Drake Restrained: A Novella in the Unrestrained Series (The Drake Restrained Series) (6 page)

The waitress came and brought my order – tomato soup and a toasted BLT. I waited for her to leave and then shook my head.

"If I do, I'll move on."

"Just like that?  You'll move on."

"Yes. I like exploring with a new sub. I want someone pretty vanilla but with a need for domination. Someone into power exchange, but not pain. You know what I like."

“Yes, I do.” Lara sat back in her chair and watched me dig in to my BLT. "I may have someone for you. Two students I met during a seminar I gave on finding a Dom. Neither of them are very extreme and have no real desire for pain, but both expect to be spanked, hair pulled, and one likes hot wax."

I considered. "Send me links to their photos and profiles on FetLife."

After my last surgery of the day was finished and I'd done rounds to check on how my patients were doing, I went directly to the health club a few blocks from the hospital, where I worked out several times a week.

While in the locker room, I saw Ethan McDermott, Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, and my father's oldest and best friend from Vietnam. After I finished tying my shoes, I went to where he sat with another man.

"Judge McDermott," I said, wanting to show him deference, despite being very familiar with him. "How are you?"

He turned to me and a wide smile broke out on his face.

"Well, young man, how are you?" He stood and held out a hand and we shook. He was shorter than me, greying with heavy jowls and bright blue eyes. He turned to the other man, who looked to be in his fifties as well. "George, this is Drake Morgan –
Doctor
Morgan, the son of my old buddy in the Marines. His dad and I were in 'Nam together at the tail end of the war. Drake, this is Justice George Smart, one of my colleagues."

A round of handshakes took place and then Ethan turned to me, eyeing me carefully.

"What have you been up to since I last saw you? Been keeping busy with surgery? Teaching any classes?"

I nodded. "Robotic surgery," I said. "I'm keeping out of trouble. How's everything with you? Your family doing well, I hope?"

"Just fine. Elaine is planning our vacation over Thanksgiving. I'm busy with campaign business, as you can imagine."

"Where are you going over Thanksgiving? I'm presenting a paper in the Bahamas at a convention."

"Elaine wants something tropical."

"The Bahamas are great. Keep it in mind. And how's Heath?"

Ethan's only son, Heath was a lawyer like his father, but specialized in corporate law. Rather quiet instead of outgoing like Ethan, but obviously on the same career path. "Heath's doing well. Been busy in Haiti on and off. Reconstruction work. That sort of thing."

"How's Katherine?" I said lightly. Katherine was the true apple of Ethan's eye. He always spoke about her with real fondness, but I still hadn't met her. She never attended any of her father's social functions or fundraisers.

Ethan had been adamant about internet security and refused to post pictures of his family online. Even though I had searched for info on Katherine, there was none to be had. Her Facebook page was friends only. I had the feeling she was still too fragile and he was protecting her from public scrutiny. There were no pictures of her online except when she was a small child in the obituary for her mother.

"She's doing well. Very well, in fact. Still working on her Masters."

"I read her work on Mangaize you sent me," I said, remembering the somber articles on Africa she wrote. "Really got me in the gut. Is she feeling better?"

Katherine had volunteered in the camps in West Africa and had been traumatized by her stay there. Her articles were published in a student-run magazine and she had won the Columbia Journalism prize for them. She'd also had a breakdown.

Ethan had spoken about her to me because of my interest in psychology and because I was a physician. I knew her history and had offered advice to him on how to handle his beloved daughter's emotional scars. Not only had her mother died the year before, but Katherine had gone to Africa during the worst days of the famine. It proved to be too soon after her mother’s death and she hadn’t really grieved fully. The two events combined led to her breakdown.

Ethan nodded, his face solemn. "She's pretty much recovered, but still laying low. Got another year of work before she's finished her degree."

I nodded. "Glad to hear she's doing better."

"Me as well," Ethan said and laid a hand on my shoulder. "Listen, I'm hosting a fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders on Friday night. You're welcome to come. I know your father's foundation did a lot with them and I'm sure you wouldn't mind forking over some of your dad's hard earned cash for a good cause."

"I'd be honored."

"Good. 6:30 until 8:00." He glanced at George. "Well, I guess I better get a move on. See you on Friday. You know the address."

"I do. See you then."

I left Ethan and went to the weight room for my workout.

That night, I tossed and turned in my bed, unable to get comfortable despite being exhausted. The discussion with Lara had raised all kinds of uncomfortable memories.

Her comment about why I needed dominance didn’t help me fall asleep either. My mother was a sore spot in my life – a bad memory from my childhood, which had always been difficult, despite the wealth and privilege. I didn’t remember any happy period when she lived with us, for she was never able to recover from the death of my brother Liam. She laid on the couch in her pajamas, watching soap operas all day or staring out the window at our back garden, her face pale, her hair a mess, the house a mess around her. My father was too busy with his career to notice, or too self-absorbed to intervene. In hindsight, it was clear that she had been depressed for years, and had neglected me, but knowing that did little to make me feel any better.

She left me when I was ten. I had a dozen nannies and babysitters in her absence, who all doted on me, but they also left. I had a string of failed relationships before I met Maureen, and maybe three years of happiness before I was swamped with work during my residency and our marriage started to suffer from neglect.

I never saw it coming when Maureen did leave me. Her words that day wouldn’t register. I heard the sounds they made, but it was like they didn’t penetrate my brain.

I’m leaving you, Drake… I can’t live with you any longer.

I don’t love you any more and I’m damn sure you don’t love me.

