Free and Bound (A Club Volare New Orleans Novel)

by Chloe Cox

  “Does she want money?” Declan asked.

  “No idea,” Soren said. “I don’t take her calls.”

  Soren had always thought he had finally become completely numb to his family’s bullshit, that he’d finally scarred all the way over, that it had no way to affect his life. And now he was finding out that even he didn’t want to believe that Sonya would threaten to sell Julia’s story—or some made-up version of it—to a lawyer. Or the press. Or anyone. He was finding out that he still had expectations. Or worse, hope.

  They still had ways to hurt him.

  Goddammit, not Julia.

  “You should find out what she wants,” Declan said.

  “You have a sister?” Molly said again.

  “Maybe we should stay out of it,” Brian mumbled.

  “Look,” Soren said, loud enough to draw some attention. “If Sonya or anyone else wants to come after me, they can come after me. I’ll take it. But I’m not playing anyone’s bullshit games, you understand?”

  Silence.

  “See?” Brian said.

  Declan was suspiciously quiet. The only person who could match Soren for stubbornness was staring right back at him, and Soren knew he wouldn’t drop it, not while he perceived Sonya as a potential threat. Which infuriated Soren. He didn’t need protection from anyone.

  “Soren…” Molly said.

  Oh, man, Molly getting involved. Molly and her soft spot for sisters.

  “She was older than me, Mol, and a horrible person,” Soren said. “You can relax. She’s nothing like Lydia.”

  “Speaking of which…” Molly trailed off, her face lighting up as she looked at her phone. That meant it was Lydia calling—Molly’s pregnant little sister. Lydia had decided on an open adoption and was about to spend the weekend with the adoptive parents, and Soren could have sworn it was like Molly was sending her kid to the first day of school or something.

  He smiled and wondered if Declan knew how much that woman was meant to be a mom. Not too long ago, the idea of being a dad would have been a non-starter for Declan—just like Soren, Declan’s childhood sucked, and he had always said he would never have kids. Now, though?

  Man, did things change.

  Well, for some people.

  Watching Declan and Molly grow into a family all on their own had been a weird experience for Soren. He loved seeing them happy, but he could never imagine himself in a situation like that, making his own family. Soren always orbited on the outskirts of his own found family of friends, but that wasn’t the same thing. That wasn’t quite belonging to someone. And that’s how Soren was built: freestanding.

  It made him wonder, though, about when he’d almost thought that was something for him. About Julia. And it made him wonder about what he really was now.

  Until he saw Cate come through that door.

  Soren stood up, watched Cate move through the club, all lithe grace and hints of both insecurity and strength, felt his blood pump into every last part of his body, and knew exactly what he was. He was the Dom who was going to bring that woman out into the light. Right fucking now.

  After all, he hadn’t made all those plans for nothing.

  Cate held out her hand, saw that it was trembling, and cursed. Silently, in her head, she cursed a blue streak.

  What was wrong with her?

  She’d had too much time to think—that was the problem. Thinking was what she was good at, but she didn’t know how to quit, and if she didn’t have something to distract her, her mind would just think itself into…well, apparently into a very bad place.

  She’d ridden a high for a little while after she’d met with Soren, after he’d signed the retainer agreement, after he’d made her come against a wall. After he’d made her ride his leg in the middle of a club, with people around, in sight. After she’d done it because he’d told her to, and had done it gladly. Giddily.

  Yeah, she must have been high on some kind of brain chemical. And now she was coming down.

  She was convinced that this was insane. What was she doing here? Club Volare? What had she been thinking? Her mind came up with all sorts of rational reasons for her to be worried—what would Jason do when he saw her on television responding to Mark Cheedham’s press conference on behalf of her brand new client, Soren Andersson? How could she think getting involved with a client was a good idea, no matter what the circumstances?—but in the end, they were all just labels for this feeling of fear, and none of the labels really quite fit.

