Chapter Twenty-Eight

––––––––

IT TURNED OUT MY willpower was shit.

I found Jealousy in the VR room, sitting on the couch by the wall, reading something on her e-reader. “She ready?”

She shook her head, tearing herself from whatever material she found engrossing. “I left her in there about fifteen minutes ago. I told her to take her time.”

Nodding, I deliberated just leaving.

I didn’t need to be here.

The program code was complete. Jealousy had Jinx’s cleanliness in hand, and my other staff knew their jobs backward. But...fuck it.

Without making eye contact with Jealousy, I marched to the glass door and pushed it open. The moment I entered the muggy, steamy bathroom, I shut and locked the door behind me.

Jinx wasn’t there.

My stomach knotted, and I darted forward, searching the shower, the toilet, the little koi carp pond made from a huge porcelain pot.

Nothing.

Goddammit.

Tearing my phone out of my pocket, I spun around and brought up the number for Calvin. I’d get him to hop in the fastest speedboat and circle the island.

She can’t have gotten far.

Just as I was about to connect the call, a caique parrot with the energy of a cocaine-snorting flea shot through the air and into the bathroom thanks to the open-air garden. He chirped and flapped around my head. “Not now,” I growled.

He landed on my head and did his trick of hanging upside down, latching onto my hair to stare me dead in the eye, making me go cross-eyed if I wanted to look at him.

“Pika...” I bared my teeth. “If you want to be useful, find that damn goddess that’s run away.”

My hand curled around my phone. I’d expected the worst from Eleanor...but it was highly fucking inconvenient that she’d decided to bolt mere moments before having to serve Markus Grammer.

The tiny parrot did an acrobatic flip off my forehead and flapped noisily around my ears. I rolled my eyes, holding up my hand so he could perch on a finger.

He landed instantly, still cawing and cackling as if telling me all the reasons I shouldn’t be here and why I should’ve done myself a favour and kicked Jinx off my island days ago.

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Bringing my hand to my face, I nuzzled into the little bird. Letting him peck my lips and coo into my cheek. He settled, still jumpy from my rage at finding an empty bathroom but content that I still loved him, and it wasn’t him I was mad at.

A gentle slosh and a trickle of water ripped me around.

I blinked.

A wash of red-hot need fired through my veins.

She hadn’t run away...after all.

Jinx sat up in the bath, water streaming over her face and hair, flower petals sticking to her bitter chocolate strands. The scent of sandalwood, orange, and vanilla coated her skin from soaking in a specially prepared blend.

The bath held so much water that only her face was visible, but it didn’t stop my cock from thickening to a steel rod.

Her grey eyes flickered from me to Pika and back again. For the longest second, confusion blended with something akin to shock. Her tongue swiped on her lower lip, sipping the droplets left there. Her hands curled around the edge of the bath, white-knuckled as if my presence drove her to homicidal rage.

“You’re still here.” I stepped toward her, not caring that Pika flew from my finger and flapped around my face like a tiny annoying shadow.

She didn’t look at me, preferring to follow the feathered fiend and his aerial acrobatics. “You have a pet?”

I shoved my hands into my pockets. “He’s not a pet.”

“Pet. Pet. Pet!” Pika shouted, darting to the floor and then to the ceiling. He knew he had her utmost attention, and he loved being the main event. He’d continue showing off until his wings fell off or he flew into a wall.

Which he had a tendency of doing.

“He can’t be wild.” Her eyes narrowed. “He talks and clearly adores you.”

I shrugged. “He goes where he wants and hangs out with who he chooses.”

“Sounds like he has more freedom than anyone on this island.”

“He does.” I ran a hand over my mouth. “Even more than me.” For the first time in my life, I had no fucking idea what to say. The usual commands and curses would fit. I could order her from the bath, make her hurry; prove I was still in control. But...there was something different between us. Something languid and expectant...a pause in the next paragraph.

She didn’t rush to fill the silence, and I drowned beneath white lightning possessiveness. Had I really agreed to let that asshole Grammer fuck her? What had I been thinking? It ought to be me with that right. She belonged to me, goddammit. And I wanted her. So. Fucking. Bad.

Moving toward her, I couldn’t ignore the chugging of my heartbeat as lust I’d done my best to ignore smashed through my walls.

I’d thought keeping my distance would eradicate whatever curse she’d put on me.

It’d only made it stronger.

Fuck.

She huddled in the bath, sinking into the warmth until only her eyes were visible. The dark stone blurred her body, hiding her in shadows and illusion.

I fought against every fucking urge not to snatch her and take her for my own. Instead, I swallowed back starvation for sex, and grunted, “Why are you a vegetarian?”

A question that’d driven me mad. A question that kept me up at night and refused to let me masturbate in the morning. A question that could ensure her safety or her damnation.

She popped back up again, sucking in air, her eyes glowing grey with perplexity. “You want to know why I’m a...vegetarian?”

I nodded, gritting my teeth so I didn’t do all the debasing acts currently running on a highlight reel inside my mind.

Slowly, she shrugged. “Why is that important?”

It’s important.

Highly fucking important.

I shrugged, nonchalant and cold. “It’s not. Just answer the damn question.”

She flinched at my curt command. Droplets decorated her eyelashes like tiny diamonds. She blinked, scattering them onto her cheeks. “I’ve never liked the taste of meat. I just...one day, I decided I didn’t want to eat it anymore.”

I didn’t like her answer. It revealed nothing about her. It didn’t show me what I was beginning to suspect about her. The horrible conclusion that we shared yet another similarity. Our tempers, our desire to control until we couldn’t anymore, our stupid morals that got us into this fucking mess.

