Chapter Two

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THE FOG OF ELIXIR lifted for a few horrifying seconds.

Eleanor gasped below me, her lips a tinge of terrifying blue, her face white with blood streaking her cheek.

Fuck.

Fuck!

I ripped my hands from her neck.

What the fuck are they doing around her neck?

Wincing, I withdrew and crawled away from her as fast as I could. The world swam, the corners all black, the world nothing but a sexual mist.

I’d done that to her.

I’d hurt her.

I’d been inside her, taking everything, and I’d been too consumed with my own needs to notice.

She coughed and rubbed her throat, swallowing a few times as she slowly stood.

Goddammit, her entire body looked as if it’d been mauled by a monster. Scratches on her chest, a bite mark on her shoulder, red finger impressions around her throat.

I shoved myself to my feet, desperate to get to my villa and lock myself inside.

This was why I told her to keep her goddamn distance. This was why I’d told her to run.

Raking hands through my hair, I yanked at the strands, trying to get control of myself, very aware that sand covered every inch of us. We glittered with the fucking stuff. It stuck to my cock, to the moisture glistening between her legs, to our very lips.

The minute my gaze found her mouth, my vision crept dark with crimson need. A fugue blew in like rainclouds, consuming rational thoughts, descending me into hell.

The fire in my balls returned. The excruciating drive to grab her, impale her, and fuck her until I came again and again and again.

Christ!

Bending over, I clutched my thighs, trying to breathe and return to humanity. To shed the filth inside me and forget about the salacious, suggestive seduction to just use her.

Use her and discard her.

Fuck her.

Kill her.

Do whatever I goddamn wanted.

No matter how deep I breathed, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop the obscene scream for sex. I was way too fucking aroused. Way too fucking hard. Way too lost to stop.

“Sully...it’s okay,” Eleanor held up her hand. She stepped toward me, her lithe body swollen and ready for mine.

It would be so easy to grab her and slip inside her again. To claim the final holes I hadn’t taken. To make her mine forever.

But if I let myself fall again, I might not wake up in time. I might remain in the elixir’s claws all while I suffocated her.

“Stay back.” My voice echoed with my past self but hissed with dangerous bloodshed. “Go away. Get as far away from me as you can.”

Before she could argue, I broke into a run.

My villa wasn’t far.

If she wouldn’t run, I would.

I could get there before I drowned again.

Please.

Grabbing my cock so the fucking thing didn’t hurt any more than it already did, I threw myself into the fastest sprint I could.

“Sully...wait!”

Eleanor’s surprised shout followed me into the shadows, chasing me around corners as I bolted toward my sanctuary.

With each stride, I did my best to stay sane. With each pump of my overworked heart, I willed my body to beat the treacherous elixir.

But my willpower was not enough. I was a weak fucking idiot who thought he could play god with a person’s nervous system and not pay the price.

The price for me was hurting the one woman I cared for.

And I’d done it while getting off on the best fucking sex I’d ever had.

Sex.

Christ, yes.

I needed it.

Craved it.

My run turned to a crippling trip, and I fell to my knees in the sand.

My hand went from holding my cock in protection to jerking it with nasty assault. The sand on my sensitive skin only added another element of pain to my pleasure, and the ever-ready orgasm shot up my legs, into my balls, and jettisoned out my tip.

I groaned and tipped forward, digging my free hand into the sand to stay upright while my other continued to pump. The sensation of coming stole air from my lungs and vision from my eyes, but only a single drop of semen shot out.

One drop.

My fourth orgasm and already my balls were dry.

The moment the teeth-clenching release let me go, I looked over my shoulder with manic hope that Eleanor had followed me. That she’d appear from the shadows and fall before me in servitude.

I’d grab her hair, I’d hold her down, I’d shove my cock down her throat.

Shit.

Lurching to my feet, I started running again.

Hopefully toward my villa but I honestly didn’t know. I didn’t trust that I had control. Didn’t believe I had anything good left inside me.

I got farther than my first attempt before the next release punished me. I exploded from the undergrowth, finding the natural oasis formed by Nirvana.

The waterfall splashed with heavy droplets and a hundred sparkling rainbows. The sun beamed down, heating the small utopia to unbearable levels. Jasmine vines hung in the boughs of frangipani trees. Butterflies fluttered in the light. Green moss softened sharp rocks with a gentle carpet.

It was paradise.

And I was the devil in its midst.

My naked skin burned up.

My hair dripped wet with sweat.

