Page 120 of Villainous Intent

“I didn’t ask if he was busy,” I said. “I asked where he is. I need to speak with him regarding logistics.”

Rules. Logistics. The universal language of bureaucracy. Even Villains had to respect administration.

Twenty-Two touched two fingers to his ear. A moment of silence passed before he dropped his hand. “Primary Lab. I’ll escort you.”

The walk was short but disorienting. The corridors of the Labyrinth all looked the same. When the blast doors to the lab slid open, the smell hit me first: hot metal and the tang of solder.

Cipher was standing at a workbench, his back to me. He was wearing jeans, the dark, well-worn denim clinging to his thighs, and a black t-shirt that stretched tight across the expanse of his shoulders.

It was jarringly normal. I’d seen him naked and I’d seen him armored, but seeing him in street clothes still felt like walking in on a secret. It made him look human, like someone you could run into at a coffee shop, rather than a Super-powered terrorist who had tied me up and edged me to insanity only hours ago.

I stopped, my shoes scuffing against the floor.

“What do you need?” His voice was flat and he didn’t look up.

I crossed my arms, trying to shield myself from the chill coming off him. “I wanted the itinerary. If I’m going to be dragged around as a prop, I need to know the schedule for the next few days. Times, locations, expected dress code.”

“I’ll have the data forwarded to your tablet,” he said, twisting a delicate wire. “You can review it in your quarters.”

I stood there, feeling the blood heat in my cheeks at the dismissal. My body was still humming from what he’d done to me, my skin felt too tight, my nerves exposed, and he hadn’t even bothered to look up when speaking to me.

“Is there anything else?” he asked, his tone indicating there better not be.

I should have left and gone back to my room to organize my life into neat, manageable columns. But the image of the red room and the absolute focus he’d had on me last night flashed behind my eyes.

“Soooo,” I said. “You have a sex dungeon.”

Cipher’s hands stilled. Slowly, he set the pliers down on the workbench and turned his head to look at me.

“It’s the Playroom,” he corrected. “And unless you’re offering to be useful, I’m busy.”

He turned back to his work, dismissing me again.

“I see,” I said, the words tasting bitter. “So that’s how this works. You can interrupt me whenever you want, break into my apartment, hijack my evening, kidnap me,” I ticked the items off on my fingers, “but I’m not allowed to ask a few questions because you’re busy?”

Cipher didn’t look up. Whatever he was working on made a soft click as he adjusted something. “I never interrupted you when you were busy. If I hadn’t come along, you would have been sitting on your couch drinking wine and staring at the wall,” he said, his voice maddeningly even.

He finally looked up, his silver eyes flashing. “You weren’t doing anything, Annie. You were just waiting.”

It was cruel because it was true. My life outside of work was a series of empty pauses, filled only with the anxiety of waiting for the next crisis. But hearing him say it, hearing him dismiss my entire existence as a void he was gracious enough to fill, made my hands curl into fists.

“My time isn’t less valuable just because I wasn’t plotting to destroy civilization,” I snapped.

“Value is determined by output. You were producing nothing.”

I stood there filled with a mix of rage and humiliation. A nasty, insidious thought intruded. Was this it?

He’d been a force of nature, invading my personal space, touching me whenever he got within five feet, looking at me like he wanted to consume me whole. The sexual tension had been a physical weight in every room we shared.

But now that he’d actually had me? Now that he’d tied me down, used me, and gotten off?

He was soldering a wire.

The insecurity hit me hard, a cold flush that started in my chest and spread to my fingertips. Maybe I hadn’t lived up to the fantasy. Maybe the reality of Annie Bishop, nervous, rule-bound, human Annie, was boring compared to the chase. I was just a woman he’d broken, and now that the pieces were on the floor, he didn’t care to look at them.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat.

“Can I go see it?”