Fourth a Lie

She had to go.

My temper barrelled through the thin veil of calm she’d granted. I grunted as her sinful lips encircled my erection.

My back snapped straight. My body jerked with unshed desire. My hands landed on her head, holding her while I thrust into her hot, wet mouth.

Fuck!

My orgasm that’d never vanished took my distraction as permission to explode.

The first splash coated her tongue as I drove to the back of her throat.

My anger followed swiftly.

My acrimony that she’d once again manipulated me raced through my veins and made me cruel.

Shoving her away, I pinched the tip, refusing another wave of pleasure. I locked down my muscles. I gritted my teeth against the natural pulse of my body to spurt. I groaned as the climax tormented me with talons then slunk back down my legs with irritation.

Eleanor remained on her knees, her grey eyes shadowed with annoyance. “Let me pleasure you, Sully. Focus on something else...it will help.”

“Don’t tell me what will help. I know what will help. The second you’re off my island, I’ll be happy.”

“Happy?” She snorted. “You’re so far from happy you’re in denial.”

“And whose fault is that, huh?” I bowed over her, flinching as cold needles continued to stab us. My cock ached with every droplet of unshed cum, making me snappish and savage. “I’ll tell you whose fault it is. You and your goddamn curse. You’ve made me weak. You’re the reason I didn’t see this attack coming. You’re as much to blame for the blood on my hands as I am.”

She braced her shoulders. “I’ll permit that one slander because I know how much you’re hurting...but do it again and—”

“Get up.” I fisted my cock, throttling it in warning to stop torturing me. “Your stay on my shores has come to an end.”

Regally, seductively, she stood. “You can’t send me away. We both know that.”

This was the part I hated the most.

The utmost assurance in her tone of my feelings for her. The presumptuous boldness that said she wasn’t afraid of me, that she could hear my lies even as I formed them, that she would always know the truth in my heart instead of the falsehoods in my mouth.

Fine.

She wanted the truth?

I’d give her the goddamn truth.

Wrenching off the shower, I grabbed her forearm and threw her into the bathroom. She tripped and skidded on the tile, quickly finding her balance to clash with me.

“I don’t have the fucking strength to survive you.”

She spread her hands in surrender. “I’m not asking you to survive me. I’m asking you to trust me—”

“Trust that you’ll still be alive after I deal with Drake? Trust that you won’t push me to my limit and make me hurt you? Trust that you’re fucking immortal and won’t end up like the creatures strewn all over my goddamn island?”

Her cheeks pinked with matching temper, water dripping down her bare form. “Once again, I’m not asking you to drag me into whatever war you have to win. I’m just asking you to admit you want me—”

“Want you?” My nostrils flared, my hand still locked around my pounding cock. “Woman, I’ve never wanted anyone more.”

“Then that’s all that matters. I’m yours and—”

“I want you, Jinx...but I don’t want to want you.”

Her inhale pierced her lungs, air doing its best to cushion my intended dagger to her heart. Her hand rubbed her chest as I struck a successful blow. “You’re walking a fine line, Sully. I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to convince me and yourself that what we have is cheap enough to throw away. That we aren’t linked by something far more powerful than either of us.”

“It’s over, Eleanor.”

“Like hell it is.” She planted her hands on her hips, spreading her legs, her pussy still wet for me, her breasts still swollen for me, her entire body primed for my possession.

Jesus, I found her irresistible.

The most stunning, infuriating, maddening, wonderful creature I’d ever seen.

But if she died, the perfection of her would fade. It was her soul that made her perfect and her soul would escape the moment her body took its last inhale.

I will not be fucking responsible for that.

I can’t!

I winced as an image of shovelling her broken body into a blood-soaked sack filled my mind. A rush of nausea swarmed me.

What I’d seen on Serigala would be nothing if I had to witness her death. If the bones I crunched and cracked over were hers.

I would spend my life in purgatory. I would sprout heinous blasphemy. I would hog-tie her and throw her on the helicopter gagged and trussed before I let that happen.

I balled my hands. “I gave you your freedom. It’s time to take it.”

“My freedom isn’t worth a damn if I’m not with you. I wasn’t free the moment I met you!”

“I rescind my ownership of you, Eleanor. Whatever bond you think we have—”

“God, you’re a bastard. You think you can just snap your fingers and what I feel for you stops? You honestly think you can cut me from your life by sending me away?”

“Just accept that this is not open for discussion. My reasons are my own and will not be swayed. You are no longer welcome—”

“Argh!” She paced, her motions jerky, her breasts bouncing. “You know what, Sully, I called you a coward before and I’ll use that word again. You. Are. A. Coward. You were a coward about admitting you were in love with me, and you’re a coward now for trying to say that you don’t. You’re a coward for throwing me away the moment things get hard.”

“Things get hard?” A sarcastic bark slipped my control, even as my cock swelled with deep-seated pain the longer I watched her.

I needed her.

Fuck, how I needed her.

She was walking fucking temptation.

A spitfire with temper crashing and igniting against my own. Every slur we threw at each other made the bathroom drip and shimmer with need.

“For fuck’s sake, I’ve just wiped up the intestines of hundreds of animals. Do you think I want to wipe up yours, too?”

“My intestines are staying right where they are. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Then why are you—”

“I’m not worried about what might happen, Eleanor. I know what will happen. You. Will. Get. Hurt. It’s a fucking guarantee. You are my weakness. He will use you against me, and because of the shit that I’ve done, fate will deem it fitting to allow him to hurt you. If you stay, he will hold you over me, and you. Will. Die.”

My body clenched with warning. I was near the ledge. A ledge that would only destroy both of us.

Breathing hard, I snarled, “I’m doing my best to stay calm here, Jinx, but I did warn you. I’m hanging on by a goddamn thread. I’m running out of time. If you continue to fight against me I—”

“You think he’ll hurt me?” She crossed her arms, pushing her breasts up, making my cock weep cum. “That’s the only reason you want me to leave?”

I laughed again, icy and cruel, so turned on I couldn’t fucking see straight. “You mean, I need a better reason than you will die?”