Chapter Twenty-Six

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I COULDN’T KEEP UP.

Two moments ago, Sully had his tongue between my legs, his touch inside me, and a blistering orgasm—invoked purely by emotion and connection, instead of that cursed elixir—had ricocheted through me.

Now, a stranger stood before me. A man with an unreadable face, black-blue eyes, and an ever blacker mood.

Wrenching the trolley to stop beside me, he opened the boxes he’d used during my first preparation for Euphoria.

My heart cracked as he poured oil into his hands and spread it over my body. Clinical and angry, no lingering over the parts of me that throbbed for his attention.

Once the oil gleamed, he inserted the earbuds, the eye lenses, the astringent scent under my nose, and made me swill with whatever magic that changed my sense of taste. His hands were icy as he clutched my fingers and placed the sensor pads on each. His nostrils flared as he ensured the harness that another one of his staff had placed on me was locked securely.

Part of me swelled with tears. The other part snarled with anger.

How dare he kiss me? How dare he bring me to an orgasm? How dare he drag feelings I didn’t want to face to the surface and then witness those feelings bobbing like a capsized boat in my eyes, waving a white flag in surrender, begging him to save me.

For a second, I’d thought he’d scoop me up and release me from my position of whore. I envisioned a conversation that unknotted the twisted, tightening, electrifying rope between us. I’d seen a mirroring boat in his gaze, packed full of similar feelings. But unlike mine offering surrender, his was a pirate ship ready to plunder.

Raking a hand through his hair, he refused to look at me as he stepped back and pulled up an app on his phone.

He’d prepared me so fast, I couldn’t see very well through the lenses. My vision hadn’t accepted them yet. My ears rebelled against the hushed world behind the buds. My fingers itched to feel truth not lies.

I didn’t want to go into Euphoria like this.

I didn’t want to go in at all.

I didn’t want another man to touch me after Sully had made me come.

It made me feel dirty and worthless. A coin passed from one billionaire’s pocket to another. Useless and unwanted.

With the app open, Sully placed his phone onto the trolley, then swallowed hard and pulled the dreaded vial from his pocket.

I cringed away, fighting against the imprisonment of the harness. “Sully...please. Don’t.” I searched his sea-blue gaze for any sign of what he’d shown before. Any hint that I might not be the only one drowning beneath such horrors. But his eyes were closed off, impenetrable, resolute.

Stepping into me, he pulled the stopper out and cupped the back of my head.

Wordlessly, he held the vial to my lips.

I clamped them shut and shook my head, pleading silently to stop.

His chest heaved as his fingers dug into the back of my head. He fisted a handful of hair, and with a sadistic yank, he pulled my head back, igniting pain over my scalp.

With my lips open in a soundless scream, he tipped the elixir onto my tongue.

I wasn’t fast enough to spit this time.

His large hand clamped over my mouth, pinching my nose at the same time.

Our eyes locked again, but unlike last time, our roles were very clear. No muddy guesses or tentative hope that this meant more. Just tyrannical clarity that I was his to use, rent, abuse.

I swallowed.

I swallowed the elixir, my stupid hope, my eternal optimism, and most of all, I swallowed any unruly affection until I could no longer feel its fluttering wings in my belly.

I wanted it to die.

Forever.

With a tortured noise in his chest, he ran his thumb along the seam of my lips, gathering up whatever lingered. With a darkness etching his eyes, he placed his thumb into his own mouth as if tasting the residue of elixir he’d fed me.

His eyes snapped closed.

My heart quickened.

Maybe, he wouldn’t go through with it. Perhaps, he’d keep me—

He snatched his phone from the trolley.

And before I could speak, he pressed the button.

The world went white.

My system overloaded.

I traded real world for illusion.