Page 137 of Villainous Intent

I couldn’t deny there was the urge to snap a leash onto it and drag her wherever I pleased.

“Good, let them watch.” I slid my hand higher. I wanted to remind her that she hadn’t minded my hand last night at Eclipse, that she’d come on my fingers in public, but I understood the difference. At Eclipse, she’d been mostly hidden. Baron Ash had been the only one watching me finger fuck her. But here, anyone would be able to see.

My fingers slipped past the hem of her dress, disappearing into the darkness between her thighs. She jolted, but didn’t pull away.

Two rows down, a pair of League members were fixated on us. Their eyes were glued to the purple bruises I’d left on her inner thighs this morning, tracking the movement of my hand.

A spike of possessiveness twisted in my gut. My first instinct was to sever their optic nerves, to blind anyone who dared to look at what was mine. She was for my consumption, not their entertainment.

But that wasn’t the game. To the League, she was a pet, a disposable plaything that boosted my ratings. My apparent apathy was my armor, and her public degradation was the shield that kept anyone from looking too closely at her.

So I forced the murderous urge down and gave them a better view of exactly who owned her.

“Look at them, Annie,” I whispered. “They want you. But they know they can’t touch you because you belong to me.”

“I hate this,” she whispered.

“The fight?” I asked, deliberately obtuse. “Hellhound’s form is sloppy. He relies on mass, not leverage.”

“You know what I mean.”

I did. For the past week, I’d paraded her around like a trophy, touched her publicly in ways that made it clear she existed only for my pleasure. It was the cover we needed, the Villain and his plaything, but the line between acting and reality was blurring. She didn’t hate my actual ownership, she’d made that clear when we were alone, but she hated the performative ownership. She had far more bite than she could ever show in public as my plaything and it was slowly eating away at her.

I tightened my grip on her thigh, digging my thumb into the soft flesh until she gasped softly. We couldn’t afford her breaking her role.

“Play the part, Sparks,” I warned. “Or I’ll give them a real show.”

The Colosseum erupted in cheers as Hellhound delivered another blow to his opponent. Blood splattered across the arena floor, nothing fatal, but dramatic enough to please the crowd.

Annie shifted slightly, adjusting her position on my lap. To anyone watching, it would appear she was merely pressing herself closer to me. Only I could feel the subtle tension in her muscles, the carefully controlled breathing.

“How much longer?”

“Three more bouts. Then we mingle.”

She nodded stiffly, her spine rigid. I hated that tension, it was the kind that said she was only enduring rather than enjoying.

Her eyes scanned the crowd, using whatever ability she had to sense Trueborns, looking for our mysterious rogue. To bad she couldn’t appreciate the irony that she was sitting on one.

“See anything interesting?” I asked. Her breath caught as my thumb brushed dangerously close to the edge of her underwear.

“What about him?”

I followed her gaze across the sea of Villains and their entourages. The boxes were filled with League members of varying ranks, most accompanied by henches or companions dressed similarly to Annie.

My eyes landed on the hulking figure she’d indicated. I pulled her closer.

“He’s a known.” I sighed. “You don’t seem to be enjoying my attentions much.”

She turned her head just enough that her lips brushed the edge of my mask. “I like your attention when it belongs to me,” she whispered. “When we’re alone and you actually look at me. Out here, I feel like a piece of equipment you brought to show off.”

I stopped the lazy tracking of my fingers and pressed my thumb firmly into the soft flesh high on her thigh. I mapped the sudden spike in her heart rate, committing the rhythm to memory.

“Every time I touch you, it’s real, Sparks. Whether we are in my bed or surrounded by seventy thousand people, my hands on you mean exactly the same thing.”

She opened her mouth, most likely to argue, but stiffened as a group of mid-ranked League members approached us. I’d deliberately chosen a more public location today rather than my box, the better for Annie to do her thing and for me to be seen with my pet. But that left us open to potentially having to interact with assholes.

Leading the group was Thief, a man whose ambition far outstripped his intellect. The prick had a way of moving like he owned whatever space he occupied, a trait I respected professionally and despised personally.