FrankenDom

by Rotham, Robin L.

  “I wish I hadn’t upset him. That’s the last thing he needs right now.”

  “You can’t help how you feel, Rachel, and I think it’s best to be honest about it. He’ll get over it.”

  I hoped he was right, but I had a bad feeling about it.

  * * * * *

  The day of the execution, Julian had a few last-minute details to tie up in Montaneva’s capital city before the surgery, so at one o’clock, he gave Colin and me each a casual kiss goodbye. We wouldn’t see him again before the surgery—when he returned, he’d go directly to the surgical suite to oversee the patient prep.

  Colin and I didn’t talk about the surgery. Instead, we ate a light supper and basically meditated, working up that razor sharp-focus we’d need to successfully complete our tasks.

  At nine o’clock, we went up to the surgical suite to check in. We needed to be in line, ready to scrub in when all the surgeons operating ahead of us, a few of whom I still hadn’t met, were done.

  We were all tense, watching the clock, hating the fact that we were counting down the death of one man so that another could live.

  When word came that the condemned had been declared dead, the clock started. By the time the donor arrived at Bangenschloss, he had already been, anesthetized, prepped, and marked, and was well on his way to hypothermic.

  The patient was reportedly prepped and cooling right on schedule as well.

  Before I scrubbed in, I stretched and did deep breathing exercises to make sure I was as sharp and limber as I could be. I didn’t allow myself to consider anything but a positive outcome. After I scrubbed in, I stayed away from the observation window, concentrating only on the clinical procedure I was about to perform.

  When Dr. Lang and I stepped up to the table, the only part of the patient visible between the drapes was his neck, which was a deep yellow from the iodine-impregnated incision drape. Everything but his blood supply had already been neatly severed. Having been informed in passing that everything had proceeded according to plan, I quickly applied two clamps to each vessel and sliced between them as Dr. Lang did the same on the other side.

  I didn’t watch the male nurse lift the patient’s head, which was affixed to a halo and carefully strapped to a sterile board, but instead stalked immediately into the other operation room and assumed my position beside the other headless body. The instant the draped head touched the table, Dr. Lang and I set to work. One by one, I inserted mesh stents, suturing the main arteries and veins on the patient’s left side with a series of small pre-threaded needles and tying them off before moving on to the next one.

  I was so focused on my own task that I had no idea how much time had passed or how Dr. Lang was progressing. When I finished, I looked up and found him suturing the last major vessel, the external jugular vein. He completed the task just seconds behind me.

  With a short glance and nod at each other, we quickly released all the clamps.

  “Start the machine,” I ordered.

  Immediately the heart-lung machine began pumping blood through the patient’s system. After a quick check of the polypropylene sutures to make sure they were holding securely, we reconnected the smaller vessels and then stepped out of the way to make room for Julian and Colin and their equipment.

  It was a shock to realize that our part was finished, and in just forty-two minutes. I’d done my best, and the patient’s survival was out of my hands now.

  Which meant I was free to pray and pace and chew my nails to bloody nubs.

  For the rest of the afternoon and evening, all of us who’d already completed our part of the surgery took turns standing at the observation window watching the other surgeons complete theirs. Colin and Julian stayed in the OR while the remaining surgeons carefully reattached the skull, stabilized the cervical spine and sutured muscles, stepping in once and a while to reattach more nerves. I was so exhausted all I wanted to do was sleep, but I couldn’t relax until they did. It would be days, perhaps even weeks or months, before we’d know anything about the outcome of today’s procedure, but I wouldn’t rest until I knew the patient’s head was as completely attached to his body as we could get it.

  Once the plastic surgeons had closed the main incision and sprayed on stem cells that would eventually render the scar barely visible, the operation was declared complete at twenty-seven hours, twelve minutes and the patient was moved to the intensive care-level recovery room.

  We all cheered as the last four surgeons stripped off their gloves and gowns and walked out of the operating room. I flew into Julian’s arms, vibrating with exhaustion and an excess of joy and fear and hope, and just hugged him while everyone else crowded around to congratulate the neurosurgical team.