  The truth was that she had never been so raw as she had been in Soren’s arms. And that was freaking terrifying. For a woman who spent most of her life making sure she was well protected, it was unfathomable.

  And here she was again, in the very place where it had happened, the very place that had made it possible. Club Volare.

  What the hell was she thinking?

  “Post-initiation freak out?” someone asked.

  Startled, Cate looked to her left to find a smiling face. A pretty face, but not vacant; self-assured. And apparently also fairly perceptive.

  “Who are you?” Cate asked.

  “My name’s Adra,” the woman said.

  And then Adra’s sunny smile was interrupted. Something passed over Adra’s face in the split second it took for Cate to realize someone else was joining them, startling her from the other side—Ford.

  “I had meant to introduce you,” Ford said. “Cate, Adra is—”

  “I’m a sub,” Adra interjected. “And Ford thought it might be good if we talked. So did I.”

  Ford. What the hell was Ford doing?

  “Oh my God, this is beyond embarrassing,” Cate muttered. “No offense, Adra, but we don’t know each other, and—”

  “We do, actually,” Adra said gently. Somehow she was so…kind. And easy to talk to. Or she would be, without Ford standing on the other side of her.

  “Or at least we have a few important things in common,” Adra went on, raising one sly eyebrow. “Bet you’ve never had a friend to talk to about any of this, right? People usually don’t before they come here.”

  Cate could feel herself turning red. Adra was, of course, totally correct, but something about having this conversation in front of Ford, who was still, technically, a colleague, was sending her into a panic. An angry panic. Ford was putting her on the spot, and Cate was in no way ready for it.

  “Ford, this is one of those times when you should politely excuse yourself,” Adra said.

  And then she gave Ford what could only be described as a knowing look. A look Ford returned for altogether a little bit too long.

  Whatever passed between Adra and Ford was powerful. It was charged. It practically made Cate’s hair stand on end.

  “Understood,” he finally said, nodded at them both, and walked away.

  Cate wasn’t proud of it, but the fact that she’d just witnessed some obvious personal drama somehow made her feel slightly less embarrassed about the idea of Ford discussing her own life with strange women. At least she wasn’t the only one feeling raw and vulnerable. It was written all over Adra’s face.

  “You know, whatever that was shouldn’t make me feel better,” Cate said in the kindest way she could, “But it does. Are you ok, person who I don’t know at all?”

  “Yeah,” Adra said, though she didn’t look it. She sighed. “Ford and I are probably a pretty good example of why it’s good to have someone to talk to about your new D/s relationship so you don’t screw it up right away.” She shrugged, grinned. “You know, teach by example.”

  Cate grinned back. She liked this woman. This woman seemed to…get it.

  Even so, Cate had come here for a purpose, and every second spent wondering how her meeting with Soren would go was another opportunity for her crazy mind to twist a little tighter. She knew if she held out her hand, it would still be shaking.

  “Adra, I’m here to meet someone,” Cate began.

  “Right, I know. Soren. Just give me five minutes,” Adra said. “Humor
me. Ford can be kind of clumsy in that way that men are, but he’s not wrong. Just…five minutes, ok?”

  Cate looked around anxiously. She didn’t see Soren immediately, but there were more people in the main room today. She didn’t have a clear view.

  “Five minutes, or Ford will be on your ass about it anyway,” Adra said.

  Cate gave up and laughed. This was a club full of people who were at least as headstrong as she was, and if she were being honest, the reasons she wanted to run from this conversation probably weren’t healthy ones. She had feeling no one would let her get away with it.

  “Well, that’s the last thing I need, another lawyer on my ass,” she said. “G’head.”

