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,