Chapter 4
HARLOW
Iam going to prison for Christmas for murdering my former lover.
That’s the thought that slams through my head as soon as the cuffs bite my wrists and the bed creaks beneath my weight.
Red flashes behind my eyes, violent and bright, and for one unhinged second I can see it so clearly.
Cipher Gravemont sprawled over the edge of the mattress, blood pooling beneath him, his mouth open like he’s still trying to say my name.
That’s my head talking.
My body, traitorous thing that it is, has other plans.
It’s still humming from the way he filled me, from the way my muscles haven’t quite remembered how to unclench. Heat lingers between my thighs, slick and sensitive, and when I shift even a fraction, the ache blooms again like a reminder I didn’t ask for but can’t ignore.
I test the cuffs out of reflex. Steel against skin. No give.
“Fucker! The second I’m out of these you and I are gonna have a huge reckoning.”
“You mean like the one we just had?”
That infuriating smirk he likes to wear when he thinks he’s won a disagreement between us sits on his face and makes my hand itch to knock it off.
I jerk my wrists again, but the cuffs bite into my skin as a dull, persistent reminder that I am not in control of this situation.
My pulse kicks hard, fast, and traitorous.
My ankles are tied wide, secured to the bedposts with fabric that smells like him, and the position leaves me exposed in a way that makes my pulse trip over itself. I hate that my body reacts from the way he sweeps his gaze over every exposed inch of me. Like he owns me.
I also hate that my breath hitches when he straightens and looks at me like this is exactly where I belong.
Cipher stands at the foot of the bed, naked and unashamed, his chest rising slow and steady like he didn’t just wreck me many times over.
Water from my shower still beads along his skin, catching in the dark hair dusting his chest, sliding down the hard planes of his stomach.
There’s a faint smear of red at the corner of his mouth where he kissed me too deep, too hard, and the sight of it makes my thighs tense again.
I jerk my wrists, chains clinking.
“Untie me,” I snap, my voice rougher than I want it to be.
His green eyes flick up, sharp and alert, then soften in a way that makes something dangerous twist low in my belly.
“What is this about?” I fight against the handcuffs again, despite the burst of pain I know is coming
“I have no desire to fight you, Harlow. Easy,” he says, calm as a man defusing a bomb. “You’re safe. I just need a minute.”
“A minute my ass,” I bite back. “You don’t get to fuck me and cuff me like I’m some kind of—”
He moves before I finish the sentence, crossing the room with that predatory grace that used to make my knees weak and still does, damn him. He stops beside the bed and braces a hand on the mattress, leaning in until his shadow falls over me.
“Like you’re mine?” he murmurs. And fuck me. That smirk of his sends a wave of heat to hit my clit. I’m a mess on a good day, but right now I swear I can’t decide if I want to bite, fuck or hit this man.
My breath stutters despite myself.
“I don’t belong to you,” I say, but the words don’t land the way I want them to. They come out thin, stretched tight over too many memories.
His gaze drags over me, slow and unfiltered. From my bound wrists, down the curve of my breasts, over my quivering stomach, between my thighs where I’m still flushed and open from him. There’s no hunger in his expression right now. Not the sharp, ravenous kind.
It’s worse than that.
It’s reverent.
“I know,” he whispers.
He straightens and turns away, and the loss of his heat leaves me colder than I expect.
I listen to him move around the cabin. I can’t see what he is doing but I can smell the smoky scent of a new fire in the fireplace.
A few moments later I hear the soft thunk of wood from the wood chest closing and the creak of old wooden floorboards beneath his boots.
Another few seconds and then I hear water running, the sound low and steady, and the air fills with steam and the faint scent of soap.
I swallow, my chest tight.
This is bad. This is very bad.
I’ve been trained to read rooms, to assess threats, to stay three steps ahead of men who think they can corner me.
But Cipher has always been my blind spot.
Even now, naked and restrained in a remote cabin in the middle of nowhere, my body still responds to him like it remembers something my mind is trying to forget.
He walks back into the room, and this time he’s the one dripping with water. I track the droplets running down the length of his chest with no towel in sight.
Oh, fuck me.
I gulp in air.
Oh, boy.
I inhale slowly and try to keep my eyes from following the slippery slope of his treasure trail, but no luck.
