Free and Bound (A Club Volare New Orleans Novel)

by Chloe Cox

  Soren pulled in front of the club and brought the car to a stop, locking eyes with Declan in the rearview mirror. The valet stood outside, helplessly confused, while no one in the car moved.

  “You seriously trying to convince me I didn’t fuck up when you kicked me out of the band over it?” Soren said.

  Declan glowered. “At least I came to my goddamn senses.”

  “He just wants you to be happy, Soren,” Molly said. “We both do.”

  “Only I wouldn’t say it like a freaking Hallmark card,” Declan added.

  Soren cracked a smile. “No one buys your tough-guy act anymore, Dec,” he said. “We all know Molly’s got you under her thumb.”

  “I wouldn’t put it exactly like that,” Molly said.

  “Oh Jesus, ok, everyone out of the car,” Soren said. “Dec, promise you won’t jump your woman until we get at least one song out on stage, or I will kick your ass.”

  “No promises,” Declan grinned. “C’mon, look at her.”

  Soren laughed. Those two couldn’t keep their hands off of each other, and Dec could still floor Molly with just a few words. The band was lucky Molly was as awesome as she was or they would have lost a lead singer to this lovey-dovey stuff. At the same time, Soren couldn’t miss the look Declan threw his way, sizing him up. He knew Dec felt a little weird about finding a woman to marry when Soren was still on his own. The two of them had been inseparable for twenty years, and now even Soren himself didn’t know where he fit into the picture. He knew Dec wanted the same happiness for him, and it was just too freaking tragic to watch Declan and Molly try to help him when Soren knew he just wasn’t capable of it.

  Once, long ago, with Julia, he’d thought about it. But he was so young then that he probably had no idea what he was thinking, and now he had enough experience to know he just wasn’t built that way. Some people have an infinite capacity for love. Soren wasn’t one of them, and he knew better than to lead a woman on.

  At least, he knew better now.

  Which was why Cate Kennedy and her freckled curves and her need to be let her inner sub out without any obligations to the man that helped her was absolutely perfect. That, and the way she gasped when he touched her.

  Damn.

  Soren got out of the car and tossed the keys to the valet, giving the kid a look that said, Ding my car and die. He was just about to crack a joke to lighten the mood when he saw the red Jeep idling at the end of the street.

  “Dec, you see that car?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You remember seeing it outside your house?”

  “No.”

  “You’re paranoid, Soren,” Molly said, taking Declan’s hand. They were all itching to get into the club, find the music, get on stage. Brian and Gage and Eric were probably already there. Just Soren, who still carried that stress with him.

  “Freaking lawsuit,” he muttered.

  He almost forgot about it once they got inside. They hadn’t played this club in a long time, but it felt like the old days, before all the publicity and fame became a thing they had to deal with, when they could just be Savage Heart and get laid.

  Soren smiled. Many a good time had been had in this club.

  He felt even better when he saw the rest of the band, all of them geared up and ready to go. The energy of the place, the crowd, the stage. Fuck. Yes. Soren could feel his blood rising to it, felt his mind rove over it, felt it all come back to the things he wanted to do to Cate—to the way he was sure her legs would feel over his shoulders, the way her muscles would tighten, the way she would shudder—and damn it if he didn’t feel the solo he needed welling up.

  “On stage, Dec!” he shouted over the roar as the crowd got to see who they were. “Let’s go!”

  They were only halfway through the song when a skinny guy in a button-down shirt with coffee stains and a pair of khakis jumped on stage. Soren laughed, thinking it was one of those viral publicity stunts, something the club was doing, right up until the skinny guy handed him the papers.

  “Soren Andersson?”

  “What do you think?”

  “You’ve been served.”

  Soren cursed, trying to reroute all that adrenaline while he tore through the papers. All he needed was a name. He just needed the name, and he might be able to figure out what the hell was going on.

  Daniella Collins.

