Page 48 of Villainous Intent

Cipher shifted his weight, his arm going around my waist again.

“Yes, it was. Their curiosity is satisfied.”

I glanced around the chamber. He was right. Of course he was right. The oppressive weight of a dozen predatory stares had vanished. The League members in the adjacent booths had turned back to their own business. A man two tables over was biting into his companion’s shoulder, drawing actual blood, disinterested in us now that Cipher had staked his claim.

A messy, tangled knot of emotions curled within me. I wanted to be angry, I needed to be angry. But the rage fractured into confusing, contradictory pieces. I couldn’t decide which part I hated most. Was I furious that I had responded to him so easily? Was I enraged that he had used my climax as a public spectacle for a room full of League members?

Or was I angry because he had stopped?

The mortification of that last thought made my cheeks burn. My thighs still ached with a hollow, throbbing pressure and I actually wanted his hand back on me.

I huffed out a shaky breath. Compartmentalize. That was the only way to survive this. I was Cipher’s plaything right now. I was a possession draped over his lap to sell a cover story to the most dangerous people on the planet.

Over the next hour, Cipher held court.

Villains approached in a steady stream. Territory disputes. Alliance proposals. Veiled threats disguised as pleasantries. They came to kiss the ring, and Cipher sat there like a king on a dark throne, bored and lethal.

I tried to do my actual job. I tried to extend my senses, to feel the power signatures pulsing around us now that the mass of bodies had spread out through the middle passages. Cipher made it impossible with his wandering hands.

While he discussed the territory boundaries with a Villain who had skin like cracked granite, Cipher’s hand moved from my ribs to capture my breast again. He didn’t care who saw. In fact, when the Granite Villain’s eyes flicked to my chest, Cipher squeezed my breast harder.

I gasped and the Villain paused.

“Continue,” Cipher said, his voice flat. He rolled my nipple between his thumb and forefinger, pinching the sensitive peak until I was trembling against him.

I bit my lip, trying to contain my whimper as the two finished their business.

Once the Villain left, I turned my face into his neck, trying to hide my burning cheeks. “Stop,” I whispered against his skin. “I can’t focus.”

“I don’t want you to focus,” he murmured. “I want you to feel.”

He didn’t wait for me to agree. His hands clamped onto my waist and he spun me around. He threw the skirt of my dress open at the slit so he could settle me over his lap, straddling him.

“Cipher—”

He took me by the throat. “Forget the mission for now,” he ordered.

He bucked his hips upward, grinding against me.

The mental map of power signatures I’d been building disintegrated. I couldn’t track the threats in the room anymore. I couldn’t even remember the rules I lived by. There was only the pressure on my throat and the friction between my legs.

I slumped against him, defeated. I was ready to beg. I opened my mouth to tell him he won, to tell him I would do anything he wanted⁠—

His body went rigid beneath me.

“Cipher?” I whispered, alarmed by the sudden shift.

Pain lanced through my temples. It felt like someone had poured boiling lead into my skull. The energy signature was wrong. Corrupted. It smelled like rot and burning hair.

I slammed my mental shields down, cutting off the sense immediately. The relief left me gasping, hollowed out and shaking, like I’d severed a limb to escape a trap.

Cipher’s thumb pressed into the soft hollow of my throat.

“Submit to me,” he whispered against my ear. “Now.”

I went pliant in his arms, letting my body fall against him as though overwhelmed by his attentions. I forced my expression into one of dazed submission.

“Who?” I breathed.