Liberated Heart: Windy City Book Three Read online

  "Keep talking. What was it?" One finger circled her clit, and she jumped at the spark of electricity it caused. "Focus."

  "I wanted him to be more in control. I hated when he couldn't seem to make a decision, he'd cow to me. He couldn't even decide—mmm—what he wanted to for dinner. Ahhh." She wiggled on his lap as his fingers began to trail down her slit, opening her lips and rimming her entrance.

  "Good." He kissed her chin, then her lips. Soft pecks, not enough to satisfy her cravings. One finger pushed into her. "Now, about your disobedience. What do you think needs to be done?" Another finger entered her as his mouth closed over her nipple. How could he ask her something like that while he continued to cloud her mind with all sorts of desires and fantasies? "Answer me." He bunched the jersey up and bit down on the exposed nipple, sending a shockwave of pain through her breast.

  "I don't know," she breathed out. "I guess, a punishment?"

  "Does the idea of me punishing you turn you on?" He licked her taut nipple. "You like the idea of your man taking you to task for being a naughty girl?"

  "Oh, god…" She gripped the chair tighter as his fingers moved in and out of her, his palm brushing her clit.

  "I'll take that as a yes." He grinned. "What sort of punishment, do you think?"

  She winced at that question. She couldn't think. It was one thing to agree to a punishment, it was entirely different to sentence herself. "Whatever you think is right?" She put the ball back in his court.

  He laughed. "No, that would be too easy."

  She tried to ignore his skilled fingers. "A spanking?" She'd never been spanked before. Not as a child, and sure as hell not as an adult. It looked painful, but she'd also fantasized about them enough to wonder if it would be as erotic as she thought.

  "A spanking. Simple punishment. I was hoping to spank you today anyway, but I wanted it to be enjoyable. If I spank you now, you won't enjoy it. I promise you that. Begging me to stop won't work. I'll spank you until I think you're sorry. Not when you say you are, but when I believe you are." His fingers disappeared, and she couldn't help the disappointed sigh. "You have to agree to that. I won't do it without your agreement."

  "If I don't?"

  "Then we spend the day relaxing and watching movies." She searched his gaze. He meant it. He wouldn't touch her again, and she wanted him to touch her again. And again. And again.

  "Do you want to punish me?" The question came out soft. She hadn't meant to whisper it, but she had never been very good at hiding her feelings. Especially when he continued to look at her with such intensity, such ownership. No matter her thoughts on being punished, she didn't want to be a pity case.

  "If you were mine, really mine, you wouldn't have lasted this long without being punished. I wouldn't have allowed you to lock yourself in the bathroom. I would have dragged you out of the shower and taken my belt to you right that moment. For leaving the bedroom without permission, I would take away all of your privileges. No clothes, no phone or computer, nothing."

  She swallowed hard. His eyes told her he was being honest, and if she were to be the same, she'd have to admit his firmness turned her on like nothing else.

  "All of that?" She tried for a smile but was sure she failed.

  "I'm not an easy man. If you disobey, there are consequences. You aren't mine, not fully, but for this weekend, you are. You disobeyed. Yes, I want to punish you." He took her nipples between his fingers again, applying only half the pressure of before. "Now, answer me."

  "Yes." She nodded. If only she could close her legs, maybe he wouldn't know how wet his words just made her. She'd read plenty of accountings from submissive women who said punishments helped wipe away their guilt for their transgression, but she didn't really feel any guilt. What she had done was rude, but like he said, she wasn't really his. Maybe if she were truly his submissive, then she'd feel worse about being disobedient. At the moment, she only felt the twinge of remorse at having to spend the moments dealing with a punishment instead of eating her breakfast. But if the spanking turned her on half as much as the idea of it did, she wouldn't regret any of it.

