Fifth a Fury (Goddess Isles, #5)

by Winters, Pepper

  Peter had finalised the sample batch and finished the initial round of paid testing. Each person who’d taken it—carefully monitored for heart palpitations or overloading of the nervous system—had categorically claimed it was the best stimuli on the market.

  I’d tentatively called it Cinta—Indo word for love. I supposed, in a way, I was still trying to rectify my wrongs. Previously, I’d bottled nafsu (lust), but now, I wanted to do the impossible and see if I could use a less potent drug that had the power to cause happiness instead of pain.

  All those things had kept my mind busy while my body healed, but I’d kept them a secret for a reason.

  I didn’t want Eleanor to think I hadn’t changed or that I still expected certain things from a wife who was no longer a goddess, but...we’d both enjoyed the fantasies. Taking her in that cave and fucking her as I removed my masks had both been highly memorable events.

  I didn’t need VR to keep our marriage bed exciting, but I wouldn’t say no to fucking her with wings or chasing her across a prehistoric plain to pin her on all fours and mount.

  Eleanor’s breath caught as she noticed the Euphoria boxes laid neatly on the pressed white sheets of her bed. Giving me a quick glance, she darted into the bedroom and picked up the eye lenses. Spinning in place, she held up the box. “I thought Drake took all your supplies to Geneva?”

  “Elixir, yes, but not the sensors. I still have supplies here and on Monyet.”

  She cocked her head. “Why are they here?”

  Closing the distance between us, I placed my carved cane against the bed and took the box from her hands. “I told you once that I dreamed about you. That I saw you well before you were brought to my shores.”

  She bit her lip, her gorgeous wedding gown straining around her chest. The shadows of her nipples were darker, hinting, despite her apprehension, she was intrigued and turned on. “What’s that got to do with Euphoria?”

  “I want to show you. I want to take you into that dream. I want you to see just how much I loved you when you were a figment of my imagination and understand how fucking grateful I am that you’re real.”

  She picked up another box, this one holding the earbud sensors. They weren’t needed for tonight. In fact, no other sensors were needed apart from the eye lenses. I had everything I could ever want with her and had no desire to distort any of it. I wanted to smell her skin and taste her lips. I wanted to feel her when I touched her, and I wanted her voice in my ears as she moaned.

  “What about the inability to escape when we’re done? I know falling asleep frees the mind, but...what if something happens, and we need to end sooner?”

  “Wise.” I nodded. “I’ve always loved how quick thinking you are, but I’ve taken care of it.”

  “You’re saying you’ve done something to the coding?”

  Pulling my phone free from my linen trousers, I pulled up the Euphoria app and showed her the new cypher. Lines of text, symbols, and numbers. It wouldn’t make sense to someone who didn’t know programming, but to me it was a back door that would always be permanently ajar.

  “Give me your arm.” I held out my hand.

  Hesitantly, she obeyed.

  My fingers enclosed around her wrist, once again tingling with awareness and heat. Would that ever go away? Could I ever touch this woman and not feel her magic?

  Gritting my teeth from my rapidly hardening cock, I drew a small circle around her barcode tattoo.

  She shivered, her lips parting for a feathery breath.

  “Touch here if you want to exit the illusion. It works like a safe word. A blind spot within the program where if you pinch your inner wrist for three seconds, Euphoria will shut down, and you’ll be freed from the fantasy.”

  She swayed into me as I pulled her closer, cupping her nape and tipping her head back.

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” Her gaze turned silver with lust.

  I ran my lips over her mouth, tasting the sweetness of her and the sin. “I’ve tested it. Last night. Three second pinch and you’re free.”

  Pika and Skittles suddenly darted into the room, their antics bringing life and colour while Eleanor and I drowned within darker and darker desires. They fluttered through Eleanor’s hair and nibbled at my ears.

  “Go away,” I groaned, wafting at the fiends.

  Eleanor laughed quietly. “I think they want to visit Euphoria.”

