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Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, I went down. I barely felt the thud. Tony would berate me for not taking care of his property later. I didn’t care. I could feel my eyes glazing over, my skin flushing. My world reduced to Tony, to doing as he said. The itch to obey was unfamiliar, but unlike the itches I was accustomed to, it was soothing. Comforting. A weighted blanket that draped over my shoulders.

“Good pup.” Tony circled me, appraising my posture. It was something he did. I’d only recently started to focus more on my posture. Eli had helped. They were the master of all things posture and high protocol. Now I barely had to think to keep my knees at the right distance and my spine perfectly straight. “Open your mouth for me.”

“Why?”

I had to fight the urge to just let my jaw hang open.

It was worth it when he wrapped his fingers around my hair and tugged my head back.

“Did that sound like a request, pup?”

“Sounded like an order, Tony.” I grinned, even through the way my heart beat that tiny bit louder while I enunciated his name. “Informed consent, though. Right?”

Tony let go. I swayed forward for a second. I couldn’t see him, but I imagined he was shaking his head or looking up to the ceiling misguidedly asking for guidance.

It was cute.

I snickered.

There was shuffling behind me, metal clanking. The metal cut my teasing mood abruptly.

Tony didn’t linger, appearing in my field of vision one second later.

“I won’t say it again, pup,” he warned. “Open up.”

My gaze drifted down to his hands.

I gulped.

It was a spider gag.

“How is a gag a reward?” I glanced up at him. “You promised a?—”

“The gag is only the beginning,” Tony said, “and I never said who the reward was for.”

“Why would you give yourself a reward?” I shot back. “I did all the work.”

For once.

I didn’t add that.

Truthfully, I couldn’t care less about wearing the gag or not. I was actually fighting the urge to just let him put it on and use me however he wanted to. But Tony wanted this exchange, and I wanted to give it to him—the full experience of brat taming.

Tony hummed. “I dealt with you, didn’t I?”

I glared—pretended to, rather. Then, I counted up to five in my head before doing what he’d asked. A noise of appreciation got caught in the back of his throat. It sucked that I couldn’t smirk without closing my mouth, but I did it in my head. Keeping handlers on their toes was worth all the concessions.

He didn’t say anything as he got the gag on, using his thumb to open my mouth wider before he made sure nothing was digging where it would hurt. There were no sharp edges that weren’t covered by silicone, but Tony ran his thumb over the contraption regardless and then clasped the strap of leather behind my head.

I could only stare at him while he did it all. That, and grow extremely self-aware of the saliva pooling around my bottom lip. I’d seen porn videos where the sub would be gagged and strings of saliva would pour out of their mouths, but I’d never seen it in person or experienced it.

It felt humiliating.

My gut churned with a twinge of discomfort that quickly morphed into lust. I clenched my thighs, the heat building up quickly the way it always did around Tony.

“Show me your safe words, pup.”

I held his gaze while I demonstrated, tapping my hand against his thigh. One tap for green. Two for yellow. Three for red. I hadn’t had to use nonverbal safe words with him before—but he hadn’t gagged me until today.