Free and Bound (A Club Volare New Orleans Novel)

by Chloe Cox

  Soren was already checked out. He was watching Cate.

  As always, he was watching Cate.

  She had a four year old stuck to each leg and was trying to pretend like she was stomping on downtown Tokyo, only it turned out that four year olds were a lot heavier than they looked. She kind of shuffled around while the twins laughed, making monster noises, her arms waving around in the air.

  She made this all seem normal. Made it seem natural. She had two kids that looked like him attached to her, and she made it seem…possible.

  Soren couldn’t stop watching.

  Seventeen

  Cate hadn’t been to many funerals. She certainly hadn’t been to one where at least three people in attendance felt obligated to hide their faces and stand far, far away, just in case there happened to be any photographers present.

  The funeral itself was sober, and calm, and anticlimactic. There weren’t any big blowouts, there wasn’t any drama. Soren mostly seemed interested in making sure his mother was ok, which for him meant staying out of her way. It was surreal. The world didn’t seem to return to normal until later, when they’d all gone back to Uncle Jim’s.

  Cate had stayed there the previous night. She was staying there again tonight.

  She’d stayed there with Soren. In the attic room he’d fixed up for Jim, the place where Soren stayed when he was in town. It was this private, intimate place, filled with little things that Soren had chosen—his music, his books, his place. She’d booked a hotel room, but after the wake Soren had told her she wasn’t going anywhere, and then he’d fallen asleep holding her in his arms.

  It was the first time they’d just gone to sleep together, no sex involved. Well, ‘first’ was a bit presumptuous. She shouldn’t think like that. Whatever was happening here, there was definitely no road map for it, no rules. And definitely no guarantees.

  But it did feel like the cusp of something great, like something just out of reach. Something that might disappear if she tried to hard. Cate tried not to think about too much, especially because they hadn’t exactly had time to talk about it—a funeral, with all this family stuff, with Soren clearly in the middle of dealing with things from the past, wasn’t really the right time. Cate wasn’t always the most tactful person on the planet, but she had at least gotten that one right.

  Didn’t mean it wasn’t making her crazy. It just meant she had to suck it up. Really, it was her own fault for letting her imagination run wild, but Cate couldn’t even get mad at herself for that. Every time she looked at Soren she thought, Who would blame me?

  And now? Watching these people all gather around each other, regardless of the messy issues and drama and whatever else was going on? It seemed like a family, in its way. Even Soren’s mother looked happy when she was with her grandchildren, or as happy enough as she could be under the circumstances. Sonya and Soren were talking, even if you could see them dance around each other like fencers, not quite sure of each other. Declan and Molly were in their own little world, and Brian was hanging out with Uncle Jim, who had turned out to be great.

  No matter how messed up these people were, Cate found she was a little bit jealous. It was a real family that cared about each other, even if they didn’t always know it. And Soren, as far as she was concerned, was the beating heart of it.

  Really, who would blame her for wanting more of him than she could have?

  Speaking of which, where was the giant blond Viking?

  Cate reacted so sharply to his hands coming around her waist from behind that she blushed and looked around to make sure no one had seen her. Not an appropriate reaction, not at all, and totally not within her control.

  She tried to calm herself. That pretty much failed spectacularly.

  “You really shouldn’t do that unless we’re in private,” she managed.

  Soren squeezed her tight, his big torso enveloping hers, and rumbled something unintelligible into her ear. Cate’s stomach fluttered, and she tried to ignore the growing heat between her legs.

  “This is really inappropriate,” she said. She wasn’t complaining.

  “I’ve been appropriate all day,” Soren said. “I’ve been a freaking angel. I’ve earned some sinning.”

  “An ‘angel?’ You? Really?”

  “I bribed Sonya into letting me buy her a big house here so she can move in with my mother,” Soren said. “Uncle Jim’s gonna help them out. They’ll all be happier, Sonya will have help with the kids, and maybe my mother will mellow out.”

  Cate shook her head slightly. This man. “How did you bribe Sonya?”

  “She made me promise to come back for Christmas.”

  Cate turned around in his arms, the smile spreading across her face. “Do you realize how sweet that is?”

  “Careful,” Soren said, his eyes darkening. “Remember the last time you called me sweet.”

  Cate’s breath hitched. She remembered it very, very well. She had liked that dress. But she’d liked it more when he’d ripped it to shreds.

  If she wasn’t careful, she was going to lose control of herself.

  “Soren,” she said softly. She didn’t know what else to say. She hadn’t even thought about what it would be like to be with him now, knowing that she loved him and knowing he didn’t…well, she didn’t know what he felt.

  His touch, that intoxicating touch—suddenly it frightened her, too. She couldn’t resist it, even though she knew how much it would hurt when he told her he couldn’t love her back.

  Soren looked down at her face and smiled. Then he touched her cheek and said, “Come with me.”

  He took her hand and led her up the stairs.

  Wordlessly, Cate followed. She didn’t know if anyone else noticed their exit and wouldn’t have cared if they had; the rest of the world was fading away from her, slowly and inexorably, as she followed the man she had come to love wherever the heck he was taking her.

