Page 103 of Masters of Control

“That she’s not very nice. Which is odd because she’s nicer than Carolyn and Marissa are sometimes. All the things she says are nice, but…” Morgan made a face. “It’s… I don’t know. She says the right things, but somehow, sometimes, the way she says it makes it sound like she’s saying something else. I don’t think she likes me very much.”

“Honey, I’m not sure she likes anyone very much,” he said truthfully.

“But Sam likes her. So do Amy, Carolyn, and Marissa.”

Ah, which explained why Morgan was second-guessing herself. She was still learning a lot about friendships and people, so since all her other friends liked Noelle was making her question her intuition. What Freddy found fascinating was she had figured out Noelle but still seemed perfectly happy being friends with Carolyn and Marissa.

“So far, she’s been a good friend to them, so there’s no reason not to, I guess. That or maybe they don’t get the same vibe from her that you do, but that doesn’t mean your vibe is wrong.” In fact, he was pretty sure Morgan was one hundred percent right in this instance, but he also knew he was biased.

He was friends with Noelle’s old roommate, and while Noelle hadn’t been able to evict Iris, she’d done the next best thing and ended their lease without giving Iris any warning. From what Freddy had gleaned, Noelle hadn’t liked that Iris had made new friends. She seemed insecure to the extreme and incredibly selfish.

She was being given a chance at Stronghold, at Iris’ insistence, because Iris was too damn nice.

Freddy often considered himself the protector of the submissives, and he would absolutely protect Noelle from an importuning Dom, but he also wanted to protect the other subs from her.

“She seems very unhappy,” Morgan said after a moment. “It’s sad.”

“You can’t make her happy,” Freddy reminded her gently. “She has to do that on her own.”

“I’ll just hang out with her when the others are there. I don’t have to hang out with her on my own just because we’re part of the same group of friends, right?”

“Right.” The arrival of the drinks caused a minor distraction, then he asked the question he thought he’d be discussing today. “How is it living with Brian?”

“Ma— I mean, Brian,” Morgan quickly corrected herself before calling him ‘Master Brian,’ “has been great. He’s very careful. Too careful sometimes. I’m not going to fall apart just because he has a preference or asks me to do something around the house.” Her brow furrowed grumpily as she took a sip of her water.

“Has he asked you to do anything around the house?” He could understand why Brian would want to be careful with that. Morgan had basically been a twenty-four-seven sex slave and housekeeper to her last master, but she also wanted to do some things for herself.

“No.” She huffed the word out, obviously annoyed. “He keeps trying to do things for me. I am not his babygirl. And if I was his babygirl, I should at least be getting some sex out of it.”

“Uh… here you go.” The server had appeared at their table at exactly the wrong time and was blushing hotly. Putting their food in front of them, she quickly fled.

Morgan looked a bit contrite.

“Oops,” she mouthed, giving Freddy a little shrug. He shook with the effort to hold back his laughter.

“We’ll give her a really good tip,” he reassured her, grinning widely.

She smiled back, her shoulders relaxing.

“That’s the other nice thing about going out with you. You don’t insist on paying like I don’t have my own money or something.” She stabbed at her salad with a fork, spearing the lettuce as though she had something against it.

Interesting. Rebellious Morgan was out in full force today, and personally, Freddy was happy to see it. When Morgan had first joined Stronghold, they’d come up with a ‘cover story’ for her so she could fit in better with the other submissives and because she hadn’t been sure she wanted everyone to know her past. Unfortunately, because she also came with a ton of baggage—not to mention misconceptions about the lifestyle—she’d managed to alienate some of the other submissives.

It hadn’t helped that the Doms were constantly fussing over her and giving her attention the other subs didn’t understand.

Freddy was still annoyed he hadn’t been consulted about that decision. He could have told the Doms it was a bad idea to have all the Dominants clued in and none of the submissives. It set Morgan apart right from the beginning. She’d had some really odd and stereotyped ideas about Doms and subs, thanks to how sheltered she’d been and had been trained to be competitive with other women.

The first time she’d met him and found out he was a sub, she’d assumed he was gay, and when he’d corrected her and told her he was bisexual and preferred women, she’d been utterly confused. It didn’t matter what year it was; in Morgan’s world, women submitted to men.

She’d also made a lot of assumptions about who was what based on their appearances.

Talk about a hot mess. She’d gone along with it because the Doms told her it was the best thing for her. Much more well-intentioned than the previous assholes she’d been involved with but with disastrous results. Freddy was still doing clean-up around that, although Morgan was slowly becoming more open about her past with the other submissives. She wanted to tell them on her own terms, though, which meant there were quite a few who were still in the dark.

“Has Brian been paying for everything?” he asked mildly, doing his best to keep his opinions out of his voice.

“He’s trying to.” Morgan’s eyes glinted and her chin lifted. “I’m going grocery shopping after this. I took the list off the fridge this morning.”

“Good for you. I’m proud of you.”