He puffed up like a tennis ball, pride cheeky and bright in his gaze. “Pretty Pika!”

I nodded, rolling onto my stomach, trailing my long hair over my shoulders but leaving most of the length, strewn like seaweed in the sand. Resting my chin in my hands, I laughed quietly as the little parrot stomped his scaly legs around in a dictatorship-style dance. His wings fanned out like a cape, his beak held high, his body bristling with authority. He squeaked with each step, sounding like the world’s tiniest bullhorn.

“Sully, Sully, Sully!” he screamed, abandoning his weird march and nibbling my hair in the sand. He ran bath-clean locks through his beak, pruning and preening me as if offended that I hadn’t done what he ordered and stopped being lazy.

I tried to ignore the way my stomach flipped at the mention of Sully’s name or the knowledge that this little bird seemed to have something unique of his.

He was loved by a man who didn’t seem capable of such a thing.

Stroking the top of Pika’s head, I murmured, “What can you tell me about him, huh? Is he all bad, or is there something good inside him too?”

Pika immediately forgot about my hair, arching his neck for me to scratch between his feathers under his chin. His eyes closed in bliss, and snuggled closer, showing total affection and intelligence far beyond what most people believed a bird could do.

This wasn’t just a mindless creature, focused on food and fornication before his lifespan was over. This was a tiny soul, sentient and smart, as valuable as any other being.

My heart squeezed as a tune of chirps and squeaks fell from his beak, his version of a purr, adoring my cuddles.

“I can see why Sully fell in love with you. You are rather irresistible.”

“His ability to invoke feeling is a daily punishment, I agree.”

I gasped, whipping around to face the dark, disgruntled voice behind me. Pika squawked indignantly as I sprayed him with sand, sitting upright, wincing a little at my remaining aches. “Sully!” I shielded my eyes from the sun. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

Pika flew to his master’s head, resting like some feathered jewel in Sully’s wet hair. He once again puffed with self-satisfaction, his tiny ego overflowing with knowledge that he belonged to someone who cared.

Sully didn’t acknowledge the bird. His fists stayed stiff by his thighs while his powerful body dripped with saltwater. Wet tracks on the sand revealed he’d swam here, appearing from the depths like some prince of the brine.

Pika must’ve flown while Sully swam, chasing his owner to torment me.

My chest turned hollow, creating a high-steepled church for my heart to pound. My gaze disobeyed me and trailed from his harsh eyebrows shadowing crystal blue eyes to the flares of his collarbones, ridges of abdominals, and over the ripples of shoulder and bicep. His lower half was hidden by dripping black board-shorts, his legs planted hip-distance apart and feet buried in the sand.

The sun absolutely worshipped him, turning his skin a gorgeous bronze, dappling him with gilded-shadow that only highlighted the impressive condition he kept his body in. With the small breeze teasing wet hair on his forehead and the sea still clinging to him, he wasn’t just a king of water but the master of all elements.

Earth, water, air, and fire.

The fire was inside me, an ember that’d struck a match the moment we’d met and continued to smoulder when we were apart, only to whoosh back into cardinal flame when we were close.

Last night faded. The caveman and the endless orgasms I’d enjoyed, all gone.

Everything vanished under the intense, terrifying recollection of Sully’s mouth on mine. On the way he’d dragged me from the bath by my hair, kissed me as if he’d die, then prepared my body with oil and tricks for another man.

Anger poured into the fire in my chest, crackling with sparks. “You rented me out.”

He ran a hand over his face, dispelling stinging salt and striding closer, casting me in shadow. “What did you think of my creation?”

“I can’t offer an opinion on something I don’t understand.”

He sucked in his bottom lip as if tasting my reply. Finally, he cocked his head with acknowledgement. “What don’t you understand?”

“Why?” I crossed my arms. “Are you going to tell me what Euphoria is? Are you going to explain how one second I was here, then I was there, and then I woke up in my villa as if I hadn’t travelled thousands of miles, regressed hundreds of millennia, and had sex—multiple times—with a prehistoric male?”

He sucked in a breath, making his belly strain. “I can…if that’s what you wish.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

He shook his head, making Pika take wing. “I’m here because, once again, my willpower is shit.”

Goosebumps darted over my skin at his confession. My lips tingled as if he’d just kissed me. As if I wanted him to kiss me…which was a total lie.

Stay away from me.

Just…grant me that, and I might be able to survive you.

“Do you visit all your goddesses after they’ve been in Euphoria?” I climbed to my feet, uneasy with the dynamics of him towering over me. Sand crowned me, decorating my skin with silver-golden glitter.

His gaze darkened, his eyes narrowing and skating over my bikini-clad form. He sucked in a thin breath as he caressed my cleavage, my belly, my briefs, and down my legs. My body prickled as if he’d physically touched me. Hyperaware without the condemning curse of his elixir.

I hated that I couldn’t blame a drug on my reaction to him. I despised that the more time we spent together, the more my body ignored my wishes and had its own intentions. My breasts grew heavier, my nipples harder, my core wetter.

It didn’t matter that I had no intention of acting on my attraction to him. It didn’t matter that I would never, ever willingly sleep with this bastard. The body was a fickle, betraying thing, and it’d chosen Sully Sinclair to be my own personal hell.

Where had my decision to wear that sack of a jumper gone? I should permanently live in that hideous thing…if only to protect myself from someone I wasn’t equipped to withstand.

He took his time replying, his stomach rippling with yet more tension. “No, I don’t.” He peered into my face, seeing my strain, my stress, the aftermath of countless sex. “However, not many have fainted at my feet. I figured I’d be protecting an investment if I came to check on you personally.”

I fought the urge to back up. “So the bath and the smoothie and all that delicious food…that’s you ‘protecting your investment?’”

He raked a hand through his hair, dispelling clinging ocean and encouraging the dark, bronze-tipped strands to dry. “No, each goddess receives those things after she’s…worked. I’m aware that your system needs fortification.”

“So magnanimous of you.”

He smirked. “I try.” His attention slipped from mine, drifting to the table still groaning with food. A scowl tangled his face. “You didn’t eat.” Temper flashed as he looked back at me. “Why the fuck haven’t you eaten? Remember what happened last time?”

I squeaked as he grabbed my elbow and marched me toward the deck. Pika chased us, chirping as Sully pushed me into a chair, wiped his hand free of the mixture of sunscreen and sand from my skin, and reached for a scrumptious-looking raspberry pastry. Plopping it onto the empty plate in front of me, he commanded, “Eat. Unless you want to visit Dr. Campbell and his syringes again?”