The Commitment (The Unrestrained #2) (15 page)

We embraced once more and went out into a cold Manhattan winter's night.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

We drove down the snowy streets in silence. I took Drake's hand, waiting until he felt like talking. As I watched the passing scenery, I noticed that we weren't going back towards his apartment in Chelsea, but instead down 8
^th
Avenue.

It was 'our place'. Where we first really became a couple.

"You want to go to 8
^th
Avenue?"

He nodded but didn't say anything. I bit my lip, not wanting to question him about it. He'd say why if he felt like it. Still, I was curious. I liked his apartment and planned on using it as a studio of sorts before we left for Africa. It felt as if he was really letting me 'in' by taking me there – into his life.

"I think of 8
^th
Avenue as
our
place," he said quietly, mirroring my own thoughts. "My apartment is
me
as I was before you. I'm different now. Frankly, I'd like to sell the Chelsea apartment and for us to move into 8
^th
Avenue or get our own place when we come back from Africa."

"Will you still be able to go? I mean, with the transplant…"

He shook his head. "I'll contact the head of the Neurosurgery program and let him know what's up. I may not be a match, but if I am, the procedures will take about four weeks. I'll have to cancel my slate, have someone else do my surgeries, but we can still go once I know Liam's OK, if I
am
a match. I wouldn’t start teaching until March anyway." He pulled into a park and lock parking garage and found a spot. When he got out, he came around to my side and opened the door for me. I'd become used to his gentlemanly ways and let him.

He took my arm and we walked down the stairs to the ground level.

"I hope to hell that I'm a match. He's so young and frail and this cancer is very aggressive."

I cleared my throat, a bit overcome with emotion. "You'll have to stay for a while, see how he does."

He nodded. "I hope you don't mind. We just may have time to get your malaria meds all up to date before we go."

"Of
course
I don't mind." We entered the street, arm in arm, and we walked the block and a half to his building. "What's involved in the transplant?"

He opened the front entry door for me and held it as I went through. "Testing to see if my HLA is a match for Liam's, and then if I'm a match, they'll have two options. They can give me a drug called Filgrastim to increase my blood stem cells and then harvest them from my blood using a machine that separates white from red blood cells, or they can go into my marrow surgically and take it out."

"Is it painful?"

"Filgrastim makes you really achy and tired for a few days before the donation because your marrow is producing more stem cells than normal. There's a recovery time after they harvest your cells. A week or so. Taking marrow directly out of the bone causes discomfort, but it's bearable with painkillers."

"How do they decide?" I asked as we climbed the stairs to his apartment.

"That's up to the oncologist but it's easier to do the peripheral collection."

He opened the door to the apartment and I was taken once more by the scent of the place and how much it made me think of the happy times we'd spent there together. Tonight would not be one of those times, but I'd try to comfort Drake as best I could, however he wanted me to comfort him.

"How do they do the procedure?"

He took my coat and hung it in the closet while I shucked off my boots. "They'll have me lie on a bed, cover me with warm blankets. They take blood out of one arm, run it through a machine that separates out the stem cells, and then re-infuse it in the other arm."

"Is there any risk?"

He shook his head. "Not really. They're very skilled at this and have been doing it successfully now for years. It's amazing and has saved so many lives." I followed him into the kitchen, where he kept his bottle of Anisovaya. Yelena Kuznetsova's shot glasses were at my father's apartment, so instead, Drake sorted through his glasses in the kitchen cupboard and brought out two mismatched juice glasses.

"These will have to do," he said and poured two shots of vodka for us. He passed one to me and then held his own up. "
Za vas
," he said, unable to muster much enthusiasm.

"
Za vas
," I replied, forcing a smile, and together, we shot back the vodka. Then he took my glass out of my hand and put them both on the side table. He pulled me into his arms, his going around my shoulders, mine around his waist, my head resting on his chest.

"What a night," he said, exhaling heavily. "I feel like I've been hit by a truck."

I squeezed him more tightly. "You've had a shock. Shock after shock. To learn you have a son, and that he has leukemia, and that you might be a match for a bone marrow transplant… It's a lot to take in at once."

He nodded but said nothing, his hand stroking my hair. Then, he kissed the top of my head. "I need you," he said, his voice hoarse. "I need to get lost in you."

I pulled my head off his chest and looked up in his eyes, which were half-hooded. I heard the need in his voice and my body responded immediately.

"I'm yours," I said, emotion filling me, making my throat choke up. "Whatever you want. Whatever you need."

He bent down and kissed me, his kiss soft at first, but growing in passion as his hands stroked down my back to my ass, which he squeezed with both hands.

"I need you naked,
now
," he said, his voice breathless. He began stripping away my clothes, first my sweater and jeans, then my bra and panties and socks so that I stood naked in front of him, my heart racing.

"So
beautiful
…"

He pulled me to the bedroom, and I wondered what he'd do to me, how he'd fuck me. Would he tie me up and make me come three times? Would he do something new? He didn’t have his toys at 8
^th
Avenue. Only the old leather tie we'd used that first night he actually bound my hands.

Then, to my surprise, he pressed me face down over the edge of the bed, one hand on my shoulder.

"Clasp your hands together," he said. I did as he ordered. "Spread your legs farther apart."

