Chapter Fifteen

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I’D NEVER BEEN A trapped gazelle in a cage with a lion before. I’d never been a gerbil fed to a snake, just waiting for it to pounce. But I knew exactly how those poor critters would have felt as I stood waiting for Sully Sinclair to snap.

His back strained beneath his immaculate suit. His fists never uncurled by his sides as he kept his gaze trained on the door, as if it could somehow be stripped from its hinges and used as a weapon against me.

Neither of us said a word. The silence between us became sharper and more deadly than any knife or blade.

My heart no longer pumped but whirred like a broken apparatus, racing toward its final beat, confused about its purpose. The adrenaline drenching my system told it to race and race until it finally popped from exertion, so at least I would die a quick death. But the poor thing struggled against the sickening palpitations, fighting to find a life-giving rhythm, destining me to Sully’s fury.

I swallowed hard as he finally turned around.

Slowly.

Ever, ever so slowly.

He moved as if a sudden noise or motion would snap his hard-fought control. He acted as if he was afraid of his own wrath, which in turn made me petrified.

I wished I could go back in time and never open my mouth. I wished I’d been strong enough to withstand his taunts and torments. Why had I let him get under my skin so badly? Why had I let loose even while I’d desperately tried to shut myself up?

I blushed all over again, reliving the horror of what I’d snarled. The truth of it was undeniable. The righteousness of it utterly deserved. But I didn’t want to die, no matter how reckless I’d been. I didn’t want to suffer a punishment that would leave me bedbound and unable to find an escape.

Stupid.

So, so stupid, Eleanor.

He stood facing me. His dark hair stayed swept off his face with its bronze-tips glinting like treasure in the strands. His eyes seemed to glow with the depths of the sea. Not just blue—not just aquamarine or turquoise, but a blend of every pigment: sunshine and shadow, depths and shallows, turmoil and debilitating temper.

His jaw worked as he ground his teeth. His powerful throat corded with muscle, and a vein pumped visibly as he continued to hold himself in check.

I’d meant what I’d said that I found him diabolical and vile. But I’d lied when I called him grotesque. Had I called him that, or had I managed to keep that one accusation swallowed?

Either way, he wasn’t grotesque—not in the physical way at least.

He was probably the most stunning man I’d ever get close to in my entire life. His tall height was perfect for my leggy length. His features were symmetrical and masculine. His hands fit my body. His fingers knew how to draw pleasure. His cock was every girl’s wet dream.

Yet...funny how his physical attributes did nothing for me.

His soul was putrid, and because of that, I found him utterly unattractive.

The tense standoff between us lasted for far too long. My knees started to shake, and the power at telling him off quickly faded for jittery nausea. Not that I’d let him see that. Not that I’d back down—not when I was the one to pick this fight.

Finally, he cracked his neck again, forced his hands to spread as if draining a few drops of his temper through his fingertips, then slowly, he came toward me.

Last time, I’d held my ground. I was too foggy with yelling at him and high on my own disregard for my life.

This time, I’d had too long to cool down, and I was far, far too aware of what he could do to me.

He could kill me.

He could honestly, truly kill me, and no one would care.

But that wasn’t the worst he could do.

First, he could do an untold number of things to me until I begged for him to kill me.

He’d proven he had no morals. He’d shown he had no regard for my health.

Shit.

I bolted away.

I scrambled around the huge angular table, hoping to put the large expanse between us, so I could at least debate my life before he stole it.

But...my sudden reaction unleashed him.

The temper he’d been trying to swallow into the pits of his belly snapped, and he launched after me.

His shoes slapped on the sandstone tiles, pushing him into speed.

My bare feet gripped on the floor, but it was no use.

I ran.

He caught me.

In one second flat, he grabbed my hair with one unforgiving fist, marched me toward the table, then folded me forward until my belly and breasts squished against the cool wood, and his rock-hard thighs and cock pressed me into submission.

He shuddered.

I arched up, trying to remove his hold.

The pressure on my nape restrained me. My hair spilled from his hold while the messy strands cascaded over my cheek and onto the table.

He didn’t speak for a second, breathing deliberately, the puff of his hard exhalations tickling my exposed skin.

“You’re new. You’re young. You’re afraid.” His voice sounded as if a decade had gone by. A decade where he’d been drinking saltwater and smoking endlessly. He sounded gruff and rough and entirely slipped from his throne of decorum. “For those reasons alone, I’m doing my best not to ruin you.”

His free hand skated over my side, caressing my contours, touching the globes of my breasts flattened on the table. “I’m also reminding myself that thanks to your little ‘outburst’, the amount men will pay has just quadrupled.”

He chuckled blackly. “Men are all the same, you see. We pretend we want amiable and capable. We tell poised and powerful women that we are proud and find their independence such a fucking turn-on. But really...we want a fight. We want claws and disobedience because then it gives us the right to retaliate.” He grabbed a handful of my ass, squeezing brutally hard.

