Chapter 14
CIPHER
I took Annie’s hand, gripping it firmly enough that she couldn’t slip away. No more running. Not tonight. Not from me.
“Stay close,” I murmured, pulling her against my side as we navigated the shifting corridors of the Neon Maze.
The narrow passageway pulsed with electric blue light, catching on Annie’s mask.
Her eyes darted nervously as holographic advertisements shimmered and reformed around us.
The mask was working to keep her in that liminal space between her carefully constructed persona and the woman I knew lived beneath it.
“Where are we going?” Her voice was small, uncertain.
“Somewhere you can fall apart without consequences.”
The corridor opened into a sensory overload zone with competing signs creating a strobing tunnel of pure color.
I pulled her closer as the ground beneath us rippled with each step, responding to our weight with waves of crimson light.
The cacophony of sounds, bass from underground clubs, melodic chimes from gaming centers, and the constant electric hum all created perfect cover for our movements.
We passed through a holographic wall that parted like water, revealing a spiral staircase bathed in violet light. Three drunken tourists stumbled past us, their pupils dilated from whatever reality-warping experience they’d just emerged from.
“Almost there,” I said as we reached a section where the floor became transparent, revealing the level below. Annie hesitated, her grip tightening on my hand. I pulled her forward. “Trust me or don’t. Doesn’t matter. You’re coming either way.”
The door to my private room appeared, unmarked except for a subtle geometric pattern that responded to my touch. It slid open silently, revealing darkness beyond.
I smiled and pulled her into the darkness with me.
The door sealed behind us, and I activated the room’s ambient lighting, a soft violet glow that painted the space in shadows.
One wall displayed a shifting digital landscape of stars and nebulae, casting cosmic patterns across the polished floor.
A massive bed dominated one corner, with black sheets and too many pillows.
The opposite wall housed a stocked bar and a collection of equipment that wasn’t trying to hide its purpose—restraints, implements of carefully controlled pain, tools designed for pleasure’s sharper edge.
I’d built this place years ago, a place to extract information through pleasure or pain. It had seen surprisingly little use because I’d never found anyone worthy of bringing here.
Until Annie.
I reached up and removed my mask, tossing it onto a nearby table. She needed to see me. All of me.
“You’re not taking mine,” she said immediately, fingers flying to the edges of her mask.
“No.” I stepped closer, taking her wrists gently. “You keep it. For now.” She needed the barrier between herself and what she was about to do.
Her eyes darted to the restraints, then back to my face. I could see the war behind them, desire fighting duty, need battling propriety.
“This isn’t—“
“Don’t,” I said, not unkindly. “No justifications. No excuses. No overthinking.”
I slowly circled her. “You’re wound so fucking tight you’re about to snap. I can feel it. Everyone can feel it.”
Her shoulders tensed as I moved behind her. “Tonight, you get to break. Scream. Fight. Hate me. Want me. Whatever you need.”
Annie’s chest rose and fell rapidly. “I don’t hate—“
“You do.” I cut her off. “You hate me for betraying you. You hate me for making you feel, for making you want things you’ve told yourself you shouldn’t want.”
Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
“So hit me.” I stepped closer. “Scratch me. Bite me. Fuck me. Whatever you need to do to get it out of your system.”
“I shouldn’t—“
I spun her around, gripping her arms. “Shouldn’t what? Feel? Need? Want something for yourself for once in your goddamn life?”
Her eyes darted around the room, trying to look at anything besides the truth right in front of her.
“Try to hurt me. I can take it. I’ll take all of it.” I released her abruptly, stepping back to give her space to choose. “Or you can walk out that door. But we both know you won’t.”
Annie stood frozen.
“You’ve spent your whole life being perfect. Your whole life being what everyone needs. Tonight, I’m giving you permission to be selfish. To take what you want.” I spread my arms wide, offering myself. “So take it.”
I watched the panic setting in behind that mask, and her breathing coming harder.
“You’re overthinking again,” I said, reaching for the seam at my collar. “Let me make this easier.”
I disengaged the suit’s connections and piece by piece, I removed the technological shell I’d crafted to hide behind, tossing each component carelessly aside.
The undersuit followed, peeling away from my skin to reveal the linear tattoos that guided the automated system. I didn’t rush and let her watch, let her see exactly what she was denying herself.
“No more barriers. No more excuses,” I said, standing naked before her.
