by Chloe Cox
“So that’s it?” she asked. “There’s no hope? He’s just doomed to be miserable and alone forever, and I have to live without him?”
“The fuck if I know,” Soren said, launching himself off of the recliner. “I’ve been working on him, trying to get him to forgive himself, for sixteen fucking years, Molly, and you’ve gotten closer than I ever have in just a few weeks. You have any beer?”
“Check the fridge.”
Soren opened the old fridge, leaning on the open door like he knew the place. He looked back over his shoulder. “This is like a bachelor fridge.”
“I’m moving.”
“Good,” he said, grabbing two PBRs and tossing one to her. “What I’m saying, Molly, is that if Declan has any hope at all, it’s in you. Do with that what you will.”
Molly wiped her eyes and cracked open her beer. “What about you, Soren?”
“What about me?”
“Don’t pull that with me,” Molly snapped. “You didn’t try to kill her, Soren, you behaved badly in a relationship. People do it every day; it’s not a war crime. So maybe you were an asshole. Doesn’t mean you deserve to rot in Hell forever or be cut out of his life, especially not when he needs you in it. And when you obviously need him.”
Soren gave her a crooked grin, the kind of thing she could see working very effectively on the ladies. “I can see why he digs you,” Soren said. “He got lucky that you’re so hot.”
Molly had just opened her mouth, though she had no idea what she was going to say, when Soren’s phone rang. He got up and walked out the door, closing it behind him as he answered his phone. And it was after that that the phone calls from Declan stopped.
Thirty-Three
Declan was prepared for the phone to ring until it went to voicemail. He was not prepared to hear Soren’s voice.
“Hello?”
Speechless. For the first time in his life, Declan was speechless.
“Dude?”
“You picked up,” Declan said.
There was the sound of door opening and closing. Soren said, “Well, I’ve heard some stuff about you screwing up your life pretty badly. I figured you must be pretty desperate.”
Declan laughed. “Asshole.”
“Yup.”
“So we need to talk.”
This time it was Soren who took too long to speak. Finally, he said, “Yeah. I guess we do.”
“And I need your help with something,” Declan said. “You’re the only one I can ask, even though… Soren, I know I don’t deserve to even call you a friend—”
“Shut up, dumbass. You’re my brother. What the fuck do you need?”
Declan smiled broadly, but not because it was funny. Just because he felt light, for the first time in months, like the world had just come back into focus.
“There’s this girl,” Declan said.
“Yeah, Jim told me all about her. I’m here now.”
“What?” Declan said, sitting up. “You’re there? You’re with her right now?”
“Yeah. You ok?”
“Just tell me if she’s ok.”
“No, she’s not ok, dumbass, she has a broken heart.”
Declan cursed impressively, stalking around Volare L.A., looking for something to break.
“Dude,” Soren said. “Calm down. What did you expect? I came here to explain to her why you’re such a dumbass. I don’t know, I think it helped. She’s crying less, anyway.”
Declan started to laugh. He couldn’t believe how much more right his life was with Soren in it to call him on his shit, the only person in the world who could do that—besides Molly.
“You ok, bro?” Soren asked. “You’re sounding kind of crazy.”
“No, I am a dumbass. I don’t even know why. I am so fucking sorry, Soren, I never should have kicked you out. I never…”
“I’m sorry, too. What I did…”
They both went silent for a moment. There was too much there. Declan could hear Soren struggling. Finally, Soren said, “I don’t even know what to say. I’ve been thinking for six months about what to fucking say, and I have nothing. That’s why I just…I haven’t been able to face anyone, man. Except your girl. She just dragged it all out of me.”
“She would,” Declan said. “I shouldn’t have made you do that alone, Soren. You never left me alone.”
“So we’re both assholes.”
“Brother assholes.”
Declan could hear Soren smile.
“So,” Soren said, “what do you want me to do?”
Adra insisted that Molly come stay at Volare for the last few days before their brand new lease would go into effect. Molly resisted. Volare meant Declan to her, even if he was halfway across the country. He hadn’t called her since Soren had shown up on her doorstep, and Molly was right back to feeling insecure.
Maybe it was dumb. But she was tired. And she just…couldn’t.
She’d tried to work on the book instead until she realized she wouldn’t have an ending. Then she’d caved and looked Declan up online only to find that the Savage Heart tour had been canceled, and she felt a weird mix of anxiety and elation. And that was about the time she decided she was clearly in the crazy stage of a broken heart and probably needed to be around people.
She showed up at Volare the next day. Adra just hugged her.
“Tell me about it,” Adra said.
Molly didn’t have the energy to fight herself anymore. “I’m in love with him,” she said simply. “I never told him. And he thinks he can’t be good for me. So I lost him.”
“How do you know you lost him?” Adra said, taking Molly’s one dinky suitcase. She was gently leading Molly back to her old room. The one she’d shared with Declan.
Molly hesitated. Then thought, I can’t run forever.
“Do you see him here?” she asked Adra. “That’s how I know.”
“Have you called him?”
