Page 32 of Collin: Episodes 10-12
“Why?”
Because when he’s angry, I’m not safe. Nothing is safe.
Damian hummed softly behind his teeth. “What’s going to happen if he’s angry, Collin?”
Collin’s eyes opened, and he frowned. “What kind of question is that?”
“A real one.” Damian raised one eyebrow. “Go on. Answer the question or wash.”
Washing seemed like a better alternative than trying to choke up words. Collin scrubbed his skin, the loofah a tight ball in his fist.
Damian rinsed himself in the water of the showerhead on his side There were multiple showerheads. Collin had his own. It left them both with plenty of room to move. Finished, Damian turned back.
“What’s going to happen, Collin? If he’s angry?”
Collin closed his eyes and shook his head again. Going there is bad.
Damian crowded closer, putting his arms on either side of Collin’s body and boxing him against the wall. “What will happen, Collin?”
Collin shuddered. But that didn’t get rid of Damian’s voice, right there, right in front of him.
“He’s angry, Collin. You’re in a room with him, just the two of you. You can’t leave. He’s in pain, and he’s angry. He can’t leave. You can’t leave. What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nothing,” Damian whispered, close to Collin’s ear. “Nothing is going to happen. You’re invisible. He’s not going to touch you. All that rage. All that anger, it’s going to flow past you, into the walls, into the floor, somewhere, but away from you. It will never, ever, touch you.”
“But what if I fuck up? Then it will come for me. What if he thinks I fucked up?”
“You have to do a lot more than just fuck up.” Damian’s voice thickened, cracking with emotion. “You’d have to attack The Residency from the inside before this beast ever turned its wrath toward you. Believe me, I know. I’ve seen its control, how far it will go. Would you do that? Would you drive a knife into what we have?”
Collin shook his head hard. Impossible. “Never. I’d never do that.”
“Then this anger—his anger—will never do anything but protect you. All of this rage is at your service, at our service. Those screams come from the beast, but that beast protects us.”
There were tears on Collin’s face, mixing in with the water of the shower and the steam on the walls. He wanted to believe. He wanted to be in love with a man who felt that deeply, but something inside of him was petrified.
“You know why…I’m afraid, right?”
Damian stepped back and drew a hand down his own chest, following scars Collin had seen now and then before. They stood out in the heat of the shower, slashes of paler, thicker skin. “Yeah, I do.”
Collin gulped for breath, trying to find equilibrium. “How can you be so calm?”
“The first time, Matthew sat on me while they were in the playroom. We didn’t have the dungeon back then.” Damian shrugged, a half smile on his lips. “Eventually, I learned. Matthew made me talk to my dom.” He took Collin’s hand and pressed it against his chest. The man’s heart was thumping fast behind his breastbone. He wasn’t unaffected; he was just in control. “I learned.”
“Does it ever go away? The fear?” Collin whispered.
“I don’t know.” Damian’s eyes were dark, distant. “But it gets easier. You learn to remember past it. You start to trust that there’s a side beyond what you’re feeling. And you learn to fall in love with it.”
Collin’s lips twitched, smiling through his tears. “I think I am even though…” He dragged in a harsh breath. “I didn’t know he could sound that angry.”
“Richard…Mr. Reevesworth.” Damian paused, then shrugged. “Our dom has oceans inside him. And some of them are oceans of rage. But it’s a rage you can trust.”
“That sounds insane.” Collin squeezed the loofah in his hands.
“It does sound insane until you realize that you won’t be standing in front of it but behind it. And that it doesn’t burn things down for an ego; it destroys things that would hurt you. Ever seen one of those movies where there’s a stupid rich girl and she tells everyone that her father is going to destroy you if you don’t do what she wants?”
“Uh, yeah?” Collin started washing slowly, movements mechanical.