  "Go get me a wooden spoon from the kitchen." He helped her slide off his lap, giving her a slap to her ass as she walked away. A wooden spoon? It didn't sound very sexy. It sounded more like a kinky version of I Love Lucy. She padded her way across the ceramic tiles to the drawer where she'd found the other utensils. Feeling his eyes on her, she chanced a look up at him. His lips had thinned in her absence, his hands still rested in his lap, but tension could be seen in his shoulders. "I don't like waiting, Erin."

  She went back to her search and found one that appeared to be sturdy enough not to break, but not thick enough to hurt overly much. Spoon clutched in hand, she headed back over to him. He'd pushed his chair back from the table and held out his hand. Placing the spoon in his hand, she stepped back half an inch. Now that he was armed, she wasn't as sure about the entire thing.

  "You don't look like a woman about to be punished," he mused. "You look like a woman who's never been punished before but has always craved it. So much so, you've romanticized it." The tapping of the spoon against his palm distracted her, but his sharp tone brought her back around. "Is that right?"

  She watched the spoon hit his palm again and again. "Maybe." Honesty, her only weapon.

  He chuckled. "Well, I can promise you, after this, not only will you never lock yourself in the bathroom, you'll never view a punishment in an erotic way again." He spread his legs a little and gestured for her to lay over his lap. "Over my knee." He waved his hand when she didn't move.

  Gently, he helped her over his lap. She placed her hands on the cool floor, her toes barely touching the ground on the other side of his legs. Such a sight she must be! The jersey slid up, exposing her ass to him, although she doubted he would have allowed it to remain covering her for very long. She should have looked harder for her bag. If she had panties on, she wouldn't feel so exposed. He may have already seen her naked ass, but not laid out over his lap waiting for a spanking.

  The spoon rested against her bare flesh, and she tensed. She wished he had picked something else for her punishment. He must have noticed it, because he ran the spoon across her ass. "Shhh. We’re just going to talk a minute."

  Talk? Hadn't they done that already? How much more talking did he need to do?

  "Tell me why you're here."

  Did he mean over his lap or in his house? Unsure of herself, she decided to go with the here and now. "Because I ran away from you and locked myself in the bathroom. And I left the bedroom without permission." Her voice sounded deeper. Probably because she was upside down and talking to the air beneath his chair.

  "Why did you run into the bathroom?"

  "I don't know." Her lie earned her a sharp swat. She clenched and let out a loud breath. "Because I didn't want to talk about it." She closed her eyes and tried to forget she was draped over his lap like a naughty schoolgirl.

  "Why didn't you want to talk about it?"

  Didn't they already go over this? "Because." She hissed when the spoon landed another stinging swat. Then he soothed it away with light touches.

  "What did I just tell you about hiding?"

  Another sharp slap, and another. She was breathing heavy, wishing she could sit up for this talk. "I…we aren't. I mean, after tomorrow, this all ends." She let out her biggest worry. It would be over. She'd go back to her suburban home and job, and he'd go back to playing at his club with any number of women at his disposal. True submissive women who knew what they were doing, and what they wanted.

  "When you came to the club, when you told me about your breakup and your desire to learn more about yourself, did I toss you out? Did I tell you to go find Alex and let him deal with you, or did I offer to help?"

  He had a point, but it wasn't the same thing. It wasn't that he wouldn't help, it was that he couldn't. They were a temporary thing, not long-term. He couldn't fix that.

  "You offered to help, Sir." S
he sighed. This was not like her dreams. There was no fondling or groping.

  "So the next time you start feeling overwhelmed with fear, or sadness, what should you do?"

  The discussion over one little reaction seemed so disproportional. "Tell you about it."

  "Yes. And why?"

  She wished he would just start spanking her now. It had to hurt less than this continual investigation into her psyche. "Because my worries aren't only mine anymore."

  "That's right." His fingers stroked the backs of her thighs. "When you keep your worries from me, you tell me you don't trust me to take care of you. You show disrespect to me by trying to take care of it yourself. You show me you aren't submitting to my rule, my authority and protection."

