Page 168 of Villainous Rise

“Are you ready for your punishment, Sparks?” I asked.

Annie shivered against me but she nodded, the movement small against my palm.

“Words,” I demanded, tightening my grip just enough to remind her who was in control.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Yes, what?”

The flush deepened across her cheeks. “Yes, I’m ready for my punishment.”

I smiled against her skin. “Good.”

I guided Annie out of the bathroom, her hand in mine. She was still wrapped in nothing but that towel, a temporary state I intended to remedy. I stopped at the door directly across from my bedroom, the one she’d never asked about. The one I’d been waiting for the right moment to reveal.

“Close your eyes.”

Annie raised a brow but complied. I pressed my palm against the scanner and led her inside, positioning her in the center of the room.

“Open them.”

Annie opened her eyes and gave a sharp intake of breath.

Soft red lighting washed over deep burgundy walls and thick, sound-absorbing carpet. A heavy steel suspension rig dominated the center of the room, bolted directly into the reinforced ceiling beams. A padded Saint Andrew’s cross stood waiting beside a custom-built bed draped in black silk. The far wall displayed an arrangement of impact tools. Floggers hung next to paddles. Stiff riding crops rested on polished mounts under focused spotlights. The air smelled of conditioned leather.

It was a monument to my obsession. I already had the Playroom in the Labyrinth, but having this here, in my penthouse, meant there was no escape from what we were to each other no matter where we were.

“Everything in here is scaled exactly to your measurements,” I said, watching her study the suspension rig.

She looked around in awe, her gaze tracing the black leather and the wall of meticulously arranged tools. “Why?” she asked, turning her head to look at me. “Why go to all this trouble when we already have the Playroom?”

I straightened, turning her fully to face me. The towel was barely clinging to her body now.

“Because I want to give you everything.” I tugged at the edge of the terrycloth, letting it fall to the floor so that she stood naked under the wash of red lighting. “Because everything in this room, including me, exists to make you feel exactly what you need to feel.”

Her skin was warm as I took her face in my hands.

“This room is yours, Annie. Just like I am.”

I lowered my mouth to hers, kissing her with a gentleness that contradicted everything I wanted to do to her. I wanted to devour her, to bite and bruise, but I kept the pressure soft, a fleeting taste of devotion.

When I pulled back, her lips chased mine, a desperate little sound catching in her throat.

“That’s the last gentle thing you’ll get from me in this room tonight,” I warned. “The rest won’t be gentle at all.”

Annie’s breath hitched, her chest rising and falling faster. “Good.”

My cock jerk. She craved the violence. She needed it to function, to strip away the suffocating rules of her life.

I stepped back, giving her space. “Look around.”

She gravitated straight toward the wall holding the impact instruments. Her fingers hovered over the braided tails of a heavy flogger and the stiff, unforgiving line of a riding crop.

I glanced up at the restraint system bolted to the ceiling and the floor, positioned directly in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror that dominated the wall.

“It’s time for your punishment, Sparks.”

Annie eyed the restraint system, a deep flush creeping across her chest.