“And everything you put on me…the oil, lenses, earbuds, the stuff under my nose, the mouthwash, the pads on my fingertips. Is that how the illusion felt so real?”
“It was.”
“How?” I held up my hand before he could answer my final question with a generic reply, adding a caveat. “I want an in-depth explanation, not just a quick, mysterious hint. I want to know exactly what each element did.”
It was his turn to lean forward. Pushing his chair away from the table, he moved it to face mine, clasping his hands between his legs. “Normally, I let the goddess figure it out. But…I did say you could ask, so pay attention because I’ll only divulge this once.”
I stopped breathing, way too aware of how close he was, how powerful, how ruthless. Voltage sparked from his body to mine, crackling with invisible lightning bolts.
“Virtual reality only works if your senses are consumed. Gamers use headsets that see three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, so no matter which way you look, you only see the world you’re immersed in. Your brain accepts the imagery as gospel. You can run in an empty field but slam into a wall in a tiny room. Once you feel the walls instead of grass, the illusion is shattered and the brain boycotts the deception, dumping you firmly back into reality.” He shrugged. “I don’t let that happen. I don’t allow any instances where the hallucination can be broken.”
Taking my hand, we both jerked as our skin burst apart with fire. The heat and burn were so intense, I couldn’t understand how our flesh remained uncharred and flames didn’t crawl up our arms.
Clearing his throat, he stroked my fingertips with his. “If you touch a wall in reality, with the sensors on your fingers, you touch grass from the field. If you smell, with my serum under your nose, you only scent sweet earth and spring growth. If you feel, thanks to my oil, you only feel the soft blades upon your skin and the breeze within your hair. Your taste buds taste the fallacy. Your ears hear the delusion. Your body may remain in a blank room, and harnesses might keep you from straying, but none of that exists to your brain. You don’t feel the bare tile beneath your feet if I’ve coded a cave to be lined with fur. You don’t hear the voices of the people around you if you’re listening to crackling fire and grunting cavemen.”
Letting me go, he shook out his hands as if trying to eradicate the leftover crackles of chemistry. “That’s it. Just a trick. All carefully designed to make your brain believe something unbelievable.”
“So…you’re saying you can create any apparition, conjure any scene a guest wants?”
He cocked his head. “That’s a fourth question.”
“I know…but…it’s relates to my previous one.”
He sighed with impatience. “Yes. I can code any fantasy they want. I can make you an angel with wings, fucking in the clouds. I can turn you into a mermaid, fucking beneath the sea. You become anything they want. They want you blonde…you’re blonde. They want you older, you’re older. They want you to be someone they loved and lost, then you’re a ghost. Or if they want you as you are…then that is what they get.”
I sat in silence for a while, processing the depth of the daydream. It’d been so real. I’d touched the man who’d been inside me and felt his body and heat. I’d tasted his salty flesh when I’d sucked him. I’d gasped with pleasure as he’d licked me in return…but it’d all been—
“Wait.” My spine stiffened. “If it’s all a mirage, then…are you saying I didn’t actually have sex last night?”
He stood swiftly, planting his hands on my chair’s armrests, caging me in. His belly rippled with muscle as he loomed close, his eyes dabbled with turquoise and sapphire. “You’ve used up all your questions.”
“But…”
In a flash, he wrapped his fingers around my wrist and plucked me from the chair. Dragging me down the deck and back onto the beach, he didn’t stop until the sea lapped at our ankles.
The fresh coolness after sitting in stagnant humidity was welcome. Sand still stuck annoyingly to my skin, but I didn’t understand why he’d carted me into the ocean.
Pika squawked around our heads before flapping off into the foliage, abandoning his master, knowing the open seas weren’t a place for a winged parrot.
Sully never stopped, manhandling me deeper and deeper until the tide lapped around my waist, then breasts, then throat. Only once we were completely submerged, my tiptoes digging into the sand beneath the surface for balance, did he cup my chin and bring me close.
He licked his lips as if he’d kiss me. His eyes flashed with a hunger that made equal starvation claw at my belly. For a second, I had no idea what he intended.
Drown me?
Fuck me?
Ruin me?
But his fingers tightened around my jaw, bringing me closer until our chests bumped and the hardness in his broad-shorts nudged against my stomach. His voice licked into my ear, low and laden with lust. “Ask yourself that same question. Does your body feel like you didn’t have sex last night?” His other hand suddenly latched around my breast, fisting the weight, activating bruises. “Are these not sore from a man’s attention?” His fingers trailed over my waist, cupping me between the legs, instantly making my thighs clamp around his wrist, far too sensitive to be played with. “Is this not swollen from being fucked all night?” His finger teased my clit, pressing my bikini briefs against my entrance. “Are you not wrung dry from pleasure?”
If the water hadn’t cradled my weight, I would’ve collapsed.
The rudeness of him fingering me. The aggressive, possessive way in which he touched me…as if I belonged to him. As if he wanted to replace himself with the man who’d invaded those places multiple times last night.
I shivered as he ran his tongue around the shell of my ear. “Ask yourself if you believe you didn’t have sex last night, Jinx, and be honest with yourself. Ask why I poured elixir down your throat. Why I served you up as a rabid, wanton creature if your sole purpose wasn’t to be used.”
Pressing a chaste kiss on my mouth, he murmured, “Your mind hid the identity of the man who fucked you, but your body knows the truth.” Pushing me away, he wiped his mouth, removing me from his lips. His face held torture and torment, his eyes tight and lips thin.
My heart fluttered as I wafted my arms in the water, staying upright even though I wanted to sink to the bottom and never resurface.
What he’d just said.
What he’d just hinted…
Could it be true?
Fear prickled me even as sick joy melted my broken, stupid heart. “If you have the power to make a simple girl become an angel or mermaid or anything else a man desires…that means you can change him, too.”
He jolted.
Shutters slammed over his gaze.
He pushed off from the bottom, hovering as if he was a water demon, able to breathe in an aquatic dimension, about to return home after visiting poor mortals on earth.
Words tumbled from my mouth, determined to ask before he vanished. “Who did I sleep with last night, Sully?”
He gritted his teeth. “A guest.”
“Which one?”
“You don’t need to know.”