The Drake Unwound Complete Collection Book 9 (4 page)

Beside me Kate nodded, but there was this look on her face. I reached over and took her hand, lifting it to my lips to kiss her 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," she said, but I didn’t believe it for a moment. I didn’t even want to hear about her past – not anymore.

"I'm curious,” she said. “And intimidated."

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

"I'm really
not
your equal.” She glanced at me, her gaze moving over me like she was sizing me up. "You're a neurosurgeon. I haven't even had a real job yet."

I laughed. "
Kate..
." I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek briefly. "I'll let you in on a very well-kept secret." I 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?"

I glanced at her, smirking. "Hot sex with a really great-looking babe."

"Drake!" She pulled her hand out of mine and punched my shoulder playfully.

"Just kidding," I said, laughing. I grabbed her hand back and threaded my fingers through hers. "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," she said, her voice lightly scolding. "I
told
Lara that the relationship would be purely research."

"Lara thought you needed a bit of encouragement. You know," I said, grinning. "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,” she said, hesitating as if to find the right word, "Machiavellian."

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

"What do you mean?"

I didn’t answer. I was not going to let her know just how much control I’d lost in this relationship. She wanted me to take control. If I slipped, if I became too relaxed and loose with her, she’d go somewhere else and find someone who offered her the control she craved. I couldn’t let that happen.

"You look like the Cheshire Cat," she said, looking at me from the corner of her eye. "The Cheshire Cat who swallowed the canary, to mix metaphors."

"Oh, I
ate
the lovely little canary. " I glanced over at her, unable to stop grinning. "I had her for breakfast and lunch and dinner."

"Don't get too smug." She took her hand back, her arms folded across her chest, smiling. "You're the one who came to me in the end, professing your love. Not wanting to be parted from me ever
again
."

Of course, that was right. I did come to her to profess my love. And I did love her. Too much for my own good. I reached over and took her 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." I said nothing for a moment, thoughts of my divorce sobering me up a bit. Finally, I 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?" I shook my head and turned to her. "A relationship with
just
a sub would feel hollow."

She smiled, seemingly pleased at my confession. We drove in silence for a few moments and I thought about how empty my life would have been if Elaine hadn’t called.

"I'm so glad she
did
call," Kate said, her voice a bit choky. "I haven't thanked her enough."

I kissed her 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 traffic light. "She can't hurt us now," I said and glanced at Kate, at her sweet face, her large eyes and lush mouth.

After we drove on a few more blocks, she turned to me again. "Does anything
ever
faze you?"

I frowned and searched her face for her meaning. "Does anything ever
faze
me? Does anything ever faze me. Let's see…" I turned my attention back to the road, chewing my bottom lip for a moment. I was admittedly a very calm and controlled person. "You." I glanced at her. It was the truth. She fazed me.

"Me? You control me so well. How could I faze
you
?"

"I
don't
control you so well, in case you didn't notice,” I said, reluctant to admit it, but we were in confessional mode and I thought, what the hell. This is the woman I love. “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?" she said, laughing. "You're not wrapped around my finger. The other way around,
Master
."

"
Ha
," I said and shook my 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." I smiled sheepishly and turned to look her in the eye. "I'm a lousy Dom."

"You're not happy with how things are between us?"

Of course, it was the wrong thing to say. "Yes, of course I'm happy. Remember? Meat and potatoes all smothered in gravy?"

 "I think you control me quite well."

I chuckled, thinking what Lara would say if she saw what a bad Dom I had become, letting Kate get away with so much. "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." I turned to her and smiled. "Love does that to you."

She smiled softly and squeezed my hand.

We arrived at my apartment building on 10
^th
Avenue and West 23rd Street, a few blocks from the Hudson. I parked in my spot in the parking garage and we walked to the building. I saw it again as if for the first time, imagining it through her eyes. She was accustomed to wealth, so it wouldn’t impress, but there was something really grand about the old building. My apartment was worth a couple million on the current market and it had all the bells and whistles in addition to being in a historic building.