  “Another time perhaps.” I ran my nose over hers. “I’m finding it harder and harder to share you tonight.”

  “They’ll be jealous.”

  “They’ll survive.”

  Pika chirped and Skittles darted to perch in the mosquito net.

  They brought meaning and affection to our life. They were more like family than just pets. But right now, they were a nuisance, and I was done waiting to consummate my marriage.

  Gathering Eleanor close, I shivered with sexual thirst. “Fuck, I want you.”

  “Then take me. Right now.”

  I kissed her.

  Hard.

  She melted into me, allowing me to dictate the speed and depth of my taking. She was submissive yet wild. Responsive but untamed. I wanted to take my time with her. But violence bled through my veins, blending with our new marriage and the weeks of begging my body to heal so I could take her the way she deserved to be taken.

  I adored this woman, but I wanted to slander her too.

  I wanted to strip her, punish her, splinter her apart, and then fuck her until she screamed.

  I wanted to remind her that I was both man and monster in my heart.

  Bending my legs, I continued kissing her as we sat on the bed. Breaking the kiss, I grabbed the eye lenses and unscrewed the container. I caught her heated stare. “Do you consent?”

  She ran her hands through her hair, making me wait for her answer. Slowly, she stood and grabbed the neckline of her sleeveless dress. Keeping eye contact with me, she tore the fragile linen, slicing at the tightness and stepping out of the full skirt, naked and fucking beautiful. Her diamond anklet sparkled around her leg, golden sand clung to her toes, and the willowy power of her body scattered my heart with warning that this woman was still my ultimate curse.

  A curse that I would forever crave and have no antidote for.

  Running her hand down the flat of her stomach, she teased her clit. “Does that answer your question?”

  “Fuck, yes.” I swallowed hard. My cock bumped against my zipper, and a different kind of pain attacked me. “Yes, it does.”

  “In that case, you are overdressed, husband.” Reaching for me, she slid off my blazer, unbuttoned my shirt, and spread both down my arms to toss them on the floor. Giving me her hand, she pulled me from the bed and without looking away, unbuckled my belt, unzipped my trousers, fisted my cock in her tight delicious fingers, then slipped both pants and boxer-briefs to my ankles.

  Pika and Skittles huffed and vanished into the living room.

  Eleanor laughed as she held out her hands for the eye sensors. “Prudes.”

  I drank her in as she tipped her head back and placed one, then two lenses over her gorgeous grey pupils.

  “Goddammit, I’m about to come just looking at you.”

  She smirked. “Guess you better load whatever it is you’ve programmed, so you can have your wicked way with me then.” She cocked her hip, revealing the trickle of wetness dampening the manicured curls between her legs.

  She’d had no elixir, no cinta, no potion apart from her love and lust for me.

  She wanted me.

  And that made me the luckiest son of a bitch in the goddamn world.

  Rushing, I kicked away my clothing and inserted the lenses over my own eyes, blinking past the haze to focus on my bride.

  The mirage I had planned for us would finally show her how I saw her. It would show her the invisible crown she wore upon her head, constantly changing, always evolving the more she bewitched me.

  In this fantasia, she would stand on the pedestal where she’
d originally been dream-bound and unattainable. And she would witness my hunger, my utter fucking desperation as I yanked her off that pedestal and sullied her in every way I could.

  She would see how I saw myself.

  A lowly pauper who hid in the dark and dabbled in filth until she set him free. She’d feel my tongue on her pussy as I thanked her. She’d cry out as I fucked her with happiness.

  She would learn everything that a man should keep private about the woman he’d given his heart to, and I’d give her every weapon against me by learning just how much I cared.

  But I’d already come to terms that Jinx was my lifelong curse.

  And I would happily die because of it.

  She held out my phone, the load button ready to be pressed. “I love you, Sully.”

  I took the device, hovering my thumb over the button. “I’m yours, Eleanor. I always have been. Now, you’ll see how true that really is.”

  My thumb came down.

  The world went white.

  And the goddess of my heart stepped with me into a playground where we were angel and devil, queen and king, cavewoman and Neanderthal.

