Free and Bound (A Club Volare New Orleans Novel)

by Chloe Cox

  She didn’t know what to say.

  “Inside,” he directed her.

  He helped her onto the walkway where her heels wouldn’t be such a hazard and led her toward the door of his magnificent house. It was all white walls and water elements and strategic lighting, and Cate was pretty sure she heard the ocean on the other side, even though it felt completely private. It looked like a great place to forget about the rest of the world.

  Except as soon as they were inside, in the light, she could see: Soren hadn’t forgotten about the rest of the world.

  He looked troubled.

  “What?” she asked.

  He had been about to speak, but she’d preempted him. It was something she did when she was nervous. They hadn’t even made it past this wonderfully minimalist foyer yet, and she was nervous.

  “Can’t get anything past you, huh?” Soren said, and gave her one of those devilish grins. She smiled, but not knowing was killing her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We need to talk before we get started,” he said, seriously. “About that press conference you did on TV.”

  “What about it?”

  “It was too aggressive.”

  Cate blinked. She looked over the man in front of her, six feet and change of a man no one in their right mind would mess with, a man who’d come after her in the most aggressive way possible, a man who’d actually put his hands on her and taken her under his protection before he even knew her name, and tried to make sense of the words that had just come out of his mouth.

  “You’re going to have to be more specific,” she said finally.

  Soren smiled slightly, and put his hand at the small of her back, guiding her into his beautiful house. He had a bottle of wine out already, two glasses, a nice set-up in the open-plan industrial kitchen.

  “You stopped just short of calling Daniella a lying whore,” he said. “She’s not.”

  “But she is,” Cate said. “Well, she’s at least a liar. And I didn’t say the other thing.”

  “Cate…” Soren shook his head. “You made her out to be a monster.”

  Cate wanted to tear her hair out. She could already feel her dream weekend fading away, and it was making her feel sick. She needed this. After Jason, she needed this. Maybe even before.

  “Soren, she is lying!” she said.

  “Not out of malice. Not even greed,” he said. He was perfectly calm, perfectly controlled. Just disapproving. And it hurt. Inexplicably, Soren’s disapproval hurt. He held her with those stern blue eyes, and said, “She’s not that kind of person. There’s something else going on.”

  “She’s lying because she wants to hurt you, Soren,” Cate said.

  “Then find out why,” he ordered.

  He ordered.

  Cate felt the words shiver down her spine. It was the voice. He’d used the voice, the unmistakable Dom voice, and he was looking at her now with those burning blue eyes.

  “Are you angry with me?” she said. She sounded so lost when she said it, so sad, even to herself. It made her feel vulnerable all over again, and it made her feel stupid. Only Soren Andersson could disorient her so effectively.

  For a second, Soren just looked confused. And then he was coming toward her, his face still calm, composed. In control.

  “I’m angry at the situation,” he said as he reached for her.

  His hand around hers delivered a jolt of electricity to her entire body, something that knocked her sideways and back into a memory of what it felt like to have this man touch her. Of what he’d been like the last time they’d seen each other.

  She sighed as he pulled her into his arms.

  “Daniella’s gotta be in trouble to do this, and I don’t beat up on people in trouble,” he said, his chin resting on the top of her head. “Not even metaphorically. And especially not a woman that I’ve tied down and flogged.”

  Cate stiffened. That should not be an image that bothered her. She decided to let it go and enjoy the feel of this man around her.

  She enjoyed it so much that it took a moment for his words to sink in. The contrast between Soren and Jason could not be starker. She felt completely, utterly safe.

  “I was looking forward to this,” she said into his chest. “I thought maybe…”

  She felt his chuckle through his chest. “You’ll see,” he said. “Tell me what was bothering you.”

  Dammit, really? He had to figure that out?

  She sighed, and in response Soren bent down and picked her up, fast enough that she yelped, grabbing his neck for support. He looked down on her and shook his head, a slight smile on his face.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What I should have done before I mentioned the press conference,” he said. “Getting you in my lap.”

  Cate had to admit this: the man knew what he was doing. It felt exponentially more difficult to evade or dissemble or otherwise avoid the truth when he was holding her like that. And it felt less necessary.

  He took her through to a sunken living room off the kitchen and a gray couch in a warm corner. He didn’t turn the lights on, just sat down and arranged her in his lap the way he wanted.

  Which apparently meant unbuttoning her shirt.

  “Tell me what was bothering you before you came here,” he said. Casually. Like he wasn’t, at that very moment, slipping his hand inside her bra.

  Cate sucked in her breath while her chest fluttered under him.

  “Cate,” he said again. “Tell me.”

  What was she even supposed to say? More than ever she didn’t want to talk about Jason. Jason was the past that she was desperately trying to leave behind; she wanted to be in the present, now, with Soren. She wanted to be the woman strong enough to live in Soren’s world, where evidently men cared about women, even ones who tried to hurt them.

  Seriously, who was this man? Jason threatened her with ruthless exposure; Soren worried that the woman trying to ruin him might get her feelings hurt.

  Dammit, he was waiting.

