The Agreement (39 page)

"
Za vas
," I replied and we shot
the vodka back. I grimaced a bit and he smacked his lips.

"Oh
korosho
, that's so good."
He smiled, a wicked smile. I couldn’t help but smile back.

"This is a nice old apartment."

He took my empty glass back and looked around.
"My father bought it for me when I started college. Until then, I lived in
Baltimore with him. He worked at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center
until he died."

"So you came to Manhattan and lived here
all by yourself?"

He nodded. "He hated that I was moving
away, but I wanted to come to New York to Columbia, get away from Baltimore
– and him."

"Why him?"

He shrugged. "He wanted me to become a
doctor like him, and I was in rebellious youth mode at the time. I wanted to
study psychoanalysis. So I came here. When he couldn't talk me out of it, he
made sure to come here and buy me a place to live. He wanted me to live here
because he'd been so happy here and so he made the owner a offer way over its
market value. It was his only real splurge despite his wealth. He approved
because it was a rent-controlled building and he let the other tenants stay,
not raising the rent once. Such an idealistic socialist…"

"It's yours now," I said. "Have
you raised the rent?"

He shook his head and smiled. "Nah. I'll
let the current tenants keep the units until they decide to move out. Rent
controlled units are so rare, it's a shame to lose them. I keep this place just
for the memories."

"Sounds like a bit of his socialism rubbed
off on you." I raised my eyebrows.

He grinned. "It's just lazy rich boy,
actually. I can't be bothered to change things." He glanced around.
"I don't want to."

While he put the glasses down, I stood in the
center of the dim apartment beside an old leather wing chair next to a
fireplace. I was completely surrounded by Drake's things from his life –
his music and his books and his father's old possessions. I felt like I was
seeing right into his mind.

I
liked
what I saw.

He missed his father. Couldn't part with his
things. The living room was crammed full with furniture. I just
knew
it
was his father's for it looked like it belonged in a man's home – all
leather and dark wood and overstuffed. There was a huge old wooden desk up
against the window and one of those wooden office chairs on rollers. Taped up
boxes sat stacked high in one corner, marked with
Dad
on them.

"Is this your father's furniture?"

He smiled briefly. "Yeah, I know.
Sentimental, right? When he died, I couldn't bring myself to sell it or give it
away so I closed up his apartment in Baltimore and had it shipped here."

I smiled to myself. "How often do you come
here?"

"I practice here," he said, standing a
few feet away, staring at me. "Luckily, old Mr. Neumann downstairs is
practically deaf, so it doesn't bother him."

"You practice here with your band?"

"No, just me. I come here when I have time
off and just play."

"Do you ever have time off? You sound so
busy… Your surgery. Your band. The foundation. Your subs…"

"I'm rich. I only work as much as I want
to. Interesting cases only. I keep busy."

"Do you play this?" I went to an old
acoustic guitar that was attached to an amp standing next to the desk and wall
of books. "I thought you played the bass guitar."

"I play lead and acoustic as well."

On the table beside the guitar was a piece of
sheet music. Something by Simon and Garfunkel. "
Old Friends/Bookends
".
On the top of the sheet music was a hand-written note.

'To Liam. From your 'old friend'. E'

It looked like my father's handwriting, the E
for Ethan. I held the piece of sheet music up and beneath it was a faded
Polaroid of my father as a much younger man and a man who looked very much like
Drake, with dark hair and a jaw covered in stubble. Both wore fatigues and had
dog tags around their necks. They stood side by side smiling at the camera,
their arms around each other's shoulders. It looked like it was taken in
Vietnam for the background was jungle.

"Oh my
God
," I said, staring at
the Polaroid, a hand covering my mouth. "This is
them
." I
turned to him and he nodded, smiling softly.

"Your father gave that photo and sheet
music to my dad a long time ago. I remembered them when I came here tonight and
found them so you could see."

I looked both over, amazed. "They really
were
friends." I glanced up at him. He had a strange expression on his face.
"Somehow, I didn't really believe it. Like it was just a story my father
told me about this crazy doctor friend of his from 'Nam."

He came to my side and took the photo out of my
hand. "They thought they'd be friends forever."

That made my throat constrict when I thought of
Liam dying in a plane crash. How this apartment – the furniture –
the Foundation – were Drake's way of keeping his father with him.

"Will you play this for me?" I held
the sheet music out.

He shook his head and took the sheet music away.
"I don't think so."

I frowned. "Why not?"

He smiled and put the sheet of music down on the
desk, but his smile was a bit forced. Then I got it.
Of course
. This was
too personal. We were just D/s partners. Would-be Dominant and submissive.

"I understand," I said, grimacing.
"That's getting too personal, right?"

"No, it's just that I had other plans when
inviting you here…" He raised his eyebrows at that.

Emotions battled in me. I was a bit hurt that he
wouldn’t play it for me. I didn't believe for a moment that the reason he
wouldn’t play was because he wanted to have sex with me.

"I get it, Drake." I sighed and went
to the window, looking down at the street below. "You don't want us to
cross that line. I'm sorry. This is just new to me. This
fucking
without
emotion thing."

He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around
me, his hands taking mine, our fingers threading together.

"Oh, there's lots of emotion, Kate. Just
very contained and appropriate."

I nodded. "I know. You want to keep things
compartmentalized. Your food in all the right spots on the plate. No messy
mingling of flavors. I'm used to piling everything on the fork all at once. I
don't know if I can do this."

