Freeing Her (Irresistibly Bound Book 4)

by Stone, Anna

  Eve’s thighs quivered around Faith’s head. “Yes. I’m so close.”

  She rose up into Faith, her whole body shaking as she came hard and fast. Her mouth fell open, but she didn’t make a sound. Faith didn’t stop until Eve’s hand slid limply from her neck.

  Faith looked up at Eve. Her head was tipped over the back of her hair, her eyes glazed over.

  “Get up here,” she murmured.

  Faith stood up, her knees aching and her legs tingling as blood rushed back into them. Eve grabbed Faith’s arm and pulled her down onto her lap, planting a lazy, lingering kiss on her lips.

  Faith smiled. “So, how did I do? Did that help you relax?”

  “It certainly did.” Eve then cupped Faith’s cheek in her hand. “It makes me wish I didn’t have to get back to work.”

  “Do you really have to?” Faith asked.

  “I do. I didn’t ask you to come here so I could get you out of your panties. That was a bonus. I really did forget that drive.”

  Reluctantly, Faith got up from Eve’s lap. “And I’m glad you forgot it.”

  Eve planted a playful spank on Faith’s ass cheek and handed over her panties. As Faith slipped into them, Eve put her blouse back on and straightened out the rest of her clothes.

  She pulled Faith in for one last smoldering kiss, which drew on and on until Eve pushed Faith away. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “Don’t be late.”

  Faith said goodbye and left Eve’s office. There were still a few people around, so Faith tried her hardest not to betray the fact that she’d just had her mouth between their boss’s thighs. Her head was still spinning from the thrill of it all.

  And yet, it fell short of what Faith truly wanted from Eve. She was starting to understand what it was now, that elusive something she hadn’t been able to articulate. She wanted more than these erotic games. She wanted to give Eve so much more, wanted Eve to take so much more of her.

  She wanted true surrender, the kind that only Eve could give her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  F aith opened Leah’s door a crack and peered through it. Just like Ethan, she was sound asleep. Eve had put them to bed ten minutes earlier before retiring to her office. She’d asked Faith to check on them before she left.

  Faith shut Leah’s door and headed downstairs. She was done for the day, but she didn’t want to go home yet. She longed to steal a moment with Eve, even though they couldn’t do anything but talk.

  She sighed. That was how it was between them now. When they were in the house, they were strictly boss and employee. They had slipped a few times with a hurried kiss, or teasing touch, or whispered word. And every one of those moments filled Faith with an unquenchable thirst.

  As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard a loud crash. It had come from the back of the house. Faith rushed down the hall, calling out Eve’s name. Eve didn’t answer her. But as she got closer, she heard Eve cursing from her office. Faith hurried toward the sound .

  She found Eve standing in front of her desk. Faith breathed a sigh of relief. Eve was unhurt. However, everything that had been on top of the desk lay scattered across the floor, and Eve’s face was clouded over with anger.

  “Eve?” Faith entered the room tentatively. She’d never seen Eve like this before. “Is everything all right?”

  “That bastard,” Eve spat. “I can’t believe he’s doing this. He didn’t even have the decency to tell me himself.”

  Faith didn’t have to ask who ‘he’ was. There was only one man who Eve spoke of with such disdain. “What’s happened?”

  “I just got a phone call from my lawyer. Harrison’s lawyer informed her that he’s decided to petition for sole custody. He’s trying to take the kids from me.”

  Faith’s stomach dropped. “Eve, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all because I went back to work and hired a nanny. He claims he’s doing this because he doesn’t want the twins to be raised by a stranger.” The muscles in Eve’s neck tightened. “He said I’ve abandoned my duties as a mother.”

