Twice a Wish (GODDESS ISLES Book 2)

by Pepper Winters

  She clenched her teeth, glaring at the grass cushioning her naked body. “I will never understand how you can treat animals with such kindness yet hurt your own kind with such contempt.”

  “Oh, believe me.” I chuckled blackly. “That part is easy.”

  “None of this is easy!” She swiped at a lonely, glittering tear. “Why can’t you admit that—”

  “I admit that I’ve been moronic when it comes to you. But this, whatever this is, ends. Right here. Right now. Accept that I will never treat you any different. Accept that whatever exists between us is over. I own you. That is the extent of our connection.”

  A defiant whisper tumbled from her lips. “I don’t accept.”

  I leaned closer, taunting her. “I’m sorry? I didn’t catch that.”

  Her eyes locked on mine, blazing with smoke. “I said, I will never accept that you own me. You don’t own me. You will never own me.”

  “Oh, no?” Ripping at my tie, I yanked it off and, with quaking hands, collared it around her throat. Pulling on the remaining length, I growled, “I paid money to receive you. I have the bill of sale. You eat my food. You sleep in my bed. You sunbathe on my goddamn beach. And now…now you wear my leash.” My nose almost brushed hers, our breaths mingling, our chemistry igniting. “If you aren’t a paid pet, then what are you?”

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “So why are you trembling?”

  She panted as my gaze locked on her mouth. Her sweet, perfect, delicious fucking mouth. “Why are you?”

  “Because I’m seconds away from either fucking you or killing you, and I don’t know which will win—”

  Swooping up, she crashed her mouth to mine.

  The second her lips touched mine…everything I’d fought for collapsed.

  My control.

  My willpower.

  Gone.

  Dust.

  Desire.

  Digging two handfuls in her hair, I jerked up. She rose to her knees, completely at my command. Deepening the kiss, giving her no leniency or kindness, I took and fucking took.

  Her fingernails dug into my wrists, holding onto me as I plunged my tongue into her mouth.

  Just like our previous kisses, there was nothing soft or sweet. It was war. Vicious and fiendish, sending lust licking like a whip.

  She moaned and tried to stand, but I kept her hovering, subservient and submissive, trapped and tormented.

  Our teeth clacked together. She fought back. Her tongue swiped against mine. Everything else vanished. The fact that I had to be back later for a guest’s arrival. The fact that I’d commanded the pilot to collect us after I’d disciplined my goddess. The fact that I’d flown halfway across the goddamn planet, only to turn around again the moment I thought I’d lost this girl.

  All of it. All my mistakes and downfalls disappeared as I turned the kiss into raw violence.

  She cried out as I crashed to my knees and kissed her harder. She tried to get free, but I held her firm, sucking out her oxygen, her soul, taking everything she refused to give me.

  I’d bought her, yet I couldn’t control a fucking thing about her.

  I can’t control myself.

  That had to change. She had to understand she couldn’t say no to me. No to my authority, my requests, my guests. No to anything I wanted.

  And what I wanted was her.

  No matter how much I denied it, refused it.

  I want her.

  Beneath me, beside me.

  I need her.

  She gasped as I kissed her so deep, our noses pressed into corresponding cheeks. I suffocated on her, and she suffocated on me. We tried to inhale, but all we could steal was each other. Sharing air. Partaking in the other’s lust.

  Because it was lust that drove this battle.

  She couldn’t hide the way her nipples pebbled to hardened stone. She couldn’t silence her cries as my hands slipped from her hair and fisted her breasts. She couldn’t disguise the way her body turned to liquid as I shoved her backward, spreading her out on the grass as I crawled over her.

  One hand dug into the earth by her head while the other swooped from her breast to cup around her throat.

  Her pulse pounded against my thumb. She arched up as I kissed her deep, deep, deep. She spread her legs as I lowered myself between them.

  Our argument and denial shredded any illusion that this potency, this wicked punishment, wasn’t filled with things we refused to admit. We had chemistry. Chemistry that only appeared when two corresponding pieces met. A hum. A force. A link that vibrated at a frequency that knitted blood to blood, bone to bone, soul to fucking soul.

