Page 40 of Break Me
She leans out from me, watching me with a question in her tear-stained eyes. She’s not sure she believes me.
“She’s safe,” I repeat. “I promise.”
She blinks back and forth between my eyes, still not convinced. And I get why. I’m still barely sure what just unfolded before me actually happened.
Taking her head between my hands, I assure both her and myself that it was indeed real. “Dorin will take care of her.”
Another moment of her staring with wide eyes passes as she tries to comprehend my strange words.
“I promise,” I add with a depth of sincerity that shocks even myself. Because my promise seems to hold so much more than a promise of simply speaking the truth. I can’t quite graspwhatI’m promising, but it’s so much more.
Finally, she nods as a relieved breath flutters through her nose. The fearful strain drains from her arms, and her eyes soften as she sinks forward, into me.
Mimicking Dorin, I hoist her up in my arms and carry her out of there and down the hall. As I reach the end, where the hall splits into two, I stop, looking from one direction to the other. One corridor leads back to her cell; the other takes me to my office. And if I continue, straight ahead, I’ll reach the door leading out of the basement. I could take her upstairs. Tomyplace.
No one has ever brought a girl up there. I’m not even sure any of the girls have ever come through that door. After a sale is finished, they’re always taken through the door that leads straight outside rather than tainting our living quarters with their lowly presence. That custom has always seemed like the natural order of things, but suddenly, it doesn’t sit well with me. Because this girl wouldn’t taint anything up there. She would bring grace and peace to my quarters.
I want to lay her in my bed, pull the fluffy comforter over her delicate body, and crawl in behind her.
But I can’t bring her up there. Not because of some unspoken rule, but because I wouldn’t be able to take her back down here. Somehow, I just know that. Once I take her up there, there’s no going back.
So I turn on my heel and head toward her cell, heart pumping in my chest as I reel from the decision I almost made. But once in her cell, I make a new decision almost as shocking. I crawl under the tattered blankets with her, spooning her on the thin foam mattress in the naked cell like I had promised myself I wouldn’t do again.
She’s not even crying anymore or in desperate need of comfort; she’s just shuddering lightly. I’m not doing this for her; I’m doing this for me.
Fuck. This shit is fucked up. I can’t have it.
With a jerk, I pull away from her, off the mattress.
She makes a tiny mewl and turns to look at me with those huge, vulnerable eyes. She’s not even terrified after what I made her watch. Her gaze is full of trust. Stupid, reckless trust. She shouldn’t trust anything down here. Least of all me. And maybe that’s why that trust goes straight to my dick. I growl as it swells painfully in my jeans while she just keeps watching me. If I removed the muzzle, she’d be begging me to stay. But she can’t speak a single word, so she just keeps begging me with those big eyes, silently asking me to stay.
And I want to. So fucking badly.
But I’m not sleeping in a fucking cell again.
Shoving her legs apart with my boots, I drop to the mattress between her legs and clamp my hands onto her waist. Her tiny, feminine, breakable waist. My eyes must be burning as I watch her and shake her. I can see it in the way her pupils dilate with a heady mix of fear and desire. And fuck, if it doesn’t feed my crazed need. Digging my nails into her skin, I rake them down over her hips and thighs, dragging my eyes across her delicate skin as I go—her flat belly, her waxed mound, and the pussy rings.
Something crazed and feral rages alive within me at the sight of those rings. I want to fuck her. I wanther.All of it. Her sweet submission, her reckless trust, her ass, and her tight, unused pussy. But as my eyes flit back to her face, I find there’s something I want even more.
I want her to want me.
23
EMMA
I’m scared as Dax leans down and pulls my head up. His fingers work with furious energy as he removes the padlock on the muzzle and unstraps the buckles. But even scared as he makes me, I want him. I want all that intense energy directed at me. I want to be the center of his attention. The center around which the storm orbits. I don’t care if it rips me apart or tears me to pieces; I just want it to consume me.
I want him toclaimme. Take everything I have and make it his.
“Thank me for closing your pussy shut,” he says the moment he rips the muzzle off. “Tell me how grateful you are that I’ve taken control of your body.”
My tongue darts out to wet my lips, and I slacken my jaw to make room for the words. It feels strange. I almost haven’t spoken a word in a week. Dax has ramped up the time he keeps me in the mask. He even lets me wear it when I’m alone in my cell now. When I do get it off, I sometimes consider talking to myself just so I won’t forget how to, but something about it seems wrong. I need his permission to speak.
“Thank—” I swallow to rid my voice of the hoarseness. “Thank you.”
“Now thank me for making sure no man can touch your cunt until I sell it.” His words take on a raspy, cruel—or maybe angry—edge at those last words. And those same words cut deep into my soul and draw tears to my eyes. Because I don’t want him to sell me. I can’t bear the idea. I want him to keep me for himself.
Instead of thanking him like he ordered me to, three other words slip past my lips. “Please keep me.”