Chapter 24 #3
“Have you done impact play before?” he asked.
I blinked, trying to clear the haze of lust. “What?”
“Impact,” he snapped, impatient. “Paddles. Canes. Being hit. Have you done it?”
“No.”
Cipher cursed. He let go of his belt and ran a hand through his hair. He looked at the crop again, then back at me, his expression caught between hunger and calculation. “I want to use that on you. I want to string you up from the ceiling and stripe your ass until you can’t sit down for a week.”
My stomach dropped, terror and arousal tangled together so tightly I couldn’t tell them apart.
“But you’re fresh,” he said. “You have no tolerance. If I do what I want to do right now, I’ll break you. And I don’t want to break you once, Annie. I want to break you over and over again.”
The words should have been a relief. He was being careful. He was being sensible.
But all I heard was the comparison.
The image of the faceless women returned, the ones who knew the routine, the ones who could take the crop and the cane and whatever else his mind conjured without shattering. They wouldn’t need him to stop and calculate the damage because they were built for this world.
I wasn’t. I was the charity case he had to handle with kid gloves because I might crumble if he played too rough.
I hated it. I hated the consideration. It felt like pity.
“I’m not made of glass,” I said, my voice shaking with a sudden, defensive anger. “I can take it.”
Cipher looked down at me, his eyes narrowing. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I don’t care,” I lied. My heart was pounding in my ears, but the jealousy was louder. I wouldn’t be the fragile one. I wouldn’t be the disappointment he had to coddle. “I want you to do it. Use the crop. I’ll be fine.”
“You think this is a negotiation?” He leaned down, bracing his hands on either side of my head, trapping me.
“I want it,” I insisted, my voice cracking. “Don’t treat me like I’m breakable.”
“You are breakable, Annie,” he said. “That’s the whole point. That’s why I want to do it.” He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. “But we build up to the crop. Right now, you get my hand. And if you’re good maybe I’ll let you touch the leather.”
“You held a knife to my throat last night,” I argued. “You cut my clothes off. You shoved the handle inside me until I was screaming. Don’t tell me I’m too fragile for a piece of braided leather.”
Cipher just looked down at me with that infuriating, heavy-lidded calm.
“The knife was theater,” he said flatly.
“It was fear play. The blade was sharp, the cuts were shallow, and the handle was just metal stretching you out. It was a mind game, Annie. The crop isn’t just a mind game.
It’s trauma.” His voice dropped, rough and dark.
“It’s repetitive, blunt force. It stings, then it burns, then it aches deep in the muscle.
It requires endorphins to process, and you don’t know how to access that headspace yet.
If I start wailing on you now, even if I warm you up, you won’t float.
You’ll panic. You’ll tense up and then you’ll bruise even worse. ”
“I can take it,” I insisted, though my confidence was starting to crack under the weight of his logic.
“No, you can’t and I’m not going to ruin my day because you have an ego,” Cipher continued, his tone devoid of sympathy. “I want to fuck you, not nurse you through a panic attack because I pushed too hard too fast. You’re useless to me if you’re sobbing in a corner.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“You would.” He cut me off, finality in his tone. “I know your limits better than you do. You’re tight, you’re responsive, and right now, you’re untrained. You get my hand. That’s the offer.”
He pulled back slightly, his silver eyes raking over my body with a possessiveness that made my skin prickle.
“And you’ll thank me for it later,” he added, a smirk touching the corner of his mouth. “My hand is heavy enough.”
I stared up at him, humiliated by the refusal and the implication behind it. Untrained. Useless.
My chest felt hollow. The arousal was still there, a dull, demanding ache between my legs. I wanted him to hurt me, but I wanted him to want to hurt me, not manage me.
“Fine,” I whispered, looking away from his penetrating gaze. I stared at the red-lit wall, at the rows of instruments I wasn’t allowed to touch.
Cipher made a sound of approval, shifting his weight to reach for my waist, but I couldn’t let it go. The question had been festering, and his rejection had just poured gasoline on it.
“Cipher?”
“What?”
“Am I the only one?”
His brow furrowed and a flicker of confusion crossed his face. “The only one what?”
“The only one you’ve had to build up,” I managed, my voice trembling. “The only one who was too weak to handle the rest.”
Cipher froze. The hand hovering over my hip stopped in mid-air, his fingers curling into a fist.
“You think I bring women here?” he asked, his voice low and incredulous. “Into the Labyrinth? Into my sanctuary?”
“You have a sex dungeon, Cipher.” I gestured vaguely at the red-lit nightmare around us. “You have a wall of impact toys and a cabinet full of knives. Yeah, I think there are others. You don’t get this specific without practice.”
He grabbed my chin, his fingers digging into my jaw, and forced my head to the side.
“Look at it,” he commanded. “Look at the leather on the wall. Does it look worn to you? Does the handle of that crop look like it’s absorbed sweat and oil?”
The leather was stiff. It held its shape perfectly against the pegboard, devoid of the softening that came with use.
He turned my head again, forcing me to look at the suspension points in the ceiling.
“The chains,” he bit out. “Is the metal scratched? Is there rust?”
“No,” I whispered.
“Because no one has touched them.” He snapped my face back to his. His silver eyes were burning. “And the knives,” he hissed, his voice dropping to a growl. “You held them. Did they feel used?”
“No.”
“Because they’re brand new.”
He released my chin, but he didn’t pull back. “I don’t bring random women to my penthouse, let alone my fucking lair,” he said. He looked genuinely insulted.
“I designed this room,” he said, his voice dropping. “I drew the schematics. I ordered the soundproofing. I stocked the cabinets myself.”
The anger in his eyes shifted, darkening into something heavier, something that felt like it was drawing me down into a darkness so absolute I’d never find my way out.
“I made this room for the only woman I’ve ever been desperate to break.” He leaned down, his mouth brushing against my ear.
“I built it for you, Annie. Every strap. Every blade. Every inch of this bed was calculated for your height, your weight, your breaking point.”
I tried to inhale, but the air got trapped in a throat that was suddenly too tight.
“I’ve been planning this since the moment I realized I wanted you,” he whispered, his lips grazing my jaw. “So stop asking about other women. I didn’t build a dungeon for them. I built a shrine to your ruin.”