Page 29 of Break Me

Dax scoffs and raises his eyebrows. “Stop me? How?”

“I don’t know. Beg you. Put up more of a fight.” Defeat has me drawing a heavy sigh. “I just stood there.”

“Did you like it?”

“No!” I blurt, widening my eyes in horror.

He lowers his voice to a dangerous rumble as he digs his fingers into my jaw. “Did you like it?”

My eyes dart off to the side, trying to evade his gaze, but he just leans closer until he’s all I can see. “I don’t know,” I say in a thin voice.

“What part did you like?”

“It’s wrong. I didn’t like it at all.”

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

I close my eyes and heave a shuddery breath. “It gave me purpose. To comfort her.”

“And…” he prods, sensing there’s more.

I’m relieved he lets me hide for this part. It might well be the worst thing I’ve admitted to down here.“It turned me on. Seeing you like that. The power you held over her.”

When Dax doesn’t speak for a while, I peel my eyes open and am shocked to see his reaction.

He’s smirking. A wide, satisfied grin is plastered across his face. “Then you’re gonna love this too.” He releases my jaw and lifts the leather. “I’ll have so much power over you that you won’t be able to think on your own anymore.”

I gulp as he places the leather over my jaw. No, the muzzle. It covers my whole lower face beneath my nose in a perfect fit like it’s molded to me. And I guess it is. He has measured my head several times during the last few days. It reminds me of those masks the women would be forced to wear onThe Handmaid’s Tale, only this one has two additional straps that go up the sides of my nose in a V-form, becoming one at my forehead. It connects with the side straps at the back of my head, where he buckles them tight. Then he procures a small padlock from his pocket, and the click is terrifying as he attaches it at the back of my head.

Panic buzzes at the edges of my mind as I try to open my mouth and fail miserably. It’s locked in tight. I can’t even part my lips or stick out my tongue.

“Mm, mm,” I protest, my nostrils flaring above the edge of the leather as I pant heavily. Claustrophobia closes in, and I claw at Dax’s legs, pleading with him through my eyes to take it off.

“So pretty,” he simply says, curving his hand around my cheek.

“Mm, mm,” I keep whimpering, the sound going more shrill with each shallow inhale I take. I can’t breathe in this thing, and I shoot my hands up to pull at the straps as Dax just sits there, watching me.

“Stop,” he demands, slapping my hands away. But I hurl them straight back up and go even more frantic as I keep tugging and nothing gives. I want to scream, but all I manage is a high sound that’s stuck in my throat.

Dax tries to pull me into him, but I jerk away and swat at him as I keep clawing at the leather.

“Snap out of it!” Flipping me stomach-down onto the mattress, he pins me by the back of my neck. I flail my arms miserably, but it’s no use as he lowers himself to lie on top of me, immobilizing me with his weight. “You’re mine, and I decide when you speak and when you don’t. Just as I decide when you get to breathe freely and when you don’t.” He tightens his grip on my neck and leans all the way down to my ear as he growls, “And right now, I want you to take a deep, fucking breath through your nose.”

Helplessness settles over my mind as a thick fog. I can’t see anything through it. All I can feel is Dax’s total power—his strong body pinning me down and his command spearing straight into me. His weight and warmth ground me, and I manage a staggered breath through my nose that reaches a bit deeper than the shallow pants.

“Again!” he barks.

I obey on instinct, sucking a large gulp of air through my nose.

“Keep going.”

I do as he says. One breath at a time. It works. Slowly,I go slack beneath him. I give in to his devastating control as I forget who I am—or who I thought I was. Because right now, it feels like all I’m supposed to be ishis.

“Good girl.” He strokes my hair out of my face and brushes his knuckles along my forehead and temple. “Can you see what I mean? Complete power. You can’t even think anymore. Am I right?”

I nod. The confession has me slackening further as I open up for his control and let the last remnants of my own control drift off into nothingness.

Gently, he lifts one of my hands and closes a manacle around my wrist, then does the same to the other. He traps my legs beneath his, then grabs the back of my neck again as he rests his cheek on mine. Using his free hand, he caresses my arms, my hair, and the sides of my face. It’s strangely intimate.It’s like he truly cares for me as we lie there, caught in the potent energy. The conqueror and the conquered. The master and the slave.