside, in the VIP area, where Molly finally found a way to do her own job. This was good news because, aside from the obvious reasons, it gave her an excellent reason to stop thinking about that annihilating kiss, and how she was both annoyed and profoundly disturbed to find that, fine, she was jealous.

  She must have looked nervous, pulling at the hem of her short skirt, not touching her drink, eyes darting around. And it was true, she was freaking out a little, but mostly for reasons having to do with the fact that no one was supposed to get jealous over non-involved, purely physical arrangements.

  But she wasn’t about to share that with Mickey.

  Mickey was one of the owners of the club, a dude in a shiny suit with lapels from the eighties and too much gel in his thinning hair. But he was nice. Kind. Considerate, in an old-timey, Frank Sinatra kind of way. He’d brought her the drink she hadn’t touched, and he kept coming by to check on her—she figured at Declan’s request. Lenny was just a silent, brooding statue of intimidation.

 
; “C’mon, sweetheart, why so blue?” Mickey said, sitting down on the low couch next to her. “Declan tells me to make sure you have a good time, and you look miserable. How can Mickey help?”

  Molly’s mind went into overdrive. This was one of the first clubs they ever played. And Mickey was definitely old enough to have been there.

  “You know, you can totally help, Mickey,” she said, turning a bright smile on him. “I just have so many questions. You knew them in the very beginning, right?”

  It was Mickey’s turn to smile with evident pride. “I gave those boys their first gig. Hometown boys, how could I not?”

  Her mind raced. “Out in Montauk, right?”

  “Ridgeback Township,” he said, leaning back and stretching out his arms. This was obviously a story he liked to tell. “Middle of fucking nowhere. Nothing going on. I come to Jersey, do ok, come back for my mother’s chicken parm, and these boys are playing my nephew’s basement for a high school party. Blew me away. I had to have them here before anyone else got ‘em.”

  “Mickey, listen,” Molly said, leaning in. “You know Declan and Soren really well, right? Better than almost anyone?”

  “Yeah,” he said, frowning.

  “Do you believe Declan was in rehab?”

  Molly had the much bigger, tougher, macho guy pinned. He wasn’t about to get up and run away, and yet he looked like he was being sweated by cartoon gangsters. He may have actually loosened his collar.

  “Because the thing is, Mickey,” Molly went on, tasting her drink. Gross. Too sweet. “I know he wasn’t. Declan doesn’t even drink. But the whole world thinks he had a problem, because he was photographed at that expensive celebrity rehab place in Malibu. One of those telescopic lenses or something, I don’t know. Pretty sketchy. But he was definitely there. So I’m thinking maybe he was visiting someone?”

  Mickey gave her some very skillful side eye. Then he laughed softly.

  “Ah, shit,” he said. “Those are very specific questions. You two more serious than I thought?”

  Molly cringed. She hadn’t meant to mislead him, but she hadn’t gone out of her way to tell the truth, either. She kind of hated lying. She sighed, knowing she just wasn’t going to be able to keep the tough-nosed investigative muckraker thing going.

  “Um, I’m not just with the band. I was hired to write a book about Savage Heart after Declan kicked Soren out. You know, tell the story? Only no one will actually tell me the full story outright, so I’m kind of…piecing it together.”

  Then she smiled brightly.

  Mickey stared at her. He looked disappointed.

  “I thought you and Dec were, you know,” he said, waving his hand around in the air. “I mean, I was happy for the guy. He’s never introduced a girl before.”

  Molly blushed deep enough to bring Mickey’s smile back. “It’s complicated,” she said.

  “Ha!” Mickey laughed. “Knowing Dec, I bet it is. Listen, you seem like a nice girl, and more importantly, my boy looks happy with you. So whatever. None of my business. I’ll tell you one thing—yeah, I think you’re right, he was visiting someone.”

  Molly hesitated only a moment.

  “Was it Soren?” she asked.

  “What?” Mickey looked genuinely shocked, then…pissed, maybe? He put down his drink and smoothed the front of his shirt. “No, it wasn’t Soren. Lady, you don’t know those boys at all if you think it could have been Soren in that place. Neither of them touch nothing, not ever. Both of them got real good reasons for that. You want to find out about Dec’s personal life, you ask him. My money’s on the girl he had before…”

  Mickey stopped. Maybe he had noticed how Molly had flinched at the reference to Declan’s “personal life,” like it was something she was very much not a part of, or maybe he just caught himself before he started talking about Declan’s previous girlfriends—or ‘arrangements.’ Or hell, maybe he’d seen Molly’s reaction to that, too. All that jealousy she’d told herself she could handle came roaring back to life, and she knew, of course, that he was talking about Bethany. Bethany, who had jumped from Declan to Soren and somehow still had a hold on both men.

