The Agreement (Unrestrained 1)

"Oh, here you are," he said and smiled. "I thought you two might have a lot in common. Sorry to interrupt, but my dear wife has announced that dinner is served."

CHAPTER SIX

Of course, my father seated Drake next to me. I was on one side of him with Drake next to me and Heath was on the other, with Christie next to him. My stepmother Elaine sat at the other end of the table. Quite the socialite, she knew how to entertain, always knowing the right thing to say.

Drake smiled as he pulled my chair out for me, the perfect gentleman. I could tell he enjoyed this whole situation, amused that my father was trying to match us up. I didn't know why he was so pleased – my father probably saw Drake as prime Grade A marriage material and I knew Drake was not into that – not from what Lara told me when she and I spoke after the fundraiser. He had his marriage and divorce and wasn't into romance. He wanted his kinky sex and that was it. He had his work and he had his band and he had his subs. No girlfriends. No fiancé and certainly no wife.

My father was so wrong about him it almost made me laugh out loud. Drake must have been chuckling up his sleeve at my clueless father trying to match me up with a Dominant in the BDSM community who only saw women as props for his sexual kinks.

But there was that moment when Drake and I were in the bedroom when I felt something resembling humanity from him. No grin, no leer, no gloating superiority.

Like he understood.

I was probably just projecting. I couldn’t let myself get taken in by his suave exterior. He was a Dom and he wanted his way in all things. He probably figured he could use my father's desire to match me with him to get some kinky sex out of me. I'd have to do everything I could to dissuade him that I was available. I'd have to squelch the stupid physical attraction I had for him and for which I hated myself.

I'd done everything I could to stay away from bad boys since Kurt but I got this crazy idea that I could research this world without getting mixed up in it. Drake was just too damn gorgeous for my own good.

I ate my meal in silence, aware of him next to me, how he turned to me when he spoke with my father, but I refused to engage him. Still, I couldn’t help but notice everything about him – at least, everything about him from the neck down. I refused to look in those eyes of his. I always saw him laughing at me, a twinkle of pleasure or amusement in his eyes, and it infuriated me.

Even his hands were gorgeous. Surgeon's hands. His fingers were long and tapered. Not huge meat hooks and I could imagine how they'd feel if he touched me. He was a doctor and knew the human body like no other and that did something strange to me. There was virtually no hair on his knuckles – maybe he scrubbed them so much, it wore off. He had a school ring on his finger and on the other hand was a large aquamarine. He had a leather strap of some kind on his wrist, with what looked like tooling, but I didn't want to look too closely or ask what it meant. I wondered if it wasn't a symbol of his bondage kink. Why else would a surgeon wear a leather strap on his wrist?

The talk was pleasant enough – about the weather, sports teams, the wine, which Drake took pains to praise. He actually sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Boy, he sure knew how to flatter my father, who loved to show how he had refined taste in everything.

It was like a love-fest between the two of them and I wanted to slam my knife down on the table and expose Drake for what he was just to see the look on my father's face but I swallowed my anger. If Drake even tried to move forward with this stupid agreement, I'd threaten to do just that.

Luckily, Drake didn't try to engage me in a conversation, but my father did several times, trying to get me to tell Drake all about my Master's scholarship, my award for the investigative piece on West Africa, my volunteer work. What he didn't ask me to tell Drake about was what really mattered to me – art, my art. It was never any interest to my father, even when my teachers praised me and encouraged me to go into Fine Arts in college.

I sat and steamed, angry at myself for letting my father rule my life.

He was just so damn powerful, controlling and certain that everything he believed and did was right. He ran our home like a drill sergeant and his court like one as well. I heard talk of him, and I read some of his decisions. I wouldn't ever want to go before him if I was involved in anything slightly morally questionable.

He could accept financial fraud. But moral failings?

No.

It wasn’t that he was truly religious. Far from it. Going to Mass was just for show and to make sure he kept the Roman Catholic community behind him.

How he'd freak if he knew about Drake…

It almost made me want to get involved with Drake just so I could turn to my father and say, "Look at your wonderful saint of a man, Daddy. He likes to tie me up and fuck me, make me crawl on my knees to him, kiss his foot."

Wouldn’t that just about make him explode?

I glanced sideways at Drake and he met my gaze, his expression dark, and it was like this current flowed between us.

I tore my eyes away. I could never do it.

Just. Never.

Fin

ally, dinner was over and those of us not part of my dad's 'people' left for the living room while dad escorted the men into the study for his strategy session. As we left the dining room, Drake took my arm and stopped me.

"Can we talk later?"

I glanced at his hand on my arm. He didn't let go.

"We have nothing to talk about."