Chapter Nineteen

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AS FAR AS FANTASIES went, this was a tame one.

I stood in the middle of a hay barn.

The sweet scent of harvested grass, the natural heat from fermenting bales, the dust motes shimmering on the air from the sunset spilling through the windows at the top of the huge A-frame building.

It all spoke of calm country. A slower pace of life for a city lover, and a world away from a tropical island in Indonesia. 

Spinning in place, I drank it all in. Stables waited for equine guests by the large double wooden doors, a tack shed held a multitude of saddles and bridles, and a mismatch trophy wall held sun-bleached photos of someone galloping, running barrels, and smiling in victory with ribbons.

The brick floor looked freshly swept and birdsong outside mingled with the crow of a rooster and twitters of happy hens.

Without elixir fogging my mind and body, I had the luxury of judging the quality of Sully’s virtual reality.

He was right when he said he contorted the parameters of fact and fiction. Try as I might, I couldn’t spot a glitch in the illusion. Not when I swiped a hand through the air and felt the heat of a dry summer, rather than the damp mugginess of the tropics. Not when I stepped forward, my feet encased in simple lace-ups stained with mud, manure, and who knew what else. Not when I ran my hands over the blue-flowered cotton dress that skimmed my thighs with a flirty hem.

I pinched myself, trying to force my body to return to truth thanks to pain.

However, unlike a dream, the barn didn’t vanish.

I stayed standing in the centre of a farm I’d never been to before, all while my body remained tethered to some harness in Sully’s Euphoria villa.

My heart raced at the thought.

At the unnaturalness of it.

To be torn down the seams and denied access to my body.

The more I thought about it, the more panic crept over me.

I didn’t like the distance. My mind was homeless. My heart in two locations at once—the feeling, knowing, instinctual part of me existed in this fantasy, but the pumping, working, biological muscle remained in a place I couldn’t see, hear, or touch.

I didn’t like it.

Claustrophobia clawed, scratching my skin and licking through my hair.

I want to wake up.

I need—

A boot scuffed on the broken-brick floor.

My eyes soared upward, my body twisting to face the intruder.

Instantly, my heart pounded even harder, confused and alarmed, sensing a trap even while skipping with hopeful joy.

Sully.

He stepped from one of the stables as if it held a portal to another dimension. He’d been inserted into this illusion through a simple button, rather than walking through the barn doors.

He didn’t speak as he came toward me.

His tall, muscular frame no longer wore his armour of suits and ties but had traded them in for holey, torn jeans, complete with smears of dirt from hands used to working outdoors. His black and blue plaid shirt was rolled up to his forearms, revealing hair damp with perspiration. The hollow of his throat and sweeps of his collarbone held grime and sweat, begging me to lick and taste a male not afraid of hard toil.

My core clenched as he continued toward me, unhurried and entirely untouchable.

His boots crunched stray hay, his long legs ate up the distance, and when he finally stopped in front of me, I was as wet as if I’d taken elixir, after all.

I trembled as his hand swept up and cupped my cheek.

I moaned as his thumb traced my bottom lip, then speared into my mouth.

And I positively whimpered as he dragged me forward by hooking his thumb against my lower teeth, pulling me into him and slamming his lips over mine.

His tongue replaced his thumb, the tang of salt and dirt tainting a spiteful, nasty kiss. With his finger still wet from being in my mouth, he trailed it over my cheek to cradle the back of my neck, tangling his touch in my loose, long hair, keeping me imprisoned for his taking.

His other arm went around my waist, jerking me into him.

My body responded. It melted against his hard edges and welcomed the bite of his belt buckle. I relaxed into his touch, confused as to the purpose of this fantasy. Why had he loaded me with the threat of giving me to another man, only to appear in his own form?

What sort of punishment was that?

How exactly was I supposed to earn his trust if it was him I trusted?

His tongue dived deeper, sending my thoughts helter-skelter into dark corners.

I kissed him back.

I reached for his hair, scratching his nape with my fingernails, wanting to hurt him for making me need him so much.

I wanted to continue hating him, but that was impossible when every urge said to spread my legs and submit.

His kiss turned vicious, demanding more of me. Killing my ability to think.

I wanted to throw myself headfirst into sex. To fall to the floor and allow him to fuck me. To somehow enjoy and abuse this strange situation for my benefit.

But...

Something...

Something kept my mind racing.

Something kept tugging me back.

Something...doesn’t feel right.

He tugged on my hair, jerking my head back to bite and suck his way along my jaw. He hadn’t said a word, yet for some reason, I feared his voice wouldn’t sound like him.

His touch was hot and erotic and everything I enjoyed but...that spark was missing. That full-body electrocution that made me beg for it to stop but also sadistically wanted to turn up the voltage until we both shuddered with mutual pain.

His tongue fought against mine, hot and slippery, masculine and bold, but...I felt the same way about his kiss as I did about Scott’s kiss.

