Chapter Two

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“COME WALK WITH ME?”

Two days after our visit to Serigala, I looked up from the text-heavy PDF about a promising drug to treat Alzheimer’s. The reading glasses I used these days slid down my nose as I looked up at the most stunning creature I’d ever seen.

Thanks to Drake putting God knew what into my eyes when he’d tortured me, I struggled in certain lights. Most of the time, I could see fine, but at night or if I’d been on my computer for too long, a haze appeared. Then again, I could just be getting old.

After all, I just celebrated my thirty-eighth birthday.

I wasn’t old, old by any means, but I wasn’t a spring chicken either. Not nearly as young as my delectable wife. I had eleven years on her. Eleven years where I’d existed and she hadn’t. Thank hell she was born, even a few years late, because I would’ve lived a lonely fucking life if she hadn’t.

Eleanor stood with her hands on her hips in an open bronze kimono that showed honey golden skin, willowy legs, and toned stomach. Her breasts filled out her black bikini and her hair—the same hair that I found such a fucking turn-on—spilled over one shoulder in a twisted chocolate rope.

Five years we’d been married, and in that time, she hadn’t cut it. She’d requested I trim it occasionally to keep the ends tidy, but every day on my shores, she seemed more and more wild. Stunning in her simplicity, breath-stealing in her natural beauty.

Tossing my e-tablet onto the deck lounger where I sat overlooking Nirvana as the waterfall splashed and crashed in the moonlight, I swallowed a sudden growl. “You come to me looking like that and think a walk is what I want?”

She grinned, running her hand through her gorgeous hair. “I deliberately wore this to bribe you into a walk. If that walk ends with me pinned against a palm tree, then so be it.” Her grey eyes sparkled as Pika and Skittles darted from the lounge behind her.

She laughed as Pika dive-bombed my hair and Skittles chirped loudly in my ear. The two cheeky caiques were on her side it seemed.

Adjusting my rapidly hardening cock, I swung my legs to the deck and stood. My legs had healed from the multiple broken bones, also courtesy of Drake, and to anyone other than my wife, I walked strong and sure.

Eleanor was the only one who noticed my slight limp, thanks to the scar tissue left behind from the harpoon wound. I didn’t need the cane she’d had made for me these days, but it still rested by my bed as a memory of the weeks of care she’d given me, all while I’d struggled to stay alive and return to her.

Her eyes raked over me, her tongue licking her lips. “You are a stunning specimen of a man.”

I let her feast on me. “I aim to please.”

“Oh, you do, you definitely do.” Her hungry gaze found the growing bulge between my legs.

Like Eleanor, I was mostly undressed. That was the beauty of living in the tropics. Just black board-shorts required. Convenient when I wanted her. So fucking easy to shed a single layer and pounce, instead of navigating through jackets and jeans and underwear of more civilised city folk. “I think I’ll skip the walk.” Removing my glasses, I let them fall to the empty deck lounger behind me. “Come here.”

“Nope.” She held out her hand. “Let’s walk to my old villa and swim in the sea.”

“We have a perfectly good waterfall here. Let’s swim in that.” I stepped toward her. “Let’s fuck in that.”

Her grey eyes sparkled with lusty smoke. “I feel like saltwater instead of fresh.” Licking her lips, she added, “You could fuck me on the beach.”

My stomach clenched as my cock hardened further. “It seems you’re still a master at putting curses on me.” I fisted my thickening erection. “This is your doing, and I can’t walk while I’m so hard. Put me out of my misery and—”

“Patience makes everything sweeter.” Grabbing my wrist, she tugged my hand away from my cock and yanked me through our villa. The driftwood furniture and seagrass mat kept the interior simple and uncluttered, meaning we didn’t have to dodge heavy coffee tables or cupboards to reach the front door and slip into the heat-oppressive night.

A swim did sound good.

A swim beneath the cloudless star-scattered sky sounded almost as enticing as ripping off her bikini and pushing her against a tree.

But...Eleanor was right.

Anticipation was the best kind of foreplay.

Fine, I could be patient.

I think.

Tucking her into my side, I looked down her cleavage and the pinpricks of hard nipples beneath black Lycra. “I can see you’re aroused, but how much?” Licking the shell of her ear, I asked, “How wet are you, Jinx?”