  “I ran into an ex,” she blurted out.

  Soren didn’t say anything for a long minute while he toyed with her nipple, rolling it between his fingers, pinching it. It was a constant sensory barrage. Cate knew she was ruining another pair of underwear.

  “A bad one?” he said.

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “No.”

  Cate huffed in frustration, her nipple painfully erect, her sex throbbing.

  “Yes, then. A bad one,” she said. “The worst one.”

  Soren’s voice pitched lower. “One who hurt you.”

  Cate shook her head and gripped at his shoulder, wanting, suddenly, to bite down on him. He was driving her insane. If he demanded it, she’d probably tell him everything, just because she wanted him to keep touching her. It was torture.

  “You don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

  “Is that ok?”

  “For now,” he said, and pinched her nipple hard enough to make her gasp. “Talking isn’t always helpful. Let’s start over.”

  And then he removed his hand.

  Cate looked up at him with blatant disappointment and was greeted with a mocking smile.

  “I said, ‘start over,’” he said. “How do you think you should start off the weekend as my sub?”

  Oh, come on. All she wanted was for Soren to throw her down and ravish her, or at least start playing with her breasts again, and now there was a pop quiz?

  Cate simply could not. She was too jacked up, too nervous, too raw.

  “Like this?” she said, and impulsively tickled him.

  Soren convulsed under her, this great big giant of a man, all those muscles sliding under the skin, and there was one of those moments of silence before he started to laugh.

  God, she loved that sound.

  It wasn’t until he flipped her over, onto her back on his couch, that she realized she was laughing, too. There were tears falling down the side of her head while he he
ld her down and tickled her, mercilessly, his own laughter echoing hers.

  “What the hell made you do that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cate said. “Genius?”

  “Or lunacy.”

  “No, no. I’ve been tested. Definitely genius.”

  “For a genius trying to submit, you’re wearing way too many clothes.”

  They were both breathing hard, Soren straddling her while she lay on the couch, her arms above her head. Cate felt the heat of his eyes on her body and blushed.

  “Let me get out of them,” she said, and moved her arms.

  “Too slow,” Soren said, and pinned her hands above her head.

  Then he ripped off her shirt.

  Cate laughed in pure delight.

  Next was her skirt, a skirt she would hardly miss. And then Soren saw that she was wearing stockings.

  “This is genius,” he said.

  Cate bit her lip while he savagely attacked her bra and her panties, leaving her disheveled and naked and still underneath him. She squirmed, her core aching, her hips moving all on their own.

  He had stripped her naked, item by item, and there was a chance she might actually come before he touched her. Pretty soon she was going to be beyond speech; pretty soon her brain was going to stop working properly. She needed to say something first.

  “You were right,” she blurted out. “Last time. It mattered. I do trust you now. You were right.”

  “Of course I was right,” Soren said. He loomed above her, huge and powerful and so fucking dominant. He took one finger and traced it from her cheek to her neck, down over her breast and belly, until he dipped between her legs and into her folds.

  Her legs had already begun to shake.

  “Now it’s time for you to forget your name,” he said, grinning.

  Then he pulled her off the couch, thrust his arm between her legs, and threw her over his shoulder.

  Ten

  Soren resisted the urge to run up the stairs with Cate over his shoulder like a prize, but that was the only urge he planned on resisting from here on out. She was his.

  She wriggled in his arms, her wetness spreading on his arm where he kept it between her legs, her breasts pressed against his back, helpless to move. On impulse he turned his head and bit her naked hip, and reveled in the sound of her cry. She felt even wetter, if that was at all possible.

  From the second he’d touched her again he’d felt it building, and now he was on fire the way he had been back at Volare, when he’d had her naked and writhing under him. Only this time he would have her. He could see in her eyes, her body language, the way she held nothing back—she was ready. She had tickled him, for Chrissakes. He would have her.

  He would own her.

  Soren took a deep breath and savored it.

  Then he threw Cate down on his bed, took in her flushed, glowing face, her hard, pointed nipples, her soaking wet sex, the expression on her face, and took a deep, satisfied breath.

  His.

  “Take my jeans off,” he ordered.

  He wanted to see her face when she looked at him for the first time. He wanted to see her face through all of it. Goddamn, he loved seeing her feel.

  She didn’t hesitate, and only tried to conceal her smile a little bit. She was nervous and excited, and she had very good reason to be.

  He was pretty sure he had never been this hard before in his life. That had never been something he’d ever had to worry about, but this actually hurt. And the expression on her face when she saw it told him everything he needed to know.

  “Can I…?” she asked.

  Soren smiled. “Yes.”

  She kissed the tip of his cock, eyes looking up at him, and Soren threaded his hand through her hair. Fuck, she was gorgeous. She was gorgeous, and his, and he needed her to know that. Needed her to know what submission meant, needed her to see that it was for her.

  She took the head of his cock in her mouth, long pink tongue snaking out to lick it first, and Soren groaned. If he let her, she would drive him over the edge before he even got inside her.

