First Night Read online

  Holding her eye the entire time.

  He wanted her to know who it was who was fucking her.

  He wanted it imprinted on her, this moment. This night.

  It already was.

  She gripped at the sheets to get ready. And she never let her eyes waver as he slowly, slowly sank into her, inch by massive inch, perfectly controlled until she could take all of him, and he was fully seated inside her.

  When he’d gone down on her, it was like a force of nature, wild and animal. This was different. This was controlled, measured, watchful. This was…more. This was knowing he watched while he was inside of you, knowing he saw. He started slowly, rocking inside her, making her whimper as she wanted more and wasn’t totally sure she could handle it if she got it. His strokes got longer, deeper. Deliberate.

  He set the pace, and she let it wash over her.

  And as another massive orgasm built inside her, for the first time in her life, Olivia realized that letting someone in, letting yourself feel with them, letting them see you, was an active choice. It always was. She hadn’t been wrong, not to make herself vulnerable before. It was a risk. Always a risk.

  And Gavin made it so, so easy.

  Seven

  The next morning, Gavin couldn’t stop himself from looking at her.

  They’d both slept late, in their own rooms. He’d long had a rule about keeping separate beds, for good reasons. He couldn’t offer commitment, and it had become a necessary reminder.

  But this time, he’d almost forgotten.

  Olivia had said it. He’d been relieved, and then he’d had to figure with the fact that he’d nearly forgotten his own damn rule.

  And now they were smiling at each other over a long, lazy lunch, not saying much at all.

  It was so damn easy.

  “Why are you dressed so fancy?” she said suddenly.

  He looked down at his suit—it was as fancy as he got, generally speaking.

  “Got a quick meeting later, some start-up pitch,” he said. “I’m more of a jeans-and-t-shirt kind of guy, but these young kids, you gotta show them what it’s like to be professional.”

  “Is there anything in the world that can make a twenty-one-year-old professional if they aren’t already?”

  He smiled. “Besides letting them screw up a bunch of times? Not really.”

  Olivia smiled back. “Yeah, that’s how I learned. But you scrub up nicely.”

  “Yeah?”

  She licked her lips, and it made him want to throw her down on the table. “Yeah,” she said.

  Gavin stared at her, hard. Olivia smiled back at him. Last night she’d been nervous, restrained, guarded. Now? Who knew what was possible. If the way she’d responded to his taking charge was any clue, a whole lot. His gut told him this woman was a sub.

  And his cock stirred at the possibilities.

  He might have gotten to it right then if the room phone hadn’t rung.

  Gavin exhaled in frustration, pushed himself away from the table, grabbed the phone. Expected some sort of nonsense. Instead, the concierge had good news.

  “A Roman and Lola Casta are here to see you, sir. Shall I send them up?”

  Gavin grinned. If there was any reason to be interrupted, it was to see Roman and Lola. Besides, they had a new baby.

  No way it was going to be a long interruption.

  “Send ‘em on up.”

  He looked back at Olivia, who had that half relaxed, half apprehensive look on her face. It was kind of funny how bad she was at hiding her emotions from him, considering she was an actress.

  “Who’s here?” she said.

  In the main room, the elevator dinged. And then a baby started crying.

  “Oh my God, is it that cute baby again?” she said, smiling now, for real. She shot up from the table, not waiting for an answer.

  Gavin had to give it to her—that baby was cute. But if Roman and Lola were dropping in with a brand-new baby, it wasn’t just for a visit.

  He wasn’t wrong. Roman met his eye when he followed Olivia out into the main room and nodded at Lola, who handed off the baby. The little tyke got quiet as soon as she had her daddy’s nose to play with.

  “Have you two slept yet?” he asked them.

  Lola groaned. “Don’t.”

  Gavin laughed, remembering how a friend back in New Orleans described the first few months of parenthood—she said she had no idea, as she’d repressed it all. Sounded about right.

  “Can we help?” Olivia asked.

  “Start by giving me that baby,” Gavin said.

  He just wanted to get a good look at his new niece. But as he took the baby from Roman, he looked up to find Olivia staring at him.

  What the hell did that mean?

  “Funny you should ask,” Lola said. “We have something to ask you. Is there somewhere we can talk, Gavin? We can leave these two to play with the baby.”

  Olivia’s face lit right up, but baby Emma started to cry again. Lola just sighed, but she couldn’t hide how deeply in love with her daughter she was even when sleep-deprived. Gavin had known the woman almost as long as his brother Ford had, and he’d never seen her this happy.

  “She’s hungry again,” she said. “Ok, give her back. Roman, you’ll have to tell him.”

  “You are so much more persuasive, sweetheart.”

  “Tell that to your daughter, who will only nurse under the full moon on an equinox and, I don’t know, have we tried ocean sounds yet? Does she need ocean sounds?”

  Roman leaned down to kiss his wife, long and deep. Those two had never been afraid of showing their love, once they’d figured it all out. And they still had it. Roman whispered something in Lola’s ear that made the redhead blush. She was smiling as she took the baby back.

  “Ok,” she said. “Gavin, take my husband to some back room with cigars somewhere, he has some plotting to do. Except no cigars, because ew, and we have a baby. Olivia, got any nursing tips?”

