Chapter Forty-Six

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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.

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.”

I stared at him.

How was it that his honesty made me love him more than his assurances that he was invincible? It made me lust for him and also want to honour him. He stood in rags all while he’d given me every penny he’d ever earned—legally and illegally—and now, he’d given me his utmost trust.

Trust by admitting his pain instead of hiding it. Trust that he wanted more than he could give.

Silently, I opened my mouth.

“You sure?” He grunted.

I just kept my lips parted until his hand came up with its invisible contents and a single droplet of sour sugar hit my tongue.

Keeping eye contact, Sully dropped a dose into his own mouth before screwing the bottle shut and tossing it away. It had never been tangible in this fantasy and now bounced on a bed that we couldn’t see, rolling amongst boxes of Euphoria sensors in a villa by the sea.

I waited for the kick and hostile takeover of elixir.

My heart flurried with fear that I would once again be a prisoner in my own body.

However, Sully was right.

This time, it was a heatwave instead of an inferno. It began in my heart and travelled in my bloodstream to my clit. It smouldered instead of burned, it tingled instead of tortured, and I gave myself into it.

I moaned as my need for Sully amplified, and his fantasy made me wish to turn the tables on him. He’d come to me as a bankrupt beggar, believing he was destitute in soul and heart. Instead, he’d traded what he thought he didn’t have and taken mine in return, leaving me with evidence that he wasn’t destitute but rich. Rich in so much affection and commitment.

Falling to my knees, I looked up at him.

“What are you—?” His eyes flared as I reached for the curled-up waistline of his tattered trousers. With swiftness born from lust as well as love, I pulled them down and found his bare erection.

He groaned as I wrapped my fingers around him. His hands dived into my hair as I bent forward and inserted him into my mouth.

I wore a gown of opals and held the power of lightning in my fingertips all while I sucked the cock of my handsome husband.

“Christ, Eleanor.” He thrust into my mouth, his ass clenching and knees locking. “Fucking hell.”

I dug my tongue into the slit at the top, tasting his musk before rubbing the wet length of him down my cheek as I dropped my head to suck his balls.

“Fuck—” He jerked above me, muttering incoherent lusty snarls.

My hand went between his legs, and I pressed on that sensitive spot that I’d heard about but never tried, and I broke the monster I’d married.

“Jesus Christ.” He crashed to his knees, tearing his length from my control. Fisting himself, he shuddered and staved off the first pulses of a climax.

I was hot and wet and itchy and wanting.

Whatever he’d fed us made me lose all inhibition as I crawled onto him, knocking him to the floor.

For a moment, he splayed on his back with me fully gowned on top of him. His hot heavy gaze met mine, and there was a precious, perfect moment of oneness. But then he smirked a vulgar, soul-slicing smile, and he shoved me backward.

I fell to the side, my skirts floating around my legs.

“You think you can rush me, wife?” He stood on his knees, looking down at me. Without looking away, he tore off the ruins of his shirt then dropped his fist to his cock and masturbated blatantly before me. “Your mouth felt too good, Jinx. You almost made me come.”

I groaned and writhed on the floor.

“Is that what you want? Do you want to come?” He dug his thumb into the top of his cock and quaked.

I nodded, shamelessly grasping my breasts through the opals.

“You know what to do then, don’t you?” He continued touching himself, vain and villainous. Switching to his left hand, he commanded, “Get on your knees, get out of that gown, and slide your deliciously drenched pussy onto my fingers.” He held up his right hand, spearing three fingers upward just as he had when we’d first met.

I suffered a full-body quake.

Bands of release threatened to explode just from his crude gesture. Unlike elixir that stripped away my thoughts and control, this new aphrodisiac made me embrace all my badness, my wetness, and sexual power.

With shaking hands, I obeyed him.

Ripping at stitches and tearing at silk, I shoved off velvet and opals then kneeled before him naked. My chest rose and fell, my breathing noisy and needy. And Sully’s savage stare corrupted me as I crawled to him, balanced on one knee then raised one foot to spread my legs.

