The Drake Unwound Complete Collection (The Drake Series Book 9)(39)

Then I proceeded to get her drunk, downing shot after shot.

"I'm not much of a drinker," she said after the third shot. "I can't do anything more or I'll throw up. How romantic would that be?"

I laughed and put the bottle of vodka down. "Okay, okay," I said. "I'll let you off the hook for now. I really need to relax and forget everything for a while. Doing a scene requires my total concentration and I have to be sober. I felt like getting drunk tonight. I hope you don't mind too much."

"Whatever you need or want, Drake." She laid her head on my chest, and I pulled her into my arms, pleased that she was so willing to let me take the lead.



In the end, Kate and I weren’t very drunk, despite my plan. I did jumble up the words while I sang “House of the Rising Sun” on my karaoke machine, and we laughed so hard, Kate and I both had ears running down our faces.

Kate was reluctant to sing but I encouraged her.

"No, no, no," I said, taking hold of her arms and pulling her up. "You have to sing something. What's your favorite oldie?"

She tried to wrestle out of my arms, but I grabbed her from behind and wrapped my arms around her, laughing.

"No escape, Ms. Bennet. You must sing or I'll have to go all Dom on you."

"All Dom," she said, giggling when I tickled her. "Oh, all right!” She tilted her head to the side. “How about something by ABBA?"

"ABBA?" I said, making a face of mock disgust. "The 1970s? Sacrilege…" I searched through my songs and found 'Take A Chance On Me.’"

"Here," I said, handing the phone to her. "This is perfect."

"Oh, God," she said when the music started and she had to stand in front of me.

I sat back on the couch, and nodded, getting comfortable for her performance. It was good to make Kate let loose now and then. She really was very uptight, which was why submission appealed to her so much.


"Sing."

She did, her voice soft at first, hesitant, self-conscious about performing, but soon she started to dance a bit, swaying to the music as she sang. I wolf-whistled and clapped when she was done and she enjoyed it so much, she sang the next song on the ABBA karaoke playlist. "Fernando."

I took another turn and chose “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf, acting as silly and theatrical as I could muster and when I was done, we were laughing so hard, we collapsed onto the couch together.

After we calmed down, we listened to one of my 60’s playlists. I kept pounding back the shots, and didn’t even remember falling asleep the first time, but I was warm and comfortable on the couch with Kate lying beside me, her head resting on my chest, my arms around her.

I woke up when she shook my shoulder.

"Maybe you should have some coffee," she said.

I shook my head. "Water." I got up from the couch, pulling her along with me. "And aspirin."

I searched through the cupboard for a glass and almost dropped it in the sink. Kate took over, pushing me gently out of the way.

"Let me do this," she said and poured a glass of water for me, which I drank down while she watched.

"Nurse Bennet, are you taking care of me?" I said, quirking my eyebrow.

"You're lucky it's not Nurse Ratched."

I laughed at that and when I was done, I pulled her into my arms.

"Let's go to bed," I said. "I'm not up to much good so I hope you're OK with us just sleeping."

She slipped her arms around me. "Whatever you want, Drake."

I led her to the bathroom, where we went through our nightly routine. When it came time to undress, Kate helped me after I fumbled with my buttons.

"I'm sorry if you're disappointed that we didn't do our scene," I said, watching her undress me with some amusement.

"Shh," she said, pulling my shirt off and unfastening the button on my jeans. "We have all the time in the world for that. You needed this tonight."

"I did," I said. "But seeing you undress me makes me a bit hard." It was true, but I knew I’d be worth next to nothing in the bedroom department.

"If you ignore it, it will go away," Kate said, a naughty expression on her face. "I seem to recall you telling me that on a fateful night in November…"

"That it will." I closed my eyes when a wave of dizziness struck. "Oh, Katie, I am so drunk…"

"You are." She led me to the bed and I fell onto it, laughing at my own lack of balance, my eyes closed. I snuggled under the blankets and soon, I felt Kate slide in beside me. I turned and she crawled into my arms and then we lay there in the dark and listened to the sounds from the street.





When I woke the next morning, I felt only half-hung-over. I checked the clock radio and saw that it was about six in the morning. I slipped out of bed and had a quick shower before I went to the kitchen and put on some coffee. Kate loved fresh squeezed orange juice, so I took out a few oranges from the refrigerator and made some, leaving it in a glass pitcher on the counter beside a bottle of aspirin. It was hard for me not to follow my usual routine of getting up early and getting ready for work, even if I had a very light workload.

I checked my email and then saw my guitar sitting there, neglected, and decided to play for a while. I went through a few of my favorite songs, playing softly so I didn’t wake Kate. I was completely absorbed in the music and didn’t hear her get up but I caught sight of her out of the corner of my eye and turned to where she stood listening in the entry to the living room.