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“You think I’m going to break Channon and leave him.”
Ewan shook his head. “I don’t think anything.”
“I can see why you think it,” Jack said evenly. It rankled, and yet it was not unjustified. “I seduced him when we met. He was eager to be seduced, but he was so new to all of this that you could say I took advantage of him. And when I asked if he wanted to try things, he was equally eager, but he didn’t fully know what he was getting into.” Jack reached for his water glass. “It would have been easy to do to him what Gary did to you. I could definitely have used him up and tossed him away, if I’d been that kind of person.”
Ewan was watching him with wide, storm-gray eyes. He had a look on his face as if he were hearing his fears confirmed. Jack went on, keeping his tone as even and non-confrontational as he could.
“And if I had, Channon would be right to hate me. Resent me. Feel wronged. Because a collar is a promise,” Jack said, feeling this in his bones. “As a Dominant, you make a similar promise every time you play with someone: I will take care of you. Whether that care means flogging them until they scream or knowing when to take the ropes off, it amounts to the same thing. You are responsible for this person. They’ve put their trust in you. If you break it, you’re a bad Dominant, a bad person, sometimes a criminal.”
He had Ewan’s full attention now. He wasn’t sure he’d seen Ewan pay so much attention in all the time they’d known one another.
“When Gary gave you a collar, it was a promise to take care of you. And then he didn’t. If that’s your example of a Dominant, no wonder you think I’m going to do the same to Channon.”
Ewan made an unhappy sound. “It’s not just that. You control everything about him. Everything. And he says he likes it but…I said that too. I thought it was true. But it weren’t. And I can’t blame Gary for that because I said I liked it, even when…when I hated it. Because that’s what a good little fucktoy does, isn’t it?” Ewan’s voice edged into something hurt and angry. “Tells their master they love being used and, and shared around, and treated like rubbish!”
The words hung in the air, huge and impossible to ignore. Jack breathed in and out and tried to find a thread in that to pull, but…
That wasn’t what he did to Channon. Yes, Channon was Jack’s to play with however he wanted, and Channon liked that, but it wasn’t the way Ewan made it sound.
Was that how it looked from the outside? Did Ewan really think Jack thought of Channon as disposable?
Channon did like it, didn’t he? Or, no, he liked that Jack liked it, and—
Oh.
Jack looked at Ewan, who seemed to be regretting saying anything at all, and thought carefully before speaking.
“If someone had asked you, back then, if you liked it, you would have told them you loved everything he did to you,” Jack said with a feeling of inevitability.
Ewan bared his teeth. “Aye.”
“So you can’t trust Channon now when he says he enjoys the things I do to him.”
Ewan shook his head.
Jack sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Then there’s nothing I can do to convince you. But hopefully I can convince you that I won’t throw Channon over on a whim. I could show you the prenup, which states pretty definitively that, once we’re married, Channon can walk away any time he likes with half of everything I own. So you see,” he added drily, “it would be an expensive mistake that I don’t intend to make.”
This appeared to give Ewan something to think about. He regarded Jack with an intense, sullen expression. But he didn’t argue.
When Jack went on, he kept his voice even. “I hope you know I value Channon very highly. And his happiness; I value that too. It’s of the utmost importance to me. And when I enjoy his discomfort,” Jack added wryly, “it’s for the purposes of play, of the dynamic, the scene we’re making. I enjoy the fact that he will do almost anything for my praise. And when I push him to the point where he says no, I know he really has reached his limit. He trusts me. I trust him to be honest. I’m sure you and Nate have a similar arrangement, given the things you do.”
Because Jack knew what Nate and Ewan did, the sharp edges of their play. If Nate wasn’t giving Ewan the same boundaries, the same ways out of play that was too sharp, then Jack did not know him. Nate would—he was so careful. He had to be, because of the things he liked and wanted, the things Jack was sure he asked of Ewan.
Ewan looked down. “Aye,” he said after a while.
“Then I trust you understand.” Ewan nodded, still not meeting Jack’s eye. “You know, if someone had ever treated Channon the way your ex treated you, I’d be furious. It would be an effort not to destroy them.”
“Yeah?” Now Ewan looked up, his expression skeptical. “Someone like Channon’s dad? He treats Chan like so much shit, and I—” He shook his head hard, pushing himself back from the table. “I fucken hate him.”
“Me too,” Jack confessed. It seemed to take Ewan by surprise. Jack smiled. “But he hates me back, so it’s only fair.”
Ewan snorted. He drummed his fingers on the table and then stood up abruptly, stacking dishes and carrying them to the sink. Then he filled the kettle. “You want tea?”
It was an olive branch, and Jack took it. “Sure.”
He watched Ewan take out a teapot and mugs, a milk jug and a sugar bowl, and arrange them on a tray. It had a ritualistic air to it. Jack wondered if this was a service Ewan performed for Nate. He decided to be flattered and did not interrupt.
When the kettle boiled, Ewan poured hot water into the teapot, swishing it around before tipping the water out. Then he added the leaves, reboiled the kettle, and filled the pot. With the tea leaves steeping, Ewan carried the tray carefully to the kitchen table and set it down. He fetched a tin from the cupboard and opened it up, setting it on the table within arm’s reach. It was half full of cookies.
