Submit and Surrender

Submit and Surrender By Chloe Cox

prologue


Adra’s skin grew hot as Ford approached. Slow. He was so slow. So deliberate. His eyes pinning her where she stood, the weight of him somehow overbearing even from a distance, making it difficult to breathe.

She felt like she was buzzing around the edges, like on the surface she was over-stimulated and on the verge of shorting out, but the core of her was…calm.

He’d made her admit it. He’d made her beg. And everything had fallen into place.

Just the way he was looking at her…

Like she was entirely his.

She shivered.

He saw. He smiled. Then he reached up and tore open her blouse.





chapter 1


Ford Colson cursed and slammed his hand against the dashboard. The Bluetooth in his truck had never worked right, and this was the only time he cared. The only thing he’d gotten from the garbled voicemail was something about Adra Davis, and how he needed to be back at Club Volare, and how it was very important.

He never got reception up in the canyons. Normally there wasn’t anything he needed to be on call for, and there wasn’t much that could get him to cut short a cross-country run—except Adra. And now that he and Adra were running Club Volare L.A. while the owner, Chance, was on a scouting trip for the next Volare location, he could add club business to that limited list.

He smoothed his hand over the dashboard, feeling kind of bad for taking it out on his truck, and took a deep breath. At least the PCH wasn’t clogged up. He’d be there in a few minutes.

It was only Adra who could get him worked up like this. But he’d be damned if he let anyone see it.

Obviously that strategy hadn’t worked as well as it should have. It wasn’t an accident that Chance had left him and Adra in charge. The details of Ford’s history with Adra weren’t exactly common knowledge, but everyone damn sure knew that there was a history, and that something had gone wrong—and it was affecting the club. Chance wanted to force them to work it out by forcing them to work together.

The two of them could barely stand to be in a room together. Not because they hated each other, though what was that saying about a fine line between love and hate? Maybe she did hate him, who knew. But it wasn’t that. It was because they wanted each other. And Ford knew Adra was someone he couldn’t have. Not the way he’d wanted her.

She’d been very clear about that. Eventually.

But he missed her. Damn it, he missed her. Even though she’d turned out to be the kind of person Ford knew he couldn’t have in his life, he missed her. He missed making her laugh, he missed her warmth, he missed her loyalty and her huge heart. He missed the way she smelled.

And now even the suggestion that something bad had happened involving her sent him speeding down the PCH like a mad man. It was like a bad dream he couldn’t wake up from. Adra wouldn’t let him. Not with the way she acted around him, like she was afraid of her own shadow, afraid of being seen, or of what Ford had seen of her. Afraid of what might have been.

Damn it.

It didn’t matter. He would never do that again. He’d never again be with a woman who played games like that. That had been one expensive lesson to learn, but he’d learned it well. So well that sometimes he thought he should thank his ex-wife.

Ford laughed out loud, alone in his truck, imagining Claudia’s face as he thanked her for the spectacular shit show that had been their divorce, and all the loss that had gone with it. Maybe he’d try it the next time she came to town.

Or maybe not. He was still going nearly a hundred miles an hour down the PCH, muscles twitching, wanting to find out what the hell had happened with Adra. Maybe some lessons you never really learn. He’d thought Adra was it. He’d thought…

Well, sometimes even a Dom could be wrong.

He didn’t relax until he hit Venice and knew he was only minutes from the Club Volare compound. And then when traffic slowed to a crawl on Abbot Kinney, he was about to make an illegal turn onto a side street, just to cut through and get there a few minutes faster, when he saw the reason for the sudden standstill up ahead.

A silver BMW in an accident at the traffic light up ahead, the one that had been malfunctioning on and off all week. A silver Beamer that looked a whole hell of a lot like Adra’s car. And a woman, standing on the side of the road, slim build, killer ass, brown hair, just like Adra, getting screamed at by some a*shole with a comb over and a beer belly.

Ford was out of his truck and halfway down the block before he realized it wasn’t Adra.

Relief surged through him, chasing the adrenaline threatening to pound out a hole in his chest where his heart was. It wasn’t Adra.

But it was still a young woman who looked like she was about to cry from the abuse she was taking from that idiot with the comb over.

Ford didn’t like the look of it. He liked it even less when he got close enough to hear was going on.

“How did you even get a license, you dumb bitch?” the man screamed, waving a reddened hand at his slightly dented door.

Not even dented. Dinged.

