Liberated Heart

by Measha Stone

  “That’s what he does to girls he doesn’t give a shit about.”

  Those words were like needles in her heart.

  Claudia continued, “He’s done playing into your fantasies. Now he’ll want a real submissive. Someone who can serve him the way he deserves and craves. He’ll be done with you by the end of the week.” Claudia shook Erin’s head then shoved her into the mattress.

  “You are so damn jealous.” The man laughed. “You want him all to yourself, but he’s not going to want you after this is all done.”

  “Shut the fuck up. He’s not going to know I had anything to do any of this. You’ll get your fucking cash, you’ll send me my cut, and you’ll give this bitch back to him. He’ll tire of her and toss her out, and meanwhile I’ll be there to soothe him. It would be better if we could kill her. Then I could really get some good consoling in.”

  “I’m not killing anyone,” the man told at her. “You do what you want with her, I just want my fucking money. That bastard ruined me with his fucking diving into old shit. He should have left it alone. All that digging around, thinking I didn’t know what he was up to. Like I didn’t know he had gone to his accountant for help.” The man scoffed and a chair scraped against the floor. “Well, if we are meeting him in an hour, you better get princess cleaned up.”

  “I’m not touching her. She goes back the way she is. You go do your thing. I’ll meet you there.” The sickly saccharine voice was back.

  A long pause made Erin wonder if the man had left. “Fine. Don’t fuck this up, Claudia. How are you going to keep her from blathering your name all over the place?”

  “I have my ways, don’t worry about that. Just go kiss your wife, make nice-nice and meet me.”

  The door closed, and Erin tried to relax her muscles. Everything tensed and burned with the way she was tied up. “Do you want to know what my ways are, Erin?” Her breath was hot against Erin’s ear. “If you never see him again, you’ll never be able to tell him. But don’t worry. I’ll take good care of him. I know what he likes, what he needs. And it’s not some fucking newbie who doesn’t know shit.”

  A few seconds later the door slammed, and Erin listened to an empty room.

  Would she really never see Bradley again?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Why the fuck would she do this?” Bradley stared at the invoices Alex had been bringing him when the first call came through. Claudia Hoffman, owner of Hoffman Securities. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m telling you if she owns that company, and she does, then she knows how to tap into our feeds. She’s the one getting those photos. And if she can tap into our feeds, she can tap into our systems to get Erin’s work information and her home address.” Kendrick jammed his finger into the table top.

  “Why? For what fucking purpose? If she owns this company, she has no fucking reason to ask for five million, she probably has more than that in the fucking bank.”

  “It’s probably not for the money.” Alyssa stood behind Alex with a sour look on her face. “Every time she’s been in here the past few months she’s asked about you, Bradley. If you were working, if you’d be playing. Brandon told me she cursed up one way and down the other when you bought Erin at the auction. He heard about it all night, every time the guy who bought her sent her for a drink. You were supposed to buy her, she said.”

  “Claudia?” Bradley wrinkled his brow and tried to think back on their short times together. “I never gave her any reason to think we were anything more than casual the few times we played, and I never said I was buying her at that auction.”

  “Well, sometimes the reality doesn’t quite make it up to the brain, you know.” Alyssa tapped her temple.

  “But why demand money, how is that going to help?”

  “I don’t think it’s her that wants the money.” John entered the office, looking like a beaten puppy. “I’m sorry, I know I’m not welcome here, but I found out something that I thought would be important, but from what I’m hearing I’m too late.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “You understand that I’m doing you a favor, right?” Erin wiggled her fingers, trying to make the blood start circulating faster, completely ignoring Claudia’s attempt to get her to fight back. “I mean, you do know that he would tire of you eventually. Bradley is a serious dominant, and very experienced. Sooner or later he’d grow tired of having to explain everything, and answer so many questions. And then there’s the whole testing the boundaries thing every new sub does: try to get a reaction out of him, see how far you can push him.”

  There hadn’t been any of that between her and Bradley. Erin didn’t want to push him, or make him upset with her. What would be the point of that? It was his approval, his pleased smiled that fueled her submission and her desire to be his.

  “Did you push him?” Erin finally gave in and asked, the gag having been removed when Claudia started berating her. Hearing her chirp on and on was getting annoying. And at least the conversation would distract her from the pain in her hands. They would be leaving soon, at least that’s what Claudia had told her, and Erin hoped that when it was time to go she would have the use of her feet and hands.

  “What?”

  “Did you push him? When you were together, did you push those boundaries?” Erin wished she could see her. Was she scowling or laughing? The blindfold kept her from seeing anything.

  “Just a little. Enough to give him a reason to punish me, but not too much to make him think I wasn’t submissive.” Playing games to get a spanking from your dominant didn’t sound very submissive, but Erin wasn’t in the position to debate the topic.

  “Bradley didn’t see through that?” The bonds around her ankles burned as she began to wiggle her feet, trying to find a position that relieved some of the pressure.

  “Oh, he probably did. But he loved it.” Erin rolled her eyes behind the blindfold. She may have only known Bradley for a little while, but she knew him well enough to say that he most definitely would not have loved that sort of game playing.

