Chapter Eleven

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CLIMBING UP THE LADDER, I had no idea what to expect on the second level.

Another bedroom perhaps? Maybe a small sitting area?

“It’s...empty.” I turned to face Sully as he climbed up behind me, his overbearing presence and power making the space feel tight and constricted.

Giving me a half-smile, he marched to the small door at the back. “We’re not there yet.” Sweeping it open, he revealed yet another platform. This one outdoors, canopied by hanging trees, vines, and utterly at one with the jungle.

“Oh, wow.” I stepped from indoors to outdoors, marvelling at the attention to detail Sully went with the VR creation. Heavy flowers in mauves and maroons hung over the balustrade. Bamboo carved lanterns dotted all four corners of the deck and sunlight spangled through the leaves and trunks to stencil the flooring with a golden glow.

There was no furniture, no clutter. Just the backdrop of nature in all its beauty.

Sully sighed as he joined me, drinking in perfection, smiling at a flock of parrots as they darted past.

The flash of jewelled feathers made me miss Pika and Skittles.

Even though our minds were currently in the tropics of some fictional forest, our bodies were in England. If I focused on reality instead of myth, I felt the chill of English weather and the mustiness of an ancient hall.

Goddess Isles was never cold, never damp, never musty. It was forever tropical and temperate, and I found it surprising how homesick I was, considering we’d only been gone a single day.

A crash sounded in the canopy, making me spin around, my necklaces clinking on my chest. A beautifully patterned feline slinked from the branches, leaping gracefully onto the deck with its tail flicking and amber eyes narrowed with intelligence.

I froze.

Fantasy or not, I didn’t fancy pissing off a jaguar. “Eh, Sully?” I didn’t move, relying on him to resolve this uncomfortable situation.

I was naked.

Sully still wore his loincloth.

And the cat had claws sharp enough to disembowel us with one swipe.

“It won’t hurt you, Eleanor.” Sully stepped forward, a soft smile on his face. “Will you, jaguar?”

The cat sat on its haunches and yawned, revealing the longest canines I’d ever seen. Its tongue curled and stuck out in a pink lash as it snarled on the tail of its yawn.

Its pelt was velvet and pigmented with circlets of brown, tan, and cream, mottling its presence to move unseen in the foliage. The natural camouflage was a work of art, even if it was a highly equipped predator who obeyed no one but its own desires.

Goosebumps spread over me.

I wrapped arms around my nakedness and backed up a step. “You programmed everything? Even that?”

Sully looked at me before padding toward the giant jungle beast. “The codes for the animals I copied from the cypher that Drake locked you in.”

I frowned, struggling to remember if I’d seen that particular jaguar in the campsite when I’d been dressed as a native and Drake had been some raping lumberjack who thought he could take what he wasn’t allowed. “The animals only arrived later. After...” I swallowed, remembering in full detail how the fantasy had switched from daylight to darkness and wolves the sizes of cars had magically appeared. “After you entered the illusion.” I shivered, recalling how Sully had come for me. How he’d fought against all odds, ignored broken bones and rapidly fading heartbeats, and conjured a monster with scaled flesh, venomous fangs, and devil horns.

He’d saved me by putting me to sleep. He’d freed me of the fantasy, and I’d never know what he did to Drake, deep within a hallucination that was never about pleasure just revenge.

Keeping my eyes on the jaguar, I murmured, “I never asked you what happened that day, but now, I’m curious.” I braced myself, waiting until Sully made eye contact with me. His blazing blue stare shielded with secrets. “How did you break Drake’s mind?”

Sully froze, his stomach rippling with muscle. “Do you seriously want to know?” Shaking away his stillness, he closed the distance to the jaguar that sat watching us like we were fish caught in a bowl. Holding out his hand, he showed no fear as he stroked the big cat’s velvety head.

I swallowed a gasp as the cat instantly purred and bumped against Sully to be petted harder. The sight of a wild man stroking a hunter, high up in the treetops, dressed in just a loincloth, scrambled my grasp on what was real and what was his illusion.

Sully belonged here.

He belonged in an untouched utopia where he wore sunlight instead of suits and had all the gifts of survival for a raw, undomesticated existence instead of a billionaire pharmaceutical empire.

Funny, how he had everything that people fought and clawed to earn. He’d mastered the corporate world. He’d dabbled in the unethical and illegal. He’d turned his back on nefarious enterprises and given me everything he was the day he married me...yet, Sully Sinclair didn’t need, nor want any of those things.

