Chapter 42
Stefan woke, stirring under the heavy weight of the duvet and an arm slung over his waist, when the mattress dipped. A door closed. The bathroom fan sounded dully through the walls.
He blinked sleepily, and turned over. The cuffs around his wrists and ankles were heavy, unwieldy, and comforting. He was naked, but he was home. Safe. And under his master’s arm.
Master.
The word didn’t feel so foreign on his tongue. Or so disturbing.
They had called him ‘it’—and he had felt like it, too, like a doll. Like he wasn’t entirely real. As though there was a safe cocoon, a barrier, between him and the bright lights of reality.
He was a slave. And he liked it.
And he always had his word. If he needed the barrier to come down.
But…
His breasts shifted as he moved, and one of his n*
