Page 140 of Villainous Intent

I stared at the pulse jumping against the leather at her throat. I had already cracked the vault door wider for her than I ever had for another living soul. My parents and the endless parade of childhood specialists never understood the staggering volume of data tearing through my skull every second of the day. Giving her as much as I already had was a reckless miscalculation. Giving her the rest of it felt like handing over a loaded weapon and pressing the barrel directly to my temple.

I weighed the high probability of her fear against my sudden need to strip away the final layer of my armor. If she recoiled from the truth of how I mapped her out in my bed, it would poison the only quiet space I had in this world. I hesitated, letting the noise of the arena wash over us while I analyzed exactly how catastrophic this confession could be.

But maybe it was worth the risk.

“You want to know? Fine. Last night, when I had you on your back, I wasn’t just fucking you. I was tracking your pulse, 122 beats per minute when I entered you. It spiked to 167 exactly three seconds before you came.”

“Oh,” Annie said softly.

“I measured the angle of my penetration,” I continued, relentless. “Forty-seven degrees. That’s the precise tilt of your hips required to make you gasp. Not moan—gasp. The sound of your brain short-circuiting. I counted sixteen distinct muscle contractions during your climax with a total duration of 37.2 seconds. I know exactly how much pressure to apply to your throat to trigger panic versus pleasure. I know the dilation of your pupils to the millimeter when you take my cock in your throat.”

I pulled back just enough to look into her eyes. They were wide and dark.

“I don’t just experience you, Annie. I map you. I turn every moan, every shiver, every reaction into data. And then I use it to break you apart more efficiently the next time.”

“Is that...” Her voice shook. “Is that why you’re so good at it?”

“That’s just the mechanics,” I whispered. “The rest is just hunger.”

She looked flushed and made a non-committal “hmm” sound.

I waited for more, a reaction, a question, anything, but she just turned her attention back to the arena where Hellhound was taking his victory lap.

Fucking perfect. I’d just told her about the inner workings of my freakish brain, and her response was the verbal equivalent of a shoulder shrug.

“That’s it? ‘Hmm’?” I kept my voice low despite my irritation.

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. ‘That’s fascinating, Cipher.’ ‘You’re a neurological marvel, Cipher.’ ‘Please use your Superhuman calculation abilities to make me come again, Cipher.’” I tightened my grip on her thigh. “Literally anything besides ‘hmm.’”

“Hmm,” Annie hummed again, this time with a fucking little shrug.

That was it. I was going to lose my fucking mind. “I swear to god, Sparks” I growled. “If you make that sound one more time, I’m going to throw something off this balcony. Possibly myself.”

She turned to face me. “What? It’s interesting.”

“Interesting,” I repeated flatly. “That’s your response to learning your fuck buddy’s brain functions like a Supercomputer?”

“Should I be more impressed?” A hint of amusement crept into her voice. “Or horrified?”

“Either would be better than ‘hmm,’” I muttered.

“Fine. I’m impressed by your freakish brain,” Annie said, pressing a kiss to my jaw. “Happy now?”

I wasn’t. Not remotely. But I couldn’t articulate why her casual acceptance and dismissal of something I’d tried to keep hidden my entire life made me want to burn the whole arena down.

“Sir,” came the voice of Number Eleven over comms. “The League media team is requesting your presence for the scheduled interview immediately.”

I frowned. “I thought that was after the third match.”

“Schedule change, sir. Apparently, Sledge sustained injuries in the first match and can’t do his segment. They’ve moved everything up.”

I suppressed a sigh. “Fine. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

Annie gave me a questioning look. “Schedule change,” I explained, rising from my seat and bringing her with me. “Media wants me now.”

Her body tensed against mine, a subtle shift that would be imperceptible to anyone who hadn’t spent hours memorizing her every reaction.