  “That’s not true at all.” From the moment Faith had started working for her, it had been clear that Eve was dedicated to raising the twins herself. She had Faith take care of the practical things so she could take care of everything that mattered. Faith might be the one who took them to music lessons, but Eve made a point of going to all their recitals. It was Faith’s job to get the twins ready for bed, but it was Eve who tucked them in and read them a bedtime story every single night. And since Eve and Faith’s conversation about Leah, her attentiveness to the children’s needs had only grown. Eve had followed through with her promise to stop pushing Leah so hard, and their relationship had only gotten stronger.

  “The truth doesn’t matter to him,” Eve said. “And if he gets custody, it’s not going to be him who raises them. They’ll end up brought up by servants. Or worse, his mother, who will fill their heads with toxic ideas.”

  “You can fight this, can’t you?” Faith asked.

  “Of course. But this is going to be a dirty, drawn-out fight. He has the best lawyers money can buy. So do I, but my funds aren’t infinite. Most of my money is in my firm. He has all his family supporting him, and you bet their ass they’re going to help him.” Eve’s jaw set. “It’s always been me against them. And now they’ve made it their mission to take the twins away from me.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Faith said. “You’ll get through this.”

  “I can’t lose the twins,” Eve said. “They’re my everything. Harrison knows that. And he knows that cutting me out of their lives isn’t what’s best for them. I know he does.”

  Faith felt a pang of sympathy. Although it had always been clear there was no love lost between Eve and Harrison, it seemed that Eve hadn’t expected Harrison to do something so extreme.

  “He wasn’t always like this.” Eve’s voice took on a bitter tone. “When we met, back in college, he was different. Kinder. I had no reason to believe he’d turn out to be the man he was. His family was the same. When I first met them, they all seemed lovely, if not a little old-fashioned and traditional. All old-money families are like that. Mine is too, although my parents aren’t as extreme as his. They supported me going to college and making a career for myself, even if they did expect me to get married and have children one day. I wanted that for myself too. I always wanted to be a mother, and in this day and age I thought I’d never have to choose between having children and a career.”

  Eve leaned back against her desk and crossed one ankle over the other. “But Harrison’s family felt differently. As soon as we got married, they started pressuring us to have children. I wasn’t ready back then. I’d finished business school, and I was moving up the ladder at my job, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that. He supported me at first. But as time passed, his family wore him down and he started pressuring me too.” She shook her head. “I should have seen that as the red flag it was. But slowly, they all began to wear me down. Eventually, I agreed to start a family with Harrison, just as long as it didn’t mean giving up my career. Harrison knew that. He understood that. Or at least, I thought he did at the time.”

  Faith thought back to the conversation between the two of them that she’d eavesdropped on. Harrison hadn’t seemed like the supportive type at all.

  “The truth became clear when I was pregnant,” Eve said. “I ended up in the hospital for several months with serious complications. I almost lost the twins at one point.” Her voice wavered. “It was then that Harrison suggested that for the twins’ sakes, I needed to give up my career and dedicate my life to raising them. I was so emotional over almost losing the twins that I agreed. And I convinced myself that it would be enough. That the twins, my family, would be enough. But it wasn’t.”

  She looked at Faith, a hint of guilt in her eyes. “Don’t get me wrong. I find being a mother so fulfilling. But I needed something more in my life to feel whole. So when the twins were old enough, I told Harrison I wan
ted to go back to work. He said no. I tried to compromise. Said I’d work part-time, and we could have his mother look after the twins or hire a nanny. But he outright forbade it. It should have been a wake-up call for me, but with everything I was going through, I couldn’t see what was right in front of my face.”

  Eve trailed off. Faith could hear the pain in her words. Was there something more there? Something Eve couldn’t bring herself to speak about?

  “It took a while, but in the end, I came to my senses,” Eve said. “I separated from Harrison temporarily, and after only a few weeks, I knew that I couldn’t stay with him any longer, so I ended things. That was years ago, but the divorce dragged out, and this custody battle has just dragged out even longer. I thought our negotiations were finally getting somewhere, but this nightmare never ends.”