Perfectly acceptable, arousingly skilled, but...lacking.

Lacking that magic.

Void of the curse Sully had condemned me with.

This kiss was mediocre.

This kiss was from a man I hadn’t fallen in love with.

“Stop.” I tore my mouth away from his.

His lips glistened from shared spit, his tongue ran along his bottom lip tasting me on him. His blue eyes flashed with impatience. “Stop?” He rolled his hips, wedging his throbbing erection against my stomach. “How can you tell me to stop when this is what you do to me?”

I waited for my belly to flip, for my core to liquefy, for my heart to gallop with lust.

I waited for every synapse to falter and fritz, knowing I was wanted by a man of Sully’s calibre.

A man who was rich—not just in money or genius, not in physical assets or skills, but rich in whatever alchemy that’d switched us from normal individuals into the exact needs of each other.

We were meant to be...pure and simple.

And this man...he’s not Sully.

Pushing his broad chest, I squirmed in his hold. “Let me go.”

Anger furrowed his brow. “Silly girl.” His fingers dropped to my hips, digging his cock deeper against my stomach as his biceps flexed, dragging me into him. “That’s not how this works. I’m going to fuck you and—”

I slapped him with a swift right palm, then drove my knee as high as I could against his balls.

He stumbled backward, nursing the bright red handprint on his cheek, luckily avoiding my knee to his testicles. “Fuck, you’re going to pay for that.”

For a moment, my resolve faded.

His voice had the same gravel and velvet. His jaw had the same twitch of fury. His eyes danced from turquoise to navy to every colour in the ocean. Even his hair fell the same way over his forehead, complete with lightened tips, laughing in the face of dark ebony.

His height was right.

His smell was right.

His touch and taste and mannerisms were right.

So...why did I doubt?

Why pin my refusal on the flimsy idea that just because his touch didn’t affect my soul that he was an imposter? Why did I think I could sense a lie when every sense had been hampered by Sully’s technology?

What is going on?

I paused too long.

He scooped me into his control, backing me across the barn with a furious scowl. “Let’s see if you have anything on under that dress, shall we?”

I gasped as he shoved me against the wall.

The barn shuddered from my impact, releasing dust from wooden planks and cobwebs to string and lace from the ceiling down into my hair.

His temper was right.

His breathing was right.

His fury as he hoisted up my skirt and found I wasn’t wearing underwear was right.

My head fell back, bashing against the wall as he shoved two fingers inside me.

His touch was right.

His groan was right.

His thumb against my clit and the feathering of his fingers inside me was all right.

Yet the more he touched me, the less I desired him.

Had I cursed myself when I promised he’d become invisible to me? Had I truly broken that all-consuming, heart-knotting bond we’d shared?

“Stop.” I pushed at his chest, unable to get proper purchase as his body crushed mine. His boot kicked my lace-ups, spreading my legs.

He fingered me roughly.

He took me in ways he’d already taken, but unlike those previous times when I’d spread on my own accord, when I’d begged for more, when I’d basked in that damn glow, ember, and pin-wheeling firework from his touch...now, I turned frigid.

I tried to cross my legs. I did my best to grab his wrist and stop his pumping fingers. “You’re not him. You’re not him!”

Terror finally broke through my confusion, tearing apart what I’d been too terrified to admit.

Sully had locked me in Euphoria.

He’d given me to a guest.

A guest wearing his skin.

The worst deception I could imagine.

Just like the caveman hid Sully behind huge physique, scars, and growls, this guest had the perfect disguise to destroy me.

That was why he hadn’t given me elixir.

That was why he didn’t use my lust against me.

He thought I wouldn’t need it.

That he was my elixir.

That I would buy into the illusion with every idiotic bone in my body and be so damn grateful that he’d finally trusted me. That he’d given me his affection in acknowledgment of his faith and forgiveness.

It’s all bullshit.

He’d just given me a taste of his world.

He’d taken my trust and shat all over it.

Tears spilled from my eyes as I went wild. I scratched his face. I kicked his legs. I wriggled and squirmed.

I screamed.

I screamed and screamed.

I screamed for this illusion to stop. For this guest to disappear. For this whole screwed up punishment to be over.

“Get your fucking fingers out of me, you damn bastard!” I tore at his hair, ripping at the strands I’d always found so sexy on Sully Sinclair. I snarled as he tried to kiss me. I choked as his free hand latched tight around my throat.

“Stop fucking moving.” His fingers withdrew from me, fumbling for his belt. “You want to scream? You can scream while I drive my cock deep inside you.”

No!

This isn’t happening.

No!

At no point in my captivity had I ever felt so petrified. Never had I been this close to feeling like what a true slave would feel.

I had no choice.

I had no power to stop him.

I was a goddess, bought and paid for, a vessel for this guest’s feral fantasy.

I moaned in absolute horror as the zipper of his jeans sounded, followed by his grunt as he inched the denim off his hips.