“You were too busy on the phone? Chatting with your girlfriends? Doing your f*cking makeup?” the man sneered. “Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you?”

The guy wasn’t even asking for her insurance information, wasn’t trying to work out a solution to what was in reality a minor problem. He just wanted to humiliate her. It was working, too. Reading the woman’s body language was like reading an open book for an experienced Dom like Ford—shoulders drawn in, back hunched, eyes down. Her whole body beaten down and trying to hide away. Whatever was making her feel like this went further than a fender bender with an abusive jackass, but the abusive jackass was definitely pushing all of her buttons.

And the jackass seemed to like it.

“Are you listening to me?” the man shouted, waving his arms around. The woman flinched.

“The light was—” she started to say.

“She speaks!” the man said. “Do you understand right of way, you idiot?”

“I do,” Ford said. He walked up to the woman’s side and took a moment to make eye contact—she looked bewildered. The man was a bully, larger than her, in her space, screaming. Spittle flying.

Ford took another step toward the man causing all this trouble, putting himself between that jackass and the young woman.

Ford pointed at him.

“You don’t speak anymore,” Ford said.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I said be quiet,” Ford growled.

The man’s lips fell open. There was sweat on his brow, his cheeks. He didn’t seem to understand what had just happened or why he’d stopped talking.

The Dom voice was useful in the most unexpected situations.

“Has he threatened you?” Ford asked the young woman. Up close she was even younger than he’d thought, possibly still in college. Which might explain why she had no idea what to do in this situation.

She was staring at him. It took her a moment to speak.

“Not in so many words,” she said. “But he seems totally crazy.”

“I won’t let him do anything to you,” Ford said. “You should know this light has been malfunctioning for weeks. But even if it hadn’t, this guy doesn’t have the right to speak to you this way. If you want me to, I can help, but I understand perfectly well if you want me to mind my own business. It’s up to you.”

“What?” she said, looking up with suddenly alert eyes. “Oh God, no, I definitely want you to help. I mean…please.”

Ford smiled. He probably shouldn’t enjoy this, but hey. He was human.

“You,” he said, turning on the now-confused jackass. The redness in the man’s face had only intensified. He looked like an angry tomato. “You will back off, and you will apologize. You will pay for any damages to this young woman’s car, and you will do it through me so that she doesn’t have to put up with any more of your harassment or abuse. Am I clear?”

“What?” the man sputtered. “Who the hell do you—”

“My name is Ford Colson,” Ford said, taking another step forward. “This light malfunctions frequently, as it’s doing right now, and under the circumstances she had the right of way. You are a disgusting bully, and I have no goddamn patience for it. So I hope you have a good lawyer,” Ford said, handing the man a copy of his card. “But you probably won’t get one better than me.”

The man stared back at him with his mouth open and the blood quickly draining from his face. Ford smiled again. Sometimes having a law degree was actually fun.

“You’re a lawyer?”

Ford sighed. No one ever expected him to be a lawyer when he was in the truck. Hell, no one ever expected him to have the truck. For the most part, Ford was a slicked-down professional, driving something sleek and shiny to his places of business. The kind of man who could walk into an enemy boardroom and own it—which he liked to do as often as possible. But weekends were about the truck, trail runs, hikes, and the beach. California was a beautiful place.

Adra had shown him that.

He wasn’t prepared for the pang of grief that sliced through him after that thought.

But now the man in front of him had found his voice, or most of it. “You don’t have the right to just, just…” he stammered.


Ford took another step until his nose nearly touched the top of the fat man’s head, and shrugged off his sweatshirt, exposing muscular, tanned arms that were still pumped from a set of push-ups and pull-ups at the beginning of his run.

“Tell me again what I can’t do, you little prick,” Ford said. “Because it looked to me like you were on the verge of assaulting that woman, and I know for damn sure that you’re keeping me from getting to another woman who needs me right now. So tell me again what I can’t do. Please.”

The man said nothing.

“I’ll give you hint,” Ford said. “It’s a short answer.”

The man opened his mouth, closed it again. Then he said, very softly, “She had the right of way?”

Ford nodded. “She had the right of way.”

“Mr. Colson?”

Ford turned. The young woman was smiling sheepishly at him—no, not sheepishly. Flirtatiously.

Shit.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Um, there isn’t really any damage to my car,” she said. “I don’t need any money.”

“You’re sure?”

She smiled. “Yeah.”

Ford shook his head at the man with the sweaty comb over, a man whose entire body language had changed in an instant. The a*shole was now grateful. Unbelievable.

