Unrestrained (Unrestrained 3)

I shook my head. "No, he's at the hospital on call tonight."

"A doctor, then?"

"Yes," I said, not wanting to give more information away than I had to.

"Glad for you. Pity for me. I don’t suppose you have an open relationship?"

I turned to him, my face hot. "No," I said adamantly. "We don't. We're monogamous and committed."

He made a face of surprise and stepped back, holding his hands up as if in surrender.

"Can't blame a man for wondering."

"It's very rude of you to ask such a forward question before you even know me."

"Sorry if you took offense, but that's the kind of man I am. Forward. Honest. You know us dominant men," he said and wagged his eyebrows. "When we see what we like, we usually do everything we can to get it."

"I'm not available," I managed, my heart racing at his comment about being a 'dominant' man.

Then he bowed his head slightly and moved on, his hands behind his back. He left without asking my name and I was glad, for if he had been at the dungeon, I wanted nothing to do with him. I wore a mask, but my choker was so unique that if you saw it once, you'd remember it.

If he was a teacher at the Institute, I had no interest in taking a class from him. He was far too blatant about the idea of being with me and mentioning submission – to a complete stranger! Then I wondered if Drake had taken me into one of the public rooms after all. What if this man had seen me blindfolded, restrained and having sex with Drake?

A chill went through me. I stole a look at him over the rim of my drink. He was very well-built, dressed in a pair of dark gray slacks and a black turtleneck, which made his white-blond hair stand out.

"I see you met Sefton," Claire said, sidling up to me, raising her eyebrows.

"Sefton?" I watched him speaking to a small group of people near the table with canapés. "You know him?"

"He's only one of the most famous artists in residence the Institute has ever had. South African, from a very powerful Afrikaner family, owned a lot of land under Apartheid." She pointed to the picture I'd been examining. "That's one of his."

I turned back to see the name of the artist whose work I was admiring when Sefton spoke to me.

S. deVilliers.

Sefton deVilliers?

"He's the artist in residence at the college this year?"

"Oh, yes," Claire said. "The college has been very lucky to get him. His work has been an embarrassment to his family, who pretty much renounced him because of his politics."

"Are his pictures about South Africa? I thought they were about Nairobi."

"No," Claire said, taking a sip of her wine. "Soweto. The black township outside Johannesburg. His family disowned him after he married an African woman. An activist he met while scouting out subjects for his artwork."

I nodded and thought about his pictures. They couldn’t be seen as anything but political in content, the intent to criticize life in modern South Africa.

"He's from the deVilliers family," Claire said, making a face of wonder. "Very powerful in the former government of South Africa before the end of Apartheid. A more distant relative of a politician, but not the immediate family."

"How do you know him?"

"I don't, but I know of him." She smiled. "My family moved to England during the riots, long before Mandela was released. I know South Africa. I love art. So I knew of Sefton and was part of the committee to invite him to be our artist in residence."

"You said his wife?" I asked, thinking of what he'd said to me about staying away because I was engaged.

"He's a widower. His wife died a few years back of breast cancer."

I turned and saw him standing in the far corner, speaking to a woman wearing a colorful dress.