Freed

by Stacey Kennedy

  A woman in her sixties, sitting in the chair across from Mary, said, “My husband died two years ago. I haven’t been able to move on. Some days it’s hard to get out of bed.”

  Looking at the tired eyes of the woman, Mary’s heart ached. For so long she remembered looking at herself in the mirror and seeing those damned eyes. Eyes that belonged to a woman who had lost her second half, lost the part of her that made everything make sense.

  The therapist, Helen, smiled. “It’s all right that you feel lost sometimes. This group is about friends and about healing. We all understand what you’re going through. We’ve all been there.” She turned to Mary. “Since it’s your first visit, Mary, would you like to share something with us?”

  Mary looked down at her fingers, which she’d twined in her lap. She wanted to be honest, not only with the crowd but with herself. Through the years she’d been doing her best not to think about the night Charles had left her, but now she again allowed the memory of Charles’s final night to return.

  The eerily quiet hospital room surrounded Mary as she sat on the edge of the hospital bed beside Charles. She fought her misery, trying to remain Charles’s source of strength. She had never broken down in his presence. At first she held on to the hope that he’d recover, but now she wanted to give him an end that he deserved—one full of love, not fear and dismay.

  Charles’s features were filled with pain behind the haze of the medication. “I’ll miss your smile.”

  She bit back the emotion threatening to come out of her throat in a scream. God, she’d miss his smile, too. She’d miss everything about him. Her chin quivered, reminding her that her world was crumbling around her and she could do nothing to stop it. She dropped her head onto his chest, releasing the pain bottled up inside of her, and shared the part of her soul that was breaking.

  She could speak of how much she loved him, but he already knew, and she’d said it a thousand times over through their years together. Her submission to him proved that time and time again. Only one thought captured her: “How do I go on without you?”

  Not only would his absence be hard, but her life had surrounded his medical treatment. She’d lived and breathed his cancer for more than twenty months. Everything revolved around getting him better. Even as a doctor herself, she’d failed to do that. She had no idea how to pick up the pieces and continue on.

  “Dmitri has promised to look after you financially.” Charles’s voice lowered, strained, and sounded so weak. “You have the world at your fingertips. Do whatever your heart desires and never stop.”

  “I don’t want the money.” She hardened her voice, hating the world, hating fate, hating cancer. “I want you, Charles. I’ll give everything I have, want for nothing more, if I can have a few more days.” Hours even, to hold him, to talk to him, to hear the sound of his heartbeat. Yet the pause between his breaths told her she controlled nothing.

  “Promise me that you’ll continue to live.” His breath hitched and then sounded raspy from his throat. “You’ll live out my dreams and you’ll honor me by being happy.” The heart-rate monitor slowed, the beeps came farther apart, and Charles’s breath grew shallower. “Promise me.”

  The years they had together weren’t long enough. She needed a lifetime with him, longer than their twenty-year marriage. She needed more time to see his smile, to experience the ways he loved her and made her feel special.

  She needed his Dominant touch.

  He panted through the force of his chest rising, yet it also sounded labored. “Promise me.”

  “I…” Drawing in a sharp breath, she stood and watched his chest rise and fall, so hard. She couldn’t continue with useless wishes. He was dying. Nothing she could do would stop the inevitable. And she’d give him the promise he sought, to see him off as he deserved.

  Placing her head back on his chest, she took his hands and cradled them to her heart, unable to watch his end. “I promise, Charles. I promise to love you now, forever, and always. And I promise to live each day for you.”

  His chest beneath her head quivered, a soft gasp of air escaped his mouth, and then he went still. Mary couldn’t look. She didn’t want to see the life stolen from his eyes and merely stayed against his body for one last time.

  Her sobs filled the hospital room as she cried against the cruelty they’d been handed. Death shouldn’t have stolen a man like Charles. A man with a good soul who lived every day as if he were grateful for the right. A husband who made her feel special to be at his side.

  Through her cries, she heard the final whoosh of air from his lungs, and that’s when he took her heart with him.

  With tears in her eyes, Mary remained in the moment, unable to raise her head. She realized, for the first time ever, that she and Charles had broken promises to each other. He couldn’t possibly keep the promise that he’d always be there for her. She had forgotten the promise she had made to him…to honor him by being happy and living life to the fullest without him.

  She wiped her tears, knowing she hadn’t wanted to talk to the group tonight, only listen. In fact, now she recognized she hadn’t talked at all about the loss of Charles.

  Not one single time.

  Her sister and her children didn’t understand what she suffered, as no one knew the inner workings of their D/s relationship. Yet she found that the women in this room would understand her more than most; they all had similar stories to her own, only theirs were about vanilla relationships.

  As she spoke, her heart opened and eyes shut. “I see my husband everywhere. I see him in our children. I see him in our house. Even if he’s been gone for over four years, I see him all around me.” Her chest constricted with emotion, yet she pushed on, knowing it was the only thing that would save her now. “There are times I feel his touch, even though I know he’s not there. I experience memories of him as if they are real. I hear the way he used to whisper things to me.”

