The Agreement (12 page)

But there was that
moment
when Drake and
I were in the bedroom when I felt something resembling humanity from him. No
grin, no leer, no gloating superiority.

Like he
understood
.

I was probably just projecting. I couldn’t let
myself get taken in by his suave exterior. He was a Dom and he wanted his way
in all things. He probably figured he could use my father's desire to match me
with him to get some kinky sex out of me. I'd have to do everything I could to
dissuade him that I was available. I'd have to squelch the stupid physical
attraction I had for him and for which I hated myself.

I'd done everything I could to stay away from
bad boys since Kurt but I got this crazy idea that I could research this world
without getting mixed up in it. Drake was just too damn gorgeous for my own
good.

I ate my meal in silence, aware of him next to
me, how he turned to me when he spoke with my father, but I refused to engage
him. Still, I couldn’t help but notice everything about him – at least,
everything about him from the neck down. I refused to look in those eyes of
his. I always saw him laughing at me, a twinkle of pleasure or amusement in his
eyes, and it infuriated me.

Even his hands were gorgeous. Surgeon's hands.
His fingers were long and tapered. Not huge meat hooks and I could imagine how
they'd feel if he touched me. He was a doctor and knew the human body like no
other and that did something strange to me. There was virtually no hair on his
knuckles – maybe he scrubbed them so much, it wore off. He had a school
ring on his finger and on the other hand was a large aquamarine. He had a
leather strap of some kind on his wrist, with what looked like tooling, but I
didn't want to look too closely or ask what it meant. I wondered if it wasn't a
symbol of his bondage kink. Why else would a surgeon wear a leather strap on
his wrist?

The talk was pleasant enough – about the
weather, sports teams, the wine, which Drake took pains to praise. He actually
sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Boy, he sure knew how to
flatter my father, who loved to show how he had refined taste in
everything
.

It was like a love-fest between the two of them
and I wanted to slam my knife down on the table and expose Drake for what he
was just to see the look on my father's face but I swallowed my anger. If Drake
even
tried
to move forward with this stupid agreement, I'd threaten to
do just that.

Luckily, Drake didn't try to engage me in a
conversation, but my father did several times, trying to get me to tell Drake
all about my Master's scholarship, my award for the investigative piece on West
Africa, my volunteer work. What he didn't ask me to tell Drake about was what
really mattered to me – art,
my
art. It was never any interest to
my father, even when my teachers praised me and encouraged me to go into Fine
Arts in college.

I sat and steamed, angry at myself for letting
my father rule my life.

He was just so damn
powerful
, controlling
and certain that everything he believed and did was right. He ran our home like
a drill sergeant and his court like one as well. I heard talk of him, and I
read some of his decisions. I wouldn't
ever
want to go before him if I
was involved in anything slightly morally questionable.

He could accept financial fraud. But moral
failings?

No
.

It wasn’t that he was truly religious. Far from
it. Going to Mass was just for show and to make sure he kept the Roman Catholic
community behind him.

How he'd
freak
if he knew about Drake…

It almost made me want to get involved with
Drake just so I could turn to my father and say, "
Look at your
wonderful saint of a man, Daddy. He likes to tie me up and fuck me, make me
crawl on my knees to him, kiss his foot
."

Wouldn’t that just about make him
explode
?

I glanced sideways at Drake and he met my gaze,
his expression dark, and it was like this current flowed between us.

I tore my eyes away. I could
never
do it.

Just.
Never
.

Finally, dinner was over and those of us not
part of my dad's 'people' left for the living room while dad escorted the men
into the study for his strategy session. As we left the dining room, Drake took
my arm and stopped me.

"Can we talk later?"

I glanced at his hand on my arm. He didn't let
go.

"We have nothing to talk about."

"Please? Just hear me out."

I exhaled. My father stood in the hallway, and
he kept glancing back to us, his eyes judging. As usual.

"I was going to leave after we 'ladies'
have our tea."

"OK. I'll come by your place. Can we talk
inside
your apartment instead of through the door this time?"

He grinned, and that smile made him look so
sexy.

"I'd rather you didn't come to my
apartment."

"Fine," he said. "Why don't you
wait for me and I'll give you a ride home when we're done here."

My dad came over, his eyebrows raised.

"Hey, sweetie, you're detaining Drake. We
have important business to attend to."

I looked between Drake and my father. Drake
nodded like it was OK.

"We'll just speak in the car." His
voice dropped to a lower register, sexy and deep and he had the audacity to
hold three fingers up. "I won't come in. I promise. Scout's Honor."

I exhaled. "Very
well
."

He finally let go of my arm and he and my father
walked off, my father's arm around Drake's shoulder like they were already
father and son-in-law.

If the situation wasn't so upsetting, it would
make me laugh so hard at my father for being so out of it.

Later, while I sat with Christie and Elaine, and
we finished our tea, Elaine leaned over to me and smiled.

"That Drake Morgan is something. Quite the
catch."

"Yes, he is, I guess."
If you're
fishing for sharks…

I laughed to myself. If they only
knew
…

I hung around until my dad finished meeting with
'his people' about his campaign for the House seat that was going to be vacant,
all the while trying to talk myself into leaving before Drake came for me to
drive me home. I could use my dad's limo service and go home by myself, but I
just knew that Drake would come to my apartment and stand outside my door to
say whatever it was he wanted to say.

He wasn’t some college boy. He was a grown man.
Divorced. A neurosurgeon. A Dominant. Trouble, like Dawn said that night in the
bar. Oh, how right she was.