She shivered in my hold, but she didn’t blush. We’d shared too many deliciously deviant things together to be embarrassed. “I’m getting wetter with every step. I will admit, I didn’t think this through. A twenty-minute walk might just kill me.” She blinked in the darkness. “Feel free to select any palm tree to have your wicked way with me.”

I grinned. “Oh, you’re not getting off that easy. You’re the one who wanted to torture us. I’ll oblige.”

She moaned under her breath. “Tease.”

“Witch.” Chuckling, we fell into a familiar pace, leaving behind our home by Nirvana and stepping through the dark jungle where most nocturnal animals came awake and feasted on berries and moths. Most birds should be roosting by now but not our two parrots. The emerald flashes of their wings hinted they followed us, zipping through shadowy bushes and shooting toward the stars just because they could.

“You have a good day?” Eleanor asked.

My heart fisted. Who would’ve thought I’d be as enthralled to share my day with her as I was about having sex? Our domestication was as precious to me as entering Euphoria and having a night of freaky inhibition as cavewoman and Neanderthal.

That was one of our favourite fantasies, and we’d replayed it multiple times over the years.

I kissed her temple, unable to stop myself from squeezing her hip. “Yeah, good. Promising advances in a few areas. Peter Beck is keen to move to human trials.”

“That’s great.” She smiled. “I’m glad. Oh, did you hear the news about Rapture? We’ve been awarded the best Couple Retreat and Relationship Repair Award from Romance Tourism.”

I nodded. “I did. You should be proud.”

“Not me.” She shook her head, sending her long hair tickling my forearm wrapped around her waist. “You. Without your VR and cinta, we’d be just another place for doomed marriages to drag out their death in a therapist’s office.”

“You’re the one who started that side of our business, Eleanor. Don’t sell yourself short. The success of Rapture is all thanks to you.”

“Maybe, but only because I was too selfish to have guests stay here.” She waved her arm at our perfect solitude. At Pika and Skittles having an aerial battle above and the soft hoots of owls in the gloom. Sandstone-carved lanterns guided us with patches of stencilled light on the sand, and the only hint that we lived in a world where other humans existed was the faint laughter of a staff member enjoying his evening in the distance.

“I couldn’t share this. Even though the goddess villas are empty and could’ve easily been rented out.”

“I’m glad you suggested offsite. I’m glad Rapture is doing so well, and I’m also glad we don’t have guests upon these shores anymore.”

Rapture was the name of the three-island atoll I’d leased long term, just off the coast of Tahiti. We’d built matching villas there, designed guest areas, activities, and built a new Euphoria building.

Euphoria used to be how I made a shit ton of money renting out goddesses to men who wanted certain kicks. Now, it saved dysfunctional marriages.

Here, Euphoria had long since been transformed into an animal sanctuary, but on Rapture...a new chapter had begun. My virtual reality technology, coupled with the playrooms and aphrodisiac I’d tweaked from elixir, had been given a new purpose.

On Rapture, it helped unhappy couples duke out their problems, argue out their grievances, and then make up in spectacular fucking fashion.

Some couples, along with therapy and a weeklong stay—away from the stress of life and meddling families—were able to focus on the nucleus of why they married each other and return home with a much happier marriage. Unfortunately, some couples, despite the immersion and help we gave them, couldn’t let their guards down to even step into the virtual reality playground and divorced anyway.

And then there were the couples who enjoyed their fantasies so much, they purchased a home kit of VR sensors and a bottle of cinta to ensure sex remained fun within their relationship.

Thanks for the sales of VR and the outside use of my heavily copyrighted technology, yet another branch of our business had emerged.

The sensors that convinced a human’s mind that what they heard, saw, felt, and tasted were as real as the life around them ensured such corporations like space travel, deep-sea diving, and everything in between had purchased kits for education.

Companies could now provide their staff with training before they ever had to put their life on the line.

Along with allowing tertiary places to bolster their classrooms with my device, I hired computer programmers to continue my crusade to stop all animal mistreatment in labs, slaughterhouses, and in meat, dairy, and egg industries.

With just a few sensors, people could now enter environments never open to the public before. They could step into a production plant of wheat and cereal. They could stand next to conveyor belts as toothbrushes were made from bamboo instead of plastic. And they could also witness the bone-chilling truth of mass animal cultivation and murder for consumerism.

They could feel the splash of a cow’s blood as its throat was slit. They could smell the stench of defecation, knowing they were about to die. They could watch a thousand baby male chicks being tossed into a blender because they weren’t valuable egg layers.

