Page 68 of Villainous Intent

During the entire flight, she had punished me with weaponized silence, offering only clipped, monosyllabic answers to my questions. Yes. No. Fine.

Now, in comparison, she was practically glowing.

“It’s going to be a bloodbath by month two,” Annie said, leaning into Twelve’s gloved hands as he cleaned the dried blood from her temple. “If the Syndicate doesn’t adjust the point values for collateral damage, half the Financial District is going to be rubble.”

“They won’t adjust it,” Twelve replied, as he prepped a syringe of dermal healing compound. “They love the ratings too much. Hold still, Bishop, this stings.”

She didn’t even flinch as he applied the clear, chemical-smelling gel directly to the gash on her forehead. At least she didn’t have to get stitches. The compound, sealed beneath a transparent healing patch, would force the cellular regeneration. In an hour, the split flesh would be nothing more than a faint red mark. In three days, it would be gone completely.

I crossed my arms, my chest tight with a territorial ache. I had called her a tourist at the Opener. I had called her pathetic for applying Alliance rules to our violence. I had been a colossal asshole. She wasn’t a tourist. A civilian would be having a panic attack right now. Annie was sitting in my lair, bleeding, casually debating League season analytics with my chief medical officer. She belonged in this world as much as I did; she just used her Keeper uniform as camouflage.

That realization made my obsession with her spike into something sharp and dangerous. I couldn’t stop tracking the minute details of her body. The way her thighs pressed against the crinkling paper of the exam table. The vulnerable curve of her throat when she tilted her head back for Twelve.

Twelve made a dry comment about the Alliance’s latest public relations disaster and Annie smiled.

It was a genuine, brilliant smile that transformed her face. It was a smile I’d never seen directed my way.

A low, possessive growl vibrated in my chest before I could stop it. I shot Twelve a glare that promised catastrophic bodily harm.

Twelve paused, the healing patch hovering inches from Annie’s forehead. He met my eyes over her shoulder, his expression a deadpan mask of professional endurance that clearly communicated: What do you want from me? I’m just doing my job.

I trusted Twelve implicitly. If I didn’t, he wouldn’t be breathing the same air as her, let alone touching her skin. But logic did nothing to cool the irrational urge to rip his hands off and lock her away where no one else could ever see that smile but me.

“All done,” Twelve said, stepping back quickly and peeling off his gloves. “Keep the patch on for sixty minutes.”

“Thank you, Twelve,” Annie said, her voice soft.

She finally turned her head, her blue eyes locking onto mine. The smile vanished instantly, replaced by a guarded glare.

Let her fight me. I preferred her jagged edges anyway.

“Time to go, Keeper.”

She stiffened, her jaw setting into a stubborn line, but she didn’t fight me as I slipped the blindfold over her eyes and tied it securely at the base of her skull.

I guided her out of the medical bay and deeper into the Labyrinth, navigating the corridors toward my main laboratory. Once the doors of the lab sealed behind us, I reached for the knot of her blindfold, taking my time. As the silk gave way, I couldn’t help stroking the skin at the nape of her neck, tracing the line of her vertebrae.

She shivered and I pulled the blindfold away. “The secondary workstation is yours.”

She blinked against the low light of the lab, her gaze sweeping over the work surfaces housing various prototypes before she silently settled into the chair at her workstation.

I retreated to my primary console, pulling up a drone schematic. I stared blankly at the hovering blue holograms, my brain processing exactly zero percent of the data. My focus was on the woman sitting ten feet away.

If she were any other woman, I wouldn’t be playing this game. I would simply take her. I’d pin her to the floor, force the corruption upon her, and make her mine through overwhelming dominance. But Annie was different. The thought of breaking her wasn’t nearly as intoxicating as the thought of her choosing to break. I wanted her to look at the darkness I offered and dive in willingly.

But fuck, the waiting was agony. I needed to feel her soft skin sliding against mine. I needed another hit of her sweet cunt, needed to feel her clit under my thumb and taste that beautiful wetness.

Time crawled as I watched her. Twenty-two minutes of silence later, and it was starting to grate on my nerves. I tracked the subtle shift of her body, the way her teeth caught her lower lip, dragging the soft pink flesh inward. The delicate slope of her neck where her pulse fluttered just beneath the skin. The unconscious friction of her thighs crossing and uncrossing beneath the desk. She smelled like sterile medical bay antiseptic, the lingering copper of her own blood, and that tantalizing sweet scent that was purely her.

She let out a sharp, frustrated sigh and a delicate furrow appeared between her brows as she tapped the screen, glaring at a Syndicate file.

That was all the invitation I needed.

Annie’s spine went rigid before I even crossed the midpoint between us. She didn’t look away from the monitor. “I don’t need help reading personnel files,” she stated, her voice tight, laced with that familiar strain of forced professionalism.

I ignored the dismissal and pulled the chair from the adjacent workbench, dragging it over until it scraped against hers.

“You’re distracting me,” she said stiffly.