The Agreement (34 page)

He came right over and laid on the bed beside
me, pulling me into his arms. I pushed against him a bit.

"Drake, I was
sleeping
."

"Sorry," he said, stroking my hair.
"I missed you all day. I've been thinking of you, planning what I was
going to do to that luscious body of yours when I was finally finished with the
conference, which is,
now
."

He nibbled my neck, and the touch of his lips
sent a stab of pleasure through me, but I stiffened instead of melting into his
arms.

"Not now," I said, pushing him away
again.

He pulled back and leaned on his elbow.
"What's the matter?"

I sat up on the bed and wrapped my arms around my
legs. I yawned. "I didn’t sleep well I guess."

"I know how to wake you up," he said,
that half-smile starting. He ran the backs of his fingers over the tops of my
breasts and it made me shiver.

"Ow, my burn," I said, although my
burn was quite good by then.

"Sorry," he said, frowning. He lay
back on the bed, his hands behind his head. He just watched me for a moment.
"What have you been doing?"

"We went for a boat ride and then had
lunch. I've been sleeping."

"What would you like to do?"

I shrugged my shoulder again. "I don't
know…"

He sat up closer, so that he was sitting next to
me, and kissed my shoulder. "Kate, I know something's wrong. I can tell.
What is it?"

I yawned again. "I don't know. I'm a bit
bored, I guess."

"You're probably not used to leisure time,
having nothing to do. Your father said you've been working like a dog for
years, working on your degrees and for
Geist
."

"It's just that most of the people here are
older than me. There's no one here my age. I feel like I'm in an old-folks home
or something."

He just watched my face, a strange expression on
his.

"Would you like to go out to a bar? The
locals have some nightlife. Dancing."

I made a face. "Whatever." I actually
didn’t want to go out somewhere. I wanted to just cry. "Not really. I don't
know if I want to be out among
the locals
."

"Come here," he said, holding his arms
out.

"Why?"

"I need to hold you."

I shrugged and climbed onto his lap. Of course,
I felt incredibly sad doing so, because I wanted his arms around me, and I felt
so sad about what I had to do.

He tilted my head up and just looked in my eyes,
his face perplexed. "Kate, what's wrong?"

"I don't know," I said, trying to
sound bored. "Just bored, like I said."

He kissed me, and I tried hard not to kiss him
back, but he was insistent. He started to search my body with his hands,
pulling me into his arms. I had to do everything I could not to respond to him.
I thought about the ugliest things I could to stop my body from responding. I
thought about the scent of dead bodies in the graves outside Mangaize. I
pictured worms in a grave crawling through a decomposing body. I thought about
never seeing Drake again, and a surge of sadness filled me, making my throat
choke up. 

Drake pressed me back on the bed and lay on top
of me, his arms cradling my head while he kissed me, one of his knees between
mine, pushing my legs apart. He kissed me intently, completely focused, his
breathing becoming more intense. He pressed his hips against mine and I felt
his erection. It felt delicious and my body couldn’t help but respond, so I
thought immediately of Kurt, and how he scared me that night we broke up.

Finally Drake pulled back. He just stroked my
cheek, silently giving up.

Then, his cell rang and he pulled it out of his
pocket and checked the ID.

"Crap," he said. He answered.
"Hi," he said and listened. "Not tonight. No. I have something
planned." A silence followed. "Sure," he said. "Tomorrow
before the plenary. See you then." He ended the call and turned back to
me, his brow furrowing.

"You really are tired," he said.
"I'm not feeling the usual response in you."

I yawned and stretched. "Maybe," I
said, wracking my brain for how to do this. "It's just so dead here.
Nothing to do."

"I can think of lots I want to do."

"Yeah?" I said, keeping my face blank.
"Like what?"

He smiled but it seemed forced. "Do I even
have to say?"

"Oh," I said and crawled away from
him, standing up. "
That
. I'm thirsty. I'm going to get a
drink." I took my bag and went to the vending machine down the hall. I
bought a drink, needing to get away from him, from his strong warm body, from
the scent of his aftershave, the look on his face.

I just stood in the hallway and opened the
drink, taking a sip, wanting to delay this, not sure how I’d be able to do it.

"Kate?" Drake leaned against the
doorjamb. "You want to go somewhere?"

I shrugged and returned to the hotel room,
walking past him, trying to avoid touching him. He followed me into the living
room. I took the channel changer and switched on the television.

"Wonder what channels they get here?"

He sat on the couch, right in the middle, his
arms outstretched on the back, just watching me as I stood and flipped through
the lineup of shows.

"Come here," he said, his voice low. I
turned and looked at him and he was so devastatingly beautiful in his white
button-down shirt, open at the neck, his tan Dockers, black sandals. His hair
was shiny and a bit wild, his jaw covered by a layer of stubble. I shrugged and
put the channel changer down and went to him, sitting beside him. He patted his
lap. "I mean here."

I sighed and climbed onto his lap, my hands
resting on his shoulder. I bit my lip until it hurt to control my emotions.

"What?" I said.

"What's wrong?"

I shook my head. "I don’t know, Drake. I'm
just not
feeling
this."

"What do you mean?" His eyes narrowed.

"This," I said pointing between us.
"Submission. It's just not there. This feels too much like a traditional
relationship. You know. Boyfriend / girlfriend."

"You seemed to enjoy yourself this
morning."

