The Commitment (The Unrestrained #2)

THE COMMITMENT

S. E. LUND

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to my family for all the encouragement while I was on this journey to published author. To my sons Vince and Matt for overlooking the dirty dishes and to my mother, father and sister for your support and understanding. Special thanks to Charlene and all my beta readers for your patience as you read early drafts and helped me bring about my vision. Most of all, thanks to my editor Michelle Saunders for your continued friendship and help editing my novels. Any remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone.

"Trust yourself, then you will know how to live."

Goethe

"We are never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy."

Walter Anderson

CHAPTER ONE

Submission was my guilty pleasure. My secret desire. People might look at me and see me as an intelligent capable woman, a grad student who won the Thesis Prize for my writing about Africa. Daughter of a Chief Justice and potentially-future Congressman. But I wasn't that perfect little daughter. I was a woman who let her Dominant lover tie her up, blindfold her, introducing her to the world of D/s, who went to a dungeon party and was spanked in front of a crowd.

I sat in my apartment, drinking a cup of coffee and enjoying the solitude. I smiled to myself as I thought about my short but intense love affair with Drake Morgan, MD, bass player, philanthropist, looking forward to meeting him later at the apartment on 8
^th
Avenue, eager for whatever plans he had to use my body.

The week before we were leaving for Nairobi, Kenya, and Drake was at his charitable foundation for a meeting. I spent the morning packing, waiting to meet him in hopes that we could play out a scene from his letters – something I'd been waiting for since I signed his contract and agreed to be his submissive.

As his submissive, I had to wait for him to decide the time was right so despite the ache in my body thinking about it, I squelched the urge to question him, ask for it.

At about eleven, my cell buzzed. I hoped it was Drake saying he'd be there early, but it was my father calling from his office using Facetime.

"Hi, Daddy," I said. I couldn't help smiling at the image of him on my phone, sitting at his desk with his readers perched at the end of his nose, his bristle-brush haircut and square face reminding me of a bulldog.

"Hi, sweetheart," he said in his characteristic gravelly voice. "Elaine and I want to take you and Drake out for dinner before you go away. What do you say? Anyplace you'd like to go?"

"I'll ask Drake. I'm sure he'd love to go out with you both."

"Call me back when you know."

"I will."

The call ended and before I called Drake, I checked my email but there was nothing except spam and daily news headlines I subscribed to.

My cell rang and so I checked the call display.
Drake Morgan, MD.

"Hi," I said, smiling, my pulse increasing as I imagined what order he'd give me. "I was just going to call you."

"Kate, I'm sorry," he said, his voice sounding preoccupied. "Something came up and things have taken longer than expected. I'm going to have to put our meeting off until later tonight."

Our meeting
. He must have someone in the office with him and was using code to refer to our scene. Disappointment flooded through me.

"Is everything OK?"

"Everything's fine. Just some business to wrap up before we leave."

"My dad called and wants to take us out to dinner tonight. He said the restaurant was our choice. Do you feel like joining them for dinner? Is there somewhere you'd really like to go?"

He paused. "Of course," Drake said. "How about we all go to the Russian Tea Room one last time?"

I smiled. "Only if you agree that we don't sit in a booth."

He laughed at that and then spoke in a low deep voice as if trying not to be heard. "Don't
tempt
me, Ms. Bennet. You've got my mind working overtime thinking of ways to enjoy you while we're in public."

"
Drake
…"

"
Katherine
," he said, his voice firm. He said nothing for a moment. "Hold on a second." I heard him speak to someone, wishing them well and thanking them for the meeting. Then, the sound of a door closing.

"Sorry," he said. "I had someone in my office."

"Drake, we could
never
do anything when my father's there…" I said, despite being titillated by the whole idea.

"Of course not. But we could arrive a bit early…"

I sat there, biting a nail, wondering how to respond to the tone of his voice, which was definitely authoritative, brooking no argument.

"What time would we meet them?" he asked.

"The usual time. Seven-thirty."

