WRAPPED: The Manhattan Bound Series, Book Two

by Juliet Braddock

  “Hey, Cap,” Ben said and turned her shoulders to face him. “Don’t torture yourself like this. If Drew likes you, why would his family feel any differently?”

  “Well, I certainly don’t run in their usual circles,” she said.

  “Oh, bull pucky, of course you do!” he insisted. “You’re my best friend…you know my parents…hell, you’ve even hung out with the Bobsy Triplets. We’re all progeny of high society, doncha think? Plus, you’ve already met Daddy Mack. How bad can things get?”

  Ben’s own self-mockery and exaggeration of his silly parents and their position in the upper echelons of New York City never ceased to make her laugh. “If I were you, I’d refrain from referring to Declan McKenzie as ‘Daddy Mack’ this weekend.” Maxine took that magazine and swatted him on the arm. “You are such a shi—”

  “Miss Kirk?” the nurse smiled broadly as she held Maxine’s file in her hand. “Come on back, and we’ll do your history before Dr. Fletcher sees you…”

  “Be strong, Captain,” Ben gave her hand a squeeze. “I’ll be right here…if you come out. I mean…when you’re done…”

  “Stop…” she admonished as she looked over her shoulder and slugged her way toward the open door that led to the exam room of doom.

  “How are you today, Miss Kirk?” the nurse asked.

  “Just…dandy…!” If Drew had taught her anything beyond her submission, he’d shown her the importance of slapping on a fake smile, which Maxine wore proudly as she shuffled along.

  Discussing her sex life with Ben was something that made Maxine feel uncomfortable. Revealing her brief sexual history to a complete stranger left her undone. Of course, this nurse had probably heard it all, but Maxine still couldn’t fight her own need to just crawl under the table and hide like she did at the pediatrician’s office when she was a child.

  Yes, she’d lost her virginity to a man she’d known for a mere week, but they were absolutely going to commit to a relationship! Why, she was meeting his parents that weekend. He was serious, Maxine rambled on. As was she. But it was far too soon to think about babies. And well…condoms were just kinda gross. And that’s what brought her to the office that day.

  How she wanted to wipe that fucking smirk off that damn nurse’s face. As she undressed and slipped into the thin, papery exam gown, Maxine was just glad that her body no longer bore the blemishes from their play the previous weekend in the department store.

  Initially, Drew suggested that she see a doctor who was, as he phrased it, “Lifestyle Friendly.” However, Maxine decided instead to go with the referral of her physician, never giving a thought to the notion that he just might swat her ass with a thick leather belt, not even a week before her appointment.

  Naturally, they both remembered after the fact, but canceling wasn’t an option. There was actually a waiting list for first-time visits with this doctor, and they were both rather desperate for Maxine to just get on the proverbial Pill. Drew, of course, layered on so much diaper cream those first two nights that Maxine felt like a foot of snow had fallen on her welted bottom, but his preoccupation didn’t end when he returned home on Sunday evening. In his absence, Drew insisted that she tend to her wound with diaper cream each night and send him a selfie of her ass just to dismiss his worries.

  After her initial shock over trying to take a proper photo of her posterior cheeks lathered up like an ad for baby products, Maxine just chalked it up to Drew’s intense concern. He certainly didn’t want their little secret to escape. Furthermore, he didn’t want Maxine to be forced to answer a barrage of questions. That morning before she left for work, she checked herself, then texted Drew one last shot for his amusement. Not a trace of her whipping remained. Who knew that diaper cream wasn’t just for infants?

  With the thought of babies on her mind, she winced a little. The eerie quietude of the exam room where she lingered for what seemed hours sent a shiver up Maxine’s spine. She glanced around and looked at the framed posters—of the uterus, the ovaries…the stages of pregnancy with a cutaway at the belly. Fear, she reasoned, was a good thing.

  Dr. Fletcher, Maxine discovered when at last she’d made her appearance, was a rather hearty woman of German descent with a thick accent, a warm smile, and a rather devious chuckle that just filled the room.

