Page 76 of Villainous Intent

Nothing happened.

The only emotion swelling in my chest was dread.

Finley just kept talking. He didn’t step closer. He didn’t reach for my waist or crowd me against the low stone wall. He was still rambling about the university’s grant allocation process, his hands gesturing enthusiastically as he outlined the flaws in the humanities budget.

I took a deep breath and decided to force the issue. I leaned in to him and pressed my palm flat against the center of his chest.

Finley stopped mid-sentence as he looked down at my hand. Slowly, he lifted his own hand and covered my fingers. His palm was warm. Safe. He slid his free arm around my waist.

Good, good. He’d made contact.

I tipped my chin up, waiting for the shift. Okay, Finley. Kiss me. Bite me. Hold me tighter. Do fucking something. I needed him to drag me out of my own head. I needed him to overwrite what Cipher had done to my body.

He gazed down into my eyes with a soft reverence that made my stomach curdle. He didn’t pull me flush against his body. He didn’t dig his fingers into my hip to claim the space.

“You’re so pretty, Annie,” he breathed.

I forced a smile, keeping my hand on his chest. “Thank you.”

“Dawn has had so many wonderful things to say about you,” he continued, his thumb lightly stroking my knuckles. “She told me how driven you are. How much of a perfectionist you are with your job.”

My smile stiffened. “I like things organized.”

“It’s incredible,” Finley said. “I’m just so tired of dating women who don’t have their life sorted out. So many are emotionally messy. The drama, the unpredictability. It’s really refreshing to meet someone who is just so pulled together.”

Any lingering hope of arousal instantly vaporized into ash at his words. Finley didn’t want me. He wanted Keeper Annie. He wanted the pristine, rule-abiding professional who kept her uniform pressed and her emotions neatly filed away in color-coded folders.

He liked the cage I had built to survive my own life.

It gutted me that he was right. I was pulled together. I had to be. If I slipped up, if I let the messy, traumatized parts of myself bleed through, I risked losing control of myself.

Standing in Finley’s loose embrace, I realized I could never just be Annie with a man like this. I would have to perform at being normal for him every single day. I would have to hide the girl who secretly craved the darkness, the violence of being pinned down and fucked.

Finley leaned down, his trajectory slow and asking for permission to kiss me.

A wave of numb exhaustion washed over me. I couldn’t do it.

I planted my hand firmer against his chest and pushed back, easily breaking his hold.

“Annie?”

“I’m sorry, Finley,” I whispered, my voice tight. “I can’t.” I walked away as fast as I could without looking like I was fleeing.

I couldn’t go back downstairs. Not yet. Cipher was down there, likely sipping his drink and waiting for his prediction to come true. He’d known Finley would fail. He knew I was broken in a way only a monster could recognize and I couldn’t look at his arrogant face right now and have him tell me he was right.

I wandered deeper into the garden and found a quiet spot at the edge of the roof. Below me, the neon glow of the fog swirled into a beautiful haze. I stared out at the glowing city, my chest aching as my vision slowly blurred with tears. I gripped the railing until my knuckles ached, willing myself not to cry, but a tear spilled over my lashes anyway, cutting a wet path down my cheek.

“Well?”

I jumped, my shoulders jerking up toward my ears. I didn’t turn around at the deep rumble of his voice. I kept my face stubbornly angled toward the city, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me humiliated.

Footsteps approached, slow and deliberate against the stone path. “That was remarkably fast,” Cipher drawled, his tone dripping with amusement. “Either Finley is a prodigy at getting you off, or you chickened out. Which is it, Annie?”

I clamped my jaw shut. I wasn’t going to talk to him. I wasn’t going to play his games.

The air behind me shifted. “Look at me.”

I didn’t move.