  Even now it was as if his arms were wrapped around her, and somehow her mouth kept moving as her soul poured through her words. “I remember when he’d make me feel safe, like nothing could ever come between us.” Tears welled behind her eyes and her breath hitched on a sob. “He broke his promise to me. His promise to always be there. To always keep me safe. To always love me.”

  She opened her eyes, discovering that she’d been talking for some time, and raised her head. All eyes were focused on her. In an instant, she regretted her words, wondering if she’d said too much to a vanilla crowd.

  While they could relate to her on the level of a woman who loved a man, they couldn’t relate to how deeply that ran with a submissive and her Dominant. “I’m sorry,” she said with a sniff, wiping her eyes. “I miss him.”

  Helen gave a sweet smile. “It seems like you two had something very special. We can all relate to that. It’s why it’s hard to move on. But we need to find a way to stop mourning, cherish the memories, and learn to live in the moment again.”

  Helen’s advice stopped Mary’s tears, freezing her in her seat. During her final conversation with Charles, when she lay beside her Dom, she remembered hearing something so similar to what Helen had said.

  The nurse shut the door behind her, and Mary knew she had only minutes before the morphine kicked in and Charles would fall asleep. Yet she cherished every second she had. She sat on the edge of the hospital bed, holding his hand in hers and relishing the warmth of his touch.

  “I worry for you, my darling,” Charles whispered. “Promise me you will go on without me.”

  “How can I?” She raised her head, tears running like cold fingers down her face. “Nothing will be the same without you. My world is nothing without you in it.”

  He raised his hand as if he wanted to touch her face, but wasn’t able to complete the movement without Mary’s help. As she gently guided it to her cheek, he explained, “It’s you who have made our life. The one who makes this world what it is…not me.”

  She shook her head, her vision blurred from her t
ears. “That’s not true.”

  His fingers twined with hers and a once-strong hold now barely held hers. “I want you to promise you won’t always mourn me, but that you’ll cherish what we had and never stop living.”

  An impossible promise.

  She couldn’t imagine what her life would be without Charles. Her two sons and her daughter would not have their father. She would not have her husband. How to take a step forward and continue with a life that worked only with him in it? “I promise that I’ll never forget you.”

  Twice now she’d heard the same thing—that she needed to continue to live. Once from Charles and now from Helen, but the advice finally sank in past her pain. She’d been so consumed that Charles had left her, she never saw that they both had made promises they could not keep. That her promise to Charles when he collared her, and even when they were married: That only he owned her soul was a promise she couldn’t keep. And she knew, deep down, she deserved all the things she once dreamed of having—with or without Charles.

  She remembered his words as if he was saying them now. Remembered all the pain she had experienced in his final hours during those last conversations they had had. Her tears kept flowing, as for the first time since he passed she heard what he had told her that night.

  Tears filled Charles’s eyes and then one escaped down his face so slowly, as if even the tear didn’t have the strength to fall. “I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you. I’m sorry I broke my promise to always be there for you.”

  “You haven’t disappointed me, don’t think that way.” She caressed his cheeks, feeling bones beneath her fingers and cold skin. “You could never disappoint me.”

  He sighed, and the light brown depth of his eyes filled with regret. “I wish I had more time…”

  She could’ve said the same, screamed to the heavens demanding more time to love Charles, but what would it do? It’d only give Charles a world of guilt that she didn’t want him to hold in his heart. She didn’t want him to take negative feelings with him when he passed.

  “I wanted forever,” she said on a sob. “I wanted to grow old with you and sit on the porch watching the sunset as our grandchildren ran around the yard.”

  “You can still have those dreams,” he whispered.

  She shook her head, the sight of him blurring with her tears. “Not with you.”

  “No, not with me, but with someone.” His voice was so soft, so weak. “You’re young, my love. Another man will take you into his arms and give you the life I couldn’t.”

  Her voice cracked. “How can you say that?”

  He grunted as he forced his hand up and brushed the trailing tears of her cheek with the lightest of touches. “Because I know you would be saying the same thing to me and wanting me to be happy. I want those same dreams for you, even if it’s not with me. I want you to find love again; don’t deny yourself that.”

  Her breath strained through her tight throat. “There will only be you. Always you.”

  Sadness darkened his eyes. “You feel that way now, but you won’t always—”

  “Never,” she interrupted him. “I’ll never feel what we’ve shared again.”

  He chuckled, a whisper of his adoration she’d never forget. His features warmed beneath the coldness of death taking him. “And that’s why I love you. You’re loyal and hold the sweetest heart.”

  “My heart belongs to you,” she replied in an instant.

  He drew in a long, shaky breath and his expression pinched in pain. “I know it does, but there is room for someone else in there, too.”

  “No. Never.” She didn’t understand why he said these things. She didn’t want him pushing her away. No, she wanted him to say that somehow this could all be fixed. She depended on him. She needed him here. No one could ever replace her Dom. “There will never be anyone else, only you.”

  His gaze, though pained, shone with agony that was soul deep. “Nothing would break my heart more.”