  “None at all.”

  “Perfect, you know just as much as I do.”

  Gavin watched the two women walk away, smiling at the way Lola made anyone feel comfortable. He wanted that for Olivia. She deserved it.

  When he turned back to Roman, the other man was watching him with a faint smile on his face.

  “What do you need to be all persuasive about, Roman?”

  Now Roman outright smiled.

  “As my wife would say, funny you should ask.”

  Olivia was glad for the break away from Gavin. Seeing him with a baby had been surprisingly affecting. Her brain had almost melted. She never really understood what it was to actually swoon until she had to stop herself from doing it.

  Which was, of course, crazy. This was a fling. The whole point was that this was a fling, and it stayed in this hotel room.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Lola asked.

  Olivia cringed. She’d only just met Lola recently, just before she gave birth, and here she was, lost in Gavin-related thought and being totally rude.

  “Sorry,” she said, then stopped. Gavin had been right. She should stop doing that all the time. Better to just explain. “I’m a little distracted,” she said.

  Lola laughed a tinkling, silvery laugh. “I bet. You and Gavin shacked up here? I bet.”

  “That obvious?”

  “It’s his private hotel suite,” Lola said, smiling kindly. “So, yeah.”

  Weirdly, Olivia didn’t feel anxious, or panicked. Everyone she’d ever met at Club Volare respected other people, treated them well. She trusted Lola implicitly. But she still had to say it.

  “Can I ask you not to tell anyone?” she said. “I know that’s weird, and not that you would, but my life is just nuts right now.”

  “I saw,” Lola said. “I read gossip blogs, I can’t help it. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No way,” Olivia said. She hadn’t even checked her phone yet. It felt good to be able to say that and know it wouldn’t be a problem.
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br />   And Lola smiled. “I know this is strange, but Roman and I went through something similar, so if you ever do want to talk, it’s not like I ever sleep anymore anyway. This the nice bathroom?”

  Olivia had been confused by this. Lola had asked for a kitchen first, but it was a hotel suite, so no luck. But the bathrooms were so fancy that they had a separate little couch area, so it wasn’t like Lola had to nurse in the actual bathroom. Still slightly confused, Olivia held the door open so Lola could sweep in, baby in arms. Lola immediately turned on the water faucet, then sat down on this impossibly nice armchair and started to situate the baby.

  “She hasn’t nursed yet without the sound of running water,” Lola said, sighing slightly. “We know it’s weird. I blame Roman.”

  Olivia laughed, and mentally made a note to get them one of those noise machines for a new baby gift. “Sounds fair,” she said.

  “And I really meant it,” Lola said, looking up as her baby fussed. “Even if you don’t want to talk, even if you just need to get away, you always have a place to go in New York. Assuming we get back home anytime soon.”

  “I know,” Olivia said. “You’ve built kind of an amazing place, you know that? But I’m actually going to New Orleans next.”

  “Didn’t you do a movie there?”

  A few weeks ago, Olivia would have cringed. Now? She shrugged. “Yeah, with my ex. I’ve gotta go back to do promo soon anyway, so I booked another small film there, just something kind of cool. Truthfully it’s the closest I get to a vacation. I just love it there.”

  Lola looked at her, long and hard. She couldn’t contain her smile.

  “You know Gavin’s from New Orleans, right?”

  “I do,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like he’s going back anytime soon, though.”

  Olivia said it out loud, and became aware of a slight heaviness in her chest she hadn’t been aware of. She was disappointed. She’d wanted the chance to maybe run into him again or something.

  She shivered, knowing how dangerous that was for a fling, and knowing how little control she had over it anyway.

  Lola was smiling all over again.

  “Well, let’s just see about that,” she said.

  Roman took one couch, Gavin the other. An image of what Olivia had looked like in that seat flashed in his mind, and he shook his head.

  “So what’s up?” he asked his old friend.

  Roman leaned back, eying Gavin. Gavin grinned—get a couple of Doms in a room, and it was like a Jedi fight.

  “How much free time do you have now?” Roman asked.

  Gavin shrugged. “All of it, if I want it. To tell the truth, I’m bored. There’re no more mountains left to climb in Silicon Valley.”

  “Good,” Roman said. “We want you to run a new club location.”

  Gavin laughed. “That’s all?”

  Roman frowned. He was always too serious. Only Lola could get him to loosen up.

  “It’s not a small task,” he said. “And we were concerned, that with your past—”

  “If I’d had a place like Club Volare,” Gavin said, “my past would be different. I’d be honored, and I’d consider it a debt paid forward.”

  The two men looked at each other. Finally, Roman nodded.

  “Good,” he said. “Adra will be pleased.”

  “Yeah, this has my sister-in-law’s fingerprints all over it,” Gavin said.

  “But,” Roman said. “There is the matter of the club’s location.”

  Gavin looked up.

  “Where is it?”

  “Can I ask a question?” Olivia said.

  Lola looked up. “You are currently watching my baby do terrible things to my boob,” she said. “I think you’re in the circle of trust now.”

  “How did you know that you were a sub?”