  When the noise finally died down and the crowd began to disperse, he stroked the back of my head.

  “I love you so much,” he said, kissing my ear. Then he hooked an arm around Colin’s neck and pulled him into the embrace, planting a kiss on his temple. “I love you too, my dear. Thank you both, from the very bottom of my heart. You can’t know what this means to me.”

  “Oh, I think we can, Sir,” Colin said quietly, hugging both of us. “I’m proud of you, Rachel.”

  “Proud of me?” I asked incredulously, pulling back to stare at him. “All I did was hook up the pipes. You and Julian did all the truly amazing work.”

  “We got to work together,” Julian said. “You went in there without us. Trust me, it makes a difference. So thank you again, Dr. McBride. I’m very proud to be working with you.”

  I flushed with pleasure and longed to kiss his wonderful, strong, tired face, but one of the other surgeons was waiting to speak to Julian so I simply murmured, “Thank you, Sir.”

  “I was going to say the very same thing, Dr. McBride,” the surgeon hovering beside me said a very British accent.

  Looking up, I said, “Thank you, Doctor… Oh, uh…”

  This time I flushed with embarrassment rather than pleasure. It was the voyeur doctor from that first night in the clinic, the one who’d looked vaguely familiar.

  “Dr. McBride, you remember Dr. Thurlough, don’t you?” Julian said. “Dr. Roderick Thurlough?”

  Frowning, I stared up at the man. Where did I know him from?

  “Perhaps this will help,” he offered, pulling off his surgical cap and releasing his hair from the ponytail I hadn’t noticed last night. Then he grinned. “Hello, Rae.”

  My eyes went wide. I’d only ever known one long-haired Englishman.

  “Mas—” I looked around and lowered my voice on the off chance that at least one person in this crowed had no knowledge of Julian’s other life. “Master Rod?”

  “Lovely to see you again, my dear,” he murmured. “Every delicious inch of you.”

  That didn’t help the stinging in my cheeks. “The pleasure was all yours.”

  His eyebrow rose. “The way you carried on? I hardly think so.”

  I glanced around in consternation. Dammit, I’d asked for that one.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

  “Performing orthopedic surgery on the patient.”

  “No, I mean…” I looked back and forth between him and Julian. Could this possibly be a coincidence? No—considering the pointed way Julian introduced him, he had to know that I’d been acquainted with Master Rod before last night.

  Julian sighed. “Rachel, I’m your Dominant. Do you honestly believe I’d go off and leave you unprotected for the rest of your residency?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When I was forced to leave the US after my brother’s diagnosis, I continued to monitor your progress and activities through a variety of resources. The only time I interfered was when you began exploring your kinks online.”

  My eyes widened in shock. “What!”

  “Don’t give me that look, Dr. McBride. Unprotected submissives can get in over their heads very quickly with the wrong Dom or sadist. Colin had opened your eyes to your need for sexu
al domination, and it was my responsibility to make sure your early experiences in the lifestyle were not only safe, sane and consensual, but positive and self-affirming. So I arranged for you to meet an appropriate Dom—a starter Dom, if you will.”

  “You set me up with Master Rod?” Aghast, I hissed, “Julian, I almost had sex with him!”

  “Since I hadn’t claimed you yet, I would have been pleased that you’d reached that level of self-awareness and found the confidence to pursue what you needed,” he said.

  “You must be joking.”

  “Rachel, you need the release of total submission. You’ve needed it for years, and that was the only way I could provide it at the time. However,” he said, laying his hand on the back of my neck, “I won’t pretend I wasn’t pleased when you stopped short of submitting to him in the flesh.”

  Wiped out both physically and emotionally, I couldn’t even begin to formulate a reply to that. Good God, who was this man?

  “I’m still envious of Julian, even if he is my employer,” Master Rod said with a wry grin. “As I believe I told you, any Dom would be proud to hold the heart of such a devoted sub.”