  “Listen, forget about it,” Mickey said, standing up. “You talk to Declan, ok? He’s a nice guy, I’m sure he’ll tell you if you ask nicely. And you better get up front now, anyway. Declan said he wanted you up where he could see you. Lenny, you got her?”

  Molly bristled a little at that, them talking about her like she wasn’t there. But it reminded her of Declan, too, in that Dom mode, and the familiar warmth pooled between her legs. It wasn’t fair, what he did to her, even when he wasn’t there.

  “Miss Ward?” Lenny said, gently putting a hand under her arm. The lights in the main part of the club had gone down. The show was about to start.

  She was being…delivered.

  Dammit, why does that turn me on?

  Then the first chords rang out, and she remembered.

  Nineteen

  Front row. Small stage.

  Savage Heart.

  Declan.

  All of Molly’s annoyance and frustration, her insecurity and jealousy, all stuff she knew she didn’t have a right to be feeling—it melted away in the heat of Declan, on stage. She was grateful. It was almost like being in bed with him—he drove out all the messy, stressful, unhelpful thoughts, and left room only for being. For feeling.

  It was like that first time she saw him on stage, at Volare Venice, only more so, because now when he sang to her, when he looked at her, she knew exactly what he would do to her. What he could do to her. She knew what it felt like to have those hands on her body, to have him inside her, controlling her, telling her to come when he felt like it. She felt every line, like his tongue on her skin, every beat like a thrust.

  She was powerless before him, again. Like he was her puppet master. He had her practically coming right there. She couldn’t keep from moving, from sweating, from nakedly wanting him. And he knew it.

  And she wasn’t the only one, either. The women around her—why did all promoters have to pack the front rows with crazed female fans?—were going absolutely batshit. The stage was littered with panties, bras, things even Molly couldn’t identify, and she’d lost count of the obscene screams, the promises. Every time it made her want to step up and claim what wasn’t, technically, hers.

  But Declan kept singing to her.

  It all went to hell about the time some deranged redhead managed to break through and climb half on stage while Declan was singing. The woman clawed at him, screaming incoherently, while Declan carefully disentangled himself, waiting for security to show.

  And he never lost eye contact with Molly.

  That was when the crazed fans noticed her. And recognized her, from Declan’s public kiss out by the bus. Molly knew they’d figured out what was going on, and that she was Declan’s…something, because of the shouting, and then the collective wail that rose up. Declan looked at Lenny, made some kind of signal, and Molly didn’t even have time to react. She was half-carried out of the club, away from the screaming insanity, and into the street.

  It looked like a totally different place than it had before the show.

  Still with the bus, the vans, the trailers, all parked side to side, making a network of tight little hallways between them, nooks and crannies everywhere. Still with people milling about, smoking cigarettes, trying to look cool. Still some cops. But most of the crowd—and the police, and the press—had migrated to the next block over, where the front entrance of the club was located, either because the cops had herded them there or because they thought they had a chance to get in.

  And it was dark.

  Molly felt the summer breeze under her skirt and remembered to be outraged. She was not a piece of chattel.

  “Lenny, what the hell—”

  But Lenny kept her moving. She knew she couldn’t be pissed about being hustled out of harm’s way, but, well, she was.

  And more pissed when she realized s
he was being taken back to the bus.

  “Oh, hell no, Lenny, not the bus. I have my own job to do, this is bullshit.”

  “Sorry, miss,” he said. “Got the signal.”

  “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  He was not.

  There, leaning against the bus, in the shadow of the van parked next to it, was Declan Donovan.

  “Thanks, Lenny,” he said.

  The sight of him still stunned her. Bare chested and sweating, his tattoos swirling around the ridges and planes of muscles still tight from performing, his eyes practically glowing…

  “How did you get out here?” she asked.

  “The basement’s connected to the next building over.” He was staring at her. Hard.

  “What about the crowd?”

  “Fuck the crowd,” he said, pushing off from the bus. “The singer from Radio Riot’s handling that.”

  He was walking toward her now.

  “You didn’t have to—”

  “They were about to tear you apart,” he said.

  “Yeah, but security could have—”

  Declan’s hand closed around her wrist and he pulled her against his body, silencing her.

  “And I needed to have you,” he said.

  Molly stopped breathing. She burned everywhere he touched her, and her pulse thudded in her head like she was about to pass out. Every sensation, every thought from when he was on stage came flooding back to her, and she felt a hungry absence inside her.

  “Now,” he said, his voice rough. “Here.”

  Oh my fucking God.

  Molly’s heart pounded in her chest as she looked around, suddenly aware of how not alone they were, of how much noise even the remaining hangers-on were making. She couldn’t see anyone, but she could hear them, knew people would start looking for Declan Donovan soon.

  Declan pushed her back against the side of the looming bus and she let out a small moan. He pushed down her tank top and bra, exposing her breasts, taking a nipple between his forefinger and thumb and squeezing.