He just wanted to be left alone.

To be free in the wild with creatures and elements.

And me.

The truth punched me in the heart and made me love him even more than I thought possible.

Ignoring his previous question, I murmured, “This fantasy...it’s not just about the sex, is it? It’s the whole experience. The birdsong and serenity. The peace where no other humans exist.” I smiled softly, blending seriousness with joviality. “If I didn’t know you, I’d say this was based on Tarzan. After all, you’re a complicated man who not many understand. You have the uncanny ability to befriend any animal you come across, and you prefer to keep the entire human race as far away from you as possible. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.” I looked him up and down, drinking in the wild perfection. “You’re Tarzan.”

He let out a deep chuckle, ducking to his haunches to scratch the cat under its chin. “When you label it, yes, it does seem that way.” His eyes glittered as he studied me intently, lingering on my pussy and nipples. “You do make a delectable Jane. Wasn’t she a virgin? An innocent young girl who caught the attention of a man raised by animals?”

“She fell in love with him the instant she saw him.”

“And he with her.” His eyes never left mine, making me wet, fluttering my heart, clenching my entire body with need.

“And they had copious amounts of sex,” I breathed.

“Filthy creatures.”

I licked my lips. “Obsessed.”

“Addicted.” His hands continued to stroke the jaguar. Long, strong fingers that had been on me, in me, everywhere on me. I found every part of him terrifyingly tempting.

Desire thickened the air between us.

Our skin sparked with chemistry that never stopped tormenting us. My mouth begged to be on his. My body pleaded to be filled by him.

The only problem was, we still had a guest.

One with big teeth.

Swallowing down my need, I moved hesitantly toward Sully and the cat.

Sully gave me a gentle nod as I dared to hold out my hand to the jaguar. The cat sniffed me, licked me once with its sandpaper tongue, then continued to purr thanks to Sully’s petting.

“All this...” My voice scratched with lust. I cleared my throat, adding, “This fantasy: the animals, the jungle, even the treehouse, it’s all similar to Tarzan...apart from one thing.”

“Oh, and what’s that?” Sully asked smoothly.

“A gorilla. You’re missing a—”

A branch snapping whirled me around just as a silver and black monkey appeared from the shadowy leaves all around us.

A damn gorilla.

I laughed under my breath as the primate dropped from the trees and thudded against the deck. The jaguar didn’t flinch or try to kill it. Its eyes closed in utmost contentment beside Sully.

The gorilla blinked at me, its long eyelashes catching the sunlight and its silvery black hair so fine and soft. A female. Not fully grown, inquisitive and sweet, studying me as curiously as I studied her.

How did Sully do it?

How did he conjure a creature just from code?

How did he get every nuance of her movements and every filament of her hair so perfect?

I locked my knees as the gorilla reached for my necklaces, her black hands heavily padded for jungle climbing and thick with power. The beads and shells clacked as she tugged one of the cords.

I removed it and handed it to her.

She grunted and dropped to her butt, studying her new possession.

Sully stood, leaving his hand on the jaguar’s head. “You’re going to ask if I summoned that gorilla, aren’t you?” He smirked. “That I elaborated on the Tarzan theme and deliberately cyphered her to prove you’re correct. That I have a thing for a childhood storybook.”

I padded toward him, awed by the two animals just happily hanging out with us. “You have to admit, it’s rather coincidental.”

“Or the fantasy felt what you were thinking and delivered.”

“Can a computer program do that?”

Sully shrugged, his naked chest once again distracting me with his chiselled strength. “Programs evolve. There are updates and new editions.”

“So, yes or no?” I rested my palm over his heart. He shuddered at our connection, hissing between his teeth as electricity fired between us.

“I don’t know.” His tongue ran over his bottom lip. “Along with the creatures I created previously, I tweaked a line of code to create animals known to be found in jungles. I didn’t state what animals. I just let the program decide.” Grabbing my wrist, he jerked me closer.

It was my turn to hiss as his body pressed against mine. Hot and slightly tacky with sweat and hard in all the right places. “Think of another animal, Jinx. Let’s see if you have the ability to summon an aardvark or a buffalo.”

My mind went blank as he tipped my chin up with his knuckle, holding me still as he looked deep into my eyes. “You know I love you more than any other person, before or since. You know that I always will, but I don’t think you fully understand why I fell in love with you in the first place.”

