Chapter Twenty-Eight

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I WAS MOVING BEFORE I fell from my climax’s clutches.

I didn’t know how my legs found coordination to move but they did, hauled forward by Sully’s vicious grasp.

He jerked me up the beach and down a path I hadn’t explored before.

The guest area.

Villas for billionaires and princes instead of lowly purchased women.

A cough and a curse sounded behind us.

Company.

Sully froze, dragging me close and looking over his shoulder.

“Ah, fuck.” His face resembled an animal on its last-ditch for freedom. “Fuck!” Throwing himself into a painful lurch, his bleeding bandaged leg left a trail of droplets in the sand.

I saw his blood.

I witnessed his pain.

I felt his panic.

But all I cared about was having him again.

My heart rate was berserk.

My loyalties all scrambled.

I’d tried to stop it, and I couldn’t.

I’d done my best to find an antidote that didn’t include sex, but there wasn’t one.

I was the villain in this because Sully had tried to rescue me, and I’d been the one to drag him back. Drag him back into a nightmare where death welcomed us with open arms. If he’d attempted to swim across to Lebah, I would’ve drowned us.

And that confession prevented me from entering the uninhabited stage of elixir. I found no release in letting go. I entered no freedom for accepting my drunken needs. I merely sank deeper into misery, gasping with an irregular heartbeat, crying over my weakness to ignore synapses and systems that had become the worst kind of enemy.

Sully tripped and limped, ignoring the fact that his leg once again needed severe medical attention. A villa existed up ahead. Luxury accommodation that could perhaps protect us while I continued to destroy us.

“Come on.” He broke into a haggard sprint, dragging me with him.

I fell even more in love with him.

This man.

This insanely wonderful, protective man.

He could’ve left me behind.

He could’ve turned his back on me and gone for help.

Elixir would’ve kept me free from whatever happened to me.

He could’ve claimed back his island, his fortune, his goddesses if he’d only forgotten about me.

But he hadn’t.

No matter what I’d done to him.

No matter how aggressive and wild I’d been in my lust, he’d never even thought about abandoning me. He’d pulled me to shore in the middle of my haunting heat. He’d given me what I’d needed all while our freedom sifted through our fingers. And he’d threaded his life with mine, ensuring that if I died, he died.

We’d both die.

I love him.

I owe him.

If we survived this, I would marry him and promise him anything. I would sign my life into his care. I would sell him my very soul. I would vow to obey, cherish, care for, and adore him for as long as we both may live.

If he still wants me after this.

I’m so sorry, Sully.

Throwing me into the villa, he slammed the door behind us.

His chest pumped air, his muscles etched in stark relief. Even covered in wounds and blood, he was still the most staggeringly handsome man I’d ever set my eyes upon.

Oh, no.

My short siesta of love rapidly mutated into lust.

I didn’t just love him. I needed him...now.

I buckled, wedging a fist in my belly.

No.

Not again.

I’d had a reprieve.

A short reprieve but one that’d lasted longer than all the rest.

But...

I was slipping, sliding, falling.

I went from sane to insane, grateful to gluttony.

I backed away from him, stumbling through the airy foyer and into the lounge of a guest’s villa. Similar to a goddess’s accommodations, the ceiling was vaulted with thatched roof and exposed rafters. A large TV sat on a sidebar, acting as a partition to the office area overlooking the private beach. A white couch with teal cushions and a dining table with a bowl of fruit by the window all welcomed.

The bedroom waited to the right, a set of double doors announcing a grand entrance for the extra-large bed, pristine mosquito net, and large seagrass woven mat.

I wanted to see only furniture.

I forced myself to focus on material things.

But in my current predicament, I only saw places to fuck.

I could be ass up over the coffee table, bent over the couch, plastered against the window, or on all fours in the foyer.

I shuddered as every cell demanded I do something about the crawling, consuming hunger growing rapidly once again. I was in a famine. An utmost famine for orgasms and touch.

Looking up at Sully, I shook my head in shame. “I can’t...I can’t stop it.”

“I know.” He came toward me, gathering me in a tight embrace.

It was the worst thing he could do. The best thing he could do.

I tensed and tingled in his embrace.

Our connection vivid and vibrant. Our lust vicious and violent.

Seemed there was no pleasure without pain, no softness without aggression.

I wanted both.

I wanted it all.

I wanted him forever, but only if he filled me, fucked me, promised to be mine for eternity.

