Chapter 26
ANNIE
The violet lighting of Eclipse cast everyone in shades of sin. The pulsing bass vibrated through the soles of my stilettos and settled somewhere deep in my chest like a second heartbeat.
Cipher’s hand rested possessively on the small of my back, the heat of his palm searing through the whisper-thin material of my dress.
The hem barely covered the curve of my ass, a fact I was painfully aware of each time I moved.
He’d selected it himself, watching with those unreadable silver eyes as I’d slipped it on, his only comment a satisfied “perfect” before he’d guided me out the door.
Just one week with Cipher, and somehow my entire existence had reoriented around him.
“See anyone interesting?” he asked low in my ear.
I shook my head, trying to concentrate on the task at hand rather than the distracting press of his body against mine but I couldn’t focus.
“We’ll do a circuit,” he said. “Stay close.”
As if I had any choice. As if I wanted one.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? The routine we’d fallen into over the past week had become alarmingly comfortable.
When he wasn’t fucking me into oblivion or making me scream in the Playroom, he brought me to his lab, explaining complex theories while I perched on a stool, watching his hands move over holographic interfaces.
And we talked about everything. We’d started at League politics and the absurdity of Hero-Villain dynamics but the conversations had morphed into other subjects quickly.
He seemed ravenous to learn my thoughts on whatever he could, listening intently whenever I spoke and asking thought provoking questions.
Things would have been easier if he were cruel all the time, if he were just the monster who bound me to the bench and struck me until I cried out for mercy.
But he wasn’t. He was brilliant, darkly funny, and devastatingly attentive.
It made it hard to remember that this whole arrangement was supposed to be about fucking and nothing more.
My phone weighed heavy in the hidden pocket of my dress. He’d given it back three days ago, watching me with those calculating eyes.
“Call Havoc if you want,” he’d said, tossing it onto the bed beside me. “Tell him where you are. What I’ve done to you.”
He knew I wouldn’t because I’d invited the monster in. I’d asked him for his violence and control. I’d asked him to take me and he’d done just that. Calling Havoc to tell him to come save me from something I’d begged for felt like the worst form of humiliation.
So I hadn’t called, not just because it would be humiliating in a way I’d never recover from, but I didn’t want to be saved. Not yet anyway.
He hadn’t just stopped at giving me back my phone either. He had casually mentioned our exact coordinates over coffee yesterday.
The infamous Labyrinth, the hidden lair the Alliance had spent years trying to locate, sat directly beneath the Smith Technologies Tower in the Financial District. He had handed over his biggest secret with the same ease he used to pour my creamer.
He knew my pride made a better cage than any threat he could leverage about not sharing the information.
If I went to the Alliance with the location of his headquarters, I would have to explain exactly how I had acquired that information.
I would have to look Havoc in the eye and detail the week I had spent willingly tangled in Cipher’s sheets.
Cipher understood perfectly that my own shame would keep his secret safe.
Cipher guided me through the crowd, his body a shield between me and the press of bodies as he led me to the VIP section where League members lounged in private booths away from the riffraff of the commoners below.
The circuit had been a bust. I had cast my senses out like a net, dragging it through the thumping bass. I picked up plenty of signatures, including a few Trueborns, but I recognized every one of them.
“Nothing,” I murmured, leaning back against Cipher’s chest as we rounded the balcony.
“Disappointing but expected.”
He steered me toward one of the high-backed booths. He sat first, spreading his legs wide, and hauled me down onto his lap. A server materialized from the shadows, a young woman with neon circuitry tattooed down her neck.
“The tasting menu,” Cipher ordered. “And champagne.”
As she scurried away, my stomach gave a traitorous, audible growl.
“Hungry, Sparks?” Cipher’s hand slid over my stomach.
“I didn’t exactly get a dinner break,” I muttered, suppressing the thrill at hearing the nickname on his lips. He defaulted to it when we were in public now, when he couldn’t use my name.
But saying I didn’t get a dinner break wasn’t an understatement.
We had spent the hours leading up to this evening tangled in the sheets of the Playroom, fucking with an intensity that had left no time for anything other than a shower and a scramble to get dressed.
I’d shoved a dry protein bar down my throat while trying to pin my hair up, and that had been four hours ago.
When the server returned with a slate of intricate, bite-sized appetizers, I reached for a piece of seared meat.