Molly didn’t say anything for a second. She let Adra open the door and sat down carefully on the bed, like she was afraid she might break.
“I’m afraid to, Adra. I know, considering what’s at stake, and what Declan has to deal with on his end, that I should. I know that. But I just don’t think I can take losing him again. Finding out that he really doesn’t want me. I keep telling myself to call him again, but I can’t. I’m just not strong enough.”
Adra sighed. Then she smiled and walked over to the slim desk in the corner where she picked up a laptop.
“Let me show you something,” she said.
The browser was already queued up to a YouTube video. It took Molly a second to recognize Declan on stage—the video title was “Madison Square Garden Comeback — NEW SONG.”
“Is this…?”
“Yeah, this is the night you left to come home, so you missed it,” Adra said. “The audio quality is crap, but the point is, it’s a new song. Look at the comments.”
“They all want to know who it’s about,” Molly said, scrolling through.
“I’ll give you three guesses,” Adra said dryly.
Molly looked up. “You’re kidding. He wrote me a song? And I missed it?”
“Look,” Adra said. “I never underestimate the ability of men to act like idiots when they realize they’re in love, and whatever he did, I’m sure it was bad. But this,” she said, pointing at the screen, “is not the song of a man who only kind of cares maybe a little bit. And neither is this.”
Adra closed the first tab to reveal a second one. This one was called “Savage Heart back together!!! New song!!” It had been uploaded in the past twenty-four hours and already had one point three million views.
And there were five guys in a studio. Brian, Gage, and Erik. Declan on the mic. And Soren on lead guitar.
And then Adra pressed play.
Declan’s voice rang out. He was looking right at the camera.
Looking right at her.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
“…You’re my rhythm…
”
“Is this real?” Molly asked.
“…You’re my heart…”
“I promise you that it’s real,” Adra said.
“…Light…in the dark…”
“Where are you going?” Adra laughed.
Molly was already up and walking around aimlessly, looking for a phone. “I have to call him,” she said, rambling. “I have to… I mean, they’re back together, he and Soren…”
She walked straight out of the room and onto the landing before she realized she’d left her bag, with her phone, back in the room. But by then it didn’t matter.
Because Declan was there.
Downstairs. Waiting. For her.
Molly couldn’t speak. She didn’t want to open her mouth and risk it, didn’t want this perfect moment to end. Declan looking back at her, a boundless love in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Molly put her hand to her mouth. She could feel the tears coming. Dammit.
“I am more sorry about the past week than I have ever been about anything,” he said seriously. “The fact that I’ve hurt you, that I’ve made you cry, will haunt me until the day I die, Molly.”
He didn’t need to say anything, was the thing. One look at him, tall and serious in a white shirt and jeans, his dark eyes glowing, she was more in love with him than she’d ever been. And still he kept coming.
“I’ve been trying to think about how to explain what I did, because you deserve at least that,” he said, coming around to the foot of the stairs. He didn’t take his eyes off of her. “But I can’t. Not entirely.”
He began to climb the stairs one by one.
“It was just easier for me to think it was my fault than that there was nothing I could do. And then every nightmare I’d ever had just got eclipsed by one thing. If anything ever happened to you…” He stopped his ascent and took a deep breath. “And I assumed it would, because of all of this crap. Because I had to hold on to that version of the universe where it was my fault.”
He shook his head. Resumed climbing the steps.
“But I had to let that go, because otherwise I couldn’t have you. And the thing is, I can’t live without you, Molly. I know it’s fucking insane, but I’m not whole without you, not anymore. So I’m yours,” he said.
Declan walked toward her, his eyes steady, his face calm. He took a moment just to trace the curve of her cheek with his finger, to brush her bottom lip with his thumb.
“You showed me how to live, Molly. I love you,” he said. His hand slid around her waist to the small of her back, pressing her to his hard body, and her breath hitched. “I love you, and I’m yours. Tell me you’re mine.”
“Oh my God, Declan,” she said, choking back tears.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he said, and wiped away her tears.
“Of course I’m yours,” she said. “Of course I am.”
She pawed at his chest, hating his clothing, hating her clothing, wanting to do away forever with anything that came between them. Declan caught her hands in one of his and said, “Look at me. I will never, ever hurt you again. I will spend as long as you’ll let me loving you.”
“Declan,” she said. “I’m so in love with you it’s making me stupid. Please just kiss me.”
Declan grinned and pulled her head back, her body trapped against his. “I’m going to do a whole lot more than that,” he said.
THE END
Thank you! I hope you enjoyed Declan and Molly’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it. :) But that’s not all for these two—they still have to help Soren find his own love. If you want to know when the next Club Volare book is available, you can sign up for my new releases list
here.
But if you want to get started on Soren’s story right now…it’s next in this set! Just keep scrollin’ :)
Savage Hearts
A CLUB VOLARE ROCKSTAR Novel
(Soren and Cate)
By
Chloe Cox
Copyright 2013 Chloe Cox
All rights reserved.