Before Eleanor, I wasn’t proud of many things I’d done.

I bought women. I rented those women out. I felt no guilt because I only did to them what humans did to animals. I used our own laws of inequality to pad my wallet and justify my sins.

Now though, I was proud that in recent years, more and more people were waking up to the lies of corruption and the risk of their own health by eating the rancid panic of caged and miserable creatures. Things were changing. And I liked to think I had a small part in that.

I was also immensely proud of Eleanor.

Of her capacity for creating and running, not only a profitable company, but one that gave beneficial gifts toward people’s happiness. I loved sharing ideas and brainstorming our next foray together.

I just loved her. In every way.

Every thought and twitch.

Every smile and snicker.

She owned me, heart and fucking soul.

“We should plan another visit one day.” She rested her head on my arm as we continued strolling in the moonlight. “See if the weather is as perfect in the South Pacific as it is in Indonesia.”

“Perhaps.”

We walked in silence until the manicured jungle fell away and the beach appeared. Not a single breeze tonight. Not a ripple in the ocean. Stars bounced back in the mirror of black sea, a half-moon blindingly silver in two glittering locations.

Pika and Skittles stuck to the treeline while Eleanor and I slipped bare feet through silky warm sand and waded into the shallows.

We both sighed with contentment. Drinking in the stunning view, we thanked fate and everything magical that we’d found each other and were so fucking lucky to live in paradise.

“Wonder if Jess and Cal are looking at the sky right now.” Eleanor tipped her head to the heavens, sending sheets of hair rippling down her back. My lust returned with a fist to my gut. Spinning her into me, I sank both hands into the strands at her nape and tugged her head back. “I don’t fucking care what they’re doing.”

I kissed her hard.

Dropping one hand from her hair to press against her lower back, I joined our hips together.

She moaned as I thrust into her, showing her my hard-on, hinting that the time for talking was over.

Kissing her, I plucked her from the shallow sea and waded deeper.

I didn’t stop until warm salt licked around my chest and threatened to make me buoyant.

Biting her lower lip, I let her go and shoved away her kimono until it floated on the surface before slowly waterlogging and sinking. With rough hands, I untied her bikini and let the scraps vanish. Unlike the time I’d tried to rescue her when she was high on elixir and I was knocking on death’s door, there was nothing manic about this.

We’d fucked in the sea numerous times, and each time was a testament to our lust and the fact that even after years of marriage, we still hungered desperately for each other.

Her hands worked beneath the surface, ripping the Velcro holding my board shorts together and splaying them wide to dive her hand inside.

I hissed as her small fingers wrapped around my cock.

She pumped me all while I manhandled her legs to wrap around my hips, spreading her wide for me. I went to kiss her, but she angled her mouth away with a minx-like smile on her lips. “You know, that first week that I was captive here, I watched you swimming pretty much right where we are. I was spying on Jupiter, Neptune, and Calico as they drank cocktails and gossiped about you.” Her eyes glowed. “Did you see me that night? You knew I was hiding...so I’ve always wondered if you saw me before coming to shore.”

I grinned, running my right hand over the swell of her hip and dipping between her legs.

She gasped as I touched her, rubbing my finger over her clit before teasing inside her. “I wasn’t swimming.”

“No?” She groaned as I pushed my finger inside to the first knuckle. Withdrawing and pushing, I fucked her slowly, coaxing her body to become wet and slippery.

“I had my hand on my cock. I was fucking myself, all because I couldn’t get you out of my goddamn mind.” I speared two fingers inside her as far as they could go.

She spasmed in my hold. Her hand clutched at my cock. “Ah, God. So...you saw me. From out here?”

“Of course, I saw you. I saw you looking out to sea as if someone would come rescue you. I saw you sucking in air as if forcing yourself to stay brave. I saw you trying to figure out what was out at sea, not knowing it was me masturbating only a few metres away, wishing I was balls deep inside you.” I inserted a third finger, spreading her, thrusting and taking.

“God, Sully.” Her head fell back, giving me access to bite her delicious throat.

I ran my tongue along her skin, tasting salt and Eleanor.

Her fingers squeezed my cock, harder and faster, moving in time with my fingers inside her. “You bought me, and I hated you, yet I listened to those goddesses fantasising about you, and I wondered, just for a moment, what it would be like to touch you the way they wanted.”