  She could tell, with Soren. Something important was coming. Cate could barely breathe.

  He’d made the bed in this attic room, which made her smile, but that wasn’t where they were headed. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed about that, so she settled on both until Soren opened the skylight and showed her what he’d been doing when he disappeared from the group.

  He’d cleared a little place for them on the roof, a little circle in the snow with blankets piled high and New York City glittering off in the distance. It was unbelievably sweet.

  “Real tough guy, huh?” Cate said.

  “Hey, I hunted these blankets down myself,” he said. Soren stepped over the blankets, keeping hold of Cate’s hand, and sat down with room for Cate between his legs. “I figured we needed to talk, and this was the only place we were going to get any privacy. Plus I thought you might like it,” he said.

  Cate tried to quell her nervousness at the idea of a ‘talk.’ She didn’t know if she was ready for a ‘talk.’ The truth was, she might never be ready for a ‘talk.’

  She was standing there, mouth agape, like a moron.

  Soren fixed her with a look. Then came the voice.

  “Sit down,” he ordered.

  There were times when it almost annoyed her how much that helped. Almost.

  Besides, there were worse things than being nestled tightly in Soren’s arms, leaning into his chest with her head resting on his shoulder. At least she’d get to look at the New York lights while she quietly freaked out. Her heart was beating so hard she was pretty sure it qualified as an escape attempt.

  Soren took another blanket and pulled it over Cate, drowning her in warmth.

  “We’re not in the arctic circle,” she said, smiling at his thoughtfulness—and then she felt his hands on the buttons of her coat. “Oh.”

  “I want to feel your skin for this,” he said.

  Jesus. What could she say to that?

  Cate just sighed and dug her fingers into the front of his thighs while he worked her coat loose. She was scared, she was nervous, b
ut not one cell in her body would let her say no to something that felt like this. Whenever they were in contact, this all made so much more sense. Maybe she needed sense right now.

  Silently she leaned forward and let him take the coat off of her, and when he tugged at her shirt, she lifted her arms. Next came her bra, and she gasped when the cold air hit her nipples, and then again when Soren immediately replaced her bra with his hands, burying them both under the warm blanket again.

  “Better,” he said.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  “Your heart is racing,” he said.

  “It has been since you brought me up here.” Cate took a deep breath. “No, before that. All the time, really. You are basically a form of cardio.”

  She heard the rumble of his laugh and immediately felt warmer, felt more secure.

  “Take off your shirt,” she said. “Please? I want to feel you against me, too.”

  A few moments of laughing fumbling later, and Cate had her bare back against Soren’s bare chest, his hands on her breasts, and a strange sense of calm deep in her chest. It was balanced out by the growing need she felt building between her legs.

  “Even better,” she said.

  “When you’re right, you’re right.” Soren moved his hands, kneading and toying, almost absent-mindedly. Cate rolled her head against him and groaned.

  “Cate,” he said. “Don’t be scared.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  She realized how true that was as soon as she said it. She hadn’t thought any of this through. And then she’d showed up on his mother’s doorstep in the middle of his stepfather’s wake, and told him that even though he might suck at it, she had ‘remedial’ skill at love.

  Those actual words had come out of her mouth.

  Unbidden, unplanned. They just kind of took on a life of their own, and then they were out there, in the air between them, impossible to take back or unsay. And the look on Soren’s face told her he understood the implication: that she loved him.

  And now it was out there and they were talking but not talking and she was terrified. And she had ended this once already, and yet here she was, in his hometown after a funeral, half-naked on his roof with his hands on her breasts.

  “Oh God, Soren, say something, please,” she said.

  HIs hands roamed over her body then, his mouth on her neck, not teasingly, not as something meant to get a response, just…ownership. Possession. Being close to her. It left her breathless, and stronger, and more ready for whatever came next.

  “I need to tell you about Julia,” he finally said.

  Good thing he’d prepared her.

  “I know about her,” Cate said. “I know some. I know she was your girlfriend. I know you broke up, and then she died.” She paused. “Heroin overdose.”

  “Yeah, all true,” Soren said. “But not the truth.”

  In the dark, Cate smiled.

  “I thought it was my fault,” Soren said simply. “Still do, even though I know it’s stupid. There are some things my gut and brain disagree on, and that’s one of them. Feeling guilty is easier than admitting I had no control over the situation, I guess. I didn’t love her as well as she deserved, she left, and then she died, and I wasn’t able to love anyone after that,” Soren said. “That’s what I thought. And I did try to love other women. Man, did I try.”

  “Ok, I don’t need to hear about that,” Cate interjected.

  And then she clapped a hand over her mouth.

  Goddammit, why did she go and say something like that? Why did she have to go and cross the boundaries she’d even set for herself, let alone Soren’s boundaries, and then just…blurt it out, without even thinking about it?

  “Cate—” Soren began.

  “Oh crap, just pretend I didn’t say that,” Cate said quickly. “There are no strings. I meant it when I said there are no strings, not just for you, but for me, too, and—”

  Soren growled and turned her head to the side, kissing her roughly. His lips over hers, his tongue in her mouth, the scruff of his jaw scratching her chin—it was a guaranteed way to get her to stop digging herself in any deeper.

