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.”
“I do. I do need to know.” I splashed my fists into the sea. “Was it you? Were you the one who fucked me?”
Please say yes.
Please say no.
God…what is happening to me!
He bared his teeth. “You would know if I ever fucked you. I told you you’d never be the same if I did.”
“I’m not the same…not after last night.”
“You’re still the same maddening, dangerous girl I can’t seem to stay away from.” Swimming backward, placing distance between us, he added in the darkest, rawest voice, “Euphoria is a blessing and a curse, Eleanor. You’re free to be whatever you want…but that freedom means you’re at the mercy of being used by your greatest enemy or dearest friend. You’ll never know. Never know who hides behind the illusion’s mask. Never see the man whose body thrusts into yours. Never see past what I want you to see. You only see what they pay for.”
Taking a deep breath, he turned and duck-dived under the surface.
I waited for a hundred skipping heartbeats for him to reappear.
But he never did.
I sank beneath the surface…
…and screamed.
Chapter Five
YESTERDAY WAS MY LAST day of acting like a goddamn idiot.
I didn’t appreciate nor accept the threads of softness Eleanor cursed me with. I’d had enough of battling my thoughts, losing against my rules, and overall being a fucking moron.
I’m done.
She was just a girl.
A high-class commodity.
Nothing more.
After my swim, I’d buried myself in work, scaled Nirvana thanks to the excess energy I had after visiting Jinx, then forced myself to stay in my villa all night.
In bed.
Hard as a fucking rock.
I didn’t allow myself to skulk through the shadows, to enter a certain goddess’s room, to pin her down and force her to take my cock after she’d taken so much dick the night before.
I reminded myself of what Cal had been so adamant I recall. Why I didn’t do humans. Why I would never do her. And why I’d made such strict laws.