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 aShee time ctually 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, or n the rand 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 feel 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.
Soren knew what abuse looked like. Soren knew what it felt like to be hurt.
“Oh my God,” she said. She looked up into his face, and couldn’t stop herself from saying it. “No. No, I don’t think you did it. I am so afraid I’m going to regret this, but I don’t think you could have done…I don’t think you could have hurt anyone. Not in the way they’re alleging.”
Cate stared at him. At the blond hair falling across his face, the muscle clenching in his jaw,
the
light in his eyes. She was an idiot. She was sure he was being set up and all she wanted to do was touch him, and that made her an idiot.
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Don’t lie,” he snapped.
Cate licked her lips. “Right. Total honesty. You know, sometimes lies aren’t about…lying. Sometimes they’re about protecting yourself.”
“Not from me.”
That
voice
.
“Fine,” she snapped back. Why the hell was she talking? Why did she feel compelled to answer? “Because I think I just figured out how you saw through me on Friday. I think you recognized part of yourself. I think that part of you…couldn’t have done whatever it is they’re saying you did. And I think it’s totally fucking crazy that I’m saying any of that.”
Soren exhaled slowly, and the tension seemed to go out of his body. His eyes got lighter somehow, happier. His fingers started to toy with hers.
She could watch him forever. She still hadn’t said anything about the fact that he was touching her.
Soren smiled and said, “Why is it crazy?”
“Because I don’t know you,” Cate said, swallowing. The heat in her core was becoming unbeara1" ming unble. She was afraid to move, and give herself away. “Because we don’t know each other.”
“Can you ever really know anyone?”
She grinned. “That line hasn’t worked on me since freshman year.”
He smiled back, and then his voice dropped. Serious. Soft. “Fair enough. You ever really let anyone know you?”
Cate gasped, unable to hide her reaction. The answer, of course, was a resounding no. As though that would ever be an option, something she could possibly consider, something that would ever feel safe to her.
Which, fine, that was her thing, how she was built,
her
hang-up. But how did he
know
?
“How do you know that?” she said.
Slowly he started to pull her backwards, towards the pool table and the couch against the back wall. She didn’t resist.
“Same way you know I didn’t do anything,” he said.
“So wishful thinking,” she said.
“Sure,” Soren grinned. “Call it whatever you want.”
He still hadn’t let go of her hand. She hadn’t let go of his, either. Something between them seemed to pulse, stronger and stronger, seemed to keep time with her heartbeat, with the growing pressure inside of her. Under the light over the pool table, his blond hair glowed almost white.