Drake Restrained(18)

But discretion is the better part of valor…





CHAPTER SIX





I ran a hand over my groin to ensure that my semi was flagging before returning to the party. I found Elaine, Ethan’s wife, standing with a small group of donors by the huge window in the living room. She was a decade or more younger than Ethan and pretty in an elegant way, everything perfectly in place and expensive. Ethan was a lucky man.

"There's a young woman in the back bedroom who asked for you. She fell outside and hurt her knees."

"Who?" Elaine said, frowning.

"I didn't catch her name," I said. "Sorry."

I was surprised that I'd been so unprofessional, but I was caught between being a physician and a man and she was such a delicious morsel of a woman, I'd been thrown off my game. That was completely unlike me, but the compromising position I'd found her in and her obvious embarrassment made me reluctant to pry any deeper.

I found Dave Mills, the manager of my father’s foundation, standing in the living room with a couple of men and joined his group. We shook hands and he introduced me to two donors from some tech company. I barely caught their names, still thinking of the pretty young woman with garters and nice breasts, wondering who she was.

When she entered the room, I was aware of her right away.

She stood just inside the doorway, her arm on Elaine’s shoulder, as if she was reluctant to be there. Once more, I was struck with how pretty she was in an innocent way. Long straight golden brown hair. Light green eyes fringed with thick dark lashes. Clear fair skin. A little sleeveless black lace dress to her knee. She was wearing black slippers and bare legs, her bandages obvious.

"There you are, my girl," Nigel said, his voice booming above the chatter, so that everyone in the room turned at the sound. He pushed through the people standing around him to get to her. She blushed, her cheeks reddening but she smiled when she saw him. She opened her arms wide and Nigel picked her up, holding her up in the air as if she were weightless.

The contrast between the two was amusing. Nigel was close to three hundred pounds and six foot six, and she was all of five foot three, and probably one hundred and twenty. He placed her back down on the ground and kissed both her cheeks in the Continental manner before putting a huge arm around her shoulder, escorting her into the crowd. I watched with envy as he introduced her to all the lawyer-types and businessmen in several-thousand dollar suits.

Dave stood beside me.

"Hey, Drake. Did you meet Nathaniel Graham?"

I was too busy watching Nigel with the pretty young woman to care.

"Who?"

"I told you about him. His agency works with relief organizations to outfit field hospitals in war zones. You should come over and say hello."

"Sure," I said, watching as Peter, Ethan McDermott's chief of staff pulled the pretty woman away from Nigel, escorting her around the room. She smiled at one of the men she was speaking to and her smile transformed her face from merely sweet to full out lovely. She looked wistful when she smiled like that.

Innocent.

That innocent look did something to me and inside of me, two forces collided. I loved how young she looked, how fresh. Part of me wanted to protect her. To be her champion. The other part of me – the darker part – longed to see her on her knees before me, waiting on my every word, completely under my control. How much I'd like to be the one to corrupt her and turn her into a wanton woman for my personal use. How much I'd love to see that sweet face filled with lust, her eyes heavy with desire.

Peter turned to us and brought her over before Dave could drag me away.

When Dave saw them approach, he stood straighter, adjusting his jacket.

I put my drink down and watched her expectantly. I was glad to meet her formally, having felt an immediate and intense attraction to her. There was just something in her bearing that brought out the Dom in me. Despite my usual reluctance to seduce a vanilla woman, I was already thinking of ways to approach her, become her lover, and then, when I felt secure in her openness to it, introduce her to D/s and bondage.

"Drake, Dave, may I introduce—"

Before Peter could introduce her, Dave stepped forward. "Ahh, the lovely Miss Bennet," he said in an affected British accent. "Um, I mean the lovely Kate needs no introduction."

Kate. The pretty young woman I wanted to eat like a delicacy finally had a name.

She glanced at Dave and then to me. When our eyes met briefly, she smiled. Then she turned back to Dave.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good fortune must write out a check and make a donation to the cause," she said in an equally affected British accent, keeping with the Pride and Prejudice reference.