  “Oh Eve.” Faith took Eve’s hand in both of hers. “I’m so sorry you went through all that. And I’m sorry things are still this hard.”

  “I’m not sorry. There was one good thing that came out of it. Two actually. Leah and Ethan. I’d do it all again for them.” Her hand tightened in Faith’s. “I won’t let Harrison take them. His family is capable of terrible things, and I won’t let them get their claws into the twins. If they think I’m going to roll over, they’re wrong. I’m going to fight this.”

  “And I’ll be right here if you need me,” Faith said. “Even if you just want to talk. I’m here for anything.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.” Eve pushed herself up to sit on the top of her desk. “This all seems like a bad dream. I don’t know what I’d do without the twins. For so long, my whole life, my whole identity, has been being a wife and mother.”

  “You’re not going to lose the twins. And you’re plenty of things besides a wife and a mother.”

  “I’m trying to be.” Eve sighed. “I’m far too old to still be finding myself.”

  “I don’t think finding yourself stops at a certain age.” Faith sat on the desk next to her. “Isn’t it just something we’re all constantly trying to do?”

  “Does that include you?” Eve asked.

  “Of course.”

  Eve studied Faith. “You don’t seem the type to worry about that kind of thing. Who you are. Your place in the world. Your purpose in life. You’ve always seemed so free-spirited. So carefree.”

  “I think about that stuff a lot. And I’m not carefree.” If only Eve knew how much Faith had agonized over their secret relationship. “My identity is something I’ve struggled with my whole life. I grew up in a traditional, religious family. My parents, they expected me to be this devout, virtuous woman who followed all their rules, from what I wore, to who I’d marry one day.” That was who , not if . Faith had never had a choice in the matter. “In the end, I just couldn’t be this person they wanted me to be, so I left that life behind. I left my family behind.” The reality was far more dramatic, but Faith didn’t want to go into detail.

  “That must have been difficult,” Eve said.

  “It was. But I got through it. And here I am.” Faith looked at Eve. “I know what it’s like, to be expected to live a life that isn’t your own, to be shoved in a box you don’t fit into. And I know how hard it is to try to move on from that, to figure out who you are when everything you know has been torn away from you. It’s been almost eight years since then, and I’m still trying to figure myself out.”

  Eve gave her a soft smile. “We have more in common than I thought.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand. It felt good to be able to support Eve in the tiniest way. For all their kinky games and dirty talk, Faith really cared about Eve. And after working for the family for so long now, Faith had come to know the twins so well too. Eve losing the twins, the twins losing their mother, would be a terrible outcome. It pained her to think of the turmoil Eve was in.

  Eve looked down at the floor where the contents of her desktop were scattered. “I need to clean this up.”

  “I’ll help,” Faith said.

  “No. This mess is because of my tantrum. I’ll deal with it. You should go home. You’ve been here since morning.”

  “Okay. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “There is one thing,” Eve said. “What Harrison is doing, it changes things. The stakes are higher now. It makes it even more important that I be on my best behavior. We can’t have anyone finding out about us now. What we did in my office was far too risky.”

  “You’re right.” Faith felt a tightness in her chest. “If things between us are causing problems for you, maybe we should stop.”

  Eve shook her head. “That’s not what I want. We just need to be even more careful about keeping everything under wraps.”

  Faith felt a wave of relief. “Okay.” Although she was glad to take a step back if it made things easier for Eve, the thought of giving up on what the two of them had made her heart ache.

  “Fortunately, we still have options when it comes to seeing each other,” Eve said. “There’s a place we can go where no one will ever dare to out us.”

  “Where’s that?” Faith asked.

  Eve smiled. “How do you feel about a night at Lilith’s Den?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  F aith held up a slinky black dress in front of herself in the mirror. She frowned. It was too plain. She needed something more daring. More risqué.

