Chapter 10 #2
“Cipher?” I whispered, alarmed by the sudden shift.
Pain lanced through my temples. It felt like someone had poured boiling lead into my skull. The energy signature was wrong. Corrupted. It smelled like rot and burning hair.
I slammed my mental shields down, cutting off the sense immediately. The relief left me gasping, hollowed out and shaking, like I’d severed a limb to escape a trap.
Cipher’s thumb pressed into the soft hollow of my throat.
“Submit to me,” he whispered against my ear. “Now.”
I went pliant in his arms, letting my body fall against him as though overwhelmed by his attentions. I forced my expression into one of dazed submission.
“Who?” I breathed.
“Baron Ash.”
Heavy footsteps approached our booth, each deliberate thud announcing Baron Ash’s arrival before I saw him. The sound reminded me of a predator intentionally breaking twigs to frighten prey, wanting us to squirm before he pounced.
“Well, well. If it isn’t Cipher and his little bitch.”
I stiffened. Cipher’s hand on my throat tightened just enough to keep me still. A silent command. You are mine. You do not react to him.
I let my body melt against him as though I hadn’t even registered the insult.
Baron Ash loomed over our booth. His mask was a nightmare of featureless black metal and molten lines, but the heat radiating from him was real. It smelled like charred meat.
“Ash,” Cipher said. He sounded bored. He kept his hand displayed prominently on my throat. “Slumming it in the Middle Passages tonight?”
Baron Ash leaned closer, the slits in his mask revealing nothing but darkness and one violently green eye.
My skin crawled as his attention fixed on me. His gaze dragged over my exposed legs, making me feel contaminated.
“Is this the little thing you risked your reputation for?” Baron Ash tilted his head. “The one you caught mid-air like some Alliance prick?”
I kept my expression blank, though my pulse was thundering against Cipher’s palm.
“She looks soft,” Ash continued. “Breakable.”
“She’s occupied,” Cipher said. He sounded annoyed. “Find your own toy.”
Ash laughed. It was an ugly sound. “Didn’t answer my question, did you? I’m surprised you even know what to do with pussy when you get it. You usually prefer your little toys and gadgets.”
“Some of us don’t need to compensate with brute force,” Cipher replied. His thumb stroked the line of my jaw. “My toys are more than enough to handle you.”
Ash leaned in further. The smell of burning grew stronger, choking the air in the booth.
“You hide behind your tech because you’re weak,” Ash growled. “Let’s see what happens when I take your little whore and show her what a real man feels like.”
“Careful,” Cipher said softly. “You’re boring me. And we both know what happens when I get bored.”
“Do we? Enlighten me.”
“Last time you bored me, I seem to recall you spending three weeks in recovery.” Cipher’s voice dropped lower and he brought his hand from my throat to my thigh. “Care for a repeat performance?”
The air shimmered with heat. The subtle glow of the molten lines in Ash’s mask intensified.
I placed my hand over Cipher’s where it rested on my thigh and squeezed lightly, giving him a silent plea to deescalate. I’d babysat enough egotistical Supers to recognize when violence became inevitable, but here I had no power to stop it.
Cipher stiffened at my touch but his head snapped to the side.
“Interesting,” Cipher drawled, turning back to Ash. “Eclipse is here.”
Baron Ash’s head turned toward the new arrival, following her progress across the space.
“She’s looking for the man who burned down her warehouse,” Cipher said. “I wonder who that could have been.”
“Enjoy the meat while it’s fresh, Cipher. It spoils so fast.” He turned and stalked away, disappearing into the shadows.
Cipher immediately grabbed my hand on his and squeezed tight, grinding the bones together. His other hand covered my mouth stifling my cry of pain as he twisted us in the booth. He used his body to block the view of me from the room as his mask came within inches of my face.
“Never touch me or try to distract me when I am working,” he hissed.
I recoiled. “I was trying to help—”
“Help?” He gave a short, cold laugh. “You think I needed your help with that walking garbage fire? You think I couldn’t handle him?”
“I didn’t want it to escalate.”
“That isn’t your call to make.
“All I did was touch your hand,” I started.
“You signaled weakness.”
Heat flooded my face. “So I’m just supposed to sit here like a brainless doll while you measure dicks with every psychopath who walks by?”
“You are supposed to sit there and look fuckable,” he said. “That is the only value you have in this room.”
The insult landed like a slap.
“Oh please,” I snapped, my temper flaring over my fear. “I’ve been managing Super egos since before you put on that suit. I know how to handle—”
His hand shot out and gripped my chin, his fingers digging into my cheeks.
