Page 42 of His Master

I rubbed my face and headed into the kitchen area, no idea what to do next. I needed a drink, that much was certain, but I only felt like water at the moment. I shrugged out of my jacket, tossed it over the counter that separated the kitchen area from the living room, then took two glasses out of the cabinet.

The whole time, I kept my eyes on Simon as he studied the view. He looked good wearing my suit jacket. Almost better than when he was just naked. Almost.

As if he could feel me watching him, Simon turned back to me and let out a breath. If I didn’t know better, I would have said that breath was relief that it was just the two of us again and things could go back to the way they had been during our fantasy.

It turned out I was right. Simon stepped away from the windows, then sank to his knees in his slave kneeling pose.

“Whatever I can do to help, Master, I’m here for you,” he said.

They were the most beautiful words I’d ever heard, but they broke my heart.

“I don’t deserve you,” I said, taking the two glasses of water into the living room, setting them on the coffee table, then sinking to sit on the sofa so that I was closer to Simon’s level. “You’re too good for me, Simon. You’re beautiful and perfect,and you’ve put up with so much from me already. And you heard the things Eddie said. I’m not a good person. I’ve abused omegas before. I don’t want to do that to you now.”

Simon’s eyes grew wider and filled with panic as he anticipated what I was going to say next.

“I think you should go home now. Go home and forget I ever existed.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Simon

Ithought I’d done a damn good job of handling the surreal stress of the situation I’d landed myself in, but Victor telling me to go away was the last straw.

“Please, Master, no!” I cried, clasping my hands together in supplication. “Don’t send me away. Don’t get rid of me just because things are overwhelming.”

Victor looked surprised and hurt, but he didn’t make a move, either to push me away or to embrace me.

“I would have thought you wanted nothing to do with me after the things you’ve just found out,” he said, his voice tight with emotion and exhaustion. “I’m not a good person, Simon.”

“You are a man who is trying to turn your life around under extraordinary circumstances with a lot of things set against you,” I said, scooting forward on my knees so I could be closer to him. “Change like that doesn’t happen overnight.”

“What if I can never change?” Victor asked, his emotions starting to get the better of him. “What if that’s what my uncle istrying to teach me? He took me away from people who loved me once. What if all of this is just to show me that I can’t ever leave him or deviate from the path he set out for me?”

He was right. Not about the being unable to break away part, but about his uncle’s motivations. It all made sense like someone had thrown back the curtain to reveal the withered old man controlling the avatar of a great and powerful man. Controlling a city or a country through wealth and influence might not mean anything to a man like Vincent Woodbury if he couldn’t control his own nephew. A nephew he’d probably thought of as his son.

This whole thing wasn’t about Victor trying to steer Victory Holdings onto a more philanthropic track or trying to help people instead of hurting them. It was for Victor, but I suddenly had the feeling that all of this was entirely personal. It was about control. Vincent Woodbury was trying to master Victor like Victor had toyed with omegas who wanted to pretend to be slaves in the past.

But Victor was no slave. And now he had someone who truly cared about him to help.

I moved closer still to Victor, kneeling between his open knees as he sat on the couch, hanging his head.

“You can’t enslave someone who doesn’t want to submit,” I said. “Well, I mean, you can, if you want to be evil about it and break their spirit entirely or have them hate you with the flames of a thousand suns, but I don’t think that’s what your uncle is going for right now.”

“He might be,” Victor said, raising his head and meeting my eyes. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking my uncle has a heart. He didn’t raise me as his own because he loved kids and wanted more of his own. He wanted the challenge of molding someone to be just like him.”

I gave him a small nod in acknowledgement, but I still didn’t think a man could be so completely devoid of feeling that he wouldn’t want someone to love him.

But maybe that was just me.

“You are strong, Master,” I said, adding the honorific on purpose as I lowered myself to rest my head on his thigh. The submissive pose was on purpose as well. “And you are good, no matter what you think.”

“I’m not good,” Victor insisted, though he rested a hand gently on my head as he did. “I’m not. I’ve done terrible things. Not just in playing with omegas, but at Victory Holdings, before I grew a conscience.”

“That was before," I said, relaxing under his touch, even though the topic of our conversation was heavy. “You’re becoming a different man now.”

“Not that different,” he insisted. “Because this feels so good. Having you, another man, another human being, kneeling at my feet and submitting to me like this. It fires my blood. It makes me feel alive and powerful.”

“It makes me feel alive, too,” I said, peeking up at him as best I could.

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