The Commitment (The Unrestrained #2) (4 page)

"If you really don't want to take me, we don't have to go but I will feel slighted."

"No,
no
," he said, shaking his head. He glanced at me as we stopped at a stoplight, his smile a bit forced. "If you really want to see it, we can drop by there now. In fact, if you want, we can do our scene there. I have quite a few
toys
…"

"I'm sorry. It's just that I'd like to see how you lived before you met me."

"No, it's fine. As to how I lived before I met you," he said and cracked a grin. "I lived like a monk most of the time. I worked at the hospital. I gave lectures at Columbia. I attended fundraisers. I played racquetball at my club. And, when I had a submissive, I went to her apartment and tied her up and fucked her. Sometimes, I went to a dungeon party or one of the local munches. That was pretty much it. I lived a bachelor's life, Kate. The Chelsea apartment is where I eat and sleep. 8
^th
Avenue is my
place
. My refuge. When I think of us, I see us there."

I smiled, glad that he thought of us at 8
^th
Avenue. It was so personal for him and we started our relationship there. I felt like he really let me
in
there, letting down his guard a bit when we were together despite his best efforts to keep me under his control.

The mention of his past Dom activity with other submissives both aroused me and made me jealous. I'd considered going to a munch – a monthly meet-up with other BDSM practitioners over a meal – but had been too shy to go on my own. If I
had
gone, would I have met Drake there? I imagined it while we drove through the city, wondering what would have happened if I'd met him completely outside of my father's realm, anonymously. Would we have found each other if it hadn't been for Lara and my father's fundraiser? Life was so filled with accidents and chance.

"How many submissives have you had?" I said, trying to sound casual.

He pursed his lips for a moment. "Eight with signed contracts."

"
Eight
?" I said, turning to him, unable to stop frowning.

He gave me a guilty smile. "That doesn't include the subs I topped at play parties. I don't know how many there were. Maybe another six or so. You have to remember," he said, sounding a bit flustered. "Lara trained me and introduced me to a number of different subs. She was helping me learn what kind of Dom I was, so I went through quite a few in the first couple of years. It’s not easy to find compatible people."

I nodded, but
still
… He'd had fourteen or more submissives in five years? I'd been with three men during that same period, and two of them were really barely out of their teens.

He reached over and took my hand in his, lifting it to his lips to kiss my knuckles.

"You don't have to be jealous. I never felt anything for them other than a desire for bondage and to dominate them sexually. They were a more rewarding way of having an orgasm than jerking off. You're completely different."

"I'm
not
jealous," I said, maybe a bit too quickly. "I'm curious. And intimidated."

He smiled quickly. "Good," he said. "A Dom is supposed to be a bit intimidating. It helps get the sub in the proper submissive state of mind. When you think of me as your partner, you should feel my equal."

"I'm really
not
your equal," I said, considering him. "You're a neurosurgeon. I haven't even had a real job yet."

He laughed at that. "
Kate..
." He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek briefly. "I'll let you in on a very well-kept secret." He focused back on the road. "Take away all the trappings of power, the accomplishments, the money, and underneath every mogul, however successful, is just a flesh and blood man. We all want the same thing, deep down."

 "What?"

He glanced at me, smirking. "Hot sex with a really great-looking babe."

"Drake!" I pulled my hand out of his and punched his shoulder playfully.

"Just kidding," he said, laughing. He grabbed my hand back and threaded his fingers through mine. "No, seriously. Men fall in love more easily than women. When I finally met you, before our meeting with Lara, I wanted to ask you out, even thought I knew it would probably only be vanilla. I'd already plotted out a way to seduce you and initiate you into my depraved ways and so learning you were the sub I was supposed to initiate into the secret world of D/s..."

"You really
were
going to try to seduce me, you bad man," I said, still amused that he and Lara were conspiring about me. "I
told
Lara that the relationship would be purely research."

