Freed

by Stacey Kennedy

  Her mound clenched in desire. “I won’t ask you to stop, sir.”

  “Of course you won’t.” His gaze flared in possessive want. “Because you are mine now.” He ran his thumb across her lip. “Such a beautiful woman, Mary.”

  She snapped herself out of the memory, wondering why she was connecting these two men. Was it a sign from Charles that she should move on or was she losing her mind comparing them? Or was it just memories of when she used to play subliminally telling her how much she’s missed this? When she replied to Elliott, “Thank you, sir,” she really didn’t know who she was thanking, Elliott or a ghost from the past.

  Elliott examined her with intent, obviously reading into her mind. “Now let’s see to this body that has been too long ignored.” He moved to the bedside, grabbing a flogger from the glass table, then spun it in his hand. Mary stayed firmly focused on the black leather tails, trembling in anticipation, forgetting what the sensation had been like.

  One dark brow arched. “Come here. Place your hands on the bed.”

  She did as told and bent at the waist, resting her hands against the soft duvet. Elliott’s heady presence surrounded her as his hand came down immediately on her back, pressing gently. “Spread your legs, arch your back.” He paused, then added, “Yes, that’s perfect. The lines of your body look stunning like this. Very nice.”

  Her breath hitched as he dragged the flogger over her bare bottom. Something deep inside of her cracked and she shut her eyes, overwhelmed by leather against her flesh. Too long. A soft whimper spilled from her lips as the coldness inside of her splintered, emotions flooding her that were uncontrollable.

  The leather vanished and Elliott ran a soft hand over her bottom. His low grunt reflected disapproval. “If you hadn’t waited so long to play, you wouldn’t be shaking this way.”

  In fear that if she opened her mouth the emotion would release in a cry, she drew in a long, stabilizing breath. He returned the flogger to her, tickling the leather across her flesh, and a blast of heat rolled through her. She managed, “I had to, it was for loyalty, sir.”

  “Loyalty is good.” His hand slid across her bottom behind the flogger, then a light slap caught the air in her throat. “But a submissive has needs.” He paused, and a moment later the first touch of the flogger landed on her butt cheek.

  The strike wasn’t soft and gentle. Elliott wasn’t hesitant like a young man who didn’t know how to wield such a toy; the action was powerful. It was targeted and purposeful. It was the strike of a man who intended to take a submissive to a higher place.

  Her knees buckled and her gasp echoed in her ears as the warmth slid across her bottom. Then another strike and her clit ached, almost as if the leather tails were a vibrator teasing her sex. On the third strike, and with the hard slap of the tails remaining the only sound she recognized, she softened and melted into each release on her body.

  “Needs that your trembling body tells me you’ve been wanting to feel.” Elliott’s voice was hard, a reprimand from a Dom. “Needs that now make me hesitant in the way I play with you.”

  A firm reprimand.

  Fingers tangled in her hair and her neck stretched as he pulled her head back. His voice was strong as he spoke near her ear. “Feel and recognize how hard you are trembling and how out of control you are.”

  She grasped the duvet below, trying to calm herself. Failing miserably, she continued to quiver in both desire and raw emotion. A dark part of her heart had been touched tonight, intensifying her reaction to their play. Elliott was reaching into her soul, and with each touch and word spoken, she was falling deeper.

  This wasn’t the casual BDSM scene that she had expected tonight. Elliott was getting right into her head and wanting to understand her. Too connected. Too emotional. She squeezed her eyes shut as her heart fought against allowing Elliott into that place in her soul where only Charles belonged.

  A hard-rock song drumming through the speakers at Chains matched the rhythm of Mary’s heartbeat. Her wrists and ankles held tight to the spanking bench. “My body to touch,” Charles said in her ear. “My skin to heat with the kiss of leather.” The strike of the flogger landed flat on her bottom and she moaned, arching into him. He pressed his hand on her back and added, “Your bottom is mine to make red with my markings. No one else, Mary. Your body and your mind, it all belongs to me.”

