First Night Read online

  Her lips parted in genuine shock, and her free hand started to toy with the slit on her dress, her fingers rubbing against her leg. That moment could have lasted forever. Gavin could feel every single nerve in his body, all of them screaming to touch her, to feel her. He remained motionless, and waited.

  “Ok,” she said, finally. “Deal.”

  Gavin exhaled. He watched her settle into her settee, watched the smile begin to curl at the corners of her mouth. And he wondered if he really knew what he was in for.

  Olivia slept feverishly, waking up in the middle of the night so hot from the dream she’d been having that she was actually angry that reality didn’t match it. It had been Gavin. Of course it had been Gavin; no one else had ever made her want like this.

  Gavin’s hands, all over her body. His mouth, all over her body.

  His weight over her, his hands on her wrists, his…

  And that was as far as she’d gotten before she woke up. She’d wanted to scream. Instead she tore at the tangled sheets and slipped her hand down her stomach, over the soft skin and under the tight band of her underwear, and as her hand passed over the soft mound she bucked her hips in shock and pleasure. Such a light touch, so little pressure. She was so swollen; it felt so good it nearly hurt. Gently at first, then faster, faster she touched herself, massaging around her clit, afraid to actually touch it, until in about a minute she came with such an inchoate frenzy that for a second, she thought she was dreaming again.

  “What the hell,” she’d whispered.

  She would have thought it was all a dream, except that she woke up to the smell of sex, tangled in her own sheets.

  So she had a long, long shower.

  It didn’t help.

  She’d said she didn’t want him to leave, and it was true, but it was also troubling her that it was true. Obviously she wanted him, but was that a good idea? She still felt fragile, her ego still…well, she was going to call it bruised, but that didn’t really do it justice. Demolished? Destroyed? Set on fire and then stomped out by someone with a grudge against both egos and fires? Yeah, that last one.

  She couldn’t take another disappointment. Either in herself, or in him. She couldn’t take any more evidence that there was something wrong with her.

  And somehow, her body didn’t seem to care about any of that.

  Which meant it was going to be a long, long week.

  She picked a wrap dress almost at random from one of the many items of clothing Gavin had somehow conjured up for her, and tried to brace herself for the day.

  Gavin already had breakfast going.

  No, correction: Gavin had already put together an entire breakfast feast. Literally, the entire length of the formal dining room table, covered in various fancy and down home breakfast foods both.

  He was standing over it with a pair of tongs, in a t-shirt and jeans and an almost boyish excitement. Olivia was already a fan of his scarred grin, but she liked his big smile even more.

  “‘Morning,” he said, and picked up a plate. “What can I get you?”

  “Oh no, Gavin,” she said. “I should have told you last night, but I just can’t eat in the mornings. I don’t know why, I get nauseous, it’s weird. I am so sorry, because this is amazing. Can we save it? Is there a fridge? I am so, so sorry.”

  He looked at her.

  “None of it will go to waste,” he said. “I think the dude downstairs with two Michelin stars is trying to impress me, which is pretty funny.”

  Olivia still felt terrible, but she couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Did it work?”

  “Hell yeah,” he said. “Look at this.”

  “I really am sorry,” she said again.

  He looked at her again, but this time…

  Something in the eyes. The intensity. Somehow his dark eyes flickered, and it kindled something inside her all over again.

  “Stop apologizing,” he said.

  She swallowed, and nodded. “Ok.”

  “You’re going to work up an appetite by lunch, anyway,” he said.

  Her breath hitched.

  He heard.

  She blushed hotly.

  “Why’s that?” she said, and she tried to make it sound calm.

  “Because we’re going racing in the desert,” he said, and that smile turned back into excitement. “Assuming you want to go racing in the desert. Wanna go racing in the desert?”

  He looked at her, and for a second it seemed like he considered the possibility that she might not want to go racing in a desert somewhere, and watching him try to wrap his head around that was more entertaining than any movie she’d been in. Never in a million years would Olivia have thought to describe Gavin Colson as ‘adorable,’ but there it was, right in front of her. Scientific proof.

  She laughed.

  “What are you even talking about?” she said. “And yes.”

  Gavin grinned again and piled his own plate with more eggs. He ate like a football player, too.

  “I invested in a car company, and they’re trying to break some land speed records,” he said. “It’s never gonna make any money, but it’s so damn cool. They emailed me that they’re ready for testing.”

  “Testing?”

  The grin got bigger.

  Four

  Gavin was amazed. Olivia had absolutely kicked his butt.

  It wasn’t even a contest. The way she’d taken the track was inspired. He’d been so excited he’d made her show him how she did it, even if he’d had to convince her he wasn’t mad about it the whole time. Then she kept apologizing for random things, which was what people did when they were ashamed of themselves and didn’t even know it.

  Which told Gavin a few things. Like that while Gavin didn’t know very much about her ex, he did know that the man was a bastard.

  Now they were flying back in the helicopter, always his favorite part. Olivia sat rigidly at first, afraid of the rough ride, the heights. Then she’d gotten into it, and that smile made him want to buy her her own bird.