  At that point, Maxine decided to simply make herself as comfortable as she possibly could on that table. After all, she was getting used to taking commands from Drew while naked from the waist down with her legs spread. She could just close her eyes to everything and pretend that she was somewhere else—like deep in sleep at home in her bed.

  What seemed like hours later, Maxine emerged, dressed again with her prescription in hand. Her relief, however, quickly turned to dismay when she found Ben having a lengthy conversation with the woman sitting next to him.

  “Hey, here’s the little one now…” Ben said and slung his arm around Maxine’s waist. “We don’t go anywhere without each other. Not even to the lady doctor. Isn’t that right, my sweet petunia?”

  “Yes…my charming pumpkin butt…” she said.

  “This is Dorian,” he continued on, disguising any trace of chicanery with his ease—and ignoring Maxine’s own little moniker of affection. “We’ve become great friends since you went back there. Isn’t that right, Dor?”

  Much to Ben’s oblivious nature, Dorian had figured out immediately that Ben was the gay best friend, but she played along anyway.

  “We sure are, Benjamin,” Dorian said, her brown eyes rolling to the back of her skull.

  “Well, we should probably go pay this bill for my favorite gal here…” he elbowed Maxine.

  “Nah, Drew gave them his credit card,” Maxine said, decidedly playing against Ben’s little game. “You know—my other boyfriend.”

  “Well…I’ll just…I’ll see you around the neighborhood, Dor. Maybe we can all have drinks sometime. A double date with that hubs of yours. Nice meeting you…” he continued to talk as Maxine pulled the sleeve of his jacket and dragged him toward the door.

  “She has some vaginal irritation,” Ben explained the second they hit the sidewalk outside.

  This feminine hygiene talk was getting far too easy for him, and Maxine nearly choked over the fact that a woman would actually reveal her most intimate problems to a random man like that! If she ever had an itch, Ben was the last person she’d want to tell! He had to be kidding, but Maxine had no chance to call him out.

  “Now…Pumpkin Butt?” Ben charged. “Where the hell did that come from?”

  “See!” Maxine said as she pointed to the townhouse across the street that was decorated for Halloween with three giant gourds sitting on some bales of hay. “That’s what I was looking at through the windows when I said it.”

  “Well, you’re pretty perky for a woman who’s just had her vajayjay gutted,” Ben teased. “Tell me all about it, Cap. I’m trying to get in touch with my feminine side…”

  “How about you tell me about your date with Jeffrey last Saturday instead?” she challenged and stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk.

  Forcing a rather coquettish giggle, Ben pretended to twirl a strand of his nonexistent hair. “I thought we weren’t talking about our sex lives…”

  “I believe that talk of my vajayjay does indeed loop back to my sex life,” she insisted. “Now, are you all ready for the weekend with Jeffrey?”

  “He found us a hotel,” Ben said, his smile amused but his tone curt. “But we’ll be attending all festivities.”

  “It’s okay, Ben,” Maxine took his hand. Now it was her turn to be relentless, and she loved every second of it. “I really don’t want to hear you banging the headboard against the wall next door—with my boss…”

  “Have a drink with me at the pub?” he asked rather suddenly as they made their way past their favorite little bar.

  “I’ll have an iced tea with you while you indulge in adult beverages,” she said, “if you go with me to the pharmacy to have my pre
scription filled first?”

  “This is for Judy, Captain,” he said. “Because even though she’s left our physical world, I do continue to support her No Grandchildren Policy, as Uncle Benjy is not yet ready to become one to a human infant yet.”

  “Ben, you’re insane!” she groaned, tugging his hand as she strolled backward along the sidewalk, just missing a garbage can by an inch.

  “And you love me…”

  “Yeah, Uncle Benjy—I do.”

  # # #

  Always, when Maxine had somewhere important to go, the hours passed with painful slowness. She was an only child born of the instant gratification generation, which made the seconds feel like days, but there were only so many times she could consult the clock on her phone.

  Throughout the morning, Jillian occupied her over the padded wall that separated their desks, but she’d left at noon to catch a flight home to Michigan for her cousin’s wedding. Maxine didn’t want to appear bored, especially not since she’d just started at D & D. However, she really could think of nothing but her weekend in the Hamptons with Drew.

