Page 10 of The Hacker (Dominion Hall #5)

VIVIENNE

T he moment the SUV hit the open road, I unbuckled my seatbelt.

Elias didn’t flinch, but I felt the shift. The subtle tick of his jaw. The white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. The way his eyes flicked toward me, just once, like he already knew I was about to start trouble.

Good.

“You planning to dive out?” he asked, voice cool and dry.

“Nope,” I said, twisting toward him in the passenger seat. “I just like to be comfortable when I’m abducted.”

He didn’t crack a smile.

Didn’t speak.

Which only made it more fun.

The silence between us wasn’t awkward. It was electric. Thick and sharp, like the air right before a thunderstorm. The kind that makes your skin itch and your heart misbehave.

I slipped off my hoodie, slowly—deliberately—revealing the damp black tank top beneath, stretched tight across my ribs from the wind and adrenaline. His eyes didn’t move, but I knew he saw. He didn’t miss anything.

“You’re really not going to ask where I want to go?” I said, reaching over to tug the elastic from my bun. My curls fell in a wild red mess around my shoulders, tangled from the wind. “Maybe I wanted to be arrested.”

His hands clenched the wheel tighter.

“You’re not going to jail,” he said flatly.

“Oh, is that a Dane family perk? Get-out-of-handcuffs-free cards for everyone?”

“You’re not going to jail,” he repeated, slower this time. “Because you’re not leaving my sight.”

My pulse thudded. Not fear—no, this wasn’t fear. It was heat. Hunger. The dark kind of thrill that curled in your stomach and whispered, More .

“You sound almost jealous,” I said, leaning my head against the window, watching his profile under the amber glow of the streetlights. “Would it bother you? Me locked up? Cuffed to something that isn’t your bedpost?”

His hands jerked the slightest bit on the wheel. Victory.

“I don’t share,” he said quietly.

“You barely even touch,” I countered.

His eyes cut to me, sharp and dangerous. “Don’t test me.”

I smirked, tilting toward him until my lips were just inches from his neck. “What if I want to?”

He didn’t answer. Just drove faster.

We took a turn, tires gripping hard, the SUV eating up the road. I didn’t ask where we were going. I didn’t care. Because wherever this ended, I wanted it. All of it.

Still, I wasn’t done poking the bear.

“You going to punish me, Cipher?” I whispered, letting the word crawl across his skin. “For making you climb a bridge in the dark? For making you want me so badly it makes you furious?”

He growled low in his throat. Not a word. A sound.

Good.

I reached out and laid my hand on his thigh—light, barely there, but enough to feel the steel coiled beneath the denim.

“You came for me,” I said, softer now. “You didn’t have to.”

His hand left the wheel for one second—just one—and wrapped around my wrist, pinning it in place against his leg.

“You think this is a game,” he said, eyes still on the road. “But it’s not.”

I swallowed hard. The grip was firm. Possessive. Perfect.

“Then make it real,” I said.

His nostrils flared.

We didn’t speak for a while. Not because there was nothing to say. But because everything worth saying was humming in the air between us, pulsing hotter with every block. And wherever he was taking me, I hoped there was a bed.

Because if he didn’t touch me soon, I was going to do something much crazier than climb a bridge. I was going to fall. All the way. And I had a feeling Elias Dane wasn’t the type to catch gently.

The silence stretched, thick with everything unspoken, vibrating between us like a wire pulled too tight.

His hand was still on my wrist, thumb brushing slow circles over my pulse, but my brain—my reckless, thrill-junkie brain—was already pivoting.

Because here was the truth: as much as I wanted him—his mouth, his hands, that dangerous energy coiled like a fuse under his skin—I didn’t want to surrender. Not yet.

The chase was too much fun.

He was a puzzle, a fortress, a man who stared down firewalls and international threats without blinking … and here he was, climbing bridges like I was the threat.

I didn’t want to end that game just yet. I wanted to stretch it, tease it, pull him further out of control.

So I smiled sweetly and pulled my wrist free.

“Actually,” I said, settling back against the seat, “I think I want a drink.”

He didn’t look at me.

Didn’t need to.

“No.”

The word landed like a gavel.

I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You’re not walking into a bar after what you just did. You’re recognizable now. You’re trending.” He gestured vaguely toward the console, where his phone had buzzed every thirty seconds “You want to get cornered by drunk idiots and TikTok clout chasers? Be my guest. But I’m not letting you.”

“Letting me?” I echoed, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

His jaw ticked.

“Vivi—”

I saw it then. The shift. The smallest crack in that hard, unshakable shell.

He was scared.

Not of me. Of what I did to him. Of how far he’d already come for a girl who stood on ledges and smiled at helicopters like she was waving to God.