  A groan ripped through me as her hips rocked against mine. She didn’t just lay there, waiting for me to hurt her. She participated. She encouraged.

  My cock physically throbbed to be touched, to be freed, to be inside her.

  I drove into her. My suit into her nakedness.

  She moaned and accepted my ruthless kiss.

  I yanked on the leash around her throat, reminding both of us of our places in this war. The dominant and the dominated. She was my conquest. She had not won. This was me taking what I should’ve taken the moment she landed on my island.

  Maybe then I wouldn’t have my heart tangled with my desire.

  Running my hand down her body, I arched my hips, fumbling at my belt and zipper.

  My knuckles grazed her pussy, coming away with wet streaks of her need. My lust amplified to dangerous levels. My goddamn trousers refused to come undone. I needed to stop thrusting against her to get my cock free, but I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t deny the friction I needed. She needed. The inferno that consumed both of us.

  I’d come in my boxers at this rate. I’d fucking cover myself in cum all because I couldn’t wait to climb inside this girl.

  Our kiss turned deadly as her hands vanished to my belt. My brain short-circuited. Why would she help me ruin her? Why would she willingly let me take her final piece?

  Because she feels it too.

  It’s inescapable.

  I grunted as her tiny hand cupped me.

  I bit her lip so hard, metallic blood bloomed between us, sending our kiss from violent to feral.

  I rolled onto my back, keeping her plastered to me, driving up with my hips, fucking desperate to be balls deep inside her.

  She dug her hands into my chest like she had when she’d been high on elixir and struggling to get off. She rocked over me, her mouth lax, her skin luminescent, her hair totally wild.

  A part of me cracked and fell.

  Fell into an abyss that I daren’t fucking label.

  But my heart knew what it was.

  Death.

  Death by a thousand acknowledgments that this girl would one day not only destroy me but also own me, kill me, consume me.

  We both grunted like beasts, clawing to remove my clothing to finish this disaster. Our hands fought to rip my zipper down. Our chests panting for breath.

  My back crushed grass, releasing the tart greenness into the air, the scent mingling with our musky desire. When my trousers finally released, a rush of savage need catapulted through my bloodstream.

  I reached up and grabbed Eleanor’s throat, ready to throw her onto all fours. Ready to mount her. Fuck her. Kill us both with rapture.

  But a dive-bomb of sharp beak and vibrant feathers aimed straight toward my eyes.

  The sharpness almost punctured my pupil as I turned my head and threw my hands up to protect myself. The missile came again. And again.

  I rolled, shoving Eleanor off me. The attack kept coming even as I stood and ducked the flurry of ferocity.

  “Stop. Hey! Don’t do that.” Eleanor tried to help me despite everything I’d done.

  Bracing myself for blindness, I blinked and locked gazes with my attacker.

  And the world stopped for entirely new reasons.

  “Skittles?”

  The second I said her name, the tiny caique stopped her mission to
murder me, squawking indignantly and flying to land proudly on Eleanor’s shoulder.

  My mouth fell open.

  What.

  The.

  Ever.

  Living.

  Fuck.

  Chapter Eighteen

  SULLY SWITCHED FROM RABID to frozen.

  His lips still glistened from our kiss and his chest still rose and fell with tattered breath, but all hint of carnal connection vanished the moment his gaze locked on the tiny bird that’d chosen that moment to claim me as its own.

  Little feathers bristled by my ear. A tune of disgruntled chirps fell quietly from its beak. It reminded me of a disapproving relative—slightly afraid, mostly disturbed, but defiantly protective.

  Sully swallowed and shook his head, his eyebrows tugging low over his blistering blue gaze. Ever so slowly, he zipped up his trousers, buckled his belt, and dragged both hands through his hair.

  His motions were meticulous and refined, his moods mercurial in their swiftness.

  Why did he care that a parrot had befriended me? He had one. He loved Pika more than he was capable of loving someone of his own species. Why couldn’t I have a confidant like him?