I swayed in his control, my breasts growing heavy and a trickle of want on my inner thigh. “Why?” My question was a gentle puff of air as the jaguar stood, stretched, and leapt off the deck, vanishing stealthy and sleek into the trees.

“I fell for you because of Skittles.” His lips pressed against mine. He kissed me slow and deep, distracting me, corrupting me. I clung to him, opening wider, permitting him to guide me wherever he wanted.

Pulling away, I asked breathlessly. “Skittles?”

“She showed me who you were beneath the beauty, the fight, the goddess I’d purchased. Because of her trust in you—when she’d never trusted anyone—I knew without a shadow of a doubt that you were good. Kind. The exact opposite of what I’d become.” He kissed me again, his tongue slipping past my lips and completely stealing me from conversation.

The deck shuddered as the gorilla followed the jaguar and abandoned us to our lust. Sully backed me toward the railing where vines dangled like living ribbons.

With our tongues dancing and bodies burning for more, he pressed me against the balustrade. One hand remained on my waist, kneading me, pulling my hips into his, but the other let me go, the slight breeze of air hinting he did something I couldn’t see.

Breathing hard, I nipped his bottom lip, needing to know.

His eyes glowed sapphires as he wrapped a vine around my wrist, trapping me.

The moment he’d tied me, he stepped back and raked his hands through his hair. “You did say I could do anything to you, correct?”

I tugged against the vine; the snug softness belied the strength behind the creeper. It was just us. No more cats or gorillas. No more talk about programs and true love.

Just drowning attraction and blistering sexual need.

I swallowed and nodded.

Sully growled low in his chest. “I’ll make this good for you, Jinx. So fucking good.” With slightly shaking hands, he removed his loincloth, throwing it over the side of the deck. It fluttered through the branches, leaving Sully stunningly naked.

His cock hung heavy and hard. His balls tucked against his body in need. His flat stomach rippled with shallow breaths. Crowding into me, he grabbed the vine by my other wrist and once again, used it to secure me.

He didn’t speak as he climbed onto the banister and tugged at vines hanging above us, pulling them lower from their tangles to drape a few around me. Bits of bracken and dried leaves rained around us as he reached for me and plucked me from the deck.

I couldn’t move my arms as he held me high enough to position my leg through a looped hanging vine before repeating with my other. “Balance.” He let me go, leaving the two vines around my thighs to hold my weight as I swung with my legs parted.

It took effort to stay in place, especially with my wrists tied, and my stomach clenched as he once again jumped onto the railing and tugged another few vines to waist level. With sure hands and quick calculations, he reclined me onto the new loops, ensuring three thick foliage ropes cradled my back and neck.

My hair cascaded behind me; my necklaces and anklets tinkled quietly with my every sway.

Only once he’d added vines to my ankles, leaving the vines swinging from the treetops above and splaying my legs open did he step back to inspect my imprisonment.

I squirmed in the bondage, testing the parameters and seeking a way free.

He groaned as my legs scissored, then splayed wide thanks to the vines keeping me trapped. His hand dropped to his cock, his fingers lashing tight around his erection. “You look positively divine.”

I struggled again, trying to keep my legs closed, all while the swinging strength of the vines parted them, revealing every private part of me.

He’d effectively made a sex swing out of the jungle.

He’d lashed and looped me so I had nowhere to go, no way to run from whatever he was about to do.

Cinta sprang back into power in my veins. Lust shoved aside words and worries, drenching me in debilitating desire. If I wasn’t supported by the vines, I would’ve puddled to his feet and begged him to touch me.

His stare was a visceral thing.

The way he masturbated while feasting on my prone body made the coils of a climax begin in my belly.

Touch me.

Fuck me.

Please!

“Want something, Eleanor?” He jerked himself harder. “You’re growing wetter by the second, so you can’t deny it.”

I nodded, desperation making me insane. “You. I want you.”

“How? How do you want me?”

I watched him jerking off. The brutalising squeeze, the harsh punishment. He’d never been a gentle lover, and I wanted it as hard as he delivered.

“I want that.” I arched my chin at his cock, my vision turning hazy. “I want you to touch me like that.”

“Where?” he growled.

“Everywhere.”

My skin flushed as his gaze turned midnight and flashed with violent lust. “Your wish is my command, Goddess Jinx.” Stepping into me, he slammed to his knees between my wide legs. “Fuck, I’m going to enjoy this.”