Free Savage Hearts by Chloe Cox

to speak. She’d never said it out loud before, not really.
    “Yes,” she said softly.
    “Me, too,” he said.
    “I know.”
    This time Soren laughed, a soft, deep rumble. “Of course you do,” he said.
    Oh, holy shit.
    Cate’s mind spun at approximately ninety miles per hour while the phrase “total honesty” flew around her head like a piece of shrapnel. Total honesty—that would mean telling him about Jason, right? Did it have to? Every thought of Jason, every reminder that she was still married to him, every day she had to worry about what he would do next, made her feel weaker. Made the division she kept between her private life and her professional life harder to maintain, made the mask of competence and confidence that she wore feel more brittle, more fragile. Every day she was afraid it would crack and she’d be revealed as the kind of woman who allowed herself to be abused. As a fraud. As someone no one would respect. As the most real, honest, ugliest version of herself.
    And god dammit , she didn’t want to be that person anymore. She couldn’t tell Soren, she couldn’t tell anyone ; she was pretty sure she couldn’t physically do it. The idea was just too humiliating. She didn’t want to be that person with Soren. Soren, who might be the only person she’d trust to understand that. To understand why she’d need to be this new version of herself, this woman who could do something like submit?
    Soren, who couldn’t cheat on her. Who wouldn’t ask anything more of her. And who needed her to be his freaking lawyer.
    Cate felt paralyzed while the different versions of herself fought it out, merged, split apart, crashed back together again. Which was just as well—they’d reached the very back of the room. Soren sat down on the arm of the couch and studied her.
    He smiled.
    “Ford was very careful to mention that you werenion you wert officially my lawyer until I signed a retainer agreement,” he said.
    Cate licked her lips. She was standing right in front of him, his legs spread slightly, knees on either side of her. He still had her hand.
    “I brought it with me,” she said.
    “What happens if I’ve had you before you become my lawyer?”
    Cate laughed slightly. “No rule against that,” she said. “Pre-existing relationship.”
    “Interesting.”
    Cate closed her eyes briefly, opened them again, just to find those ice-blue eyes still staring at her. She felt like she couldn’t get enough air. She felt like she was going to explode.
    “If you’ve ‘had’ me?” she asked with a smile.
    Soren laughed again, that low, rumbling sound. “You’ll know when it happens.”
    Chills. She got actual chills.
    Something changed.
    Suddenly Cate became very aware that they were not entirely alone. It was just them in this part of the club, this little side wing of the first floor of what she was just now realizing was actually a huge, multi-story building. But there were people at the bar behind her, just a few. She could hear them now, suddenly, out of nowhere, loud and intrusive and very much within earshot.
    Soren pulled on her, brought her another step closer.
    “You need both, Cate,” he said. “You need to submit, you need the case. I need both too.”
    “You do?” she said. She sounded all breathy. It was weird.
    “Fuck yes, I do,” he said.
    God, how did he do it? How did he sit there, this stack of hard muscle leaning back against the wall, his long legs now on either side of her, looking coiled and relaxed all at once. Like he was ready to pounce, and completely sure of the outcome when he did. Infuriating and still hot as hell.
    He breathed deep, his chest rising, and exhaled slowly. And he brought her another step forward. “Tell me why you’re scared,” he said.
    Cate laughed, a thin sound, like she couldn’t believe it wasn’t obvious. But it wouldn’t be obvious, would it? So why did she think he’d understand?
    And yet…
    “I don’t know if I can be… this ,