Page 45 of Take Me

He lifts an incredulous brow. “And risk having you run off while I was busy or go to the police after I had chained you up?”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll do that after...” I bite my lip, not knowing what to call it. So I gesture to the space around me. “This.”

Nikolai gathers my wrists in one big hand, curling the other around my neck. My breathing instantly deepens as I melt beneath him, staring into his eyes in utter surrender.

A smile curves his lips. “Not really. Mikhail has trained you well.”

Hard heels click behind us, and Mikhail’s smug voice breaks the moment. “Indeed I have. Though, it wasn’t a very hard job with this one.”

Without releasing my throat, Nikolai turns to Mikhail. “So, maybe I should demand half my money back?”

Mikhail scoffs. “You should just be grateful that I didn’t sell her to someone else for double the price. Or keep her for myself. It was quite tempting.”

Nikolai turns back to me, expression crackling with something cold and dark as he spears me with his intense gaze while speaking to Mikhail. “Good thing you refrained, or she would have been the last girl you sold.”

Something stirs inside me, beneath the fear and confusion. Something deep and instinctive. I shrink back at the sight of the smoldering cruelty in his eyes even as I lean my neck up into the collar of his hand.

“See what I mean?” Nikolai says, this time talking to me. “You’re mine.”

I nod against his hand, not grasping what’s happening to me, but feeling the full brunt of it as a potent force swooshes through my body and fills every little cell of my being. At this very moment, I know he’s right. I won’t go to the police no matter what he does to me. He may drag me through another two months of hell. It doesn’t matter, as long as he’s ultimately the one in control.

I trust him. It’s not rational, but rational became a void concept to me long ago. And I don’t trust him in a normal sense, but in the only way that counts. I trust him not to break me.

So I draw my chin toward my chest in deep-felt reverence as he releases my neck.

“Is the harness ready?” Nikolai asks.

“Dax will be in with it in a minute,” Mikhail replies.

“Let me see your tongue.” Nikolai holds two fingers in front of my mouth, grabs my tongue when I open up, and pulls it out to inspect the piercing. “Very pretty. I can’t wait to use it.”

I don’t know what he means and I can’t imagine what it might be. How would someone use a tongue piercing? Even after two months, I’m still baffled by the small thing, unable to see how it could serve as another means to put me in my place.

“Close your mouth.” Nikolai releases my tongue and pats my cheek.

More steps enter the room, this time heavy thuds of boots.

Nikolai gets up to see the harness Dax has brought, and I push up to sit on my knees.

“I haven’t tried it on yet—figured you should be the one to do it—but I’ve measured her head, so the fit should be just right,” Dax says.

Nikolai sinks to his haunches before me again, and I watch the brown leather straps in his hands that are connected in various places to form some kind of structure I can’t quite make out. “You’ll look very pretty in this one.” He swipes his thumb across my cheek. “Very helpless.”

My thighs clench.All I crave is to be helpless beneath this man.

He pulls the straps over my head, adjusts a few ones, and buckles them in several places. When he grabs my chin to inspect the result, my head is strapped into a tight net of thin leather straps that go down over my forehead, past each side of my nose, and around each side of my head. They don’t restrict anything—I can still see, hear, breathe normally, and open my mouth to speak. But I have a feeling that won’t last. The straps close to my mouth and the ones under my chin still hang loose, and I have a feeling it has something to do with the piercing.

Nikolai confirms this when he tells me to stick my tongue out again and removes the top ring on the barbel.

Dax hands him a piece of thick leather with a flat plate aboutan inch longprotruding from the center. The plate feels like metal covered in silicone as Nikolai places it on top of my tongue, sliding the small hole in the middle over the barbel. He attaches the ring on top, trapping my tongue against the plate, and my heart speeds up as the restrictive feeling intrudes upon my senses.

The small plate goes inside my mouth, pushing my tongue with it, as Nikolai presses the leather over my mouth and buckles it in place. A panel gag, I realize. He finishes by buckling the strap under my chin, forcing my mouth closed over the plate.

I try to wriggle my tongue, but the plate presses itdown, flattening it at the bottom of my mouth. Ican’t even move my jaw. The feeling is obtrusive unlike anything else. I’ve been tied to a chair, head and limbs immobilized as my body was forced to take orgasm after orgasm. Now, my arms and legs are free, yet the feeling of having my head, even my tongue, strapped in place is even more restrictive than the chair.

I whimper as a floaty sort of sensation descends upon my mind. I stare at Nikolai with aching vulnerability, feeling the meager remains of my autonomy rattle to the floor before him. There’s no wanting or not wanting this. This is who I am now.His.Through and through.

“She should be able to move the sides of her tongue just enough to swallow, so you’ll avoid excessive drooling,” Dax explains. “But if you want a different effect, I have a ring gag too with a plate for the piercing.” He hands Nikolai a small item. “And this one. My personal favorite.”

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