The Drake Restrained Collection: Part 1 and 2 (The Drake Series Book 3) (13 page)

“You behave,” I said and smiled in spite of myself. I hung up, a little jolt in my gut at the prospects of seeing Katherine again. I’d invite her out for lunch or a drink so I could elaborate on my foundation’s work but, of course, it was really so that I could try to work my charm on her.

I was eager to get through my cases that morning and hoped everything would go well with my first surgery after lunch, but we ran into some technical problems with the equipment in the OR and were delayed about twenty minutes. I had little time so I didn’t change out of my scrubs into my street clothes and even then, didn’t make it over to the café for the interview until a few minutes after 3:30. Katherine was there with Dave and as I approached the table, the two were shaking hands. Perhaps they just arrived and I wasn't late at all. I laid a hand on Dave's shoulder and smiled at her.

"There you
are
," I said. "I was wondering if I'd make it down in time."

"We just finished," Katherine said and shrugged. 

"I
told
Mr. Mills that I'd be right over and he was
supposed
to wait and let me do the interview." I made a face at Dave and then turned to Katherine and caught her eye. "Perhaps you could stay behind for a moment so we can speak alone."

She glanced at Dave as if surprised. Dave must have arrived early so he could do the interview himself.

Dave turned to Katherine. "I didn't want you to waste your time in case Drake wasn't able to get away from the hospital. Sometimes his surgeries take longer than planned. Nice talking to you again, Kate. Good interview."

Dave  left the café, and I was finally alone with her. I sat beside her, my arm on the back of her chair, and just looked at her, drinking in every detail of her appearance.

Once more I note her fair skin, her green eyes, soft pink lips, and her silky golden brown hair.

"Well," she said after a moment, her cheeks pink. "I'm here. What did you want to talk about?"

Her expression of bemused patience brought me back to the moment.

"How's your ankle? Your knees?" I checked her legs, which were covered by tights under a short jean skirt.

"Almost all better."

"Good."

She smiled at me but I was in no rush, enjoying how her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. I couldn’t help imagining her with a sexual flush instead.

"So? You wanted to speak with me?"

"I just wanted to offer you the chance to ask me anything now that I'm here," I said.

"I think I got everything I need from Mr. Mills."

"You don't want to hear my side of things? Considering it's my father's foundation…"

She hesitated as if considering. She could walk out if she wanted. There was no reason for her to humor me. Instead, she decided to continue.

"I do have a few questions, more about motivation." She took out an iPhone and started the recording. "Can you tell me why he started this foundation?"

I moved my chair a bit closer, and leaned in, wanting to observe how she responded to my nearness. As I expected, she flushed once more, her cheeks pink.

"He was a socialist, committed to eradicating poverty,” I said, remembering my father with fondness, despite his neglect. “He didn't expect to become rich and so when he did, he poured almost every extra cent into helping hospitals in third world countries, especially Africa. He said something about unequal development and capitalist exploitation – you'd know more about that than me." Dave told me she was a bit of a socialist, so I decided to check and see if he was right.

She frowned, but didn’t correct me.

"The Foundation continues his work today. Everything we do in the Foundation is to try to fulfill my father's vision, even if only in a small way. He was so committed to his causes." I spoke more about the foundation and why my father started it, how it gave him a chance to give back the money he felt he didn’t need or deserve.

She watched my chin while I spoke as if too shy to look me in the eye, and I enjoyed her reticence. It made me want all the more to force her to look me in the eye when she came. I was going to make her come, of that I was certain. There was nothing I loved more than the moment a sub went over the edge, her orgasm starting, pleasure washing over her, removing the last vestiges of self-control, struggling to obey my command to look me in the eye. It was a moment of such intimacy that it intensified their experience, baring them in a way that being naked and fucked alone didn’t achieve.

I stopped speaking and she said nothing as if transfixed by my mouth. I couldn’t stop from smiling. What was she thinking? Did she imagine kissing me, the way I was imagining kissing her?

I doubted it. She seemed far too shy to imagine me eating her while she watched me, our eyes meeting while I sucked her clit.

"I'm
sorry
." She made a face, her cheeks red. "Can you tell me what project you're most proud of?"

I said something about the pediatric neurosurgery program the foundation funded, but in truth, my dick was hard thinking about fucking her and so I barely remembered a word of it.

"Your father died while in Africa several years ago.”

That jolted me back to reality, and not in a pleasant way.

"Yes,” I said, feeling remorse at his death still there even now, almost a year later. “He died just after you came back from Africa."

"What happened?"

I thought about it, deciding how much to tell. I didn’t really want to reminisce about my father, but she seemed interested so I told the story of how his plane crashed while on a trip to Somalia.

"He was flying into a small base camp where he was going to do some work with a local charity. Even though we were political opposites and didn't always see eye to eye, when he died, it was as if the ground was ripped out from under me." I looked in her eyes and she was listening with rapt attention. "Nothing has been able to fill the hole.
Nothing
. I took over the helm of his foundation because I thought doing his work might heal me in some way. That's how your father and I became friends. He came to the funeral and it was like he adopted me."

