“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?
“Ok,” Declan said, clapping his hands together. “We’re not crowding your weekend, but my girl over here had something she needed to ask you right away, and since it’s wedding-related, I had to indulge her.”
Incredibly, Molly looked nervous now that the attention was on her. She kept looking from Declan to Soren and twisting her hands, her grin looking somehow sweet. Cate decided she liked her.
Soren picked up on it, of course. Cate could practically feel him go from playful to protective.
“Everything ok?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, dude, relax,” Declan smiled. “C’mon, Mol.”
“No, he’s right, everything’s fine,”
Molly
said. “I know you’re already best man and all, it’s just that I’m going to ask you to do more work for the wedding.”
“It’s not work, baby,” Declan said softly.
“That’s all? You don’t have to ask, Molly, just point me in the right direction,” Soren said.
“Well, it’s not…I mean, it’s not work, per se,
it’s
just…” Molly looked at the ground, the sea breeze twisting her hair around her face. When she spoke again, she spoke very quickly. “I want you to give me away, Soren. I know it sounds like a lot, and we haven’t know each other that long, but I’ve been thinking about it, and since there’s no way I want my father within a fifty-mile radius of the wedding, and there’s no one—” she looked up. “
No one
who’s done more to bring me and Dec together than you, and you’ve had such an effect on my life in such a short time, and…I just want you to walk down the aisle with me.
I know, it’s weird.
But I thought of it, and—”
“Stop,” Soren said. Cate looked up to find a big giant smile on his face. “Of course I’ll do it. I’m honored,” he said, and then he reached out and pulled Molly in under his other arm, giving her a good squeeze.
“That was really sweet,” Cate said to her across
Soren’s
chest.
Molly gave Cate a long look. “He’s a good one,” she said.
“Give my woman back,” Declan grumbled from somewhere outside the Soren area. Soren’s chest rumbled with another laugh, and then very quickly Cate was watching Declan sweep Molly up, the two of them looking at each other like everything around them had ceased to exist, like the only thing that mattered was this family that they had built.
And Cate realized: these people, they were a family. In all the ways Cate had never felt like she’d had one herself, where hers had been hostile and angry, and Jason had bee [Jasey weren abusive and drunk, these people truly loved each other.
Soren squeezed her close again and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “You want to invite them to stay for dinner?” he asked.
“Yes,” Cate said. And she meant it.
Cate looked at the restraints attached to the rings embedded in the bar. She looked back at Soren, standing tall and immovable behind her. She looked at the crush of Volare Bacchanal revelers partying all around them, some of them nearly naked, some of them involved in public scenes, some of them watching.
Her mouth went dry.
Somehow, she had known. She had known since she arrived that it would come to this. And now that she was confronted with the fantasy that Soren had given her, on that very first day that they met—tied, stripped, spread on the bar—she didn’t know if she could go through with it.
What did she think Bacchanal was for?
When she’d arrived at Volare L.A. for the Bacchanal party, Cate had been struck speechless. She’d never seen anything like it.
The entire landscaped compound was covered with thousands of lights. It looked like every picture she’d ever seen of the festival of lights in—where was it? Japan? India? They had those festivals everywhere, but probably nowhere was it quite like this.
Everything was lit from below and above with soft, ethereal little balls of light, the trees providing some cover for the members, but not much. And it was a party like Cate had never seen. Soren had warned her that there would be public scenes, people dressed in fetish gear, kinks on display that she’d never even heard of, and he hadn’t been wrong.
It was a lot to take in. She’d been glad that she had Soren right beside her.
“You ok?” he’d asked.
“Yeah, it’s just…” Cate had swallowed. She hadn’t been sure what was bothering her, so she’d just soldiered on.
And the truth was that none of this should have seemed that strange to her. Over the past few weeks, she and Soren had enthusiastically explored their mutual sexual tastes. They’d been at it like rabbits.
Like kinky little rabbits.
Cate had learned more about herself in those weeks than in the previous few years. Their connection had only gotten stronger, so that every moment not spent with Soren now, not spent under his hand, felt like a waste. It felt like life half-lived.
