His gaze flicks to my eyes, sharp and searching, like he’s weighing something. Deciding how much truth I can handle or if he can trust me.
“That’s a conversation for daylight,” he says finally. “Right now, you need rest.”
I laugh, short and humorless. “You cuffed me naked to a bed and you think I’m going to sleep?”
His mouth twitches. “You always did fight me on everything.”
I meet his gaze, heat and anger tangling low in my belly. “You left.”
Something flashes across his face. Regret. Pain. Something darker.
“I know,” he says, with so much bitterness in his tone I can partially taste it.
“I know.” He says it again but this time it’s softer and layered with years of hurt and regret. Or at least that is what I hear.
Through the open doorway, I see the fire pop, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. Outside, the wind howls low and distant, rattling the windows with the warning of a long night ahead.
Cipher reaches for a blanket and drapes it over me, careful to cover my legs without restricting my movement further. His hand lingers on my knee for half a second too long.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says quietly. “Not this time.”
I watch him move away, my body still humming, my mind spinning with questions I don’t yet have answers to.
The cuffs bite gently at my wrists when I shift, a reminder of the danger I’m in and of the man I might still love enough to ruin myself for.
“Fuck you, Cipher. Ask me what you wanna know, and then I can tell you no. Then you can leave, knowing you tried and got a free fuck for your efforts.”
Hurt passes over his handsome expression, tightening the space between his brows.
“Free fuck, huh?”
My bare pussy clenches when his eyes fall there next. Like he is planning something deviously delicious and that particular body part is totally onboard with whatever he has in mind.
Warm liquid spills to wet me.
His nostrils flare as if he can scent my arousal.
He throws off the blanket and the gush of chilled air hits me with a sting.
My nipples turn rock hard, and his hungry gaze falls to them.
“Fuck you, Cipher,” I hurl at him. I never was good at backing down from a challenge which, given my current situation one would think I might at least learn to shut up.
“Beg me and I will, my sweet hellcat.”
He traces the rough pad of a finger over the falling blooms of my tattoo. If he were to turn me over he'd see a beautiful phoenix bird with spread wings.
He pushes my thighs apart and drags a finger through my slit,
“Rat bastard,” I snarl but there’s not nearly enough heat to my words.
He pulls back, the evidence of my arousal coating his finger. And now he actually has the damn audacity to smile down at me. I look on as he licks my juices from his finger.
“Mm. Delicious, baby.”
He reaches out and presses a thumb to the corner of my bottom lip. “It’s adorable how you bite your lip when you want something. Aren’t you gonna beg me to fuck you, baby?”
“Curse you for everything you’ve done to me. I wish I never met you.”
