Chapter Forty-Five

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MY WEDDING NIGHT AND my body had almost reached its limit.

How fucking sad was that? How fucking embarrassing.

Five weeks since I’d woken, and I still suffered so many effects from harpoon wounds and helicopter falls. I cursed my weakness, but I was also rather proud. I’d earned those bruises and scars in defeat of my enemies and the defence of those I loved.

I’d earned them.

I would wear them with pride, even if it meant having wild sex with Eleanor would tax every last power I had left.

“We’re at my old villa.” Eleanor glanced up as we slowly made our way down the sandy laneway. Thanks to everyone leaving during our wedding kiss, we had no transportation. Even Pika and Skittles had abandoned us.

Not that the short walk from the beach to Jinx’s old villa was an issue. It was an honour to walk beside her as birds roosted and the shadows of bats flickered just out of sight. I hadn’t intended to return to Nirvana tonight.

I’d...done something.

I’d gambled on a new recipe Peter Beck had been working on and set up a surprise for Eleanor. I had no clue how she’d take it.

“Let’s go inside,” I said, digging my cane into the sugary sand and doing my best not to lean too heavily on her. If I couldn’t walk unassisted, then I’d married her under false pretences, and that would be blasphemy.

She was my wife.

She’s my wife.

Fuck, I’d never get tired of that.

Slinking out from under my arm, she dashed to the door and pushed it open. Waiting for me over the threshold, she laughed suddenly, eyeing up my slow, steady stroll. “You broke so many wedding traditions today, I’m wondering if I should break one of my own.”

“Oh? Which one?”

“I think the bride should carry the groom over the threshold.” She ducked out of my reach as I swiped for her.

“Say such things again and I’ll have to punish you for trying to emasculate me. That kiss before almost ensured I fucked you right on the beach—with or without an audience. I can’t control myself around you, and I definitely don’t need you carrying my ass across a stupid doorway.”

She winked and darted inside. “Ah well, plenty of time for you to sweep me off my feet and complete that particular tradition later.”

“I’ve already swept you off your feet.” I grinned, closing the door behind me and wiping at the heat on my nape. “I’d say I was pretty successful at it, seeing as my ring is now upon your finger.”

She held up her hand, catching the Hawk diamonds in the sconces around the villa. They glittered with every promise and pledge I’d given. “They’re stunning, Sully. I love that Pika and Skittles are included.” She wrinkled her nose. “Where are those birds anyway?”

I shrugged, moving slowly but steadfast into the living room. “Getting drunk on hibiscus probably.” From here, I could see the surprise laid out on Eleanor’s bed. Familiar black boxes with purple orchids stencilled on the top.

For the past three weeks, I’d worked fairly hard, emails and theories, new concepts and trials. I’d achieved a few things during my work hours that I hadn’t divulged to Eleanor.

One, there were hints of a pandemic brewing that required swift vaccines and expensive research to inoculate mass populations. I’d tasked the scientists on Monyet to deconstruct the current viruses on hand to hopefully provide at least some immunity, if and when that pandemic spread.

I wasn’t opposed for Mother Nature to kill off the parasites of mankind, but I also couldn’t stand by if it was in my power to protect someone’s loved one.

Not now.

After falling for Eleanor, she’d ensured I had a deeper well of empathy. Too fucking much really. I couldn’t stop putting myself in other husband’s shoes, watching their wife succumb to infection and disease, knowing I had the resources to at least give a fighting chance for improving people’s odds.

Two, thanks to Eleanor’s flippant remark about using Goddess Isles for couples with marriage problems, I’d asked Cal and Jess to look into how employing a few psychiatrists and counsellors could work and offer a sexual vacation away from the strain of arguments, domestication, and mistakes. I wasn’t interested in opening my shores just yet but possibly in the future.

Euphoria could once again be used. A program redesigned to provide a safe space for couples to unleash their anger and hopefully remember why they loved each other in a virtual reality program away from any stress of reality.

Three, the destruction of elixir in Geneva meant no more of the overly potent, potentially suicidal drug now existed. However, I had been dabbling with another panacea in a flurry of emails with Peter Beck. I still used the aphrodisiac extract from purple orchids but had requested it be mixed with a different formulation.

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.