"Yeah, but it was just ordinary sex. You
rub my clit the right way and I'll come. I could do that with any man. There
was nothing kinky about it." I raised my eyebrows.  "Maybe we're
just not working out. Now that we're alone, it's just not really," I said,
searching for the word. "Exciting. Lara told me that sometimes, a Dom and
sub just aren't compatible. You must really
feel
it. I just don't feel
like we're the right match. I want to
feel
, I don't know… really
possessed. I
don't
. It’s like, I can't even call you
Sir
and feel
it. I mean, Nigel's a Sir. He's an actual Knight and I don’t even call
him
'Sir'."

I watched him, his face changing in front of me.
He didn’t say anything. He just looked in my eyes, blinking rapidly. His
breathing increased a bit, but he said absolutely nothing.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I just
don't feel it with you. You're really sweet, Drake. Maybe Lara has someone else
who I won’t have any history with. Someone really anonymous. I might be able to
feel it more with a stranger. You know how this works. What do you think?"

He said nothing, just looked in my eyes, his
gaze moving over my face but his skin blanched.

Finally, he spoke, his voice controlled, low.
Very calm. "I think you might be onto something."

I nodded. "I
knew
you'd understand.
You've been doing this for a long time and have lots of experience. I already
talked to my parents. I think I'll go back tomorrow morning, try to salvage a
couple of days of my vacation."

"And this has nothing to do with the person
trying to keep you from being with me?"

"
No
," I said and frowned.
"Of course not. Like you said, we could just keep this agreement under
wraps."

"Why did you sign the contract?"

"I have to admit I was a bit shocked by
your contract, but I thought, you know, maybe I needed to just sign the damned
thing and take a risk, give it a shot. But once I did, it was like all the
thrill was gone. So maybe I expected more than I should have. You know, it was
just straight sex after all."

I stood and went to my drink on the table. I
took a long sip. He kept sitting there, his arms out on the back of the couch,
watching me.

His face was pale under his tan, his mouth thin.

"Well, then," he said and stood, his
body stiff. "I guess I'll go to the bar after all and meet my colleagues.
Have a good trip home."

He left, taking his bag and shaving kit with
him, closing the door behind him without another word.

I sat down on the floor and covered my mouth
with my hands.

Later, after I sat with a cold washcloth over my
eyes to bring down the redness from weeping, I met my dad and Elaine in the
restaurant. I had to eat something and I had to show a brave face to the world
so that they believed me when I insisted I wasn't upset. As I went by the bar,
I glanced in and saw a group of people sitting around a table, recognizing the
woman Drake had said was his co-author. I checked the table out quickly, but
Drake wasn’t there. I walked by the front doors to the other side of the hotel
where the restaurant was located and as I passed, I glanced out to the beach,
which was about twenty feet away. Drake was standing there alone, watching the
sunset, his hands in his pockets.

I hurried into the restaurant, my stomach
nauseated, biting back tears. I didn’t know how I'd be able to eat. I sat with
my parents and they were both pleased to see me, looks of concern still on
their faces.

"Sweetheart, are you sure you're all right?
You look a little pale. Your eyes are red. Were you crying?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm fine. It's my
allergies. I'm just a bit disappointed, that's all. You know how it is when you
have high hopes for a relationship and it doesn't work out."

"We've all been there before Kate,"
Elaine said, smiling at me, her expression sympathetic.

"Drake came by just a few minutes
ago," my father said. "Asked if you were OK.  You told him you
were going back tomorrow?"

"Yeah, " I said, trying to sound
nonchalant. "He agreed."

"He seemed really upset, Katherine."
My father just shook his head. "Guess I was really wrong about you two.
Maybe I should hang up my matchmaking hat."

"Oh, don't do that Daddy. I'll meet the
right man some day." I forced a smile that I didn’t feel and picked up my
menu.

I tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep,
my mind going over everything again and again. Should I just go to him and tell
him the truth? What would he do? I had the sense he'd ignore it and push on,
arguing that we'd just be really careful. But Dawn was
not
going to let
up either. I knew she'd watch me like a hawk. If she'd been determined enough
to hire a PI to track down info on Drake, she'd have someone follow me. She was
really moralistic at times, and we'd clashed in the past over issues, but we'd
always found a way through the disagreements because of the sheer length of
time we'd been friends.

Back in Manhattan, nothing changed. I arrived in
my apartment late that night and crept right into bed. I slept in most of the
next day, unable to get out of the bed except to go to the bathroom. I felt as
if I'd been hit by a truck, my body aching, my stomach sick. I just closed the
drapes in my bedroom in some ridiculous attempt to block out the world. I had
one more day off before I had to go to work.

I told myself that it was for the best. I didn't
want Drake to be disgraced because of me. I couldn't live with myself if my
selfishness led to harm of his career or reputation. He was an important
neurosurgeon. He did really great things for people. If he was disgraced
because of me, because of Dawn's moralistic crusade, I could never live it
down, and there would be nothing I could do to fix things.

This was just the way it had to be.

It didn't make it any easier to bear. I wanted
him – so
much
. It was so good with him, even just the vanilla sex.
I couldn't imagine what it would be like if he really had his 'Dom hat' on with
me. I remembered how much those letters he wrote to his subs affected me.

I went to my history and found the website and
logged in so I could read another letter.

To my new sub:

Don't be afraid, little one. You're safe with
me. You can just relax in my embrace and know that I will protect you. I will
learn you inside and out – what you like, what you dislike, what you need
and what you don't need. Then, I will give you everything you desire.