  “I know your situation is more complicated than most,” Adra said, leading Cate to a little corner of comfortable chairs. “With the case and everything, I don’t pretend to know anything about how you should handle that. Not my wheelhouse. But I can tell you this: whatever you have going on with Soren, whatever the arrangement—”

  I have no idea what our arrangement is, Cate thought suddenly. She sat down, for once oblivious of her surroundings, the enormity of that thought taking up all her concentration. They hadn’t worked it out yet. She thought she knew the basic boundaries, but wow, that was kind of a big thing to be unclear about.

  “No matter what the arrangement,” Adra continued, taking the opposite seat, “exclusive, no strings, whatever, a D/s relationship is still a relationship on steroids. You have to talk to each other. Cate, seriously, look at me. You have to.”

  “That seems pretty obvious,” Cate said. “No offense.”

  “Well, so is not leaving the toilet seat up, but look how often that happens.”

  Cate looked at her.

  “Sorry,” Adra said. “I’ve had my nephews staying with me until this week. That’s maybe why you haven’t seen me around. It was…” She shuddered. “I had no idea what little boys could do to a bathroom. None.”

  “Do I want to know?”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  “Ok, so talk to each other, check,” Cate said, realizing that she already had failed to do that, which was maybe one of the reasons why she was freaking out. “Easier said than done, but I assume that’s par for the course.”

  “It can screw everything up if you don’t,” Adra said quietly. “You don’t want that.”

  Cate studied the other woman. Saw the slight worry lines in her forehead, the concern in her eyes. Adra was all together too serious about this for it to just be friendly advice.

  Cate had been so distracted, looking out of the corner of her eye for Soren, freaking out in general, getting embarrassed, that she hadn’t put two and two together until now. Ford had wanted Adra to talk to her because he was worried about the Jason situation. Because he was worried that Cate wasn’t telling anyone about the Jason situation. Because he was worried that Cate wasn’t telling Soren about the Jason situation.

  She felt terrible, but it didn’t matter. Talking about it meant being that person in a way that maybe only Cate understood, but it didn’t matter—she couldn’t go back to that. It was like coming up against an immovable wall.

  “Ford must realize,” Cate said. “You must realize, and Soren must realize, that total honesty is…not that simple. People aren’t that simple. There’s stuff I don’t even have figured out yet, you know? And if my whole problem is being afraid of…”

  Cate let herself trail off. She sounded defensive. Weak.

  “I get it, believe me,” Adra said, leaning back and looking back towards the bar area. “It’s not easy. I’m just saying, be aware, and try to figure it out as you go. You can talk to me. I want to tell you to trust your own instincts, but…”

  “But what?”

  “Well, maybe just don’t trust my instincts, and you’ll be fine,” Adra smiled.

  “Ford?” Cate asked. It was a perfunctory question. Of course it was Ford. The look on Adra’s face whenever she caught sight of him made it clear that for Adra, it was always Ford. The man was sitting at the bar now, totally unaware of the woman who watched him with that sad look on her face.

  “We’re not anything,” Adra said, too quickly.

  “Oh, please.” Cate smiled.

  Adra sighed.

  “You know how when people who are experienced at something team up and sometimes they make beginner mistakes?”

  Cate thought of all the lawyers she knew that had ended up in lockup by getting belligerent over speeding tickets, and smiled.

  “Overconfidence,” she said.

  “Or wishful thinking,” Adra said.

  Cate shook her head. That phrase—that was the phrase she herself had used. Her wishful thinking about Soren.

  “Anyway,” Adra said. “We did that. Once. Didn’t talk about it beforehand, didn’t do anything right, just…gave in. And now we’re both idiots.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Cate said. “Talk about it, I mean?”

  Adra looked wistful. “I think because it was hard. You know what they say—you have to be vulnerable to be strong, and neither of us was strong.”

  Cate laughed. “No one says that.”

  “Yeah, I know, I just made it up, so humor me again,” Adra said, smiling that sunny smile again. Yeah, Cate liked her. She was good people. It felt good to know she had a friend here, or at least the beginnings of one.

  Ok. Ford won this round. Adra was a keeper.

