Clearing his throat, he stroked my fingertips with his. “If you touch a wall in reality, with the sensors on your fingers, you touch grass from the field. If you smell, with my serum under your nose, you only scent sweet earth and spring growth. If you feel, thanks to my oil, you only feel the soft blades upon your skin and the breeze within your hair. Your taste buds taste the fallacy. Your ears hear the delusion. Your body may remain in a blank room, and harnesses might keep you from straying, but none of that exists to your brain. You don’t feel the bare tile beneath your feet if I’ve coded a cave to be lined with fur. You don’t hear the voices of the people around you if you’re listening to crackling fire and grunting cavemen.”
Letting me go, he shook out his hands as if trying to eradicate the leftover crackles of chemistry. “That’s it. Just a trick. All carefully designed to make your brain believe something unbelievable.”
“So…you’re saying you can create any apparition, conjure any scene a guest wants?”
He cocked his head. “That’s a fourth question.”
“I know…but…it’s relates to my previous one.”
He sighed with impatience. “Yes. I can code any fantasy they want. I can make you an angel with wings, fucking in the clouds. I can turn you into a mermaid, fucking beneath the sea. You become anything they want. They want you blonde…you’re blonde. They want you older, you’re older. They want you to be someone they loved and lost, then you’re a ghost. Or if they want you as you are…then that is what they get.”
I sat in silence for a while, processing the depth of the daydream. It’d been so real. I’d touched the man who’d been inside me and felt his body and heat. I’d tasted his salty flesh when I’d sucked him. I’d gasped with pleasure as he’d licked me in return…but it’d all been—
“Wait.” My spine stiffened. “If it’s all a mirage, then…are you saying I didn’t actually have sex last night?”
He stood swiftly, planting his hands on my chair’s armrests, caging me in. His belly rippled with muscle as he loomed close, his eyes dabbled with turquoise and sapphire. “You’ve used up all your questions.”
“But…”
In a flash, he wrapped his fingers around my wrist and plucked me from the chair. Dragging me down the deck and back onto the beach, he didn’t stop until the sea lapped at our ankles.
The fresh coolness after sitting in stagnant humidity was welcome. Sand still stuck annoyingly to my skin, but I didn’t understand why he’d carted me into the ocean.
Pika squawked around our heads before flapping off into the foliage, abandoning his master, knowing the open seas weren’t a place for a winged parrot.
Sully never stopped, manhandling me deeper and deeper until the tide lapped around my waist, then breasts, then throat. Only once we were completely submerged, my tiptoes digging into the sand beneath the surface for balance, did he cup my chin and bring me close.
He licked his lips as if he’d kiss me. His eyes flashed with a hunger that made equal starvation claw at my belly. For a second, I had no idea what he intended.
Drown me?
Fuck me?
Ruin me?
But his fingers tightened around my jaw, bringing me closer until our chests bumped and the hardness in his broad-shorts nudged against my stomach. His voice licked into my ear, low and laden with lust. “Ask yourself that same question. Does your body feel like you didn’t have sex last night?” His other hand suddenly latched around my breast, fisting the weight, activating bruises. “Are these not sore from a man’s attention?” His fingers trailed over my waist, cupping me between the legs, instantly making my thighs clamp around his wrist, far too sensitive to be played with. “Is this not swollen from being fucked all night?” His finger teased my clit, pressing my bikini briefs against my entrance. “Are you not wrung dry from pleasure?”
If the water hadn’t cradled my weight, I would’ve collapsed.
The rudeness of him fingering me. The aggressive, possessive way in which he touched me…as if I belonged to him. As if he wanted to replace himself with the man who’d invaded those places multiple times last night.
I shivered as he ran his tongue around the shell of my ear. “Ask yourself if you believe you didn’t have sex last night, Jinx, and be honest with yourself. Ask why I poured elixir down your throat. Why I served you up as a rabid, wanton creature if your sole purpose wasn’t to be used.”