  Daniella had worked as a sound tech on one of their tours. Brilliant. Funny. Beautiful. And for a few weeks, she’d been Soren’s sub.

  Five

  Cate stared at her phone and dared it to buzz again.

  Dared it.

  She had actually been almost happy for a moment, starting her research on Soren by reading the Savage Hearts book. Granted, the happiness had been of the more conflicted variety, given the choice Soren had offered her at their meeting: him, or the case. Submitting to Soren—God, just thinking that felt wild and wonderful and more than a little bit crazy—or leading a case that she knew only she could win, and do it while uncovering her ex-husband’s involvement.

  All that said, this was definitely not a book she could read at the office. Way, way too many opportunities to get lost, thinking about Soren. She’d met the man, so she could actually see him doing the things Molly Ward described, and that made for interesting reading. She was grateful Molly hadn’t gone into detail with Soren’s sexual conquests; just the allusions were enough to make Cate feel warm and weak and wholly unprofessional.

  Soren’s magnetism just dripped off of the page.

  And maybe Cate was biased, given her apparently raging attraction to the man, but in a book that was ostensibly about the story of Savage Heart’s reunion and Molly and Declan’s love, what stood out most for her was actually Soren. Molly and Declan were beyond sweet, but Soren was this ever-present mystery, a proud, silent, dominating man who went through women like…well, like a rock star. And then one of the women fell apart after a break-up, Soren blamed himself, Declan kicked him out, and Soren lost everything he cared about.

  But the thing that Cate kept coming back to was this: even when Declan didn’t want him around, Soren still cared about Declan being happy. He still showed up when it mattered. Soren’s intervention got Molly and Declan together in the end.

  Cate tried to pretend she was wearing her flinty-eyed lawyer mask while doing this research, but that might have gotten to her, just a teeny tiny bit.

  And that Soren was the same Soren that had towered over her in the bar. Who had lifted her to a safe place, shielded her with his body, and then pointed out the iron rings that he would use to…

  Jesus.

  It was also the same guy who had somehow gotten her to admit that she was a submissive. Maybe. And that she was afraid that meant she’d always seek abuse. Which implied that she had been abused.

  So she had been going back and forth between secretly swooning a little bit, getting uncomfortably turned on, and then becoming all together terrified. Just this endless, confusing cycle of craziness, curled up by herself in her favorite lumpy chair, swirling one endless glass of wine, and wondering what the hell she was going to do.

  Which was why, when her phone buzzed its way across her coffee table, she grabbed for it with a sense of relief. Until she saw who it was.

  Jason.

  Just a text message this time. One of those incredibly innocent-sounding texts that no third party in their right mind would construe as a threat or an attempt to wound her; he was, after all, a lawyer.

  “Out to dinner with Lindsay. Wish you were here.”

  Sounded perfectly innocuous, but Cate knew better, and Jason knew that. What that text actually said was, “I’ll be screwing some chick named Lindsay tonight just to show you I can. You’ll never do better than me, and you’re replaceable, and don’t forget it.” Jason had always used infidelity as a kind of cudgel to beat back Cate’s self-esteem whenever she started to stand up for herself. And the truly pathetic thing was that for a long time it had worked.


  Jason would cheat and then leave little clues. Sometimes he’d refer to it outright. Sometimes he’d make sure other people saw him. And now he was doing it again as part of a campaign to convince Cate that she couldn’t divorce him—that’s how messed up he was. How messed up they both were, anyway. After all, she’d put up with that—and worse—for six long years. She’d not only put up with it, she’d defended him to herself. She’d come up with reasons why the things Jason did when he started to feel insecure about Cate’s success made sense.

  It disgusted her.

  It disgusted her that she didn’t recognize all the signs until he’d actually hit her. It wasn’t like she was a stranger to any of this; she’d seen it all before. And yet she’d fallen for it, just the same.

