Freed (8 page)

“Sir,” he corrected. His voice sounded amused. “I would have thought the crop would have made it obvious that we were in a session.”

“Sir,” I exhaled.
Sir
in a session,
Alexander
outside a session. He’d said that to me in Bangkok and when I got it wrong, he’d set me in front of a mirror and had watched me masturbate until I came, shaking like a leaf, combusting with the force of my orgasm. At that moment, I should have
known
that in these games of dominance and submission, I could trust him
completely
.

The other secrets he kept? For the moment, everything else seemed far away.

I wanted to sob with frustrated, painful need. If he didn’t move his hands lower, if he didn’t slide a finger between my folds, I would combust. Like a short-lived meteor, I would burn up and die.

“So impatient,” he rebuked. “Do you know that each gasp only makes me want to hear the next one,
ma petite
? Each moan makes me slow down so I can hear you cry out. I want you calling out my name. Begging me to let you come.”

Oh, I was ready to beg. It wasn’t the gag in my mouth that kept me quiet. I’d surrendered control to Alexander. If my Dominant wanted me to come, he would let me. If he wanted me to wait, I would wait.

The more control I gave him, the more pleasure he would make sure I had. I had absorbed this lesson in my weeks as Alexander’s submissive and this knowledge filled me with a strange security.

I could jump and I wouldn’t fall. Alexander would catch me.

Alexander looked around the barn and his lips curved into a wicked grin. He inclined his head towards the table in the corner. It was waist-high and sturdy-looking. “Come, Jenny,” he said. He took off his shirt quickly and set it down on the dusty surface, then patted the spot. “Sit.”

His hands curled around my waist and hoisted me up and I squealed a little at the unexpected touch. A warmth bloomed in my heart that had nothing to do with the fire smouldering in my pussy. When he carried me, I felt safe and protected. I wanted to lean my head against his strong shoulder and rest there for a while.

I also was very,
very
aroused by the way he’d played with my breasts. I told myself sternly to focus on the lust. It was
safer.

“What are you thinking about, Jenny?” His voice was so polite. Too polite. Dangerously so.
Damn it, he had noticed my moment of distraction.

I gulped. “I’m sorry,” I tried to say through the gag.

“Do I need to convince you to pay attention, Jenny?” he asked. His eyes flashed with an amused heat that I had grown to recognize. Crap. I’d screwed up. If I’d been hoping he’d let me come quickly, that scenario had just flown out of the window.

“Part your legs for me.” One strong hand rested on each thigh, pushing them apart. A thrill of pure lust shot through me, almost causing my body to crumple with its strength. “Are you wet,
cherie
? Do you like being cropped?”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at him. I wasn’t wet – I was a soaked, dripping mess, my signs of my arousal impossible to hide. All for him. All my lust, all my desire, every painful pinch of longing in my body was directed at him.

He saw it in my gaze. He growled and for an instant, everything went still. His fingers removed my gag and his lips ground into mine. For a frozen moment in time, there was just the feel of his mouth on mine, my breasts crushed by his chest, his hands around my neck.

I mewled helplessly when he pulled away. He shook his head with a wry grin. “You look at me with that expression again, Jenny and I’m not going to be responsible for the consequences,” he threatened.

I shot him a demure look, batting my eyelashes at him. “What expression, Sir?” I asked innocently.

He chuckled and that sound set another full-body shiver through me. His hand petted my mound and I stilled. He was so close to my clitoris. So very close. All he had to do was…

He did. One swipe of his fingers through my folds, one brief, too-short, fleeting graze over my clitoris, and even that small touch set me gasping in pleasure and aching for more.

“Hands on the table,” he ordered. I placed them behind me, leaning back slightly, my palms in contact with the warm wood and the silky cotton of his shirt.

“So very good,” he said. As reward, his fingers traced another path through my pussy and teased my clitoris once more. I bit my lip and threw back my head.

“What should I do with you now, I wonder?” he mused out loud before climbing on the table behind me. I felt his hands steady me as he positioned himself so my back was leaning against his chest and his thighs were on either side of mine. “Good, lean back into me.”

I bit back a sigh of pleasure as my bare skin came into contact with his chest, then gasped as he spanked my pussy firmly. The hot sting only seemed to inflame the fires of passion already blazing in me.
Again,
I thought silently, but I didn’t dare voice the sentiment. Alexander had teased me for what felt like hours. I wanted permission to climax.

“Do you want to come?” he growled into my ear, as if he could read my mind.

“Yes,” I almost sobbed out.

His lips kissed my neck with soothing warmth. “You can orgasm,” he said generously, “whenever you want. I want to feel your beautiful body wriggle against mine.” He followed his words with another stinging slap to my pussy.

I moaned as he proceeded to torment me with agonizing sweetness. Hot spanks alternated with soft touches of my lips, rough thrusts of his fingers contrasted with an almost delicate pressure against my clitoris. And everything brought me closer and closer to orgasm. My entire body clenched tight, and my thighs started to close, but he was having none of it. His ankles locked around mine, holding me open. “Don’t you dare,” he warned. “Embrace it.”