  I braced my shoulders, nudging my cheek against the feathered creature. The parrot puffed up, covering my cheek with beak kisses.

  Sully actually groaned with dismay.

  My heart flip-flopped. My stomach turned gooey. I’d gone from fighting my dangerous emotions toward Sully to falling madly in love with a bird.

  Sully pinched the bridge of his nose as if warding off a headache. When he finally dropped his hand, a thin veneer of composure covered him, but something behind it ached with pain. His sea gaze snatched mine. “Care to tell me why you stole my caique?”

  I balled my hands, activating blisters from rowing. He could take away my freedom. He could steal away my heart. But he couldn’t accuse me of theft when I hadn’t done so. “It followed me when I left in the kayak.”

  “It?” He cleared his throat. “It’s a she.” A softness glimmered in his stare. “She came from the same clutch as Pika.”

  I tasted something I hadn’t had before. Conversation. A glimpse behind the curtain that made up the man before me. “They’re siblings?”

  “I suppose you could call them that.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  His lips pressed together, refusing to reply, but Skittles squeaked and flew around Sully’s head. She didn’t land on him, though. She returned to me, settling lightly on my shoulder as if she’d always been welcome there.

  He sighed heavily as if pissed by this change of events, hurting by the fact I’d earned affection from something he believed was his own. “Fourteen years ago, I found her in a wire bottom cage.” His temper flickered, threading with his sudden gentleness. “I stole the eggs and hatched them. They’ve been with me ever since.”

  I turned to stare at the tiny parrot. Her wing speared upright as she nibbled at the feathers underneath. She seemed perfectly content and trusting, when only yesterday she’d still watched me warily—almost as if she’d been judging me, examining me for any sign that I wasn’t worthy before deciding I was hers.

  I’d never had a pet before—never had that bond between creature and human—but it wasn’t from lack of trying. I’d constantly begged my parents for any sort of animal to adore. A squirrel, hamster, cricket, frog, even a cow, goat, and pig. I’d already asked for the standard dog, cat, and rabbit only to be refused any of them. To me, they all deserved love and kindness—not just the ones sold in a pet shop but also the ones born for slaughter. That was probably why I’d become a vegetarian. I couldn’t separate the pets from the consumed. They were all the same.

  I was exceedingly aware I stood naked before Sully, adorned by a single bird and his tie around my throat, but I ignored my vulnerability in favour of talking. If I could figure out what had caused him to become the way he was, maybe I had a chance of undoing the tangles around his heart. “Why doesn’t she hang out with you and Pika?”

  Sully sighed again. “She doesn’t like people. She prefers the wild.”

  Stepping carefully toward him, I asked, “Then why did she land in my kayak and travel with me?” I reached up, testing the incredible new connection with a feathered flyer and waited until she hopped onto my finger. She did so without hesitation. Her talons wrapping tight, her eyes inquisitive and smart.

  Sully scowled as I brought my hand closer to him. I offered Skittles as a peace offering, a reminder I hadn’t stolen her, she’d stolen me. He looked as if he’d back away, but at the last second, he raised his own hand, our fingertips touching.

  A zing of power shot from his blood into mine, making our breath catch. Skittles permitted him to stroke her head, but she refused to transfer to his offered perch. Skipping up my arm, she snuggled back into the dip of my shoulder and neck.

  Sully dropped his hand with a guarded, black look. “It appears she has chosen you.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  “She’s free to make up her own mind. For some idiotic reason, she’s picked you.”

  “Why?”

  His eyebrows tugged together. “Why? Who knows.” His gaze skimmed over my nakedness. “Perhaps she feels sorry for you. Maybe she thought you would die and decided to chase suicide beside you.”

  I ignored his deliberate barbs. Too much had passed between us not to see through his rage. He felt something. Something he couldn’t control.

  And he didn’t want it. He didn’t trust it. He was determined to kill it before it could grow any deeper. Which was fine by me because I also didn’t want it, trust it, or was strong enough to endure it. By allowing him to find me, I’d sentenced myself to four years.