  And now Cate was in this uneasy limbo where she’d taken all the steps she could, and yet she wasn’t quite free of him. She was terrified of what Jason would do when he realized she really wasn’t coming back. Of what he would do when he learned she was involved with Club Volare. Jason knew about Cate’s secret life online; the man had a hard drive full of it, had told her about it. Had threatened to make every embarrassing secret public. For the moment, while he was still looking for a new job, Jason needed the semblance of propriety just as much as Cate did, but that didn’t make her feel terribly secure.

  Pretty much the last thing she wanted to be thinking about was her time-bomb of an ex-husband, but the truth was, she was sitting here contemplating the idea of taking that risk all over again, of exposing herself to someone, leaving herself vulnerable.

  Had she lost her mind?

  Yes. The answer was yes. Mind: gone. Because here she was, fantasizing about Soren’s arms all over again. They’d looked like the kind of arms that could hold a girl down just right.

  Wasn’t that screwed up?

  It did not escape her notice that she’d never have to worry about cheating with a man like Soren. You can’t cheat on something that doesn’t exist, and he’d made it very clear that there wouldn’t be romantic obligations. Or attachments. Or true vulnerability. Or whatever people were calling it these days.

  She’d be free.

  Except he’s your client. Or he will be, once he signs the retainer agreement.

  “Couldn’t it just be easy?” she muttered. “Just once? Easy.”

  Her phone answered her by buzzing all over again. She watched it dance across the coffee table in wide-eyed disbelief, sure that it was Jason again with some other creative way to make her feel like crap. She suddenly realized most of the texts she got were from Jason. That couldn’t be a good sign for her future. She’d have to do something about that.

  “Ok, dickhead,” she said aloud. She reached for her phone, ready to send some sort of withering response against her better legal judgment, and saw that it was not from her husband.

  It was from Ford.

  “Soren served again, new plaintiff, former sub,” it said. “Allegations of abuse. Not good.”

  Cate read it again. And again. And then again.

  Allegations of abuse from a former submissive. It wasn’t really a surprise; it was exactly what she expected Mark Cheedham to come up with when the target was a sexually promiscuous self-professed dominant BDSM practitioner. Cheedham had probably had his investigators looking for plaintiffs for months. And yet it still sent a current of fear coursing through her nervous system, lighting up well-worn pathways, dredging up that familiar feeling that told her to run.

  For a second, she was glad she’d never given Soren her phone number. She’d fretted over it not long ago, but now?

  This wasn’t something she wanted to handle over text. This was something she needed to see for herself. She ignored her shaking hand and mashed out a question to Ford: “Where is he?”

  “Here at Volare.”

  Cate didn’t even have to think about it. “The clock’s already started,” she typed out. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

  She stood up and felt her blood rush away from her head while her heart pounded in her chest. She had no clue if this was a good idea or not, but it still somehow felt like something she had to do.

  The only trouble was she had no idea what she was going to do.

  Cate pulled into the Volare compound with something approaching trepidation. By the time she actually got out of the car, it was full-on panic. She’d somehow forgotten that this was the one place where keeping her professional life separate from her personal life no longer worked. Soren was the man who could see through her, who already had a piece of her that no one else had seen. And the truth was that Jason’s antics were wearing her down. Every day she felt the strain, and every day she was worried that she’d crack and reveal herself as a woman who let herself get kicked around.

  And she was here as the lawyer who was supposed to kick ass, instead.

  And there was Soren. This man she was unaccountably attracted to, the man she now thought of as a Dom—as her Dom, good Lord—was now accused of abusing a sub.

  She could really, really pick ‘em.

  Cate took a moment to smooth down her skirt, her hair, her top. Took a moment to put on her game face. And then she walked inside the club.

  And the first thing she saw was Soren.

  Off in the back corner, under a single, swaying light, playing pool by himself. His forehead creased with lines, his eyes intense, his muscles rippling with unreleased tension. He looked like he needed something to whale on, and yet every movement was controlled, calm, fluid.