“Sir,” I sobbed. I didn’t know why I was begging or what I was pleading for. All I knew was that I was soaring, flying higher and higher, filled to the brim with pleasure. Small quivers were running through my entire body. My thighs alternately clenched and released, but locked in his grip, they couldn’t close shut. I was going to explode. Shatter into a million little pieces.

His fingers focused now on my clitoris, urging me closer to breaking point. My fingers dug into his thighs and my nails scratched his skin.

“I’m coming,” I hissed as I shattered in a thunderclap of sound and colour and obliterating sensation.

He held me close as I slowly recovered, moving me to his lap and putting his arms around me. I stayed there for a few minutes, the sweat cooling on my skin until I shivered. He kissed me. “Want to keep going, Jenny?” he asked. “Or do you want to stop? I can run a bath for you, if you’d like?”

A bath sounded amazing. But I also wanted to keep going. Besides, he hadn’t come. I could feel his hard throbbing erection against my thigh. I wanted him. In my pussy, in my mouth or my ass – wherever he wanted.

“What do you have in mind?” I asked.

He grinned. “Let me show you.” He lifted me aside and set me back down on his shirt. “Are you going to be okay by yourself for a few minutes?” he asked me. I nodded and he flashed me a warm smile. “Good. This is going to take just a little bit to set up.”

I watched as he attached a length of knotted rope about six feet long to two dangling hooks from the ceiling, forming a U-shaped swing. My suspicions about what he had planned were confirmed when he gestured to me. “Get over here, Jenny,” he said. “Give this a try.”

I swung a leg over the rope, straddling it. Alexander pulled me forward until my pussy rested against a thick knot of cotton rope. It wasn’t harsh and it wouldn’t chafe at my skin, at least, not immediately. In a few minutes of rubbing at the knot though, I was going to be at the edge of a climax once again.

He gave me an assessing look. “Kick off your shoes,” he ordered finally.

I whimpered, but obeyed. They weren’t high heels, just sandals that added an inch or two to my height but with them gone, my body sank deeper into the rope and the knot nestled into my folds. I was very,
very
aware of it.

“Hands in front of you,” he ordered and I obediently clasped my wrists as he’d indicated, my fingers grazing the rope. His fingers tugged at my hair till my neck was exposed. He kissed the hollow of my throat, his eyes steady and warm. “You are so very eager, aren’t you?”

I nodded. What could I say? The prickles of pain on my scalp as he tugged at my hair, the softness of his lips against my skin, the heat in his eyes - all of these things had sent desire rushing back into my body. I rubbed myself furtively against the knot, knowing that if Alexander saw me, he’d stop me.

He caught me. His eyes narrowed and I gulped.
Damn it.
“You want to come, Jenny?” he asked me smoothly, one eyebrow raised. “Okay.”

His fingers pinched my nipples into erect buds, then fastened nipple clamps on them. I hissed at the familiar spike of pain, but it quickly faded to a background ache. He grinned with sadistic relish. “Come anytime you want,” he said.

Then he picked up a flogger and swung it at my ass.

There were no words to describe the tidal wave of sensation I was flung into. Each time I swung forward from the stroke of the flogger, the clamps swayed and tugged at my nipples. My pussy ground into the knot of rope, the cotton drenched from my juices. I was standing on tip-toe, dancing from foot to foot as the thousands of pinpricks of heat from the flogger caressed my ass and my back.

I lost track of how long he flogged me. I lost count of how many times I came.

When I finally slumped, unable to swim in the sea of sensation any more without risking drowning, his hands were there to catch me and to keep me safe. He wrapped his shirt around me and led me with infinite tenderness into the master bathroom, holding me close while he ran a bath for me in the large porcelain bathtub that was big enough for both of us. “Join me,” I whispered to him when the water was almost to the brim.

He undressed and my gaze dropped to his cock. He was still hard and even though I was tired and sated, I needed to go down on him. Complex emotions guided me, trust and gratitude, need and want, maybe even an emotion that was more tender.

Somewhere, along the way, some switch had clicked in me and I wanted to bring him the same pleasure he brought me.

I wanted him to moan out my name when he came. Not Ellie - he couldn’t call me that, because I wouldn’t risk my revenge, not even for him. But when he called me
cherie
, something stirred inside me and I would have done anything for him.

“Please, Alexander,” I begged him. “I want you in my mouth. Please let me make you come.”

He went down on me a generous number of times, but he so rarely let me reciprocate. It was a far cry from Abeokuta, where uncaring cocks had been thrust down my throat, more times than I cared to count.

“I thought you wanted me in the tub,” he teased.

“I changed my mind,” I replied, sinking to my knees on the bathroom floor. He didn’t stop me and that was permission enough. My lips closed around him and I felt his fingers wind through my hair, but he didn’t fuck my face. He just
touched
me while I gave him pleasure.

“Ah, Jenny,” he groaned as I took as much of his cock into my mouth as I could. I licked and sucked and exulted in each moan, each grunt, each hiss of pleasure I took from him. In this moment, I felt wanted in a way I’d never been.