Sweet Jesus.
This man is all about those taut pecs, ripped abs and one impressive hard-on.
This is bad.
God, please don’t abandon me now and if you have it in You, please save me from myself!
I wet my lips, suddenly very thirsty for more than a sip of water.
An array of tattoos cover Cipher’s arms, chest and flare out to touch the sides of his neck and dip to kiss the V that leads south. I don’t know what they call that part on a man, but I want to lick and nip my way all the way down until I have his cock in my mouth.
I swallow tightly and remember I’m supposed to be mad. A massive wave of heat sweeps up my body, kissing my clit, nipples and cheeks all in that order.
And the man walking toward me with a hungry look in his eye sees the instant arousal wash over me from start to finish.
My core clenches and lets me know I have no control over the way my pussy hungers for the brand of darkness this man would unleash on my body either.
The mattress dips when he leans a knee on the edge and I tense, ready to fight with whatever leverage I have left.
Instead of pain or pressure, warmth brushes my ankle.
I look down.
Cipher kneels at the foot of the bed, a bowl of steaming water in one hand and a cloth in the other. The sight is so unexpected it steals the air from my lungs. He wrings the cloth out slowly, the muscles in his forearms flexing, scars along his hands catching the light.
“Don’t,” I warn, though I’m not sure what I’m warning him against.
He glances up at me, expression unreadable. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine. I just need you to give me a key for these.”
“You’re cold,” he counters, and then his hand is on my calf, firm and warm, grounding in a way that makes my toes curl.
The cloth follows, sliding over my skin in long, unhurried strokes. Warm water, gentle pressure. He cleans me like it matters what I think about his bathing skills. No, I correct myself. He's cleaning me like I matter.
“These flowers are beautiful.” He is speaking about the cherry blossoms falling from the clutch of a massive phoenix bird I had inked on my back after he dumped me for his Savage brothers.
The blooms flutter in the wind starting from my back and wind around to the front to fall over the curve of my hip and down my upper thigh.
They fall in a flurry of oranges, yellows, pinks and blues.
They stand for our shared love, not that I would ever tell him that.
I loved the cherry tree he gifted me on my first birthday with him as a couple.
I hate how my body betrays me.
My breath goes shallow. My hips shift without permission. The position leaves me helpless to hide anything, and I know he sees the way my thighs tense, the way my stomach tightens as he moves closer.
“Cipher,” I say, my voice catching on a soft gasp. “This isn’t—”
“I know,” he murmurs, cutting me off. His voice is rougher now. “I just need to do this for you. More for me, probably. Let me take care of you, Harlow. You don’t have to be a warrior every second of your life.”
He works his way up, careful, methodical.
Ankles. Knees. Thighs. His knuckles brush sensitive skin and sparks jump straight to my core.
I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood when the cloth glides between my thighs, when he cleans me of himself with a tenderness that feels more intimate than the sex did.
My pulse pounds in my ears.
He doesn’t rush his task. And Cipher doesn’t linger over the hard beads of my nipples when he passes the warm cloth over them.
But he does growl. It is a sexy, low rumble that works its way through his chest and reaches out to touch my raging need to come again for him.
I suck in harshly when he gently spreads my thighs and passes the cloth between my swollen lips.
I can’t help it. I shudder when he takes his time to clean me, rinse the cloth and then do the same torturous thing to me all over again.
The whole time I watch the muscle in his jaw tick like this is costing him something.
When he’s done, he sets the bowl aside and reaches for a towel, patting me dry with the same care. My skin feels hypersensitive, every nerve ending awake and screaming for his hands on me instead of the towel.
I let out a harsh breath that makes him chuckle lowly.
He backs away and places the towel on a nearby chair. Instead of returning to give me what he knows I want, he stands back and admires my flushed body from beneath hooded eyes.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs to himself and then he turns, taking the cloth and bowl back to the bathroom. When he comes back in, he goes for the towel. I was so focused on what he was doing to me, I forgot he came in here dripping wet.
Even now droplets cling to the contours of his muscular arms and defined abs.
Standing at the foot of the bed he drags that damn towel down his chest, over the scars along his ribs, over the line of his jaw where old damage still shadows his skin. A knife fight that nearly ended him, he told me once.
I watch despite myself.