Once a Myth

Well, hadn’t my dreams just been fucking granted?

What was she? Who was she? Where in the goddamn hell had she come from?

Those traffickers deserved a raise. A bonus. A place in eternal paradise for delivering her.

She’s mine.

Bought and paid for.

I swallowed hard, battling the undeniable black satisfaction that gave me.

I didn’t have to rent her for a night.

I didn’t have to give her back after I came deep inside her.

She was mine.

All mine.

Her eyes narrowed, glaring grey daggers. “Are you him?” she repeated.

I snapped out of the void. The black silence popped, bringing back the scents of orchids and fresh pineapple, the whisper of ferns and fronds, the squawk of birdlife.

“Depends on who you think I am.”

It was her turn to strike stupid.

Her gaze glazed for a moment as if stunned by something painful. Her lips parted. Her body swayed. The energy between us crackled, not with strangers meeting for the first time, but two creatures suddenly ravenous for fucking.

I couldn’t help it.

She couldn’t help it.

It was natural.

Life’s design, and fate’s purpose.

Men came here to fuck.

I welcomed them to choose their preferred goddess.

But this one…she’d been tailored for me. Her body already wore my mark. Her heart already stuttered for me to snatch her, mount her, fuck her until we both either entered the Kingdom of Heaven or plummeted to the Gates of Hell.

I was fine with either destination.

As long as I could taste, touch, own.

Shaking her head, she blinked and balled her hands. A trace of defiance, a flicker of annoyance, but most of all, no sign that she’d felt the undercurrent of greed that’d sprang from nowhere and still tainted the island heat around us.

“I think you’re a man with ludicrous, grandiose ideas that he has some right to buy another.”

A smile stretched my lips. “And yet…here you are. Bought and paid for.”

“I’m not some shopping list you get to jot down and have slaves collect for you.”

“No, that would be slavers who caught and delivered you. Not slaves.” I looked her up and down. “The only slave here is you.”

She jerked back. “So…you don’t deny it?”

“Deny what?”

“That you’re a monster who buys others.”

I leaned toward her, pleasantly surprised and dangerously turned on when she didn’t back down. When her nostrils flared as if smelling my sea salt skin and the coconut cologne I religiously used. When her grey gaze turned a rich shadow with things that tempted me beyond belief. “I don’t deny it. After all, my money brought you to my shores. Here you are. All mine.” My belly twisted with lethal desire.

I pitied her, really.

The other goddesses had it easy. They’d been welcomed to my island, settled into their new home, advised of their strict guidelines, and prepared for their exclusive employment.

Not once did they intrigue me like this one.

Not once were they in danger of charming me like a perfectly prepared appetizer.

Poor, poor thing.

My client’s tastes might be varied and vulgar. They might have rascally needs and wicked fantasies, but they didn’t come close to my depraved desires.

I stepped back.

I couldn’t.

For all the provocation her majesty enticed me, she was worth far more to me in servitude than in my bed.

The moment the guests saw her, she’d be requested.

Again and again.

I could charge double. Triple. A thousandfold.

And they’d pay it.

Not because of her elegant polish but because such perfection called out wolves to maul. She promised an end to the famine of boredom. She and her invisible crown just begged, fucking begged, to be pawed and clawed and fornicated.

She was priceless.

“Come. Let me show you around your new cage.” Stepping back, I opened my arm wide, waiting for her to step into my dominion.

Chapter Seven

HE STOOD THERE, SURROUNDED by palm frond shadows, his arm spread, revealing a suit that clung to his rigid, flawless body.

No beer belly. No flabby jowls. No pockmarked skin or terrible body odour.

Why did he have to look like every element of my wanton dreams come to life?

It wasn’t fair.

Fate had somehow read my fantasies and stitched together every facet that I found appealing in the male sex, improving on the design, fabricating something inherently faultless, all while hiding the rot deep inside.

I already found his personality appalling.

When he’d spoken, I’d suffered a visceral reaction of loathing.

His cultured, clipped baritone dripped with blackness. It’d reached inside me and left an oily, suffocating residue on my heart. My organs felt like the sticky feathers of dying seabirds, iridescent from grease and entirely unwashable.

I knew what he was.

I wasn’t stupid—not when it came to him. I didn’t need to be worldly to understand that this was not a man. This was not someone I could ever trust or let my guard down with.

He was an untamed hunter. He was sheathed claws and hidden teeth; a well-groomed pelt hiding the viciousness within.

I forced courage that I didn’t have into my snippy voice. “I prefer to skip the tour and, instead, negotiate the terms of my freedom.”

“Oh, you would, would you?” His lips twitched into a small smile. His head tilted just slightly, as if tasting my fight and battling his own reaction toward me. It seemed I wasn’t the only one hyperaware.

My awareness came from adrenaline and the chemical makeup of my body as it sought a way free. Everything was brighter, sharper, louder. That was why I noticed so much about him.

The only reason.

What was his?

Compared to Scott, this man was from a different galaxy. He’d not only been forged from all the best pieces a male could inherit but had somehow improved upon the perfection.

His calculating, unreadable blue eyes had poisonous hooks designed to snag and trap, rendering me breathless. His glossy dark hair fought to remain entirely ebony, but the tips rebelled with a sparkle of sun-given bronze. His nose was straight, his chin strong, his cheekbones refined as any blue-blood. The dark scruff on his face was another hint of rebellion to perfection—darker than a five o’clock shadow but not quite a beard. It acted as the perfect frame for his mouth.

I tore my gaze away from his harsh lips and the flash of a tempestuous tongue.

He gave in to his smile, letting it twist harshness into cruelty. “I’m not in the mood for negotiations.”

“And I’m not in the mood to be purchased.”

“That’s convenient because the transaction has already been completed.”

I crossed my arms. “How much?”

He looked me up and down as if wondering who the hell I was. “Excuse me?”

“How much did you pay?”

He narrowed blue eyes that mimicked the sky above. “Too much for you to ever comprehend.”

“Tell me a number.”

“I don’t discuss business with my possessions.”

My temper made me quake. I couldn’t contain it. My feet sank into sun-warmed sand, my toes curling for purchase. “I’m not your possession.”