Unbreakable (3 page)

 For the first few weeks after returning, I'd be busy with school, the apartment, and then the wedding. Although it would be a small wedding at my father’s apartment, with only a few friends and family, it would still require planning. I had to find a dress, and pick out a gift for everyone who took part, and then there were the vows, and the honeymoon…

I finished my tea, and scribbled down a list of to-do items in my journal and decided it was time to go to bed. When I crept under the sheets beside a naked Drake, all warm and sleeping quietly with his back to the door, I thought how lucky I was to have him all to myself. I snuggled closer and closed my eyes, letting his warmth penetrate me and the sound of his breathing lull me to sleep.

As was his usual practice, Drake woke early and had showered by the time I woke up. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was only 6:30 a.m. I didn’t want to get up but I did want to see Drake off. I rose from the bed and went to the kitchen where I found Drake , humming some sixties tune to himself, fixing a cup of coffee and eating a bowl of granola. I tried to stifle a yawn, and stood at the kitchen’s island, running a hand over my sleep-mussed hair.

He turned and saw me.

“There you are,” he said and came right over, bowl and spoon in his hands. “Sorry if I woke you.”

“No problem,” I said and leaned up on my tiptoes to kiss him briefly on the lips. “I wanted to talk to you before you went.”

“What are your plans for the day, Ms. Bennet?”

I considered. “I want to finish the painting and do some more packing.”

“How late did you come to bed?” he asked and slurped the milk from his bowl.

“Just after midnight. I had a cup of tea and read my emails. Speaking of which…” I said and hesitated, not sure I should bring up Dawn’s email.

“What?” he said and put his bowl into the dishwasher, before turning to face me, his eyes on mine. “Tell me. Is it Ethan?”

I shook my head, wondering how to tell him. “No,” I said and made a face, scrunching up my eyes. “Dawn.”

His eyebrows rose at that and he turned to get his cup of coffee. “Oh.”

He didn’t ask for any details and I knew it upset him to think about Dawn. It wasn’t hard to understand. She had almost broken us up twice. Not to mention the fact that she threatened to damage Drake’s reputation.

“She wants to put the past behind us when I come back to Manhattan.”

“What do
you
want?” he said and finally, he turned to face me.

“I wish that she had never threatened you so we could still be friends. But maybe she is responsible for us being together now.”

Drake frowned. “How can you say that?”

“She forced us both to think seriously about each other. Maybe we wouldn’t have if she hadn’t forced our hands.”

He pursed his lips for a moment, and then shrugged. He took a sip of his coffee, and leaned against the counter.

“You may be right. I still think you can’t trust her, Kate,” he said and looked at me pointedly. “She seems awfully judgmental and rigid.”

“She had that kind of family. She was judged harshly. Believe me, she judges herself more harshly than anyone else. If she had been born in the middle ages, she’d be one of those people with hair shirts and floggers.”

Drake laughed at that and finished his coffee. “She might be a secret subbie underneath her righteous exterior.”

I smiled. “I doubt it. If so, it’s really deep and buried.”

He nodded and came over to me, his hands on my shoulders. “It’s up to you, of course. Whatever you decide, I’ll do my best to cooperate. I’ll practice a fake smile when I meet her and be meek and mild. If it makes you happy, I’m happy.”

He kissed me briefly and then stroked his hand over my hair. “She can still do harm to us—to me. The department head of surgery at NYP knows about the restraining order and is fine with it, but if word got out about my participation in dungeon scenes in the BDSM community, it might be difficult to attract patients. I doubt many would be interested in someone who they would think liked pain.”

“You don’t like pain,” I protested.

He shook his head. “To the average person, a Dom might as well be a sadist. They don’t understand that there are different reasons for people to be into BDSM. Kate, I like my practice and life in Manhattan. I don’t want anyone besides the two of us deciding what to do with our lives.”

I nodded and before he left, I leaned up once more and kissed him quickly. “I agree.”

Then he left and I faced the entire day to myself, with only my paints and empty packing boxes to keep me company. Instead of staying up, I went back to bed and pulled the covers over my head.

