A curse that I would forever crave and have no antidote for.

Running her hand down the flat of her stomach, she teased her clit. “Does that answer your question?”

“Fuck, yes.” I swallowed hard. My cock bumped against my zipper, and a different kind of pain attacked me. “Yes, it does.”

“In that case, you are overdressed, husband.” Reaching for me, she slid off my blazer, unbuttoned my shirt, and spread both down my arms to toss them on the floor. Giving me her hand, she pulled me from the bed and without looking away, unbuckled my belt, unzipped my trousers, fisted my cock in her tight delicious fingers, then slipped both pants and boxer-briefs to my ankles.

Pika and Skittles huffed and vanished into the living room.

Eleanor laughed as she held out her hands for the eye sensors. “Prudes.”

I drank her in as she tipped her head back and placed one, then two lenses over her gorgeous grey pupils.

“Goddammit, I’m about to come just looking at you.”

She smirked. “Guess you better load whatever it is you’ve programmed, so you can have your wicked way with me then.” She cocked her hip, revealing the trickle of wetness dampening the manicured curls between her legs.

She’d had no elixir, no cinta, no potion apart from her love and lust for me.

She wanted me.

And that made me the luckiest son of a bitch in the goddamn world.

Rushing, I kicked away my clothing and inserted the lenses over my own eyes, blinking past the haze to focus on my bride.

The mirage I had planned for us would finally show her how I saw her. It would show her the invisible crown she wore upon her head, constantly changing, always evolving the more she bewitched me.

In this fantasia, she would stand on the pedestal where she’d originally been dream-bound and unattainable. And she would witness my hunger, my utter fucking desperation as I yanked her off that pedestal and sullied her in every way I could.

She would see how I saw myself.

A lowly pauper who hid in the dark and dabbled in filth until she set him free. She’d feel my tongue on her pussy as I thanked her. She’d cry out as I fucked her with happiness.

She would learn everything that a man should keep private about the woman he’d given his heart to, and I’d give her every weapon against me by learning just how much I cared.

But I’d already come to terms that Jinx was my lifelong curse.

And I would happily die because of it.

She held out my phone, the load button ready to be pressed. “I love you, Sully.”

I took the device, hovering my thumb over the button. “I’m yours, Eleanor. I always have been. Now, you’ll see how true that really is.”

My thumb came down.

The world went white.

And the goddess of my heart stepped with me into a playground where we were angel and devil, queen and king, cavewoman and Neanderthal.

A playground where a god and goddess lived happily ever after.

Chapter Forty-Six

I STOOD ON A PODIUM.

The fantasy slowly came alive around me, revealing a totally different world.

We were no longer on earth—this wasn’t just a different time period or place. This hallucination wasn’t based on our planet. The light was brighter here, as if we were closer to the sun. There was no wind or elements, and the cotton wisps of clouds danced within the ballroom’s ceiling as if we were so sky-high that it’d formed its own weather patterns.

A castle.

A castle in the clouds.

A castle in the mind of my husband.

I blinked as I started to make sense of the huge room. Five-story high columns held painted cupid panels and arched windows from floor to ceiling. No drapes and no mullions, leaving the glass a perfect portal to the staggeringly stunning vista beyond. Spires of a white-washed citadel beckoned beyond, perfect crystal skies framed the cloud fortress, and the sun was too big to distinguish—it was just there. Golden and glowing, bathing all of us in beauty.

I was right.

We weren’t on earth anymore. We were in Olympia or some other home of the gods or perhaps...in a dream.

Sully’s dream.

The moment I thought about him, he appeared.

Inserted into the fantasy with a snap and solidness, he was a man dressed entirely in rags. He spread his dirty hands as he caught my gaze. His palms calloused and trousers torn at the calf. His muslin shirt held patches and frayed edges, and one sleeve had been ripped at the elbow. His bare feet no longer held sand from Goddess Isles but filth from trudging through mud and mistakes.

“Hello,” he breathed, unable to take his eyes off me, drinking in my gowned body.

I looked at where he stared, and my heart hurt at the difference in us. Where he was penniless and dressed in poverty, I sparkled with every diamond in creation.

My arms were inlaid with precious stones, my wrists twinkled with gems. The sheerness of the fabric covering me was weighted with opals of every facet. Panels of silver velvet cascaded in a train, embroidered with sapphire thread and decorated with another million opals.

Beneath my dress, I wore no shoes, but my feet had been painted with henna scrollwork, my toes complete with lotus flowers and my ankles hidden in rosebud vines.

My hair was loose and longer than usual, grazing almost to my thighs, and I felt a magic tingling in my fingers. The electricity I’d suffered from the very first moment I’d touched Sully now hummed powerfully in my blood.

I closed my eyes and focused on the sensation, following the crackle through my veins, around my heart, and along every inch of skin.

Just like this wasn’t earth anymore, I wasn’t human.

Looking at Sully, I whispered, “What is this place? What am I?”

He licked his lips, still unable to look away from my body. “This is my dream. When I first met you.”

“You saw me this clearly?”

“I saw your silver stare and empathic heart. I saw you on an unreachable pedestal, and knew you held magic that could kill me with just a touch. I went to you. I bowed at your feet, and instead of commanding me to leave, you welcomed me. You cared for me even when I didn’t deserve it.” He shrugged in his rags. “The rest—the clouds, the castle, the opals—it’s an embellishment to show you just how in awe I was of you, to hint just how much I needed you, even then.”

“And the magic in my veins now?” I held up my hand, gasping as micro shards of light appeared in my palm.

“That isn’t fake.” His voice lowered until it slipped beneath my gown and made love to me with seducing syllables. “That is just a manifested reality. When you touch me, I feel it. When you kiss me, it electrifies my very soul. You aren’t just a woman to me. You never have been and never will be. You are a witch in every way that matters.”

I tried to quell the rapidly growing lust for him. To not grow wet for his misplaced worship of me but instead focus on how handsome he was, even dressed in yesterday’s heartache. “Sully, I need you.” I held out my hand, beckoning him to my podium.

He took a step, shivering as he once again drank me in. “You take my fucking breath away.”

I shivered, my nipples pebbling behind opals and my insides melting with need. “Then let me kiss you, and I’ll give it back.”

He smiled, rakishly and shyly. A combination that set fire to my desire.