Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 84194 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84194 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
I’d been a kid then. An adolescent girl with a puppy-affection for a mediocre-traveller.
I didn’t feel like a child now.
I felt every one of my twenty-two years. I felt worldly and guilty and fully aware of the mess that today would’ve caused. But I was also grateful to finally know what sex with Sully Sinclair would be like.
I’d no longer have to wonder—even if he went through with his plan and sold me. Even if the awe, possession, and love in his gaze turned out to be elixir falseness, I’d taken something from him, just as he’d taken something from me.
We were even.
Marked and mutilated by mutual desire.
This was justified.
My hands balled as a stupid wash of tears raced up my spine. I didn’t know where such weakness came from, but I refused to shed them. I would not pity myself. I would not pity him. There was nothing to pity because magic had existed between us, and it’d been worth being reckless for.
Wiping at a single droplet as it dribbled disapprovingly down my cheek, a noise ripped my head up.
The slam of the front door, then the heavy thuds of shoes.
I scrambled to grab the rumpled sheet, struggling to pull it out from under Sully’s prone, naked body. He lay on his stomach with one arm limp beside his chest and the other thrown over his head. His thighs were spread, revealing to this unwanted intruder the abrasions from too much sex between his legs.
Cal appeared, slamming to a stop on the threshold of Sully’s bedroom. He held a black bag in his fist, his chest rising with harsh breath as he drank in the sight of us.
“Well…you’re alive at least.” He wrinkled his nose, stepping toward the bed, deliberately keeping his stare off Sully’s naked ass.
I flinched, pulling the sheet closer. Most of the cotton remained trapped under Sully’s unconscious bulk, leaving my top half exposed.
I cupped my breasts, keeping my spine rigid. “Go away.”
Cal’s green gaze turned mocking. “No need to cover up, Goddess Jinx. I’ve seen you naked many times before.”
I glowered. “You’re not needed here.”
“I say otherwise.” His handsome face softened just a tiny bit, his attention falling to the scrape on my cheek, the bite marks on my skin, the shadows of strangulation around my throat. “He really did a number on you, didn’t he?”
I shivered. “I caused this.”
“Yes, yes, you did.” His forehead furrowed. “What the fuck were you thinking, giving him a dose? I’m honestly surprised you’re still breathing.”
I looked down at Sully, wondering if our voices slipped into his slumber. But his face remained lax, his tension still strained while comatose. “I did it because I wanted to know.”
“To know what fucking him would be like?” He snorted. “Shit, you’ve become like the rest of those poor brain-dead creatures he calls goddesses.”
I bared my teeth. “I might share similarities with them, but I have one thing they don’t have.”
Cal smirked. “Throwing my words back in my face, huh?”
“You told me that first morning when you took me to him that I’d made the biggest mistake by making him pay attention to me.” I spread my hands, not caring my breasts were on display, complete with chaffed nipples and bruises from Sully’s fingers. “But it wasn’t me who made him pay attention. It was both of us.” My voice lowered with strength. “I refused to let him sell me before he admitted that to himself—”
“Admitted what?”
I sighed. “Admitted that something happened between us…whether we wanted it or not.”
He scowled. “You’re just like Calico and the other girls who’ve tried to crawl into his bed. You want this island. You want his money. You think by screwing his brains out that you’ll have access to paradise forever. Unlike them, you were smart. You gave him no choice. You fucking raped the bastard by giving him elixir.”
I shot to my knees, uncaring that the sheet fluttered off my body. “How dare you. How dare you stand there and say I raped him when he’s been feeding that vile stuff to women for who knows how long. He drugs them, shoves them into a computer program, and then leaves them at the mercy of a man—”
“There’s a fucking difference.” His voice slithered with ice. “The men don’t get elixir for a reason, Jinx. They go into Euphoria only getting what the women want to give them. They try to keep up. They might even pop a Viagra beforehand if they’re old, but they don’t have the power, you do. You’re the ones who gag for it, the ones who drip to be filled.”
“How is that any different? A woman is given a drug to turn her into a mindless whore and a man turns into a humping monster. It’s the same—”
“It’s not the goddamn same.” Cal swooped closer, towering over me. “It’s not the same because Sully has paid the price for his control. He isn’t the cunt you think he is, and you’ve just done yet another worst possible thing because, sure you might have fucked until you’re both under some delusion it could mean more, but he will never allow it to become more because you went behind his back. You broke his precious trust. You proved that no one can be trusted. Especially you.”