And once again, I crumpled to my knees as another crippling command to come made me masturbate in agony.

My balls had almost crawled inside me, their tightness throbbing with misery. The delicate skin on my cock was covered in abrasions thanks to sand and repetitive sex.

But I didn’t care about any of that. All I cared about—all I could think about was chasing that shimmering, shattering climax.

I grunted with each pull on my cock. My hips worked into my hand. I lost all resemblance of a man as I gasped and cursed, bowing over as I came for the fifth time.

Not even a droplet this time.

Just dry pulsing pleasure and a cock that no longer severed any purpose other than to torture me.

As the final wave receded, my strength gave out. I collapsed onto my side, allowing the sun to burn me. Thirst made my throat sore and voice hoarse. Too much coming had drained my body of all its reserves.

But as much as I wanted to rest...I hadn’t earned that yet.

I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing X-rated pornography. I couldn’t settle my breathing without growling for Eleanor to put me out of my misery. And my heart, as it drummed and defibrillated itself with ill-advised, sickening electricity, my pulse became a crazed enemy in my veins, granting utmost punishment.

My villa had become the antidote I needed. My thoughts latched onto it for deliverance from this evil and redemption for what I’d done to Eleanor.

I had to get there.

Now.

My arms shook as I pushed off from the ground and tripped to my feet. I looked at my villa in the distance, cocooned by jungle, its door hidden by foliage. I jogged toward it, but then, I stopped.

Nirvana.

The cool refreshing waterfall.

Perhaps that could wash away this nightmare and christen me back into lucidity. Changing direction, I stumbled toward the crystal blue pool. I climbed over the boulders on the shore and sighed in relief as the first cool touch of freshwater lapped my ankles.

The temperature of Nirvana was cooler than the sea. The freshness of the water so cleansing compared to the salt I regularly swam in.

Yes.

This was my cure.

This would keep Eleanor safe from me.

Diving into the depths, grateful for the shelf where the shore dropped away, I gave myself to death, sinking to the bottom, happily trading cold extermination over berserk stimulation.

I welcomed the rocks below to cradle me. I removed all power from my muscles. I closed my eyes and—

Tongues.

Teeth.

Breasts.

Nipples.

Eleanor writhing on her back as I filled her.

My hand sliced through the deep and found my cock.

I opened my mouth and howled underwater as I worked myself into yet another frenzied, demented, maniacal release.

Water rushed down my throat and splashed into my lungs. I choked as my entire body clutched with pleasure. I rippled with bliss while drowning. The two experiences linked hands and made me crave annihilation.

I tried to breathe as the final crest broke.

I clawed at my chest as a debilitating ache spread.

I released my cock as bodily control over skeleton and sinew faltered.

The surface glittered above.

Air beckoned just beyond the water’s kingdom, but my legs didn’t kick when I ordered them to. My arms didn’t respond when I tried to swim. My system shut down, broken from too much pleasure and drained by too much sexual stress.

Fuck, I’m going to die.

Instinct made me inhale again, sucking back more water. My ribcage threatened to snap one rib at a time, my lungs rejecting liquid and demanding oxygen instead.

My vision went hazy. My mind blank. The only thing that still had providence was sex.

Sex.

Fucking sex.

If I found a mermaid down here, I’d try to fuck it all while I drowned. I would go to hell because all I could think about was lust instead of life.

A splash broke the glittering surface above me.

The mermaid I’d lusted for appeared from nowhere. Long seaweed hair, flashing silver eyes, and pearly perfect body.

But...she didn’t have a tail. No scales. No fins. Just gorgeous long legs. Long, strong legs that split apart to gain access to the one thing I needed more than anything.

Her fingers wrapped around my wrist.

I tried to pull her close, to pin her beneath me, to mount her, but my body no longer operated. I jerked in the throes of a death dance as the tailless mermaid pulled me closer and closer to the surface.

Pinpricks of pain from her nails punctured my rapidly fading consciousness. My eyesight traded clarity for ghostly mirages.

Down and down, deeper and deeper.

Quietness.

Peace.

No more need for sex.

No more need for oxygen.

Thankfully.

Heavenly.

Sanity.

I let go, grateful to finally be free.

Something sharp shredded my hard-won serenity. A lash of pain across my cheek. And another. Followed by lips on mine, air forced down my throat, and painful compressions on my chest.

Pressure repeated over my heart, determined and ruthless, reversing my slip into silence, dragging me back into mania and pain.