"I guess I just never saw my father as someone who would do that."

That shocked me. "What? Act fatherly?"

She nodded. "I mean, he's an authoritarian type – head of the family and all. But not to, you know, step in and act as a father substitute."

"He did,” I said, still surprised, my voice wavering a bit at the memory. “I relied on him to get through it."

During those first months, he spent quite a lot of time with me, much to my shock. We met for dinner and drinks, and talked in the sauna at the health club.

She actually teared up a bit. "I know what it means to lose a parent."

"Your mother died of cancer a few years ago,” I said, realizing that we shared a common loss. “The year before you went to Africa. Your father told me."

She nodded and stared off into the distance for a moment as if unable to leave the thought of her dead mother behind. It was in that moment that I also realized that perhaps I was wrong to pursue her after all. She was still very delicate if she teared up so easily at the talk of our dead parents, the wounds still raw.

"Well, that's all I have," she said finally, her voice sounding almost regretful that she didn’t have anything more to say. "I guess I should go. Don't want to keep you from the OR."

We both stood and I extended  my hand, wanting to touch her once before we parted, for I knew that it would be the last time we met.

I wouldn’t ask her out. I wouldn’t pursue her.

She wasn’t in the lifestyle and perhaps wasn’t ready to be introduced to it.

She took my hand and I lifted hers to my mouth, pressing my lips softly against her knuckles.

"People have spoken so highly of you," I said, keeping her hand in mine. "So has your father. In the past few days, I've read up a bit about you, reread your articles on Mangaize. Still so impressive. I don't know who I was expecting when I thought about meeting you. Someone older. Different. I was so surprised to actually meet you."

She pulled her hand away. "What do you mean?"

"Your writing – it's so visceral. Insightful for someone so young."

She was lovely and she was sweet and she was still fragile. I knew I would overwhelm her with the intensity of my desire for her, my need to dominate her, to control her.

I could probably completely possess her, make her do things she wouldn’t otherwise imagine possible, if she let me and at that moment, I sensed that if I pressed her, she would let me.

An enormous sense of guilt filled me. She was the lovely Katherine. Champion of Africa, whose harrowing articles on Mangaize filled even me with emotion. She was the sweet sad Katherine, who lost her mother and had never fully grieved until forced to because of the trauma of Mangaize.

She was Ethan’s beloved daughter, the delicious Ms. Bennet with scuffed and bloodied knees. Who wore sexy garters and retro nylons with a seam down the back.

"I'm glad we could meet and talk," I said, still fighting with myself, the darker part of me wanting to forge ahead and seduce her. The better part of me fighting to keep him in check. "I'd like to interview
you
sometime, talk about Africa."

"I don't really like to talk about Africa."

"Why?"

"It was upsetting."

"Your father told me you had problems after you came back. You were there at the height of the famine. It had to be very hard." She nodded but said nothing. Then, I made my decision and the better angels of my nature won out, a mental hand covering the mouth of the darker part of me, smothering his lust-filled protest. "I'd really like to just take you out for coffee or a drink," I said. "I feel like I've known you forever from everything your father's told me about you. But I probably shouldn't."

"Probably," she said and I was surprised that she said it. Did she somehow perceive the danger I posed to her? Did she sense the chasm so close to her?

"Can I ask why?" she added, her cheeks red.

I shook my head quickly. "You're
The Hangin' Judge's
daughter," I said, not wanting to admit it, but being truthful for a moment. "I'm not the kind of man Judge McDermott's daughter should get involved with."

She frowned at that. "He thinks very highly of you."

I smiled, but I didn’t really feel amused. Instead, I felt a darkness engulf me that I couldn’t explain.

"He doesn't really know me."

She frowned but said nothing in response. If she had protested even just a small bit, all my reasons for not pursuing her would have fallen like a row of dominoes.

I walked her to the door, feeling so protective of her now that my better side won out. I held the door open for her, reluctance filling me, knowing I couldn’t pursue someone as sweet and fragile as her.

I would never want to see her expression of horror when she learned who and what I was, and most of all, what I wanted to do to her body and mind.

"Thank you for doing an interview," she said when we stepped outside.

I smiled, forcing it so we could part on a positive note.

"Goodbye, lovely Katherine."

Then the door closed and I walked one way, while she walked the other.

Part of me shouted to turn back and ask her out anyway, throwing caution to the wind, the promise of her deliciously soft and warmly compliant body beneath mine so tempting, but the better part of me won out once more.

I kept walking.

CHAPTER
NINE

The next week passed slowly and I felt as if I were trapped in a fog, unable to find my way back to my real life – the one pre-Katherine when I was busy and content with things, eager to meet a new sub and start a new D/s relationship.

Instead of my usual cheerful approach to life, I went through the motions, getting up and going to work, doing my surgeries, teaching, playing in the band, but my world had become engulfed in a darkness that prevented me from enjoying life the way I usually did.