Savage Hearts (Club Volare)

by Cox, Chloe

  And when she felt the toy—she assumed a toy; it wasn’t him, it wasn’t a finger—press up against her anus, she tried to stay quiet. Then she felt a slap on her ass and he pushed it in, and she failed.

  She felt so full.

  It felt fuller than anything she’d experienced so far, so full that it pushed out the thoughts that were threatening to intrude. And when he started to spank her, each and every movement increased the pressure until she thought she would burst.

  This was about the time she began to lose her grip on reality.

  Not entirely, not wholly, yet. But she truly stopped thinking. She no longer registered experiences or sensation in language, no longer talked to herself, even in her own head. She was riding something, just a chain of sensation, and she had no idea where it was going. She didn’t care, either; that was the weird thing. She wasn’t trying to figure it out.

  She just was.

  And then he thrust inside her.

  She screamed.

  Snt spanHis hands on her hips, pulling her back while he thrust forward, driving into her with mercilessly, irresistible strength. His cock inside her, pressing up against the toy, making it too much, nearly too much, until she reached the crest and fell over the edge, screaming her pleasure the whole way down.

  At some point he turned the toy on.

  It vibrated. Just when Cate had begun to pick up the scattered pieces of her mind, reassembling them into something that might have worked, he turned it on. The vibrations echoed through out her core, rippling out from her center to the very edges of where she thought her body might end, and when Soren began to move inside her again, hitting her as he did so, spanking her, each delicious thrust punctuated by the sting of his hand and the vibrations of the toy, and she was gone.

  After that, there was nothing. Just the feeling, much later on, of coming back down from a great height, of feeling the memory of bliss wrap around her like a warm blanket, of utter peace. By that time her hands were no longer bound, and Soren was lifting her up gently, removing the thing beneath her, holding her in his arms.

  He picked her up and deposited her between his legs while he leaned against the headboard, his huge body wrapped around her while she dazed in that half-awake, deliriously happy state, and she was so exhausted that it took her way too long to realize: yes.

  Yes.

  That had been subspace.

  And this is what I am.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice hoarse.

  Soren kissed her on the forehead. “Anytime.”

  chapter 11

  Holy mother of God, Soren did not expect that. Not only did Cate spend some time in subspace, but she sent him right to topspace, as well. Soaring high, powerful, invulnerable, focused only on her, only on this unimaginable trust that she’d put in him. Only on the things he could make her feel, on the knowledge that he could bring her higher, happier, than she’d ever been before.

  Wanting to do it over and over again.

  Delirious with it. Fucking delirious. He’d had to pull himself back from it, just barely caught it in time, knowing he needed to look after Cate first. Never in a million goddamn years did he expect to be pulled in with her like that.

  He’d held her for so long after he’d managed to feed her that it was early evening now, and he’d done it as much for himself as for her. What happened between them was chemical as much as physical, as much as spiritual, if you wanted to go that way with it, and they both needed care afterwards. He needed to hold her; she needed to be held.

  She needed to submit, he needed to dominate. Perfect.

  What was getting to him now, as he watched her outside, playing with his crazy dog Desi—matter of fact, how had she gotten Desi to trust her so quickly?—was just how perfect it had been. He knew their physical and mental chemistry was intense, but that didn’t always translate into scene chemistry. This time, it had.

  Jesus, it was like he’d been in her mind with her. He’d never…he hadn’t known that was possible. Just being separated from her now felt painful, felt like the beginning of a fall, which was fucking nuts. Soren would have to watch them both for the drop from both subspace and wherever the fuck he’d been, respectively, and he’d have to watch carefully. This was more than he’d planned for.

  Was it too much?

  Could he trust that Cate would stay unattached? That she wouldn’t want more from him than he could give?

  He watched Cate carefully as she courted Desi outside. Desi was skittish around people, having spent much of his life with a bunch of meth-heads who had treated him like a punching bag. The shelter people told him Desi had been rescued by a cop on a drug raid, and even after the poor little dude had been cleaned up Soren could see the evidence of it. They were going to put him down, said he was hopeless, which only made Soren grit his teeth and demand they give him his dog right fucking now.

  It had taken him years to get Desi to trust him, and even now the little dude was wary and startled easily. Soren had never seen him take to anyone the way he’d taken to Cate. Or maybe it was the other way around—Cate was just as skittish, just as wary, but she made the approach carefully. It shouldn’t have worked. It should have sent the dog right under the hedge, barking furiously. And yet she was throwing tennis balls for him.

  Well, fuck it. Guess some things just defied logic.

  He still had too many things he wanted to bring out of Cate Kennedy. This morning had been the beginning—she’d seen what she was capable of, she’d seen what it could feel like if she let herself be who she truly was. That was a good freaking start. Now Soren just had to show her that the world wouldn’t end if she let people see who she really was under all that armor. Fuck that; he wanted to show her that who she really was was wonderful, through and through.

  And he wouldn’t push her, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to know who had taught her to feel this bad about herself. He wanted to know very, very badly. But for now? He’d be content with knowing he had the privilege of being the guy who got to show her different, and he’d be grateful that he’d get to help her. Soren hated the idea of Cate having to fight these battles on her own.