"Lara thought you needed a bit of encouragement. You know," he said, sounding guilty, a half-smile cracking his lips. "Find your 'inner sub'. I was more than willing to try because I'd already thought of it. I do love a challenge. I just had to find out how to push your buttons, so to speak."

"That sounds so…" I struggled for the right word. "Machiavellian."

"Oh, it's
completely
Machiavellian. I can't lie. I
wanted
to conquer you, Ms. Bennet." He shook his head, smiling to himself. "I thought I'd have you totally under my control in no time flat. How wrong I was…"

"What do you mean?"

He just smiled, pleased with himself that he'd successfully won me over, despite my initial refusal.

"You look like the Cheshire Cat," I said, noting his amused expression, his lips curving up in a smile. "The Cheshire Cat who swallowed the canary, to mix metaphors."

"Oh, I
ate
the lovely little canary. " He glanced over at me, grinning from ear to ear. "I had her for breakfast and lunch and dinner."

"Don't get too smug." I took my hand back, my arms folded across my chest, unable to keep a grin off my own face. "You're the one who came to me in the end, professing your love. Not wanting to be parted from me ever
again
."

His grin faded and he reached over and took my hand once again. "You don't have to remind me about that. I thought I'd lost you for good. I was serious when I said I don't want us to be parted again."

"And yet, you were going to leave me, leave Manhattan and go to Kenya without even a goodbye?"

"Kate, remember what happened to me the last time a close relationship ended." He said nothing for a moment and I thought about how his marriage broke up and that he'd been given a temporary restraining order. Finally, he sighed. "After you said it was over, I tried not to feel
anything
. I shut down emotionally so I wouldn't over-react. I went through the motions of my life, hoping that going to Nairobi would distract me enough to keep the emotions locked away. Luckily, Elaine called me to tell me you'd fallen in love with me and were miserable, or right now, I'd probably be in some bar in Nairobi with a colleague, drowning my sorrows in a bottle of cheap vodka."

"You'd probably be looking for a new submissive. Lara would be busy sorting through her list of hopefuls."

"No. I'd have been overly invested in my work and my music. After you?" He shook his head and turned to me, his expression intense. "A relationship with
just
a sub would feel hollow."

I smiled, butterflies in my stomach. We drove in silence for a few moments and I mulled over the prospect of not having him. What if Elaine hadn't phoned him? He might have already been in Kenya and out of my life for good.

"I'm so glad she
did
call." I had to clear my throat because it was choked up. "I haven't thanked her enough."

He kissed my knuckles again. "We had a lot of people behind the scenes trying to get us together."

"And one determined to pull us apart."

We cruised to a halt at a streetlight. "She can't hurt us now," he said and glanced at me, his gaze moving over my face.

I sighed. As happy as I was with Drake, I was still uncertain about our relationship. We weren't going to be a Total Power Exchange Master/slave couple. TPE scared me. I had to be equal to Drake outside of the bedroom – as equal as we two could get, given our personalities. Our power exchange was only in the bedroom, and even then, it wasn't total. We were very vanilla.

I watched his profile in the darkened car. It was perfect, his forehead high, sharp cheekbones, full lips, square jaw covered by the right amount of scruff. Long dark lashes over blue blue eyes. Tousled black hair.

"Does anything
ever
faze you?"

"Does anything ever
faze
me?" he said and frowned. "Does anything ever faze me. Let's see…" He turned his attention back to the road, chewing his bottom lip for a moment. "You." He glanced at me briefly.

"Me?" I said, totally surprised. "You control me so well. How could I faze
you
?"

"I
don't
control you so well, in case you didn't notice. With you, I'm a terrible Dom. I'd be laughed out of a dungeon if other Doms saw how much I'm wrapped around your little finger."

"What?" I said, laughing. "You're not wrapped around my finger. The other way around,
Master
."

