Chapter Nine

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I BLINKED AS AN entirely new world unfolded before me.

The chirps of birds pierced my comprehension first. The babble of a brook. The crash of a waterfall. The exotic hum of cicadas in the trees serenading with a tropical symphony.

Unlike previous fantasies that loaded in complete detail, this one evolved from white nothingness into the most extraordinary jungle. Palm trees soared from soil. Leaf matter littered the earth. Glossy bushes, vibrant flowers, and sweeping banyan trees all swept toward the skies.

Once the trees were in place, vines dripped from their branches, delivering bromeliads and jewelled frogs and the intricate ecosystem of a humid forest.

The bird and cicada song was drowned out as monkeys chattered in the treetops, and the snuffle of wild pigs and slither of snakes whispered in the undergrowth.

Everywhere I looked, life existed.

Not just flora but fauna too.

A deer bounded off in a spiel of sunlight.

A black panther slinked up a tree trunk.

A toucan flew low with its beak glistening with colour.

And then, there was Sully.

A man with two legs and two arms but the heart of a beast who belonged wholeheartedly in a place of wilderness over any castle or city.

I swallowed a gasp as I drank him in.

His hair was slightly longer, teasing the tops of his shoulders, loose and tangled. His delicious body was bare apart from a simple loincloth made of softened, plaited reeds. His sun-browned stomach rippled with ridges and power. His arms bunched as he fisted his hands by muscular thighs. His feet planted into the soft dirt, and his head cocked like a predator just sensing which way his prey would run.

He hadn’t changed his outward appearance. He still looked like my husband in every delicious way possible. Just...untamed.

He grinned as his gaze dropped from mine and skated down my body. “Hello, darling wife. I see my choice of wardrobe suits you well.”

I followed his stare, fingering the strung shells and delicate beads on multiple cords around my neck. They hung low, dipping into my cleavage with a jingle and jangle of jewels.

My hair was loose and tickled my naked back. My breasts were bare, my ankles were decorated with strings of more beads and shells, and on my hips hung a simple flaxen skirt.

I looked as primitive as him.

As wild as him.

I grinned. “Is this what you fantasise about when I’m wearing actual clothes?”

“It’s what I jerk off to when you’re not around.”

I stepped toward him, letting a spike of jealousy taint my tone. “You pleasure yourself without waiting for me?”

He matched my step, closing the distance between us. “I have no choice. You’ve bewitched me, woman. I can’t expect you to serve me every time I have a dirty thought about you.”

“You can.” I reached out to touch the turquoise macaw feather that fluttered from the treetops and snagged in Sully’s hair. “I want you to.”

He shuddered as my fingertips grazed his cheek. “I want you now.”

“How much?”

Grabbing my wrist, he fanned my fingers and pressed them under his loincloth. “So fucking much.”

I fisted his cock.

He grunted and swayed, his eyes shooting shards of temper.

His loincloth didn’t wrap between his legs, leaving the heavy weight of his balls and the thickened steel of his erection bare.

I took full advantage.

Stroking him, I murmured, “It feels like you want me a lot.”

He bit his lip, turning him from sexy to downright fuckable. “I’m barely holding on.”

“Then let go.” I wedged my thumb against the top of his cock, pressing down and making him jolt. “I want you to let go.”

Sucking in a breath, he wrapped his hand around my nape and jerked me into him. His lips met my ear, and his hot command slipped directly into my soul. “What I want is for you to run, gorgeous Eleanor.”

A second passed.

My heart pounded.

He pulled away, and our eyes locked.

His eyebrow cocked as he looked over my shoulder to the wild forest behind me. I’d run from him when he’d been high on elixir, and that had ended with us fornicating until he almost drowned.

That part had been terrifying, but the rest? The chase, the hunt, the pounce, the mount...it’d been dangerously erotic.

Dropping his hand from my nape and removing my fingers from his cock, he breathed, “Run.”

Fire shot down my legs.

Lust exploded into every extremity.

I ran.

I spun and bolted, leaping over fallen logs and vanishing into the thicket of vines, humidity, and undergrowth. My necklaces tinkled a runaway song. My anklets tickled my legs. My flaxen skirt kissed my naked thighs. And every element added to the snarling thirst in my blood for him. For Sully. For sex.

I ran even though I wanted him to catch me.

Wetness slid down my inner thigh as my brain flickered between self-preservation and sacrificing myself to his sexual fury.

Sully didn’t chase initially.

His snarl-filled groan was the only thing that followed as I galloped through the thick foliage.

But then the crash of his attack sounded, the thud of heavy footfalls coming after me.

My heart flurried in panic, swamping with demented need. Cinta-amplified lust fogged my thoughts until my vision hazed with it. Until I gasped and mewled for it.

I needed him.

So fucking much.

I wanted to fall to my knees and let him trap me.

I wanted him to beg to claim me.

I wanted to beg.

I wanted us linked and writhing, thrusting and coming.

I couldn’t explain the raw desire that fleeing from him gave me. The primordial triggers of being mounted and claimed, blending with the undeniable hunger to be used. As graphically and as brutally as possible.

