The Agreement (8 page)

I expect you to comply with my commands without
hesitation. I know your limits for we have already discussed them. You know my
desires, for I have already described them. We will establish ahead of time
exactly what we will do together so that you are well-prepared.

There will be little need for conversation for
we will communicate using touch, eye contact, and only occasionally, a verbal
command or word of encouragement, and when necessary, correction. We have
discussed your safe word, but I don't expect you to need it for I will not lose
control. Of that you can be certain.

Control is what I desire and it is what I am
best at.

Why did the Dom's words so arouse me?

I glanced up from my iPhone when the café door
opened and Lara walked in. I took in a deep cleansing breath as she made her
way to the counter. I put my phone down and watched as she ordered an espresso
from the barista then came to my table. She sat down, removing her coat, and
glanced at what I was wearing as if to judge whether I met her standards.

"You look nice enough," she said,
rubbing the cashmere of my sweater between her fingers. "Classy but not
overdressed, nice skirt, hose, even heels. He'll like
you
. I knew that
the first time I saw you."

"Why?" I asked, sipping my drink
nervously.

"He likes petite women. You're exactly his
type."

As we passed the time
waiting for the Dom to arrive, we talked about my father.

"You must invite me
to a fundraiser one of these days," she said when her coffee arrived.
"Making connections is everything in my profession."

"I will," I
said, a bit reluctant even though I liked her. What if it got out that she was
a Domme?

Lara checked her watch.

"I wonder where he
is," she said, her voice a bit impatient. "He's usually right on
time."

I took in a deep breath,
trying to calm my nerves. As we waited,
he
walked into the café –
Drake Morgan, MD. Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the Columbia Center
for Movement Disorders, Bass Player, Volunteer for
Doctors Without Borders
,
the medical charity we both belonged to, the son of my father's oldest and best
friend.

What was
he
doing
here?

Seeing him once more, I
realized that he was perhaps the most beautiful man I’d ever met with those
impossibly-blue eyes fringed with thick dark lashes and a few days-worth of
stubble on his very square jaw. Fresh from the OR at NY Presbyterian, he still
wore blue scrubs under a white lab coat.

He stopped up short,
frowning when he saw us, glancing around the deserted café as if in confusion.
When Lara stood and waved him over to the table, I got a very bad feeling.

"You’re
late
,"
she said, air kissing his cheeks when he arrived as if she'd been expecting
him.

It was only then I
realized why he was there.

The look on Drake's face
would have been hilarious if it wasn't the most awkward moment of my life.

This was a
disaster
.

"Oh,
God
," I said, glancing
away for a moment. Drake was my
Dom
. The Dominant who was going to teach
me about the lifestyle.  The one Lara thought I could like for real.

"I have to go." I pulled on my coat,
gathered up my bag and put on my sunglasses. I walked away, my body stiff,
mortified that Drake Morgan was the Dom I was supposed to meet.

"Kate!" Lara called out to me, but I
was out the door and on the street hailing a taxi before Lara could call me
back. I practically ran away from them – from
Drake
.

Oh,
God
…

The taxi drove down the street and before even a
few moments passed, my cell rang. It was from Lara. I refused the call.

When it rang a second time, I answered.

"Before you say
anything
," I
said, frustrated, not wanting to speak to her now. "I want you to remind
Dr. Morgan that this was
purely
academic. This was research –
nothing more. No matter what you think Lara, I'm not interested. This was
nothing
personal
—"

"Kate,
Kate
, shhhh," Drake
Morgan said, his voice soft. "Don't worry. I
know
. You’re a serious
student. This is just research. If anything, it's me who should be
embarrassed."

I hung up and threw my phone into my bag.

CHAPTER FOUR

I was numb the entire taxi ride back to my
apartment, my cheeks hot despite the chill air. The adrenaline shock that went
through my body when I realized Drake was my Dominant left me weak.

Drake Morgan?

MD, brain surgeon, bass player, philanthropist,
my father's example of perfect
manhood
? Now I knew what he meant when he
said my father didn't really know him.

I felt a bit nauseated that he knew I was the
one who wanted to meet him. No, make that I felt
completely
nauseated
that he knew.

He was a
Dominant
? Dawn said he was
dangerous when she saw him in the bar. As usual, she was right.

Holy
crap
… I looked down in my lap. My
hands were shaking.

Lara said he liked to tie women up and control
their pleasure, fuck them senseless.  Mindfucks. The thought of it –
even now – even mortified as I was – titillated me. My body
couldn't help but respond, a twitch between my legs when I thought of him
naked, being all --
dominating
. Like that Dom in the letters.

This was terrible. This was horrible. This was…
oh,
hell
, what if my father found out I was looking for a Dominant? Even
if it
was
just research for a course paper, if he knew I was really
interested
in the subject…

Total and complete mortification.

Humiliation.

I didn't even admit that I read the books that
everyone was talking about when both his wife Elaine and my sister-in-law
Christie giggled together about it in front of him.

Oh.
God
. It would be comical if it wasn't
so mortifying. I couldn't imagine what Drake thought.
I'm
the one who
wanted to talk to him about being a Dominant… About BDSM. About submission. I
was mortified by my curiosity and, yes, real interest.