  “Yes, sir.” She gasped against the slap of leather.

  “Your soul is twined with mine. This passion between us binds us together. We go deep together, Mary, because we are meant to.” His hand swirled over her heated bottom before another slap of leather landed on her cheek. “I know you need to feel…pleasure…pain…an escape.” Another hit had her gasping as he added, “Feel the leather touching you, caressing you.” The third hit had her drifting away. “Be mine to care for now.”

  “Yes, sir.” She moaned, relishing the burn on her bottom.

  Elliott’s fingers tightened in her hair, forcing Mary into the present. He stepped beside her, his thigh pressing against hers. The slap of leather sped up, hard and fast, warming her skin with each strike. She wondered if his attention wasn’t only about her pleasure, but more—more like what she and Charles had shared.

  A Dom reading into his submissive’s soul.

  When another strike landed on her bottom, her mind began to slip away, but she bit her lip and forced herself to not allow Elliott that right. This was crazy! She didn’t want another lover, best friend, Dom, she wanted one night of kinky sex. Experiencing the burn of the leather tails, she remembered when another Dom had staked a very similar claim on her.

  In Mary’s small apartment just off the Vegas strip, Charles leaned against Mary’s back as she was pressed against the mattress and said, “My love, it looks like someone needs to be fucked.” He growled low in his throat and she quivered against him. “You need to take better care of yourself when things get rough for you. Look at how you’re trembling—so out of control. From now on, talk to me before it gets to this level.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she whispered, sensing the chattering of her teeth from the intense flogging he gave. One second after he arrived at her doorstep, he had her pants down with her hands pressed against the bed, and was flogging her roughly. “I should have told you that med school was wearing on me.”

  His low chuckle brushed across all her senses. “I won’t draw this out. You need me to shed the edge off you, my darling submissive. I’ll always give you what you need.” He slapped her ass with a firm swat as she quaked beneath him. “Whether that be pain to make you forget and ease the stress or pleasure to remind you how special you are to me.” He stroked the warm flesh on her bottom. “Or to hold you if you need that, too.”

  “Be close, Charles,” she said, pressing the side of her face against the mattress with tears flooding her cheeks. “I need you close.”

  “Mary,” he murmured in a sultry tone as he penetrated her from behind. “I always will be.”

  A hand suddenly pressed against her mound and Mary sensed how easily Elliott’s fingers slid across her heat from behind. How wet she was for him. The desire all but burned her veins, and she realized now that the memories weren’t arousing her, Elliott was.

  She needed a Dom’s touch for her own well-being. That is why she agreed to play tonight; she needed to become centered again. Mary craved to remember herself. But how deeply Elliott wanted to take her, how far he wanted her out of her mind, and how it shook her soul from the inside out that she had no control to stop it.

  She heard the flogger drop and a hand squeezed one of her warmed butt cheeks. Elliott’s voice dropped lower—curt, almost. “Count your punishment for ignoring what your body has ached for.” One firm slap hit her buttock. “And for what your heart desperately needs.”

  She gasped. “One.”

  The second, third, and fourth swat were perfectly placed right on top of one another, leaving her skin burning. Yet moisture spread out between her thighs. A haze swe
pt into her mind, making sensation become her only focus.

  With each strike, her clit throbbed, making her wetter than before. “Five,” she shouted, tears from both the bite of pain and the emotion coming out in a purge of release. “Six.” Another strike had her desperate to shift in his hold as he landed the hit on the other cheek. “Seven. Eight. Nine.” The burn soared across her. She forgot her shaking. Her mind silenced.

  Elliott didn’t request her soul now, he took it.

  Ecstasy slid through her from the hard slap of his hand. As the punishing smack sent a loud slap to echo in the room, she screamed, “Ten.”

  He angled her head back and turned it slightly to the side. Then he frowned at her. “Never ignore yourself again. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” She ached, throbbed in every place she could for his cock. “I’m sorry for disappointing you.”