  When Soren finally pulled away, he took her nipples between his fingers and rolled them, sending sparks shooting straight to her core. The effect was dizzying.

  “Shut up,” he said, turning her head and giving her that Dom gaze. “I don’t want to hear about you and other men. Ever. You are no longer thinking about other men. You. Are. Mine. Am I clear?”

  Not that she needed to be told. She almost wanted to laugh. She hadn’t been able to think about anyone else since she’d seen Soren. And since he touched her, other men might as well not exist.

  “Very clear,” she said.

  “And I hadn’t been with anyone for over year before you. And then I saw you, and I knew I was going to have you. And it’s been you, and just you ever since.”

  Cate bit her lip and tried to pretend she didn’t feel tears gathering in her eyes. She hadn’t known that. Hadn’t expected it.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Cate whispered. “If you—”

  “I don’t have to do anything,” Soren said. “But other women aren’t you, and you’re the one that I want. And if I want strings, Cate, there are going to be strings, even if I have to truss you up.”

  Cate’s heart pounded a relentless rhythm in her ears. She couldn’t get enough air. Was he saying… What was he saying? Was he…?

  “I mean that in a non-creepy way, obviously,” Soren said.

  “I don’t know what that means!” she cried.

  Soren laughed slightly and pulled her into his chest, holding her tight against him.

  “It means that this is more than I thought it was,” he said. “And it means that in about two minutes I really am going to tie you down and fuck you so good I’ll have to cover your mouth to keep you quiet.”

  “Soren, I don’t—”

  “Shhh,” he said. “Do you know what it means? Do you know what you want? Tell me the truth, Cate.”

  She was shaking in his arms. Actual, physical shaking. And he was a rock behind her, this solid, calm, unmovable stone, and that both calmed her and terrified her. How could he be so relaxed? How could he be so certain in the face of this if he was feeling what she was feeling? If he really…

  Cate knew she loved him. Knew it, the way she’d only known a few things in her life. Knew it bone deep, knew he was right for her, knew she was better when she was with him. Knew she could love him better than anyone else.

  And she lied.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  Well, maybe it was a half-truth.

  Cate closed her eyes even though he couldn’t see her face. She just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t be brave like he was, she couldn’t risk losing him forever, and deep down, part of her believed that he would never love her back, not because he wasn’t able, but because she wasn’t good enough. She hated that that was still there, that little seed of evil, that thing that made her not trust her own heart.

  And then she tried to tell the truth, and remembered she’d been lying to Soren all along.

  “Jason did that,” she said. “Made me not trust my own judgment, or my own…I don’t even know what. I wasn’t really sure he was gone from my head until just the other day. I thought about you, actually, and then about Jason, and the way he treated me, and it just seemed so insane.”

  Tell the truth with lies, Cate.

  Jason wasn’t some abstract concept. He’d been in her office. He was still her husband. And Cate was in love with Soren Andersson.

  She curled in on herself.

  She just didn’t have the courage. Not at that moment. Not when she’d just allowed herself to see how much she had to lose, how much she loved this man, how important he had become to her. Cate told herself she would do it, she would tell him the truth, she would tell him she loved him, she would tell him she’d been hiding Jason from him, not becau
se it was shameful, but just…Jesus.

  She would tell him, and she’d have to trust that he’d understand. She would. Just not right now.

  Cate didn’t have the strength to tell the truth yet. She didn’t have the strength to give up this one night of closeness, this first night where Soren was nearly hers, where she could believe everything would be perfect. Because it would be. She believed that. She hoped for that.

  But if she didn’t have the strength to speak the complicated truth, then she just wanted to feel it instead.

  So she turned in his arms, and let him kiss her. Let him pick her up and carry her back in through the skylight, arms around his neck. Let him set her down on his bed, eyes dark above her, mouth hungry, hands rough. Moaned when he lashed her limbs to the corners of the bed, cried out when he bit at her breasts, and screamed his name when he entered her, finally, obliterating everything else.

  Eighteen

  They were not careful at the airport. Soren took responsibility for that. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off Cate since she’d shown up at his mother’s house, and he’d forgotten what it could be like at LAX, and he should have known better.

  So that was where they’d gotten the photographs.

  Cate in his arms. Cate’s face as he kissed her. Cate’s smile as he helped her off the plane.

  They were all very sweet pictures. But the headlines had been obscene. Cate was now his “lady lawyer lay.” It pissed him off that, if they were going for the alliteration anyway, they’d gone with “lay” over “love,” as though Cate were just another fuck. She was also the woman who was into whips and wins (not the best headline of the bunch), and they’d managed to talk about spankings a whole lot in the accompanying text, without ever once confirming whether Cate was in fact pro-spanking. Which was good for them, or Soren would have gone berserk.

  The general impression was that Soren had seduced another hapless victim into being his sex slave. And this time the woman in question was his famous, hot lawyer, the one who’d been arguing that Soren’s reputation had been unfairly maligned.