Page 101 of Villainous Intent

“You interrupted my work,” he said. “You stepped between me and my prisoner. You negotiated for a Hero’s life.”

“I’m an Alliance Keeper! I’m supposed to help keep idiots like him alive. I was doing my job,” I argued.

He leaned in, bracing his hands on the desk on either side of me.

“You wanted to save the Hero,” he said, his voice dropping to a dark purr. “You wanted to play the noble Keeper. That’s fine. I admire your conviction. But being noble often requires sacrifice.”

He reached down and brushed his fingers through my wetness. I gasped, my hips bucking, seeking the pressure.

He laughed then held his hand up between us.

“Look at that,” he taunted. “Wasted.”

I stared at his hand glistening with my wetness and felt the heat crawl across my cheeks.

“You don’t get to come, Annie. Not after you used that pretty mouth to defend another man. Not after you disobeyed me and left my bed.”

He wiped his hand on my bare thigh, smearing my own arousal into my skin.

“You get to sit here,” he said. “You get to feel that ache. And you get to know that I am the only one who can fix it.”

He stepped back. “And I’m not going to.”

“You’re an asshole,” I whispered.

“I am,” he agreed smoothly, unbothered by the insult. “And you are currently on the wrong side of my good graces.”

He turned toward the door and I just stared at his back as he walked away. He was just leaving after all that?

I sat half-naked on a cold metal desk, my leggings bunched ridiculously around my calves, dripping wet and trembling. He had hijacked my body, and now he was just going back to work?

He hadn’t even yelled at me for running away from his penthouse aside from that one offhand comment about leaving his bed. He hadn’t really addressed my disobedience at all.

My frustration boiled over, overriding whatever flimsy sense of self-preservation I possessed.

“That’s it?” I snapped.

Cipher paused. He didn’t turn around right away.

“Is that your grand punishment for me leaving last night?” I demanded, my hands gripping the edge of the desk so hard my knuckles burned. “Edging me? Leaving me frustrated because I didn’t wait around to play the good little pet?”

It was a stupid thing to say. A reckless, suicidal thing to say. But the sexual frustration clawing at my insides overrode my common sense. I wanted him to touch me again. I wanted to fight him. I just wanted something to snap the agonizing tension.

Cipher slowly turned around and stalked back toward me stepping right between my spread knees.

“My sweet, impatient Annie,” he murmured. “If you think a few minutes of denied pleasure is the extent of your punishment, you severely underestimate my creativity.”

He leaned down, the cold edge of his mask grazing my cheek. “This wasn’t the punishment, Annie. This was just to soften you up. To guarantee you are properly desperate when the real consequences begin.”

He straightened up and strode to the door.

“Fix your clothes, Bishop. We land in twenty minutes. I expect you to be presentable.”

He paused at the door and looked back over his shoulder.

“And Annie? Don’t touch yourself,” he ordered. His voice was hard now. “If I find out you finished what I started, you will fucking regret it.”

He didn’t wait for a response.