  Doing it on your own sucked. He knew from experience.

  Which reminded him of the thing that was keeping him from going outside and joining Cate—his sister Sonya. Hell, if he was going to talk to Sonya—and apparently he [ppaht=was going to have to sooner or later—it was better to do it now, when he was feeling more generous than he was likely to feel ever again.

  Man, he thought as he dialed Sonya’s number, she should send Cate a goddamn fruit basket for this.

  “Soren,” she said.

  He hadn’t heard her voice in years. Still hard. Still cold.

  “What do you want, Sonya?”

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  Soren calmed himself by watching Cate. Desi was actually licking her face.

  “I don’t have the patience for this, Sonya,” he said. “Just tell me what you want and we’ll be done with it.”

  “I don’t want anything from you,” Sonya said, and she actually sounded upset. Soren reminded himself that it was a trick. It was always a trick. “I told you, I’m getting calls about Julia. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “Sonya, cut the shit. You don’t care what I want you to do. You’re asking for something, so just fucking ask for it outright.”

  There was a pause. Soren almost thought she hung up.

  “Pop had a heart attack,” she said.

  Soren blinked. His stepfather had had a heart attack?

  “I didn’t know that,” he said.

  “He didn’t want to call you,” she said. “He’s fine now, he was just in and out of the hospital really quickly, and I didn’t think…and then he asked me not to call you.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  His stepfather, Ted, had always hated him, and that hadn’t been helped by Soren’s success. The mean old bastard would probably
see having a heart attack as admitting weakness.

  “But I thought you should know,” Sonya went on. She sounded…nervous? His sister, the heartless ice queen, sounded nervous. It was the weirdest goddamn thing.

  “Sonya…”

  “Listen, I don’t want anything, I promise,” she said quickly. “I’m done with that and I’m sorry, Soren. I know you’ll never believe me, but I’m so sorry for…for all of it. It’s just that they keep calling about Julia.”

  “Jesus,” Soren said. Cate’s attention was drawn away, toward the walk leading to the front of the house—she was waving at someone. “You already said that, Sonya.”

  “I know,” she said just as [sai

  Sonya went on. “But they keep asking about her overdose. They keep asking if you guys ever got high together.”

  It took a lot to shock Soren Andersson, but that did it.

  “You know the fucking answer to that, Sonya,” he said. “So just tell the fucking truth.”

  He hung up the phone.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Cate had never been much of a dog person. She didn’t understand the blind affection and unearned loyalty, and so she didn’t understand dogs. Desi, however, was not a normal dog. Desi was…

  Desi was Desi. More like a cat, maybe? Except not quite that, either. From the outset Cate had recognized that look. Desi was careful, cautious, and was going to make Cate work for his affection. That, Cate understood.

  They got along great.

  And now that Cate was playing with a dog, of all things, on this secluded piece of beach on the Malibu coast, alone with Soren, she truly felt like she’d been transported to another world. He’d tied her up and done things to her that had shown her…she still didn’t know exactly what. She had no words for it. Did anybody? Did it matter?

  This was an entirely new world. A better world. And it was good, for a short time, to forget about everything else.

  Which was why it was strange to see two people she didn’t technically know walking toward her on Soren’s private property. ‘Technically,’ because after all the research she’d done on Savage Heart she recognized at least one of them—Declan Donovan. And the blonde beach type walking next to him, sandals in hand, must be Molly Ward.

  Well, this was weird.

  Yet it didn’t matter. Apparently nothing could bring Cate down from the peak Soren had put her on that morning. She had never felt this at peace or this sure of herself in her entire life. For once she wasn’t worrying about what mask to present to the people approaching, or what she needed to hide. The man should bottle whatever it was he’d done to her; he’d make a fortune.

  Except that Cate didn’t want to share it.

  Her head was spinning with that monumental thought as Molly Ward walked up to her smiling with her hand out.

  “You’re Cate!” Molly said. “You kicked serious ass today at that press conference. You had me freaking cheering.”

  “Molly?” Cate said. She noticed Declan was looking at her in a strange sort of way, but coming from a man like Declan Donovan it was a little unnerving. He was the darker version of Soren—huge, and somehow more present than a normal man. Thicker. Just…more.

  No wonder the two of them together made an unstoppable force.

  “Oh yeah,” Molly said grinning. “Sorry. And this is Declan.”

  “It’s good to meet you,” Declan said. “He needs someone to take care of him on this, or he’ll let that woman get away with murder.”

  “Yeah, I don’t get that,” Molly said.

  Declan shrugged while Molly looked on, and Cate thought she caught a note of evasion. “Call it sexist or messed up if you want, but Soren’s not gonna do anything that hurts a former sub, even if she’s trying to screw him over. Just take it as it is.”

  Huh. So there was obviously something there. Declan was the man who’d known Soren the longest, after all, and he definitely seemed to know more about this than Cate did.

  So she filed that away for future reference.

  “Well, it’s good to meet you both, finally,” Cate said. “I’ll be scheduling follow-ups with both of you, if you don’t mind. I know my associates have been thorough with their interviews, but—”

  “You don’t have to explain,” Declan waved her off. “We’ll do whatever you need. And here comes the dumbass now.”