I slept in until I woke up again and spent the rest of the day painting but I didn’t even get to the packing part of my plan. I was able to finish my painting of my father before Drake arrived home so instead of greeting him the way I had the day before, with me all disheveled and smelling like acrylic paints, I had a quick shower, fixed my hair, brushed my teeth and put on the cute little sundress he liked so much. If I wore it when he arrived home, he’d be pleased. Maybe pleased enough to ravish me the way I was hoping. I glanced at myself in the mirror and adjusted my hair.

Then I kicked myself mentally. Drake wouldn’t be home until at least eight o’clock. He’d have spent over twelve hours teaching, seeing patients and in the OR. I couldn’t expect him to have much energy left for sex.

Still, I wanted to remind him of the first time he saw me in the dress and so I wore it, trying to squash down any hopes of seducing him.

That wasn’t my role in our relationship. He’d grown quite lenient with me when it came to sex, encouraging me to let him know that I wanted sex now and then first thing in the morning. He’d be happy to comply if he had time. I didn’t want to change him too much. I wanted the Drake I met, only more open to letting me into all parts of his life, rather than just one small corner.

He’d done that wonderfully. Initiating sex was something Drake liked to control, but he’d grown more flexible. He’d shared his music with me, although I still hadn’t seen him perform with his band. When we went back to Manhattan, I hoped he’d invite me to a performance.

Everything in its own time.

Drake arrived home after eight and sat at the island in the kitchen with me, eating some food I ordered in from a small restaurant in the shopping mall in our community. It was fresh spicy fish with rice and vegetables. I’d miss the food when I went back to Manhattan, but was determined to find similar recipes so I could cook for Drake and we could remember our time in Nairobi.

“Anything more from Dawn?” he said, his voice quiet.

“No,” I said, although I had been thinking of what I’d say in reply to her email. I could have just ignored it and let her email pass into the oblivion of my computer’s trash bin, but her email had opened a scabbed up sore in my heart. I thought about it at odd times during the day.

“I had an interesting conversation with Dave Mills you might like to hear about.”

I frowned. “What?”

He took a sip of wine. “He was at a DWB fundraiser. Dawn was there. Guess who she was with.”

I bit my lip and shook my head, wracking my brain to think who she would have gone with to a DWB fundraiser .

“I have no idea.”

Drake smiled, and his expression was smug. “Kurt.”

My mouth actually dropped open.

“What?” My heart pounded in my ears. “No way…”

“Yes way,” Drake said, fighting to keep from grinning, but I could see that he was almost bursting.

“She went with Kurt?
My
Kurt?”

“Your Kurt?” he said, pulling back in what I thought—hoped—was mock horror.

“I mean, the Kurt I dated briefly,” I said, catching myself.

Drake took a deep sip of his wine, one corner of his mouth curved up slyly. “The very one.”

“She never mentioned it in her email, but maybe that’s why she wrote me.” I thought about Kurt and Dawn together and it completely blew me away. I had met him at one of the DWB fundraisers that she attended with me, and we had often gone to pubs with Dawn and a few of our friends from Columbia. They knew each other. Had she been lusting after Kurt all this time?

“She must have been wanting him all along.”

“Maybe. Maybe she
is
a secret subbie. I guess she’s second best to you.”

I laughed at that. “Dawn is very pretty. You haven’t met her. She’s tall and athletic. Not in the least bit submissive, as far as I can tell. The opposite. I’d think she’d rather beat a man than be beaten on.”

“I saw her with you at the pub that night, but she’s not my type. Come on, Kate,” Drake said and took another sip, his eyes twinkling. “You know that very many strong people like to give up control in the bedroom. Achievers who have to be in control during the day. It’s a relief to give up control.”

I nodded, for I’d done my research and knew that many men in high-powered positions liked to be humiliated and dominated in the bedroom. Could Dawn be like that?

“I guess I’ll have to write her back.”

Drake shook his head. “Don’t mention anything about Kurt,” he said. “Let her tell you when she’s ready. She sounds like someone who doesn’t know her own mind. Someone like her could just as quickly change back to being a crusader against filth.”

