Forever After: Book Five in the Unrestrained Series

by S. E. Lund

  She slipped Sophie’s pacifier back into her mouth and soon, Sophie’s eyes were closed. I took Sophie from her and put her back into the crib, tucking a blanket around her, making sure the sleep apnea monitor sock was on properly. Now, Sophie sucked away on her pacifier and closed her eyes.

  “Kate, I’m so sorry,” I said, taking her hand and pulling her with me downstairs into the living room. I felt totally useless and guilty for upsetting her and waking Sophie in the process so I wanted to make it all right again and quickly.

  “Come here,” I said and sat down in the middle of the sofa, the way I did just an hour ago. “Sit on my lap.”

  I patted my lap and nodded to her, not saying anything else. She eyed my lap dubiously and then complied, sitting so that her legs straddled my hips. By now, my erection had deflated to half-mast and was no longer much of an issue between us. She nestled in, her hands on my shoulders, but she avoided my eyes.

  “It was holding you in my arms earlier that did it. I needed to take care of some man plumbing issues. You know,” I said, trying to get her to laugh again. “Build-up of excess fluids. Need to let off pressure to keep the system running efficiently…”

  I lifted her chin and looked at her face, but there were still tears in her eyes.

  “I understand,” she said softly, tears still brimming and spilling out onto her cheeks. “You deserve to have a wife who wants to make love with you. I’m the one who’s sorry that I’ve let you down.”

  “Don’t say that,” I said and searched her eyes. “You haven’t let me down. There’s no way you could let me down.”

  “It’s just that,” she said and shook her head quickly. “I don’t have any excuse. I didn’t push a baby out, so I’m not healing or anything.”

  “Shh,” I said and put my finger over her lips. “You had a huge abdominal incision and internal injuries. That alone takes more than six weeks to recover from. Some people take six months."

  I pushed hair from her face and held her chin so she had to look in my eyes, finally. Really look in them.

  "You almost died, Kate," I said, my voice breaking. "You almost died.” Then, tears filled my own eyes as the reality of her near-death experience struck me hard. “I almost lost you and Sophie. I know that you’re not ready yet. I can wait. I waited all my life for you.”

  “I can wait a few weeks more,” I said. “Months might be hard, but I’d wait if that’s what you need.”

  “Months?” she said with a look of horror on her face. “I was thinking maybe days. I’m still so tired. And worried about Sophia. The sleep apnea… I'm always afraid she's going to stop breathing."

  "She's fine," I said, trying to reassure her. "We have the monitor. It's there for our comfort only. She hasn't had any bouts of sleep apnea since the NICU."

  "I can't stop thinking about it," Kate said. "I have a hard time sleeping because of it. Sex is the last thing I think about after a whole day of everything else. In fact, I don’t even think about it.”

  “I know,” I said, nodding. “That’s why I haven’t made any real advances. I know you’ll show me that you’re ready.”

  She raised one shoulder like she felt awkward. “Isn’t that going against our usual relationship? You’re the one who decides?”

  I shook my head and took hold of her chin. “That was when we first met and I was still trying to keep some kind of control over my emotions. Now, I don’t feel that need. At least, not as often. I can respond to you when you come to me in need. Believe me, I can respond. Happily. You come to me when you need me and I’ll be there, ready and waiting.” I smiled at her and wiped the tears off her cheeks. Finally, she offered a faint smile.

  “Okay,” she said softly. “If you say so. I’ll let you know.” Then she played with my collar and smiled to herself. “Should we have a code word?” she said and looked in my eyes. I could see a tiny hint of tease in them.

  “Code word?” I said and frowned, pretending not to understand.

  “Yes, code word. You know. I could say something like, I feel like relaxing tonight. Something subtle.”

  “You don’t have to be subtle with me, Kate. You could say, ‘Now, Drake,’ and I’d be ready. Any time, any place.” I grinned at her and she finally cracked a huge smile and leaned forward to kiss me.