  A playground where a god and goddess lived happily ever after.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  I STOOD ON A PODIUM.

  The fantasy slowly came alive around me, revealing a totally different world.

  We were no longer on earth—this wasn’t just a different time period or place. This hallucination wasn’t based on our planet. The light was brighter here, as if we were closer to the sun. There was no wind or elements, and the cotton wisps of clouds danced within the ballroom’s ceiling as if we were so sky-high that it’d formed its own weather patterns.

  A castle.

  A castle in the clouds.

  A castle in the mind of my husband.

  I blinked as I started to make sense of the huge room. Five-story high columns held painted cupid panels and arched windows from floor to ceiling. No drapes and no mullions, leaving the glass a perfect portal to the staggeringly stunning vista beyond. Spires of a white-washed citadel beckoned beyond, perfect crystal skies framed the cloud fortress, and the sun was too big to distinguish—it was just there. Golden and glowing, bathing all of us in beauty.

  I was right.

  We weren’t on earth anymore. We were in Olympia or some other home of the gods or perhaps...in a dream.

  Sully’s dream.

  The moment I thought about him, he appeared.

  Inserted into the fantasy with a snap and solidness, he was a man dressed entirely in rags. He spread his dirty hands as he caught my gaze. His palms calloused and trousers torn at the calf. His muslin shirt held patches and frayed edges, and one sleeve had been ripped at the elbow. His bare feet no longer held sand from Goddess Isles but filth from trudging through mud and mistakes.

  “Hello,” he breathed, unable to take his eyes off me, drinking in my gowned body.

  I looked at where he stared, and my heart hurt at the difference in us. Where he was penniless and dressed in poverty, I sparkled with every diamond in creation.

  My arms were inlaid with precious stones, my wrists twinkled with gems. The sheerness of the fabric covering me was weighted with opals of every facet. Panels of silver velvet cascaded in a train, embroidered with sapphire thread and decorated with another million opals.

  Beneath my dress, I wore no shoes, but my feet had been painted with henna scrollwork, my toes complete with lotus flowers and my ankles hidden in rosebud vines.

  My hair was loose and longer than usual, grazing almost to my thighs, and I felt a magic tingling in my fingers. The electricity I’d suffered from the very first moment I’d touched Sully now hummed powerfully in my blood.

  I closed my eyes and focused on the sensation, following the crackle through my veins, around my heart, and along every inch of skin.

  Just like this wasn’t earth anymore, I wasn’t human.

  Looking at Sully, I whispered, “What is this place? What am I?”

  He licked his lips, still unable to look away from my body. “This is my dream. When I first met you.”

  “You saw me this clearly?”

  “I saw your silver stare and empathic heart. I saw you on an unreachable pedestal, and knew you held magic that could kill me with just a touch. I went to you. I bowed at your feet, and instead of commanding me to leave, you welcomed me. You cared for me even when I didn’t deserve it.” He shrugged in his rags. “The rest—the clouds, the castle, the opals—it’s an embellishment to show you just how in awe I was of you, to hint just how much I needed you, even then.”

  “And the magic in my veins now?” I held up my hand, gasping as micro shards of light appeared in my palm.

  “That isn’t fake.” His voice lowered until it slipped beneath my gown and made love to me with seducing syllables. “That is just a manifested reality. When you touch me, I feel it. When you kiss me, it electrifies my very soul. You aren’t just a woman to me. You never have been and never will be. You are a witch in every way that matters.”

  I tried to quell the rapidly growing lust for him. To not grow wet for his misplaced worship of me but instead focus on how handsome he was, even dressed in yesterday’s heartache. “Sully, I need you.” I held out my hand, beckoning him to my podium.

  He took a step, shivering as he once again drank me in. “You take my fucking breath away.”

  I shivered, my nipples pebbling behind opals and my insides melting with need. “Then let me kiss you, and I’ll give it back.”

  He smiled, rakishly and shyly. A combination that set fire to my desire.