I pursed my lips and forked a piece of fish. “You may be right. I won’t say anything about Kurt unless she brings it up.”

“She probably won’t out of embarrassment. Considering she could have cost me my position at NYP, I think she’d be wise to broach the subject very slowly and carefully.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll write back and accept her request for détente. But nothing more.”

Drake nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it. Honestly, Kate, she was right to be suspicious of me, knowing what she knew. What if she’d come to you and said she was interested in being spanked and flogged and was meeting a sadist that she met online?”

My stomach clenched at that. I still hadn’t completely reconciled myself to the idea of painsluts and sadists, although I tried really hard. I had to come to a place of acceptance that consenting adults could do what they wanted in the privacy of their own bedrooms – or dungeons. I’d seen actual painsluts and sadists at play in the dungeon scenes Drake and I had attended. They
wanted
to be where they were. They wanted to give and receive pain with a willing partner. That was a far cry from actual abuse. Still, there is no doubt I would have argued with Dawn if she had come to me and told me she wanted to meet a sadist and be whipped and caned like Sunita.

“I don’t know what I’d do. I’d probably think she needed to get counseling. Her father was an old bastard, Drake. He beat them with a belt when they were kids and I think now that he beat her mother, too. Her brother-in-law beat her sister. She said the best day of her life had been the day he was arrested.”

“Maybe BDSM would be therapy for someone like Dawn.”

I shook my head. “It just shocks me so much, Drake. Therapy for Dawn should be to find someone who is completely safe so she doesn’t have to worry about being beaten. She should get therapy so she feels worthy of better treatment.”

It was his turn to shake his head. “Don’t judge her for her desire, whatever it ends up being,” he said softly. “The human psyche is a strange animal. You can get moralistic about human desire and judge it deviant and dangerous, but deviants still want what they want. If you judge them, if you condemn them, it only makes you feel better. It does nothing to change them.”

Drake watched me over the lip of his wineglass as he took a sip. He put his glass down and reached for my hand.

“I know you miss her. I know you two were friends for forever and it must hurt to lose her. Let her come to you. Let her prove herself before you invest too much emotionally in the friendship.”

I squeezed his hand back, considering. Finally, I sighed and ate my fish, amazement filling me that my old best friend would even consider allowing a man to spank her and dominate her.

Maybe I’d been wrong about her. Maybe she was afraid for me because the whole idea appealed too much to her as a woman and she couldn’t stand to admit what that meant about her.

I didn’t know if we could ever be friends again, despite her apology, her epiphany and her being with Kurt.

Maybe Drake was right and someone like Dawn was too unpredictable to trust.

Only time would tell.

CHAPTER THREE

Drake

Three weeks passed very quickly and on the Thursday before we left, Michael sat down in the chair across from my desk. We had both been working our asses off to try to transfer over the last of my patients to other surgeons and prepare for my replacement. Even Sam had been working hard and hadn’t been pestering me nearly as much as before. In fact, I would have said she had a complete change of heart towards me for those last few weeks. She was completely collegial instead of assuming too much about our relationship.

It made my last weeks in Nairobi pleasant.

Across from me, Michael looked exhausted.

“Come to our house on Saturday night for cocktails and dinner. I’ve invited the rest of the faculty and the interns and residents who worked with you. They want to say goodbye and wish you two all the best.”

“Sam as well?” I asked, although I couldn’t imagine Michael wouldn’t invite her.

“Of course,” Michael smiled, assuming I had asked in a friendly way. “She said she wouldn’t miss it.”

I smiled at Michael, but inside, I tensed. Both Claire and Sam would be there. How would Kate react to that prospect? She hadn’t spoken to Claire since the art safari. Somehow, the four of us avoided socializing. Whenever Michael hinted at dinner, I would always find some excuse and finally, he gave up asking. Instead, the two of us had lunch together when we could find the time. I regretted it, for I had envisioned the four of us enjoying each other’s company when we had free time. It seemed so perfect at first – Michael and I would talk shop, while Kate and Claire could talk art.