"Tell your dad it's my treat and that I insist. I'll reserve the fourth floor at the Russian Tea Room. Now, as for you, Ms.
Bennet
, I'll pick you up at 8
^th
Avenue at 6:45 and we'll arrive a half hour early. Remember my rules for going out in public. I want you wearing that black dress you wore at the fundraiser and your stockings and garters. Nothing underneath. Put your hair up so I can see your collar and get at that neck of yours. You'll be so wet when we get to the restaurant, I imagine I could make you come very easily."

I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting with my urge to argue. "If you really want this."

"I
really
want this, Katherine. I'm getting hard thinking about slipping my fingers inside of you while we're sitting at the table. I'm going to have to do some serious meditation and deep breathing to get rid of my not so little problem before I go to my next meeting…"

"I wish I could help you with that problem, Doctor Morgan."

He laughed. "I do as well. You'll help me later."

I smiled at the image of him dressed in his suit, his erection straining at his trousers.

"See you and it at six-forty five," I said, butterflies in my belly at the thought of him having his way with me at the restaurant.

"That's my good girl," he replied, his voice sounding pleased. "I love you."

"I love you, too," I said, his words eliciting a flood of warmth through me.

I ended the call and sighed, my body already warming to the thought of what would happen tonight.

The morning passed quickly and I ate a meager lunch I picked up from the deli across the street from my apartment. I spent the afternoon packing up the rest of my apartment. Most of the boxes that would be shipped to Africa were ready to go at my father's, but those things I'd donate or keep in storage were still waiting to be boxed up.

At about four o'clock, I took a taxi to my father's where my clothes were already packed for the trip. I said hello to my father and Elaine and then started to get ready, having a quick bath, shaving so that my skin was completely smooth, and then I did my hair and makeup. I unpacked my dress from the fundraiser and after fluffing it in the clothes dryer, I slipped it on. The final touch was the black velvet choker with the diamond pendant Drake had given me. My collar. Finally, I gathered up my coat and bag. I briefly popped my head in my father's office.

"Hi, Daddy," I said when he was no longer on the phone. He glanced up from his papers and smiled.

"You look lovely. How come you're ready so early?"

"I'm meeting Drake for a drink before dinner. We've got a lot to discuss."

My father nodded. "We'll meet you there at 7:30. I haven't been to the Russian Tea Room in ages."

"Drake loves the Tea Room. His dad took him there during a trip to Manhattan when Drake was first in college. They used to eat there regularly when his dad would visit. Drake's such a sentimental man."

I went to him and kissed his cheek. He smiled up at me, squeezing my hand on his shoulder, no more words being spoken between us. I turned and went to the door, still so amazed at how things had changed between my father and me in such a short while and it was all because of Drake.

When I glanced back, he was already back on the phone making plans for his run for office.

I took my father's limo service to Drake's apartment on 8
^th
Avenue, texting him when I was outside. I climbed the stairs to the third floor loft, thinking back to the first time I went there and how he met me on the landing. When I opened the door, Drake was waiting for me in the entry, holding two shot glasses of Anisovaya.

"Ms.
Bennet
…"

"Dr.
Morgan
," I replied, unable to keep a grin off my face. "I see you've got everything well in hand."

"Always," he said, his eyes twinkling in that way that promised so much. "I hope to have
you
well in hand all evening. I hope you obeyed my orders about your manner of dress."

"Do you doubt it?"

"Of course not, but you have quite a will. One I intend to tame."

"Tame?" I said, matching his mock stern tone. "What could you possibly mean by that, Doctor?"

"
Tame
," he said, officiously, as he handed me the glass. "To make docile, tractable, obedient. To domesticate. To harness, to
control
."

We shot back the Anisovaya, the liquor burning down my throat, warming my belly. I'd come to associate the taste with pleasure, and a thrill of desire flooded through me at what would happen next.

"You like your women tame?"

"No," he said, taking the glass from my hands and placing them on the small table by the door. "After meeting you, I realized I like them quite the opposite. I like them wild, willful, self-prepossessed. What I love is
taming
them. I love the battle of wills." He removed my coat and hung it in the closet in the entry. Then he took me in his arms, one around my waist, pulling me against his body, the other brushing a lock of hair from my cheek. "I love the planning, the reconnaissance, the approach, the first engagement, the attack, the resistance, then the eventual surrender."