  “I love you,” she said softly when she pulled back. “Thank you for understanding.”

  “I love you,” I said back. “More than anything. I can wait.”

  She sighed and laid her head on my shoulder and I pulled her tightly against my body. We remained like that for a moment and of course, the feel of her softness against me aroused me once more but I did my best to quash the desire, imagining a slimy pit of snakes at the bottom of a well, my childhood fear, to ward off an inconvenient erection.

  “Did you want me to watch you?” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

  “I pulled back and looked in her eyes. “You want to watch me beat off?” I grinned.

  “If you want me to,” she said. “If it would get you off better than some nameless tart on the internet.”

  “Nameless tart on the internet? Did you think I was looking at porn?” I said in mock affront. “I’ll have you know I was watching the highest quality sex goddess around.”

  She frowned.

  I picked Kate up as I stood and carried her upstairs to the bathroom where I’d dropped my iPad in my haste to zip up. I opened it and showed her the pictures of herself, bound and blindfolded, I had been masturbating to only moments earlier.

  “There,” I said and showed her. “That’s my goddess, the woman of my dreams, fulfiller of my fantasies.”

  She took my iPad and examined the first image of her on the bed, her thighs spread as I fucked her. Then she flipped through a few more images, all of her in various poses, with or without my dick inside of her – her mouth, her pussy, her hand, between her breasts.

  “You were using these to jerk off?” she said, a smile on her lips that she was trying hard to hide.

  “I’ll have you know that I don’t jerk off. I beat off,” I said with a laugh. “Jerk sounds so… so… unsophisticated.”

  She laughed and turned to me, putting down the iPad. Then, she wrapped her arms around me and I pulled her into my arms for an embrace.

  “You are very sophisticated,” she said and kissed me. “Beat off does sound so much better.”

  We stood like that for a few moments, our foreheads pressed together.

  “Is everything okay now?” I asked, not wanting to let things drop if she still felt guilty or upset about finding me masturbating. "You're feeling better about the whole fake email thing?"

  “Everything’s fine,” she said softly. “Everything will be fine.”

  I nodded and buried my face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of her hair, the trace of her perfume, and a definite baby-momma smell.

  “Let’s go to bed,” I said and led her into our bedroom. “I’m tired and the dragon is out of fire.”

  So we did. She crept in beside me once I was naked except for my boxer briefs, and we spooned, her back pressed against my body, my arm around her waist. Sleep was a long time coming for me, for I was trying to figure out what Lisa had done to make it look like I wrote her personal emails. Damn… She was a nutcase. A very dangerous nutcase, but still insane if she thought any of this was going to win me over.

  I tried to blank my mind of thoughts about Lisa and the case, but it was hard. In addition to thoughts about Lisa and the police, I still had a bit of blue balls, a sweet ache in my body that spoke of unmet need, but I had Kate.

  That was everything.

  Chapter 4 : Kate

  The night went as usual, with Drake getting up in the middle of the night to feed Sophie one of the bottles of expressed breastmilk that was stored in the freezer. I stayed in bed, although I could have given Sophie a feed because my breasts were getting quite hard and full of milk. She’d want another feed in a few hours and I’d be mor
e than ready by then.

  When I woke several hours later to the sound of Sophie making noises on the baby monitor, not quite upset but starting to work up to a cry, I left Drake sleeping and slipped out of the bed. I took a quick pee before I went to get her.

  Inside her bedroom, the early morning sunlight was peeking through the blinds and she looked like a little angel in her crib, her eyes wide open, her arms flailing around when she saw me. I smiled and picked her up, then sat on the glider chair beside her crib and proceeded to feed her. She ate hungrily from one breast and then the other, stopping only for a brief time, during which she cried lustily as if the worst thing in the world had happened when I pulled her off the nipple for a burp.