I’d have bruises. I’d remember his possessive grip for all time.

“You’ve had a chance to tell me your truth, now...allow me to return the favour.” His hand slipped to my crack, tracing the sensitive, personal area and making me squirm uncomfortably. “Because you are new here, you lack appreciation of how rare it was for me to request the company of a girl. I never bother myself with a goddess once they’ve arrived. I leave their initiation and training to the highly qualified and obscenely paid staff who ensure my girls are content and my guests are sated and well catered to.”

“You’re not god, you know. Let me go.”

“Hush. Your time of talking is over.” He dipped a finger into my crack, pressing my underwear tight against my flesh. “It’s time to listen, rebellious Jinx.”

Not allowing me any leeway, he shoved his free hand up my dress and found the waistband of my lacy peach knickers that I’d found in the wardrobe in my villa. Without any request or hesitation, he yanked them down.

I clamped my thighs together.

It made no difference.

He kept pulling until air licked my exposed skin and the horrid sensation of having pieces of me stripped away once again made angry tears burn my eyes.

“You act as if I’m the worst human alive. You paint me as the villain, even if your life wasn’t as perfect as you make it out to be before you were stolen. You detest me.” Keeping his one hand clutching my nape and pinning me down, he bent as much as he could and jerked my knickers to the floor.

They locked around my ankles as he kicked my legs apart, acting as shackles, reminding me I was his prisoner, whether I wanted it or not.

His hand clamped on my hipbone. “Do you know my goddesses would be insanely jealous if they saw you? If they saw us.” He rocked his groin into me, hinting only his clothing stopped him from taking anything he wanted. “I have eavesdroppers. They report on what my girls discuss.” His voice lowered to a whisper, sharing a secret with me. “They plot for ways to seduce me. To trick me into falling in love with them.”

Bending over me fully, his suit brought stagnant heat and unbearable weight against my back. “Want to know why? Why bought and sold women no longer hate me but devise ways to make me keep them?” He bit the shell of my ear. “Because, little Jinx, they want access, not just to my fortunes, but to this very island they call home. They never want to leave. They don’t want to stop being free in their pleasure. They want to fuck and orgasm for the rest of their godforsaken lives. And they think by fucking me, they’ll get their wish.”

I moaned against my will as his hand trailed between my legs, stopping dangerously high on the inside of my thigh. “Are you wet?”

His question was short and sharp, unlike his lulling storybook of lies from before.

I bared my teeth with rage. I struggled to look into his eyes, unable to turn my head with his unyielding hold. “No, I am not wet, you cretin. You didn’t force-feed me that drug, so hell no, I’m not wet. I will never get wet for you.”

He chuckled low and vain. “Never is a challenge.”

“Never is the truth.”

His eyebrow cocked. “I think I’ll find a different truth.” He laid more weight on me, making it hard to breathe. His mouth found my ear again, but this time, he didn’t speak.

He kissed.

His lips were soft and coaxing, gentle and confiding. His tongue traced the shape of my lobe, trailing down my throat, pausing over my pounding pulse.

“Get off me!”

He made a guttural noise as I bucked beneath him, hating, hating, hating that heat swarmed outward; an intoxicating melting in my core that had nothing to do with this perverse punishment and everything to do with hardwiring of skin and synapses and the unbreakable connection of touch and want.

It was as debilitating as taking a drug to hijack my brain’s pathways. Yesterday, he’d used my mental desire against me. Today, he conjured entirely physical. Both I had no control over, even though I hated him to the point of tears. Even though I would willingly stab a dagger into his black-crippled heart. “Stop.”

“Not until I prove a point.”

“There is no point.”

“There is if you’re wet.” A smile tainted his vibrating timbre. “Wouldn’t that just topple you further from your self-imposed grace?”

“Don’t mistake a bodily function for anything other than what it is.”

“So, you’re saying I should just fuck you and not hold myself back because it’s just a bodily function?”

I tried to hide my fearful quake. I didn’t succeed. “You can do anything you want to me. You’ve proven that over and over again. You could fuck me. You could kill me. There is no one to stop you. But you’re lying to yourself if you think I want you just because my body might do something against my will.”

“So you don’t deny I’m making you wet.”

“You have nothing to do with it. It’s—”

“I have everything to do with it.” His lips skated over my throat again, making me shudder. “You’re flushed. In another few minutes, I guarantee when I insert a finger inside you, you’ll want it.”

“I’ll never want it,” I growled as much as I could with him stopping my ribcage from expanding for air. “A man gets hard because of blood flow to the area. A woman gets wet because of the same thing. It’s just biology.”

“It’s stimulation.” He unsheathed his teeth, scraping sharp canines along the path he’d just kissed.

“It’s manipulation.” I bucked again, wedging my hands under me against the table, trying to push up.