Pressing a chaste kiss on my mouth, he murmured, “Your mind hid the identity of the man who fucked you, but your body knows the truth.” Pushing me away, he wiped his mouth, removing me from his lips. His face held torture and torment, his eyes tight and lips thin.
My heart fluttered as I wafted my arms in the water, staying upright even though I wanted to sink to the bottom and never resurface.
What he’d just said.
What he’d just hinted…
Could it be true?
Fear prickled me even as sick joy melted my broken, stupid heart. “If you have the power to make a simple girl become an angel or mermaid or anything else a man desires…that means you can change him, too.”
He jolted.
Shutters slammed over his gaze.
He pushed off from the bottom, hovering as if he was a water demon, able to breathe in an aquatic dimension, about to return home after visiting poor mortals on earth.
Words tumbled from my mouth, determined to ask before he vanished. “Who did I sleep with last night, Sully?”
He gritted his teeth. “A guest.”
“Which one?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“I do. I do need to know.” I splashed my fists into the sea. “Was it you? Were you the one who fucked me?”
Please say yes.
Please say no.
God…what is happening to me!
He bared his teeth. “You would know if I ever fucked you. I told you you’d never be the same if I did.”
“I’m not the same…not after last night.”
“You’re still the same maddening, dangerous girl I can’t seem to stay away from.” Swimming backward, placing distance between us, he added in the darkest, rawest voice, “Euphoria is a blessing and a curse, Eleanor. You’re free to be whatever you want…but that freedom means you’re at the mercy of being used by your greatest enemy or dearest friend. You’ll never know. Never know who hides behind the illusion’s mask. Never see the man whose body thrusts into yours. Never see past what I want you to see. You only see what they pay for.”
Taking a deep breath, he turned and duck-dived under the surface.
I waited for a hundred skipping heartbeats for him to reappear.
But he never did.
I sank beneath the surface…
…and screamed.
Chapter Five
YESTERDAY WAS MY LAST day of acting like a goddamn idiot.
I didn’t appreciate nor accept the threads of softness Eleanor cursed me with. I’d had enough of battling my thoughts, losing against my rules, and overall being a fucking moron.
I’m done.
She was just a girl.
A high-class commodity.
Nothing more.
After my swim, I’d buried myself in work, scaled Nirvana thanks to the excess energy I had after visiting Jinx, then forced myself to stay in my villa all night.
In bed.
Hard as a fucking rock.
I didn’t allow myself to skulk through the shadows, to enter a certain goddess’s room, to pin her down and force her to take my cock after she’d taken so much dick the night before.
I reminded myself of what Cal had been so adamant I recall. Why I didn’t do humans. Why I would never do her. And why I’d made such strict laws.
The highlight reel of my past left me sick to my stomach and a little afraid of what I was capable of when pushed to my limits.
It didn’t matter that it was me pushing myself to those limits—Eleanor would be the one to pay if I allowed myself t
o feel anything else for her.
The truth was…I would kill her. Not maliciously, probably not even intentionally, but I tended to act irrationally when forced to endure things I wasn’t equipped with. And…alone in the dark, with my thoughts thick with blood and history, I admitted I wasn’t equipped to deal with her.
Therefore, all interaction and communication had to cease.
For her own safety…and for mine.
The only human relationships I wanted were those bound by NDAs, huge sums of money, and an expiration date.
Cal was the one exception.
As the sun rose and dawn brightened to noon, I strode from my office. My inbox had been dealt with, a small issue with some new lab equipment resolved, and an online conference call with my head scientist completed. Thanks to the internet, I no longer had to physically be in many places. Only a few instances required my personal attention and I loathed those requests.
My islands had become a sanctuary I hadn’t been aware I needed, and when the outside world intruded, dragging me back into smog-filled cities jam-packed with self-centred, apathetic bastards, I struggled to keep my temper in check.