I did date a 'nice guy' after Kurt and I broke
up, but Greg was
so
nice, so accommodating, so into equality, that he
wouldn't even kiss me first. I had to kiss
him
first, and it made me so
insecure, like he wasn't really attracted to me, or didn’t really feel much
desire for me.

Stupid girl insecurities, but I was used to the
guy making the moves. At least then you knew he wanted you.

With Kurt, I always knew he wanted me. He said
so,
often
. He told me how much he wanted me, and how often and how he
wanted to do it. He'd whisper in my ear when we were in public and I'd be so
ready when we got back to my apartment that I'd practically melt.

Then, he started increasing the pressure on me,
suggesting we role play and that he'd sneak into my apartment one night and be
waiting for me to mock-rape me. He wanted to smack my ass while we were having
sex. Even though he promised we'd agree to everything before hand, and would
only do what I was comfortable with, it
scared
me. Yielding power.

"Come on,
sweet stuff
," he
said. "Everyone's adding in a bit of kink in their sex after those
books."

I said no. I told him I was just an ordinary
girl, with ordinary vanilla tastes. I had no interest in getting my ass hit or
being scared to death when entering my dark empty apartment late at night. He
did it anyway, one night lying in wait for me, and it scared me so much, I
screamed and threw something at him, almost hitting him in the head. I cried,
and told him to leave.

Then I called him over and over again,
apologizing, asking him to come back and for us to work things out because he made
me feel something again, for the first time after Mangaize.

Like I was alive and filled with desire. Like I
was wanted.

Really
wanted.

He never spoke to me again.

I had to look deep inside of myself to
understand why I even tried to get him back, considering he didn't accept my
'no' about the mock-rape and spanking. Was I so desperate for male attention
that I'd accept abuse?

My mother would be
horrified
.

Dawn told me to forgive myself, but I had a hard
time and for months, I moped around my apartment, dressed in flannel pajamas,
watching
Seinfeld
re-runs and eating Häagen Dazs. Now, here I was, with
some
other
man hanging around me who liked to enforce his will over
women, looking at me like I was a piece of steak he couldn’t wait to eat.

Finally, the meeting broke up about an hour and
a half after dinner finished and the men left, one by one, shaking my dad's
hand and thanking us for the hospitality. I noticed that Drake hung back,
taking his time, speaking to Christie and Elaine. Finally, he was the last one
and I went to get my coat and bag while he shook my father's hand. The two
spoke to each other in hushed voices.

"What are you two conspiring about?" I
kissed my dad on the cheek.

"Us? Conspire?" My dad laughed.
"Just how to take over the world." He smiled and glanced at Drake. I
said my goodbyes to Elaine and Christie, and then Drake escorted me out of the
apartment. Once the door to the suite closed, he put his hand on the small of
my back and guided me gently towards the elevator.

"I didn't think you'd actually wait for
me." He pressed the button. "I thought you'd be long gone, so I'm
pleasantly surprised."

"I said I'd wait."

The door to the elevator opened and I entered,
Drake behind me. We stood side by side, with him just a bit behind me. He leaned
over to press the floor button, and just happened to lean in close to me while
he did, brushing against me. Was that a smirk on his face?

"Why are you smiling?"

"Oh, let's just said that I have a hard
time riding alone in elevators with pretty women and keeping a straight face
these days."

I glanced away, my face heating. Oh.
Right
.
The elevator scene…

"Don't get any ideas."

"Kate, I've already had so
many
ideas. And that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

Oh,
God
… How do you handle a man telling you
he's had ideas about being with you? A wave of something swept through me,
leaving my knees just a bit weak.

The elevator arrived in the basement and we went
to the guest parking area and his car. He helped me in, then closed the door
for me.

What a gentleman. Opened the door for me, so
chivalrous, but wanted to tie me up and make me kneel to him like a vassal to
some feudal Lord.

Of course, then I couldn’t get the image of me
kneeling at his feet, naked, him fully dressed out of my mind. I thought of the
movie
9 ½ Weeks
and how the woman crawled on her hands and knees
to her lover. I couldn’t stop the way my body responded to those images, even
as I told myself it would be humiliating.

"Well, talk away," I said, trying to
get that image out of my mind.

We drove out of the parking garage and through
the streets towards my apartment. A light snow fell, huge flakes drifting down
lazily.

"I know it really upset you that I'm the
one Lara was trying to match you with for your 'research'. You wanted anonymity
and are embarrassed that I know who you are. I think we should still go through
with the agreement you wanted – for one reason. Who could be safer than
me?"

I frowned. He
wasn’t
safe. He was a
slippery slope.

"How are
you
safe?"

"I know and admire your father, so there's
no way I'd want to screw things up with him. I admire you and don't want you to
think less of me than you probably already do. I understand your need for
anonymity, at least, for no one to find out what you're doing. You understand
my need for secrecy, too. We're not going to expose each other."

I watched out the window, not sure what I
thought about what he said. Part of me thought he was right. He would be very
careful. He understood.

"Look, I know you're worried about your
father finding out about your interest in BDSM," he said, his voice low.
"But I'm well-respected in my field and I don’t want to screw that up. If
people found out I frequent fetish nights and have submissives, it would hurt
my reputation.
You
want to learn about the lifestyle and understand
female submissives and male Dominants? I can help you. We can
pretend
to
be dating, and that way there'd be no reason that we couldn’t be seen together.
We wouldn’t have to make up excuses in case anyone found us together. I won't
do anything you don't want me to do. We can write it all out, formally in an
agreement, and I'll stick to it. The only way anything will happen is if
you
want it to and specifically negotiate for the agreement to change. I am an
honorable man in that respect. You can talk to Lara if you want
verification."