“Oh, shit!” I moaned.

His cock stretched and impaled me.

I cried out as my back bowed and every cell inside me locked onto where we were joined.

“Feel that, Jinx?” He rode me with no finesse or rhythm. “I’m that fucking hard because of you. Because of you refusing me. Making me get on my knees as if I don’t deserve you.” He rutted single-mindedly into me as if he’d taken elixir by accident and now his heart was failing unless he came again and again. “Say it, Eleanor. Say I fucking deserve you.”

Words were as useless as flotsam while I was being so thoroughly ridden by my soul-mate.

“Eleanor.” His teeth latched onto my ear, his breath hot and heavy. “Say what I want to hear.”

“You do deserve me.”

He thrust harder. “How much?”

“So much.”

“And you accept your punishment? You finally give me permission to fuck you?” He plunged quick and sharp, a heady groan rumbling in his throat.

That was a noise of ecstasy.

I echoed it. “You have permission. God, Sully, you have permission every day of our lives.”

He drove up, striking the barrier of me. “Feel that?”

“Yes. Hell, yes.”

“That’s me claiming you all over again. You. Belong. To. Me.”

“I do.”

“I will beg, lie, cheat, and steal if you request it of me but deny me again and I will fuck you until you remember who you married.”

I scratched his back, my mind liquid with lust. “And who did I marry?”

He grinned with pure depravity. “A monster who will do anything to be inside you.”

“A monster who will even beg.” I moaned.

He half-chuckled, half-groaned. “Well played.” He added pressure and pain. “And now, it’s your turn.” His pace turned downright animalistic and I went with him. “Beg me, Eleanor.”

We clawed and fought.

We rolled and kicked up sand as we battled to get closer.

We turned off the human parts of our souls and embraced the beasts within.

“I need you to make me come,” I cried out as he teased and tormented.

“Beg again and I’ll see if I’m in the giving mood.” His hips drove into mine.

“Sully.” I slashed at his ass, yanking him deeper into me. “I need you. I need your cock, your heart, your desire. I need you to fuck me. I’m begging.”

“Shit, you drive me insane.” He kissed me. Teeth clacking against teeth and hands mauling at skin.

The sea kept us buoyant even as we waged war against each other; our bodies bouncing off the sand before spiralling into bubbles the longer we thrust and mated.

The bubbles of my dress popped, one by one, disintegrating under his possession until I was as naked as him. Our kiss was full of salt as we tasted ocean and each other. Our tongues duelled as our bodies continued their feral assault. The hippocampus swam above us, the powerful swishes of his tail buffeting us as we lost ourselves to sex.

Thanks to Sully’s masturbation show and the words he’d chained around me with lusty fire, I lasted mere seconds until his promises of breaking me happened.

The pressure in my womb spiralled and churned, building and building, cresting with each of his savage thrusts. His pelvis hit my clit, again and again, shoving me off the mountain and ensuring I fell headfirst into euphoria.

I came in long milking waves full of stars and salt, clutching his cock inside me. I bound both of us together with inner muscles and the knowledge that we belonged to each other forever and always.

And when I finally opened my eyes and returned to a reality that was distorted by sensors and fables, I blinked into the eyes of a merman who’d well and truly proven that begging wasn’t his strong suit.

He’d taken me with rawness and violence.

He kissed me with worship and reverence.

Rolling his hips, he ensured I was very aware he still possessed me, body and soul. “This is what happens when you say no to me.”

I smiled and stretched beneath him. “In that case, I’ll have to say no more often.”

He smirked. “You’ll be black and blue. People will talk.”

“Let them.” I reached up and pulled his head back down to mine.

My lips captured his and the familiar conduction of power and chemistry shot from his mouth to mine. No matter how many years passed or how many times we fell into bed together, that electricity never faded.

It burned hot enough to heat entire cities. It crackled strong enough to power a thousand yachts.

It would keep us linked for eternity.

Chapter Eleven

TEARING MY MOUTH FROM Eleanor’s, I pushed off from the sand and swooped to my feet in an effortless, weightless glide. We might have had sex, and I might have come twice in as many moments, but cinta wasn’t done with me yet. And judging by the way Eleanor kept her legs indecently spread, her silver eyes sparkling with temptation, and her scaled skin flushing with need, she wasn’t done either.

I’d taken most of the night to design this falsity. I had plenty more areas in which to fuck her. And besides, I wasn’t kidding that I found her a total turn-on. The scales on her gorgeous legs, the elegance of her long toes that’d formed into transparent fins, and the way her hair hovered around her just begging for my fist made me hard as a fucking rock.

I didn’t need cinta.

I needed her.

“Come.” Bending down, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her to her feet. Not that we stood on solid ground but merely hovered in the water’s embrace.

Our bodies, back on the yacht in their matching harnesses, would most likely be tangled in cuffs and buckles by now, but the sensation of being weightless in reality as well as in fabrication meant this particular illusion was entirely too believable.

Eleanor suited the sea in ways that hinted she might have been a water creature in a past life. She moved as if one with the ocean. Her hair had its own entity, coiling and curling as different currents passed us by.

I would find her stunning no matter what form she took, but there was something more about her. Something that made my heart pound with gratefulness that she was mine and my guts churn in fear of ever losing someone so precious.

For once, she wore an actual crown. Not invisible this time but full of shells and flotsam that put her on a pedestal far above me. Her finned legs and iridescent scales only made her more beautiful. All the more untouchable and dream-like.

I needed to touch her to remind myself that she was real. That we had the best of both worlds where we could dabble in legend but also go home to reality.

She wasn’t a myth.

She’s mine.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked as I kicked off and dragged her through the warm sea, out of the lava-pillar crevice and into the rich indigo of open waters.

“You’ll see.”

The hippocampus stayed behind, leaving us to swim above teeming coral reefs, take in the beauty of jellyfish as they pulsed in a undulating cloud in the distance, and sank deeper where shadows were more common than sunlight and the fish glowed luminescent in the dark.

We stayed silent as a hulking shape appeared below. A shipwreck based on a galleon trader, complete with cannons, treasure chests, and manacles.