I complied without a word or hesitation, my hands sliding up so they were above me on the bed. I heard his belt buckle jangle as he unfastened it, and the zzzhr as he pulled down his zipper. And then, without any preliminaries, without any foreplay besides the one kiss, he entered me, his cock hard as rock. I gasped as he filled me up, the pressure intense and a shock.

Then he fucked me.
Hard
.

One hand gripped my hip while with the other, he twisted a fist of hair, holding me down. He said nothing, just thrust hard and fast, the slap slap slap of his body against me increasing in pace and loudness, his breathing matching it.

I deliberately did not let my body respond to anything. I merely listened and felt and experienced Drake fucking me, his need for release – for the sweet release of endorphins from his orgasm. His thrusts increased in speed and then he leaned over me, his mouth on my shoulder, biting down a bit. He kissed the spot and then leaned closer, his mouth next to my ear.

"I'm just going to
fuck
you," he said, his voice harsh. "I'm just going to
fuck
you. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I said, letting the feel of him thrusting so hard and fast wash over me.

"Oh,
fuck
," he said, his mouth beside my ear. "Oh,
fuck
…"

Then he came, and I caught a glimpse of him when I craned my neck as far as I could. His face was red, his eyes squeezed shut, his jaw gritted tightly. He grunted in my ear with each slow thrust as he ejaculated, his face slackening, his mouth opening as he panted.

Then he collapsed on top of me, his weight almost crushing me, his cock still inside of me, throbbing now and then in the aftermath of his orgasm. Then he moved aside slightly and I could breathe once more.

I said nothing. He said nothing. Finally, he rose up and pulled out of me slowly and I knew he was watching to see evidence of his pleasure seeping out of me.
Creampie
, he told me it was called.

I crushed my face into the coverlet to hide my smile. Yes, my body still felt need, I was unsatisfied sexually, but I was happy. Drake couldn't stop from using my body for his own pleasure. He was totally focused on himself and his own need – for
once
.

He finally took me as I always wanted him to and for once, I felt that he truly needed me.

I continued to lie there, waiting for what he would do. He went right to the bathroom and I heard him running water. When he returned, he held a wet washcloth and a towel in hand and proceeded to clean my body off, stroking it over my flesh gently. Then, he lay beside me on the bed on his back, his head turned to face mine.

"Thank you."

I smiled and reached out to touch his cheek. "Thank
you
."

He nodded without smiling. Then he rolled over and threw his arm and leg over my body, pulling me closer.  "I like that I can fuck you with no preliminaries. That you want me to when I need you that badly. It makes me happy."

We lay like that, not speaking, for a few moments. Finally, he exhaled.

"I'm exhausted," he said, pulling away, rising from the bed to undress. After we both brushed our teeth, we crawled into bed and within a very short time, Drake was asleep beside me, his breathing deep and slow.

In contrast, I lay in the darkness and listened to Drake breathe. In sleep, his leg was thrown over me possessively as we lay naked, spooned in each other's arms, my back to him. For the first time ever, he'd had an orgasm without making me have one. It satisfied me in a strange way that, finally, he'd dropped his insistence on making me orgasm twice to his one. He needed me enough to take me, focusing completely on his own pleasure. That would be something I would have frowned on only a few short months ago, but so much had changed in my life since that day I agreed to go to my father's fundraiser – the first one I'd attended since I returned from Africa.

Drake had changed me. I felt almost like a different person now. Stronger. More sure of myself. Sure enough to try things I never would before, to tell Dawn that we couldn't be friends until she learned to accept Drake was part of my life. Willing to give Africa another try.

Strange how being Drake's sexual submissive and lover had been the one thing that changed it all.

Drake had changed as well. Once, he was so tightly controlled, his life so regimented and rule-governed, keeping the parts of his life separate. Now, he wanted to be with me, all the time. With me, he didn't use D/s as a way to keep his emotional distance. He didn't have to tie me up to enjoy me, although he did.

Learning he had a son, that his son had cancer, and that his son's life may depend on whether he was a tissue match had shaken Drake. He was a man whose life had been suddenly turned upside-down – this time not in a good way. I was glad I was there to comfort him. I wondered how this experience would change him even more.

He was a father, but would never be able to actually act like one with Liam. Not until Liam was an adult and could choose to include Drake. Would Drake change his mind about his plans for his life as a result?

He didn't see himself as a family man for he'd never really had a family of his own. He didn't see himself as a father, for his own father had treated Drake with benign neglect. Women had always left Drake, starting with a mother who lost her first son to leukemia and who could never recover from the loss, even when Drake came along. Maureen left when Drake failed at being a good husband. He tied his D/s partners up and used them sexually. That, or he saw them as colleagues. Nothing more.

I had no idea what the future held for us. Despite our plans to go to Africa, for Drake to teach and work as a surgeon in Nairobi, life intervened. I was glad he didn’t have to cancel his teaching position. He didn’t need the income but he enjoyed teaching. He had committed to helping with the hospital's neurosurgical slate and the delay in him arriving if he was a match would be a disappointment for them. Would Drake even want to leave at all now that he knew his son was ill and possibly dying?

I could only hold on tight to him and see where life with all its twists and turns took us.

Finally, with Drake's face nuzzled into my neck, I fell asleep.