“That’s it?” I encroached on her, towering over her while she hunched in the liquid, water licking every inch that I wanted to.

“What else is there?” Her question was timid but also laced with fire.

“If you can’t answer that, then—”

“It was a moral obligation,” she blurted. Her gaze followed Pika as he hurtled himself toward a small orchid plant potted on the vanity. He slid down one of the slippery leaves, crashing into the centre of the foliage. “It’s recognising that a life is a life. There is no difference between flesh, feather, or fur.”

Well, fuck.

She’d just ruined any future she might’ve had.

“Stand up.” I moved until my shoes clacked against the quartz bathtub.

“What? No. I’m naked.” Her arms wrapped around her breasts.

“So? I’ve seen you bare. I’ve had my fingers in your cunt.”

“But...” Her cheeks pinked as if there was a difference between letting me see her naked while under the influence of elixir versus now when she was innocent and safe in the bath.

My temper ticked tighter and tighter the longer she refused. My lust amplified until I shuddered with need. I should leave before I did something that would null and void the agreement I had with Grammer. I should fucking walk out that door and not come back.

But...

This girl.

This confusing, disorienting, dangerous girl.

I wanted a taste.

Just one tiny taste before I handed her over.

“You should’ve done what I said.” My voice massacred each and every syllable. Before she could fight back or argue, I bent down, shoved my hand into the delicious thick wetness of her hair and jerked. I yanked her from the sweet-smelling water. I fisted her hair and used it as a rope to wrench her onto her knees in the bath.

And then, before I could stop myself, I pulled a little harder, bringing her mouth to mine, slamming our lips together with pain and pressure.

She cried out.

I groaned.

I hadn’t kissed anyone in a very, very long time.

An eternity really.

And this wasn’t a kiss.

This was domination. This was taking. This was beyond any fucking kiss that ever existed.

Her lips tried to stay locked against mine, but I’d never been good at asking permission. I took what I wanted. I carved out my own rules on a slate tablet and enforced every commandment.

This girl would obey me.

Fuck, she had to obey me. Otherwise...

I stabbed my tongue past her lips and into her mouth.

Her teeth tried to bite, but I jerked her head back, clamping my free hand around her throat. Trapped, I had her completely at my mercy as I plunged my tongue in, over and over, tasting her, destroying her, destroying myself.

Water sloshed all over my trousers as she fought to get free. Her chest pumped with erratic oxygen. Her body floundered in the bath.

But I didn’t let go.

I just kissed her deeper.

I let myself have one thing of hers. To be the first to kiss her. To be the first to steal her soul.

Her hands clawed at my tie, forcing me to bend deeper.

For every attack she punished me with, I retaliated tenfold. I licked every dark place inside her. I wrapped my fist deeper into her hair, holding her forever. I tightened my hand around her jaw, feeling our tongues nudge against her cheeks as she fought to remove me from her mouth.

Only...our fight somehow turned into a desperate war. Her teeth caught my tongue, drawing blood. My teeth caught hers, threatening payback.

My heart pounded. My back ached. My entire bottom half was drenched.

And I couldn’t get enough.

Jerking hard, I pulled her from her knees to her feet. She rose from the bathtub like some nymph from the sea. Water sluiced over her, swirling over tight nipples and gliding through trimmed pubic hair. Her flat stomach, her long legs, her delicacy and strength and—

I didn’t stop kissing her, biting her, fucking drowning in her.

My hand dropped from her jaw to her throat and down to her breast.

I squeezed her hard, fingering her nipple until a deep-seated, feral moan escaped her kiss-bitten mouth.

I’d never been so fucking hard.

Our eyes locked as I continued slaughtering her mouth.

She not only battled against me but also herself. One second she lost herself, kissing me back, violently, explosively. The next she retreated, snapping and wriggling, trying to dislodge my control.

But no matter her disgust or her desire, I continued to take everything I could.

Dragging her from the bathtub, I plastered her to my body and thrust into her naked, wet body. My cock throbbed in agony, trapped behind drenched material and an unforgiving belt.

She snarled as I kissed her, then spun her around. Pushing her, she stumbled and automatically clutched the bath lip. She looked over her shoulder where I frantically scrambled at my zipper.

Every tattered heartbeat told me to claim her, fuck her...own her before another could.

Take her. Take her. Take her.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

Kicking her feet apart, I managed to pop my button and winced in torture as my cock pierced the top of my pants.

She shuddered.

Tears spilled down her cheeks, mingling with her bath.

And for the first time since I was nineteen, I let someone tell me what to do.

“Please...don’t,” she whispered. Not crying. Not begging. Just...asking me quietly not to rape her.

I stumbled back.

Life came crashing in.

How quickly I’d changed the vibe in this bathroom from sensual and humid to tense and treacherous.

Pika squawked and landed on her head, brandishing his little wings at me, his eyes bright and accusing. The flash of his green, yellow, and white feathers looked like a centrepiece of her invisible crown.

Condemning me.

Revealing just how far I’d been prepared to go.

Swiping both hands through my hair, I tripped to the door.

I couldn’t even twist my tongue into dialogue. I couldn’t remember how to talk.

She demoted me to nothing more than a beast.

Pika flapped again as I unlocked the door and tripped through it, slamming it shut behind me.

Jealousy jumped up from her reading nook, her eyes wide and face white. “Sullivan—”

“Get out! Get. Out!”

She dropped her e-reader and scampered.

And I slammed to my knees, digging a fist into my belly, trying to control the madness inside me.