  Four years of sleeping with a stranger once a week.

  That would be all I could handle.

  I couldn’t cope falling in love with the monster who served me to those strangers too.

  “Maybe…or maybe she found her person, just like Pika found you.”

  He froze. “You’re claiming my parrot now?”

  “She claimed me first.”

  “She’ll soon realise it was a mistake.”

  I stiffened. “Are we still talking about a bird, Sully? Or—”

  A crash sounded behind me. Sully’s head snapped up. His eyes shuttered, hiding any hint of connection we’d shared.

  “Stay where you are!” His hand swooped up as I turned to look over my shoulder. A man appeared. Local to Indonesia, lean and lanky, running toward us. The guy heard Sully’s shout, skidding to a stop, his face animated and impatient.

  Where the hell did he come from?

  I blushed as the guy’s eyes zeroed in on my nakedness, blatantly drinking me in as his mouth fell open in shock.

  The rustle of clothing ripped my head back to face Sully. With a furious look, he shrugged his charcoal blazer off his shoulders, followed by his silver-grey shirt beneath.

  My stomach clenched as his arms bunched, undoing the buttons, then pulled it away and revealed the perfection of his chiselled chest. I gawked just like the man behind me gawked at my nudity.

  I’d seen Sully half-naked a few times. For a man who wore suits like armour, he swam a lot, seeming much more comfortable in board-shorts and saltwater. But the impact of his perfection still stole the final strength in my legs.

  My thirst returned with a vengeance. Only this time, it wasn’t just water I wanted to drink.

  Before I could tear my gaze away from his impeccable physique, he wrapped his shirt around me. Skittles took off with an angry chirp, circling me while Sully roughly did up the buttons, hiding my naked form.

  His rough hands brushed against my skin, his knuckles nudging my breasts, his teeth clamped on his bottom lip.

  I grew lightheaded as he buttoned me up, going lower and lower until his touch skimmed my pussy and upper thighs. His scent enveloped me. Coconut and salt, jasmine and sandalwood. Intoxicating. Arousing. Heady.

  I
gulped as he finished and looked up. Our gazes snagged, and once again, all our lies burned at the stake of our truth. We wanted each other. His erection in his trousers and the wetness on my thighs proved that. But we wanted more than just sex. We wanted something neither of us could understand. Something fierce but tame. Catastrophic but endless.

  Clearing his throat, he ducked to collect his forgotten blazer. Shrugging into it, he looked even more divine. Glowing sun-etched skin, shadows of hard-earned muscle, and a flat-ridged belly all adorned with a masculine suit.

  It’s not fair.

  Not fair that I was falling for someone who would ultimately break me in all the ways I never wanted to break. Not fair that I finally had to admit that I was falling, and the slippery slope had no safety rail.

  I couldn’t stop it.

  My loyalty to Scott couldn’t prevent it.

  My desire not to feel it was useless.

  It didn’t matter he wasn’t a good person or that I should be smarter than this.

  Slip, slip, slip.

  How long before I fall completely?

  “Come.” His voice sounded thick and gravelly, his eyes dancing over me now that I wore his shirt. Did it cause a visceral reaction for him too? To see something of his on me—his shirt swamping me, protecting me, touching me in places he wanted?

  Snatching my palm, he paused and narrowed his eyes at my blisters and wounds from the oar. His teeth ground together, but he didn’t speak. He merely let me go and grabbed my wrist instead, as if aware touching my hand would hurt.

  The moment his fingers wrapped tight, he pulled me into motion, dragging me toward the guy who waited patiently on the other side of the helipad.

  The grass cushioned my bare feet with carpet-like spring. Skittles floated down to resume her position on my shoulder, and Sully refused to look at me.

  We slowed as the man came to greet us. “Mr. Sinclair. I saw your helicopter. I thought you were here to visit, but when you didn’t arrive, I came to see if everything is okay.” The man bowed, his black gaze skipping to me, then back to Sully.