  She’d muddled through writing a press release, then made a few calls. Fridays, she’d learned, were rather dead on the media end. She was just thankful that Jeffrey, too, wanted to leave precisely at five that afternoon and hadn’t scheduled any last-minute conference calls.

  In truth, she felt rather awkward being around her boss these days since he started hanging around with her best friend. She was happy, if not deliriously giddy, for the two of them, as she adored them both. However, it was just a bit strange to be sitting next to the president of her company while watching a marathon of Real Housewives in her living room.

  Another three long hours sat before her. While her anxieties over meeting the rest of the McKenzie family—and all of their high society acquaintances—filled her, Maxine knew she had to get a grip on her own self-doubts. This was all a part of growing, as her therapist had explained to her. Fear was natural, but as she moved forward in building her confidence, Maxine had to ignore those thoughts that nagged at her mind, telling her that she simply wasn’t worthy of Drew.

  How she hoped that Judy would be sitting on her shoulder, keeping watch over her baby girl for the next two days. It was her turn to shine, and she planned to do it brightly…but in her own fashion.

  With a sigh and a shrug, she pushed herself up from her chair and grabbed her small handbag as she decided to head for the bathroom. For some reason, the ladies’ room nearest her desk was closed, its entrance blocked by a cautionary orange cone. Around the floor, she trudged to the other side where the other office tenants had recently moved out.

  They’d have neighbors soon, but for the moment, it was rather dark and desolate over there. The lights were out. The cubicles were empty. And the sunshine streaming through the windows only seemed to cast eerie shadows about the space. Shivering, she quickened her step. She didn’t want to spend more time than necessary on that end of the floor.

  As she hurried to pee, Maxine felt reminiscent of her previous Friday evening. Her scavenger hunt was the most frightening thing about the entire experience. Drew’s cuffing and restraining her—even that crack on the ass with the belt—didn’t fill her with as much trepidation as did wandering around a huge department store in the middle of the night on her own.

  One thing, however, that did stick in her mind, was the fact that Drew had admitted that he remained tentative with her training because her body was so fragile at the moment. Slowly, she felt herself getting stronger, but she also had to remind herself that she wasn’t doing this just to experience BDSM fully. She was on a track to maintain a healthier lifestyle. However, the thoughts of doing so much more with Drew couldn’t escape her dwelling.

  Drew’s slow introduction was greatly appreciated, but she wished he’d pick up the pace just a bit. Decidedly, she could handle a bit more than he’d given her, and she’d embraced the pain. No, she wasn’t just convincing herself she liked it to ensnare him. She’d actually climaxed during their play, which shocked no one more than Maxine herself.

  There was that rush of energy that she adored in the heat of a scene—the suspense, the build-up and the often sudden grip of pain. Never before had she ever considered a relationship rooted in kink…and she wasn’t quite sure that she could explore that emerging side of her sexuality with anyone but Drew.

  Thoughts of their underground world were quickly replaced with those damn fears again as she stepped up to the sink to wash her hands. She felt like she had accidentally strolled onto the set of a horror film. It wasn’t just creepy in that bathroom—it was chilly.

  Quickly, she covered her lips with a clear shiny gloss and ran a brush through her hair. That killed exactly another thirty seconds. Perhaps she could manage another couple of bites of her lunch—it was going to be quite some time before Maggie’s late family dinner. Drew was so damn right. Patience was not her virtue.

  As she made her way out the door, she prepared to pick up her pace and hurry back to her cubicle—maybe via the reception area to chat with the gals at the front desk for a moment.

  However, she didn’t get very far before the arm circled around her waist from behind, pulling roughly, and the hand clamped down over her mouth.

  “Make a sound, and you’ll pay for it later…”

  Chapter Ten

  “Put me down!” she screeched, slicing her legs in the air as he tossed her over his shoulder. “What are you do—”

  “Grounds for punishment!” Drew reminded her, his hearty laughter reverberating against her tiny flailing body. “Told you not to make a sound. But what are you doing? Making a scene.”

