Savage Hearts (14 page)

She felt terrible, but it didn’t matter. Talking about it meant being that person in a way that maybe only Cate understood, but it didn’t matter—she couldn’t go back to that. It was like coming up against an immovable wall.

“Ford must realize,” Cate said. “You
must realize, and Soren must realize, that total honesty is…not that simple. People aren’t that simple. There’s stuff I don’t even have figured out yet, you know? And if my whole problem is being afraid
of
…”

Cate let herself trail off. She sounded defensive. Weak.

“I get it, believe me,” Adra said, leaning back and looking back towards the bar area. “It’s not easy. I’m just saying, be aware, and try to figure it out as you go. You can talk to me. I want to tell you to trust your own instincts, but…”

“But what?”

“Well, maybe just don’t trust
my
instincts, and you’ll be fine,” Adra smiled.

“Ford?” Cate asked. It was a perfunctory question. Of course it was Ford. The look on Adra’s face whenever she caught sight of him made it clear that for Adra, it was always Ford. The man was sitting at the bar now, totally unaware of the woman who watched him with that sad look on her face.

“We’re not anything,” Adra said, too quickly.

“Oh, please.” Cate smiled.

Adra
sighed.

“You know how when people who are experienced at something team up and sometimes they make beginner mistakes?”

Cate thought of all the lawyers she knew that had ended up in lockup by getting belligerent over speeding tickets, and smiled.

“Overconfidence,” she said.

“Or wishful thinking,” Adra said.

Cate shook her head. That phrase—that was the phrase she herself had used.
Her wishful thinking about Soren.

“Anyway,” Adra said. “We did that. Once. Didn’t talk about it beforehand, didn’t do anything right, just…gave in. And now we’re both idiots.”

“Why didn’t you?” Cate said. “Talk about it, I mean?”

Adra looked wistful. “I think because it was hard. You know what they say—you have to be vulnerable to be strong, and neither of us was strong.”

Cate laughed. “No one says that.”

“Yeah, I know, I just made it up, so humor me again,” Adra said, smiling that sunny smile again. Yeah, Cate liked her. She was good people. It felt good to know she had a friend here, or at least the beginnings of one.

Ok. Ford won this round. Adra was a keeper.

Unfortunately that didn’t do anything to fix what was going wrong inside Cate.
Because at that moment, Cate looked up and saw Soren.

“Incoming,” Adra whispered. “We’ll talk later.”

Cate barely heard her, barely registered Adra’s exit. Barely registered the fact that she herself had stood up and then stopped, like she didn’t know what to do next.

He was all the way on the other side of the club. Striding toward her.

Eyes locked.

And it all came flooding back. Cate had done so much research in the intervening days; she’d done all the reading, had worked her investigators twenty-four-seven,
had
driven her assistants insane. She knew everything there was to know, publicly, about Soren Andersson and Savage Heart, and the truth was, she’d never had a cleaner client. Not one of Soren’s sexual partners had anything bad to say about him; in fact, all of them had professed shock and outrage. And all of them had fallen for him, in their own ways, even though they weren’t supposed to.

It seemed like
an inevitability
that women fall for him.
Like a trap.
Like what Cate had felt, like the way he’d made her feel, maybe it hadn’t been special. And maybe it was dangerous.

Cate didn’t know if she was like most women. Was she more vulnerable, because of all these wounds, these scars?
Or less, for the same reasons?
She had no idea. But she knew risking so much was insane, and as she watched Soren close in on her, she could feel those thoughts intrude. Could feel the doubts, the uncertainties, the panic, could feel them all rise up in response to the absolute insane
desire
she felt flare inside her every time she looked at the man.

He really was a Norse god. Blond hair, scruffy jaw, blue eyes, muscles roiling under ripped jeans. Jesus.

Cate watched him, felt the warmth pool between her legs, felt her heart hammer inside her chest, and felt the core of her being start to retreat deep inside herself. Felt the internal war start all over again. Felt
herself
begin to drift away, and hated it. She wanted to be strong enough to let herself go after what she wanted.

And what she wanted was Soren.

He put his hand under her chin and stared down at her.

“Stop thinking so much,” he ordered. “And get your ass upstairs. Now.”

Cate could get her ass upstairs as quickly as Soren wanted, but to stop thinking?

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

Especially when she could literally feel his eyes on her ass the whole way up. It made her feel warm, and wanted, and wet.