I was already in my father's bad books for
changing focus from politics to popular culture and not even going for the
internship interview he arranged with an editor friend at the
NY Post
.
If he
knew
…

My cell vibrated in my bag again –
probably Lara calling back. I fished around in the bottom, searching for it and
checked out the call display.

Drake Morgan, MD.

He was using his own phone now. I ignored his
call.

No freaking way.

I paid the taxi driver and ran up the stairs to
my third floor flat in the old brownstone, slamming the door behind me. I
removed my shoes, threw down my bag on the coffee table and paced my tiny
apartment. What was I going to do now?

I flopped down on the couch and tried to get
control over myself.

He wanted anonymity as well. As Lara said, he
was a professional. Top in his field, he didn't want it getting around that he
was
kinky
.

Drake Morgan – devastatingly
gorgeous
Drake Morgan – was
kinky
. Not only was he about the most handsome
man I've ever laid eyes on, he was wealthy, powerful. And kinky. I felt an
uncomfortably warm and swollen sensation between my legs at that thought.

I sighed heavily and glanced around my
apartment. It was tiny but I was lucky to get a sublet in a rent controlled
building. I insisted on using my scholarship money and work as a teaching
assistant to pay for everything, not wanting any of my father's money, although
he insisted in setting aside my allowance in a trust fund for when I 'came to
my senses'. It meant I lived like a pauper, but it also meant I was
independent. I wanted to show my father that I was as good as Heath.

My father
always
favored my older brother
over me. Heath had always been the responsible one – the one who always
said and did the right thing. Heath would
never
do something stupid like
this… He married the right woman, had beautiful children and a respectable
six-figure job in corporate finance.

Just when my father was starting to believe I
had more to me, I had the breakdown, then fly-boy, and now
this
?

Crap. Just.
Crap
.

Drake Morgan called or texted five more times
during the afternoon and evening, but I ignored each one and refused to listen
to his voice messages.

Lara must have given him my email.

I deleted the bookmark of the website where that
Dom's letters to his sub were posted. I didn’t need any more reminders of this.
Instead, I read over an article I was writing on social media, determined to
put Dr. Drake Morgan out of my mind. I watched stupid videos on YouTube. When
that became boring, I watched reruns of
Big Bang Theory
. Those were the
kind of men I belonged with.

Not beautiful Dominant Drake Morgan, MD.

Then, I busied myself with cleaning. It was
therapeutic. I cleaned out the pantry, throwing out anything past its due date,
and then I rearranged my tiny cupboard so that the pots and pans were all in
logical order and tidy the way I kept them when I worked in a kitchen during my
undergrad years.

Finally, I washed the dishes in the sink, all
the while listening to something calming – Faure.
Sicilienne
. I
needed something soft and dreamy to make me forget what happened.

It was then someone knocked at my door. He wasn’t
actually at my
door
, was he? I peered through the peephole.

Crap
… Yes. Dr. Morgan himself, his blue eye close to
the hole.

Of all the
nerve
.

I pulled back and grimaced, but of course, he
couldn’t see me. Some idiot must have propped the front door open
again
.

"I don't want to talk to you, Dr.
Morgan," I said, my hands still in yellow rubber gloves, soap suds
dripping onto the parquet floor. I tried to sop up the puddle up with my foot,
but all I ended up with was a wet foot, my pantyhose not thick enough to do
anything.

"Kate,
please
, considering
everything, call me Drake. And
trust
me. I have no interest in revealing
anything about this to anyone. You, Lara and I are the only people who will
ever know anything about this."

"Good," I said, relief flooding
through me that he understood. "Thank you. Let's just forget this ever
happened.
All
of it."

"No,
no
…" he said, and I heard
a hint of protest in his voice. "No need for that. We can still do the
interviews. You want to research the lifestyle and I'm happy to help in any way
I can."

"No
way
," I said, shaking my
head vigorously even though he couldn’t see me. "I can't. Just forget
about it."

"Seriously, Kate," he said, his voice
light. I peered out through the peephole and watched him. "There's no need
to call this off. I'm quite happy to teach you anything you want to know
about," he said and leaned closer to the door as if trying to be private.
"About submission. I'll even take you to a fetish night. Lara said you
wanted to go. You could wear a mask, and no one would know who you are. I teach
at Columbia in the department of medicine. I
love
teaching…"

"No," I said, slicing my hand sideways
to cut him off, my hands looking ridiculous in rubber gloves. "It's
completely out of the question. It's totally embarrassing."

"
Kate
…" he said, his voice
trailing off. "I understand your interest in this completely. I have a lot
of experience. You don't have to be embarrassed with me."

"You're kidding, right?" I said,
shaking my head, leaning my shoulder against the door. "You don't think
this is mortifying?"

"For me,
yes
. For you,
no
.
I'm the one who should be mortified, not you. Here I was, hoping to impress you
enough that you'd go out with me for a drink some night and you discover I'm a
Dom. You're just doing this for a research paper, after all…"

Was that a hint of humor in his voice? He didn’t
believe this was just research. Lara must have said something.

"I'm changing topics," I said weakly,
coming up with the excuse on the spot.