Prologue
“Tell me you can do this, Cate,” Soren said into her ear. “Tell me you’re mine, tell me you’ll submit, Jesus fucking Christ, tell me…say it…”
Could she even speak still? Could she process what he was saying? It didn’t matter; she knew the answer. There wasn’t room for second-guessing, for rationalization, not when she needed like this.
“Yes,” she said, tearing it out of her while her body begged him for release. “Yes, I can do this.”
Then she put her lips on his ear and whispered, “Yes, sir.”
She felt him stiffen.
Then with a growl he rose up, catching her in his arms, spinning her, pushing her against the wall, and she was pinned. His mouth hovered over hers while he shoved her panties aside and she felt him inhale, felt the air drag across her lips to his, when he felt how wet she was.
And then he was inside her.
Cate groaned, buried her face in his neck, lifted her leg around his waist. Soren pushed two fingers in slowly, slowly, until she felt like she as about to burst, his huge palm resting over her clit, her whole body on actual fire.
“Now,” Soren said. “Come for me...”
One
Cate Kennedy took a deep breath and did her best to hide.
Which was completely freaking ridiculous, because, one, Cate Kennedy was arguably the best litigator in the state of California, which wasn’t exactly a job for shrinking violets, and two, she was not a coward. Cate Kennedy had never run from a challenge in her life. And Cate Kennedy certainly didn’t hide from anyone—except, of course, that she hid from everyone.
Even Cate Kennedy herself found that part a little confusing.
She actually thought of them as the Two Cates. There was the Cate she was at work and in public, the version of herself that she showed to the world. That Cate was a woman who could command a courtroom, stare down opposing counsel, and intimidate the hell out of witnesses. And then there was the woman she felt like the rest of the time, the real Cate that she kept hidden, constantly afraid that everyone would find out what a fraud she was, and who was the kind of woman who occasionally slouched down in the front of her own car, hoping no one would see her.
Scared, hiding-in-her-car Cate was less fun. She hated being afraid just on principle, and she hated that she had reason to be afraid in the first place even more.
But she had seen her husband’s golf buddy coming out of the Volare Venice offices just as she was about to get out of her car, and now she was stuck. It wasn’t Patrick that she was worried about, although she wished he would stop trying to chat up the Volare employee who clearly did not want to talk to him. What worried her was that Patrick would tell her soon-to-be-ex-husband Jason that he’d seen Cate at Club Volare.
And Jason himself scared the shit out of her.
The whole situation hardly seemed fair. Cate had been nervous enough just driving to the Volare compound in Venice Beach, feeling the beginnings of butterflies in her stomach, the kind of excitement she barely remembered from when she was a teenager, and that nervousness had almost allowed her to forget about the rest of her life. Every mile closer to Volare had felt like an escape from Jason and his threats and his cheating and the divorce that he still wouldn’t give her.
The man probably had his hands all over some other woman at that very moment, and yet it was Cate who was terrified and hiding in her car because of what Jason might do if he thought Cate was with someone else. Not that Cate had plans to date any time soon. She couldn’t fathom the idea of a relationship, possibly not ever again.
Yeah, not fair at all.
It didn’t help that she’d secretly fantasized about Club Volare ever since the place opened up in L.A. Cate had barely been able to contain her reaction when Ford Colson, Volare’s lawyer and one of the founders of the L.A. club, asked her to consider representing a Volare member in some kind of civil suit. The man in question was
apparently a rock star—Soren something or other—which made her feel old, because at thirty she apparently had no idea who the current rock stars were, and this one evidently had a reputation as a debauched womanizer. Like, distinguished among rock stars as a debauched womanizer. That he was apparently a Dom made the whole thing even more fraught. Cate hadn’t had time to do her normal research while she’d been busy closing up her last case, but she gathered that a recent book had exposed parts of the rock Dom’s private life and left him open to extortion disguised as a lawsuit. Probably something sex-based and salacious, requiring a big legal gun, which was why Ford had called on his old law school friend-turned-brilliant-litigator Cate.
One Cate had relished the challenge. The other Cate had silently freaked about the idea of getting involved with Club Volare.
And now that she was actually here? She didn’t know if her stomach was doing all those acrobatics because she was good nervous or bad nervous, but she knew it was definitely something.
Because there were Doms in there. Actual, real-life Doms, the kind of men who did the things she fantasized about, and the kinds of things she feared. This was her problem: she was drawn to Club Volare and BDSM so much that she could barely think about anything else lately, and yet she was terrified of why she was drawn to it. But with her past, she had reason to be cautious. And with her husband, she had reason to be frightened.
The whole messy combination meant that Cate had never felt so personally invested in a potential case, and as a result she’d never been so sure that she shouldn’t get involved.
So of course she’d immediately said yes. Apparently she’d decided her life wasn’t interesting enough already. That, and maybe Cate had finally decided to do something for herself. All of which had brought her to Club Volare Venice feeling like she was about to throw up from both excitement and fear, hiding in the front seat of her car while Patrick Cross tried to hit on some poor blonde.