He pulled back a fraction, giving me space to inhale a large suck of oxygen. The life-giving air made my head swim, and for the first time since waking after the most horrendous day of my life yesterday, I noticed how weak I was.

How my biceps wobbled without much strength. How my stomach fluttered around emptiness. How my entire body started to shake, almost uncontrollably—not because of Sully’s nasty experiment, but because my blood sugar levels had finally crashed.

Whatever leftover energy I had vanished in a single breath, leaving me woozy, nauseous, and feeble.

I’d never let myself get to this level of starvation before. I was a smart traveller and always had muesli bars, trail mix, or a sugary drink in my bag, just in case we were exploring too far from a food source.

But here, I hadn’t eaten since arriving. All I’d had was some stale crackers in a plane crate. God, how long ago was that? This monster thought he looked after his possessions. He gloated about his girls wanting to seduce him so they became his for eternity when he couldn’t even stop torturing me long enough to ensure I wouldn’t die from malnutrition.

It took every shred of pride I had left, but I let my arms buckle, surrendering to his control. “I’m not feeling very well.”

Any ordinary man would back off immediately. He’d ask questions, figure out my malady, and do his utmost to ensure I felt better.

This man...he just chuckled in my ear and trailed his fingers to brush against the lips of my sex. “Lies won’t get you free.” He sucked in a breath as he teased the tip of one finger inside me. “Just like lies about your wetness are bullshit.”

God, the pain.

I tensed against the sore, swollen muscles of my million orgasms yesterday. I flinched against the agonising oversensitivity. Every part of me had been brutalised, thanks to his elixir, and just the tiniest touch today was a talon, a claw, a machete.

“Sore, Eleanor?” he murmured, easing the entire length of his finger inside. “Were you a bit rough with yourself yesterday?”

I squeezed my eyes shut as he stroked me.

He didn’t drive his finger deep and ruthless. Instead, he feathered his touch as if fully aware of how excruciating it was for me.

His hand around my nape let me go, brushing aside my hair to press a kiss directly on the beads of my spine. His gentleness was totally unexpected after his unleashed fury from before.

My lack of food left me with no reserves, and tears bled from my eyes, splashing on the table.

“Do you concede that I was right?”

I didn’t reply. I kept my eyes closed. I tried not to focus on the spinning room.

His finger dived in and out, revealing, in very explicit terms, that there was lubrication. That I was wet—not drenched like I was yesterday, but definitely not dry.

I’d known the second he’d kissed my ear that I didn’t stand a chance. All women knew when they were wet, and I couldn’t deny he’d won.

But I couldn’t let him win.

Lying prone on the table with his hand between my legs, I hissed, “I’m glad I’m wet.”

His breath caught, his voice layered with black suspicion. “You are?”

I nodded, catching my hair on the lacquered wood. “At least my body has protected me from the pain of your touch. At least you can’t hurt me, no matter how hard you try. You could fuck me and call it punishment, but because my body anticipated something so heinous from you, I won’t have any lasting effects. No tearing because I’m too dry. No blood because I’m not ready. You would just be yet another bastard who took what wasn’t his to take, and I would forget about you the moment it was over. My wetness ensures you are nothing. Just a temporary nightmare that will be over soon. The moment you finish, I would never think about you again. I would never—”

“Fuck, you have no self-preservation.” His one finger became two in one deep, dangerous thrust.

I winced and cried out.

“Believe me, Eleanor Grace, if I ever fucked you, I’d be highly fucking memorable. I’d erase all other lovers. You’d never want anyone else. You couldn’t have anyone else.” His teeth snapped by my ear. “You’d be mine the moment I took you.”

He arched his wrist, diving deep.

I cried out again as my hipbones smashed against the table.

His hand drove between my legs, proving what I’d just said. He could stretch me, claim me, use me...but he couldn’t hurt me—not in ways past the pain of overuse yesterday. However, he could try. He could bruise and break and ultimately kill, but if he thought he could make me want him?

He was fucking delusional.

Natural biology ensured my body would be his plaything, but it allowed my mind to turn off. After all, this was good training. If I didn’t find a way off this island soon, I would no doubt be forced to sleep with one of his horrid guests.

Sex is just sex, Ellie.

Think of it as walking and running. It’s just an activity.

A start and a finish and then you’re done.

Sully yanked his touch away, ripped me from the table, then spun me around to face him. “Who are you?” He shook me, his fingers digging into my shoulders. “Who the fuck are you?”

The sudden motion of horizontal to vertical and spinning in a circle was the final straw on my already incapacitated nervous system.

No reserves.

No strength.

I wobbled as he grabbed my chin with the same fingers that’d been inside me, leaving a musky slippery brand upon my skin. “I should kill you right now...put us both out of our misery.”

I repelled away from him.

The room swam.

And I did something I’d never done before.

No...

No...

Too late.

I fainted.

Right there at his feet.