The concierge greeted me, holding the door open for us. We took the elevator to the top floor and before we entered, I stopped.

"Here," I said and slipped an arm under one of hers, picking her up. I wanted to re-establish control over her, and I knew one way was to make her feel helpless by picking her up. It worked and she tensed, resisting me.

 "What are you doing?"

"You should be carried the first time you enter my apartment."

"Drake!" She tucked her head into the crook of my neck while I carried her inside. We stood in the entryway that had doors leading off to other rooms. I turned to examine her.

"So," I said, my eyes narrowed. "What's your first impression?"

She wriggled in my arms. "Are you going to put me down?"

I nuzzled her neck, needing her to let me lead, but she was still so independent.

"I don't know…" I murmured in her 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,” I said, unable to resist the double entendre. “All you have to do is ask."

She glanced at me and when she saw that I was smiling, she did as well. I let her slide out of my arms and threw my keys onto a plate on a circular table in the center of the room. Kate walked into the living room, which looked out onto the red brick building across the street.

"It looks just like you," she said, turning in a circle. "Sleek, high end, rich, dark, cultured."

I glanced around. The place was crowded with musical instruments, a baby grand, my guitars and amps. On the walls were my father’s posters from the 60s and 70s of all his favorite bands.

"Are these your father's?"

I nodded and watched as she walked around and examined my possessions.

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

She stopped in the center of the room and glanced around before her gaze came to rest on me. Then, she came to me and slipped her arms around my waist, leaning her head against my chest. She caught me by surprise once more. I was unused to being shown affection by my subs. I didn’t have that kind of relationship with them and was used to being the one to initiate everything. Still, I enjoyed her show of affection and embraced her back. She snuggled against my body, her arms slipping under my coat.

"I
like
this Drake Morgan," she said, looking me in the eye. "I'm seeing him a bit more clearly now."

"Oh?" I said, my eyebrows raised. "And what have you seen?"

"You seem so self-contained."

I sighed and squeezed her more tightly. "My mother had me after my brother died, so I was an only child."

She pulled back. "I never knew you had a brother who died."

I nodded and ran my fingers through her hair. "We've never talked much about personal things."

"
Tell
me."

I exhaled, for I didn’t talk much about Liam – to anyone. He was this mythic creature who died before I was born. I was just the replacement. Not the original. "He died before I was born from a very rare and aggressive form of leukemia. My mother never recovered, even after she had me. I
had
to be independent after she left. I think I was a little too independent for married life and that's one reason why Maureen and I split. I was also reluctant to have children because of the chance of passing on the mutation that caused my brother's leukemia, and that was a sore point between us. As soon as she left me, she had a child with her new boyfriend."

"Oh, Drake, that’s so sad." She squeezed me and I knew she was feeling sorry for me. It was a sentiment I did not want to cultivate. Pity. "What was your brother’s name?"

"Liam, after my father."

"How old was he when he died?"

"Five."

I thought about my dead brother, who I never knew, but who loomed so large in my life as a child. My mother had a shrine to him in the spare bedroom. A collection of his baby pictures, his pictures in pre-school, of him as a sickly little boy, his head bald from chemo, an IV in his scalp.

I sighed and ran my hands over her hair. "I don’t want to think about the past," I said gently. "Right now, I only want to think of me inside of you."

"I thought you had a patient..."

"I'll go later," I said and picked her up once more, carrying her into the bedroom at the back of the apartment, flicking on the light switch as we entered. I let her slide back out of my arms and took off her coat, leaving her standing beside the bed in my room while I went to the closet in the entry.

After I hung up our coats, I went to the server in the dining room and removed two shot glasses, then went to my refrigerator for the bottle of chilled Anisovaya. I returned to the bedroom with them, coming to an abrupt halt just inside the door to the bedroom.

Kate was standing by the closet doors, flipping through my photo album, which contained a variety of photographs of my subs in various bondage poses.

"
Oh
," I said, shocked. "I see you've found my book."