  “Indeed,” Julian said. He kissed my temple. “All right, Dr. McBride, I’m going to stay with Jordan in recovery for a while and make sure he’s settling in. Why don’t you and Colin go get some sleep. I’ll be up later.”

  * * * * *

  For the first time, Colin and I dropped into bed together and simply slept. I awoke sometime in the middle of the night to the feel of cool, familiar hands sliding over my spread thighs. Julian.

  “Forgive me, my dear,” he murmured, kneeling over me in the dark. “I need you too badly to wait another moment.”

  Still half-asleep and aware only of my endless love and yearning for him, I welcomed him, pulling at his shoulders as he set the head of his cock against my body’s sleep-warmed opening. I wasn’t the least bit aroused yet, and I gasped in discomfort when he pushed partway in.

  He swore and then pulled out slowly. “I’m sorry, that was poorly done of me. I assumed you’d still be wet.”

  “We were too pooped to party,” Colin mumbled from the pillow beside me.

  Julian leaned over me, breathing roughly, his chest squashing my right breast as he fumbled in the side drawer. Apparently finding what he sought, he pushed away from me and I heard a snap and the unmistakable sound of flesh being lubed.

  Then his fingers slid into me, spreading the slick moisture into every crevice. “Beautiful little cunt,” Julian whispered. “So hot and tight and mine.”

  His crude praise incited a surge of my own natural lubricant and I reached for him again, suddenly unable to wait myself. He fell on me at once, sliding his forearms under my shoulders as he shoved deep, and then deeper. God, he was thick. I could feel every inch of him throbbing inside me—or was that me throbbing? The fit was so tight, it was hard to tell.

  Julian kissed me then, a long, deep, inquisitive greeting that felt so long overdue, I nearly cried. When he rolled to his back, taking me up on top without breaking the kiss or slipping out, I gasped against his mouth. Both of his hands immediately roved down to my butt and his fingers zeroed in on the place where our bodies were joined.

  “Mmmm,” he hummed into my mouth.

  I hummed back and kissed him hungrily, squeezing my internal muscles on his restless cock. God, I loved being on top for a change. I was vaguely conscious of Colin moving on the bed and the snap of the lube lid, but it didn’t dawn on me what was about to happen until he spread my butt cheeks wider with one hand and slid the cold, slick fingers of the other into my anus.

  Fear and excitement churned through me.

  Raising my head, I said, “Um, Colin…”

  “I told you we’d do this to you, Rachel,” he said, thrusting inside me in a way that this was the only warm-up I was getting. “We’re doing it now.”

  I swallowed hard, wishing the light were on so I could see but kind of glad it wasn’t so they couldn’t see me. “Okay.”

  Julian groaned deeply. “That’s my good little slut.” Then he clamped his fingers on my cheeks and pulled them wide. “Now means now, Colin. In. I need to feel you.”

  There was no hesitation when Colin shifted and put his cock against me. He forged deep on the first thrust and stretched out over me with a groan, pressing his lips against the top of my spine as he pressed me into Julian. Breathless, overfilled and insanely aroused, I felt his arms and Julian’s come down by my sides. I reached down, too, and found their hands linked.

  A tidal wave of emotion rolled over me. Love. And fear. They loved each other so much. What did it mean to me? Why did I feel like they’d be together long after I moved on?

  “Fuck me,” I gasped, desperate to move away from this state of suspension. “Do it.”

  Colin started moving at once and Julian and I both groaned. It felt sooooo good.

  Julian’s thighs shifted behind me and his hands grabbed my butt again, holding me in place as he thrust up hard, making me cry out. He did it again and again, in a rhythm that seemed completely unrelated to Colin’s. It was like they were both looking out for number one, like I was nothing more than an inanimate object for them both to get off in.

  The idea drove me wild, as did the unpredictability of the stimulation. I couldn’t slip into any sort of internal rhythm with them jarring me haphazardly. Thrilled and frustrated, I tried to move too, but Julian forced my hips down against him and fucked me harder, driving into me like he had only seconds to reach orgasm.

  “Don’t move,” he gasped. “You take what we give you.”