“You heard her?” Ford said.

“Yes I did,” the man nodded vigorously.

“Then get the hell out of the intersection,” Ford barked.

He hadn’t forgotten about Adra. He could never forget about Adra. Which meant he had somewhere to be.

~ * ~ * ~

Adra Davis was in the process of delivering a box of donuts to Thea Benson, Volare’s only honorary member, and the self-described “old lady across the street,” when she got the call to come back to Volare. And she got the call just in time—Thea was in the process of calling her out.

“What’s this?” Thea had said, narrowing her eyes. Somehow she managed to seem both suspicious and thrilled about the donuts.

“Well, I just thought…”

Adra wasn’t actually used to needing an excuse to check up on people. Most people just took the donuts and ran.

“You thought I needed someone to look after me with Lena and John away?” Thea said.

Well, maybe. Lena, who was off with Chance looking for a new club location, was Thea’s old tenant and current best friend, and John, Thea’s new husband, was off on some kind of regatta sailing thing for a few weeks. And Thea had had a heart attack not too long ago.

Oh, damn. A heart attack.

“I’m definitely not supposed to be bringing you donuts, huh?” Adra said.

“Definitely not,” Thea said. “But I am both benevolent and kind, so I promise not to tell Lena if you let me have at least one before you take them away.”

Adra pulled the box away just in time to dodge Thea’s hands. “One!” she said.

“Pfft, I’ll eat donuts if I damn well feel like it,” said Thea. She took a bite of a cream-filled concoction and moaned. “But really, take them away, because apparently there have been great advances in donut technology since I was your age. Jesus, that is good.”

“Better than sex?” Adra smiled.

“Hell no, and you know it.”

Adra’s smile faltered. It was her own fault. Thea was right; nothing on this planet compared to the last time Adra had had sex.

It had been with Ford.

“What’s wrong with you?” Thea asked. Adra tried to hide from that critical stare, but it was basically pointless. Thea didn’t really believe in beating around the bush. “If you’re over here taking care of me, you must really need to find a new lost soul to take under your wing the way that you do.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I don’t need taking care of, and you know it. You’re just distracting yourself.” Thea took another bite and closed her eyes. “You do buy a fantastic donut, though. Don’t tell me where.”

“I’m distracting myself?” Adra said. She almost demanded to know what she could possibly be distracting herself from when she caught Thea’s look.

Ford.

God dammit, did the whole club know? Even Thea? It was that obvious?

“I’m not distracting myself,” Adra said. “I’m just…”

And it was right then that her phone rang.

Funny. At the time, Adra was actually happy for a real distraction. And she was even happier when she realized who was calling.

“Lola?” she said, waving goodbye to Thea and starting back across the street to the Volare compound. “Why are you telling me to get back to the compound?”

“Because I’m at the compound,” Lola said.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Adra laughed. “How are you even allowed to fly?”

Lola ran the New York Club Volare with her husband, Roman, and she was also very, very pregnant. Adra had resigned herself to not seeing her friend for the next few months.

“I sneaked in just under the wire ages ago,” Lola said. “Roman and I got a little private time up in Sonoma, and the New York winter was killing my pregnant lady joints, so I made an executive decision an escaped to L.A. while I still could. Now get your ass back here. We have to talk.”

That sounded ominous, but Adra didn’t care. Lola was in town.

***

Well, she didn’t care right up until she realized what Lola was up to.

“So you’re having the baby in L.A.?” Adra asked, leaning over to gingerly hug the very pregnant redhead.

“Roman researched all the best OBGYNs, and we’re flying our New York guy out, and yada yada,” Lola said, waving her hand. “He’s running this show like he’s planning an invasion or something. I’m just getting out of his way until showtime.”

“You’re a pregnancy diva,” Adra said, grinning.

Lola sank slowly back into the comfiest couch in the Volare lounge and grinned back.

“Of course I am,” she said.

It still didn’t totally make sense to Adra, but who cared? She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t thrilled to have Lola around, especially considering how difficult she was finding it to run the club with Ford. The club itself was fine, but working with Ford was…

Every moment with him stretched into an eternity. She noticed every gesture, every movement, every hint of an emotion. Anything that might indicate that maybe he was beginning to thaw, that maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t screwed up the most important friendship in her life. And every time, he looked back at her with the cold, indifferent expression of a stranger, and every time she felt terrible.