Which was a problem, because she had a job to do. She had a job she had to do right now, a job that couldn’t wait. She couldn’t afford to let Mark Cheedham own a news cycle with his press conference and all the allegations he’d made; she
had
to craft a response and she had to go on television and hit back, and the sooner she did it, the better.
For Soren’s saantke.

And for that she needed Soren to answer some questions. That was what this meeting was for, his debriefing. That’s all this meeting was for.

Keep telling yourself that, Kennedy
.

“Faster,” Soren growled behind her. “Or I will pick you up and carry you.”

Cate blinked. He wouldn’t.

No, he probably would.

She practically ran up the remaining steps.

“Hey,” she said, turning around to face him at the top of the stairs. “We should probably work out some rules, or boundaries, you know, when we’re doing professional stuff, and when we’re doing…other stuff.”

Soren pointed at a closed door. “In there. Now.”

There was a silence. Cate didn’t move except to tighten her hand on the railing. She was sure he could hear her heartbeat; it was that loud. It was deafening. Soren stood in front of her, towering and unyielding, and looking every inch the Dom. Like, she suddenly realized, he always did. Soren didn’t turn this stuff on and off the way that Cate did, he didn’t compartmentalize. He was always just
him
.

And he was the one making the rules.

Slowly, Cate let go of the railing. She could already feel her pulse throbbing between her legs, could already feel her skin start to tingle in that particular way.

She met his brilliant blue eyes for one meaningful moment and then turned around, walked toward the room he’d chosen, and opened the door.

It was dark. She fumbled for the light switch on the wall until she felt Soren’s massive bulk behind her, and then she gasped.

His huge hand on her stomach, spanning it.

His mouth on her neck.

She heard a woman moan, and realized it was
her
. She felt her knees go weak, felt herself collapse into him, felt the hardness behind her.

“Oh, what the hell do you to do to me?” she murmured.

In answer he spun her around, into the room, against another wall in the dark. She heard a switch flip, saw the soft lighting, the comfortable furniture, the bed, padded benches, things she didn’t recognize.

This was not a room for a debriefing.

“Soren—”

“Quise ="+1">et,” he said, and lifted both her hands above her head, pinning her with one huge paw.

Soren’s size blocked out everything else.

No sound.
Just the two of them breathing, in synch.
She could feel the heat on her cheek.
In her belly.
Between her thighs.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Soren said.

“I was busy,” she said. She looked straight ahead, at the little dip in his collarbone, and tried to keep her voice even. “I was doing research for the case.”

“That’s an excuse,” he said.

His free hand found her hip and stroked it, caressed it, felt the material of her skirt. Stopped when it found the zipper.

“It’s true,” she said.

“No, it’s only part of the truth,” Soren said, his fingers toying with the zipper on her skirt. “The rest of the truth is that you’re afraid.”

“Maybe.”

“Definitely.”

“Fine. Definitely.”

In the dim light he smiled. Then he bent down and kissed her.

Not gentle this time. Heated. Hard. Hot. The kind of onslaught she could only surrender to, helpless to do anything but yield, anything but let it wash over her, until something caught fire in her. Cate almost felt like she was watching from outside herself as the hunger in her
grew,
as she kissed him back with equal ferocity, equal breathlessness.

She’d never wanted anyone so badly in her entire life.

She’d never been so
mindless
.

Soren tore away from her with a growl, panting. Cate almost wailed; it felt like she actually needed him, physically, like she needed contact, as much of it as possible.

“No,” Soren said. “I’m going to be careful with you.”

“Please don’t be,” Cate said.

His hands tightened on her hip, on her wrists. He exhaled slowly. “You’ll get what you need, Cate. Not what you want.”

“How the hell do you think you know—
”

“I
know
,”
Soren
said, the word rough in his mouth. “I know you’re afraid to be yourself, and I won’t let that go on for long. I know that’s why you’re afraid of me, because you can’t hide from me.
Look at me
.”

Cateuldze="+1" swallowed, and forced herself to look up. He was beautiful, and intense, and frightening, because, goddammit, he was right.

“I think we’re more similar than you know,” Soren said slowly. “And I’m going to take that fear and turn it into something more interesting.”

Cate licked her lips. That…

Oh God, that sounded…

“I’m here for a debriefing,” she heard herself say, like some kind of career-obsessed zombie. Worse, the words had an effect on her. They reminded her of reality. “For the case. I have to go on television, and I have to do it soon, for your case. You have no idea how important—”

“The club safeword is ‘red,’” Soren interrupted. “And it’s your safeword too. I dare you to use it. If you want this to stop,” he said, “
use it
.”

“Don’t screw around with safewords, Soren.”

“Who’s screwing around?”