When he came, I swallowed every last drop, licking my lips as I looked up at him smugly through my eyelashes. His fingers tightened in my hair and he smiled affectionately at me. “Are you being a brat again?” he accused me. “You aren’t cut out for demureness.”

We got into the tub, Alexander leaning against the cool porcelain. I rested against him. “What am I cut out for, in that case?”

I heard the smile in his voice. “Fishing for compliments,
cherie
? You aren’t meant to be coy, either.” He kissed my neck and when he spoke next, his voice was very quiet. “You are a warrior, aren’t you, Jenny?” His arms wrapped me in his embrace. “But even warriors need to find a place to rest once in a while.”

He could read me so well that it was terrifying. “Is that what Provence is to you?” I asked him. “A place to rest?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “Or perhaps true rest is in this moment. In the warmth of this bathtub, with you leaning against me.”

I was rarely at a loss for words, but in that moment, I couldn’t find anything that could be a suitable reply to that.

Dylan,
I reminded myself fiercely, ordering myself to feel nothing. As if it were that easy to control my emotions.
You are only here because of Dylan.

Alexander:

There was a car in the driveway, but I hauled out a couple of old bicycles that evening. “Come on,” I said, grinning at the stupefied expression on her face. “Let’s go grab a glass of wine in the village.”

“On a cycle?” she asked, sounding surprised. “I thought you’d take the Ferrari out.”

I shot her a look and she had the grace to look embarrassed. “I wandered through the place exploring this afternoon when you had to take those phone calls,” she said. “I’m sorry. I thought you said you didn’t have a Ferrari when I asked you about your keychain.”

“That’s not what I said,” I corrected her. “I said it was a long story.” I would have preferred it entirely, but her question had inadvertently brought the memories back…  

***

It is a year after the suicide attempt. My aunt has concealed the news from my father. I haven’t been to visit him since the day she revealed the truth. I can’t. What can I possibly say?

He doesn’t know that everything has changed.

Every year, though he’s never visited, the gifts have been lavish on my birthday. When I was younger, I had hoped for his attention instead. Now, the idea of seeing him abhors me.

Eighteen is a milestone birthday. In France, it also the age when one can officially drive, so my father sends me a Ferrari. A top-of-the-line race car for a teenager.

Last year, I would have been thrilled with his present. I am a teenager, after all. However, this year, the car holds no appeal. I just want to escape and forget.

He thinks he can buy me. This car, just like every other present in the past, is meant to buy my loyalty. It is the first time I realize the value of money and the advantages it can bring.

Six months later, the official paperwork to change my name is completed. My father gets the message. He phones me and I can feel his rage pour out in waves through the line. “Do you think it’s that easy to make your way through the world? I will disown you.”

At those words that cut me loose, my heart gladdens for the first time since my aunt has told me the truth. “Do what you will,” I reply. My voice is indifferent. He doesn’t know that his money is irrevocably tainted. I will never touch it.

I leave Provence after that conversation, but not to college, like I had originally planned. In the last year, another plan has been made. To combat the horrors of my father, I must steep myself in violence.

I become a soldier-for-hire. When I’m not working, I’m at the target range or at the gym. Learning skills and building strength.

I start playing the stock market. I make money. I’m aggressive and reckless and above all, I’m lucky. I make more money. The first million is difficult. The next few are not. It is, after all, quite easy for the rich to become richer.

The car stays locked up in the garage in Provence.

The years pass. My fortunes rise and my father’s fortunes fall. My aunt dies. Through all of it, the car sits and gathers dust. I never once insert the key into the ignition. I will never drive it.
 

***

“I don’t use the car,” I replied. “I have some unpleasant memories associated with it that I’d prefer to forget.”

She didn’t look satisfied with that answer and uncharacteristically, I elaborated. “My father bought it for me when I turned eighteen,” I clarified. “It wasn’t a gift as much as an attempt to buy love.”

“It must have been nice to be rich,” she responded wistfully. “When I turned sixteen, my mother gave me a hundred bucks. I took that money and my savings from four years of odd-jobs and I bought a beat-up Taurus. That thing was a death-trap. You could see the road underneath because bits of the floor had rusted through. I could have used a Ferrari.”

“Is that what you believe?” I asked her. “Do you think money buys you some kind of protection from harm?”

“I do,” she said, her jaw set in a stubborn tilt. “Alicia needs money to live, remember?”

I ignored the fake cover story. “I know it seems that way to you,” I responded. “But money is a tool. It can be used for good, but it can also be used to control a person. My father wanted me to fall into line, so he sent the car.” I shrugged. “It didn’t work.”

“How much is it worth?”

“I have no idea,” I replied.

“And it’s just sitting there? You should sell it and donate the money to a charity.”

I looked at her, embarrassed. “You know, I’ve never once thought of that?” Inwardly, I smiled. The gesture of generosity would drive my father insane. “What cause would you support,
cherie
?”

She had a sad look in her eyes. “Can you give it to a domestic violence shelter?”

That seems fitting.
He had caused so much pain, and would serve as a tiny measure of atonement. Yet so much still remained to be done. “I will,” I promised her.