“Don’t struggle,”

He whispered, tying my hands with a thick rope.

My pulse quickened, though not from the way his steady, large hands taped my mouth shut, just like a quiet kiss, but rather because I felt how cold he was.

His gaze cought mine, deep and endless, like someone who’d love forever—despite the emptiness lingering inside.

“What?”

He suddenly asked, catching me staring at his neatly blood-stained shirt, with two buttons dangling on a string.

I wish I answered him.

Wish I spilled all my love to the man standing in front of me, though I stayed quiet, maybe because of the blue duck tape covering my lips.

The lips I wish he could get a taste of.

The candlelight from the nearby table fluttered between us, soft and tender, casting a shy glow in the darkness.

His fingers brushed my wrist as he tied them with chains I never could get enough of, lingering with the devotion of someone who would never want to let go.

I blushed, feeling warmth spread across my cheeks as I laid my eyes on the tiny sweat drops running down his neck.

A quiet giggle escaped my throat.

“Are you ok?”

He turned his head to face mine, our foreheads almost touching.

I nodded.

“You know what’s about to happen to you?”

I nodded again, though distracted with the way a tiny wrinkle appeared by his brows.

He turned back to his table, his fingers gently wrapping around one of the knives he had prepared just for me, glancing over his shoulder.

I smiled at him, my eyes glowing, though not from fear—or plead, but rather from the deep hunger I couldn’t resist.

The knife trembled slightly in his grip.

“Why…why are you smiling like that?”

I tried to answer, but the tape muffled my words into something that must have sounded like a love song through water.

His eyes narrowed.

“You want this?” he asked, voice dropping low, as though the question itself scared him.

I nodded eagerly, chains clinking like a set of wedding bells.

He took a step back.

“This… this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.”

I tilted my head, eyes locked on his.

“S..s..stop that,”

His face twisted with something I never thought I’d see in him: dread.

“What are you?” he mumbled.

I leaned forward as far as the chains allowed, my voice breaking through the tape just enough to sound like a whisper.

“Yours.”

The knife slipped from his hand, clattering against the cement floor.

His breath hitched.

“N…n.no,”

He let out of a scream.

I think he realized—he wasn’t the one holding me prisoner.