Chapter Twenty-Nine

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WHAT THE HELL JUST happened?

My knees gave out.

I crumpled to the floor, holding onto the bath as I did. The little parrot called Pika perched on my bare shoulder, his tiny talons digging into my skin. He twittered and squeaked, grooming my hair with his beak.

All I could do was sit.

Stupefied. Stunned. Shocked to my very core.

He’d kissed me.

He’d used violence to take what he wanted but...violence inside me had responded. Something I’d never known that lurked within me had ignited in an explosive gust of power—black power, erotic power—a power laced with cyanide and dynamite, poisoning me...or perhaps, poisoning him?

Poisoning both of us.

I’d gone from holding my breath under the water, giving myself the biggest pep talk in history, preparing myself to just get the sex over and done with, to being snatched by some demon and given a kiss to end all other kisses.

I brushed a shaky hand over my mouth.

Swollen and sore from his teeth and five o’clock shadow—extremely aware that I’d never been kissed like that before. That I’d been kissed by a man who wasn’t Sullivan Sinclair: island mogul and trader of women. The man who’d kissed me had been an unhinged, highly sexual being who’d escaped his leash of self-control.

His fist banged on the glass door. “Hurry up. I’ve been patient long enough.”

I jumped.

He didn’t come in, but his shadow moved behind the frosted glass, pacing like a caged tiger.

What the hell was that?

That kiss.

That...awakening.

I shivered, doing my best to corral my legs into obedience.

Why had he kissed me?

And why did I feel completely lost? As if he’d shoved aside the old Eleanor—the girl loyal to Scott and fixated on escape—and called forth a coquettish goddess who’d just woken up.

Just been born.

Just felt the touch of someone who surpassed all other’s touches. A touch belonging to someone who fit. Someone who, deep, deep beneath circumstance and control, was the very creation of magic and mystery I’d been searching for.

Stop it.

I crawled to my feet, wincing a little as the parrot dug his claws into my shoulder for purchase.

Don’t be stupid.

I swayed and touched my bruised mouth again.

My stomach had chiselled itself into a chipped piece of stone. My heart hadn’t remembered how to beat properly. And my body—under no manipulation from elixir or chemicals working against me—was heavy and wet and achy.

The damn man had drugged me just with a kiss.

Pika flapped around my head, landing on the floor and fluttering his feathers in the spilled water. He preened and nibbled at his belly, coating himself in the deliciously scented liquid.

Sully’s fist came again.

Knock.

Knock!

“Get your ass out here, Jinx. Don’t worry about clothing. Naked is your new uniform.”

Searching for a towel, I grabbed one and huddled into it.

He might’ve have stolen me with a kiss and tossed me into a universe I could no longer understand, but it didn’t mean I was okay with any of this.

How could I be okay when my enemy had the power to cinder me to ash but also incinerate me into flame? How could I survive, knowing that something was between us? Something he felt, I felt. Something that was mortally alarming and oh, so deadly.

“What do I do, Pika?” I whispered, towelling myself off and picking up the brush to run through my wet hair. The little bird chirped and flew to sit on the vanity tap, slipping on the chrome. “Pet. Pet, Pika!”

I tried to smile, yet another catastrophe hit me.

Sully was heartless and haughty and held the view that all humans were as disposable as any other living, breathing creature. That man I found terrifying. A man with such black and white ideals that there wasn’t a single shade of grey in his entire soul.

But the man who’d stood before me when I’d come up for air in my bath, the man nuzzling into a tiny parrot and smiling such a soft, sincere smile...he made my heart pound for entirely new reasons.

Unsafe and unhealthy reasons because it made me thaw toward him just a tiny bit. To know he had a heart, after all.

“Jinx!” His snarl shot through the glass.

I dropped the brush, letting it clatter to the vanity. The noise made Pika squawk and launch into the sky, circling my head indignantly.

For a second, I allowed a glance at my reflection in the mirror. I’d avoided looking at myself much since I’d arrived. I didn’t want to see the girl I knew, trapped and alone, homesick and afraid. I didn’t want to see the pain in my eyes or the helplessness.

Balling my hands, I caught my gaze.

And once again, my heart scrambled to find a lifesaving beat.

Who was that girl?

Who is this total stranger?

As I touched my cheek with a trembling hand, my reflection mimicked me, but I didn’t recognise the woman staring back. Her skin glowed a golden hue instead of the permanent snow of white heritage. Her hair seemed longer, darker, coils and ropes protecting her back and shoulders. Her breasts seemed bigger, her limbs leaner, her stance like a warrior ready to battle.

But it was my eyes and mouth that betrayed me the most.

My eyes were wild but also surprising clear. Two grey crystal orbs full of bad omens and concerning premonitions. And my lips looked exactly what a vixen who served men would look like. Bright red, plump and bitten, thoroughly well used by a man who hadn’t been given permission.

I’d never been a superstitious girl. I’d always accepted facts and made conclusions based on reality, but standing there, with a parrot landing on my shoulder and a body I no longer recognised, I felt like a seer suffering some awful clairvoyance.

Sully Sinclair will change my life. My world. Me.

In so many more ways than I feared.

With a gulp and a shudder, I broke the trance between me and the mirror, squared my shoulders, and strode toward the door.