Third a Kiss

I gasped as he shoved me against the wall.

The barn shuddered from my impact, releasing dust from wooden planks and cobwebs to string and lace from the ceiling down into my hair.

His temper was right.

His breathing was right.

His fury as he hoisted up my skirt and found I wasn’t wearing underwear was right.

My head fell back, bashing against the wall as he shoved two fingers inside me.

His touch was right.

His groan was right.

His thumb against my clit and the feathering of his fingers inside me was all right.

Yet the more he touched me, the less I desired him.

Had I cursed myself when I promised he’d become invisible to me? Had I truly broken that all-consuming, heart-knotting bond we’d shared?

“Stop.” I pushed at his chest, unable to get proper purchase as his body crushed mine. His boot kicked my lace-ups, spreading my legs.

He fingered me roughly.

He took me in ways he’d already taken, but unlike those previous times when I’d spread on my own accord, when I’d begged for more, when I’d basked in that damn glow, ember, and pin-wheeling firework from his touch…now, I turned frigid.

I tried to cross my legs. I did my best to grab his wrist and stop his pumping fingers. “You’re not him. You’re not him!”

Terror finally broke through my confusion, tearing apart what I’d been too terrified to admit.

Sully had locked me in Euphoria.

He’d given me to a guest.

A guest wearing his skin.

The worst deception I could imagine.

Just like the caveman hid Sully behind huge physique, scars, and growls, this guest had the perfect disguise to destroy me.

That was why he hadn’t given me elixir.

That was why he didn’t use my lust against me.

He thought I wouldn’t need it.

That he was my elixir.

That I would buy into the illusion with every idiotic bone in my body and be so damn grateful that he’d finally trusted me. That he’d given me his affection in acknowledgment of his faith and forgiveness.

It’s all bullshit.

He’d just given me a taste of his world.

He’d taken my trust and shat all over it.

Tears spilled from my eyes as I went wild. I scratched his face. I kicked his legs. I wriggled and squirmed.

I screamed.

I screamed and screamed.

I screamed for this illusion to stop. For this guest to disappear. For this whole screwed up punishment to be over.

“Get your fucking fingers out of me, you damn bastard!” I tore at his hair, ripping at the strands I’d always found so sexy on Sully Sinclair. I snarled as he tried to kiss me. I choked as his free hand latched tight around my throat.

“Stop fucking moving.” His fingers withdrew from me, fumbling for his belt. “You want to scream? You can scream while I drive my cock deep inside you.”

No!

This isn’t happening.

No!

At no point in my captivity had I ever felt so petrified. Never had I been this close to feeling like what a true slave would feel.

I had no choice.

I had no power to stop him.

I was a goddess, bought and paid for, a vessel for this guest’s feral fantasy.

I moaned in absolute horror as the zipper of his jeans sounded, followed by his grunt as he inched the denim off his hips.

No.

Please, no.

Stop.

Stop.

“Stop!”

He pressed against me. He bent his knees. He angled to thrust—

“She said stop.”

The man wearing Sully’s body froze. Together, our heads whipped to the left where a stable hand appeared from the tack room. Lean and lanky, he could be a jockey instead of a groom holding a pitchfork for mucking out soiled hay.

“How about you stay out of this.” Sully-not-Sully growled.

I shivered at how real his voice sounded, and, once again, a tiny piece of me wondered if I’d gotten it wrong.

How could I base my convictions on just a feeling? A profoundly powerful feeling…but still just a feeling.

But then Sully-not-Sully pressed himself against me again and I knew. No amount of sensors or oils or gimmicks could prevent me from knowing.

I knew without any remaining doubt.

This man was not him.

This man did not have the right to touch me, fuck me, love me.

This man was nothing.

“Let me go,” I snarled.

Sully-not-Sully flat-out ignored me, arching his hips to slide his cock between my legs.

The glint of a dirty pitchfork wedged against his jugular. “She said stop.”

A repeat of what he’d already muttered in a voice that held the barest of gruff and laced with a Southern accent. I’d never heard that voice before. I’d never met this brown-eyed, blond-haired boy in my life.

And yet…sparks.

Awareness…knowing.

Goosebumps sprang all over, reducing my horror to hope.

Could it be?

Was it him?

And if it was…why?

What was the purpose of this hellish trick?

How could I trust anything, anyone ever again?

Was that the game?

To understand how Sully struggled to see past masks and promises and fakery? To reveal how trust could never be given if your heart said one thing but your mind another?

Even suffering this riddle for a few short minutes, I was exhausted.

Exhausted fighting my psyche’s natural craving to trust. The undeniable need to believe in what you thought was real because that was where safety lay. If the one person you thought you could trust turned out to be your worst enemy…then nothing was safe.

The world was a cesspit of liars and thieves and murderers, all hiding behind sweetness and smiles and the utmost simplicity of trust.

Trust.

That damn inconvenient emotion that ultimately destroyed the gullible and allowed the deceitful to run free.

My shoulders slumped.

My revelation had come fierce and fast, leaving me fumbling for air.

The stable hand shot me a worried glance. His brown eyes glossed with concern, his eyebrows tugged low in hatred for the man forcing himself upon me. Without a word, he jabbed the pitchfork deeper against Sully-not-Sully’s throat. “Get off her.”

Three new words in a stranger’s voice.

But I closed my eyes and listened to the magic behind it. The crackle of lightning. The hint of thunder. The tropical breeze and salt-dusted home of the man who’d done his best to break me.

I sighed as the pitchfork drew a droplet of blood from Sully’s imposter, forcing him to back up and tuck his erection back into his jeans.

Seeing such a gorgeous man like Sully be borrowed by a guest with no conscience made me exquisitely sad. Could I ever look at him the same way again? Could I trust him the next time he touched me?

Can I ever forgive him for what he’s done?

“Are you okay?” the stable boy murmured, placing himself in front of me while still angling the pitchfork at Sully-not-Sully.

Whoever the guest was had gone strangely silent. The rebuttal or rage that I expected was mysteriously absent.

Smoothing down my dress, I nodded. “I’m fine.”

“Did he hurt you?”

My tiredness made me want to slither down the barn wall and slump into a pile of hay. I was done playing this game. I was through being used in whatever way Sully intended.