  “No, Mary”—his fingers gripped her hair tight and he brought his face close to hers—“You are only disappointing yourself.”

  Chapter Five

  Perplexed by Mary, Elliott untangled his fingers from the soft strands of her hair. He couldn’t make sense out of why a woman so in tune with her submission hid from it for so long. He had plans tonight, plans that he realized he couldn’t proceed with, considering she quaked beneath his touch.

  Regarding her on the bed, he suspected part of her reaction was from missing a Dominant’s hand, but the other reason he suspected was due to an emotional response from a submissive not being in her role. Her body and her mind had been clearly struggling for what it needed, and now that she got it, she was unable to process the emotions.

  He needed to be careful with her.

  Mary was special.

  A low cough at the door caught his attention. When he lifted his head, he discovered they had garnered an audience. Mary must have realized it, too, since her trembling only increased. The crowd didn’t surprise him. Mary was a new submissive to the party; everyone was likely curious about her.

  He clenched his jaw, sensing that the others watching aroused her by the way she wiggled into him, but he wished they’d go away. Mary was breaking wide open and he didn’t want anyone to witness it.

  Odd response, he thought, since he had never much cared before. He liked others watching him. Christ, he got off on it. If he’d known a submissive liked it, too, he never refused a crowd. That in itself meant something.

  There was a specialness in his connection with Mary—something he immediately recognized when they first met at Dmitri and Presley’s for dinner—almost as if he’d been with her for a lifetime. She seemed connected to him—her soul unable to lie to him.

  So passionate.

  So free.

  Exactly what he’d been looking for in his life.

  He said to the crowd, “You may all stay until I order, then leave and shut the door behind you.”

  Everyone’s gaze was locked on Mary. Elliott figured they understood why he made the request. He knew—without a doubt—that Mary was going to suffer an emotional drop after their scene.

  One he suspected would leave her in tears.

  Elliott had seen it before, yet knowing Mary would experience such a purge of emotions made tension roll through him. He didn’t like her this way, so vulnerable. In fact, he found himself wanting nothing less than to see this edge removed from her tonight.

  Once he received nods of understanding from the crowd, he kept his hand on Mary’s bottom, showing her he was there with her. That she wasn’t alone, and that he wouldn’t leave her. No matter that he had wanted to play more and draw out this scene for as long as he could to simply enjoy this electric spark between them, as a Dom, with years of experience, he knew better.

  Pushing her tonight would leave a devastating mark. She couldn’t maintain the level of shaking, and he wouldn’t make her suffer through these emotions. Mary needed to shed the edge, and more so, she needed to be held by a Dominant.

  Then they needed to talk before they went further.

  He slid his hand behind her, slipping it between her thighs and discovering her wet and ready. Not wanting to draw this out, he pushed two fingers inside her and moved them in and out gently. Her moans immediately washed over him.

  As he pumped his fingers in and out of her soaked cunt, Mary moaned with each stroke. He moved in a steady rhythm, then noticed by the angle of her head, she was staring at their audience. Elliott wondered if she could even see them or if she was blinded by emotion. The trembling and heat of her body almost seemed fevered with passion.

  Her inner muscles clenched around his fingers and he called out to their audience, “Leave.” He paid no attention to the noises moving outside of the room. He stayed focused on the beautiful body calling to him to give release. To take what she offered and return the gift with gratitude.

  When the last of the spectators left and the door was shut, he flipped her over, resting her back on the bed with her bottom hanging off the mattress. He stepped between her spread thighs and took her mouth. He pressed his lips against hers, kissing her in a way that felt more right than any kiss had before it. Each swipe of his tongue with hers wasn’t a simple embrace, it was passion personified. She wasn’t begging him to take her higher, she was waiting for him to offer her an orgasm.

  And she was there.

  Leaning away, he quickened the stroke of his fingers in her slick heat. He curved his hand, hitting her G-spot, and he saw her response in the widening of her eyes. Now wasn’t about ecstasy, it was about making her feel better. Probably better than she’d felt in years, he suspected.