I bared myself before him, utterly graphic and bold.

“Goddammit, woman, you’ll give me another fucking heart attack.” Sully reached for me, but I snagged his wrist and guided his hand toward me.

I rubbed his fingers through the lust dampening my inner thighs, then with our stare locked together, I inserted his fingers inside me.

He wasn’t prepared for what happened.

Neither was I.

The moment his fingers penetrated my pussy, I ignited and shattered in sparks. The magic in my blood, that he’d coded and created, exploded outward in golden bolts. My insides rippled around his intrusion, my back bowed, my mouth opened, and I came apart as a woman and as his so-called witch.

The ballroom filled with magic. Blinding and binding, skipping through the air with chemistry. More golden sorcery siphoned around us as I came harder, deeper. A womb-deep clench that left me gasping for air as I slumped on Sully’s hand.

Oxygen didn’t find me but Sully’s tongue did.

His mouth crashed onto mine. His lips claiming me, his teeth sinking into me, his tongue plunging in time with his fingers. He kissed me like an animal who’d reached the end of his rope. The chain that’d been lashed around his throat since he was born fell away.

Snarling into my mouth, he gathered me off the floor and twisted me onto all fours.

His hand locked into my hair, cricking my neck to continue kissing me while he rose behind me and mounted.

He penetrated and took.

He fucked me like he had as the caveman.

Fierce and brutal, punishingly swift and sure.

“Take me, Jinx. Goddammit, take it all.”

His impalement shoved me forward but his fingers around my hips brought me back. His balls slapped against my clit, and whatever drug we’d dabbled in flared and ignited.

“Fuck, Eleanor.” He rode me. Hard. Fast. “Fuck!”

The noises of his flesh hitting mine filled the cotton-cloud ballroom. He plastered himself over my back, laying kiss after kiss along my nape, spine, and shoulders.

I cried out and gave him everything I was.

There was nothing to hide anymore. No secret I had to swallow or quirk I had to mask. This man knew everything, and he loved every part.

He loved me when I was human.

He loved me when I was immortal.

He loved me past beauty, past pleasure, and pain.

He loved me as I loved him.

For his soul.

The part of him no one else had touched, and the part that I would shield every day for the rest of my life.

My knees bruised as he took me like a primitive beast.

His grunts sent shivers down my spine.

His pawing made wetness slick around his cock.

But it was his voice that made me come for the second time.

“You are—”

Thrust.

“—everything.”

My detonation triggered his and he pounded into me, not being gentle, being downright mean as he fed me the gushes of his release. His fingernails dug into my flesh, leaving marks. His cum branded deep within me, so I knew exactly who I belonged to, and we rode an identical high, glowing with the same electrical alchemy that existed whenever we touched.

Hoarse and panting hard, Sully slowly stopped thrusting, locking his cock inside me. He didn’t go soft. He didn’t fall to the side thanks to weeks of unconsciousness and so many broken bones. He was too stubborn for that. Too wrapped up in me, his wife.

Biting my shoulder, he twisted me until I was on my back. My legs spread and his cock still impaled inside me. “Now that we’ve got the initial intensity out of the way, it’s time I worshipped every part of you, don’t you agree?” He drank in my nakedness. “I particularly feel like watching you come with your legs around your ears.” Grabbing my calves, he rolled me up my spine until my legs bent and my knees pressed against my cheeks.

He looked down where we were joined. “Now that’s a view, my kinky wife.”

The girl who’d been sold to him would’ve blushed and tried to hide.

The woman who’d married him bared her teeth and murmured, “Go ahead, husband, make me come again. But after that, it’s my turn.”

He laughed.

A perfect brilliant sound that I would never get tired of hearing. Bending over me, he thrust deep and kissed me.

He kissed with a sweeping tongue and sinful taste as he began to ride and murmured, “We have the rest of our lives, Eleanor Sinclair. And I intend to pleasure you every moment of it.”