Page 126 of Villainous Intent

“I’ve been planning this since the moment I realized I wanted you,” he whispered, his lips grazing my jaw. “So stop asking about other women. I didn’t build a dungeon for them. I built a shrine to your ruin.”

CHAPTER 25

CIPHER

I didn’t wait for Annie to process the confession I’d just dropped on her. I didn’t want to talk about feelings or the architectural history of my obsession. I wanted her bound.

“Get up. I want you on the bench.”

Annie moved, her legs shaking, but she didn’t argue as she walked to the padded leather bench, the one angled specifically to present her to me.

“Strip,” I said.

She hesitated for a moment, but finished stripping out of what was left of her clothing. When she stood there, naked and trembling under the red lights, I realized the fucking timer in my head had finally stopped.

That fucking clock.

Ten hours. My brilliant strategy to reduce her to a biological necessity, a prop for the cameras when required and a warm body to silence the static in my head, hadn’t even lasted half a fucking day. I had built the walls. I had drawn the lines. And the second she walked into my lab, she had pulverized every single brick.

I stared at the pale curve of her spine as she pressed her hands against the cold leather and anger coiled hot and sharp under my skin. I hated that I couldn’t stay away from her. I hated that the mere thought of her wandering my halls out of my sight made my skin crawl with violent possessiveness.

The realization was a jagged pill, tearing up my esophagus on the way down. I was a slave to this fixation already.

Fine.

If the equation wouldn’t balance with distance, I would rewrite the math. If I couldn’t cut her out of my head, I would just swallow her whole. I would own the marrow in her bones.

“Lean over,” I commanded. “Chest to the leather.”

Her gaze darted from the cuffs to the red lights overhead, her throat working as she swallowed. Her arms wrapped tightly around her midsection, exuding the kind of nervous energy that usually preceded a flight response.

“Cipher,” she breathed, but my name came out sounding more like a question.

She eyed the spanking bench, her skin going pale beneath the flush. She was terrified. Of the display. Of the openness of what I had asked her to do. She was used to shadows, to keeping herself under the covers and not being laid out under a spotlight.

I stepped into her space and ran my hands down her arms, reveling in the goosebumps that rose on her skin at my touch.

“Don’t think,” I murmured. “Just give it to me.”

With a shaky breath, she complied, bending at the waist, draping herself over the bench. It was a perfect display. Her spine curved, her ass lifted, vulnerable and waiting. I reached for the cuffs attached to the bench legs.

She gave a quick inhale of breath as the leather touched her ankle, spreading her wide, locking her into place. She couldn’t close her legs. She couldn’t hide. She was completely, utterly mine.

I stepped back, running my eyes over the lines of her body.

I was still angry. The heat of it was still running through my veins, coiled tight next to the lust. I hadn’t expected to be so insulted by her question. Am I the only one? The audacity of it. As if I were some common sadist who picked up women at bars to test out his hardware. As if I hadn’t taken the time to calculate the tensile strength of these chains, the density of the padding, the exact lighting array, all with her body in mind.

I had watched her earlier on the security feeds. I’d seen her enter the room, her eyes wide, terrified and curious. I’d watched her sit on the recovery bed, touching the furs, looking around the room like she was trying to memorize it for a test.

That was the problem with Annie.

She treated everything like a job. She treated submission like a set of rules and regulations she had to follow to keep her employment. Even last night, when she was shattering around my cock, there was a part of her trying to do it right. She wanted to be the perfect submissive, just like she was the perfect Keeper. She wanted to be graded on her performance.

She didn’t know how to be messy. She didn’t know that I didn’t want her performance; I wanted her ruin.

I walked around the bench, trailing my hand along her side. She flinched, her muscles jumping under my touch.

Telling her the truth about the room might have been a tactical error. It gave her leverage, knowing just how deep my obsession ran. I usually kept my cards close, my motives obscured by layers of misdirection. But looking at her now, stretched out and waiting for my hand, I didn’t care about the tactical disadvantage.