  Well…damn. He had a good point there. She had done just that. Suddenly, she didn't feel so confident that the rest of the punishment was going to go well. A sour feeling began to build in her chest.

  "And leaving the room when you were told not to unless you had permission. What do you think that said?"

  "That I don't respect your rules." She sniffled. Hanging over his lap was making her nose drip. Again, less sexy than previously thought.

  "Did you agree to submit to my rules when you came home with me last night?" The spoon ran over her thighs. "I can't hear your head shake." His voice darkened.

  "Yes, I did, Sir."

  "Good girl." Those two words. His approval sent a warm tingle through her despite the cool fear of having the spoon dangerously close to the tender curve of her ass.

  Whack! She jumped, flailing her arms out to the side, unprepared for the first bite of the spoon. She hadn't been ready. His hold tightened around her waist, and he hoisted her further onto his lap, elevating his knee until her ass was higher in the air and her toes didn't touch the ground at all.

  "Keep your hands away, or I'll have to take other precautions, and you do not want that that, my naughty girl. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Sir." She gulped in a breath and waited. And waited. When she finally relaxed enough to breath normally, the assault began. Every smack of the spoon landed on her thighs. After that, she wasn't sure where he was hitting because her entire ass burned like it was on fire. She tried to wiggle away from the spoon, but there was nowhere to go. He held onto her tight. There was no leverage with her feet off the ground, and she didn't dare move her hands to protect her ass.

  Each slap of the spoon was harder than the one before. She wondered how many spoon prints she'd have all over her ass by the time he was done.

  Each smack drilled his words into her head. She'd disrespected him, his authority, the relationship they’d begun. Even if it was only for a few days, there was a dynamic. Lines had been put in place to meet both their needs, and she'd crossed them. Tears poured down her cheeks as he continued to lay into her. He was speaking, but she could barely hear him over her own sobs.

  She wasn't sure when she'd begun to cry, or when the slight remorse in her chest had turned into full on guilt, but it had. "There you are," he said. "Now we’re getting somewhere."

  After a few more strokes of the damn spoon, a hard sob broke from her, and her body trembled.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered. She didn't think he could hear her, but he must have because he stopped. He laid the spoon on her back, then ran his fingertips over her raw bottom.

  "Shhh," he soothed while she cried. Tears dripped from her cheeks onto the floor beneath her. Her body responded to his touch and began to slowly unclench. He didn't move her from his lap. He let her cry. Her backside hurt much more than she thought it would, but the crying had more to do with her behavior than the pain.

  He let her cry like that for several minutes before he picked up the spoon and drew her up into his lap. Not wanting to face him just yet, she buried her face into his neck. True to form, he wouldn't allow it, and shrugged her from him, catching her chin in his hand.

  "You did good." He placed a chaste kiss on the tip of her nose. He smoothed the stray hairs from her face and wiped the tears from her cheeks, even as more silently fell.

  He helped her to her feet, and with his hand firmly gripping her arm, marched her to the corner of the eating area.

  "Almost done, sweet thing." He kissed her cheek and slid the handle of the wooden spoon between her lips. "Hold this in your mouth, face this corner, and hold up your shirt so I can see your ass."

  She nodded and did exactly as he said. She didn't want to stand in the corner. She wanted to be near him, to feel him and sense him. The irony of her emotions wasn't lost on her.

  "I'll be at the table. Not far. I promise." He patted her bottom lightly and walked back to the table. She could hear the chair scrape against the floor as he sat, the clanking of his fork as he ate.

  She stood in the corner, her sore backside on display for him, trying not to drool while holding the offensive spoon. She obviously had picked the wrong one. Thinner wasn't better than thicker. Maybe it would have been better if it had broken mid-spanking. No matter how much her ass hurt, how bruised her pride, only one thought continued to circle her mind: how could she walk away from him in the morning?

  Chapter 11

  Bradley sat in his home office staring out the window overlooking the backyard. The gardener had planted a new rose garden, but he wasn't looking at that. No, he was watching Erin stroll through the rows of flowers, stopping every now and then to touch and smell one she found interesting.

