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"You like that one?"
He nodded. "That was me when you met me."
"Really?" I remembered that first time he was in my apartment. "I thought you said it was about me and how I couldn't have sex without intimacy because I wanted to feel like a good girl."
He shook his head and pulled me against him, his arms slipping around my waist.
"I can rationalize anything," he said and kissed my neck. "I was trying so hard to keep everything separated, my emotions under control."
I took his hands in mine. "Why? I don’t understand. I want to fall in love. It's a loveless relationship I couldn’t imagine."
"When my marriage failed and I was given that restraining order, it was as if I had failed as a man." He was silent for a moment as if considering. "Kate, I was like Flyboy. I was the asshole who didn't know what I was doing. I had to face up to who and what I was. I had to keep myself under complete control. Whatever the reason, I tried to keep you under control, confined to one spot, my emotions restrained. Luckily, I failed miserably."
"I thought you had me quite well under control. I submitted completely and willingly. If it hadn’t been for Dawn, you might have had your wish. She kind of forced things."
"Like I said, luckily."
"Do you really feel that way? If she hadn't, we might have been happy in a simple D/s relationship and none of this would have happened."
"I was already in love with you. Just in denial."
"Already?"
He kissed my neck, his hands moving up under my left breast, as if to feel my apical pulse.
"I think I fell in love with you at the concert. No, I know I fell in love with you then."
I turned around in his arms, my hands on his chest. I wanted to look in his eyes.
"Why the concert? That was so soon after we met. You hardly knew me."
He shook his head slowly. "You don't understand. I'd heard your father speak about you for years. Katherine the beautiful, the brilliant, the humanitarian, the sweetheart who cried when she listened to music."
"He told you that? You knew that when we went to the concert?"
He nodded, a sheepish grin on his face. "That's why I had to be there with you."
"But you left when I asked you to."
"Yes, but I hid and watched you. I had to see you, see if what he said was true."
I turned back around, still in his arms, and stared at the drawing. It was as if Drake wanted to fall in love with me.
"I asked someone who met you what you looked like," Drake said as we examined the drawing. "He was sniffing around you, another hungry dog like me, and he said you had these huge green eyes and long dark hair. Fair skin like your late mother. How petite you were but with lush breasts and curvy hips. I think I was a bit in love with you before I even met you. I kept hoping your father would bring you to a function, but he never did, as if he was protecting you. I should have known it was you when I saw you in the hallway at your father's apartment, and then I was so close to you in the bedroom, but I was distracted by your garters."
I smiled. "Those garters were my undoing."
"No, it was the heels. The heels did it. They're responsible for everything, so as much as I hated Dawn, she made you wear them and I could kiss her for it. You bumped into me and practically fell in
to my arms at the bar because of them, and you did fall in the alley because of them, and then you were in my arms when I carried you to the bed. You were so lovely and desirable with your cut knees and ripped nylons, your scraped hands and those damn garters. It brought out the doctor in me and the Dom all at the same time. Even before I knew you were her, I was a goner. Not a chance in hell."
He nuzzled the back of my neck.
"Her?"
"The beloved Katherine. The daughter of my second father. He was so proud of you. But he would never bring you anywhere as if you were this princess who was too good for the rest of us. He was the kind of father I felt would never let a man anywhere near you unless he was top notch. I was so damn curious about you but you were like this mythic creature."
I inhaled, so amazed at how wrong I was about my father all those years. "I feel like such an idiot. I thought my father disapproved of me. That he thought I was a lightweight compared to Heath and that's why he never invited me to join him."