  He was already playing a dangerous game. He had rules about how he engaged with women, and especially how he engaged with subs, and he’d had them for a long, long time, and they were good rules. Necessary rules.

  And he kept forgetting about them.

  But then she looked at him, cheeks flushed, eyes wide, with that big smile, and it was like his past didn’t exist.

  The heli banked into the wind on the final approach and the sudden tilt sent her sliding across the bench. Instinct took over and he reached out, put his arm around her. Pulled her in close.

  Everything got sharper.

  The sounds, the smells, the feel of her body against his. Every nerve, every synapse in his body just about lost its mind all at once. The heat of her passed into him and gave him strength, made him hungry, pooled at the base of his cock and started to pound.

  For a second, he was just an animal, holding on to what was his. He had to claw himself back to being just a man, with a working brain. But he didn’t let go.

  She leaned into him.

  Then the heli landed, the deafening noise died down, the whir of the propellers fading to a rhythmic thump. Neither of them had moved, Olivia’s body burning a hole in his where he held her. Just still.

  He brushed the bare skin on her arm with his thumb and thought he heard her gasp.

  They pulled apart at the same time. He watched her, looking at the ground. And he knew it was coming before she even said it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  She needed a dictionary to decipher these Gavin Colson looks. On the other hand, if she knew exactly what he was thinking, what little remained of her self-control might disappear entirely.

  Oh God. He was doing it again.

  She shuddered. When he looked at her like that, after a while she just had to move. She had to feel something brush against her skin, had to use her body.

  She let him help her out of the helicopter—a freaking helicopter; that
was a new one—and smiled.

  “You were right,” she said as they made their way back downstairs to the suite. “I’m super hungry.”

  “Early dinner?”

  She nodded. “Dinner.”

  With some relief, she waved and disappeared into what had become her temporary bedroom. Olivia enjoyed every moment of being around Gavin, but she needed a break to catch her breath. She’d been so relieved to not have to be performing, in any way, like he’d said, just getting to be whoever she wanted to be. But the effort of controlling herself was starting to wear on her. Which, again: what the hell? Was this what it was like to be a teenager again?

  Oh God, was this what it was like to be a teenaged boy?

  She laughed at the thought, then very deliberately picked out some comfy-looking yoga clothes to try to minimize temptation. She took her time in the shower, resisting the urge to touch herself, because that would only stoke the fire, and tried to reflect. She failed. Like every two seconds she was thinking about how Gavin looked in that white shirt, how his forearms seemed to have more tiny muscles than the rest of her body combined, how he smelled when he’d held her in the helicopter.

  Losing battle. Lost battle. She’d just have to suffer.

  Which was why when she came back out for dinner she was armed with a whole bunch of more appropriate conversation topics.

  Gavin was standing in the dining room again, rubbing his hands together.

  “Two-star Michelin dude made a seafood boil,” he said. “And he did it right.”

  Olivia looked at the spread—Michelin dude might know how to wield those spices, but he couldn’t help himself when it came to presentation. Everything was still gorgeously plated. There was even some newspaper, carefully folded.

  She grinned. “He found out you’re from New Orleans,” she said.

  Gavin looked up. “How’d you know that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. It was even the truth. “I must have heard it at the club. Or maybe the party?”

  There was a beat, and then he shrugged and went back to spreading newspaper.

  That was weird.

  “So is that where your family is?” she asked, grabbing some newspaper for her end of the table.

  “So to speak,” he said. “Except Ford.”

  “What about the club?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, they count as family.”

  Ok, she thought. Family is not a favorite topic.

  Gavin went back to picking through crawfish, and Olivia tried to figure out why she felt so unsettled. Ok, yeah, they barely knew each other, and it’s not like she’d be more forthcoming if he started asking about her family. Her brother was fair game, but the rest was not something she liked to talk about.

  So that wasn’t it.

  It was that he hadn’t asked about her. He hadn’t even asked about the break-up. Olivia had told him the barebones stuff, but he was checking his phone like a normal person, so he must have read something more about it. Olivia, for her part, had turned hers off after sending a quick text to her brother and her agent. If she was going to have something constantly vibrating in her pocket, she wanted it to be at least be something fun.

  Because literally everyone else she knew hadn’t been able to resist at least trying to get some dirt. Except Gavin. It made her trust him, in a way.

  So why did that bother her?

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry like that. I think I’m just interested in what planet you come from.”

  He smiled at her.

  “You asked me a normal question,” he said. “If it had bothered me, I’d tell you.”

  “You have been pretty forthright,” she said. She paused, and reached for the glass of wine he’d poured for her, as nonchalant as possible. “That a Dom thing?”

  Like she knew what she was talking about.

  Gavin’s eyes flickered at her across the table. She tried to look away, but just couldn’t do it.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  Olivia licked her lips. “I think that’s likely.”

  “Now,” he said, tossing a shell in an overly fancy bucket, licking his fingers. “Why do you want to know about that?”

  Olivia opened her mouth, prepared to be irate, but nothing came out. The only things she was willing to say were patently false. She wanted to know if that was a Dom thing because some part of her wanted him to show her all the Dom things. She wanted everything.

