Page 139 of Villainous Intent

I gripped her thigh tighter, my other hand sliding up to curl around the back of her neck. “Careful,” I murmured against her lips.

Her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “If you talk about me like that again, we’re going to have a problem.”

I raised an eyebrow, amused despite myself. “A problem? And how exactly do you plan to report that, Keeper? Is there a special form for ‘My Villain fuck-buddy hurt my feelings’?”

“Don’t push me, Cipher.”

“What’s the procedure here? File it in triplicate? Submit to the proper authorities?” I leaned closer. “Or maybe you could add it to your little notebook. ‘Day twenty-seven: Cipher said mean things about my pussy to other League members. Must remember to dock his Villain points.’”

Annie’s fingers dug into my arm with surprising strength. “You think this is funny?”

“A little bit, yes. I’m just trying to understand the rule book for this particular situation. Is there a chapter on ‘Maintaining Your Dignity While Being Finger-Fucked By A League Member?”

The crowd roared as another combatant went down, but all I could focus on was the fury radiating from the woman on my lap.

“You’re such an asshole,” she hissed.

“What did you expect when you climbed into my bed? That I’d suddenly develop manners?”

“I expected basic respect.”

“That’s adorably naive.” I slid my hand up her throat. It was both a warning and a caress because nothing between us could be one without the other. “You’re in the viper’s nest, Annie. Asking for respect here isn’t in the nature of the beast. I don’t operate on feelings. I operate on utility. Leverage. Cause and effect. You’re here because you serve a purpose. Because your presence changes the math in my favor. That’s the only language that matters.”

I felt her swallow against my thumb. I wanted to press harder just to see what she’d do.

“Everything is a calculation,” I said, even as the words felt wrong. “Even this. Even us.”

“Is that all you see when you look at me?” Annie asked. “Just numbers in an equation?” She placed her hands flat against my chest. I tracked the exact moment her pulse spiked with adrenaline, the look of genuine betrayal on her face.

“If I’m just math to you, then calculate my exit,” she whispered viciously. She tried to pry herself off my lap. “I am done letting you use me for your fucking equations. Let me go.”

I tightened my grip on her waist even as the force of her disgust made my chest hollow out. I looked away, focusing on the arena floor where Hellhound was currently breaking his opponent’s knee. The snap of bone echoed through the stadium’s sound system.

“You’re not just numbers. That’s the fucking problem.” My brain started screaming as soon as I gave her the truth.

“What do you mean?”

“I can calculate the trajectory of every piece of debris in this arena. I can predict the structural failure of that spire within two seconds. But you?” I turned back to her. “You are the outlier. The variable that ruins the model.”

I gestured to the chaos below. To anyone else, it was just violence. To me, it was a cascading waterfall of data that I couldn’t turn off.

“I don’t see the world. I see the numbers underneath it. I see the stress fractures in the concrete before they happen. I hear the heartbeat of the man in the third row and know he’s going to have a cardiac event in twelve minutes.”

My voice cracked. It was the first time I’d let anyone see a hint of the frantic, terrifying machinery that whirred beneath the mask. I waited for her to recoil. I waited for the look I’d seen on the doctors’ faces, my parents’ faces, the fear of the broken boy who knew too much.

“I’ve spent years trying to keep the noise out, to pretend I’m just a man in a suit and not a machine that can’t stop running. But you? You’re the only thing that’s never fit the algorithm. You’re the silence.”

Annie stared at me. I expected her to look afraid, but she looked fascinated. “You’re always literally calculating everything?”

“Yes. It never stops. The noise. The numbers.”

She turned and looked out at the arena. She was quiet for a long time, long enough I wanted to shake her, to demand to know what she was thinking. But I waited. I let her digest what I’d told her.

She finally looked back up at me. “Do you do it during sex too?”

“I do it all the fucking time.”

“So...” She swallowed, her throat working against the tight leather collar. “What sort of numbers do you think about? During sex, that is.”