Chapter 24 #2
I picked up a stiletto blade. The handle was textured, a diamond-pattern grip designed for traction.
I set it down immediately. Wrong.
I passed over another, a combat knife with a rubberized grip. Not that one.
I moved through three more, my hands trembling slightly.
I hadn’t seen the knife he used on me, only felt it.
I knew the weight of it as it dragged over my skin.
I knew the smooth, cool surface of the handle that had stretched me open.
It had been perfectly smooth, warming only slightly from the heat of my own body.
None of these looked right.
I shoved the drawer shut. He hadn’t used a piece from this collection.
I turned away from the cabinet, and there it was.
The bed.
It dominated the center of the room, a massive island of black silk. It was perfectly made, the sheets pulled tight.
I walked toward it, stopping at the foot of the mattress.
This was where he’d broken me. This was where I’d screamed his name and begged him to use me.
I reached out, my fingers brushing the silk. It was soft, slippery. I felt a shiver of excitement but I turned away. It was too much, too big, too empty, a monument to everything I was certain I wasn’t going to get again.
In the corner, tucked away from the severe machinery of restraints and apparatuses, was a low chaise lounge piled with fur-lined blankets. This was the recovery spot. This was where he’d carried me after he’d broken me.
I sank onto the furs. They were obscenely soft as they swallowed me up.
I stared blankly across the room, the red lighting turning the shadows into pools of dried blood.
My mind, usually so good at filing and categorizing, simply stopped.
It drifted, unable to process the volume of humiliation I was feeling.
Time became a slippery thing. I didn’t know if I sat there for five minutes or an hour. But when the static finally cleared from my head, it was replaced by a sharp clarity.
I wasn’t the first.
Obviously. You didn’t build a room like this, stocked liked this, for a one-off kidnapping.
I closed my eyes, and suddenly, I could see them. Faceless, lithe women with confidence I couldn’t buy. Women who knew how to wear the silk masks without trembling. I saw Cipher kneeling here, on these same furs, holding a glass of water for someone else. Someone who didn’t need a safeword.
And the mornings... God, the mornings had to be different for them.
I imagined him waking up in that massive bed, the sheets tangled around his hips, reaching for a woman who belonged there.
He wouldn’t leave her to wake up to a tablet and a henchman.
He would roll over, pull her flush against his hard body, and fuck her slow and lazy in the morning light because he wanted to be there.
I stood up abruptly, the furs sliding off my lap. This was ridiculous. I was ridiculous. I didn’t belong here. I felt sick.
I turned toward the door, determined to march back to my quarters and embrace my role as a prisoner. Then I saw the wall.
I had walked past it earlier, too focused on the knives, but now it caught my attention. It was a panel of impact instruments. Paddles. Canes. Straps of leather.
My feet dragged to a halt.
Despite the hollow pang in my chest and the jealousy corroding my insides, my body reacted. My pulse kicked in my throat as I stared at the instruments and wondered how they felt.
Would the cane sting or burn? Would the leather strap leave a bruise? I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to know.
I reached out and my fingers brushed against a riding crop. It was black, braided leather, stiff and unyielding. I ran my fingertips down the length of it, imagining the swish-crack sound it would make cutting through the air. Imagining the heat it would leave on my ass.
“Are you picking out a toy?”
I jumped, snatching my hand back.
Cipher was leaning against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest.
He pushed off and walked toward me, his stride eating up the distance. “Well?” he asked. “Do you want to feel it?”
He was mocking me, that was the only explanation.
He’d seen me on the cameras, watched me mourn the loss of an intimacy I hadn’t even truly possessed, and he’d come down here to twist the knife.
He wasn’t offering; he was taunting. He wanted to hear me admit that I was curious about the pain, just so he could dismiss me again and go back to his precious soldering iron.
I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
“I was just leaving,” I said, my voice tight. “Going back to my room.”
I made sure to give him a wide berth as I went, hugging the wall of restraints to avoid the gravitational pull of his body. He didn’t move to stop me.
I reached the door and waited for the sensor to catch my movement.
Nothing happened.
I frowned, stepping closer, practically pressing my nose against the metal. I turned slowly when it still didn’t open. Cipher hadn’t moved. He was still standing there, watching me.
“Why won’t it open?”
