Page 35 of His Master

“Exactly,” I said, rubbing both hands over my face.

“That’s why you can’t just let your uncle do all this and get away with it.” Simon nodded, his expression suddenly far away, like he was piecing together a plan to stop Uncle Vincent in his tracks.

A powerful wave of adoration for Simon hit me as I studied him in all his vulnerable beauty. Whatever happened, whether this was a blip in my business or the beginning of a cascade that would change my life forever, I couldn’t ever let Simongo. It wasn’t just my inner alpha that roared and snatched and chanted, “Mine, mine, mine.” I wanted Simon like he was a part of me I’d lost and finally recovered. I wanted him just the way he was, raw, stripped, and servile.

Those thoughts felt like a furnace gathering heat and energy inside me. I knew I could use them, and use Simon’s brilliance, to help figure out a way to beat Uncle Vincent at his game. I also wanted to turn Simon over my desk and fuck him senseless, like I had the day before.

But before I could do any of that, my cell phone rang, nearly jolting me out of my skin.

Artemis’s name flashed on the screen.

I grabbed my phone and answered it at once with, “Hello?”

“Victor,” Artemis said, his voice grave. “You need to get back to Barrington immediately. Everything’s just gone to hell over here.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Simon

My master was in trouble, and everything within me wanted to help him in every way I could. But I hated stepping down from Victor’s desk, having him remove the collar and restraints he’d given me as a symbol of what I was for him, and dressing in ordinary clothes so that we could rejoin the rest of the world. It felt like I was abandoning a part of myself, a part that I’d just discovered and wanted to embrace with everything I had, to resume a place that had never worked for me.

“I’m sorry to make things so uncomfortable for you,” Victor said, his brow creased, as he helped me into my shirt. “I know this wasn’t what you were looking for from this fantasy.”

He must have seen me eyeing my restraints longingly as they rested on the desktop. He turned and looked at them, and his suit jacket, which had been discarded there when I went to dress.

“Maybe this will help,” he said, grabbing the jacket and draping it over my shoulders so I could slip it on. He alsoretrieved the collar and restraints and tucked them into the jacket pockets. The collar was too big, so he kept that and slipped it into the inner pocket of his own jacket.

I loved the fact that my master held my collar, even if I didn’t like that it meant we were breaking our play for a while.

We left the office and headed down to jump in Victor’s SUV. It was still relatively early in the morning, and as we pulled out into the streets of Norwalk, we were met by ordinary morning rush-hour traffic.

“Do you mind leaving your car here in Norwalk?” Victor asked as he headed to the highway that would take us to Barrington. “I can drop you off and you can follow me, or just head home.”

“No,” I said, probably with too much enthusiasm. “You’re my master, and I’m staying with you.”

Anyone else might have reacted awkwardly to those words, but Victor smiled briefly and reached a hand to rest on my knee for a moment.

That simple touch reassured me and settled me. I could feel Victor’s emotions behind it, his possessiveness and pride in me. I shouldn’t have, but I reached for the threads of the bond forming between us and held onto them, like doing so would strengthen the bond. It was way too early for things like bonding, but I couldn’t help it.

The hours-long ride into Barrington was filled with Victor explaining more about the operations of Victory Holdings and his uncle’s behavior over the last few years, but there was a bigger issue I could feel hanging between us.

“I can’t imagine why my uncle is so doggedly determined to throw his weight around,” Victor said as we finally approached the city. “He’s nearing eighty. He should be focused on retirement right now.”

“Eighty? Really?” I hadn’t thought he was that old, but that could have been part of the reason he was pushing so hard to prove that he was still relevant.

“He was just about to hit forty when he had Vivien,” Victor explained. “He’d always said he didn’t have the time of day for omegas. He saw them as occasional, necessary toys meant to satisfy his bodily urges.”

He sent me a guilty sideways look. I immediately sensed that Victor had felt the same way about omegas in the past as well.

I was confident those beliefs were in his past, though. Bonds didn’t happen unless there was real care and affection between the partners. And besides, I had enough of a feeling of Victor now to know he was good at heart, even if, as I gathered from a lot of things, he had had a wayward youth. A lot of wealthy young alphas did.

“My Aunt Rebecca was beautiful and twenty years younger than him,” Victor went on. “She was sweet and biddable, and Uncle Vincent swore he was in love with her. I guess he was, since he married her, but that sure changed in a hurry.”

“Changed?” I asked.

Victor blew out a breath through his nose, giving me the sense I’d ripped open an old wound.

“Uncle Vincent was annoyed that she gave birth to a female beta instead of the male alpha he wanted. Aunt Rebecca felt his disappointment keenly, even though they never bonded. Uncle Vincent immediately pushed her aside. For a year or so, he went on a mission to get a male alpha child with whatever omega in heat he could find. It didn’t happen, Aunt Rebecca’s heart was broken. When her next heat came around, Uncle Vincent refused to take it, but he wouldn’t let any other alpha take it either.”

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