  Cate looked up, back toward the house, happy and kind of turned on at just the knowledge that Soren was approaching—Jesus, this was getting ridiculous; he had really done a number on her—and she saw him. Towering bulk, dressed in white trousers and one of those tank tops that might as well have been spray painted on, blond hair whipping around his head in the ocean breeze. He was mesmerizing.

  Cate didn’t even notice she was cold until she saw he was carrying a sweatshirt over his arm.

  And then, as he came closer, she saw his face.

  It wasn’t the focused aggression of the Dom, or the careful attentiveness of…well, of Soren, and it wasn’t the smiling face she loved to see. The man looked like a storm gathering on the horizon. There was definite doom and gloom, and Cate felt it hit her right in the chest, as though they were connected. As though she couldn’t help it.

  Had something happened? How could she be on cloud nine while he was so upset about something?

  Cate wasn’t the only one who picked up on it. Desi froze for a moment, alert, staring—and then charged off toward Soren, the dog’s high whine traveling even over the sound of the tide coming in.

  Cate followed.

  She didn’t know why. It wasn’t really her place; she’d only known him a few weeks and they had this very restricted relationship, and she should have been more careful of crossing over boundaries. There were a million things she should have done, but something compelled her to go to Soren.

  She saw his face soften, and the relief was immediate. Physical.

  “Are you ok?” she asked shyly.

  Soren cocked his head at her, his eyes studying her while Desi calmed down. Then he smiled, gently.

  “Since when do you worry about me?” he said.

  “Since about ten o’clock this morning, give or take?”

  His blue eyes sparked. “I’m ok. Just family stuff. It’s all right, I promise. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to bend you over the kitchen counter later on.”

  Cate exhaled slowly. “This morning was…I don’t know, Soren, I don’t have any frame of reference, but it was…” She looked down. They’d spent the whole day together, but she hadn’t actually said this yet, not explicitly. “It was life changing,” she said, looking up. “Thank you.”

  That had been difficult, to be that vulnerable. But she’d done it. She had done it. Would she have been able to do it before this morning’s experience?

  Who was she kidding? No way.

  “Yeah, it was,” Soren said. “Don’t think that was usual, Cate. It wasn’t. It was extraordinary. And thank you, sweetheart, because I plan on doing it again.”

  Jesus. The heat coming off of him could undo her, even from a few feet away.

  Cate looked up at him again to find those steady blue eyes on her. She loved it, the way he looked at her. She tucked her windblown hair behind one ear and impulsively said, “I like it when you laugh.”

  Soren raised his eyebrows. “That’s a new one. I’m not known for that.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Cate said, grinning. “Such a serious Dom.”

  “Careful.”

  “Do I have to tickle you again? I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your friends,” she said, looking back. Declan and Molly were finally walking toward them.

  She turned back to find Soren smiling ear to ear. “Embarrass me? I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”

  Cate giggled. “But you go down so hard, it’s like watching a redwood fall. Just sad.”

  “Sweetheart, you try tha [, yatcht again, and I’ll have you your ass in the air and over my knee so quickly your head will spin,” he said. �
��I don’t care who’s watching, believe me.”

  Cate looked at him, wide-eyed and breathing hard. He was serious. He was smiling, but he was serious.

  He looked her up and down with obvious heat in his eyes and said, “Maybe I’ll do that anyway. Now put this on.”

  He gave her the sweatshirt, a big, old, oversized thing that smelled like him, and Cate melted a little bit more. It nearly came to her knees. She’d only barely put it on when Declan and Molly finally joined them, obviously not wanting to interrupt a moment.

  Cate waved at them just as Soren pulled her close. Out of the side of his mouth he said, “Treehugger.”

  “What?” she said.

  It took her a moment. She’d called him a redwood, sort of, and…

  Oh.

  It was a terrible joke. Awful. Not even…not even a joke.

  Cate couldn’t stop the laughter. Soren Andersson, humor-deficient Norse god, had just tried to crack a joke.

  “Shut up,” he said, and she looked up to find him laughing, too.

  “It was so bad,” she said. Her abs actually hurt.

  Soren pulled her in against his own shaking chest, wrapping his arms around her while he laughed into her hair. “Your ass is going to be so red,” he said.

  “Promise?” she managed.

  By the time they’d laughed themselves out, Declan and Molly, now standing right there, were just staring at them.

  “Dude, he’s laughing again,” Molly said. She was grinning.

  “What’s so funny?” Declan asked.

  Cate looked helplessly at Soren. How were they supposed to explain how funny Soren’s unfunniness was?

  “He called me a treehugger,” Cate ventured.

  “I don’t get it,” Declan said.

  Cate buried her face in Soren’s chest and stifled another laugh. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m just kind of…I don’t know. In a weird mood.”

  “Uh-huh,” Molly said. If anything, that grin was even wider. “You guys coming to the Bacchanal party at Volare?”

  “I don’t know,” Cate said.

  “Yes,” Soren said.

  Cate tried to hide her surprise. Why did that thrill her a little bit?