"
Ha
," he said, shaking his head. "I'm convinced you call me Master to keep me happy. Kate, I'm usually much more firm with my subs than I have been with you. Other Doms would punish you far more than I have. They'd demand absolute obedience by now. No questions. No hesitation." He smiled sheepishly and turned to look me in the eye. "I'm a lousy Dom."

My heart squeezed a bit at that. "You're not happy with how things are between us?"

"Yes, of course I'm happy. Remember? Meat and potatoes all smothered in gravy?"

 "I think you control me quite well."

He chuckled. "I
can
control you
sexually
fairly well, so far. But you made me break all my rules, Ms. Bennet, despite all my efforts to keep the parts of my life safely separate. You
totally
fazed me. I never thought I'd say it, but I enjoy you too much, especially when you resist me, question me. I'd do anything to keep you." He turned to me and smiled. "Love does that to you."

That sent a thrill through me. I fazed
THE
Drake Morgan, MD. Dr. Delish. Dr. D.

Master D
loved
me.

Master D, who went to dungeon parties, demonstrated the fine art of bondage and dominance to other aficionados. Who had sex with and dominated up to fourteen submissives in the past five years.

The thought of him tying up other women and having kinky sex with them made me jealous. I squashed the image down and took in a deep breath. Drake never let himself get close to his submissives. He did everything he could to ensure they remained merely responsive bodies for his pleasure. I was different. We had too much history.

To me, Drake had become this mix of love and sex. Intense pleasure. Intense emotion. Drake
wanted
submission from me – it was his kink, but he would have taken me any way he could get me. Now, sex and love were totally mixed up and would stay that way because we were going to Africa together and would be living together.

I was still catching my breath from the suddenness and surprise of it all. So much had changed in so little time…

The roads at that time of night were fairly clear and soon we arrived at his apartment building on 10
^th
Avenue and West 23rd Street, a few blocks from the Hudson. A renovated building, his apartment was worth a couple million. From what I'd read when doing research for the story I wrote on philanthropy, it was one of the oldest residential buildings in Manhattan.

Drake parked the car in his parking spot and we walked to the gray stone building. The concierge greeted Drake, holding the door open for us. The elevator took us to the top floor and before we entered, he stopped.

"Here," he said and slipped an arm under one of mine, picking me up.

 "What are you doing?"

He smiled as my arms went around his neck. "You should be carried the first time you enter my apartment."

"Drake!" I smiled into his neck as he carried me into the luxuriously appointed entry. As I expected, the apartment had rich dark woods throughout and had been decorated in grays with Persian carpets on wood floors. Every exterior wall had huge floor to ceiling windows.

We stood in the entryway that had doors leading off to other rooms. He turned to examine me.

"So," he said, his eyes hooded. "What's your first impression?"

"Are you going to put me down?"

He nestled his face in the crook of my neck.

"I don't know…" he murmured in my ear. "I kind of enjoy holding you like this. It brings out the Dom in me."

"But I want to
see
it!"

"You can see
it
anytime you want, Ms. Bennet. All you have to do is ask."

I glanced at his face and he was grinning. Finally, reluctantly, he let me slide out of his arms to a standing position. He threw his keys onto a plate on a circular table in the center of the room. I walked into the living room, which looked out onto the red-brick building across the street.

I took in a deep breath. The apartment even smelled of Drake's cologne. "It looks just like you," I said, turning in a circle. "Sleek, high end, rich, dark, cultured."

There was a formal dining room that had been converted into a music room, with a baby grand piano, several guitars, and a wall-to-wall bank of bookshelves. Framed black and white photographs of famous musicians lined one wall – Jimmy Page, Peter Frampton, Miles Davis, a very young and pouting Mick Jagger.

"Are these your father's?"

He nodded, leaning against the doorjamb, his arms crossed, watching as I walked around and examined his things.

"He collected old photographs of the musicians and the bands he saw."

I stopped in the center of the room and glanced around before my gaze came to rest on him.
This
was the Drake I was coming to know. Besides surgery and D/s, his father and music were at the core of his identity.