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