  He pushed her back, hard, onto his bed, her knees up, legs spread, and then he fell on her, no longer able to contain himself. The games, the scenes, the carefully thought out play, all that would come later. This was when he let himself go. Cate’s moans filled his ears as he covered her body with his own, with his mouth, with his hands, with his teeth.

  His mind was receding, making room for the blind animal she brought out of him.

  “Soren,” she breathed in his ear, and it turned him into an animal. He grabbed hold of her hair again, reared back, holding her down, lifting one of her legs over his shoulder. He positioned his cock with the head nestled in her folds, so close, teasing a groan from her throat, and then grabbed her chin in his hand. He looked at her until she took his fingers in her mouth.

  “Mine,” he said, and then he wasn’t going to wait anymore, and he plunged into her.

  Jesus Christ she felt amazing. Liquid velvet, smooth and soft, hot and wet, opening for him like he knew she would. Her mouth opened, her eyes half-lidded and then wide open in shock as he pushed into her, feeling the full, hard length of him. She fit him perfectly.

  She cried out, her hands scratching at the sheets.

  He let himself go.

  Soren couldn’t get enough, not ever, knew it would never be enough of her for him. He possessed her body with his every way he knew how and then more, riding her, making her his because she was. His mouth on his her breasts, her neck, biting, sucking, licking, soft followed by hard, giving himself over to that animal rhythm that built itself deep inside him.

  He’d never had anything like this.

  Cate, screaming his name, and then just screaming, scratching down his back with her fingernails as he bit her shoulder, leaned into her, and pushed as far, far as he could go, his hips driving hard against hers, his cock hitting that perfect spot deep inside her. Her thighs, quaking and shaking and squeezing the ever-loving shit out of him, so hard he could barely breathe and didn’t care; he couldn’t let up if he tried.

  He lost himself, and it was because she took him just as much as much as he took her.

  The way he overwhelmed her, he saw it reflected in her eyes, felt it in the way her body responded, and it came back to him tenfold: an obliterating wave of sensation. He couldn’t look away. Couldn’t look at anything else but Cate’s beautiful face as she twisted and writhed under him, her hands tearing at the sheets, his back, the headboard, her eyes tearing as she came around his cock again, and again, and again.

  He remembered thinking how dangerous it all was, until he wasn’t able to think anymore, and all that was left of him was what they made together. And when he woke up in the middle of the night, his cell phone beeping at him from the spot on the floor where he’d left his jeans, and saw that there was another text from his sister, he realized why Cate was so dangerous.

  Sonya wanted him to know that people were asking about Julia. She wanted to know what Soren wanted her to say. Soren took his rescue dog Desi for a long walk and tried to think.

  But Soren wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about how he hadn’t lost himself like that since Julia.

  Cate woke up wet.

  It took her a while to realize the dream she’d been having was more of a memory, that it had all been real, and that it was Soren’s arms around her, his bulk at her back. His cock pressing against her ass.

  She had never felt so lucky in her life.

  He’d held her close, his big arms wrapping around her tightly. They’d fallen asleep like that. Or, more accurately, passed out.

  Cate hadn’t known it was possible to…do what they had done. “Fuck” wasn’t the right word for it. It was like they’d ravished each other. The man she knew as supremely controlled, as reserved, had unleashed himself, and it had been completely overwhelming. He was right: she wouldn’t have been ready for that right away. Would anybody?

 
; She smiled to herself and nuzzled his arm. Was he really like that with every woman he’d slept with? She couldn’t imagine, and, if she were honest, didn’t like to think too much about that. She preferred to think about Soren. He was like a hurricane; more than that, he had made her just as wild. She couldn’t get enough of him. Had begged him for more until she nearly lost her voice.

  The idea that she’d inspired that in him, that he’d wanted her that much…God, she wanted him all over again. Even though it had been different than what she expected, less controlled games and power plays, and more wild, feral possession, she wanted it. She wanted whatever she could get from this sexual machine in bed with her.

  And she had a whole weekend.

  “You’re up,” he said from behind her, and moved his hand to play her breasts.

  Cate smiled into his arm again, and kissed it.

  “I’m up,” she said and wiggled against him.

  In response he wrapped his other arm around her, the one she’d rested her head on, and moved his hand between her legs, where he felt her wetness.

  “Good,” he said, his voice guttural and gruff in her ear. “Today,” he said, “we play.”

  Cate’s breath hitched. Then he slapped her ass.

  “Go get ready,” he ordered. “Bathroom. Do what you need to do. You’re gonna be mine for hours.”

  She almost complained as he released her, noting how much safer the world felt when he was holding her, no matter how crazy it seemed. She couldn’t even look at him as she got up and made her way to the bathroom, finding her weekend bag there—when had he had time to do that?—feeling more and more nervous with every step away from him.

  No, “nervous” wasn’t the right word. Or maybe it was? Nervous, and riddled with anticipation, and making herself crazy.

  Cate took more care with her morning ritual than she would have otherwise, Soren’s warning that she was about to be his for hours ringing in her ears. Every movement, every gesture, every little beautification ritual that she normally took for granted became about this. About him. About whatever he had planned for her.