Her eyes hungrily tracked over my body, lingering on the defined musculature of my chest, my abdomen, lower. The mask concealed most of her expression, but nothing could hide the way her breathing changed, the slight parting of her lips.
“You’re still frozen.” I took a step toward her. “Still paralyzed by what you should do instead of what you want to do.”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t know what I want.”
“Bullshit.” I moved closer. “You want to hurt me. You want to fuck me. Maybe both at once. You’re just too afraid to admit it.”
“Hit me,” I challenged, tapping my chest with my fingers. “Scratch me. Or kiss me. Touch me. I don’t care which, just do something, Annie.”
She remained motionless, a statue of indecision.
“You want to punish me. You want to make me bleed for what I did to you. I watched you tear yourself apart looking for Dread. I had the answers the whole time and I lied to your face every single night, Annie. And you let me.”
Her eyes widened behind the mask and her hands clenched into tight fists again but I kept going. I couldn’t stop now even if it hurt.
“I traded your sanity for a piece of technology,” I continued, letting the cruel words wrap around her, until they were strangling us both. “I let you sleep in my arms while I kept the monster you were hunting a secret. You should want to kill me for that.”
The crack of her palm against my cheek echoed through the room. The metallic tang of blood flooded my mouth from where my own teeth had cut me.
Three months of starvation clawed its way up my throat and before she could pull her hand back, I lunged. I pinned her wrist hard against my chest. My fingers dug into her skin, frantic and uncoordinated, desperate just to feel the heat of her pulse.
Horror flooded her eyes as she stared at our hands. “I didn’t mean—“
“Lie to yourself, not to me.” My voice scraped out raw, stripped of the control I’d been pretending to have. “Hit me again.”
“I don’t want to hit you.” Her voice trembled and I could tell she wanted to believe the words.
“Do it.” I yanked her closer. “Make me bleed, Annie. Fucking ruin me for what I did to you.”
She tried to pull away but I held firm. I dropped my head and buried my face in the curve of her neck to inhale the scent I had been hallucinating for all the time we’d been apart.
“You’re angry,” I breathed against her skin. “You want to claw my eyes out. So do it. Take it out on me.”
“I can’t.”
I jerked my head up, my gaze meeting hers. My own panic was bleeding through but I couldn’t hide it any more. “Then hate fuck me. Do something, Annie. Just touch me.”
Her hands flew to my face and she crashed her mouth against mine.
She bit my lower lip and it was fucking perfect.
Her nails raked down my chest, leaving angry red trails across my skin.
I hissed through clenched teeth, savoring the violence of her.
This wasn’t how I’d imagined our reunion, but fuck, it was exactly what we needed.
“You left me,” Annie snarled, her teeth finding my shoulder. She bit down hard enough that if I’d been a normal man I’d have marks tomorrow. “You fucking left me there with him.”
I caught her face between my hands, taking her mouth with mine. “I know.”
She tore herself away, eyes wild behind the mask. “You lied to me.” Her palm cracked against my cheek again, the sting blooming hot across my skin. “You knew what Dread was doing and you said nothing.”
Another desperate kiss, my answer pressed against her lips.
“You betrayed me.” Her voice broke on the last word as her nails dug into my biceps.
“I did.” No point denying it. “I fucked up. Catastrophically.”
Annie’s teeth scraped over the pulse point at my neck before she bit down again. I groaned, tangling my hands in her hair.
“Three months,” she hissed against my skin. “Three months of nightmares. Of jumping at shadows. Of wondering if I ever knew you at all.”
I pulled her back to my mouth, swallowing her accusations with a bruising kiss. Her hands were everywhere, clawing at my shoulders, my back, my ass. She was marking territory she’d never stopped owning.
She shoved me backward toward the bed. I let the momentum carry me down and took her with me onto the black sheets.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she continued, straddling my thighs. “Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t think about anything but how completely I’d fallen for your act.”
I grabbed her waist, steadying her as she loomed over me. “It wasn’t an act. Not with you. Never with you.”
Her fingers tangled in my hair, yanking my head back as she leaned down. “Liar.”
She dragged her teeth along my collarbone, working her way down my chest. When she reached the juncture where two of my tattoo lines intersected just below my ribs, she bit down hard, sucking the skin between her teeth.
Holy shit.
My back arched off the bed, a strangled sound tearing from my throat. My cock throbbed painfully, so close to the edge I had to grit my teeth against the sensation. Not yet. This wasn’t about me.