Third a Kiss

She smiled sadly. “Cal went to get Markus. The men are brought in once the goddess is already loaded into the program. I’d stayed lurking close by…I was the only one who saw what Sully felt after whatever happened with you guys in the bathroom. He noticed me. And it only took a second for him to snap his fingers and take me into the second VR room. I didn’t need to ask. I helped him put the sensors on me, I willingly drank the elixir, all while he copied Markus Grammer’s fantasy and…put me in your place.”

“What?” My heart dropped to my toes.

“He made me look like you. He intercepted Cal and loaded Markus into the hallucination. And then he went back…to you.” She grinned coyly. “I know that diamond is from Sully because…Markus gave me one too. He gave me a diamond that was meant for you and Sully gave it to me the night before he found you at breakfast. The only difference was the diamond from Markus was two carats. The one from Sully is at least four.”

My teeth chattered as my gaze fell on the heavy expensive gem in my hands. Could it be real? I wasn’t crazy to think it was Sully who took me as that brutish, delicious caveman?

Trepidation skated down my spine, colliding with each rib in a clanging symphony. I looked up and met Jealousy’s gaze. “If that’s true…why bother telling me? Why do you care? What do you get in return?”

She tucked hair from behind my ears before standing in the final ruby dregs of sunset. “I care because he cares. And…if he learns to care for someone, perhaps he’ll care for all of us.” She shrugged, looking much younger than her previous conversation suggested. “If you can give Sully his freedom, then maybe…we can have ours in return.”

Blowing me a kiss, she smiled at the tatters of my dress left forgotten on the beach, then strode up the steps and into my villa.

The front door closed a second later.

I collapsed on my back, exhausted as if I’d run a hundred miles, shaking as if I’d seen a thousand ghosts, blinking with a million hopes at the stars.

Chapter Eight

WORK WAS MY SALVATION.

This time yesterday, I’d been balls deep in Eleanor. Now, I sat at my desk with a cock that still smarted from overuse, a bruised heart, sore lungs, and muscles that’d filled with lactic acid and refused to abate.

Dr Campbell was right. Elixir wreaked havoc on a person’s neurological system. My body felt like a stranger, my mind a traitor, my rational thought and habits all scrambled. Thanks to Eleanor, I’d been left with explicit dreams, dregs of pleasure I had no choice but to succumb to, and the highly intense and painfully erotic memories of what I’d done to her.

I couldn’t get her out of my goddamn mind.

I couldn’t eradicate her scent from my nose, her taste from my tongue, her heat from my cock. She was everywhere. She was inside me. And being so weak to her power pissed me the fuck off.

Yes, I was in love with the damn girl.

Yes, I’d slipped and might have told her that at some point yesterday…in some version.

And yes, I’d definitely let down my barriers when I’d taken her in Euphoria. I’d been honest for the first time in decades. I’d told her I was hers. That I didn’t want her to wake up because I didn’t want to return to this fucking world. I wanted to remain in that cave where it was just the two of us. No lies, no struggles, no opportunities for her to betray me.

But that cave wasn’t real, and neither was our wild sex yesterday. Both were by-products of scientific formulas designed to trick the mind, confuse the heart, and remove the many obstacles and common-sense that stopped a human from falling in love in mere seconds.

In that, there was no gimmick or distortion.

Men fell for their goddess thanks to rioting body chemistry and overwhelming amounts of dopamine, adrenaline, and norepinephrine which made falling head over fucking heels an addictive rush.

I groaned, digging my hands into my hair.

That’s all that happened to me too.

A blend of body programming and misfiring synapses.

That’s it.

Then how do you explain feeling that punch to your gut when she stepped off your goddamn helicopter?

Stop!

I gritted my teeth and growled at Pika as he sat minding his own business, shredding a pink Post-it Note. He cocked his head, bristling green feathers. He chirped as if growling back, then returned to his shredding with ferocity.

I’m done with this nonsense.

She is human.

She isn’t trustworthy. Look at her current track record.

She’d run away. She’d stolen Skittles. She’d drugged me.

If I was stupid enough to want her after she’d shown her true colours, then I deserved the fate I’d been given.

Nodding with determination, I snatched the phone and called Roy Slater’s villa. It was time he got off my fucking island. Alone.

Eleanor would not be sold.

Not because of her little stunt yesterday, but because we had a contract—signed by both of us. A commitment of four years and then freedom. I would find a way to endure those four years. I would revoke this madness inside me. I would return to who I was, and she would begin her proper employment with weekly servicing for the men I let onto my shores.

Eventually, this scramble of elixir and Euphoria would get the fuck out of my bloodstream and I’d be sane again.

Slater answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Pack your bag. Your ride home leaves in thirty minutes.”

He coughed. “Orders now? After I was treated like a criminal and locked inside my villa all day yesterday? What the hell, Sinclair? I paid to come here. I paid for pleasure. Not so your goon could throw me into a cell.”

“That was for your own protection.”

So you didn’t see what I did to the goddess you’ve claimed.

“Something fishy is going on. Just honour our deal and I’ll leave. We’ll both be glad to say goodbye.”

“There is no deal. Not anymore.”

“What? But you agreed. We shook hands. We—”

“I don’t sell my property, Mr. Slater.” My temper spiked with a snarl. “I had a momentary lapse.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, wrangling the fury in my voice back into its cage and forcing gentile pleasantries instead. “I apologise for the inconvenience and, of course, your extra night on Goddess Isles is complimentary. But your stay has come to an end.”

He blustered and fought for words, finally settling on a pathetic, “But…I love her. I want her as my wife. You can trust me to care for her as my family, Sinclair. I would never harm her.”

Trust?

The most idiotic, dangerous emotion of all.

There is no such thing.

My hand tightened around the phone. Pika sensed my rising rage, fluttering to land on my head and hang upside down so we were eye to eye. He granted me enough rationality to exhale heavily and keep my voice from launching down the phone and stabbing the bastard in the ear. “I apologise for your conviction. You might think you love her…but I promise you, it will pass. You’ve been deceived by a delusion. The affection you feel has been triggered by an experience that cannot be compared. When you return home, the intensity will fade.”

I didn’t know if I lectured him or myself, but either way, this conversation was over. “Be at the helipad in twenty minutes. I will personally escort you from my shores.”