Page 225 of Masters of Control

“Sorry I forgot to let you know everyone was coming over,” she said, looking around. “It just kind of happened. Do you want some pizza?”

“Sure, thanks.” Brian smiled, his shoulders dropping back down. Noelle immediately scooted over, making room for him and smiling brightly as he grabbed a folding chair and put it between her and Sam.

“How are you doing, Brian?” Noelle asked, leaning toward him with interest as he served himself a few slices of pizza. She was sitting up straighter than before, focusing completely on him. Across the table, Carolyn and Marissa smirked at each other.

It wasn’t the first time it seemed Noelle had a thing for Brian. Morgan had trouble imagining it, but unlike Brian and the other Doms, she certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone who they could and couldn’t have sex with.

Besides, it was nice to have the buffer between her and Brian while she got her emotions under control. Eventually, though, they were going to need to have a talk.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Morgan

“Are you upset with me?”

Apparently, her ‘eventually’ talk with Brian was happening her first night back, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She didn’t want to be on the outs with him. She wasn’t used to confrontation, though Mistress Julie had told her it would get easier the more she did it, especially with people who were safe.

People who wouldn’t hurt her.

People who wouldn’t reject her because she objected to something they’d done.

Brian was both of those. She was almost sure of it. There was always that little voice in the back of her head, though, the one that said she should never let her guard down because she couldn’t be sure.

She’d confronted Asad about it, and she didn’t live with him. She should be able to say something to Brian.

Squaring her shoulders, she turned around from the sink where she’d been doing the dishes. His eyes widened when she faced him.

“Oh, dear. I am in trouble.” Sliding onto the bar stool on the other side of the counter, he rested his elbows on the granite. “What did I do?”

Now that she was here, she might as well face it head-on. She knew he wouldn’t let it go. At heart, he was a fixer, which was probably why he’d been drawn to her in the first place. Well, now she was mad, and he needed to fix it. Morgan took a deep breath.

“Did you have anything to do with Master Asad being told he couldn’t have sex with me this past week?” She fixed her gaze firmly on him. She wasn’t always the best at reading expressions—she hadn’t even been allowed to look Master Richard in the face—but she could immediately tell that yes, yes Brian had. There was no confusion, only guilt and the realization of being caught. “And you decided not to tell me?”

“No one told you?” There was the confusion that his previous expression had been missing. “I thought Lexie was going to tell you.”

Morgan shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him.

“No one told me. I got there, thinking I was going to have a week of fun and hot sex, only to be told we’d been put on a sex moratorium, and no one had bothered to inform me.” She glared harder. “I thought I was supposed to be able to make my own decisions about my life. That’s what I was told. That you were all trying to get me to a point where I made my own choices, right?”

Brian stared at her helplessly, his arms moving to spread his hands out in front of him, palms up, in a gesture of penitence.

“I’m sorry, Morgan. Lexie was supposed to tell you.”

Shaking her head again, Morgan let out a sigh of exasperation.

“Telling me isn’t the problem. I mean, it’s part of the problem that no one told me, but the real problem is that you all think you had the right to make that decision for us! It was none of your business! Not yours, and not Lexie’s, and not Patrick’s.” She was practically shouting by the time she got to the end of her diatribe.

Now, it wasn’t her head that was shaking; it was her whole body. She was trembling all over. Partly from anger and partly from fear, waiting for the retribution of daring to speak to him in such a manner. Her father would have already cut her off and slapped her across the face. The one time she’d dared raise her voice to him, he’d hit her so hard in the stomach, she’d lost her breath. Master Richard would have put her in the cage for a day if she’d tried such a thing.

Run, all her instincts screamed at her. Run!

But there was nowhere to run to.

“You’re right.” Brian took a deep breath. “You’re right, Morgan. I’m sorry.”

The sheer relief that flooded through her, the realization that nothing bad had happened, was too much to bear. Her knees crumpled beneath her, and she found herself on the floor, curled in a ball, sobbing.

“Morgan, sweetie, shhh, it’s okay,” Brian soothed, warm, firm hands pulling her onto his lap. “It’s okay, sweetie, you did good. You did so well. I’m so proud of you. You were completely right. It’s okay. I’m not mad. You did good, sweetie.”