  When she was finished, she was ready for a change, and then I laid her back into her crib, pacifier in her mouth, and she went back to sleep. She was usually sleepy in the early morning, and today was no different.

  I yawned and went back to our bedroom, only to find the bed empty and Drake gone. I checked in the bathroom, but he wasn’t there as well. Then I remembered the Herald magazine’s online edition. Maybe Drake was checking it out.

  I also remembered the whole email business and of course, my day went from great to bad. I didn’t want to believe he wrote her any email, even innocuous email that she could twist to her own devices. I wanted to trust Drake.

  So I did. I put the email issue out of my mind. I was sure when we got the chance to see the email, Drake would know they were fake. I thought about my own email program and was sure I couldn’t just go in and change them. They had to be forgeries of some kind.

  I went downstairs after I finished washing up a bit, brushing my hair and teeth, and found Drake sitting on the sofa, his laptop open, a browser with the latest edition of the Herald open.

  He was reading, leaning close, his eyes moving over the screen.

  “How bad is it?” I asked and laid my hand on his shoulder, squeezing softly to offer him some comfort.

  “Bad enough,” he said, his voice low. He kept reading, so I went into the kitchen where Drake had the coffee brewing and squeezed myself a glass of fresh orange juice. I opened a cupboard and found some bread and popped two slices into the toaster, planning on having toast and eggs for breakfast.

  “Would you like some scrambled eggs?” I asked Drake.

  There was a pause. Finally, he responded. “Maybe some Hemlock would be better.”

  I frowned at his reference to Socrates’ choice of poison. “Is the article that bad?”

  I brought in a cup of coffee for Drake and placed it on the coffee table. I tried to read the article over his shoulder, but the text was small. All I could make out was a line about him being a renowned neurosurgeon who was one of only a very few performing specialized robotic surgery for movement disorders.

  “What did they say? Did they mention Sunita?”

  Drake flipped through a few screens to another page with a pic of the back of Sunita’s thighs, which had long welts on them. I had to admit I felt a little sick to see those welts. Had Drake done that to her? It made my throat choke.

  “Did you do that?” I said, my voice barely audible, my throat dry.

  “I did,” he said, sighing heavily. “She liked being caned. She wanted bruises and welts. I tried, but it did nothing for me. Nothing.” He turned to me, his blue eyes wide. “It went against something in me as a doctor. First, do no harm. That was the last time we were together. Lara had been working me up to it, and finally, when we had a scene using a cane and flogger, I said no more.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said and stroked his back. “All of the nuance of what happened would probably be lost to the casual reader. They don’t know about the whole training of a Dominant, learning your limits, your preferences. To them, it’s just violence.”

  Drake nodded, and closed the screen. He turned to me and pulled me down onto his lap.

  “Now, with the emails the police say they have, it's going to look really incriminating. I wonder if the police will release the contents before the trial or if they'll only come out during the trial." Drake sighed. "I'll have to ask Lara what the whole procedure is."

  I craned my neck and read the article. "What's it say?"

  "It's all bullshit. The reporter is a campaigner against BDSM,” he said, his voice low. “She claims that Dominants are woman abusers who can get away with it because they hook up with damaged women. She’s been on a campaign ever since Fifty came out.”

  I put my arms around his shoulders and shook my head sadly. “I know. There are a few puritans out there who can’t understand the difference between abuse and consensual SM.”

  Drake pushed his face into my neck and I heard him take in a deep breath. We sat silent for a few moments, the two of us in each other’s arms.

  “Well,” he said and pulled back, looking in my eyes. “Nothing to be done about it. I’ll have to wait for the fallout.” He stroked my hair, his expression thoughtful. “I’ve already pulled back a bit from the Foundation, and I’ve spoken to Fred Parker at the hospital, but who can say what else will happen? Who among my employees or funders will be offended?”

  I shrugged. “You’re a neurosurgeon. The article even says that you’re one of the best in the world at what you do. That won’t change because of this article.”