  A sharp pinch to her thigh made her jolt and cry out. “I saw that face you just made. You think you know him so well? Just because you’re new and shiny doesn’t mean shit. He’ll dump you first chance he gets. Well he would if I wasn’t looking out for him and taking care of it for him.”

  “You think Bradley is going to want you after he finds out you helped that other guy steal from him?”

  “He’s not going to find out, because you aren’t going to be around to tell him.” Her threatening comment hit Erin with the force of a car running over her. The blood drained from her face. She wiggled a bit harder and was gifted with a cackle of laughter from Claudia.

  “I don’t understand.” Erin managed to get up to a sitting position, letting her feet dangle over the side of the bed she was on.

  “What’s there to understand? He’s mine.” A click resounded in the room, and a cold metal object pressed against her temple. “Maybe I should have let Travis play with you first.”

  Erin’s throat convulsed. She couldn’t catch her breath, and all her thoughts sprinted through her mind, too fast to catch one. She needed to do something, anything. There had to be a way out, a way to get some sense into the crazy woman holding what she assumed was a gun to her head.

  One thought ran over and over again, letting her seize on to it. Bradley had been the best thing that ever happened to her. He’d opened her eyes to a part of her that she struggled to understand, and it seemed she may never get to see it all the way through.

  “You think he’ll forgive you for this? For killing me? He loves me.” Erin found herself yelling at Claudia. She may not have her feet, or her hands to strike out but she could still speak.

  Claudia started laughing, a loud robust laugh that Erin hadn’t expected. “You think he loves you? Bradley doesn’t do love, you idiot. You’re just a shiny thing to him right now. You think that you’re his first newbie sub? Please! He loves to train them and dump t
hem. That’s his thing. I’ll let him keep doing that, he likes it, but you won’t be in his fucking bed anymore. That’s where I sleep.”

  He’s trained other submissives? New ones? She should have guessed. He’d never said he loved her before either, but she knew it, felt it deep within her when he held her, kissed her. Hell, just the way he looked at her sometimes sent more security of love through her than she’d ever experienced with anyone. And she loved him. They hadn’t said the words, but it was true. Wasn’t it?

  “That last punishment he gave you, it was harsher right? Yeah, he’s just about done with you, but I don’t feel like waiting that long, and you really are a liability at the moment.”

  The metal pressed harder against Erin’s temple and she grappled for something to do, to say. “My assistant knows I was meeting you! They’ll know I was with you.”

  “I know. I’m counting on it. That way when they find us here, me all dirty and scared from Travis’s threats and beatings, and you lying there dead from him shooting you, they’ll know why we were together.” Deciding not to just sit there and take a damn bullet, Erin lurched forward falling flat onto the floor. Her face rubbed against the carpeting, but she tried to squirm her way to the door. Claudia laughed again.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” She kicked Erin’s feet when they finally managed to get a grip on the ground to push herself forward.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Kendrick twisted the door knob and opened the front door of Travis’s north suburban home. Bradley pushed past him and ran into the foyer looking around quickly.

  A scream from upstairs alerted them to where Erin was, and they both ran up the stairs two at a time with Royce and Alex following right behind.

  Another scream and a cry of pain put Bradley’s body into a higher gear, and he moved past Kendrick to reach the closed door. He flung the door open to find Erin curled in the fetal position on the floor, hands tied behind her back, feet bound and a black blindfold still half way in place. Claudia stood over her, pointing a gun at her, blood dripping from her mouth.

  “You fucking kicked me!” She wiped her mouth, inspecting the blood on her hand, as though to confirm that she really had been kicked.

  “Claudia!” Bradley’s roar shook the room. She wasn’t given any chance to acknowledge his presence. He barreled through the door, and wrapped his arms around her while taking her down to the ground, and knocking the gun from her hands. She landed with a grunt of pain as he crushed her to the floor of the master bedroom.

  “Bradley?” Erin’s voice pulled him from his cloud of rage.

  “No! You aren’t supposed to be here!” Claudia grabbed for his arms, trying to keep him near her. Kendrick came to his rescue and yanked her hands away, pulling her up to her feet and shoving her to sit on the bed. “You aren’t supposed to be here! I’m supposed to comfort you! Not like this!”

  “You are crazy!” Bradley shouted at her. “You are batshit crazy.” Ignoring her continual pleas and cries he quickly pulled his pocket knife out and began cutting away the ropes binding Erin. A jagged cut bled on her forearm, a knife on the floor was covered in blood. Her blood. She must have rolled over it in her struggle.

  “Bradley. You’re here?” Erin asked, rubbing her head against the floor to fully remove the blindfold. He tried to give her a smile, to comfort her, but the banshee behind him continued her rants.

  “Get her out of here,” he told them.

  “The cops are on their way,” Kendrick said from the doorway. “Erin, are you okay?” He crouched down next to her, but Bradley had already pulled her up into his arms.

  He smoothed her hair away for her face. Seeing the bruise on her chin he growled. “Who did this?” He knew Claudia wouldn’t risk breaking a nail to punch someone, no matter how angry she was.