  I raked my nails up his ribs. Hard.

  “Fuck!” he shouted, bucking wildly and just about knocking Colin off. They both stopped moving as he grappled with my evading arms until he got ahold of my wrists. “Bratty little slut wants some pain with her pleasure, Colin.”

  Panting, Colin said, “I can do that, Sir.”

  Bracing himself away from my back, he grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled my head back hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. Then he held me there and started slapping the hell out of my right thigh and hip. Julian managed to snag my nipples between his thumbs and my wrist bones and I screamed when he pinched them brutally.

  I was still keening when Colin let go and my head dropped onto Julian’s shoulder. Colin began to slap my other thigh and hip, alternating randomly between the sides, and finally I burst into sobs. “Ow, ow, ow!”

  He seized my hips and fucked me roughly.

  “Don’t come, little slut,” Julian growled, pulling on my stinging nipples. “You do not have permission.”

  “Oh God,” I choked. I couldn’t come from this pain, but I might come from the excitement. “Please, oh God—”

  His voice rose. “Don’t you dare fucking come, Rachel Anne. You don’t want to know what will happen to you if you do.”

  I whimpered, trying to stop it, trying to block out—

  “I want to see what happens to you,” Colin panted. “Come, Rachel.” He wiggled a hand in between my belly and Julian’s, and I gasped when I realized he was going for my clit.

  “No! Colin, don’t!”

  “Rachel, if you come, I’m going to forget you ever had a safe word and fucking turn you inside out with pain and humiliation.”

  Colin found my clit and worked it in rough circles as he pounded into my aching butt. “Let’s do it. Come on, Rachel, come so we can turn you into a real slave and do whatever the hell we want to you.”

  The chilling, tingling wave rose in my abdomen and I struggled wildly, keening, “No, no, no, no...”

  “Mmmm, oh, yeah, here she comes, Sir.”

  Julian gasped, letting go of my wrists to slap both my hips over and over. “Stop it, Rachel, now!”

  I shook my head wildly. “No, no, no…”

  The orgasm blew my head off and I sank straight to the bottom, where it was dark and warm and peaceful.

  Chapter Thirteen

 
November 2

  By the time I opened my eyes late the next morning, the peaceful feeling had vanished along with Julian, and the vague stirrings of foreboding had returned.

  Colin was wrapped around me like a vine. He woke almost as soon as I did and rocked his morning erection against my bare butt.

  “I love you, Rachel,” he murmured in my ear.

  Tears prickled in my nose. “I love you too.”

  With the arm under my head, he pulled my face around and kissed me. Tenderly. Almost solemnly. “Thank you,” he finally said. “Let’s go see how Jordan’s doing.”

  My apprehension increased, but I shoved it down and got up immediately. There would be time enough to sort through my concerns after Jordan turned the corner.

  When we went down to the medical floor, he was still holding his own but deeply sedated. Julian sat in a chair beside his bed, looking even more exhausted than he had the day before.

  “I couldn’t sleep, but I don’t know what to do with myself,” he said. “I love that the surgery is finished but I hate having nothing to do. It’s all up to Jordan now, and I hate it.”

  Feeling protective, I sat down in his lap and wrapped my arms around him. “He’s going to be fine, Julian.”

  He threaded his hand through my hair and kissed my temple. “I know. It’s just the waiting and wondering and worrying that drives me mad.” Then he turned my face to his. “I love you very much, Rachel. Never doubt that. No matter what happens.”

  I looked into his eyes and was startled at the darkness in their depths. He’d never expressed the least doubt before this moment. “I love you too, but I think you need a little more sleep. You’re sounding awfully pessimistic.”

  “I don’t think sleep is what he needs right now,” Colin said abruptly.

  I frowned at him. “Well it couldn’t hurt.”

  “You’re right, but I’m pretty sure he needs something else first.” I was shocked when Colin grabbed a handful of Julian’s hair and pulled his head backward. Leaning down until his face was bare inches from Julian’s, he said, “Don’t you, Sir?”