"Shh," he said, his breath warm in my
ear. "Stop over-thinking. Just
feel
. Feel this," he said and
pressed his erection against me, reminding me of why we were here. "I've
been imagining fucking you all afternoon. You don't know how difficult it was
to blank you out of my thoughts because I kept thinking of your tight wet
little pussy and getting hard. Not quite a good thing when you're supposed to
be focused on delicate brain surgery…"

I smiled and leaned back against him, closing my
eyes, trying not to let sadness dull the excitement I felt. "You're
exaggerating."

He chuckled, and nuzzled my neck. "Maybe
not
during
surgery but in between."

I nestled into his arms, enjoying his warmth.
"I apologize if I intruded in your thoughts."

"No apology necessary."

We just stood there at the window, the faint
light from the street filtering through the wrought iron trellis covering the
window, his arms around me, his body pressed against mine. 

"And
now
," he said. "Now
that I have you all to myself, alone in my
lair
, it's time for you to
put that signature on the agreement into effect. You understand what that
means?"

I swallowed hard, a thrill of something between
excitement and fear going through my body right to my groin.
"Submission?"

"Yes," he said, his lips at my neck.
"No hesitation. No questions. Just comply."

"What if--." I said, but he stopped
me, his finger on my mouth.

"Shh," he said. "No
what ifs
.
You know the safe words. Yellow if you need me to slow down. Red if you
absolutely have to stop what's happening. You also know what red means."

"Full stop and I go home?"

"Yes. But remember – I don't want to
go too fast or scare you. I want you to trust me. I want this to work so I plan
on keeping a very close watch over you and how you respond to me and what I'm
doing. You don't have to be afraid.
Much
. Do you understand?"

"Much?"

"Kate, a little fear is arousing to a sub.
A little uncertainty about what I'll do to you. What I'll make you do to me.
Admit it. It makes you wet."

I closed my eyes, my cheeks hot, my heart rate
increasing just a bit.

"
Admit
it," he said in my ear,
his mouth on my neck, his arms tightening around me as if to reinforce his
power over me. "You have to learn to be completely honest with me. It
arouses you. I can tell, Kate. Your heart rate just increased. Your breathing
is fast and shallow at the thought. If I was to slip my fingers between your
lips, I'd feel how wet you are. Tell me I'm right."

"Yes," I said softly, his firm arms
around me, his lips at my neck, his breath on my skin making me feel so
aroused.

"Yes, what?"

I hesitated. He wanted me to call him something.
To acknowledge he was a Dom and in control. "What do you want me to call
you? Sir? Or Master?"

"What do I
want
you to call me? I
want you to call me
Master
when we're in scene. I know you don't feel it
yet. If you say it enough, if I make you
feel
it, eventually it will be
second nature. I'll enjoy that. But more than that, I will enjoy you calling me
Master even if you don't feel it."

"Why? Don't you
want
me to feel
it?"

"Of course. That's what I long for. But I
also just want your submission. Your obedience. I know you don't feel that I'm
your Master now, but your willingness to just do what I command will please me
in itself."

"Yes," I said, and swallowed "
Master
."
I scrunched my face up because it just didn't feel right, but I did it all the
same. I
wanted
to feel it. Maybe saying it would ensure one day that I
did really feel it.

"Good
girl
," he said and
stroked his hands over my body, over my shoulders and down my arms, then over
my breasts. "When we meet from now on, after you cross that threshold and
I kiss you the first time, it's a signal that we're in scene and I expect
obedience. I'll call you Katherine or slave, you call me Master. Now, no more
talking. No hesitation."

The shift in the atmosphere was palpable and I
felt as if something descended over him, changing him subtly. Instead of just
Drake with the guitars and dead father, he was Drake the Dominant, Master D,
establishing control over the situation and over me.

That shift in him thrilled me.

He caressed my breasts for a moment through the
fabric and then moved lower over my belly and to my thighs. Just his touch over
my clothes aroused me, and I pressed against him, his erection hard against my
buttocks. Desire welled up inside of me when he slipped one hand beneath my
sweater to cup a breast, making my legs weak. The other hand slid up under the
hem of my skirt and then he felt the garter belt.

"Mmm, I
like
this, Ms. Bennet…"

I smiled to myself, for he'd already messed up by
calling me Ms. Bennet.

I was glad that I thought to wear the nylons and
garter belt. Then his fingers moved and he felt my naked flesh beneath the
garter belt.

"Oh, I
really
like this," he
said, his voice low, husky. Sexy. "I like that you remembered and thought
about this and how to please me." His fingers slipped between my labia and
down lower to the entrance to my body. "I really
really
like that
you're already so
wet
."

He kissed my neck while stroking my clit and I
gasped, inhaling when his fingers penetrated me. He was tall enough so that he
could reach down and slide his fingers under my skirt to feel the garters
attached to the tops of my nylons. Then, he released me and turned me around to
face him.

"Take your clothes off except for your bra,
the garters and nylons."

Then he backed away and turned the wing chair
around, sitting on it, his arms on the arm rests, his legs spread wide. His
face was shrouded in darkness for the only light in the entire apartment came
from a dim yellow bulb on a small table lamp by the fireplace and through the
window from the street.

"Undress, Katherine.
Slowly
." 
He licked his lips as if his mouth was dry. "Touch yourself while you
do."

I took in a deep breath and tried to squelch the
usual shyness I felt about getting naked with a man. He'd already seen me
naked. But I wasn't quite comfortable yet.