  “Do you want me, goddess?”

  “I’m not a goddess, Sullivan Sinclair; I am your wife.”

  “Wife.” His dirty feet brought him closer, each step revealing just how high my plinth was, just how above himself he’d put me. “My forever after wife.”

  “You saw me as untouchable.”

  “I saw you as perfect.” He stopped at the bottom and looked up. His chin met my henna inked toes. His hands gripping the marble platform keeping me out of his reach. “I saw you as everything I wanted and everything I would never earn.”

  “I’m not perfect.”

  He nodded, reaching out to wrap his strong, filthy fingers around my impeccable ankle. “No, you’re not.” I moaned as he ran his hand as high as he could go, scraping nails to the back of my knee. “You’re so much fucking better than perfect.” Yanking me forward, he buckled my legs and caught me as I tumbled into his arms.

  My opal dress ballooned around us, my hair obscured my vision, but his body was hard and safe against mine. His arms bunched as he swung me to the floor, placing me gently before him.

  “You’ve made me the happiest man alive, Eleanor Sinclair.”

  I blinked as he brushed aside my hair and cupped my cheeks. He trembled as he ran his thumb over my bottom lip.

  “I will never stop loving you, worshipping you, thinking up delicious fucking ways to pleasure you.” He tilted my head to the side, exposing my throat so he could run his nose along my neck and dip along my collarbone. “Tonight, I wish to fuck you in every position. I want to make love to you until your voice is hoarse and your body is deliciously sore. I want to christen every chamber of this castle and wring your blood dry of countless orgasms.”

  I moaned as he unsheathed his teeth, biting me with threatening strength. “There is just one catch, my darling wife.”

  My brain tried to follow; I did my best to stop panting for more and focus on the ultimatum in his tone, but I struggled. He’d drugged me with words, and I was utterly ruined for more.

  He chuckled as he captured my chin, his navy eyes glowing with self-loathing and heated hunger. “In order to pleasure you in the way you deserve on your wedding night, I have a request to ask.”

  I swallowed and shoved back some of my drunkenness. “What request?”

  He held up his hand, splaying open his palm.

  Empty.

&nbs
p; I frowned. “There’s nothing there.”

  “There is, you just can’t see it with the fantasy. Touch it. We’re not wearing finger sensors so you’ll be able to feel it.”

  Carefully, I ran my hand over the invisible item. My eyebrows drew together as I followed the tiny glass bottle along with the squishy dropper at the top. I didn’t recognise the shape, but sharp suspicions landed on my tongue. “Elixir?”

  “No. Never that. Not again. I will never put you in such danger.” Pulling away, he opened the bottle and pressed the dropper to suck a few droplets of whatever tincture was inside. All his actions were a pantomime, manipulating an invisible thing. “This is cinta. A much lower dose than elixir. It merely provides stamina to the user and highlights lust already in their system. It’s been tested and proven safe.”

  “I’m wet enough as it is.” I smiled. “I don’t need any help sleeping with my husband.”

  “And I’m happy to hear it.” His face darkened. “It so happens, I am rock fucking hard and struggling with self-control but...I am still healing and...” He swallowed hard before rushing, “Please don’t think I’m requesting we take this because I can’t perform or that I’m not out of my mind with fucking lust for you. I am. I will gladly throw this away if you ask. But...I am under no illusions that I’m not at my top capacity yet. I won’t be able to give you what you deserve for as long as I want. I want to be able to use you without succumbing to this shitty weakness still inside me.”

  Crowding me, he wrapped possessive fingers around my nape. “I want to be on my knees between your legs, Eleanor. I want to be inside you as you scream. I want you to remember this night as the start of our beginning and not be governed by my pain—”

  “You’re in pain?” I flinched and tried to get away. “Then we’ll stop. We can wait—”

  “Wait?” He chuckled coldly. “I can’t wait, Jinx. I’m going to be inside you in a few minutes, with or without help. I just wanted to be honest of my limitations and admit that I want you more than I can physically provide.”