  She tossed it onto her bed and started rifling through her closet again. In just a few hours, she and Eve were returning to Lilith’s Den. They were finally going to get a chance to be together openly. Eve had told Faith that there was an unwritten rule in the BDSM community, that outing anyone was unforgivable. The rules of Lilith’s Den added that extra layer of privacy. What happened at Lilith’s stayed at Lilith’s.

  Faith let out a wistful sigh. They were going back to the place where it all began for her. The place that had awakened Faith to all kinds of unexpected pleasures. The place where Faith had discovered a side of her boss that she never expected.

  But that wasn’t all that made tonight special. Up until now, everything between her and Eve had felt like a game. So far, Faith had only dipped her toes into the world of submission.

  Would she finally get that taste of surrender she yearned for tonight?

  Faith wanted tonight to be perfect. Which meant she had to look perfect. She drew her fingers through her hair. Earlier in the day, she’d dyed it a darker brown to compliment her look for the night. She’d felt the need to do something different with her hair. She usually changed it whenever she was feeling restless. And she was definitely feeling restless today, mostly in a good way.

  She pulled a short leather skirt out of her closet along with a dark red blouse with a neckline in the shape of a deep V. The low cut meant Faith couldn’t wear a bra with it, but that wasn’t a disadvantage. She held it up before herself in the mirror. Yes. This was it. With some fishnet stockings, a pair of heels, and lipstick in her favorite shade of red, it would be the perfect outfit. One look at her, and Eve wouldn’t be able to resist doing all those dirty things she’d threatened Faith with.

  Faith hung the outfit up on the door of her closet, then sat down on her bed. She still had an hour before she had to start getting ready. Perhaps it was time to deal with the problem that had been plaguing her for weeks now. She still hadn’t heard from her sister. Had something happened to her? Had Abigail’s letters with Faith been discovered? There were so many possibilities, each worse than the last.

  As much as she worried about her sister, there was a selfishness behind Faith’s concerns. She didn’t want to lose the one connection she still had to her past. Despite what she’d told Eve, Faith hadn’t entirely let go of her old life. It was hard for her to admit it, but she longed for what she’d left behind, what she’d given up. Purpose. Meaning. Family. Love. It didn’t make sense. Her family had turned their back on her. They’d shown her that their love had strings. And yet, Faith still missed them.

 
; She grabbed her phone and dialed her aunt’s number. Faith’s aunt Hannah had taken her in after she’d left her family home at sixteen. Hannah had sympathized with her young niece, having done the same thing herself. At ten years older than Faith, Hannah had been something of a big sister to her. Faith had needed one at the time. After her sheltered upbringing, the real world had been a shock. Without Hannah, Faith would have been lost.

  Hannah answered the phone. “Faith. It’s so good to hear your voice. It’s been a while.”

  “Hi, Hannah.” Faith felt a pang of guilt. Since moving to the city for college, Faith and Hannah only saw each other once or twice a year. They used to speak on the phone at least once a week, but over time, Faith had gotten lazy when it came to keeping in touch. “Sorry I haven’t called in so long.”

  “It’s fine. How are you?”

  “I’m good. I found a job.”

  Faith told Hannah about her new job, leaving out the part about her and Eve having a secret relationship. Although Hannah was nowhere near as conservative as the rest of their family, Faith doubted she’d approve, mostly because Eve was Faith’s boss.

  “Sounds like things are going well for you,” Hannah said. “So you’re staying out of trouble?”

  Faith rolled her eyes. “I’m not sixteen anymore.” Back then, Faith had gotten into trouble constantly. She’d had a difficult time adjusting to her newfound freedom.

  “How’ve you been?” Faith asked. “How are the kids?”

  “They’re great.” Hannah filled Faith in on her life. Although she’d been single when Faith had lived with her, Hannah was married with kids now. Faith had no intention of ever getting married or living such a conventional life, but she envied the family Hannah had built for herself.

  “So,” Hannah said. “Is there a reason you called? I feel like you want to ask me something.”