Cipher’s hand shot out, his fingers clamping around my wrist.
“Patience.” He released my wrist and picked up the meat himself. “Open.”
I hesitated. My stomach cramped with hunger, but my pride held the line.
Cipher slid his free hand up my throat, his thumb pressing into the corner of my jaw.
“Don’t make me tell you twice, Sparks.”
My mouth opened because my body recognized the tone.
It was the same voice he used in the Playroom when he told me to get on my knees.
He slid the meat between my lips, his fingers invading with it.
Two fingers pressed down on my tongue, flattening it, triggering a shallow gag reflex that made my eyes water.
He held them there, forcing me to breathe around his intrusion, forcing me to taste the salt of his skin mixed with the sear of the meat.
“Chew,” he commanded, slowly withdrawing his fingers.
I chewed and swallowed, the rich, savory flavor exploding on my tongue.
“Good girl,” he whispered and heat flushed my cheeks.
“You never eat with me at the Labyrinth. You banish me to the mess hall with the henchmen. Why this? Why now?”
Cipher picked up a piece of melon next. The fruit glistened under the violet club lights.
“Eating together implies a certain type of domesticity and equality.” He brought the fruit to my lips. This time, I didn’t hesitate. I leaned forward and took it, my lips grazing his fingertips.
“This isn’t equality,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, rough growl that made my thighs clench. “This is maintenance. I run my machines hard. I need them fueled.”
“Is that what I am? A machine?”
“You’re a high-performance asset that I plan on breaking tonight. If you faint from low blood sugar while I’m using you, it ruins my rhythm.”
“Do you plan on being rough tonight then?” I cocked a brow at him.
“I’m always rough, Annie. You wouldn’t come for me if I wasn’t.”
I shifted on his lap, feeling the truth of that in the ache between my legs. It was a dull throb of overuse.
I’d learned something new about Supers this week.
Apparently, when your partner is a genetically enhanced powerhouse with the stamina of a machine, friction becomes a genuine hazard.
Cipher had produced a small jar of balm earlier in the week, a translucent gel designed specifically for the human partners of Supers.
It accelerated healing and numbed the rawness just enough to keep going.
“Eat,” he said. “So I can wreck you properly later.”
A dark heat curled through me. Instead of being insulted, the idea of being used, of being nothing more than a thing for him to break and put back together, made me all the more eager to obey.
Cipher dipped his thumb into a small pot of honey on the slate, coating the pad of it in the gold liquid. He held his hand up to my mouth.
“Lick it off.”
I wrapped my hand around his wrist to steady him and swirled my tongue around his thumb. I sucked the tip into my mouth and my eyes fluttered shut as the taste of him overwhelmed my senses.
Cipher let out a ragged exhale. He pulled his hand back, his thumb slick and wet as he brought it to his own mouth and licked it clean.
“Fuck. Keep looking at me like that, and I won’t wait for us to get home. I’ll shove you under this table and have you choke on me while the League watches.”
My thighs clenched involuntarily at his threat as he pressed another piece of meat to my lips and I took it. He licked a stray drop of oil from his thumb and all I could imagine was that tongue on my pussy.
I leaned forward to kiss him, desperate for the feel of his mouth on mine, but his body went rigid against me.
“Fuck me,” he sighed.
Before I could ask him what was wrong, the feeling hit me. I gasped and slammed my mental shields on Havoc’s power down. I pressed myself back against Cipher, trying to burrow into him as if that could save me from what was coming.
“Ash,” I choked out.
Cipher’s arm tightened around my waist in response.
“He feels...” I couldn’t finish. Wrong didn’t cover it. He felt like death walking.
“I know.” Cipher turned my face toward him, forcing me to look at his mask instead of the monster ascending to the VIP area.
“Listen to me closely. You are going to sit here, look bored, and drink your champagne. You are not going to engage. You are not going to try to de-escalate the situation. You will let me handle it as I see fit.”
I swallowed hard but nodded.
“He wants to kill you.”
“He always wants to kill me,” Cipher replied, his tone dismissive, though the tension in his shoulders told a different story. “But he won’t try anything lethal tonight. Not here.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s a sadist who gets off on an audience, and the lighting in here is terrible for the cameras. He’ll want to save the violence for the match so he can tear me apart in high definition. Spilling my blood on a club floor is a waste of good content.”