Page 154 of Villainous Intent

Finally, his eyes snapped to mine. The silver had gone cold and flat.

“You should get cleaned up,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. He gestured toward a door on the far side of the room. “Bathroom’s there.”

I stared at him, trying to make sense of the sudden shift. Moments ago, he’d been inside me, our bodies locked together in something that felt like more than just sex. Now he wouldn’t even look at me properly. My mind raced, replaying the last few minutes, searching for what I might have done wrong.

“Cipher?” I reached out to touch his arm.

“Don’t.” He stepped back, putting distance between us.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, hating how small my voice sounded.

His jaw tightened. “Go clean yourself up.” His eyes flicked down my body, his lip curling slightly. “You’ve got blood and cum all over you.”

I’d heard worse from him, enjoyed worse from him, but because of the dismissal behind the words, they hurt. Like I was something to be dealt with, not someone to be with.

I straightened, willing my face not to betray the hurt I felt. “Fine.”

I blinked against the fluorescent glare of the small bathroom, then caught sight of myself in the mirror and froze. Blood streaked across my cheek where his hand had touched me. More darkened the front of my dress. I looked like I’d been mauled.

“Oh God,” I whispered, horrified.

I scrubbed at my skin with paper towels, watching pink-tinged water swirl down the drain.

The woman who stared back at me from the mirror wasn’t someone I recognized anymore. She had my face, my eyes, but there was something different there, something darker, wilder. Something that had watched a man die and then let his killer fuck her.

I braced my hands against the sink, forcing my breathing to slow. Even with Baron Ash’s blood still smeared and drying on my thighs, I knew I’d welcome Cipher again. I’d open my body to him without hesitation. The realization settled into my bones with a strange certainty.

I straightened my dress and squared my shoulders. Whatever was happening between us, I wouldn’t cower from it.

When I stepped back into the recovery room, Cipher stood with his back to me, hands braced against the medical table. His shoulders formed a rigid line beneath his suit. He’d retrieved his mask and it lay on the table beside his white-knuckled grip.

He didn’t turn when the door clicked shut behind me.

“One of my men is coming to take you home,” he said, voice flat and cold. “Or to the Tower. Wherever you want to go.”

“You’re dismissing me?”

Cipher turned to face me, his expression carved from stone. “What did you expect? A fucking cuddle and sweet nothings? Our agreement is for sex, Bishop. Nothing more.”

I stood there, dress straightened but dignity in tatters, as the reality crashed over me. He was right, this was exactly what we’d agreed to. So why did it feel like betrayal?

“Right,” I managed, my voice sounding hollow.

I waited for him to say something else but the silence stretched, becoming its own presence in the room. The blue light cast half his face in shadow, making him look like two different people merged into one, the man who’d held me with desperate need and this stranger who was dismissing me without batting an eye.

A knock at the door made me flinch.

Number Five stood in the doorway. “I’m ready to depart when you are, Miss.”

Had Cipher summoned him while I was in the bathroom? Had he been planning my dismissal while still inside me?

I stared at Cipher, searching his face for something but he didn’t even blink. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t show a single crack in his perfect, emotionless mask.

This was what we’d agreed to. This was what I’d signed up for when I’d said yes to his proposition. Bodies and pleasure and nothing more. I wasn’t supposed to be angry, there was no right to anger in an arrangement like ours.

But I was.

I was furious.