The explosion from dying to alive sent daggers of misery through my entire nervous system. My eyes flared wide. My mouth opened to breathe. A gush of water spewed out.

“There you go. That’s it. Come on. Breathe, Sully. For God’s sake, breathe.”

I choked and wheezed as the lightness of air replaced the heaviness of liquid, my lungs faltering over the new concoction. The mermaid helped me roll to my side, slapping my back with agonising strength.

“Stop,” I croaked.

She didn’t.

“Stop!” I tried to crawl away, only to find water keeping me buoyant and rocks behind me. I blinked, waiting for the mirages in my eyes to fade back into precision. As Nirvana came into view above and the paradisiac garden appeared around me, my brain kicked back into gear.

Along with thoughts came the nasty, insidious hunger licking around my mind, sending blood back into my cock.

You’re not done.

Not yet.

My heart pounded the message, electrifying my heavily depleted system.

Fuck, please not again.

“Sully...are you okay?” Soft hands cupped my cheek, guiding my face to hers.

Eleanor.

Jinx.

The worst goddamn curse of my life.

A dream turned nightmare.

A goddess who should never have existed.

A purchase I should never have made.

Her.

Take her.

Fill her.

Fuck her.

My hand had a different master, obeying the elixir’s fierce control rather than my weak pleas to stop. It shot upward, grabbed her around the nape, and dragged her down to my mouth.

I kissed her.

I traded drowning in water for drowning in her.

I rolled us over until she lay on the rocks beneath me.

Water had rinsed us clean. No more sand. No more dirt. No more blood. I chose the illusion that I hadn’t hurt this incredible creature. That I’d only ever been gentle and worshiping and so fucking grateful for her creation.

She. Was. Mine.

Not because I traded cash for her life, but because she’d been born for me. The universe birthed me first, then listened to what my heart ordered—the complex desires I had, the unique wishes I held—and created her just for me to find.

That was why I’d dreamed about her.

Why I’d asked traffickers to steal her.

Why I couldn’t stop myself as I kicked to propel us higher onto the shallows and swam on top of her. Why I groaned as my cock found her entrance. Why motherfucking tears came to my eyes as her heat and slippery wetness welcomed me to slip home.

Home.

Fuck, she was my home.

Not this island.

Not this planet.

Her.

This curse.

This gift.

This priceless, irreplaceable goddess.

She squirmed beneath me, her grey gaze flaring with equal passion and terrible concern. “Sully, stop. You need to rest. You almost drowned.” She pushed at my chest, trying to pry us apart. “Stop.”

She could never pry us apart as we were two pieces of the same whole. I belonged to her as much as she belonged to me. I’d told her that. When she’d asked me my name on our first time together, I’d told her, “I’m yours.”

It didn’t matter I wore a different face to my own. That I went to her as a guest and hid behind a lie—

My thoughts scattered as I claimed her mouth again. She tasted like a crisp waterfall and warm sunshine. She tasted like redemption.

Her tongue fought me back. She tried shifting her head to dislodge our kiss, but I didn’t let her go. I threaded both hands through the hair that I found such a fucking turn-on and held her still.

The water kept us weightless while I thrust into her. Our bodies floated but locked together, straining hard and needy.

Leaving my left hand tangled in her hair, I slipped my right one down her chest, squeezed her perfect breast, then kept going, stroking her curves, finding her centre, rubbing against her clit so she felt a fraction of pleasure that I did.

Her body bowed in mine, her lips parting, allowing me to kiss her deep.

Her fingernails dug into my lower back, pulling me into her so my cock filled her until there was no space between us. No way to pull us apart.

I’d fucked this girl.

I’d mauled this girl.

But there, in my private waterfall, I made love to this girl.

Time lost all meaning as we rocked and grinded. Her legs wrapped around mine, her hips answering mine in an ancient language we’d both begun to understand.

A language that belonged entirely to us, deciphered only when our hearts accepted what this disaster of a bond meant.

I was falling for her.

Fuck.

I kissed her harder. I bit her. I crawled deeper into her. And she responded to my violence with her own. Her teeth punctured my bottom lip, her hips arching into mine.

And the elixir allowed me to savour this moment, to live on that precipice of plummeting and pausing, surrounded by shards of pleasure, fully aware how excruciatingly brutal the release would be.

We kissed.

We fucked.

And when I fell off that precipice, we fell together—groaning, moaning, clawing, biting—doing our best to break each other apart.