“You have managed paperwork,” he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
“You think because you file reports for Havoc that you understand monsters? How many of the Supers you’ve interacted with wanted to fuck you bloody and leave you for dead?
Because that’s what Ash was imagining when he looked at you.
He wasn’t here to look for a fight. He was looking for a weak point. ”
“I’m not afraid of him,” I said through his grip.
“Then you’re an idiot.”
He released my face with a shove.
“You think you can control this world with your little rulebook,” he said. “You can’t. These people aren’t playing by rules. They’re barely playing the same game.”
The fear, the arousal, the humiliation, it all boiled over.
“Just because you think—”
“You want to know what I really think?” Cipher leaned in and cut me off.
His voice was soft. Vicious. “I think you’re a tourist. A pathetic little Keeper playing dress-up in a world that would eat you alive and pick its teeth with your bones.
You’re not a player, Annie. You’re a glorified secretary with delusions of importance. ”
My hand moved before I could think, my palm aimed straight for the exposed part of his face.
The slap never landed.
Cipher caught my wrist mid-air and twisted my arm behind my back, slamming me chest-first against his chest.
“Careful, sweetheart.” His voice was a low growl against my ear. “I don’t tolerate unruly pets.”
“Let go of me,” I hissed. I tried to scramble off his lap, but he twisted my arm harder until I cried out.
“You want to fight?” He tightened his grip on my trapped wrist, forcing my back to arch. “Good. I like resistance. It makes breaking it more satisfying.”
His free hand slid down my stomach and cupped me right between my legs.
I froze. “Stop—”
“Quiet.”
He pressed the heel of his hand against me. Hard. I tried to clamp my legs together, but that only trapped his hand exactly where he wanted it.
“You’re angry,” he murmured. “You want to hit me. You want to scream.”
He ground his palm against my pussy again and my hips bucked. I couldn’t help it, it was a reflex.
“And yet,” he whispered, “you’re dripping wet.”
Shame flooded me. “I’m not.”
“Liar.”
He shifted his grip, hooking his finger under the lace of my panties and pulling the fabric aside. He touched me directly, his fingers sliding through my slickness. The sensation was blinding and I had to bite my lip to keep from moaning.
“Look at you,” he taunted, his voice rough. “Soaking my hand while you want to claw my eyes out. But this is the truth of it, isn’t it? You don’t want to hit me. You want me to fuck the anger out of you.”
“Stop,” I begged even as I ground against his hand.
“Make me.”
He circled my clit through the slick heat. Once. Twice.
My vision blurred.
“You want it,” he growled. “You want me inside you. Right here. In front of everyone.”
He pressed the tip of his finger against my entrance. He pushed just enough to stretch me. He was going to do it. He was going to finger me right here in the booth where everyone could see.
Panic crawled its way through me. Because I wanted it. I wanted it so much the desire felt like it would strangle me.
“Truce!” The word tore out of me. “Truce, I can’t—“
His hand froze.
The finger at my entrance stopped its invasion and the arm twisting my wrist loosened.
“Breathe,” he commanded.
I inhaled sharply, my heart hammering against my ribs. The arousal was still there, pulsing and demanding, but it was curdling into shame under the weight of what I’d almost let him do.
I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t really his plaything. I was just Annie. And she couldn’t do this.
Cipher withdrew his hand slowly and he released my wrist. I slumped against his chest, trembling.
He brought his hand up to his face and the lips I knew so well curved into a dark, satisfied smile. He extended the finger that had been inside me and it glistened in the dim light. Then he put it in his mouth.
He sucked the slickness from his skin. He took his time, savoring the taste of my arousal like it was a fine wine he’d just uncorked.
“Delicious,” he murmured against his wet finger.
My face burned. The heat radiated from my chest up to my hairline.
“You...” I couldn’t even finish the sentence.
He watched me struggle for words and slowly licked his lips, making a show of tasting me again.
“Speechless?” he taunted softly. “That’s a first.”
“I hate you,” I choked out, trying to wipe the memory of his finger from my mind. “You’re just getting off on this. Having me helpless in your lap. Making me beg. It’s a pathetic power trip.”
“A power trip,” he repeated. His voice was devoid of humor.
“Yes,” I snapped. “You need to control every move I make because you can’t handle a woman who doesn’t—“
His hand moved too fast to track. He tangled his fingers in my hair, forcing my head back until my neck was exposed.
“If I were using you for a power trip, you wouldn’t be talking,” he growled. “I’d have you on your knees under this table and I would be fucking that mouth until you forgot how to speak.”