Page 25 of Hard Discipline

That had shocked me because I wasn’t expecting him to say anything at all, let alone that. But I could hear the note of pain in his voice, could see it in his eyes too, dark shadows obscuring all the blue. And my heart had squeezed tight in my chest as a wave of sympathy for him caught at me.

I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone I love, but I know what it’s like to grieve. When I lost my confidence, courage, and strength after the attack, I grieved for the life I should have had. I grieved for the loss of the person I was before it happened. It’s not the same as losing a loved one and I know that, but still. I ached for him.

He’s such a hard man, yet I could picture him caring for his wife the way he cared for me. Careful, gentle, methodical. Since he’s a man who likes control, it must have been so difficult for him to have no way to save a person he loved. Maybe that’s why he’s so hard, why he must have complete command over everything, so he can feel he still has some power left.

It came to me then that we were very alike in a way, both of us experiencing an awful, random event that left us feeling powerless. He retreated into his work while I retreated from the world entirely, living like a hermit in my apartment.

I couldn’t tell him that though, not when he’d not given me permission to speak, so I touched his cheekbone without eventhinking about it, wanting only to give him some comfort. His gaze had flared at my touch, a complicated kind of heat moving in the shadows of his eyes and I wondered if he was going to punish me. But then he grabbed my wrist and held it, staring down at me, and for a moment I felt something wordless pass between us. Then some sixth sense told me that while he was the Master and in control, I could also protect him by looking away. So I did.

But I wanted to do more than that. I was tired of being the one who was always seeking comfort. I wanted to provide it for a change, and I wanted to provide it to him. He’d given me so much pleasure, given me my spirit back, and so I felt as if that was the least I could do for him.

I knew I was speaking out of turn as I offered to serve him and there was a moment where I thought he’d refuse. But he didn’t and I sensed that it meant something to him that I offered. It meant something that he accepted too.

Carrying the tumbler over to the couch, I go to my knees in front of him, offering the glass. “Your drink, Master,” I murmur.

He waits a beat before taking the tumbler from me, then sits back, taking a sip. I glance up at him from beneath my lashes, helplessly drawn by how the light accentuates the lines of his brow, cheekbones and jaw. He’s so fucking hot, I literally can’t deal. But it’s not just about his looks. That tantalizing glimpse of the complex man behind the Master has me hungry for more. And I have to acknowledge that there’s a depth to him that his son lacks and while that’s probably only because of his life experience, I’m still fascinated.

I feel closer to him than I ever did to Luc, because this is a man who has endured things and I am a woman who has endured things too. Things that other people can’t possibly understand, because it didn’t happen to them. My friends who didn’t know what to say to me after the attack, and who werepuzzled about why I couldn’t go out. Who couldn’t see why I might have dropped out of college or didn’t understand why I found being with strangers difficult.

They had never had their trust in the world betrayed the way I had and the distance between me and them got too vast, in the end. Even Lucas, for all that he lost his mother, found it hard to connect with me. Or maybe it was only that he found it hard to connect with himself. Not that Lucas matters to me now, not when his father is right there.

“You keep looking at me, sub,” Mr. Fairfax says mildly. “I haven’t given you permission.”

Instantly I lower my lashes, but I can feel his gaze on me, pressing down. It makes me shiver all over. “Apologies, Master,” I murmur, staring down at my knees.

A finger slides beneath my chin and he’s tilting my head up, leaning forward to look at me. “What do you see?” he asks unexpectedly, his blue gaze searching. “What do you see that fascinates you so much?”

I swallow, unsure of how honest to be. Then again, honesty is what he wants so what can I do but give it to him? “This is going to sound strange,” I say. “But when I look at you all I can think is how alike we are.”

His eyes widen slightly. “Alike?”

I’ve surprised him and I’m pleased that I have. But I don’t want to overstep. “I don’t want to offend you, Master,” I say.

He’s silent a moment, still looking at me as if I’m something new and interesting he’s never encountered before. “You won’t offend me,” he says at last. “I want to hear what you have to say, Odette.”

The sound of my name makes me blink and I realize that his voice is gentler and he’s not looking at me with the laser-like focus of the Master. He’s reverted to himself, to being Mr.Fairfax, so I shift, sitting cross-legged in front of him instead of kneeling.

“We’re alike in that we’ve both had random, terrible things happen to us,” I say. “And I think… I think we’re both still grieving the lives we should have had if those things hadn’t happened.”

He frowns slightly, his gaze still pinned to mine, and takes another sip of his scotch. “It’s been years since I lost Gabrielle,” he says after a moment. “And I have a different life now. I don’t think of what could have been.”

“Don’t you?” I can’t help but say. “Isn’t that why you don’t like doing aftercare?”

More shadows flicker through his blue eyes and he glances down at the scotch in his hand, staring at it as if he can see the secrets of the universe in it. “It’s impossible to forget,” he says as if to himself. “I thought if I stopped doing everything that reminded me of her, things would be easier.”

I watch his handsome face, my chest tightening at the expression on it. “I thought if I shut out the world, the world couldn’t get me,” I say. “But the world doesn’t care about getting me. It doesn’t care about me at all. It just keeps passing me by like I don’t exist.”

He glances at me again, that same searching look on his face. “And you’re letting it, aren’t you?”

“So are you,” I say and as soon as the words leave my mouth, I know they’re true. Heisletting the world pass him by, in working so hard and in withdrawing from his son. Where else and who has he withdrawn from? I can’t stop studying him, watching all those shadows in his eyes, and seeing beneath them something intense and hungry. He loved his wife, that’s obvious, but now she’s gone, where does all his love go? Who does he give it to? Or is he alone? Has that love turned on him and now it’s eating him alive?

You know the answer to that.

Yes. I don’t know how or why, but I do. He’s alone and all that love is locked away inside him, and he’s trying to control it, to press it all down and pretend he doesn’t feel it. But he does, I know he does.

“Am I?” His voice neutral, but I can hear the note of weariness in it. “I’m okay with that, if so.”

“Why?” I ask him straight out. “You’re not the one who died.”

---