I’d probably done the wrong thing by cloistering myself away in paradise, creating my own personal Zion, pretending I’d achieved the impossible and eradicated the plague of mankind. These days, if I entered the main vein of population, I couldn’t focus on the tiny snippets of good, only on the mountains of disease and screw-ups that society had piled into shit mountains.
Not for the first time, I was tempted to create a drug that would eradicate the problems we’d caused…by eradicating us. But that would make my life’s work highly hypocritical.
I owned a company whose entire purpose was pharmaceuticals—both external and internal medicines—to extend the longevity of the people I couldn’t stand. I donated millions to cancer research and didn’t hide my breakthroughs—delivering my successes at affordable prices, despite the death threats from men who traded in fatality.
Before I’d started selling flesh and fantasy, I’d whored myself out for the masses, draining myself for humanity that no longer remembered what that word meant.
Striding down the sandy pathway, I raked hands through my hair, smoothed my navy pinstripe suit, and buttoned my hand-cut blazer.
Enough dwelling in the past.
I had a good balance in my life these days. I would keep it that way. And besides, talking of relationships with expiry dates…it was time to say farewell to Markus Grammer.
Gritting my teeth, I ignored the acid wash down my throat, splashing corrosive in my belly. Just once, I’d like to revoke my policy to greet and goodbye each guest, but part of me needed to see him gone. To be sure he no longer had access to what was mine.
Thinking of the devil must’ve conjured him as he appeared before me, turning off the fork in the path which led to his private villa. His luggage would’ve already been taken to the helicopter. His khaki messenger bag nudged against freshly pressed jeans, swinging with his every step. The shade of his baby blue polo highlighted the tan he’d earned while staying here. He still looked a little drained from being in Euphoria, but the swagger in his body said he’d never forget the week he’d spent on Goddess Isles.
Too bad for him he couldn’t regale his office buddies with stories of what went on here, unless he wanted the iron-clad NDA I made him sign to bite him with serious fangs in the ass.
I cleared my throat, preparing to put on my mask of suave and polished. He heard me, turning to look over his shoulder. He stopped immediately, a huge shit-eating grin on his face. “Sullivan.”
Fighting the urge to throttle him, I kept walking until I caught up beside him. Slipping both hands into my pockets, I nodded politely, all while wanting to murder him. “Mr. Grammer.”
He slung his messenger bag up higher, matching my pace toward the beach and helipad. “Wow, man. Fuck, I had no idea.” He wiped his mouth, letting his head loll back in memory of the fuck-fest he enjoyed at my expense. “You’re a god. Truly. I thought you were some smug bastard when I first arrived, but after Euphoria?” He waved his arms in dramatic surrender. “You, sir, are a fucking genius.”
My teeth threatened to crack, but I smiled and bowed my head graciously. “I’m glad you approve.”
“Approve?” He whistled under his breath. “Approve doesn’t come close. That girl…Jinx? God, I’ve never felt anything like that. With anyone. She was exactly like you said.” His eyes glazed with memory. “She was gagging for it. She wasn’t shy or ashamed. She basically slurped up everything I gave her and then got on her knees for more.”
I grinned, locking down every inch of violence inside me. On the outside, I was perfect. On the inside, I was chaos. “And how did you find your stamina compared to a goddess high on elixir?”
“Yeah.” He whistled again, low and long. “You were right, that one night is enough. I can’t remember the last time I had so many releases in one go. Maybe when I was sixteen, I could come multiple times, but that was a long time ago.” He chuckled, nudging my shoulder with his. “But with Jinx? I’m glad you don’t give that elixir stuff to the men…I honestly didn’t need it. Seeing how fucking drenched she was? How much she shivered when I touched her? How she came from my voice alone? That’s some serious magic right there.”
He laughed, mocking himself a little. “I mean, I’ve been told I’m okay in the sack, but I’ve never had some girl cream herself just from my talking to her…you know?”
My hands balled in my pockets, threatening to break the seams of my expensively tailored clothes. “Their inhibitions no longer tamper in their pleasure with elixir. Just as people are capable of climaxing in their dreams from no stimulation other than their brains, they are capable of coming from an array of stimulus when they’re stripped to nothing but heat.”
