The Drake Restrained Compete Collection: Part 1 - 4 (The Drake Series Book 7)

THE DRAKE RESTRAINED COLLECTION

PART 1 - 4

Copyright 2014  S. E. LUND

DEDICATION

Dedicated to Suzanne, my first editor and the first other writer to consider my writing seriously and offer an honest constructive critique. Without your critical eye and supportive words, I would never have seen both the potential in my work and where it needed improvement. You gave me the courage to continue writing despite difficulties in the early years. You will be missed.

R. I. P.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to my family and friends who supported me during the long hours when I would lock myself into my office with my computer jammed in my face, writing. Without your tolerance, my books would never have been written or finished, but my house would have been a lot cleaner! Many thanks to my editor Michelle Saunders for all her hard work – any remaining mistakes are all mine!

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

There are three things you should understand about neurosurgeons.

Huge balls. Laser-like focus. Hero Complex.

Cutting into the human skull to operate on the brain required nothing less.

I stood at the sinks in the anteroom outside the operating theater at New York Presbyterian, cleaning my knuckles with a scrub brush. My new neurosurgery resident, Stuart, stood beside me, the plain blue cap and scrubs, safety glasses and binoculars giving away little about his personality, but he was a neuro
surgeon and that pretty much said it all.

This was our first real surgery together since he started and I was interested in watching him perform. He would do all the grunt work – the incision, sawing the bone to remove a piece of the skull, then sewing up after. I’d do the parts requiring greater finesse – mapping the location in the brain using the CT scanner, threading the electrode into the brain and adjusting the voltage, ensuring we had it in exactly the right place. I’d oversee it all to ensure he did it properly.

I turned to him and watched as he scrubbed in.

“My nurses tell me you’re one of the youngest neurosurgery residents at NYP.”

“Besides you, you mean?” he said and gave me a smile, which was visible only as a narrowing of his eyes over his surgical mask. “You were even younger than me when you did your residency.”

I nodded. “I graduated high school early and finished my undergrad in two and a half years.”

“You were one of the youngest medical students at Columbia ever. Even more ambitious than me.”

I laughed. “From the looks of your CV, you’re no slouch.”

I felt Stuart’s eyes on me. "You know the nurses call you
Dr. D
."

I raised my eyebrows. After being at NYP for only a few days, Stuart felt secure enough in his status to bring up the OR nursing staff's pet name for me.

"Dr. Delish, right?" I said, grinning. "I've heard it all."

"Dr.
Dangerous
."

I laughed at that. "I’m surprised its not Dr.
Demon
. You must have been talking to my ex-wife’s friends. They hate me.”

“Oh, take my word for it – these nurses did
not
seem to hate you. Not at all,” Stuart said, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “They seemed to see the
dangerous
moniker as a definite plus. There was a lot of snickering going on.” Stuart shook his head. "The ladies do love a bad boy."

I shook my head. "That they do. But you know, bad boys are just really
really
good at making women feel a little wild."

"Your dad was a legendary bad boy," Stuart said as he ran clear water over his soapy arms. "Flying planes, playing in a band, parachuting. Shock-trauma surgeon at U of Maryland. You're a lot like your father. The acorn really doesn't fall far from the tree…"

"I'm
not
like my father," I said, a bit too firmly. "And I'm not a bad boy. I'm a very
good
boy. Trust me. That's just their very active imaginations." I gave him a grin, holding up my hands and backing through the doors into the operating theatre.

Once inside, I was pleased that my favorite circulating nurse, Ellen, had my sixties music mix playing over the sound system. The nurses and technicians were moving their heads to the backbeat, which was such an important part of the British Invasion era music.

"On top of things, as usual," I said to Ellen and saw her brown eyes widen behind her surgical mask.

"Was there ever any doubt? " She handed me a sterile towel. “You have me well trained.”

"There was never any doubt,” I replied. “And it’s the other way around, Ellen. You have
me
well trained."

She laughed at that. "Whatever you say,
Dr. D…
"

Dr. D…

I was used to the friendly ribbing from the OR nurses I worked with on a regular basis. I never knew which moniker they meant by it. I
hoped
it was Delish. She winked at me, obviously having overheard Stuart and not Demon, but you never knew.

Inside the OR and in the halls of NYP, I was Dr. D, but outside, I was someone else entirely. Master D, to those who knew my secret life, a Dominant in Manhattan's BDSM community, specializing in B&D – bondage and dominance. I made the mistake of becoming involved in a BDSM relationship with a nurse when I first entered the lifestyle five years earlier, and that had almost ended in disaster.

Never again.

From then on, I kept my two personas separate, never letting them meet. My career in neurosurgery at NYP relied on it.

A few selections from the Rolling Stones played over the speakers. I developed a love of all things 60s from my father, who was perhaps the biggest influence on my life despite the fact he did everything he could to avoid being a father. He died as he lived – fast and loose, his private plane crashing in the wilds of Africa while on a trip to Somalia doing work with Doctors Without Borders.

Everything I was I attributed to my father’s influence. No matter how I tried to escape him, I wasn't successful but for one exception. My father thrived in chaos – first in a battlefield ER and then in a shock trauma ward back home. In contrast, I needed –
demanded
– complete calm and total control. 

That need for control extended to all aspects of my life – my work, my home and sex. The only place I allowed less than perfect control was my choice of music, which was always loose and wild. Psychedelic rock. Jazz. Vintage Punk. Grunge Metal. Everything else in my life had to be precise, planned, laid out in writing and in triplicate, if possible.

Control was my thing. Dominance during sex was my kink.

My bondage closet would fascinate a shrink.

While
Under My Thumb
by the Stones played over the speakers, I considered Richard Graham, my patient with Parkinson's Disease. My team and I would implant electrodes deep in his brain that sent out pulses of electricity to very specific structures responsible for motor control. The operation would require total concentration on my part and that of my team of surgeons and nurses, but it was that control and focus that I loved.

With Jagger singing in the background, my scrub nurse helped me gown and glove up. Once Stuart finished with his portion of the surgery, I approached the patient, examining the incisions before placing the electrodes.

"How are you, Mr. Graham?" I said, keeping my voice firm but warm to reassure him. He was sedated, semi-reclining, but conscious and responsive so we could make sure we didn't damage any key areas of his brain.

"Great tunes," Mr. Graham said. "You came through with the Stones."

"Music relaxes patients. We do what we can to make this as stress-free as possible, considering that we have to keep you awake during the procedure."

I consulted the CT images and checked to make sure everything was in proper alignment before threading the electrode into precise position, guided by a CT-generated image of the man's brain on a screen beside the operating table. Stuart stood beside me, watching my every move.

When I stimulated the section of the brain where the electrode has been placed, Mr. Graham's hand stopped shaking completely. His head was imprisoned in a metal cage designed to keep him still, so he could barely see his hand, but he could feel it and his response was why I did my job.

"
Holy Mary
," he said, his voice filled with awe. "Would you look at that..."

I smiled to myself, but didn't allow too much time for celebration. One moment where I lost focus and Mr. Graham could bleed or lose function. The success of the procedure was all down to how much skill I had guiding the electrode into the very specific part of Mr. Graham's brain that was responsible for motor movement. Even given my skill, there were still risks.

Fortunately, my concentration was above average and the electrode was in proper place. The pulses of electricity would stop the errant movement in Mr. Graham's limbs. He'd be able to hold his own cup of coffee again, use his own spoon, fork and knife.