Terrible, guilty, and somehow, somehow, still turned on. Because she couldn’t be around him now without thinking about that night.

It was bad enough before they’d ever touched each other, when she just had to deal with the fact that he was this movie-star gorgeous blond Dom with the kind of body you usually only saw on television or in ads for Diet Coke. When she could only wonder what his touch felt like, or how he kissed, or how he moved. But now? Now she knew.

He’d ruined sex with anyone else, ever again. No one else could live up to that.

And she had screwed everything up.

“So you seeing anyone?” Lola asked.

Adra sighed. Of course. She supposed she should have seen that one coming. Maybe Lola decided to spend the rest of her pregnancy in L.A. for health reasons, or comfort reasons, or whatever, but she was clearly going to put the time out in L.A. to good use. Good, meddlesome use.

“No,” Adra said truthfully.

“Uh-huh,” Lola said, eyes glittering. “And who was your last relationship?”

Adra stifled a laugh. The answer to that was definitely not what Lola expected, but Adra could tell she wouldn’t get away with evasive answers forever. Lola wanted to know about Ford. Volare was like a big family, and sometimes, like a family, everyone was up in everyone else’s business. Adra also knew she had pretty much zero right to complain, considering she was usually the one poking her nose in where it didn’t belong, setting people up, making sure people were happy.

Besides, Lola was kind of adorably bad at it.

“It was before I joined Volare,” Adra said.

“Seriously? That long ago?” Lola said. “Would I know him?”

Now Adra really did laugh. The whole country knew him. It kind of sucked when your actor ex’s career took off right after he’d dumped you for someone else and his picture ended up on every billboard in town, but it went with the business of being a talent agent. Adra had gotten used to it a long time ago, but other people usually freaked out when she told them, which is why she’d stopped divulging that little bit of her past.

“It’s not important,” Adra said. “We’re not in touch.”

“That bad?”

“That bad,” Adra said, her tone clipped. Actually, she couldn’t believe how much it still affected her. She’d learned a hard lesson with Derrick Duvall, and recently she’d spent a lot of time cursing the fact that she’d learned that lesson before she’d ever met Ford. It would have been…

No. It would have ended just as badly for her and Ford. And that would have been so, so much worse, because Ford was…well, Ford was Ford. There was no one else like him. And Adra already couldn’t take the fact that Ford looked at her like she was a stranger, like he’d seen a side of her that he just didn’t like. She couldn’t blame him, but if she felt that bad now, she couldn’t imagine what would have happened if she’d let it go on any further. She’d have been utterly destroyed when it ended badly, as it inevitably would have.


She shuddered.

“Yeah, well, you know that’s not what I’m really asking about,” Lola said.

“I know,” Adra said. “Believe me, I know. But it’s not my favorite subject at the moment. We’re working together, it’s not a big deal, it’s not—”

“That’s actually one of the reasons we came down from Sonoma,” Lola said softly. “We have something we need to talk to you two about.”

That shut Adra up for about a second. Then the words came tumbling out of her.

“Are you ok? Is the baby ok? Is Roman ok?”

Lola looked up, for once actually surprised. “What? We’re fine, you crazy lady. My God, who does the worrying when you’re not around?”

“I outsource.”

Lola smiled. “Here, help me up.”

“Where are we going?” Adra asked, pulling Lola out of the deep couch cushion. They managed to uncouch her on the second try.

“Remind me not to sit there,” Lola said. “Not safe for my dignity.”

“Please,” Adra said. “You could command armies while wearing a pink bunny suit. You can handle this couch.”

“Not if it swallows me whole,” Lola laughed and pulled Adra toward the stairs.

The stairs that led to Ford’s office.

Adra sighed. Well. They were supposed to work together.

“Lola, just give me a heads up,” she whispered as they came in sight of the door. “Am I going to hate this, whatever it is? Like, how bad are we talking here? Soul-crushing—like having to work with the guy you maybe almost had a thing with and still haven’t gotten over and his new girlfriend bad? Or just, you know, normal stressful for working with that guy you haven’t totally gotten over?”

Oh God. Adra hadn’t even thought about Ford getting a new girlfriend until she’d said the words out loud. The idea made her instantly nauseous.

Lola paused, her hand on the doorknob to Ford’s office, the door already open an inch.

“Honestly?” she said, her eyes soft. “It could go either way.”

“Fantastic,” Adra muttered.

Lola took Adra’s hand in her own and gave it a warm squeeze. “You’ll be fine,” she said.