“Sully...” I groaned as my fingers disobeyed me and crept between us. I hunted for his cock; I struggled to open my legs for his taking.

His arms tightened, imprisoning them unforgivingly by my sides. “Just breathe, Eleanor. Breathe. Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”

The warning in his voice tried to slap sense into me, but I was too swept away by lunacy. I moaned again, jolting as the sound of the front door being kicked in smashed around us.

“Shit.” Sully spun around, shoving me viciously behind his back.

I battled with self-preservation and the damning world of need.

I blinked as three men entered the villa, their lips tilting into smug smirks. Two dark-haired and one copper, they wore matching black cargos and t-shirts.

All three held their guns pointed directly at Sully and me.

The vulnerability of us was acute when faced with fully clad mercenaries.

I wore nothing, and Sully had retained his black boxer-briefs, sandy and drenched from the sea. His only other wardrobe was a blood-stained bandage that made him appear easy prey.

“Get the fuck out,” Sully snarled.

The men laughed, eyeing us up and down. “Well, well...tried to run from Drake, did ya? Steal his fuck toy too by the looks of it.” The copper-haired man stepped to the side, peering at me hidden behind Sully’s back.

I bared my teeth.

I attempted to be normal.

With every fractured heartbeat, I tried to wake myself up. To accept the seriousness of this situation. To be smart! But each time I caged my sinister libido, it sank venomous fangs into my veins and amplified.

I need—

You don’t!

I swayed behind Sully, losing myself, defeated and doomed.

“Is she naked?” A guard grunted, smiling sickly. “Willing to share, Sinclair?”

Sully vibrated with loathing. “My brother is in Euphoria. I suggest you go find him.”

“Oh, we know where he is. We watched him fucking that wet little minx for a while.” They chuckled as one. “We also shoved aside four corpses...and decided to come find the culprit.”

“Leave,” Sully hissed. “Drake got what he wanted. He can have everything for all I care.”

“See...that’s where I think you’re wrong,” the one with a scar on his cheek muttered. He pointed the gun over Sully’s shoulder, aiming for me, making my inner muscles clench with sick sensual need. “I think he wanted her.” He grinned. “And it looks like she wants something herself.”

My knees buckled as my core clenched.

Sully held me up, his fingers biting into me.

His touch felt strict, severe...sexy.

My mind was petrified. But my body? It was impatient, thirsty, irritable.

I moaned as an indecent wave of lust lashed around my belly.

Sully struggled to hold my weight as I crumpled against his back.

I battled with the need to orgasm and the self-preservation not to show how unhinged I was.

This was dangerous.

This wasn’t a fantasy or illusion.

These men were real.

They were real, and their guns were real, and their threat toward Sully and me was horrifyingly real.

It’s real!

My lenses, fingerprint sensors, and oil had all washed off in the sea. I hadn’t been programmed into Euphoria. I didn’t have the immunity of falsehoods.

This is real, Ellie!

Get it together.

Before it’s too late!

I bit my lip as my clit throbbed, angry that I continued to ignore its demand for more.

My heart seemed to stop with a horrifying pause before kicking back into its irregular swerving sprint.

If I gave in, I’d unleash a nightmare.

If I slid to the floor and fingered myself, they’d probably shoot Sully, then rape me.

Three men.

One of me.

I swallowed my groan as diabolical need poured indecent gasoline on my delirious heart. Three men to pleasure me. Three men to make me come.

No!

Stop it.

Enough!

I grabbed my hair, bashing my forehead into Sully’s shoulder blades, crying quietly.

He grunted at my torment, his violence lashing around us, on its leash for now but straining to get free. “You’re right. She does want something.” Sully’s growl sent goosebumps over me, making it almost impossible to behave. “Just like, I’m sure...you want something too.”

The tension in the room reached a new danger, thick with war and tight with suspicion.

My heart skipped a few fluttery beats, coughing with confusion on how to thrum.

“Gonna let us fuck her?” The taller dark-haired one raised an eyebrow.

“She’s not on offer.” Sully stiffened, struggling to hold me while my arms did their best to fondle my breasts.

“Too bad ’cause we’re just gonna take her...with or without your permission.”

“I have something better.” Sully’s voice was arctic, coating my skin with snowflakes, helping ward off the salacious heat I couldn’t ignore.

“Better than fucking a girl who’s dripping for it?” The copper-haired one lowered his gun. “Go on, I fancy a laugh. Tell us what we want more than that whore hiding behind your back.”

“Money,” he snapped. “Lots and lots of fucking money.”