No matter how many fancy clothes or intricate words we spoke as a species, we were still just beasts at heart.

Beasts who wanted to maul and—

“When I catch you, Jinx, I want to hear you scream as I fuck you.”

Oh, God.

My breath caught as I dodged around a palm tree, running deeper into whatever illusion Sully had programmed. Unlike the pine forest where Drake had met his end, this one never stopped. There was no portal to return me back to the centre of the illusion. The pathways and animal tracks kept guiding me farther into density.

Breathing hard, I ran swifter.

I exploded from the thick undergrowth beside a river’s edge. Ferns bobbed in the muggy breeze. Parrots darted in the sun. Dragonflies hovered and lizards sun-baked and fish glittered in the stream.

So much beauty.

So much peace.

Arms lashed around me from behind.

Sully’s harsh breath filled my ear as he kicked apart my ankles and lowered me to the ground in one swift move. “Caught you.” His teeth scraped the back of my neck as he collapsed to his knees behind me. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous.”

My necklaces jangled as he fisted my breasts. Pinching my nipples, he groaned as his hips thrust against me. “Christ, I can’t control myself around you. I’ve never been able to.”

Dropping his touch, he found my flaxen skirt and tore it to sinful shreds. One moment, it hid my decency, and the next, it was in tatters by my knees.

I moaned as his fingers bit into my hip bones, pulling me back into him. “Every day, I thank fucking fate for delivering you. Every night, I dream of losing you. Every moment, I can’t believe you’re mine.”

Bowing over me, he nudged his cock against my wetness. “Mine to adore, to cherish, to fuck.”

I bit my lip, waiting for him to thrust inside.

But he waited.

One heartbeat, two, three.

“You’re all mine, Eleanor. My perfect lovely wife.” His heart pounded on my spine and his body radiated erotic heat. “I will never take a second with you for granted.” Running his cock up and down my pussy, he growled long and low. “So wet. So ready. Do you want me, Jinx?”

My head bobbed. My breath came too quick. “Yes. God, yes. Please—”

He drove upward, inward, deep, deep, deep. “Take me. Take all of fucking me.”

I screamed.

Just like he promised.

His cock stretched me in so many familiar and dominating ways. My fingers scratched at the earth, my elbows threatened to buckle, and my breasts swung as he pounded inside me, furious and fierce.

My necklaces jingled as he struck a punishing, brutalising rhythm.

We’d made love before.

We’d kissed with sultry passion and rocked in dirty pleasure.

But this?

This was pure, uninhibited fucking.

“Christ.” Sully’s roar bounced off the river and ricocheted in the trees. His pace as he rutted into me struck the fuse on my cinta-amplified desire and triggered an orgasm that detonated with crucifying pressure.

It bolted up my legs, fissured around my womb, and supernovaed outward in thick, pulsing waves of exquisite pleasure.

He followed me, spurting inside me, marking me as his. His head fell back, his fingers dug into my hips, and he jerked with agonising bliss.

When our climaxes allowed the virtual reality world to return and our hearts to find a healthier rhythm, Sully chuckled under his breath. “You’ll be the death of me one day, Eleanor. Each time I think I can’t come any harder, I’m proven wrong.” Hugging me from behind, he played with the pretty necklaces dangling off my neck.

“My very own Amazonian princess. Ripe and ready for my taking.”

I wriggled my hips where we were still linked. Him inside me. His body within mine. The very epitome of male, female connection. “If I’m a princess, why am I on my knees in the dirt?”

He nuzzled the back of my neck. “Because you’re also a goddess of debauchery and are better suited to such places, especially when my cock is deep inside you.” He rolled his hips for good measure.

Thanks to cinta, he would stay hard for however long our lust remained. Our neurological system wasn’t hijacked like with elixir. We had control of this mania.

If we let our systems be sated from this session, our playtime could be over. Or...if we wanted to stay aroused for another and another...and another, then our bodies would very willingly oblige.

I hadn’t had my fill.

And Sully’s voice smoked with sex, hinting he planned on corrupting me for many more hours to come.

Luckily, we were in a giant mansion where other guests wouldn’t hear our cries of rapture. If they did, they’d think our greedy moans were the echoes of haunting ghosts.

With a quick kiss to my sweaty shoulder blades, Sully withdrew and stood. Bending, he collected me from the river’s edge and spun me into his arms.

We stood like that for a minute.

Just being.

Gathered in a hug that allowed our hearts to connect as violently as our bodies had.

Winding my arms around his waist, I pressed my cheek to his chest, feeling the rightness of my world. The sense of belonging and soul-deep contentment of our unshakeable bond.

Slowly, Sully kissed the top of my head and pushed me away a little. “Well, as far as appetisers go, that wasn’t bad.”

I grinned. “That was the hors d’oeuvres, huh? What’s for the main meal?”

His eyes flashed with cunning sex appeal. “Oh, I have an idea.”

“You do, do you?”

“I definitely do.” Taking my hand, he tugged me into the jungle. “Come along. I’ll show you.”