No.

Please, no.

Stop.

Stop.

“Stop!”

He pressed against me. He bent his knees. He angled to thrust—

“She said stop.”

The man wearing Sully’s body froze. Together, our heads whipped to the left where a stable hand appeared from the tack room. Lean and lanky, he could be a jockey instead of a groom holding a pitchfork for mucking out soiled hay.

“How about you stay out of this.” Sully-not-Sully growled.

I shivered at how real his voice sounded, and, once again, a tiny piece of me wondered if I’d gotten it wrong.

How could I base my convictions on just a feeling? A profoundly powerful feeling...but still just a feeling.

But then Sully-not-Sully pressed himself against me again and I knew. No amount of sensors or oils or gimmicks could prevent me from knowing.

I knew without any remaining doubt.

This man was not him.

This man did not have the right to touch me, fuck me, love me.

This man was nothing.

“Let me go,” I snarled.

Sully-not-Sully flat-out ignored me, arching his hips to slide his cock between my legs.

The glint of a dirty pitchfork wedged against his jugular. “She said stop.”

A repeat of what he’d already muttered in a voice that held the barest of gruff and laced with a Southern accent. I’d never heard that voice before. I’d never met this brown-eyed, blond-haired boy in my life.

And yet...sparks.

Awareness...knowing.

Goosebumps sprang all over, reducing my horror to hope.

Could it be?

Was it him?

And if it was...why?

What was the purpose of this hellish trick?

How could I trust anything, anyone ever again?

Was that the game?

To understand how Sully struggled to see past masks and promises and fakery? To reveal how trust could never be given if your heart said one thing but your mind another?

Even suffering this riddle for a few short minutes, I was exhausted.

Exhausted fighting my psyche’s natural craving to trust. The undeniable need to believe in what you thought was real because that was where safety lay. If the one person you thought you could trust turned out to be your worst enemy...then nothing was safe.

The world was a cesspit of liars and thieves and murderers, all hiding behind sweetness and smiles and the utmost simplicity of trust.

Trust.

That damn inconvenient emotion that ultimately destroyed the gullible and allowed the deceitful to run free.

My shoulders slumped.

My revelation had come fierce and fast, leaving me fumbling for air.

The stable hand shot me a worried glance. His brown eyes glossed with concern, his eyebrows tugged low in hatred for the man forcing himself upon me. Without a word, he jabbed the pitchfork deeper against Sully-not-Sully’s throat. “Get off her.”

Three new words in a stranger’s voice.

But I closed my eyes and listened to the magic behind it. The crackle of lightning. The hint of thunder. The tropical breeze and salt-dusted home of the man who’d done his best to break me.

I sighed as the pitchfork drew a droplet of blood from Sully’s imposter, forcing him to back up and tuck his erection back into his jeans.

Seeing such a gorgeous man like Sully be borrowed by a guest with no conscience made me exquisitely sad. Could I ever look at him the same way again? Could I trust him the next time he touched me?

Can I ever forgive him for what he’s done?

“Are you okay?” the stable boy murmured, placing himself in front of me while still angling the pitchfork at Sully-not-Sully.

Whoever the guest was had gone strangely silent. The rebuttal or rage that I expected was mysteriously absent.

Smoothing down my dress, I nodded. “I’m fine.”

“Did he hurt you?”

My tiredness made me want to slither down the barn wall and slump into a pile of hay. I was done playing this game. I was through being used in whatever way Sully intended.

This was a breach of everything between us.

This was unforgivable.

New tears trickled down my face, these born from grief and pain. Giving into the exhaustion, I planted my hands over my eyes, unwilling to look at the man I thought I knew and the stable hand I didn’t.

A buzz sounded. A click and a whirr.

I looked up.

The stable hand stood in front of me, the pitchfork at his feet. One hand dragged through his sandy blond locks, the other balled into a fist by his thigh. He wore a simple black shirt with tan patches sewn over areas of wear. His jeans were equally as filthy as Sully-not-Sully’s had been.

He was the exact opposite of the blue-eyed, miserably brooding mogul who ruled forty-four islands in the middle of nowhere.

But I knew him.

My soul recognised him.

He was familiar.

He was mine.

Or at least...he was.

He shifted under my stare, guilt flaring with brown fire in his gaze.

I frowned, once again sensing something wasn’t right.

But what?

Looking over his shoulder, I expected to see Sully’s imposter staring at us, watching this tender moment, ready to attack the stable hand and continue his assault on me.

Only...there was no one else.

No hint that there had ever been a third person in this complex, confusing illusion.

There was just me and this lanky boy who watched me with utmost desolation, knowing he’d fucked up yet remained tongue-tied on how to fix it.

With a weary sigh, I gave up any pretences.

I stopped playing this game of lies.

I looked the boy directly in his face and gave him the finger. A slur that needed no interpretation. “Fuck you, Sully Sinclair. Fuck you.”