  Unfortunately that didn’t do anything to fix what was going wrong inside Cate. Because at that moment, Cate looked up and saw Soren.

  “Incoming,” Adra whispered. “We’ll talk later.”

  Cate barely heard her, barely registered Adra’s exit. Barely registered the fact that she herself had stood up and then stopped, like she didn’t know what to do next.

  He was all the way on the other side of the club. Striding toward her.

  Eyes locked.

  And it all came flooding back. Cate had done so much research in the intervening days; she’d done all the reading, had worked her investigators twenty-four-seven, had driven her assistants insane. She knew everything there was to know, publicly, about Soren Andersson and Savage Heart, and the truth was, she’d never had a cleaner client. Not one of Soren’s sexual partners had anything bad to say about him; in fact, all of them had professed shock and outrage. And all of them had fallen for him, in their own ways, even though they weren’t supposed to.

  It seemed like an inevitability that women fall for him. Like a trap. Like what Cate had felt, like the way he’d made her feel, maybe it hadn’t been special. And maybe it was dangerous.

  Cate didn’t know if she was like most women. Was she more vulnerable, because of all these wounds, these scars? Or less, for the same reasons? She had no idea. But she knew risking so much was insane, and as she watched Soren close in on her, she could feel those thoughts intrude. Could feel the doubts, the uncertainties, the panic, could feel them all rise up in response to the absolute insane desire she felt flare inside her every time she looked at the man.

  He really was a Norse god. Blond hair, scruffy jaw, blue eyes, muscles roiling under ripped jeans. Jesus.

  Cate watched him, felt the warmth pool between her legs, felt her heart hammer inside her chest, and felt the core of her being start to retreat deep inside herself. Felt the internal war start all over again. Felt herself begin to drift away, and hated it. She wanted to be strong enough to let herself go after what she wanted.

  And what she wanted was Soren.

  He put his hand under her chin and stared down at her.

  “Stop thinking so much,” he ordered. “And get your ass upstairs. Now.”

  Seven

  Cate could get her ass upstairs as quickly as Soren wanted, but to stop thinking?

  Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

  Especially when she could literally feel his eyes on her ass the whole way up. It made her feel warm, and wanted, and wet.

  Which was a problem, becau
se she had a job to do. She had a job she had to do right now, a job that couldn’t wait. She couldn’t afford to let Mark Cheedham own a news cycle with his press conference and all the allegations he’d made; she had to craft a response and she had to go on television and hit back, and the sooner she did it, the better. For Soren’s sake.

  And for that she needed Soren to answer some questions. That was what this meeting was for, his debriefing. That’s all this meeting was for.

  Keep telling yourself that, Kennedy.

  “Faster,” Soren growled behind her. “Or I will pick you up and carry you.”

  Cate blinked. He wouldn’t.

  No, he probably would.

  She practically ran up the remaining steps.

  “Hey,” she said, turning around to face him at the top of the stairs. “We should probably work out some rules, or boundaries, you know, when we’re doing professional stuff, and when we’re doing…other stuff.”

  Soren pointed at a closed door. “In there. Now.”

  There was a silence. Cate didn’t move except to tighten her hand on the railing. She was sure he could hear her heartbeat; it was that loud. It was deafening. Soren stood in front of her, towering and unyielding, and looking every inch the Dom. Like, she suddenly realized, he always did. Soren didn’t turn this stuff on and off the way that Cate did, he didn’t compartmentalize. He was always just him.

  And he was the one making the rules.

  Slowly, Cate let go of the railing. She could already feel her pulse throbbing between her legs, could already feel her skin start to tingle in that particular way.

  She met his brilliant blue eyes for one meaningful moment and then turned around, walked toward the room he’d chosen, and opened the door.

  It was dark. She fumbled for the light switch on the wall until she felt Soren’s massive bulk behind her, and then she gasped.

  His huge hand on her stomach, spanning it.

  His mouth on her neck.