Page 94 of Villainous Intent

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.

CHAPTER 18

CIPHER

The wind tore around us, but my suit’s localized field kept the worst of the drag off Annie. She was pressed flush against my chest, her face buried against my neck. God, she felt perfect.

This was a catastrophic miscalculation. Kidnapping her hadn’t been on my itinerary. It was a dangerous, reckless indulgence that could bring the entire Aegis down on my head. But when my system had alerted me to her schedule change and I had seen that beautiful, blank void where her mandated schedule used to be, my restraint had evaporated.

Twelve hours, thirty-seven minutes and twenty-six seconds.

That was the exact duration since I had left her in the penthouse. The mental timer had been ticking in the back of my cortex ever since, a maddening metronome of obsession that bled into my focus and compromised my efficiency. I despised it. But as long as she wasn’t at work, she could be with me. And with her here, anchored in my arms, the timer had finally stopped. The silence in my head was absolute euphoria.

The hull of the aircraft materialized from the cloud cover. Once we were on board, the second her bare feet touched the floor, she planted both hands flat against my chest and shoved.

“You fucking asshole!” she snapped, her blue eyes blazing.

Internally, a vicious thrill ripped through me. There it is. That spectacular, suicidal fire. It was the single most intoxicating thing about her. I had literally just abducted her, and her first instinct was to physically attack a man who could crush her skull with two fingers.

My gaze dragged over her. She had chosen this ridiculous ensemble, the oversized gray sweatshirt and the black leggings, specifically to spite me. She wanted to look unremarkable and she had failed. The thin material of the leggings clung to the curve of her thighs and the perfect, rounded shape of her ass.

And the fact that she looked so incredibly comfortable... It pleased me. Every woman I had ever encountered in the League or the civilian world spent hours painting themselves, contorting into uncomfortable, performative armor just to impress me. Annie just threw on a baggy sweatshirt and picked a fight. She was just Annie. Unfiltered, defiant, and entirely mine.

I wanted to drag that oversized fabric off her shoulders, bury my face against her bare neck, and inhale the intoxicating scent of vanilla and adrenaline rolling off her skin. I wanted to map every nerve cluster in her body right there on the airlock floor.

But I had an empire to manage and actual work to do now that I had secured her. I caught her wrists before she could shove me again, pinning them together with one hand, and stared down at her.

“Come now, Bishop,” I murmured, my voice a flat, deadpan drawl. “I suggest you conserve that energy. You’re going to need it.”

“Take me back,” she demanded.

“No.” I released her wrists. I let my fingertips drag down the skin of her inner forearm as I pulled away just so I could feel her pulse hammering against my touch.

Number Seven rounded the corner, silent as a shadow, and extended Annie’s mask to me. I took it and held the mask out to her.

She stared at it for a second, scowling before she lifted her chin and locked her gaze on mine. “What happens if I refuse to put it on? What if I just stand right here?”

I looked down at her feet on the grooved steel of the airlock floor. “The metal grating is going to feel horrible against your feet long term. But if you’re determined to suffer, I won’t stop you.”

I tossed the mask and she caught it against her chest. I walked away without bothering to look back to see if she followed. I already knew she would. The alternative was standing alone in an airlock and Annie Bishop possessed too much curiosity to stay put.

Behind me, I heard a huff then, the soft pat-pat-pat of bare feet following me down the corridor.

I smiled. She really couldn’t help herself.

The bridge doors hissed open at my approach to reveal the panoramic sweep of the city skyline through the viewport. Off to the side, encased in a containment cell, sat my morning headache.

Velocity. He was a newly christened Hero who thought intercepting me was a brilliant career move. I had brought him aboard to teach him a lesson, though I hadn’t quite finalized the syllabus yet. He would undoubtedly serve as a cautionary tale by the time I dumped him back out the airlock.

I walked toward the glass, offering him a sharp, humorless smile.

“Comfortable?” I asked.

Velocity scrambled to his feet, his blue and silver armor dented from where I had fractured his ribs three hours ago. “You can’t keep me here, Cipher!” he shouted, slapping a gloved hand against the glass. “I was on Alliance business. They’ll⁠—“

“They’ll file a report,” I interrupted. “You cost me twelve minutes of productivity this morning. I’m currently debating whether to extract that lost time from your hide or your bank account.”