  “You’re the one who’s making a scene,” she retorted in a stage whisper. “I’m at work!”

  And as per his usual, Drew just didn’t care.

  “No gag, nor deprivation, nor tickling can shut that little trap of yours, can it?” he muttered and carried Maxine—much to her mortal embarrassment—right on through to reception. “Oh, I fear I’m losing my touch in my old age here…”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Pretty obvious that I’ve just kidnapped you,” he said, unamused. “You’re done for the day, little one.”

  “Wait! My stuff! My gown! My bag!” she protested.

  “Got it all, Miss Maxie!” Jeffrey called out cheerfully as he met them at the elevator bank. His arms were literally overloaded with the huge dress bag from McKenzie’s and her weekend travel totes. “You’ll be carrying her down to the car, Mack?”

  “She’s like a caged animal right now,” he said, his mind drifting to thoughts of one day crating Maxine himself. Fuck, he had to behave. They were spending the weekend with his family! “I couldn’t possibly let her loose now, could I?”

  “You’re in on this?” Maxine’s eyes darted to her dear boss. “You’re aiding and abetting a—”

  “A Max-napping,” Jeffrey supplied for her. “And yes, I am. Do you know that I’ve been watching you for the last hour from the window in my office, just waiting for you to go take a piss so that I could alert Drew here to come whisk you away?”

  As Drew boarded the elevator with her, he smiled at the front desk attendants and bade them a good weekend with a reminder to remove the cone from the restroom. Always personable that Drew McKenzie was, even when committing a major crime—like abducting his girlfriend from work!

  “This is all so very deranged,” Maxine shook her head as the elevator stopped to pick up a couple of additional passengers on another floor. “Oh, this is not good…”

  “Hi,” Jeffrey smiled at the two co-workers who were obviously headed downstairs to take a smoke break. “They’re dating, so this isn’t exactly what it looks like.”

  Drew still refused to put her down once they’d reached the lobby. The joy of making her just slightly uncomfortable in public was so very evident on his face. Like a dutiful servant, Jeffrey followed behind them and headed outside, so careful not to dust even the bo
ttom of the clothing bag on the ground. He was just as excited as Drew to see her in that gown. Apparently, she’d already given Ben a sneak preview, and his review was a rave.

  Waiting right there at the curb was Drew’s most prized possession—his 1964 ½ Mustang convertible in cherry red.

  One thing that Declan loved to do with his sons when they were children was build model cars, and the 64 ½ was the first one they’d constructed not long after Drew had been returned home. He still had that thing, in fact, sitting amongst his trinkets in his old bedroom at home. Those early days, settled finally in the nurturing nest of his real parents, were Drew’s most cherished memories…until he met Maxine. He hoped they’d make a few more that weekend.

  Into the tiny car, he slung her, then turned briefly to toss Jeffrey the key to the trunk to deposit her things. He hoped everything would fit along with his own tux and gear. But he had to buckle her in properly before they made their way out of the city.

  “See you two in a few hours,” Jeffrey said and passed the keys through Maxine’s open window. “Careful on the LIE, now. Friday traffic…”

  Drew hated to drive and made no secret of it. That was one major commonality he shared with Maxine. However, with his parents’ second home in the Hamptons, this little old antique was a necessity to get back and forth. Lou was his right-hand man in the city, as it was often so hard to catch a cab, especially on rainy days or during rush hour. However, having a chauffeur in the Hamptons often seemed a bit of a hindrance to Drew. If he wanted to sit for an extra hour on the beach, he didn’t want to worry about wasting someone else’s time while he baked in the sun. And especially on that particular weekend, he craved the freedom to do whatever he wanted with Maxine.

  “What the hell is all over my hand?” he said suddenly as he hopped into the driver’s seat.

  “Lip gloss—from when you muffled me,” she explained. “Wait…I have hand sanitizer in my bag…”

  Squeezing a generous amount of that alcohol-scented gel all over his palms, he groused. “We’re going to rack up the punishments this weekend, I see…”