Page 55 of Their Master

The pain he was feeling made sense.

It was the arousal that was throbbing inside him that left him confused and maddened; how could such agonizing humiliation make him so bloody hard?

Because you’re a self-destructive fool, that was why.

Luke smiled grimly at the thought. Hewasa fool.

If he’d truly wanted happiness then he never would have rejected what David had offered him daily—until he had finally stopped.

But clearly Luke had no interest in somebody who wanted and loved him.

He was sick in the head and had only himself to blame.

Yet he couldn’t make himself leave. Just thinking about never seeing his master again made him feel ill. He loved his job, even when it caused him gut-wrenching pain.

Luke dropped his hand from his groin, sighed, and went to look for Knox in the master’s chambers.

The valet was nowhere to be seen, but Luke easily found the dark grey velvet robe and slippers his master had asked for. He briefly considered bringing them to Smith himself, but he knew that when he gave instructions, he expected them to be carried out to the letter.

So, he rang the bell for Knox and waited, taking the opportunity to explore Mr. Smith’s pristine dressing room, smelling the various items of clothing and hoping for the scent of the man he’d come to worship, adore, and yes, love.

But Knox’s dutiful obedience to their employer’s wishes meant there was not a whiff of Smith’s person or even a stray hair anywhere.

Luke stroked the sleeve of one of his master’s many black coats and wondered what had happened to the other man to leave him with such obsession for cleanliness.

On one rare, glorious occasion Smith had summoned Luke to his bed directly after leaving his gymnasium, not bothering with his usual wash.

The feel of his hard, sweaty body and the scent of his clean sweat and musk had almost made Luke delirious.

Many of the men he’d been forced to service over the course of his career as a whore had been less than well-groomed. If somebody had told him a few years ago that he’dwanta sweaty lover he would have laughed.

But sometimes he worried that Mr. Smith wastoosanitized. It was as if he’d washed away some part of himself in the process, leaving only a clean, perfect vessel.

“Luke?”

He looked up from the coat sleeve he’d been holding to find Knox giving him a quizzical look. “You alright, mate?”

Luke smiled, so conditioned that it came without a thought, but not without effort. “I’m fine. His lordship wants the velvet robe and slippers and wishes you to collect his clothing.”

Knox laughed. “He must have been mighty randy if he was able to overlook such clutter.”

“Yes, he must have been,” Luke agreed, trying to forget the times when his master had been in a rush for him.

∞∞∞

Smith smirked when the door closed behind Luke. Sending the man on such a demeaning errand—and reveling in his stoic, delicious suffering—had left Smith as hard as iron.

While Smith didn’t agree with Moira’s assessment that Luke loved him, he had begun to suspect the other man had developed a certain… possessiveness toward him.

Smith would either smash that inclination or Luke would have to find himself another job, because he would be damned if he’d tolerate another Charles in his house.

He grimaced at the thought of his former lover and turned to Moira. She was curled up on her side like a small cat, her face slack from the three orgasms he’d given her.

He didn’t know what it was about her, but he was insatiable for her. She’d been with him for weeks, now, and his lust for her showed no signs of diminishing. Quite the reverse, in fact.

Even though she was no longer in the fertile period of her cycle he had continued to come to her every night and take her at least twice, usually more.

And now Smith wanted her again, so he slapped her exposed buttock. “Hands and knees,” he ordered, smirking when she cut him a sleepy, sulky look but quickly obeyed his command and presented her sweet little bottom for his enjoyment.

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