  Things weren't progressing the way he had planned with her. It had seemed simple enough. Show her a glimpse into his world, help her find her likes and dislikes, and send her on her way. No long-term attachment. But fuck if she hadn't wormed her way into his mind at every turn. He never expected to punish her during their weekend. A playful spanking yes, but an actual punishment? And she’d taken it so well.

  After he'd finished his breakfast, he'd released her from the corner and kissed her. It had started as a gentle kiss, but by the end, he'd been demanding, wanting to claim her. It had been hell tearing himself away. She'd just been punished. He couldn't touch her sexually. Not yet.

  He made sure she was okay. They talked a little about the spanking, she admitted the idea had been a big turn on, but the actual thing sucked. He couldn't help but chuckle at her admission. Needing a little space to work through his own feelings, he'd given her free reign of the house while he went to do some work in his office.

  While he sat at his desk contemplating what to do with her, he’d heard her in the kitchen. He peeked out his door to see what she was up to. She was cleaning up from breakfast, washing the dishes, sweeping the floors.

  Now, as he watched her in the garden, he realized there would be no letting her go home in the morning. He still maintained there would never be a long-term relationship with her or anyone else, but he wasn't ready to let her go.

  The ringing of his phone dragged him from his gawking.

  "Hey, Jerry."

  "Hey. I was just looking over the ledgers you sent over, and I think you have every right to be suspicious. Looks like those two have been running their private spending through the company."

  Bradley clenched his fist. "I figured. Any total yet?"

  "Not yet, I want to dig a bit further back, but looks like somewhere in the ballpark of a hundred grand. Each."

  "Shit. That's more than I thought."

  "The club is doing fantastic financially speaking. They were able to hide their spending because of the amount of profit coming in. I don't think your accountants did anything illegal per se, but they weren't allocating the money correctly. But they could have been going by what the owners were telling them to do."

  "I'll set up a meeting. Thanks, Jerry. I appreciate it."

  "We haven't gone over your portfolio in a while, did you want to set up a time to do that?"

  Erin walked into his office, interrupting his train of thought. The shorts and tank she'd been wearing in the garden were gone. She stood naked in his doorway.

  "Uh…sure.
I'll check my schedule and give you a call back." He kept his eyes glued to the woman sliding down to her knees only a few feet from where he sat. Whatever Jerry said, Bradley didn't hear it, he was already hanging up the phone.

  "Can I help you with something?" Her eyes met his, and a shiver ran through his body. Eye contact had always been important to him. It was his way of leashing a woman, but with her, it was more. Better. The connection between them intensified when their gazes locked.

  "I was about to ask you the same thing." Her lips curled into a mischievous grin.

  "Yes, you can." He stood from his chair and walked past her. "Follow me." He didn't look back but could feel her body close to him. He led her up the stairs to his bedroom. Pointing to the foot of the bed, he told her to kneel.

  When he returned from his closet where he kept all his toys, he found her kneeling on the bed as he'd instructed. Her palms rested face-down on her knees, her legs spread apart, giving him a perfect view of her pussy. Shoulders back, chin up, and eyes on him. Perfect.

  "You said yes to nipple clamps, right?" He held up the two clamps in his hands, letting the connecting chain dangle between them.

  Her eyes widened, and he wanted to smile, but he held firm. He stalked to her but paused when she remained silent. Taking his cue, she nodded.

  "Yes, Sir. But they look worse than I thought they would in real life."

  "I know, pet." He gave a nod and took the last few steps to the bed where she was within reach. He held the clamps up to show her. She squirmed on the bed, a small fidget, but enough for him to see her nerves. "You may not like them. If you use your safeword, I'll take them off. They will be uncomfortable, and you'll take it because I'm giving it to you. Do you understand, pet?" The word pet tingled on his tongue. He couldn't remember the last time he’d had the urge to give a submissive a pet name.