Adra almost believed her. Until she heard Ford’s voice on the other side of the door.

“Of course it was a goddamn mistake,” Ford said to someone, presumably Roman. He sounded angry. Adra didn’t need to hear the rest to know what he was talking about, and it broke her heart a little bit all over again.

Lola cursed, and banged on the already open door.

“Gentlemen?” she said.

Adra forced herself through the door and into Ford’s office. There were three people already there: some guy in a Hollywood suit that Adra didn’t immediately know, though he looked kind of familiar; Roman Casta, the owner of the New York club; and Ford.

Jesus, Ford.

He was standing on the opposite side of his desk, leaning forward on those ridiculous arms, muscles wrapping around like steel cables. He was wearing sweatpants that hung low on his hips and a tank top, a hoodie draped over the back of his chair—he must have been on a run. This was one of the rare times Adra got to see him like this now that they didn’t spend weekends hanging out anymore. She had to remind herself not to drool. And for the first time in a long time, she saw an emotion on his face—surprise? Regret? Then frustration, and anger.

He was looking right at her.

She was the mistake.

It killed her to see what he thought of her now, but maybe that was good. Maybe it was good to kill all hope that they could recover their friendship. Maybe that’s what she needed to move on.

Adra decided not to ask what they were talking about. She was only slightly masochistic, something Ford already knew.

“Hi Roman,” she said, giving the big man a quick peck on the cheek. “You guys should have told me you were in California.”

“We did,” Roman smiled down at her. “Eventually.”

Adra looked back at Lola to find the woman actually blushing, and couldn’t help but laugh. Roman and Lola had been friends for years, but once they figured out they’d both been secretly in love with each other for nearly all of that time, they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off of each other. And now that Adra had firsthand experience in how much time and energy it took to run a sex club, she figured they’d probably been dying to have one last getaway before the baby came.

Even now, Roman looked at Lola like everything else in the world was just a shadow. What would that be like? To have the man you loved look at you like that?

Adra couldn’t help it. She looked at Ford.

He was still looking at her.

“Adra,” Ford said.

She may have blinked. She definitely caught her breath.

“Roman wants us to consult on a film,” Ford said. He was leaning on his fists, his knuckles white. He only did that when something was really bothering him.

Dazed, Adra said, “Wait, what?”

The man in the Hollywood suit stepped forward, his hand outstretched. “That’s my cue. We met at the Golden Globes last year, Adra. Roger Corvis.”

Oh God, Adra thought. She recognized the name. It had been everywhere lately.

“You’re a producer,” she said weakly. His hand felt cold.

“Yes, I am,” Corvis grinned. “Working on a big one.”

Oh please, no.

“They want to film it here. At the club. Starting this week.” Ford was still looking directly at her. “I think it’s a mistake.”

Adra sat down heavily in one of Ford’s plush chairs. “They want to film it here?”

“And we want you and Ford to consult on production,” Roman added. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the film—Submit and Surrender?”

“Oh, yeah,” Adra said. She was feeling light headed. “Can’t miss it. Billboards everywhere.”

“Then you understand why it’s so important that we’re involved in the process,” Roman said, coolly confident. “We want to make sure the BDSM lifestyle is well represented. Roger’s agreed that you and Ford will be invaluable assets to the actors while they’re filming.”

“I think you know the lead actor already,” Corvis said. “Didn’t you used to date Derrick Duvall?”

Adra watched Ford stiffen, visible even from across the room, and closed her eyes.

“Yup,” she said. “Derrick's my ex.”

Her last relationship. Her first and only D/s romance. The guy who’d proved to her that romance wasn’t something she could have. And part of the reason she’d had to tell Ford she couldn’t be with him.

“Shit,” she heard Lola mutter. Apparently she was the only one, because Corvis was smiling like a lunatic when Adra finally opened her eyes.

“Great! That’ll add some realism to the set,” he said. “Listen, I have to run to a production meeting, but Roman’s got all the details and the schedule and everything. I am so excited to work with you both. And Adra, you are just as lovely as I remember,” he said, sliding on his sunglasses.

Leave it to a movie producer to be manically cheerful about something as insane as asking a submissive to consult on a movie in which her ex-Dom was starring.

Corvis clapped his hands together, pointed at Adra and Ford, and said, “I will see you two on Friday.”

And then he was gone.

Ford hadn’t moved.

Like, at all. He was like a statue. A beautiful, frozen statue. And Adra couldn’t take her eyes off of him.