“Yeah, you can say that again.”
No, you bastard. I won’t. I want you gone. Immediately.
“Well, I hope you enjoyed your stay, Mr. Grammer. That you feel rejuvenated to return to your everyday world.” I slipped silver-lensed aviators from my breast pocket and shielded my eyes as we broke the shadows of the palm tree and orchid lined laneway, stepping out onto the sun-drenched beach.
I needed to leave before I killed a guest. I hadn’t been driven to that extreme yet, but today…well, it was highly probable I’d snap if I had to hear another goddamn thing about him screwing Jinx.
“How did you get my fantasy so perfect by the way? All I told you was that I liked that era. That I wanted a woman who was more animal and feral than the girls today.”
With a hard sigh, I turned to face him, struggling to rip my gaze from the sea while trying to find my centre of calm. The turquoise expanse had a small ripple with occasional white-cap, courtesy of the stronger humid breeze.
The helicopter waited on its pad, surrounded by black basalt, its heavy blades sagging around the sleek machine. Two pilots chatted in the air-conditioned cockpit, waiting to act as a taxi service. Markus would be in for a rough ride, judging by the wind.
And that made me ridiculously pleased.
Turbulence in an airplane was one thing. Turbulence in a chopper felt like you were moments away from becoming shark food. And who knew, maybe he’d crash and the sea that protected my investments would swallow him whole.
Good fucking riddance.
“So? Can you tell me how you created something that’s ruined me forever?” He placed his own Ray-Bans with smoky, auburn lenses on his nose.
I crossed my arms, hating the quake in my muscles. “You mentioned you liked Conan the Barbarian, Alpha, Cavemen, and other prehistoric movies in your dossier. You wanted a woman spread-eagled and tied down with a fire roaring, meat roasting, and furs from your kills at your feet. Are you forgetting that you wrote down what you regularly jerk off to? That you picture a woman, smudged with dirt, tangled hair, wild eyes, a body desperate to be mounted?” I angled my head, my hair tumbling a little over my forehead. “
Did I not deliver?”
He nodded quickly. “Hell, yeah, you delivered. I just wanted to know how you could load a computer program that made it seem so real.”
“Tricks of the trade. Island secrets, I’m afraid.” My smile felt stretched and fake. Time to end this charade. Raising my arm, I pointed at the helicopter. “It’s been a pleasure hosting you, Mr. Grammer. I wish you a safe journey—”
“Wait.” He fumbled with the flap of his messenger bag. His hand dived into the depths, digging past a laptop and paperwork, and reappeared with a black box.
A box I was highly familiar with.
Ah, fuck.
He wasn’t the first guest to do this, and he wouldn’t be the last. But the fact it was for her? For Eleanor…
Yeah, it made my heart do lawless things like hurt. It also made my arms bunch to rip his head off.
Caressing the box, he looked at it with a starry, puppy-love gaze. Clearing his throat, he asked, “Can I see her? Before I go? I want to…I want to tell her that I’ll never forget her. That she’ll always be a goddess to me…the best experience of my life.”
My jaw ached as I once again clenched too hard. “Seeing her again isn’t possible.”
“But surely I can give her this? Tell her that in one night I fell hard. That a part of me will always be in love with her.”
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “It’s a regular occurrence to fall in love with your fantasy. After all…it’s your fantasy. The pinnacle of your idea of perfection. But that girl you fucked is not real. She’s a figment of your imagination and must remain there.” I bowed stiffly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I really—”
“She is real. Her name is Jinx, and I would really appreciate if you’d let me—”
“Stop.” My temper slipped through my leash. My face tightened with a darkness I couldn’t see on myself, but it gleamed in Markus’s reflecting sunglasses. It sketched me with savagery. “Not possible.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but the soft hiss of sand from my shoe as I stepped toward him shut up his foolish request.
Twice a Wish (GODDESS ISLES Book 2) Page 6