  He stroked her fast and forceful, in an up-and-down motion, pulling at her climax. She gasped, gripping his arm, digging her fingernails into his flesh. He stared at her…this beauty…loving the way she grabbed on to him before orgasm.

  An angelic expression swept across her features as she closed her eyes. Her breath hitched, chin lifted, and her moan was so real and honest. Elliott’s heart opened to her; the stunning sound would forever be imprinted on his mind. Then she arched her back, and she screamed out her pleasure, with a flush creeping over her chest.

  He inhaled the sweet scent of this woman.

  Mary hid nothing now. She exposed herself to him in a raw purity that branded him. All her pain and her loneliness lay in her expression, so exposed it made him withdraw his fingers and instantly gather her in his arms. His chest constricted, but he couldn’t look away from her.

  Lying beneath him, her eyes finally opened, and he only held on to her more tightly. Her lips parted and then shut and her tears came hard. Yet her soft whimpers tore at him, because now she showed him what she had lost.

  A part of herself.

  Her mouth opened again and only a squeak came out. Elliott shook his head, cursing her damn corset, wanting to be as close to her as possible. He lay on his side, tucking her against him. “Shhh…don’t talk.”

  She stayed silent and sobbed against his shoulder.

  Elliott shut his eyes, overwhelmed by her. Mary needed him now, and that was one of the most satisfying feelings he had felt in years. A submissive depended on him. Not for sex, but for an emotional exchange. There was something so unexpectedly perfect about it that it changed something inside him.

  Warmed parts of him that he wasn’t sure had ever been touched.

  He brushed his hand over her heated bottom, tucking her head under his chin. “Stay right here, darlin’. Right here in my arms.”

  —

  Time passed in a blur. Mary hadn’t known how long she’d been crying, she only knew that she finally stopped. Part of her felt foolish, sobbing in the arms of a man she barely knew, yet somehow she also felt appreciative and thankful it was Elliott.

  He had stayed silent, simply embracing her, as if he never intended to let go. Such a long time had passed since anyone had hugged her like this, like a lover. Not like a mother or a friend. As if the world was perfectly aligned simply because they were hugging each other
.

  She had missed such affection, possibly even the length of time in his strong hold.

  Maybe she hadn’t realized how much until now.

  Pressing her face against Elliott’s chest, moisture from her tears lay between them. His arm was locked onto her, making her feel as if no harm could come to her if she just stayed right there.

  After a long breath, she recognized the cry was most definitely therapeutic. For the first time in longer than Mary dared to count, her mind was quiet. She didn’t think of the past or future; she stayed in the present. She lifted her head, wiping the tears off Elliott’s chest and her face before leaning her head back against his strong arm, looking to him.

  He stared at her with warm yet powerful eyes and asked, “Better now, darlin’?”

  She nodded, feeling her cheeks flush. “That wasn’t quite the reaction I was expecting when I arrived tonight.” She had expected pleasure and pain, and a mind-blowing orgasm that had her screaming for all to hear. She certainly wasn’t expecting to be cuddled in the arms of the Dom she played with in such an intimate way. “I’m sorry for falling apart like that.”

  “Don’t be.” He shifted slightly, leaning against his arm to face her. “Quite the release you had there, hmm?”

  “I…” She paused, drawing in another long breath. “I didn’t know it would be that intense…or that I couldn’t hold it all in until I was alone.”

  “You should never deal with anything like that alone.” He watched her with furrowed brows. “Can you share with me why you reacted so strongly?”

  Another thing that proved Elliott wanted to get deep into her head. If it was simply his Dom duty to take care of her after the scene, he’d ensure she was safe, back to her solid self, and in a good mental place, but he wouldn’t be so interested in the why.

  Before, she wanted to keep it all in. Now, she couldn’t find any part of herself wanting to refuse him. More than anything, she felt the need to share what she’d experienced with him—she wanted to be heard. “I think I forgot what it feels like to be touched so intimately.”