  He sighed but I could tell he wasn’t convinced. “I hope not. What can change is that patients won’t want me as their surgeon. Donors won’t want their donation associated with my name.”

  The timer in the kitchen went off so I jumped up and went to the stove to finish getting breakfast ready. When the eggs were finished cooking, I buttered the toast and brought two plates to the island so Drake and I could eat our breakfast.

  “Breakfast is ready,” I said, and went into the living room where he sat still hunched over the laptop, his face dark. He glanced up and forced a smile, but I saw him inhale heavily and knew that the whole business was a heavy weight on his shoulders. Finally, reluctantly, he stood up and closed the laptop, putting on a brave face and joining me at the kitchen island.

  He sat beside me and leaned over, kissing my cheek while I placed a napkin beside his plate. “At least I have you and Sophie. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “If you didn’t have us, none of this would have happened,” I said, for although I couldn’t imagine not having met Drake and not having Sophia, I knew it was because of us that he was in this predicament now.

  “If I didn’t have you and Sophie, I’d be an empty shell of a man running fast between one part of my life to another to ignore how lonely I was.”

  I met his eyes and felt mine well up with tears.

  “Come here,” he said and pulled me onto his lap, our breakfasts forgotten. “What’s with the tears? We’re together. The three of us are a family and we’ll always have each other.”

  I nodded and thought about my talk with Lara, but I didn’t want to admit how sad I had been in the last couple of weeks. I’d hidden my sadness, my tears, wanting Drake to feel happy with his life considering how he had to give up so much for us. There was no need for both of us to be unhappy. Drake needed me to be positive, supportive, happy, so I pretended that I was.

  Finally, I tried to move over to my stool, but he prevented me.

  “Wait,” he said and adjusted me on his lap. “Let me feed you, mommy.”

  “What?” I said and made a face, smiling.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “All you do, all you’ve done since Sophie was born is feed her, change her, bathe her, hold her. You need someone to give you some TLC. Let me feed you. You know I love doing it.”

  I laughed finally, smiling at him through my tears, which seemed to have stopped. “You love doing it as a prelude to sex. I’m afraid Sophie’s going to wake up soon and that’ll be it for the rest of the day for me.”

  I made a pouty face, feeling bad that I’d mentioned sex – or our lack of a sex life.

  “Shh,” he said and put his
finger over my lips. “I want to feed you because I want to look after you. You have to realize that it brings out these very Dom feelings in me, being able to look after you.”

  I finally nodded and waited while he forked some egg and held it up to my mouth. I accepted it and chewed while he lifted the corner of toast and I took a bite. I washed it all down with a mouthful of coffee, which I held myself.

  Drake fed me the entire plate, using the fork to feed himself as well, and we talked in soft voices about the rest of the day, what groceries we needed to order from the organic grocer down the street, who delivered, and what meals we’d like to make for the week.

  Finally, when we were finished eating, we tidied up quickly and then Sophie started grousing again on the baby monitor so I went into her room and watched her in the dimness. She was feeding every two or three hours and so I didn’t want to get her up too quickly. She settled down and so I crept out of the room and went to have a shower while Drake was busy in his office, reading over the article and speaking on the phone to someone.

  It felt good to stand in the hot water and let it roll over me. I washed myself and then came out of the shower, just as Drake came in.

  “My turn,” he said and stripped off his boxers, stepping in the shower and turning it on.

  While I finished drying off, I watched him in the mirror as he washed. Even through the steam, I could see him – his delicious body, all man, and all mine. I admired his physique, knowing every inch of his body so well after these past two years with him. Still, seeing his semi-erect cock did nothing for me and that made me feel bad. I’d never been so sexless in my life – especially around him. I knew it was the result of hormonal changes in my body due to the pregnancy and nursing, but it felt strange not to want him the way I did even before Sophia was born. As big as I had been while I was pregnant, I had wanted Drake – sometimes desperately in need of his cock inside of me.