Page 82 of Villainous Intent

“Don’t bother lying to me,” he whispered. “The perfect, untouchable Alliance pet is a filthy little masochist.”

He lifted his hand, pulling the warmth away with it. I arched my back against the bedpost, silently begging him to touch me again. To hurt me again.

His smile widened as he raised his hand, giving me a single second to anticipate the impact.

Smack.

He hit me a third time, and in the exact same second, he drove two fingers inside me.

I screamed. My walls clenched around his fingers, milking him. Tears spilled over my cheeks. I was openly weeping, thrashing against the leather belt binding my wrists.

“Please,” I begged. “Please, let me come. Please.”

“Are you honestly looking for mercy from me?” he whispered. “You should already know I don’t offer mercy. I offer ruin.”

I whimpered as he slowly dragged his fingers out of me, leaving me empty once more.

Cipher took a step back and worked the buttons on his shirt. In one fluid motion, he slipped it off his shoulders and tossed it aside.

I stopped thrashing, transfixed. The man was a goddamn masterpiece of genetics. Six-foot-six of enhanced muscle mass that looked like he was carved from marble. Linear tattoos traced his physique, mapping across his chest, ribs, and arms. He looked like a weapon that had been carefully, beautifully created to destroy everything in its path. Including me.

His hands dropped to his waist. He shoved his pants and boxer briefs down his muscular thighs and kicked them away.

Holy fuck. I had jerked him off in the garden, so I knew he was big. My hands had already traced the weight of him. But feeling him in the dark was a different reality than actually looking at him.

He wrapped his hand around the base of his cock, stroking the length of it as he took a step toward me.

“You are going to take every single inch of this, Annie.” His voice dropped into a filthy growl that scraped right against my nerve endings. “I’m going to bury myself inside your tight little cunt and stretch you out until you’re sobbing my name, begging me to fuck you harder.”

He reached up and unbuckled the belt binding my wrists to the post. My arms felt heavy, the blood rushing back into my fingertips. I slumped forward, my hands falling flat against the hard expanse of his chest to catch my balance.

The tattoos inked across his pectoral muscle suddenly flared beneath my palms and I blinked, not sure what I’d just seen. But a faint, luminescent silver light pulsed from the lines.

“What are these?”

“They’re an interface system,” he whispered, staring down at my hand where it rested against him. “For my suit. They connect the armor directly to my body.”

I stared at the lines bleeding light between my fingers. “Are they supposed to light up like this?”

“No.” His brows came together causing a small crease to form between them.

The silver light chased my fingertips, illuminating the ink wherever my skin made contact. Cipher sucked in a sharp, hissing breath the second my fingers crossed the dense intersection of lines directly over his heart.

I yanked my hand back, thinking I had hurt him.

He caught my wrist and placed my palm back over his heart. His eyes slid shut, his jaw clenching hard as the lines flared brilliantly under my skin.

Beneath my palm, I could feel the pounding of his heartbeat, but beneath that was something more, a subtle vibration coming directly from the ink.

Hesitantly, I reached out with my free hand. I pressed my fingertips to a thick line of ink tracking over his ribs, watching the light as Cipher shuddered.

“What does it feel like?” I whispered.

Cipher swallowed hard. “I can feel you, Annie. I can feel your touch inside me.”

A wild, reckless urge came over me. I leaned forward, parted my lips, and dragged my tongue directly across the line over his pec.

Cipher’s eyes flew open. The luminous, terrifying silver was eclipsed by the dark of his pupil. A monster lurked beneath that gaze.