“They were never allowed.”

“Just me.”

“Just you. Only you. Always you.”

She shivered as I kissed her again. We kissed and tongues tangled, and our hands punished each other, making whimpers fall from her and growls from me.

Breathing hard, she murmured, “Strange question but...why did you only buy women? You never bought any men to rent out.”

I unsheathed my teeth and bit down, kissing and nipping her throat. “That is a strange fucking question.”

She shrugged, breathy and trembling. “The only men on this island were your guards, trapping us.”

“And you wanted some male prisoners because...why? You thought they might’ve helped get you free from me?” Jealousy rose in my chest, making me cruel. Ripping my fingers from her pussy, I grabbed her chin. “No one was going to save you from me, Jinx. I wanted you before you even arrived. You were never getting off this island, help or no help.”

She let me tip her head sideways, dropping my hand to curl around her throat.

“I wasn’t looking to escape...Well, I was, but that isn’t why I asked.”

“Why did you then?” I shuddered as her hand continued to pump my cock.

“Because I found myself jealous listening to those goddesses discussing you. I hated you, but the thought of anyone else touching you made my hate sizzle with fire. Looking back now, I’m glad there were no women guests. That the only competition I had were goddesses instead of high-powered, wealthy women with freakish fetishes come to rent a toyboy in Euphoria...come to seduce the master of those boy toys.”

I struggled to smile, baring my teeth instead. “There’s never been anyone else for me, Eleanor.”

“I know...”

“You want to know why I only bought women? Why I only had a stable of goddesses instead of unwilling princes?” Knocking her hand off my cock, I grabbed the base and wrapped my arm tighter around her waist, angling us into position. “It’s because the women who would be interested in renting them scared the fucking shit out of me. Men are monsters, without a shadow of a doubt, but women? Fuck, they eat monsters for lunch.” I thrust up, filling my wife in one swift, possessive impale.

We both cried out.

Clawing at each other.

Kissing wetly, messily.

Thrusting in rhythm and letting our bodies fight, then sink into a fierce dance we knew so well.

When Eleanor and I fucked, we weren’t gentle. Just because we loved each other didn’t mean we didn’t cause bruises. Our passion was dangerously explosive, and we lived for that mayhem when chasing a mutual orgasm that left us breathless, bitten, and bruised.

“What does that make me then?” She panted as I fucked her, swift and sharp.

“You?”

“I’m a woman.”

“No, you’re the woman.”

“You’re saying I’m worse than you? That I’m more dangerous than you?”

I grinned, thrusting up and hitting the top of her pussy. She shivered and moaned, her eyes becoming unfocused. “I’m saying you’re dangerous in every way a woman is dangerous. You have the capacity to care and nurture, but you also have a gift of becoming cold-hearted and cutthroat. Men might be physically stronger, but women? Fuck, they can turn off their humanity just as easily. Better even.”

“I’m not like that.”

“Are you sure?” I kissed her.

Our tongues lashed and tangled.

Our thrusting bodies created tiny waves that spread out in ever-widening ripples, distorting the moon’s reflection.

“What would you do if I were in trouble or hurt by someone? If someone threatened my life again?”

Eleanor stiffened even as I thrust into her. “I’d do whatever it took to keep you safe. Whatever it took.” Her tone was icy and fierce, making my balls clench and heart skip.

“See, right there.” I hugged her tight. “You’re vicious... You just hide it. All women are vicious beneath their camouflage. Whatever men I could’ve rented out in Euphoria, let’s face it; they wouldn’t have survived as long as the goddesses. They would’ve broken.”

“Because women are monsters?”

“Humans are monsters.” I ran my thumb over her mouth. “And I’ve found my perfect match in you. Enough talk of the past, hypothetical or real.”

Eleanor smiled in the moonlight, sinking onto me, wrapping her legs tighter around me. “I love you, Sully Sinclair.”

“I know.” I stopped trying to be coherent and let my mind go. I allowed my blood to burn with the steady pressure of an orgasm. I fucked my wife as if she were my enemy, all while I worshipped her as if she could snuff out my sorry excuse of a life.

Because she could.

Capturing her mouth, I increased my speed until her breasts bounced in the sea, her cries turned louder, and the sound of her release echoed over the perfect midnight silence.

And I followed her.

I pumped inside and came in fisting waves of bliss.

I marked her as mine.

For always.