  Cate took a moment to stare.

  Then she snapped herself out of it. Good Lord, she’d met this man once—why was this so important to her?

  Did it matter? Maybe it just was. Like Soren had reminded her: some things just are. She just needed to hear it from him. Needed to watch him as he told her whatever it was he was going to tell her. Needed to see if she’d imagined everything, if this man really had recognized things in her because he understood, or because he was…like Jason.

  Because Jason had a talent for finding her weak spots, too. It was just that men like Jason found them and then applied pressure to the point of pain. She’d thought that Soren was different. She’d felt that he was different.

  Hadn’t she?

  “Oh, fuck it,” she said. She hadn’t been able to look away since she’d entered the building. No point in just staring.

  Easier said than done. Every step closer brought her blood pressure a little higher, made her pulse a little faster, made her breathing a little more ragged. The man loomed large even from far away. Nothing but a white tank top, tattoos, jeans, and that golden scruff on his jaw. And on his chest, and his arms. Jesus, his arms. She could see every defined muscle under his golden skin, every taut line, every flex and release.

  He was freaking hypnotizing. She’d never had such trouble focusing. Cate was always on point when she was working, always ten steps ahead of everyone else in the room, and now in this moment all she could think about was what it would feel like to run her tongue over each and every one of those abs.

  What it would feel like to have his weight on top of her.

  Inside her.

  This is a big deal, Cate. Get your head in the game.

  She was only saved when Soren looked up and saw her.

  Cate was as dressed down as her wardrobe would allow. But walking toward Soren as he looked up and took her in, she realized that while she dressed for many reasons—to intimidate, to distract, to persuade—she never dressed for fun. And based on the effect she was having on Soren, dressing for fun could be…very fun indeed.

  His eyes never left hers as he put down his pool cue. As he walked toward her.

  As he took her hand and pulled her toward him.

  Cate was caught off guard, caught breathless and unprepared. She blinked, a little bit bewildered, a little bit dazzled by his touch. His nearness. It wasn’t just his hand, engulfing her own like a giant paw. Cate could have sworn she could feel the length of him against her, could fee
l his eyes on her.

  “Oh God,” she whispered.

  Not exactly off to a professional start.

  He was looking at her strangely. Intensely. Those lines in his forehead, around his mouth, they made him look…she wasn’t sure. Upset? Aggrieved?

  “Cate,” he said. “Do you still believe me?”

  His voice was hoarse. Rough. His hand heavy over her own, his thumb rubbing the back of her hand. And it occurred to her that this was important to him, too. This question. And her answer.

  That was interesting.

  “Not as a lawyer,” he said, urgently. “Not as my lawyer. As you, Cate. Do you think I could have done this?”

  Cate realized she was shaking her head, even as she was looking for the words. A few minutes before and she would have given a very rational, detached answer, careful to separate herself from the attraction she felt to him, to distance herself from this insane physical chemistry. She would have said there was no way to know without knowing what the allegations were, without knowing more about him.

  But standing in a dark spot between the overhead lights in a back corner of Club Volare, studying Soren Andersson’s tortured face as he asked her this question, she felt an impossible conviction. A stupid conviction, really.

  She was absolutely certain that he hadn’t done whatever it was he was accused of, and that was…God, that was dumb.

  “Cate?” he said, his voice lower. He hadn’t moved.

  Cate stood there, silent and dumbfounded, trying to figure out what the hell was going on in her own head. What got to her was the horror on Soren’s face. It wasn’t wounded pride, and it wasn’t outrage; it was true horror, like he knew exactly what it was he’d been accused of, and it was the worst thing he could have imagined.

  And then a whole bunch of light bulbs went off in Cate’s head at once. She thought about all the stuff she’d learned in the Savage Hearts book, how careful Soren was with Declan and Molly, how he took blame on himself. About how careful he had been with her, about how he’d recognized things she hadn’t even been able to articulate.