  “The man. I don’t know who he is.” Erin closed her eyes, needing a minute to process everything.

  “It’s okay. Don’t worry about that now.” Bradley stood up, taking her with him. “We’re going to the hospital. The cops can come there to talk with you if they need.”

  Kendrick offered to call an ambulance, giving a small grin to Erin.

  “No. I’m taking her.” Bradley didn’t wait to be argued with, he just walked from the room, holding her close to his chest, needing to feel the beat of her heart in line with his. Claudia had a gun. He’d seen it pointed at Erin. So fucking close he came to losing her.

  *

  Bradley watched Erin sleep in the hospital bed, glad that the doctor finally gave her something to help her drift off. The bruise to her cheek was nothing to be concerned about, but the cut to her arm had been deep enough that they needed to stitch it up. The only thing left was to wait for the results of her CT scan so he could take her home.

  “Erin!” Kelly and Jessica pushed their way past the two police officers standing outside the door to Erin’s little room in the ER. They wanted to question Erin, but Bradley wouldn’t let them wake her.

  “She’s sleeping.” Bradley stood from the chair he’d been sitting in for over an hour. How long did it take to read a goddamn CT report anyway?

  Kelly ignored him and ran to Erin’s side. “I thought she was okay? Kendrick said she was fine.” She picked up Erin’s hand and glared over the bed at Bradley. Her attitude toward him sapped the last bit of patience he had.

  “She needed to rest, but wouldn’t settle down. The doctor gave her something for the pain in her arm, and she finally fell asleep.”

  “Erin can’t take pain pills because they make her too sleepy, didn’t she tell you that?” Kelly shot at him. For a woman he kept being told was fearful of him, she sure showed her claws well enough.

  “She did.” He said and nodded.

  “Kelly.” Kendrick’s warning came just as the fiery red head opened her mouth again. “Stop being such a mother hen.”

  Kelly ignored both of the men and went about checking out her friend. Jessica moved to sit on Erin’s bed, resting her hand on her leg. “Royce is with Alex at the police station. They’ll be here soon. Alex needed to sign a statement or something.”

  “Claudia ratted Travis out right away,” Kendrick told Bradley, moving around the bed to stand by his side. “Those two are complete whack jobs. One wanted your money, the other wanted you, and Erin here got caught in the crossfire.”

  “Did you call her parents?” Jessica asked.

  “No, not yet. I thought she might want to, you know, so they don’t come barging down here.” Bradley ran his hand over his smooth head, feeling the weight of the day finally sinking into his body.

  “They won’t come running anyway.” Kelly shook her head. “Erin’s, well, she’s never been their favorite.”

  “I know.” Bradley nodded. Another reason he didn’t want to have her parents coming to see her just yet. They would probably set her healing back several days. “I could use some coffee.”

  “I’ll go get it. Kelly come with me.” Jessica hopped off the bed.

  “We just… fine. Fine.” She let go of Erin’s hand and followed Jessica to the door. Bradley mentally thanked Jessica.

  Once they were gone, Kendrick slapped his back and plopped down in the recliner. “I know that look. She’s fine. She’s going to be just fine. Don’t beat yourself up over this.”

  “Did you tell yourself the same thing when Kelly got hurt?”

  “That was different. She charged into a shitstorm.”

  “I should have protected her better.” Bradley looked down at Erin’s sleeping features. If something worse had happened, if he had lost her, how the fuck would he be able to go on with his life? How do you lose someone you love, and just move on?

  “You did protect her. What were you going to do, lock her in your room and keep her hidden? Claudia got to her through her work, not from swiping her off the street.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I should have done more.”

  “Mr. Sorenson?” The doctor walked into the room, noticin
g Erin still sleeping, he lowered his voice. “I have her results.”

  Erin’s hand started to move, then her head turned to the side. They were waking her. Bradley pointed to the door and followed the doctor out into the hall.

  “She’s okay?”

  “Yes. Nothing to be concerned about. Other than being shaken up by the whole event, she’ll be fine in a few days. She will need to have the stitches removed from her arm in a week. In the meantime, keep it clean. I’ll have a nurse come with her discharge papers and written instructions for her care.”

  “Thank you.” Bradley turned to look back into the room. Erin was sitting up, rubbing her eyes with Kendrick leaning over her while she said something to him. Kendrick waved his hands in the air, as though exasperated.

  “I’ll also have the name of a good trauma counselor in the paperwork. Talking to someone will help.” The doctor shook Bradley’s hand and gave the police officers a nod and told them, “When she’s up to talking with you, I have no objections.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” Two pairs of eyes glared at Bradley, letting him know he couldn’t keep them out of her room for much longer.

  Kendrick came out of the room and slid the glass door closed. Bradley looked over his shoulder into the room and for a brief moment caught Erin’s eyes. Tears brimmed her lids and before he could move Kendrick out of the way, she’d turned her head to look away.

  “What’s going on?” Bradley demanded when Kendrick wouldn’t budge from the door. “Why is she crying?”

  Kendrick let out a long breath. “She doesn’t want you to go back in there.”