Cate knew that was dangerous as all hell, especially when she was in the middle of building his defense against the bogus abuse claims, but neither of them could help it. She’d even gotten a brief reprieve from Jason’s harassment o ^/fot ring her,nce she’d managed to convince her ex that continued contact might hamper his job prospects with Mark Cheedham’s firm. Totally made up—if anything, Jason was probably trying to pump her for information, and failing—but it seemed to work, at least for a little while.
It had been amazing.
Like a fantasy, like a pretend version of life.
Which meant that Cate was sure it would all come crashing down.
And now, confronted with the fantasy that had first drawn her to Soren—being restrained and displayed like that for his pleasure—and realizing it inspired only dread and not lust, it felt like it was starting to come crashing down.
She knew it didn’t make any sense, but it wasn’t like that mattered. Soren was watching her very closely.
“Cate,” he said from behind her. He came forward and put one gentle hand on her shoulder, another on her waist. The softness of his touch compared to everything going on around her—inside her—was disorienting.
“Cate, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “I know I should want this, I—”
Soren turned her around and tilted her chin up toward him.
“Your body language is loud and clear,” he said. “You don’t want this.”
Cate felt like she was shaking. She had no idea—
no
idea—why.
“But I did,” she said. “I don’t… What are you doing?”
Soren was staring at her with
an intensity
that she associated with their most incredible scenes, the ones where he said he achieved a kind of topspace to mirror her subspace. It had happened only a few times—he’d only let it happen a few times—but each time had been…beyond.
When he spoke, he used the voice.
“I’m deciding if this is something you need,” he said.
Cate let those words sink in, and she shivered.
If Soren decided this was something she needed to do as part of her process of discovery, or coming out, or healing, or whatever the hell they were calling it that week, could she do it? Even though the thought of all these people seeing her with Soren no longer excited her, but made her feel sick and sad? Could she do it if he ordered her to? Would she, believing there was a reason for it, and find a way to get into it?
Yes
.
The answer stunned her.
She stood there, staring back at Soren, unable to understand herself—her new self? Was it her cf? ize old self
?—
deaf and blind to the clinking of glasses, the shouts of passion, the laughter of a party. There was just her and him and the mind-blowing realization that she trusted someone that much.
Not just someone. Soren.
“Give me your wrists,” he said finally.
Slowly, Cate brought her hands up for him, palms up, wrists out. Soren took them in his own hands, bent down, and kissed them.
“Not tonight,” he said softly. “Maybe not ever.”
Cate felt her eyes well with tears and had no idea why. Instinctively she turned around towards the bar to hide it, but when Soren stepped closer, his body against hers, she leaned back into him.
Maybe that was compromise, of a sort.
“Want a drink?” he said from behind her.
The bar was crowded, but the bartender took one look at Soren behind her and made his way over.
“Why not,” she said, breathing out heavily. Apparently she was already in some weird headspace, feeling all…she didn’t even know what. Emotional. What was it about this fantasy that turned her off now? No, that was a disingenuous question. She knew what it was: it was the idea of making the experience public.
Of sharing it.
Of sharing Soren, of giving whatever it was she had to give to anyone but him, even
indirectly.
Cate had never actually been very good at sharing anything. It was her only B in kindergarten.
And
that
was a problem. She was already hiding something fairly huge from Soren, no matter what rationalizations she told herself about it—she’d only ever referred, opaquely at that, to her ex-husband as though he were very,
very
ex, as though he’d merely been a bad relationship that had happened years ago. She never mentioned that she’d been married, and definitely didn’t mention that she was still, technically, married. That the whole thing was fresh, that she was only a few months away from being that person.
Which was the way she wanted it to be, and which was how it actually felt when she was with Soren. Except that now that there was this…sharing weirdness, another thing she had to hide from him, a real thing, because neither of them were supposed to get attached—and she wasn’t, honestly, probably—it somehow brought everything else she’d been hiding closer to the surface.
She’d been able to keep her concerns about Jason, about herself, about what any of it all meant at bay. Suddenly she didn’t feel quite strong enough to do that anymore.
It was a jarring change. And all because of some goddamn restraints embedded in a bar.
“You gonna tell me what’s bothering you?” Soren said.
“Probably not,” she said, and cshetheri sipped at her white wine.
“No, Cate, you misunderstood,” he smiled at her. “It wasn’t a question. You will tell me. When and how is up to you.”