  Mary wiped the tears off her cheeks, knowing she cried because Charles’s heart would be broken now. To see her there, in this place and still mourning him more than four years later, and also wishing for things she couldn’t change, he would be devastated for her.

  She examined the women around her, as Helen continued to give advice to the group, all of whom had tears in their eyes. She wondered if she’d touched their hearts when she spoke, quite possibly gotten to the root of their pain. As she continued to scan the faces around her, a sudden clarity filled her mind.

  I don’t belong here.

  Charles would never want this. So many years after his death, he would be heartbroken to see her in this place, talking to others about how much she missed him, still wishing and hoping that he’d come back to her. We have one life to live, Mary, let’s live it right, Charles had said to her when he proposed.

  Since he’d left her, so much time had passed.

  She’d spent years of not truly living, but coasting with all her emotions closed off so as to be strong for others. Now that barrier was gone. She knew she had shut down, refusing to feel anything, knowing how much it hurt. She’d gone as far as to shut out every single friend of Charles’s, as it’d been too hard to see them, and she’d even done that to Dmitri for a long time.

  She wasn’t broken any longer, or at least she didn’t feel that way now. Only gratefulness touched her.

  Once she’d had a man that measured up to no one. A man who had given her a life of happiness she never thought she’d have. A man who had gifted her with more love in not only his touch, but in the children they had together.

  Charles and she had their time.

  Time that she’d never have again.

  Time that she would never forget.

  Though there was another man who made her feel all of what Charles had. One man who stirred that quivering sensation inside her that made her body awaken and freed her mind. A man who made her feel as though she was meant to be on this earth to make more than herself happy. That she could give to someone else in the way that she needed to be given.

  A man that made her feel alive.

  Elliott…

  “Mary, do you feel sometimes as if you’re alone?” Helen asked.

  She snapped out of her thoughts, replying without really thinking about it first. “Alone, no. Lonely, yes.”

  Helen smiled. “You have us now. You can come to these meetings whenever you need to talk or to share how you’re feeling.”

  Mary looked from sad woman to sad woman, and something in that knowledge didn’t make her feel good. No one knew her in this room. Not truly her. Not a single person understood her lifestyle and what she needed, as a submissive, to be centered.

  Her grief and sadness hadn’t led her to be surrounded by people who loved her. It led her into a room of strangers. Why am I choosing this life? She chose loyalty to Charles over her happiness, even when Charles, her Dom, had ordered her to do exactly the opposite. She wasn’t being loyal to him, not in the way he would’ve wanted. She was being loyal in the way her heart thought it needed to be.

  Charles would want her to be loved, and he definitely would be happy to know that she was being cared for by a Dom, who gave her everything she needed and more.

  Elliott was a lot like Charles.

  Their connection was very similar to what she had with her old Dom.

  That’s what made it so special.

  Though she realized the differences, too: Elliott wasn’t Charles.

  As Mary scanned the expressions of misery around her, she knew with total certainty she did belong…just not here with these women. She rose from her chair and headed for the exit. “I’m sorry, I must go.”

  “Are you okay?” Helen called after her.

  Mary glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “You know, for the first time in years, I actually think I am.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  A few minutes after nine o’clock on Saturday evening, Elliott leaned against the brown leather chair
and sipped his scotch on the rocks. Tonight he wanted to be anywhere but at the play party. A day had passed since he’d sent Mary the flowers, but he hadn’t heard from her. While he had hoped she’d taken his advice and gone to the widow’s group this morning, he also sensed the slide of disappointment that their support hadn’t led her into his arms.

  Needing silence, he rose from his chair, leaving the sensual sounds behind him and ignoring the naked bodies delighting in erotic adventures. He entered the patio and inhaled the rich scents of the greenery around him, embracing the warm air. He hadn’t played since his last night with Mary, and he sensed the strain within himself. It’d been years since he hadn’t had his Dominant needs met at his parties.

  That was the very reason he arranged the parties, to ensure that that side of his cravings was satisfied. He worked better and was happier if his Dom was fulfilled. A long sigh escaped his mouth as he moved toward the corner of the dark patio.

  Beneath a gas-lit lantern, he took a seat on the wicker chair, staring out at the stunning Vegas strip lit up in its glory. He took a sip of the scotch, letting the woodsy taste sit on his tongue and leaning his head against the wall.

  Soon the party would be over.

  Then he could go home.

  As the cool liquid slid down his throat, a scuffing noise caught his attention. He looked ahead of him, and his gaze drank in the sight of Mary. Her dark hair was curled, hanging over her shoulders of creamy skin. A black lace teddy covered the slender frame on top of dark stockings.

  He swallowed deeply as Mary held his stare, standing only a foot away. The original strength he’d seen inside her shone in her beautiful dark eyes, only this time it was different…potent.

  With a sensual slowness, she slid one spaghetti strap off her shoulder. Then she repeated the move with the other, and within a breath the fabric fluttered to the ground. Elliott’s shoulders straightened as she exposed her naked body to him.

  Desperation filled him to examine the stomach she’d hidden from him, but for now he lifted his focus to her eyes, which were surrounded by dark makeup. Her features held confidence and that bit of sass that had originally snagged him.