Page 6 of Collin: Episodes 7-9
“If you don’t want me here, sir, I’d rather go before tomorrow happens.”
That hurt enough.
Pain erupted from his chest. He didn’t need to scratch. It was right there, a white light behind his eyelids, a burst of energy over his skin. And yet he hadn’t moved. It was just words. And his world, this dream, floating above the misery he’d known so far below in the streets, combusting.
“Coll—” Mr. Moreau’s voice cracked and broke. His glass hit the coaster. He went down to one knee in front of Collin. His hand reached out.
Collin pulled away, staying on his knees. “Please, sir. I need to know. I thought perhaps I was wrong, but I thought…” He reached for words, but how did one put into words looks, gestures, touches, the ways their bodies had moved together in the kitchen, how one had snuggled in a bed, or accepted another’s humiliation?
“I don’t know all the rules yet, sir. But I want what we had. I don’t know how to separate you and Mr. Reevesworth in my head or my heart. And if I can’t please you both…then… It’s cold, sir. Around you, it’s been cold. And I can’t take it. I’m sorry, but please…” His voice truly cracked then. “Please, sir. Tell me how to fix this.”
“You’re a wonder, Collin.”
There was no interpreting that. Collin stayed as he was, waiting. That was all he could do. If he had to beg, he would, but he didn’t have permission. He was pushing the rules as it was. Mr. Moreau wasn’t his dom. The man felt like his dom, but he wasn’t.
Pieces slotted into place. His eyes flashed up to Mr. Moreau’s face. His lips, his eyes, the smooth dark dome of his skull. “We’re not being what we’re supposed to be, are we, sir?”
“I…” Mr. Moreau closed his eyes. “Stay here. Stay right here. Don’t move. Not a hand, not a finger.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Moreau stood. He started for the door and looked back one more time. “Exactly there, Collin. I don’t want to see a mark or a scratch or a bruise, understood?”
And that…—that was the voice. Collin’s shoulders opened up and sagged. Suddenly he could breathe. “Yes, sir.”
Mr. Moreau stared him in the eye for a heartbeat longer and then walked swiftly from the room. Collin turned his eyes back to the floor. All he had to do was stay. That was what he was supposed to do. The world was simpler now. He didn’t need to decide anything or do anything. Somehow, he was existing in a state of supposed to be and enough even inside this moment of non-definition.
Tears gathered on the edges of his eyes. He blinked, trying to will them away. He wasn’t supposed to move. Not even his fingers. Mr. Moreau had been gone long enough that this was not a simple fetch and return. They must be talking, he and Mr. Reevesworth.
One tear fell, then the tear from the other eye. They ran streaks down the sides of his face, but somehow, they were clean. He could see better, follow the grain of the wood in the floor and study the reflection of the city lights in the gloss on the lacquered table legs nearby. He lost himself in it. Anything to stay in the moment and avoid all future moments.
Footsteps in the hall summoned him back. Fear kept his eyes on the floor.
Mr. Reevesworth approached. “Can you stand, Collin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come.”
Collin stood. His legs shook.
Mr. Reevesworth caught his arm, steadying him. “Just to the couch; on the carpet, boy.”
What was he thinking? Nothing in the man’s tone was giving him away.
Mr. Reevesworth guided Collin down to his knees facing the couch. Then he sat. Mr. Moreau walked around the coffee table and sat on the same couch on Collin’s other side. It left him kneeling between them, facing the back of the couch while they both faced him, shoulder to shoulder.
Collin kept his eyes down. Just being here, just staying, took all that he had.
“Today, you safe worded out of Damian handling you because you saw him as a dom but not your dom,” Mr. Reevesworth said. His voice was deep, soft. Patient.
Collin shuddered. “Yes, sir.”
“But yet you’ve felt Émeric drawing away from you these past few days and you described that as cold.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If I had handed you over to Émeric today instead of Damian, would you have safe worded?”