  There. It felt good to get it out, even if Lola was looking at her kind of like Gavin sometimes looked at her.

  “Well, I’m not,” Lola said. “I’m a switch. And that is a long, long story, and the hard part is that it’s a different story for everyone.”

  Olivia exhaled. Yup, Lola had just seen right through her. Well, she might as well stop dancing around it.

  “How does that work?” Olivia said. “Not the switch thing, but the whole…kinky marriage thing?”

  “It’s not all that different, really,” she said. “It’s like you have another language for negotiating all the stuff you should be negotiating anyway. It means you have to talk to each other, even when you’d rather not, because the baby is being a baby, or work is really stressful, or whatever. It’s sort of like eating your relationship vegetables, I guess? Ew, sorry.”

  Olivia laughed. “You know what, the older I get, the more I see the appeal of broccoli and drinking eight glasses of water every day.”

  “You actually accomplish that? Every day?”

  “Oh God, no. I think about it every day.”

  Lola smiled at her, but quickly her attention went back to the tiny little child in her arms. Olivia watched them, and was overcome with…something. Something sweet, something painful. Something wistful.

  She’d never really planned for a family of her own. It sounded crazy, but she’d had her brother—and her father—to take care of, her whole adult life. What Lola had was so far from anything Olivia had ever dreamed of for herself.

  But after the night she’d had with Gavin, it seemed somehow both more possible and more impossible at the same time. She’d finally connected with a man in every way she knew of, but he was a Dom. Last night was the most vulnerable she’d ever been in her whole life, and it had been a real stretch. A BDSM relationship seemed like the vulnerability Olympics—amazing, impressive, and totally out of reach.

  Besides, Olivia had too many responsibilities to get involved in something new. She’d made Brandon a priority, and it had derailed so many things in her life, and she had her family to take care of.

  “Oh my God, I totally forgot,” Lola said, snapping her head up. “Blame nursing brain. But Adra wants you to call her as soon as possible, ok? You can use my phone if you want, or—”

  “It’s ok,” Olivia said, smiling. “I can handle it. You just take care of that baby.”

  “Speaking of,” Lola said. “Now I have to pee. All that water noise. Could you…?”

  Olivia gave her new friend an impromptu hug and gave the baby a kiss on the head before darting out of there. A quick look told her Gavin and Roman were still holed up in the living room, which left Olivia free to roam. She padded down the soft-carpeted hall until she got to the very end, where there was a door with a gleaming brass handle. This was the one room she hadn’t gotten to explore before Gavin surprised her—the memory made her smile, and reminded her of just how hot that look had been—and she was eager to see what other treasures this hotel suite held. She’d already found a sauna and a hot tub that she was very much planning to use, preferably with a large, dark-haired, scarred-lip pirate-looking man. She had no idea what this one could be.

  Well, she might have had an idea, if she’d thought about it for a few more seconds.

  Eight

  Olivia had just finished filming the Submit and Surrender movie at Club Volare LA, so she knew what she was looking at.

  She just couldn’t tear her eyes away.

  It looked like one of the rooms at Club Volare LA, kind of. There was a St. Andrew’s cross on one wall, a bench, a rack with a bunch of restraints. But there were some things she didn’t recognize. Things she couldn’t help but wonder about.

  The weird part was that she wasn’t intimidated. Yesterday, she would have been, or she thought she would have been. Now? Her mind raced, and her heart pounded. But not from fear.

  “Liv?”

  It was Gavin’s voice, carrying from the other side of the suite.

  She had already turned around and closed the door quietly behind her before she realized two things: one, she had reacted like a school girl about to get in trouble for snooping. Whi
ch…oh God. That made her squirm a little bit. She took a deep breath, and her strapless dress pulled tight around her breasts. That didn’t help either.

  And two, Gavin had called her “Liv,” and she’d loved the way it sounded, coming out of his mouth.

  She looked ahead, took a deep breath. Tried to compose herself, though she could feel her panties sticking to her already.

  And walked back into the fray.

  Only, there was no fray. Olivia ventured out further, until she was standing in the middle of the great room, the elevator doors in front of her. She’d thought she’d heard voices at first, but now, there was nothing. How long had she been composing herself?

  “You get lost?”

  She whirled around. Gavin was standing in the open doorway that led to the living room, leaning against the doorframe. Absently, he reached up to loosen his tie.

  It did things to her.

  “Kind of,” she said.

  Maybe it was her tone of voice. Maybe it was the look on her face as she said it. Whatever it was, it got Gavin’s attention.

  He pushed off the doorframe and buttoned his suit coat. And looked at her.

  “And what happened?”

  Olivia bit her lip. She wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell someone about all the things she was feeling. But wanting to and being able to…

  “Where are Roman and Lola?” she asked.

  “Left for a doctor’s appointment. Last minute cancellation, they got in. Said to tell you goodbye, and don’t forget to call Adra,” he said. His eyes flickered. “What happened?”

  That tone of voice. Whenever he used it, something in her started to turn, to tighten. Immediately she could feel her pulse around her clit, felt her whole body come awake with a burning need. The pressure in her was building, the words wanting to come out, only she didn’t know how to put any of it into words.