Chapter 17 #2
He clamped an arm around my waist and pulled me back where I was. He didn’t say a word, just continued unfastening the buttons. He pushed the blouse off my shoulders and moved to the zipper of my skirt, dragging it down until it dropped around my ankles.
Cipher stepped back and began a slow circle around me. He wore his full suit, the glowing accents illuminating the dark plates of armor, but his mask was gone. He stopped in front of me and his gaze locked onto the bruises marking my collarbone and hips.
“I’ve been watching you press on them all day,” he murmured.
My stomach plummeted. The cameras. He’d hacked the internal security feeds at the Tower. The Aegis claimed the building was impenetrable, and Cipher had bypassed it just to watch me touch myself.
“Tell me, Annie. Does the pain make you wet?”
I clamped my jaw shut, refusing to acknowledge the way the question made my pussy clench. “Why are you here?” I asked instead.
“I’m here to take you.”
I stared up at him, trying to process the audacity of his claim. “Take me where?”
“You have a newly cleared schedule.” His silver eyes dropped to my mouth before dragging lazily over my breasts. “I’m not fucking wasting it. We’ll make our mandated appearances for the Aegis and the Syndicate, but the rest of the time, you’ll belong to me. So you’re staying with me.”
I took a step back. “I’m not staying with you. We can fuck all you want, but I never agreed to staying with you.”
“I wasn’t asking.” He reached out and wrapped his fingers around the back of my neck.
“You read those stories, Annie,” he said. “You crave the power exchange. You want a monster who takes control. I wouldn’t want to disappoint you now by making you think I’d give you a choice.”
He leaned down, his mouth hovering by my ear. “Besides, this gives me all the time in the world to punish you for running.”
“What’s to stop me from calling Havoc?” I demanded, my voice tight. I forced my spine straight, refusing to let him see how badly my knees were shaking. Logic. I needed logic. “What will Dawn think when I just disappear? She lives here. She’ll notice I’m not at home.”
He raised his left hand between us, my phone nestled between his fingers. I hadn’t even felt him take it.
I lunged for it but Cipher was faster. My phone disappeared into a compartment in his suit.
“As for Dawn, later, you’re going to text her something about why you won’t be home.” He leaned forward. “And you’d better make it fucking convincing, Bishop.”
I scowled at him. I really didn’t want to stay with him. My brain focused on the logistical nightmare of abandoning my own apartment to stay with Cipher to be his live-in plaything. Havoc would execute him if he found out.
But the thought of having days to let go of my control, of surrendering the crushing weight of my responsibilities and existing at his mercy?
It sounded really fucking good.
He had fucked me exactly how I needed to be fucked last night. He had pinned me to that glass, and reduced me to a desperate creature. And that was only the beginning.
Cipher knew every dark, taboo scenario I had ever read.
He knew everything I secretly craved but could never confess to a living soul.
I wanted to know what he would do when we actually had time.
I wanted to experience every single fantasy he had threatened me with in the dark. I wanted it so fucking bad.
But I couldn’t just hand it to him. Havoc had been right when he said Cipher was a predator.
And predators didn’t want their prey to walk willingly into the cage.
He wanted to hunt. He wanted to break me down.
I knew he wouldn’t like it if I made it easy for him.
Our arguments fueled the arrangement just as much as the sex did.
I shifted my weight, letting my gaze slide past his shoulder. The bedroom door stood open and the hallway stretched out behind him, clear and empty. The front door was less than twenty feet away.
I tilted my chin up, meeting those hypnotic eyes.
“What happens if I just decide to run?”
Cipher shook his head slowly. Amusement sparked in his eyes, darkening the silver.
“You think you can outrun me?” he asked, his voice a low, mocking drawl. “That is adorable, Annie. Truly.”
“I’m fast.”
“I’m faster.” His smile vanished. “Don’t run. You’ll only tire yourself out, and I prefer you with some energy left. Now get dressed, I have business to get to.”
He released me and stepped back, giving me exactly enough space to comply.
I huffed out a frustrated breath and marched toward the closet.
I bypassed all of my nice dresses and shirts. If he wanted to drag me along with him, I wasn’t going to chance him destroying any of my other nice clothes. I grabbed a pair of comfy black leggings and an oversized, faded gray sweatshirt.
“Sexy,” Cipher drawled, his voice dripping with dry amusement.
I tugged the hem of the sweatshirt down and turned to glare at him. “I aim to please.” I gestured to my decidedly un-seductive outfit. “You literally tore my nicest dress to shreds last night. I’m not risking another high-end item just so you can rip it in half.”
A small frown crossed his face, a brief, sharp tightening of his perfect features, before it vanished just as fast.
He shifted his weight, crossing his arms over his chest. He was relaxed. Arrogant. He actually thought I had capitulated, that I was just going to nod and follow him like a good little hostage.
But the path to the bedroom door was still open.
I’m a Keeper, I thought, my pulse picking up. I don’t get kidnapped.
Well, I absolutely did get kidnapped sometimes because I’m Havoc’s Keeper and that was an actual occupational hazard, but I didn’t just roll over and let League members drag me out of my own home without a fight. The rules dictated resistance. My own stubborn pride demanded it.
I tempted fate and bolted.
I launched myself toward the hallway, pumping my arms and pushing off the balls of my feet for maximum speed. Adrenaline flooded through me, an electric rush that tasted like copper in the back of my throat.
I didn’t even make it past the dresser.
A blur of black armor intercepted me. The impact knocked the wind out of me as Cipher took me down to the floor. My back hit the carpet with a thud, his body pinning me.
“I told you not to run,” he murmured, his breath hot against my cheek.
Before I could formulate a string of curses, he shifted his weight and scooped me up off the floor.
“Wait,” I gasped. “What are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
He turned on his heel and started for the open balcony door.
“I don’t have shoes on!” I kicked my legs, a futile protest against his iron-clad hold.
“You shouldn’t have tried to run.” Cipher stepped out onto the balcony. The wind whipped my hair across my face, as he stepped up onto the ledge without a single second of hesitation.
“Cipher, I can’t just leave—“
He launched us into the sky and my stomach dropped out of my body. The balcony disappeared and my carefully constructed, rule-bound life disappeared with it.
The wind roared in my ears, drowning out my scream. Entirely at his mercy, I buried my face in the crook of his neck and clung to him for dear life.