“Because I didn’t permit you to leave.” The words were calm, spoken with the absolute authority of a man who controlled the oxygen in the room. “I asked you a question, Annie. Do you want to feel it?”
My eyes darted to the crop on the wall, then back to him.
“I thought you were busy,” I deflected. “I thought you didn’t have the patience to deal with me.”
“I am busy,” he said. He looked agitated but he took another step. The distance between us was shrinking, and with every inch he claimed, my heart beat harder.
“Then go,” I snapped, backing up until my shoulder blades hit the door. “Go back to your lab. I’ll go to my room. We can both pretend I never came down here.”
“No.” His gaze dropped to my hands, then tracked up to my throat. He looked like he wanted to strangle me or fuck me, and the difference between the two felt negligible.
“Come here,” he commanded.
Every instinct I had, screamed at me to run, but there was nowhere to go.
But I didn’t move. I couldn’t. If I walked toward him now, after he’d dismissed me, after he’d made me feel small and useless, I would never recover.
“Annie,” he warned, his voice a low rumble. “Come here.”
I pressed my spine harder against the door and stayed exactly where I was.
“You were very specific,” I said, my voice trembling with a cocktail of rage and adrenaline.
“You said you didn’t have the patience to hold my hand while I processed my feelings.
You said you had work to do. So go do it.
” I gestured vaguely toward the ceiling, toward the lab.
“Go solder something. Go be a genius. Leave me alone.”
Cipher uncrossed his arms, his biceps shifting under the black cotton of his shirt, and took a slow step toward the center of the room.
“I am working,” he said. “But my priorities shifted when I watched you stroking that crop like you wanted it to bite you.”
My face flamed. “I was just looking.”
“You were coveting.” He stopped at the foot of the bed, a dark monolith in the crimson light. “And the door stays locked until you walk over here.”
I hated him. I hated the arrogance, the certainty that he could just order me around. But I hated that I wanted to obey more. My body was singing with anticipation at the command in his tone while my brain screamed about autonomy.
“You’re a prick.”
“I am,” he said simply. “Now come here, Annie.”
I pushed off the door. I didn’t stop until I was right in front of him, close enough to see the dilated pupils swallowing the silver of his irises. I glared up at him. “I’m here. Now what? Are you going to mock me some more?”
Cipher’s hand shot out, wrapping around the back of my neck. His thumb dug into the soft hollow behind my ear, forcing my head back further.
“I meant what I said upstairs,” he said, his voice rough.
“I don’t have the patience to talk about your feelings.
I don’t want to hear about your guilt or your confusion or whatever else you’re trying to justify feeling.
” He leaned down, his mouth hovering inches from mine.
“I want to put you on that bed and use you until you stop thinking and just take it.”
I hadn’t expected that. I had spent the morning dissecting every second of the previous night, remembering my whimpers and my tears, convinced I’d been too messy.
Too human. I’d written myself off as a disappointment, a woman who couldn’t handle the reality of his bed.
I thought the emptiness of the bed this morning and his coldness in the lab was a verdict.
But right now, he was looking at me like I was a meal he’d been forced to interrupt.
The validation was a drug, instant and toxic. My knees went weak, my body betraying my brain’s attempt to stay angry.
“You were looking at the crop,” he murmured, his thumb stroking my neck. “You were wondering if it hurts.”
“I...” My voice failed me.
“It does,” he promised, his eyes darkening. “It stings. It leaves welts that last for days.”
He tightened his grip.
“So,” he breathed, the word brushing against my lips. “Are we fighting, Annie? Or are we playing?”
My heart hammered against my ribs, but the anger was gone, replaced by the heat in my veins.
“I want to play,” I whispered.
Cipher brought his mouth to mine. His tongue swept in, demanding a submission I was already desperate to give. I made a sound, half-whimper, half-gasp, and clawed at his shoulders.
He walked me backward until the back of my legs hit the edge of the bed and he took us both down to the mattress.
Hands were everywhere. I was tearing at his t-shirt, needing skin, needing the heat of him.
He growled and pulled back just long enough to pull my shirt off.
He sat back on his heels, straddling my hips, and yanked his shirt over his head.
The sight of him made it hard to breathe.
He reached for his belt, the buckle jingling with a sound that was pure promise.
Then he stopped.
His hands froze on the leather as he looked down at me. He looked from my flushed face to the wall of impact toys.