I don’t think you ever did.

You don’t know how to love anyone but yourself.

I spent the following month in a funk. Maureen moved out of our apartment and within a month, had moved in with Chris. She obtained a temporary restraining order to keep me from contacting her. I had to take time off from work because I couldn’t concentrate. I spent days in my sweats, drinking myself into a stupor each night in order to fall asleep. I came really close to losing my privileges at New York Presbyterian, but luckily, had a sympathetic boss.

Lara saved me from total breakdown, helping me to see that my marriage was fated to fall apart because Maureen and I were not sexually compatible. That I was a Dominant, and wouldn’t be happy unless I had someone sexually submissive as a partner.

I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to, because there was nothing I could do about the past. Now, my life was well-ordered, and everything was clear, delineated, predictable. I was in complete control of everything in my life. It was perfect.

Really.

CHAPTER FIVE

On Friday afternoon, once my last case of the day was done, I left the OR and spoke with the wife of my latest patient. After that, I dictated my notes on the procedure and looked over the cases on my slate for Monday. If I left right away, I'd get home just before seven, shower, eat a light meal, then I'd make my way to the fundraiser Ethan was hosting – one of the first Friday evenings I'd had off in … I didn't know how long.

A night off to mix and mingle with power elite in the philanthropic circles in Manhattan – maybe drum up some donations for my father's foundation. I'd leave the fundraiser, go home and change, and then we were scheduled to play at O’Riley’s at ten. A busy day and night as usual.

I was meeting Brent Jameson, a colleague of mine in Neurosurgery, for a drink after work to discuss an upcoming convention where we would both be presenting papers. We usually met at The Horn and Crown, a brew house a few blocks from the hospital and so I drove home for a quick shower and to change clothes before the fundraiser. I'd grab something to eat at the bar and then make my way to Ethan's for the event.

The Horn and Crown was a regular haunt for staff at New York Presbyterian and they had a bottle of my favorite brand of vodka – Russian, called Anisovaya. I picked up a taste for it from my father, a Sovietophile who loved all things Russian. A strident socialist, my father idealized the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, and I suspect he was actually sad when it collapsed, the Berlin Wall falling. He'd made dire predictions about lawlessness there, and they'd come true.

We disagreed on most things political. As a teenager with a penchant for Libertarianism, I did not see eye to eye with him on the subject of Russia or politics in general. I was happy to see the Soviet Union crumble. He mourned it, spending even more time on his old Russian car, a Lada, which was held together with duct tape and love.

The night the Berlin Wall fell, he poured us each a glass of Anisovaya and we shot them back. I was only thirteen but it seemed as if I graduated to being a man in my father's eyes on that night. The anise-flavored alcohol had been my favorite ever since.

When I arrived at the bar, Brent was already there. The bartender recognized me and was on top of things, pushing a shot of Anisovaya towards me.

I shot it back and sighed. While I enjoyed tequila shots now and then, and a beer or two on occasion, vodka was my drink. I ordered a martini and Brent and I caught up on things, discussing cases, and then our papers. Finally, the bartender pushed an iced martini towards me, a twist of lime as garnish just the way I liked it. I checked my cell and before I knew it, it was almost time to go to the fundraiser.

I glanced around the bar and as my gaze moved over the crowd, I caught sight of a couple of attractive young women standing at a table along the periphery of the bar next to a small dance floor. One of the two I recognized from NYP – a pretty blonde nursing student that I'd seen around during her surgical rotation.

The woman with her was brunette and on the petite side, with a nice rack. Our eyes met momentarily, and I smiled. She wasn’t my usual type, but there was something about her. An innocent look that was in direct contrast to the sexy little black dress she was wearing that barely held in her cleavage. I wondered if she was a nurse as well but I hadn't seen her around NYP.

Maybe a new nursing student. If I hadn't been in the lifestyle, I might be tempted to go over to the table, strike up a conversation with the blonde so I could meet the brunette, but that was out of the question.

Before I left the bar, I went to the washroom for a quick pit stop and bumped into the pretty brunette. She pushed the door open to the woman's washroom and knocked into me. I had to grab her to keep her from falling, because she was wearing ridiculously high leather heels and hadn't seemed to have mastered them.

"
Whoa
," I said, and caught her by the arms, pulling her against my body. "
Steady
…"

"Oh, so sorry," she said and grabbed onto my shoulders. She glanced up shyly, her cheeks reddening. "I'm not really used to these."

In that moment, I was struck by the warmth of her body, the scent from her hair, and the soft curve of her breasts pressed against my chest.

She was
delicious
.

I was probably half a foot taller than her and from my vantage point, I was able to peek down her dress and see the swell of her breasts pushed together by the tight bodice.

Now, I had admittedly fucked a lot of women in my time. Before I was married, I played around a lot, trying to figure out what sex was all about and what I liked and needed. I was married for five years and had a
lot
of sex, especially in the first few years we were together. Since I divorced, I'd had quite a few submissives, both as regular play partners and one-offs I topped at dungeon parties.

I wasn't an inexperienced teenager, but the way my body responded to her, you would have thought I hadn't had sex for months instead of a week and a half.

In that second or two I had her in my arms, her body pressed against mine, I imagined her naked, those breasts bound with thin leather straps, the leather wrapped around them so they protruded, her nipples hard and swollen. Her lips would be parted, she'd be blindfolded, and would gasp as I ran my teeth over the sensitive peaks, just a tiny bit of pain to make her aware of how soft and warm my tongue was afterwards.