  She even wanted him to…

  “I think I almost want you to explain it to me,” she said softly. She smiled at him, even though it was ridiculous. “But not just that. My life. This whole mess. You keep telling me things that seem obvious to you, but are a total mystery to me until you point them out. Silly, right?”

  Gavin tossed another shell in the bucket.

  “You get dressed without a mirror?” he asked.

  She laughed. “What?”

  Then she looked at his face.

  “Of course,” she said. “If I have to.”

  “You do that before you knew what you looked like in most things?”

  Olivia leaned back. “Ok, Obi Wan. So you’re the mirror?”

  Gavin grinned again, and something inside her twisted a little tighter, put her under a little more tension. She just couldn’t get enough of it.

  “I take many forms,” he said.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Just not one of a race-car driver?”

  Gavin laughed, and tossed an empty shell at her, which she dodged handily. Still, though. Louisiana boil—there was sauce everywhere. Olivia giggled and licked at her fingers.

  “You did kick my ass,” he said. “Where’d you learn to drive like that?”

  “Just a weird talent, I guess,” she demurred. She remembered him, on the track. She loved driving so much she sort of forgot herself, and broke her long-standing rule of letting men win at contests they proposed. The rule itself didn’t really fit with her principles, but it did often make life significantly easier.

  But driving? Drag racing? She had about zero chance of holding back once she got out there. Her lead foot was legendary among her people (her people consisting of her immediate family). And she’d gloated a bit. None of it seemed to bother him—hell, Gavin seemed mostly impressed, or proud, or something—but she still felt bad about it.

  “Sorry about that, by the way,” she said. “The race, I mean. I just—”

  “Stop.”

  Olivia looked up. His voice had cracked the air like a whip. Like a command. It was impossible not to obey.

  He was looking at her like that again. That look that she could feel on her skin. That look that heightened her senses and focused them into one, single question: would he touch her?

  Finally, she remembered to breathe.

  “Stop what?” she said.

  “Stop apologizing,” he said. Before, when he’d talked to her like this, when he’d look at her like this, Gavin’s face had been unreadable. But now, just for a moment, it cracked.

  He stood up, rolling his shoulders, planting his big hands on the table between them.

  “Look at me, Olivia,” he said. “There is nothing wrong with you. The way you kick my ass in a race, the things you feel or don’t feel, those are not problems to be fixed. They’re parts of you to be explored, with hope and wonder and goddamn joy.”

  Olivia stared at him.

  She didn’t know what to say.

  Gavin relaxed, sat back down. He was still looking at her, over the table full of seafood, but it was still like he’d somehow released her.

  “And whoever made you think different should get what’s coming to him,” he said.

  Well, she’d asked for it. She’d said she wanted him to tell her like it was.

  So why was she so upset?

  Five

  Olivia couldn’t sleep.

  No, worse than that. She was angry and aroused at the same time. This wasn’t lying awake, tired, just waiting for sleep to
happen; this was pretending not to feel the need building in her, bubbling over until she just had to move, had to thrash against her sheets, had to pound against her pillow. It was dumb.

  And it was Gavin’s fault.

  She stared at the ceiling and dug her hands into the mattress beneath her, hoping that this feeling would go away by sheer force of will. Her skin was hot, her breasts ached, her thighs were wet. If she touched herself one more time, she’d scream in frustration.

  How could someone who made her so angry turn her on so much at the same time? What was worse was she knew she didn’t have a right to be angry. Because he was right. Of course he was right—she shouldn’t have to apologize all the time. But she did not think she needed to be fixed, it wasn’t like that.

  It was just that she’d never orgasmed with a partner. She’d never even come close. For a long time she’d had a bad habit of dating jerks, at least partially because it was easier to guard yourself with a guy who didn’t think much about anyone other than himself. And she’d thought that was the reason.

  But then Brandon had come along. Before he’d hit it big, when she was still the one who always paid for dinner, and loved him for not making a big deal about it. He’d been the nicest, kindest, sweetest man she’d ever met, and that had been weirdly hard, at first, because she wasn’t used to that kind of attention. It made her self-conscious. But eventually she’d believed him—he’d really loved her. And even then, even with the sweetest guy on the planet, she’d never really enjoyed the sex. And if she was honest, it didn’t seem like Brandon did, either.

  And if she couldn’t have good sex with someone like that, then maybe the guys weren’t the problem. Maybe it was her.

  So when Brandon did the dump-and-disappear, she hadn’t just lost her best friend and future husband. She’d lost the last shred of hope. It was a confirmation of everything she feared.

  And then Gavin Colson showed up, and made her feel things she’d never felt before without even touching her. She’d gotten used to the idea of who she was; she’d gotten used to the idea that she’d have to just pretend, that when she played a sexy ingénue submissive, she was kind of a fraud. That had been work, getting used to that. She’d cried over it, and she’d eventually accepted it. That didn’t mean she wanted to cry over it all over again if, even with Gavin, sex turned out to be…like it always was.