So I did what I did best.

I pushed.

As we rolled to a stop at a red light, I unlatched my door and popped it open.

“Vivienne,” he snapped, but I was already sliding out, landing lightly on the sidewalk with a dancer’s grace.

The city buzzed around me—warm air, neon glows, the hum of life. I turned toward him and leaned down through the open passenger window.

“I’m going for a drink,” I said, eyes gleaming. “You can come with me. Or you can sit in your car and sulk. Your choice, Cipher.”

His eyes were wildfire under ice.

Controlled, but barely.

“Get back in the car.”

“Why?” I asked, tilting my head. “Afraid someone else might see me first?”

That did it.

He slammed the gear into park and killed the engine so fast the entire SUV rocked. Then he was out of the driver’s side, stalking around the hood like a predator off-leash.

But I didn’t back away. Didn’t flinch. I just tipped my chin up and smiled.

“You know,” I said sweetly, “this city’s full of possibilities.”

His steps slowed, his glare sharpening.

I kept going, each word like a match flicked at the fuse of his control. “Maybe I’ll meet someone in a bar. Someone hot. Someone dangerous. Maybe a guy who likes risk the way I do. Not one who hides behind firewalls and orders me around.”

Elias stopped a foot in front of me, his entire body coiled like he was holding himself back by sheer force of will.

“I could use a drinking buddy,” I went on, circling him slowly like I wasn’t the one being hunted. “Maybe someone who wants to climb a rooftop with me after. Or skinny dip in the harbor. Or sneak into a hotel and pretend we’re married just for the thrill of it. Can you imagine?”

I dragged my fingers along my collarbone, slow and absentminded. “He’d smell like bourbon. He’d want to dance. He’d laugh when I pulled him into the shadows. He’d say yes, Elias. You wouldn’t.”

His hand shot out. Fast. Unyielding. And landed on my waist. Not pulling me in—but not letting me go, either.

His voice, when it came, was a rasp dragged over glass. “No one touches you.”

I arched a brow, breath catching. “That a threat?”

He leaned in, mouth brushing my ear, voice low and lethal.

“It’s a fucking fact.”

Goosebumps chased down my spine.

But I still smiled. Still tilted my head back and whispered, “Then you’d better make sure I don’t want them to.”

That broke something.

In him.

In me.

And the air between us? It didn’t sizzle. It detonated.

He just grunted, a low guttural sound.

I turned slowly, my grin sharpened to a blade. “That didn’t take long.”

He didn’t speak. Didn’t need to.

The heat rolling off him made the air feel thick. Suffocating. Delicious.

I felt the moment his restraint cracked—barely a fissure, but enough for the truth to leak out in the way his eyes raked over me, from the flush high on my cheeks to the curve of my hips.

The streetlamps turned my tank top translucent in places, and I didn’t bother fixing it.

Let him look. Let him burn.

“Pick a bar,” he growled. “One where no one knows your name.”

I blinked slowly, deliberately. “So now you’re letting me?”

His mouth twitched, just a fraction. “No. I’m watching you.”

“Oh, is that what this is?” I stepped back, just out of reach, forcing him to follow. “You watching me? Because from here, it kind of looks like you’re chasing.”

I turned then, heading down the sidewalk, hips swaying like I was born to provoke.

His footsteps followed, quiet and lethal.

We passed a row of bars, but I didn’t stop until we reached a dive with flickering neon, a name half burned out, and zero chance of a crowd. The kind of place where people minded their business and drinks came in plastic cups.

Perfect.

I pushed the door open, the scent of old beer and cheaper bourbon rushing out to greet me. A country ballad crackled from the jukebox. A few patrons glanced up—none of them interested enough to recognize me.

I felt him behind me as I crossed to the bar. Heat. Gravity. Danger.

I didn’t order a drink. I just turned, leaned back against the counter, and looked at him.

He stood just inside the door, jaw hard, arms crossed, eyes burning.

“You came,” I said softly.

“You ran,” he said back.

“I wanted you to follow.”

And then I did something that surprised even me.

I reached for him.

Not his hand. Not his arm.

I reached for the waistband of his jeans and tugged him forward, inch by inch, until the space between us disappeared and my mouth was almost at his ear.

“You can still walk away, Elias. Go home. Pretend you’re not losing control.”

His hand slid to my hip again. His grip was bruising. “I’m not losing control,” he said, voice like gravel. “I’m choosing what to do with it.”

The bartender cleared his throat, and I glanced over.

“One whiskey, neat,” I said, still looking at Elias. “And one Coke.”

Elias didn’t object. Didn’t move. Just stood there like a storm with a fuse burning slow.

And I?

I planned to light it. Every last inch.